Nocturnal Animals (2016) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Tom Ford

Starring:  Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Armie Hammer, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Karl Glusman, Laura Linney, Michael Sheen

Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals is stylish and mysterious, with its characters' emotions tightly bottled up.    It tells two stories, one real and one fictional, but the symbolic parallels between the two stories grow more evident to us until the sad final frame, when all is made clear.    We understand what the fictional story was about and how much it impacts what happens in reality.     Ford directed the sad, haunting A Single Man (2009), in which Colin Firth played a closeted gay man who loses his lover of many years and now has to face the world without him.     Like Nocturnal Animals, Ford chooses to express his characters' pain against the backdrop of sleek homes which don't really seem lived in and an almost fetishistic eye for style.  

The images over which the opening credits run are unlike any I've ever seen.    They are disturbing shots of naked obese women dancing as if they were auditioning to be strippers.    Their faces are fuzzy, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.    This is not a gratuitous opening sequence done for shock value.   It instead is an art exhibition opening at a gallery run by Susan Morrow (Adams), who seems to have lost her appetite for such shows.     Susan can barely hide her disgust for what she calls "junk", even though the public congratulates her on another successful opening.    Susan lives in a multi-million dollar glass house (seemingly in California) with a wealthy, distant husband (Hammer), who is rarely home because he has to fly back and forth to New York to "close a deal."   We learn the Morrows are living beyond their means and their marital woes are more desperate than we first realize.

A manuscript arrives in the mail from Susan's ex-husband Edward (Gyllenhaal), who dedicates his book titled "Nocturnal Animals" to her.    Susan suffers a paper cut trying to open the package, which is not a foreshadowing of pleasant things to come.     The manuscript which rivets Susan from the outset is the fictional story of a family man named Tony (also played by Gyllenhaal) traveling late at night with his wife and daughter on an unlighted, empty West Texas highway.    No later than Tony muses how much he loves West Texas because there are no people, he encounters a car driven by psychotic Ray (Taylor-Johnson) which runs them off the road, terrorizes the family, and then kidnaps Tony's wife and daughter in one car while forcing Tony to follow them in another.    Tony is ditched in the desert and the next day, with the help of police lieutenant Bobby Andes, the naked bodies of Tony's wife and daughter are discovered in the middle of the West Texas desert.    The images haunt Susan, forcing her to put the manuscript down numerous times.

Susan reflects on her past with Edward.   We see how they meet, fall in love, and marry over the objections of Susan's rich mother (Linney), who tells Susan, "All of the things you love about him now are the things you are going to hate in a few years,"    Susan learns this is correct, and coldly moves on from Edward while he is struggling as a writer.     She wants financial security and a career trajectory more than Edward, which is practical, although not so much to the person whose heart she breaks.     But such decisions take their toll on Susan in the present and it shows in every fiber of her being.   

We know the Tony story is fictional, but we are immersed in it anyway.    We don't guess the immediate connections to Susan's past or even Edward's, until they powerfully hit us.     The fictional story of Nocturnal Animals has much relevance to the reality of Susan and Edward.     Ford doesn't bash us over the head with these parallels, instead he subtly, yet straightforwardly allows us to discover them.     The performances in Nocturnal Animals are memorable, especially Adams whose eyes and body language betray the pain of poor, selfish decisions which felt right at the time.     Gyllenhaal plays both Edward and Tony, both men (one real, one fictional) are like the other, but in some ways are not.     Shannon received an Oscar nomination for his work here.     Because it is Shannon playing Andes, we know there is some madness on the fringes of the character, but here he is a lawman who wants to see justice done for Tony, even if it means bending the law or outright trashing one's civil rights.    He is the most sympathetic to Tony's plight and may be the only character whose cards are all out on the table.     I can't say I was ever bored watching Michael Shannon on screen.  

Without revealing spoilers, it can be said that both the real and fictional story ends unhappily for its main characters, but isn't that the way it should be?     Ford's theme is how decisions of the past pile up to create the misery of the present and perhaps the future.     We know that, no matter how much we care about Susan and Tony, they get the endings to their respective stories that they more or less deserve. 

