Hunters (Season Two-2023) * * *

Starring:  Logan Lerman, Al Pacino, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kate Mulvaney, Udo Kier, Lena Olin, Dylan Baker, Jerrika Hinton, Josh Radnor, Greg Austin, Carol Kane, Tiffany Boone, Louis Ozawa

The first season of Amazon Prime's Hunters debuted in 2020 and, in what is an eternity in streaming, premieres its second and final season here in early 2023.   Like the first season, Hunters centers around a group of Nazi hunters who track and kill escaped Nazis in 1970's New York, Paris, or wherever else their seemingly unlimited travel budget takes them.   This season picks up in 1979, two years after Jonah (Lerman) who was recruited into the group in the first season and discovers the leader Meyer Offerman (Pacino) was indeed a former Nazi who killed the real Meyer and founded the group.  Why did Meyer create a Nazi-hunting group of assassins whose mission was to find The Wolf, who it turns out was Meyer?  The show never explains, even in season two in which Pacino's Meyer returns in flashbacks.  Why would Meyer bring attention to his former identity?   I enjoyed the first season and for the most part this one, but Meyer's fate seems more like a writer's swerve for swerve's sake.  

Season one of Hunters ended also with a twist that Adolf Hitler (Kier) is still alive and living in Argentina and the sinister Colonel (Olin) is actually Eva Braun.   Joe (Ozawa), the Asian-American hunter was kidnapped and brought to Argentina for the Big Reveal, in the years since was made into Hitler's butler.  An Asian man as Hitler's right-hand man and later a Jewish man acting as Hitler's lawyer (more on that later)?  Is Hitler softening in his old age?  Eva thinks this may be the case and conspires with neo-Nazi fanatic Travis (Austin) to usurp the plans for a Fourth Reich from under her husband.   Jennifer Jason Leigh appears on the scene as a fellow Nazi hunter who is his long-lost aunt Rose.   Why did she spend so many years apart from her sister (Logan's grandmother who was killed in the first season) without revealing that she was alive?   There is an explanation of sorts, but not a convincing one.   However, there is a chilling, yet engaging sequence in which Sister Harriet (Mulvaney) confronts the dying man who murdered her father in a concentration camp.  The scene unfolds in unexpected ways which allows us to question how we would handle such a situation, especially if the murderer tearfully repented his sin.  

Despite the unresolved plot holes, the idea of Nazi hunters exacting violent vengeance on the ones who escaped justice remains a solid one which propels the show along.   Hitler's ultimate fate is handled not with a bullet, but with a trial in which Hitler is charged with crimes against humanity (duh).   The show was inexorably headed in that direction instead of simply putting a bullet in Hitler's head and being done with it, but is there a realistic way to handle just how much of a mindfuck it would be if Hitler were discovered to have been hiding in South America three decades after he was believed to have committed suicide?  Maybe there isn't a way to convey just how important and historic such a trial would be, but Hunters doesn't quite capture that.   Perhaps there isn't a way it could be done, although the prosecutor does a nice job of trapping Hitler with his denials that he played any role in his own Holocaust.   Just imagine you are the prosecutor who is tasked with cross-examining one of the most evil men in history.   It would seem so surreal that there wouldn't be words to describe it.   Hunters tries and you have to give the show that much credit.  

The Offer (2022) * * *

Starring:  Miles Teller, Juno Temple, Dan Fogler, Matthew Goode, Colin Hanks, Burn Gordon, Nora Arnezeder, Patrick Gallo, Giovanni Ribisi, Justin Chambers, Anthony Ippolito

Paramount+ presents with its ten-part limited series The Offer, about the troubled production of The Godfather which in a less-determined producer's hands would've been shelved.   Would we have seen another version of the Mario Puzo novel?  Probably, but would it have been the Francis Ford Coppola-directed classic of cinema?  Likely not and all of movies have suffered.   The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are the biggest 1-2 punch in cinematic history, but after all of the issues which plagued the making of the first film, it's no wonder producer Albert S. Ruddy (Teller), even after winning the Best Picture Oscar for The Godfather, decided not to return for the sequel.   He instead made The Longest Yard, which was a cakewalk production in comparison, or I would assume.

