Category: Film Reviews by Amy

The Northman (R)

The Northman (R)

Alexander Skarsgård is Viking Hamlet (as many a commentator has called him) in The Northman, directed and co-written by Robert Eggers of The Lighthouse and The Witch fame.

Recall those English class fun facts, bookworms: Amleth, the lead of this story, and his tale are the source material on which Shakespeare is said to have based Hamlet. Also, enjoy the passage of time, Gen X-ers, as you recall that Ethan Hawke once played Hamlet (in a 2000 modern-day-set adaptation that I mostly remember for the “to be or not to be” scene set in a Blockbuster). Here, 22 years later, he is grizzled old King Aurvandil, father to young Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak).

When scrappy little tween Amleth sees Aurvandil murdered by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang), Aurvandil’s half-brother, and is then hunted by Fjölnir’s men, Amleth takes off vowing in Ayra-Stark-style kill-mantra that “I will avenge you father, I will rescue you mother, I will kill you Fjölnir.” In leaving behind his father’s kingdom, Amleth leaves behind his beloved mother Queen Gundrún (Nicole Kidman), whom he sees Fjölnir carry off.

Years later, big Skarsgård Amleth is a berserker Viking warrior, raiding villages in Eastern Europe for assorted plunder, including captives to be sent as slaves all over Europe. When he hears that one group is bound for Iceland, where Fjölnir now lives, he follows the advice of a blind seer (Bjork, of course) to seek Fjölnir out and fulfill his promise of vengeance. He cuts his hair and disguises himself as one of the conquered men being sent to Fjölnir. Along the way, he befriends Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), a fellow captive who is immediately wise to his con and has some unspecified abilities of her own.

The Northman is a very visceral movie, in the sense that everything, from the often beautiful-but-bleak landscapes to the score and the character performances, is rich with vivid rage all the way down. Not just Amleth but everyone here seems to be harboring some deep hurt from some deep loss and is never peacefully existing, just biding their time until they can unleash.

This is also a visceral movie in the sense that there is a whole lot of viscera. Especially once Amleth, with help from Olga, begins his plan to terrorize Fjölnir’s household, we get not just blood but gushing gaping wounds and innards pulled out. As with The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers seems to love scenes set in a moving tableau style, with images that are as lush as they are disturbing and sometimes outright horrifying. It’s a heightened approach to a movie’s visual style that pulls the viewer out of the real world and into the magic-y, evil-everywhere world the story inhabits.

The Northman is every bit the “yanked into a wintery dark fairy tale” that the trailer promised. A

Rated R for strong bloody violence (like so strong and so bloody and so very violent), some sexual content and nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Robert Eggers with a screenplay by Sjón and Robert Eggers, The Northman is two hours and 16 minutes long and distributed by Focus Features.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (R)

Michelle Yeoh is a woman struggling with her laundromat’s financial issues and her family’s communication issues and she might also be the only person who can save the multiverse from total destruction in Everything Everywhere All At Once, an action-packed, sci-fi-ish comedy-sorta about love, relationships and the nihilism of an everything bagel.

This description is only slightly more than I knew going in to this movie. If you think you’d rather know very little about this movie too and just want know if it’s worth seeing or not let’s just skip to the part where I tell you to go see this movie. Like, definitely go, even if you’re thinking “multiverses? Two-hour-plus runtime? Meh?” because it doesn’t feel like two-plus hours (fittingly, the movie both feels like it’s three hours of story and like it’s 90 minutes of well-paced storytelling) and “multiverses exist” is really all you have to really retain, in terms of universe rules, to go along with the ride.

Michelle Yeoh is excellent as a middle-aged lady who is kind of a mess but also a recognizably grown human and I heartily agree with everybody who is saying crazy things about remembering this performance during award season. Also great is Ke Huy Quan, whom most of us still probably know from his childhood performances in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. If I say something like “he makes his character a well-rounded person while believably selling the idea that kindness, empathy and patience are the ultimate superpowers” you might think “barf, pass” so forget I mentioned it. Know that I am going to give this movie an A and strongly suggest you find your outside clothes and make a trip to the actual theater to hang out in this world created by writers/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known as the Daniels (they directed the “Turn Down for What” video and when you watch it after seeing this movie you’ll think “yeah, that tracks”).

But if you do want a little more …

Laundromat co-owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is being audited in part for folding a lot of hobby expenses into her business, though she thinks auditor Deidre (Jamie Lee Curtis) is just a mean lady who has it in for her. (Side note: I guess I didn’t catch it during the movie so it’s just now that I learned Deidre’s last name. It’s perfect and makes me love the movie even more.)