Atomic Blonde (2017) * *

Directed by:  David Leitch

Starring:  Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Toby Jones, Sofia Boutella, Eddie Marsan

Charlize Theron is the perfect choice to play the sleek, lean, and mean British agent Lorraine Broughton; the Atomic Blonde of the film's title who can kill with the creativity of John Wick while staying as cool as James Bond.     The trailers promise plenty of mayhem and the movie delivers.    However, there is historical perspective to the film's events by placing it against the backdrop of 1989 Berlin; with the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall days away as the Soviets and the west execute their last-ditch power plays before the Cold War ends.    It is like a fire sale of espionage tricks and killing in the name of country.    The trouble is the low energy and a reason to become emotionally invested.     Like the first John Wick movie proved:  you can kill hundreds of people and still be boring.     There needs to be a tug to pull us through to the other side, one which Atomic Blonde does not provide.      

Atomic Blonde is a triumph in providing ample civic tension amidst the spy games these people play.    The resistance to the Berlin Wall is forcing the hand of the Soviets and numerous news reports track the historic story, which provides the movie with some sort of deadline...I guess.     The film takes place under cold neon signs which pierce the chilly nights with 80s hits pulsating on the soundtrack of nightclubs and hotel rooms, in which people dance and screw the night away with little regard to what is happening just outside the club doors.     The days are gray with the smell of freedom in the air.    Lorraine's mission is to go to Berlin and retrieve a list of, I don't know, every agent who works for the CIA, MI6, and whatever other agency you can think of.     A double agent known as Satchel is in the mix, as is a Russian defector (Marsan) who knows the whereabouts of the infamous list.  

About these lists, which spies in not only Atomic Blonde, but nearly every other spy film since the inception of spy movies. want to get their hands on.     Can't these agencies, with their top-of-the-line security gadgets and the latest computer technology, stop creating lists of agents and their biographical information which can fall so easily into enemy hands?    And if you are going to create a list, can you not put their home addresses and past mission histories on there?    The agency superiors in Atomic Blonde are worried more about their respective agency's notorious deeds coming to light than they are about the exposure of their agents.      You mean the CIA and MI6 did some pretty horrific things in the name of God and country?     Don't stop the presses.     The British Secret Service seems to know how to get a hold of James Bond without checking their computers to see where he lives.   

With that mundane objective aside, Atomic Blonde gets down to business moments after Lorraine arrives in Berlin.     She doesn't exactly dress inconspicuously.     Her wardrobe and platinum blonde hair make her look like a tall dominatrix in town to meet a client.     Subtlety is not Lorraine's strong suit.    She escapes KGB attempts to kill her with help of another British agent, David Percival (McAvoy), whose own past and loyalties are murky.    You never know where any of these agents really stand.     Like Joe Pesci says in JFK, "Everyone is switching sides all the time.   It's fun and games, man, fun and games,"    Those who wind up with broken bones and bullets in their heads would think otherwise.    Even Lorraine herself takes enough of a beating to soak herself in an ice cube-filled bathtub just to keep the swelling down on her bruises, cuts, scrapes, and shiners.    Or is this just a character trait thrown in for good measure?

Atomic Blonde tells the story in flashback, with Lorraine facing a debriefing with her boss (Jones) and a CIA bigwig (Goodman) on hand along with lots of recording equipment and one of those two-way mirrors which have really become clichéd by now.    We see how Lorraine arrived at this point.     We also meet a French novice agent (Boutella), who has the hots for Lorraine and the goods on all of the players in the game.     She and Lorraine exchange information and possibly bodily fluids during a lesbian sex scene which isn't nearly as hot as you would expect.   