Based on "Albert S. Ruddy's experience making The Godfather", The Offer (in which Ruddy serves as executive producer at 92) is engaging and moves along quickly and smoothly for the most part.  I would bet there were plenty of embellishments and dramatic license taken, but The Godfather's rise from Puzo's bestseller to one of the greatest films of all time was rocky at best and potentially deadly for Ruddy at worst. Ruddy himself was a computer programmer who quit his job and lit out to be a Hollywood producer.   The Offer would have you believe that Ruddy came right off the streets to pitch Hogan's Heroes to studio execs and find himself at the helm of a successful TV series.  It wasn't quite that fast, but it does detail Ruddy's nerve and confidence when he solicits Paramount's struggling studio head Robert Evans (Goode) for a job as a producer.  Evans likes Ruddy's chutzpah and, even after Ruddy's first film with Robert Redford flops, gives Ruddy The Godfather with a paltry four-million dollar budget in which to make movie magic.  Good luck with that.

Among Ruddy's and Coppola's (Fogler-in the show's best performance) challenges are:  the mafia's (and Frank Sinatra's) distaste for the novel and their efforts to stop the production, Ruddy's battles with Evans over the casting of Al Pacino (Ippolito), Coppola absolutely having to film on location in New York and Sicily despite knowing doing so would inflate the budget, and Ruddy's and Evans' battles with the penny-pinching corporate owners of Paramount, Gulf and Western.   I don't know how much or often Gulf & Western interfered with The Godfather, but it couldn't have been fun having guys like CEO Charles Bludhorn (Gorman-whose Bludhorn shows us he could easily play Major Toht if Raiders of the Lost Ark were ever remade) breathing down everyone's neck.   Colin Hanks is also on hand as an annoying accountant aiming for Evans' job who learns he doesn't have what it takes to be a studio head.   Evans has the unfortunate position of having to schmooze investors, placate upset talent, and have his wife Ali McGraw (star of Love Story which reversed Paramount's financial fortunes) run off with Steve McQueen and sending Evans into a drug-filled tizzy.

Ruddy himself is also married to hotelier Francoise (Arnezeder), whose job as Ruddy's wife is to lament that he isn't home enough and keeps secrets from her.   I'm reminded of Roger Ebert's suggestion concerning this trope in biopics to "just make the man single" and avoid such cliched scenes altogether.  We don't even miss her when she's gone.   The other woman in Ruddy's life, albeit not sexual or even romantic, is Betty (Temple) who is way too smart and knowing as Ruddy's assistant not to eventually branch out into her own job as a manager or agent down the line.   Teller as Ruddy exudes a pressure-cooker existence and a producer's creativity, but the role itself is limited to showing us these facets.   Any story of The Godfather wouldn't be complete without Marlon Brando (Chambers-who exhibits Brando's infamous eccentricity and difficulty nicely).

The Offer has the look and feel of 1970's Hollywood down right and thankfully we are spared episodes which delve into Ruddy's past (or Brando's, Coppola's, Pacino's, or mostly anyone else for that matter).  The Offer is paced well, although the scenes involving Evans' job hanging in the balance begin to feel repetitive, and while it doesn't revolutionize television, it gives us an apt feeling of how producing The Godfather must've felt like a reward and a punishment all at once.  

Cocaine Bear (2023) * *

Directed by:  Elizabeth Banks

Starring:  Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Margo Martindale, Ray Liotta, Matthew Rhys, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Christian Convery

The title tells it all:  A bear in a national forest circa 1985 stumbles across a load of cocaine dropped from an airplane by a smuggler.   She (we find out she is indeed a she) snorts it and turns into an aggressive, homicidal animal who terrorizes anyone in her path.  The idea of a coked-up bear attacking innocent and not-so-innocent bystanders wears thin quickly.   Worse yet, the bear manages to locate more kilos of coke strewn around the forest just when the plot requires her to load up again and maim or kill more people.

