Licorice Pizza (2021) * *

Directed by:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper, Tom Waits, Sean Penn, Benny Safdie

As much as I wanted to rally behind Licorice Pizza, it is impossible to go beyond the fact that Alana (Haim) is 25 and Gary (Hoffman) is 15 (but will be 16 in another month).   They are the protagonists we know will eventually fall in love and declare their love for each other, but there are issues at play such as potential statutory rape and she is an adult and he is a minor, albeit a confident and eternally optimistic one.  

There is no denying Haim's and Hoffman's appeal as actors.  Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, exhibits much of his father's charm and offbeat sensibilities.   Haim, in her film debut, establishes a unique character at the service of a meh movie.   Anderson's love for the Southern California of the 1970's is palpable and obvious, but what we have in Licorice Pizza is an odyssey from one self-contained saga to another in an effort to keep Alana and Gary apart until the end.   It's an odd romantic comedy with little emphasis on the romance.   

Gary is a teen actor who meets and immediately falls for Alana on the day he is having his picture taken for the school yearbook.   Alana assists with the photographer, but as she states to Gary in an effort to rebuff his advances, she is 25 and he is 15.   Despite Gary's list of acting credits which he spouts off to Alana, he knows the likelihood of a long career is almost zilch, so he at first opens a store which sells waterbeds and later an arcade with an abundance of pinball machines which were recently made legal.

Where does Gary have the funding to start these businesses?   His parents are forever out of town or absent.  He can run around Southern California with little or no supervision.   And he's only 15.   This may not be the type of movie in which we're supposed to ask these questions or observe such behavior.  We are supposed to be swept up in the magic.   Licorice Pizza also contains some superb supporting work from Sean Penn as a hard-drinking actor in the twilight of his career, Bradley Cooper as hairdresser turned producer Jon Peters (who was dating Barbra Streisand at the time), and Benny Safdie as a closeted mayoral candidate.  Cooper is only in the movie about ten minutes, but electrifies as the narcissistic Peters who tries in vain to have Gary correctly pronounce his girlfriend's last name.  (Stry-SAND!)

We can't help but feel, however, that these subplots and tangents are designed to keep distance and mark time until Alana and Gary run towards each other (they run a lot in this movie) and walk off into the sunset as boyfriend and girlfriend.  Did I tell you she was 25 and he's 15?  

Don't Look Up (2021) * *

Directed by:  Adam McKay

Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Rob Morgan, Meryl Streep, Melanie Lynskey, Tyler Perry, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Ron Perlman, Timothee Chalamet, Himesh Patel, Ariana Grande

This is a cast which belongs in a better movie.   Today's media and political climate is ripe for satire, but it's also difficult to parody something which is already a parody of itself.   Don't Look Up seems more like quotation than satire.   If you judge how millions view COVID-19 as a hoax or a sham, how far away from the truth is Don't Look Up?   It's scarcely ahead of the facts and may be even a tad behind them.    

Don't Look Up stars Jennifer Lawrence as astronomer Kate Dibiasky, who discovers a comet which according to her calculations later confirmed by her boss Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio), will hit Earth in six months and fourteen days.   Since the comet is roughly nine kilometers wide, the impact will kill all life on Earth as we know it.   Randall and Kate are granted an audience with President Orlean (Streep) and her Chief-of-Staff doofus son Jason, but their discovery is pooh-poohed by the president and tabled until a scandal involving her hand-picked Supreme Court nominee passes.   Oh, and midterms are in three weeks and we wouldn't want to bum out voters by breaking news about a comet which will kill us all in six months.   

Absolutely stunned that the President and her administration couldn't care less about impending doom, Randall and Kate take their message to a national talk show hosted by a couple of empty-headed, banter-spouting hosts (Perry and Blanchett).   Kate's blunt declarations of the end of the world are met with scorn on social media, while Randall's passable good looks are a hit with the targeted show demographic and Cate Blanchett's character.   When Randall finally explodes with a Howard Beale-type speech near the end, I couldn't help but realize this was done better by Peter Finch.  

Don't Look Up, with very few exceptions where a chuckle is elicited, isn't a funny or particularly wicked satire.   It doesn't even work up enough effort to be angry or outraged.  The plot itself sets up easy targets which McKay and company attack not even gleefully.  It is content to be wacky.  The performances are serviceable with underwritten characters.   We spend more time waiting for the first appearance of all of the stars promised in the opening credits than we do caring about who they're playing.  By the time Timothee Chalamet shows up with his superfluous character, we forgot he was even supposed to be in the movie.

The best way to watch a movie like Don't Look Up is to watch Network instead.   

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) * * *

Directed by:  Jon Watts

Starring:  Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, Marisa Tomei, J.K. Simmons

I'll tread lightly to avoid spoilers.   Some were already given away in the trailers, such as the return of Doc Ock (Molina), but Spider-Man: No Way Home has many more tricks up its sleeve.   Picking up where Far From Home left off, the world now knows Spider-Man is Peter Parker, which makes Peter's life hell.  He and his family and friends are stalked by media and vilified on social media.   A desperate Peter enlists Dr. Strange (Cumberbatch) to cast a spell on the world so it forgets Spider-Man's true identity, except for girlfriend M.J. (Zendaya), best friend Ned (Batalon), and a few others.   The spell has devastating side effects, such as the introduction of villains from other universes who know Spider-Man is Peter Parker, just not this Peter Parker.