Evelyn’s husband Waymond (Quan) is anxious to talk to her about his serious concerns about their relationship but, as he later tells her, they only seem to talk when they are in some kind of emergency, which the day is turning in to, what with the audit, a party they’re holding at the laundromat, the recent arrival of Evelyn’s difficult father, known as Gong Gong (James Hong), and Evelyn’s ongoing prickly relationship with her grown-ish daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu). Joy wants to introduce Gong Gong to her girlfriend, Becky (Tallie Medel), but Evelyn is still a nervous girl seeking her father’s approval around Gong Gong. Joy sees this lack of backbone and her mother’s criticism, both direct and implied, as part of their intense, fraught battle of wills but it feels to me like a real “gah mothers-and-daughters” situation.

Suddenly, in the middle of this, Waymond tells Evelyn that he is not her Waymond but Alpha Waymond, a Waymond from the Alphaverse, one of the many universes that is now imperiled because of an all-powerful, universe-hopping entity that Evelyn alone can defeat. An understandable “what?” is Evelyn’s reaction until she, too, starts to move among the universes, experiencing the lives of different Evelyns who made different choices (and, helpfully, bringing back with her their abilities, such as kung fu skills and superior lung capacity).

This movie is so much more surprising and goofy and heartfelt than that description can convey. I feel like every laugh hit me with unexpected delight (there is an extended bit about Ratatouille that is just … so awesomely weird) and I was equally surprised about what would suddenly catch me by the heart (a rock with googly eyes, for example). Though I tried to avoid a lot of extended coverage of this movie — no easy feat since it’s been pretty universally praised — I feel like a lot of what will hit you and stay with you has at least as much to do with you and your current life situation as the movie itself. “That is so specifically me” is a thing I can imagine lots of different people in different stages of life, thinking about this movie and one (or more) of its characters. I was struck by how the movie talked about relationships, particularly the mother-child relationship, and about how it painted them as being all about holding on and letting go — and doing both at the same time. The movie gives you this in a specific and rightly enormous way, putting the relationships on the same level as an inter-dimensional catastrophe.

And then, as you’re sitting there, awash in the big emotions of all that, maybe crying or laughing or thinking about the people in your life, a raccoon shows up as a completely absurd and not insignificant plot point.

Again, A.

Rated R for some violence, sexual material and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who also co-wrote the screenplay, Everything Everywhere All At Once is two hours and 19 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by A24.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (R)

Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage in the delightfully Cage-ian blend of action, comedy and absurdity that is The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

Nicolas Cage, or at least a Nicolas Cage, is an actor, beloved for The Rock and Con Air and what have you, but now looking for his way back to movie stardom, not that he ever went anywhere (as he’s always quick to clarify). His struggles between wanting Serious Actor Roles and wanting to be a Freakin’ Movie Star, as personified by Nicky, a smooth-of-skin, smooth-of-brain younger Cage-ier version of himself that older Nick sometimes talks to, have him all twisted up in existential angst knots. Also, the extremely large hotel bill he’s accumulated since his separation from wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) makes the need to keep working not just an artistic one but a serious financial one.

When he doesn’t get a much-longed-for part, he unravels, embarrassing his teenage daughter Addy (Lily Sheen) at her birthday party and finding himself locked out of his hotel room. Reluctantly, he agrees to do the job brought to him by his agent Richard (Neil Patrick Harris), to be essentially birthday party entertainment for rich Spanish guy Javi (Pedro Pascal) at his mansion in Mallorca.

Javi is a Nick Cage superfan — and, Cage is relieved to learn, Javi’s secret isn’t that he wants Cage to do anything weird but that he wants him to read (and maybe star in?) the screenplay Javi wrote. Cage finds himself having fun hanging out with Javi — but then the visit takes a very Nicholas Cage movie turn.

Javi had been under surveillance by some U.S. government intelligence agents looking to bring down not just Javi but also a secretive high-level mob figure. When it’s Cage and not the mafioso who comes out of Javi’s private plane, CIA agents Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (Ike Barinholtz) decide to follow Cage and eventually ask him to help them spy on Javi. They believe that Javi is actually an international criminal himself and is behind the recent kidnapping of a Catalonian politician’s daughter. Thus begins the, like, triple meta swirl of Nicolas Cage’s Nicolas Cage performance performance as the movie’s Cage is trying to figure out his career, his family and what to make of this odd new friendship with Javi while he also engages in spycraft.

I don’t know if Nicolas Cage here is actually the most game actor ever but he is super game in how inside the whole Nicolas Cage late-career icon status thing he is willing to go. It’s delightful to see someone have so much goofy fun with his own persona. At several points, “Nicolas Cage” and Javi are basically playing Nicolas Cage movie, the way kids back in the day might “play Star Wars,” and both actors are able to do this with an earnest wholeheartedness without winking at the screen. It’s giddy without being too silly, it’s fun without making fun.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent both is the unapologetic actor vehicle that it appears to be and is so much more charming and joyful than that. A-

Rated R for language throughout, some sexual references, drug use and violence, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Tom Gormican and written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an hour and 47 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Lionsgate.

The Bad Guys (PG)

An Ocean’s 11-like team of animals with reputations for trouble consider leaving behind their lives of crime in The Bad Guys, a cute if chatty animated heist movie based on the children’s books.