Those looking for the cocaine are two dealer friends (Jackson Jr. and Ehrenreich) at the behest of bigger-time dealer Sydney White (Liotta-in his final film role) who needs to recover the cocaine to ensure he won't be whacked by the cartel, and an FBI agent (Whitlock Jr.) who has been chasing White for years.   There are also two teens playing hooky (Prince and Convery) who find some cocaine and propose doing some together.   They do, but not in the way you'd expect.   The girl's mother (Russell) discovers where they went and goes in search of them.   Then there's a park ranger (Martindale), who is way out her depth trying to deal with this bear.   (Who wouldn't be?)

Based allegedly on a true story, Cocaine Bear give the bear more personality than any of the human characters and arouses more sympathy for the animal.   We surely don't want to root against the bear because it's behaving like a bear times 100.  I'm reminded of the Chris Rock joke about Siegfried and Roy's run-in which one of their show tigers:  "The tiger didn't go crazy, it went tiger!"  Cocaine Bear is a 95-minute version of that joke, which should provide us with a respite from movies these days whose average length comes in at about two hours, but when the ninety-five minutes feels like over two hours, then what is the difference?  

Marlowe (2023) * *

Directed by:  Neil Jordan

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Danny Huston, Colm Meaney, Alan Cumming, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ian Hart

I can't help but see Liam Neeson on screen these days and not think he'll get the chance to use his particular set of skills at some point, even in a period piece featuring Neeson as legendary gumshoe Phillip Marlowe.  There are fight scenes, which almost don't seem to fit the atmosphere of the rest of the movie, in which Marlowe kicks ass and takes names.   Fortunately, there aren't many of these scenes, while the rest of Neil Jordan's Marlowe consists of characters trying to outwit each other with distracting, overly cute dialogue.  

Marlowe takes place in 1939 Bay City, California with the aged, lonely Marlowe met at his office by the blonde and mysterious Clare Cavendish (Kruger), who wants Marlowe to find her lover who has disappeared.   Marlowe's reporter friend Joe Green (Hart) tells Marlowe the man was run over and killed outside an exclusive club run by the slick Floyd Hanson (Huston), who may as well wear a VILLAIN sign on his back.  The plot thickens, and soon congeals, with the introduction of each character and different plot swerves.   When the payoff happens, I couldn't but think "All that for that?"

Marlowe's production design is flawless and the performances match the world-weary tone of the film.  Marlowe is film noir, as the inclusion of the character would suggest, but its the most glaring issue I had with it was that it had an overly complicated plot with too many characters, too much dialogue which draws too much attention to itself, and finally a conclusion which underwhelms.  

Women Talking (2022) * * *

Directed by:  Sarah Polley

Starring:  Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Sheila McCarthy, Ben Whishaw, Judith Ivey, August Winter

Women Talking is a dialogue about crimes committed by men against women before the age of #MeToo and the confusion among women as to how to respond to them,  Women Talking takes place in a religious commune circa 2010, although since the community is as isolated as the Amish, the year is immaterial.  Based on the Miriam Toews novel, Women Talking commences with a male member of the community raping and assaulting one of the female members.   He is caught and taken away by the police.   The men in the community conveniently travel en masse to town to bail out their friend, which gives the women time to meet in a barn and decide what they should do.   They can either forgive the men (since the man who was caught wasn't the only one to commit violent acts against the women), leave the compound, or fight back against the men.   There are three different camps, although the two most vocal arguments favor fighting back or leaving altogether.   The women's religious beliefs and faith play a huge part in their decisions. 

For these mostly subservient women, leaving would be a non-starter, but staying and fighting would mean possible further harm against the stronger male population, so what to do?   Salome (Foy) believes in fighting back, while Ona (Mara) favors leaving.   The remaining women (except for Frances McDormand's Jenz, who excuses herself from the debate early) divide up into the fight or flight camps.   The only male to stay behind, kindly and sympathetic schoolteacher August (Whishaw), is summoned to take the meeting minutes, although his role will greatly expand as expected as the meeting continues.  

Both sides make realistic, impassioned arguments, and the movie takes on a 12 Angry Men vibe as women switch sides and allegiances as the others give sound, valid assertions as to why their belief is the correct one.   The movie's tension arises from the fact that the men may return home at any time and whatever plan is agreed upon must be acted on hastily.   Writer-director Sarah Polley wisely shows us the aftermath of the crimes against the women in stark physical and psychological terms.   She isn't afraid to show us the bloodiness and ugliness on their bodies and on the bed sheets, which gives us a visual of what the women are indeed talking about.   This elevates the stakes and engages us despite the fact that while the actors deliver strong performances, the characters themselves aren't developed as individuals but as a collective.  Women Talking is thought-provoking and at times powerful, but at times it's also just, well, women talking.  