Spider-Man's world leaped from the frying pan into the fire.   He now has to battle Doc Ock, Green Goblin (Dafoe), Electro (Foxx), and others from other reiterations of your friendly, neighborhood crime fighter you may have seen previously.   No Way Home has so many skewing timelines and alternate realities it could give Back to the Future a run for its money.   At times, I felt No Way Home would crumble under the weight of its own cleverness, but it establishes a rhythm and a sense of nostalgia which makes it fun.

Dr. Strange is fleshed out more in No Way Home than in any earlier Marvel film, including his own movie.  He is the big brother figure to the stubborn and sometimes impetuous Peter Parker.   He does his best to warn Peter of the dangers of such a spell, but at times he can only stand by and watch it play out to Peter's disadvantage.   Peter's plans for the multiverse villains may seem a bit idealistic, but how often do you see a superhero want to help the villains and not simply destroy them?   

Tom Holland is just as engaging as he has been in the previous Spider-Man films.   He has strong camaraderie with Zendaya and Batalon, while convincingly holding his own against the supervillains.   I said I wouldn't spoil the other big surprise No Way Home has in store, but it's amusing to see him interact with certain other characters from the multiverse for which it's a joy for us to see again.   

The Power of the Dog (2021) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Jane Campion

Starring:  Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smith-McPhee

The Power of the Dog is beautifully staged, acted, and photographed at the service of little payoff.   I am of two minds about it as I struggled to attach two and a half stars or three atop this review.   The film is buoyed by Benedict Cumberbatch's best screen performance to date as a bullying, toxic macho cowboy in 1925 Montana who belittles his brother and his new bride while working out his own issues involving his...well I won't spoil it for you.   The Power of the Dog draws favorable and worthy comparisons to...oh, well bringing that movie up will also be a quasi-spoiler.

Cumberbatch's Phil Burbank is an educated, intelligent rancher who shares the ranch with his quieter brother George (Plemons), who is often at the receiving end of Phil's jabs.   When George marries a local widow (Dunst) who moves in with her son Peter (Smit-McPhee) who is off for the summer from medical school.  Phil is frosty early towards Peter before finding he has a lot in common with him.   They form a friendship which doesn't extend to Peter's mother, who takes to the bottle to cope with Phil's harassment.  George takes the higher road when dealing with his brother.   Maybe he understands Phil more than he lets on.

We gather what Phil's problem is, which would surely cause him hassles in 1920's Montana and perhaps even today in such an environment.   With carefully worded insults and putdowns, Phil masks his own self-loathing while attacking those who did nothing to deserve it.   The Power of the Dog takes its time unfolding and soon enough we realize there won't be a satisfactory payoff to this.   It just...ends.   Is that the idea?  

Jane Campion has previously directed other such films which explore family and sexuality in quiet, meandering ways (The Piano is one such movie starring Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin in Oscar-winning performances).   Cumberbatch may find himself with a Best Actor Oscar statuette at the end of awards season.  The Power of the Dog can't be faulted for the performances or its production values.  It looks gorgeous.  Does the story match how it looks?  Eh, not quite. 

Being the Ricardos (2021) * * *

Directed by:  Aaron Sorkin

Starring:  Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, Tony Hale, Nina Arianda, J.K. Simmons, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy

I Love Lucy is among the most enduring and most popular sitcoms of all time.  We see tributes paid to it nearly seventy years after it debuted.   In the early days of television, it set the mold, broke it, and then set it all over again week after week.  In Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos, the year is 1953 and I Love Lucy is about to make history once again if its married stars and producers can withstand a week from hell.  Lucille Ball (Kidman) is accused by gossip radio host Walter Winchell of being a Communist with the Red Scare and McCarthyism in full force.   Desi Arnaz (Bardem) is front page news with a photo of him cuddling up to another woman in a restaurant.   Putting on a weekly sitcom is difficult enough, but these sideshows make the behind-the-scenes aspect a pressure cooker which simmers all week ready to explode at any point.

Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are not the first choice of actors to play the immortal Lucy and Desi, mostly because they are far too famous and self-contained to play such showbiz icons, but after taking a moment to adjust to seeing Kidman and Bardem in these roles, we settle into watching them play the couple with fierce determination, intelligence, and a wary eye on each other.   We see flashbacks of Lucy's transformation from contracted studio actor to an "overnight" sensation on television, which at the time was where Lucy thought careers went to die.   She meets Desi on the set of a forgettable musical movie which studios were churning out by the dozen back then.   She likes his suavity, he likes her sassy ways and her unwillingness to fall for his pickup lines like so many starlets before her have.  They begin a romance, marry, and then become the most unlikely sitcom stars you could dream of. 