Maybe the trouble with Atomic Blonde is that, despite the chases, killings, and double crosses, it simply isn't much fun.     A pall hangs over everything like the endless gray skies which stay in a holding pattern over Berlin.     Theron has the icy blonde thing down pat, but she does allow for glimpses of humanity behind her façade.    The most effective performance is Boutella's, who is naively shocked to learn that earning a living as a spy isn't the fun and games Pesci promised.    Atomic Blonde does not have the benefit of hindsight that we possess.    The Cold War took place over 40 years with, it seems, no clear objective.     Neither side was keen on all-out nuclear war which would grind their spy vs. spy battles to an abrupt halt.      Information was stolen, agents double and sometimes triple-crossed each other, people died, and the U.S. and the Soviet Union forever engaged in a tiresome and futile game of one-upmanship.     After all was said and done, what exactly was all that about? 

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) *

 

Directed by:  Luc Besson

 

Starring:  Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Herbie Hancock, Ethan Hawke

 

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets cost $177 million to make, but it still looks cheesy.    Why not go lower on the budget?    The results couldn't be much worse.    Valerian assaults your senses with unrelenting CGI images, overcrowded sets, and a plot that needed not one, but two different explanations to become even coherent.     The actors perform as if they were sentenced by a judge to star in it.    I can't imagine a movie studio watching this finished product with the belief that it is actually finished.     Where was the studio execs' flop-o-meter on this film?

 

I've read other critics' reviews of Valerian and one thing that struck me is how they were able to describe the plot so thoroughly.     I'm thinking the plot description came with the PR kits, because trying to explain what goes on here is a Herculean task.    But, I'll try.    The Valerian of the title is an interstellar cop (DeHaan), who along with his partner Laureline (Delevigne), scour the solar system for criminals.     DeHaan has a playboy's reputation, so Laureline is reluctant to fall for him even though he professes his love for her.     Delevigne's eyebrows could use some softening, as could her acting technique.    She delivers her lines to the other actors as if she is angry with them.     DeHaan (who played the Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2), exhibits as little energy as possible.    Did director Luc Besson direct his actors this way intentionally? 

 

No matter.    I will trudge on with the plot.    The two are in pursuit of a converter and some pearls which are being hunted by members of an extinct civilization whose past existence is doubted to ever have happened.     Some other criminal types are after the converter and pearls as well, as is Valerian's boss played by Herbie Hancock.    Yes, that Herbie Hancock.    For readers who may not know, Hancock is an Oscar-winning composer and musician who hit the pop charts with Rockit in the early 80's.     Did Besson even think the audience intended for this film would even know who Herbie Hancock is?    Other in-jokes, such as references to Taken and Besson's own The Fifth Element are introduced.     If your attention wanders, you may miss them.    If your attention doesn't wander, you are to be commended. 

 

Rihanna also pops up as a shape-shifting exotic dancer who helps Valerian out.    Also on board are Ethan Hawke and Clive Owen, two reputable actors who were probably happy to only be in a few scenes and still get paid handsomely.     The City of a Thousand Planets of the title is more like the offspring of Blade Runner and your local farmer's market.    The peoples of various cultures and planets all live there in peace, but since there is so little room even to move, it is a wonder the overcrowding doesn't lead to some rising tensions every now and then.     In a universe in which spaceships can travel at twice the speed of light, aren't the ideas of virtual reality and a guy hawking his intergalactic tchotchkes in your face a bit passé?     The City of a Thousand Planets itself is a dark, depressing place with more in common with Amsterdam and Times Square than the brainchild of supposedly more advanced civilizations eight centuries into the future.

 

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a mess.    Writing its title is as laborious as recalling my experiences watching it.    Oh, yes, I did nod off once, but I did awaken and watch most of the film's nearly two-hour overindulgent running time.    Perhaps I get too much sleep after all.

The Cable Guy (1996) * 1/2

Directed by:  Ben Stiller

Starring:  Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Jack Black, Leslie Mann, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, George Segal

The Cable Guy is a colossal miscalculation.    It made me squirmy and uncomfortable, while failing to make me laugh.    There aren't many unpleasant characters in movie history than Chip Douglas (Carrey), a menacing cable TV installer who stalks and bullies poor kind-hearted guys like Steven (Broderick) into befriending him.    We learn Chip just wants to be loved, but what we feel (and certainly the other characters must as well) is repulsion.     Yes, it seems Chip was neglected as a child, but we feel no sympathy for him.     We want him to go away.    If the movie thinks we should feel otherwise, than it is dead wrong.