Something's Gotta Give (2003) * * *

Directed by:  Nancy Meyers

Starring:  Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet, Frances McDormand, Keanu Reeves, Jon Favreau

Record company executive Harry Sanborn (Nicholson) has a problem many men would like to have.  He dates younger women and in this particular case, he falls in love with the young woman's mother.   As Something's Gotta Give begins, Sanborn narrates in the way only Nicholson can:  "I'm an expert on younger women since I've been dating them for forty years."   The younger lady he is now dating, Marin (Peet), is taking him to the Hamptons for the weekend to meet her famed playwright mother Erica (Keaton).   Harry and Marin have yet to have sex, but that is supposed to change until Harry suffers a heart attack.   Erica, who isn't thrilled with her daughter dating someone closer to her own age, agrees to nurse Harry back to health while Marin returns to the city.  

Harry's doctor is the young Julian Mercer (Reeves), who cares about Harry while also eyeing Erica, whose work he greatly admires.   Unlike most rival men in romantic comedies, Dr. Mercer is a nice man who of course must ultimately be thrown over in order for Erica and Harry to finally get together.   I know I'm not revealing a spoiler, because anyone sentient person understands what must happen and why.   Nicholson and Keaton have a sweet, but uneasy chemistry with each other.   Erica is hesitant to fall for Harry following her divorce from her first husband, while Harry is reluctant to fall for Erica because she's much older than the women he's used to dating.   In a more typical romantic comedy, Marin would somehow factor into the equation, but once she's out of the picture she mostly stays out, while Julian has no interest in Marin despite their similar ages and that they are a more natural fit.  

Something's Gotta Give doesn't earn points with its plot, but with the moments between Nicholson and Keaton in which they discover things about each other which would make them compatible as lovers and also incompatible.   The movie also follows a recent movie tradition in which the jilted lover all too graciously steps aside so our hero can win back his love.   If anything, Something's Gotta Give shows us that the only thing getting in the way of Erica and Harry hooking up is each other.  

What's Love Got to Do with It (1993) * * *

Directed by:  Brian Gibson

Starring:  Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Jenifer Lewis

Tina Turner barely acknowledged her ex-husband Ike Turner's passing in 2007 and based on the evidence in this film, it's no wonder.   Tina endured years of physical and emotional abuse at Ike's hands before finally walking out for good and pleading with the owner of a local hotel to allow her to stay there even though she had no money.   She promised to pay for her stay once she got on her feet and made some money, and true to her word, Ms. Turner repaid the hotel every nickel.   When she divorced Ike, her only condition was that she wanted to retain her stage name of Tina Turner while foregoing any financial compensation from Ike.  Born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939, Tina Turner explained that she earned the name and it was still a good one.   In 1984, she hit number one with "What's Love Got to Do with It" and the rest is music history.   Ike slid into obscurity and drugs before his death at age 76.  

What's Love Got to Do with It features two outstanding, riveting performances by Laurence Fishburne as Ike and Angela Bassett as Tina.  Both received deserved Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively as the famed duo who created some legendary music and a tenuous marriage ruined by Ike's drug use and beating on Tina.   Ike discovered Tina and employed her as a backup singer before promoting her to lead after beginning a relationship with her.   It wasn't hard for the impressionable Tina to be starstruck over Ike.  He was a talented guitarist and a smooth talker who was also jealous, insecure, and fueled by drugs and alcohol as Tina's star rose and he was forced to take a back seat to her in his own band.

What's Love Got to Do with It focuses sometimes repetitively on Ike's abuse, but the most rewarding scenes involve Tina learning to stand up to Ike and in the movie's most satisfying payoff, Tina backs Ike down when he threatens her with a gun backstage and goes on stage to belt out tunes like only she can.  