Lucy and Desi produced their own shows with Desi, a Cuban-born bandleader with an accent, growing into the lead role of an American sitcom.   Lucy wouldn't co-star with anyone else, and puts her foot down at times when it would have been considered ballsy and even career suicide to make such demands.  But she did and the rest is television history.   Being the Ricardos is filled with engaging performances all around, as you would expect from such a cast.   J.K. Simmons is a standout, as usual, as co-star William Frawley, who at first bristles at the idea of his co-star and boss being a Communist, but remains touchingly loyal.   What makes the scenes between Kidman and Nina Arianda (as Vivan Vance) work isn't what's said as much as what's not said between these two sometimes catty co-stars and friends. 

Among all of this drama, Lucy is pregnant and Desi wants CBS executives to confront this notion head-on instead of hiding her behind scenery and furniture to hide her bump.  A pregnant woman as the star of a TV show?   Scandalous!   Sorkin's usual volleyball banter is toned down a bit here, but the wit is there.   Sorkin pries the door open into backstage politics, network interference, and battles between co-stars which teeter between the personal and professional on a razor-thin line.  We never lose our way, although at times Sorkin may seem as if he's trying to cram too many 1950's ills into one movie and the documentary feel of having actors playing the show's writers years later doesn't work, we achieve the sense that as the mighty United States of America, we are not immune to being scared or repulsed too easily. 

tick, tick...BOOM! (2021) * * *

Directed by:  Lin Manuel Miranda

Starring:  Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus, Joel Grey, Richard Kind, Bradley Whitford

As tick, tick, BOOM! begins as a raucous musical number, Jonathan Larson (Garfield) is a week or so from turning thirty and laments having done nothing of substance with his life.   Rent, Larson's most famous work, is still ahead of him and will always remain so since he died the night before the iconic play's premiere.   tick, tick, BOOM! isn't about Rent, but how Larson struggled to finish a work he had been struggling with for eight years.   As the days before his play debuts in front of a workshop to be attended by Broadway producers, Larson suffers from writer's block as he attempts to write a song to be sung by his female lead which would tie the play's acts together.  His girlfriend Susan (Garfield) has accepted a job outside of Manhattan and wants him to move with her there.   His best friend Michael (de Jesus) has begun a lucrative advertising career and longs for Jonathan to join him and not live in squalor in a tiny Manhattan apartment.

Jonathan's real job to (barely) pay the bills is at a local diner which is hopping on Sunday mornings and frequented by some of Broadway's biggest producers and directors.   tick, tick...BOOM! was the name of Larson's one-man show which came about following his successful workshop.  The play he labored over for eight years never saw the light of day, but it served as a stepping stone for the indefatigable Jonathan, played by Andrew Garfield with a perpetual grin and boundless energy.   It's impossible not to get behind Jonathan and wish the best for him, even though we know the facts of his eventual death loom large.

The musical numbers are energetic, if not very memorable.   I can't recall a note of any of them and many of those may seem extraneous, but what would you expect from a movie directed by Hamilton's Lin Manuel Miranda about a Broadway show writer and director?   Music or not, the underlying story of Jonathan Larson's life is what's compelling here.   Jonathan Larson longed to hear the applause and the critical raves over his work, but as we know, he never lived to hear any of it.   tick, tick...BOOM! is as much a title as foreshadowing.  

Thinner (1996) * * *

 

Directed by:  Tom Holland

Starring:  Robert John Burke, Michael Constantine, Lucinda Jenney, Joe Mantegna, Kari Wuhrer

Thinner has a creepy, doomed noir energy to it which works steadily and effectively.   It is not among the most well-known Stephen King works adapted into a feature film, but it captures the macabre King spirit.  Maybe because of its obscurity, there is no burden of expectation and Thinner is free to roam around in the darkness.  

Thinner's main character is obese attorney Billy Halleck (Burke), who represents powerful mobsters like Richie Ginelli (Mantegna) and uses his friendship with the local judge and police chief to have his clients acquitted.   One night on the way home from dinner, Billy accidentally runs over an elderly gypsy woman and kills her.   Turns out she is the daughter (?) of local gypsy clan leader Tad Lempke (Constantine) known for wandering and casting spells.   Billy is tried in a show trial in which his acquittal is a foregone conclusion.   Lempke (with a boil on his nose for good measure) touches Billy's face outside, whispers the word "thinner," and goes on his way.    

Billy drops close to 100 pounds in a month despite eating everything in sight.  His doctors marvel at his weight loss, while Billy has a nagging feeling something else is at play.   However, the judge and police chief drop out of sight as well, each having a confrontation with Lempke and having their own curses thrust upon them.   Billy's curse is relatively tame compared to theirs, but perhaps because the old man wants Billy's suffering to last longer.

The overwhelming feeling you experience while watching Thinner is dread and a sense of hopelessness.  You even feel a bit sorry for a selfish creep like Billy because no one should have to wither away before our very eyes.   Stephen King's best works take place in ordinary small town settings while something far from mundane happens below the surface waiting to explode.   Do you think Billy, after all is resolved, learns his lesson?   Doubt it.