We learn Chip was raised by television since his mother just plopped him in front of the TV instead of interacting with him.    If the movie is intended as a satire of the effect TV has on a child's mind and connection to the world, then it fails there also.    The only thing The Cable Guy doesn't fail to do is make me loathe Chip.    Even as far as movie villains go, Chip is difficult to stomach.    As played by Carrey, he is over-the-top to the point of overload.     Carrey expends so much energy trying to be funny that we sense director Ben Stiller simply planted the camera and told Carrey to just do his thing.     It is quite sad when Ace Ventura is more tolerable than Chip Douglas. 

With films like The Cable Guy, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, and The Mask, Carrey assaults us and himself at times with his special brand of humor, which wasn't funny.    I find the more you try to be funny, the less successful you are.     At the height of his popularity, Carrey made $20 million a movie and the box office dictated that.     People saw Jim Carrey and laughed and I felt sorry for them.    Carrey is not good when he is playing "Jim Carrey", just like Robin Williams wasn't successful playing "Robin Williams".    A role tailor-made for Jim Carrey isn't a role at all, but just a stage for Carrey to show up to work and throw whatever he can at the wall to see what would stick.    In The Cable Guy, none of it does.

I pity the other actors in the film and admire their selflessness at the same time.     Matthew Broderick is forced to stand by idly while Carrey eats the scenery and somehow not the camera.     Carrey runs roughshod over everyone else in the movie, who seem grateful even to have lines.    In between all of the early Carrey starring roles from the 90s was Dumb and Dumber (1994), in which Carrey actually stuck to within the confines of a character and allowed himself chemistry with co-star Jeff Daniels.    It was a funny movie and gave me some hope that Carrey can play someone other than himself.    He also was very good in movies like Man on the Moon (1999), in which he played Andy Kaufman, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).     Movies like The Cable Guy sacrificed any notion of being any good and instead is content on letting Jim Carrey be Jim Carrey and watch the box office bucks roll in.     The trouble is:   It didn't do particularly well.   

Dunkirk (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Christopher Nolan

Starring:  Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Fionn Whitehead, Cillian Murphy

Dunkirk is among the most frustrating good movies I've seen.     It is masterfully made on a technical level; capturing the confusion of such an unprecedented situation.     The evacuation of nearly 400,000 British soldiers stranded on the beach of Dunkirk, France was, as Winston Churchill called it, "a miracle of deliverance," while also quick to point out how the entire episode was "a colossal military disaster,"    Fortunately, Hitler made a grave tactical error by not devoting the Luftwaffe to wiping out the stranded men, save for a plane or two.    Hitler's assumption was once the British left France they would never return.    

However, while Dunkirk is superbly handled in a technological way, it is missing the human element to pull it through.     Say what you will about the romance between Jack and Rose in Titanic (1997), the device gives the disaster human dimensions and a vested emotional interest.     Dunkirk gives us anonymous soldiers who don't even have names or distinct personalities.     As the film opens, the camera follows one soldier making his way through the town of Dunkirk while avoiding enemy fire.    He soon joins the hundreds of thousands of men on the beach and we barely see him again; he is lost in the sea of humanity, boats, planes, and battle. 

The subplot which has the most drama involves the civilian boat requisitioned by the British navy owned by Mr. Dawson (Rylance), who bravely steers his boat towards the inferno with the mission of rescuing as many soldiers as his boat could hold.    He brings along with teenage son and his son's friend, both of whom want to help despite Dawson's warnings.     They pick up a shell-shocked soldier (Murphy), stranded on some plane wreckage in the middle of the sea, who is not keen on returning to Dunkirk.    Rylance powerfully and matter-of-factly states, "There is no hiding from his, son.   We have a job to do,"    There were many more boat owners like Dawson who were untrained in military evacuations and evading enemy planes and gunfire, yet they pressed on in service of their country.     Dawson is sensitive to the feelings of the soldier, mind you, but doesn't allow them to refrain from his patriotic duty, which we learn has personal roots. 