Knock at the Cabin (2023) * * *

Directed by:  M. Night Shyamalan

Starring:  Dave Bautista, Kristen Cui, Ben Aldridge, Jonathan Groff, Rupert Grint, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn

Knock at the Cabin tells a chilling story simply and effectively.   Four ordinary people descend on a vacation cabin somewhere in a remote Pennsylvania forest.   These people explain they are haunted by visions of an imminent apocalypse.  Its leader Leonard (Bautista), a Chicago schoolteacher, befriends a little girl named Wen (Cui), who collects grasshoppers in a jar and is blissfully unaware of why Leonard and his friends are there.   The eerie foursome, after breaking into the cabin, lay out what Wen and her fathers Eric and Andrew (Groff and Aldridge) must do in order to avert the pending apocalypse: Eric and Andrew must sacrifice one of their family in order to stop the planet's population from being obliterated.   

The ground rules are as follows:   Neither Leonard or the other three home invaders, Redmond (Grint), Adriane (Quinn), and Sabrina (Amuka-Bird) cannot kill any of the family members and the more time elapses without a decision, more catastrophes killing millions will occur.   Eric and Andrew understandably presume Leonard and his followers to be insane or lying, but unlike many home invaders, Leonard and the others are haunted and tormented by what they've seen and what they must do.   "My heart is broken," Leonard tells Wen, and we believe him.   Eric and Andrew aren't the only ones who are put in a no-win position with this scenario.

Based on a novel, M. Night Shyamalan doesn't do the story a disservice with a trick ending or odd explanations of this frightening circumstance.   The Bautista performance is the best in the movie and the best of his career so far.   Leonard is a bespectacled hulk with tenderness and sympathy for the family for which he must force this ultimatum.   We find we identify with him as much as we do Eric and Andrew.  In every way, all of Knock at the Cabin's characters are forced to make a choice which they never thought in their wildest dreams would ever have to be made.  Who could ever imagine being told he or she has to kill a loved one in order to spare the rest of the world's population from extinction?   Knock at the Cabin deserves recognition for not only presenting this nightmarish sequence but by following cold logic to its inevitable conclusion with no way around the outcome.  

80 for Brady (2023) * * *

Directed by:  Kyle Marvin

Starring:  Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Sally Field, Tom Brady, Bob Balaban, Glynn Turman, Guy Fieri, Billy Porter, Rob Gronkowski, Harry Hamlin

There are a combined five Academy Awards between the four leading ladies of 80 for Brady and many more nominations on top of those.   Tom Brady has seven Superbowl championships, Billy Porter has an Emmy win, and Rob Gronkowski has four Superbowl rings himself.   While 80 for Brady won't net anyone associated with it any more awards season hardware, it is nonetheless a spirited film with its stars having a ball.   Their joy is infectious even as the material veers into occasional silliness.  

Lou (Tomlin), Betty (Field), Trish (Fonda), and Maura (Moreno) are longtime friends who became instant Tom Brady devotees after leading the Patriots to their first of six Superbowl titles in 2002.   That season's title aided Lou in her battle with cancer by providing hope and something to look forward to for her.   Fast forward to Superbowl LI (51 for those Roman numerically challenged), with Lou proposing they actually attend the game in Houston in person.   No one can afford it, but Lou and company enter a podcast contest trying to win free tickets.

Lou announces the four have won the tickets and head to Houston for a weekend of NFL Experience, Superbowl parties, and Betty entering a spicy food eating contest hosted by famed chef Guy Fieri.   80 for Brady is based on a true story, although I strongly doubt the subplots which occur here actually happened.  Such as Betty losing the tickets, causing she and the others to have to pretend to be in a dance troupe in order to enter the stadium.   Or what happens when they actually sit down to watch the game.  I won't dream of giving away what happens with the foursome, although the game itself contains the biggest Superbowl comeback with the Patriots overcoming a 28-3 deficit (or the Falcons choking away a 28-3 lead, depending on how you look at it).  If the movie is to be believed, Lou played a huge part in inspiring Brady and the Pats come back.  

80 for Brady isn't a movie that is meant to be believed.  It provides us with entertaining performances in a lightweight movie that puts smiles on people's faces and not a lot of analysis is necessary, although I give you some anyway.   You're welcome.