Dunkirk's best moments occur when the very unpredictability of the rescue mission itself rears its ugly head.     Soldiers who board a ship thinking the worst is behind them soon have to swim away from danger after the ship is destroyed by a torpedo (and may not be rescued again).   Are there two German planes ready to pick them off from the air, or ten?     The British have, from my count, two planes to track and destroy the German planes, one flown by Farrier (Hardy), who except for a moment or two, is hidden behind a mask and battling Germans while flying dangerously low on fuel.     The air battles are not like Top Gun, which had a video game feel to the fights, but are filmed in a mass of confusion and dread.     If there was CGI used in Dunkirk, it is difficult to spot.     Much of it seems very real.     The reason for the lack of air support is explained as the British needing its planes and pilots for the impending Battle of Britain.    

We witness Commander Bolton (Branagh) standing at the edge of the pier wishing for a mass evacuation while realistic about its success probability.     The tantalizing, yet disheartening truth known to everyone in Dunkirk is how close home is, but yet they cannot get to it.    "You can practically see it from here," Bolton says and we sense the despair in his voice.     But, there is a mission to be accomplished, and the men must be made to feel as if getting home is simply a formality.   

Therein lies the rub.     The human insight is only sporadically explored because the film chooses to exhibit the physical hell of the evacuation.     The men who die or are in imminent danger seem like a mass of nameless, faceless souls and thus their perishing doesn't hit us so hard.     Perhaps that is Christopher Nolan's intent; to show us the hows and whys of the mission with the belief that we may not be able to handle the emotional impact.     This may even be correct, but I would've liked to see Nolan try more.    Then again, maybe Nolan realizes, as do we, that even though many of the soldiers were ultimately rescued, it is early into a war which would last another five years.     It is more than likely these same men would soon be pressed into battle again and even more likely many of them would not come home again. 

I.Q. (1994) * * *

Directed by:  Fred Schepisi

Starring:  Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, Walter Matthau, Gene Saks, Joseph Maher, Lou Jacobi, Stephen Fry, Tony Shalhoub, Frank Whaley, Charles Durning

I.Q. is a sweet, slight romantic comedy in which the characters' hearts and brains battle until the heart ultimately wins.     Auto mechanic Ed Walters (Robbins) falls in love with Princeton mathematician Catherine Boyd (Ryan), whose uncle is Albert Einstein (Matthau).    Ed has obstacles in his path to winning Catherine's hand, such as her snobbish scientist fiancé who Einstein and his genius friends can't stand, and the inescapable truth that Ed is a mechanic while Catherine is an intellectual.     Ed isn't dumb, but how can he compete intellectually with his rival?     Einstein and his friends devise a devious, mischievous way to make this happen.   

I.Q. takes place in the early 1950's on sunny fall days perfect for motorcycle riding.     Ed is fascinated by science and reads up on it, but Einstein sees the guy has a good heart and would be a much better match for his niece.     Einstein creates a web of fibs (let's not dare call them lies) in which he passes off one of his old, lesser-known theories as Ed's, thus stirring the interest of Catherine and the scorn of the fiancé James (Fry), who is not affectionately referred to as "the rat man" by Einstein and his friends. 

Through some deception and finagling, Ed is soon seen as an intellectual genius while Catherine slowly falls for him.     One of the pleasures of I.Q. is how Catherine is not a pushover.     She likes Ed well enough, but her own insecurities and class warfare cause her to pause.     Could she really be the wife of an (gasp) auto mechanic?    She approaches her engagement as a duty which will subject her to falling into 1950's societal norms in which the wife takes care of the children and the house.     It is not something she is exactly looking forward to, but she feels trapped.     This isn't the best way to start a marriage.      

Robbins relies on effortless charm.    Sure, he is being deceitful, but he is still a better guy than the stodgy James, who is more at home in his lab full of rats.    We forgive him his trespasses because his heart beats so fiercely for Catherine.     Walter Matthau may not be the first actor you think of to play Einstein, but he plays the genius with a glint of mischief in his eye.     His friends, all geniuses themselves, aid Einstein in his quest to unite Ed and Catherine, mostly so they can do something other than debate each other.   

I.Q. may keep some at arm's length because it takes place in a world of science and intellectualism.    The milieu doesn't matter as much as the warmth the characters exude.     They do some wrong things for the right reasons and when the outcome occurs as expected, it is genuinely touching.    As Einstein says, "Don't let your brain interfere with your heart."    Fortunately, the people in the film take his advice. 

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) * * * *

Directed by:  Taylor Hackford

Starring:  Richard Gere, Debra Winger, Louis Gossett, Jr., David Keith, David Caruso, Robert Loggia, Lisa Eilbacher, Lisa Blount

An Officer and a Gentleman is the story of how a Naval officer candidate learns to be both an officer and a gentleman with the help of a local woman he falls for and a stern, but not unfeeling drill sergeant.  From the outset, we are not entirely confident he can learn to be either.    Zack Mayo (Gere) is the son of a drunken career Navy man who enlists in order to give his life some direction.  But, as Drill Sergeant Foley (Gossett) puts it, "Why would a slick hustler like yourself want to sign up for this sort of abuse?"   Mayo says he wants to fly jets.   Foley doesn't buy that reason.   He is suspicious of Mayo's character, believing his selfishness will betray him and the country at the worst possible time.   

Zack is a complex guy; defensive and unable to express positive emotion well.    Because he grew up living from naval base to naval base, he learned to avoid connection with people.   He isn't an unpleasant man, but someone who keeps his emotional distance.   That changes when he meets a local factory worker named Paula (Winger).    He sees her as someone who can occupy his time on weekend passes, but she is able to touch his heart and elicit a change in him.   But, she is no pushover and is only able to handle Zack's standoffish behavior for so long.    

The other accelerating factor to Zack's changes is Sgt. Foley, who promises his class, "I will use every means necessary, fair or unfair, to trip you up.  To expose your weaknesses,"    Foley's professional standards are unrelenting and for good reason.    His job is to ensure the right people are in the cockpits of the Navy's planes.   Some members of the class clearly don't have what it takes.  Others like Casey Seeger (Eilbacher), try their hardest but can't seem to get over the hump.   Mayo can physically handle himself, but does he have the character to see things through?     A lesser movie would make Foley the heavy, but he is written and acted intelligently and makes it clear to us why he has to do what he does.    He maybe even feels for some of the candidates, but he must weed out the pretenders.    Gossett won a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Foley and the best scenes in the movie involve his ever-evolving relationship with Mayo.   

Another intriguing subplot involves Zack's friend and fellow candidate Sid (Keith), a gregarious Oklahoman who falls in love with Paula's friend Lynette (Blount), who is willing to trap him with a pregnancy scare to get him to marry her and take her away from her humdrum existence.     Sid is deceived into thinking she loves him and he makes a decision which reveals the truth of their relationship and also its consequences.      Winger received an Oscar nomination for her work.    She is spirited, believes in Zack, and willing to risk losing him so he can find out who he is.   Her chemistry with Gere is not the strongest, but maybe that is part of their characters.   They approach either cautiously and with preconceived notions about the other, which are slowly broken down.    Maybe a mite too slowly, but there is a powerful payoff. 

Richard Gere's best performances are those in which he is a slickster on the outside while hiding great emotional hurts underneath.     At times, we sense Zack would rather die than expose his soft side.     He learns to eventually reconcile this and it comes near the end, when he realizes that after graduating from basic training, he has no one there waiting to congratulate him.    His body language says it all.    This leads to the famed ending, in which we see Zack and Paula together and he smiles widely for the first time in the movie.     It was a long journey for him to get to that smile, one which we were happy to witness.