Wolf (voice of Sam Rockwell) and Snake (voice of Marc Maron) are very much the George Clooney and Brad Pitt of this crew; we first meet them relaxedly exchanging patter in a diner — where scared patrons are plastered against the wall — before heading out to rob a nearby bank. They’re joined by their crew — Shark (voice of Craig Robinson), Tarantula (voice of Awkwafina) and Piranha (voice of Anthony Ramos) — and execute a pretty good getaway. But later, the fox governor Diane Foxington (voice of Zazie Beetz) pooh-poohs the crew’s abilities and hypes the upcoming Good Samaritan Golden Dolphin award.

Wolf takes this as a personal challenge and decides the crew should steal the Golden Dolphin, which they do — almost. They’re caught and on their way to jail when Professor Marmalade (voice of Richard Ayoade), a guinea pig who is the winner of the Good Samaritan award, offers to make it his mission to rehabilitate the animals. Wolf decides that “turning good” makes the perfect cover for a future con, and Snake, who is particularly partial to guinea pig as a cuisine, and the crew go along. But Wolf also finds himself occasionally feeling good when he’s told that he has done good. If he and his crew of scary animals really do walk the straight and narrow, will they be able to get others to see beyond the stereotype?

The movie has a bouncy Ocean’s-for-kids vibe, with jokiness that, at least for kids who can appreciate talkier humor, keeps the story feeling upbeat even when characters are in conflict. Sure, if you’re looking for some “good for you” elements, the movie lightly touches on the idea of caring for others and not judging people by their appearance, but to me these elements all felt thinner than the movie seemed to think they were. B

Rated PG for action and rude humor, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Pierre Perifel with a screenplay by Etan Cohen (based on the books by Aaron Blabey), The Bad Guys is an hour and 40 minutes long and distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: The Northman.

Ambulance (R)

Ambulance (R)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Bay slo-mo star in Ambulance, a two-hour-and-16-minute version of, like, a 9-1-1 episode.

Or 9-1-1: Lone Star. Or Station 19, which I’ve seen about 12 minutes of but I feel like I pretty much get the show — pretty people do rescues and somebody wears their hair down in a situation during which any normal lady would have secured her hair in at least a ponytail but probably a bun.

Which is to say, even though her very minimalist use of a hair claw clip is a plot point, I couldn’t help spending a lot of this movie thinking about how Los Angeles EMT Cam (Eiza González) really needed someone to give her two scrunchies and a handful of bobby pins if she’s going to be expected to get stuff done.

This movie spends unnecessary time setting up the backstories of Cam and her new partner Scott (Colin Woodell), young police officers Zach (Jackson White) and Mark (Cedric Sanders), police bank robbery division head Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt) and FBI bank robbery head Anson Clark (Keir O’Donnell). We see everyone mull around their day before they get to the figurative fireworks factory that is the bank robbery that sets off the action in this movie.

Brothers Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) Sharp have a loving but friction-y relationship due to their upbringing and the father who drew them into a life of crime. Will got out, became a decorated Marine and has a wife and a young child. Danny is still engaged in shadiness, though he constantly claims he’s not like their violent father and robbing banks is his job, which he performs with professionalism and without hurting people.

Will’s wife, Amy (Moses Ingram), would like Will to have nothing to do with Danny but she’s also fighting an aggressive cancer and her only hope is a treatment that their insurance won’t cover. Will goes to Danny to ask for a loan to pay for the surgery but instead finds himself at that moment told to suit up to participate in a bank robbery. He reluctantly goes along with what is supposed to be a sure thing, all-set-up robbery with a huge payday.

Naturally, stuff goes wrong.

Zach, who showed up at the bank mainly to flirt with one of the tellers, is taken hostage. The truck meant to transport Danny’s crew post-robbery gets stuck near Mark, who then realizes what’s happened in the bank. The situation quickly becomes a shoot-out, with Mark joined in firing at the robbers by other police officers under the command of Captain Monroe who had been watching the bank and didn’t intervene at first because they wanted to catch the robbers after they left.

Eventually, Danny’s men are struck down, their means of escape is blocked and he and Will are stuck in a parking garage. They decide their only way out is to hijack the ambulance that’s come to rescue Zach, whom Will accidentally shot during a scuffle between Zach and Danny.

Will, Danny, Cam and the severely wounded Zach manage to get away from the scene but are soon being chased across Los Angeles as Cam tries to save Zach and Will and Danny try to figure a way out of their situation.

This movie is at its best when it’s not setting up these characters’ personalities and backstories and just literally cutting to the ambulance chase, all intercut scenes of car crashes and Cam doing battlefield triage. It’s not good but it’s engaging and watchable, sort of in the way you can sometimes eat a fast food fried chicken sandwich and know that you’re eating something “not good,” not even all that tasty, but also still find it momentarily satisfying. The attempts by the movie to make us care about certain characters also feel strangely uneven because it’s Gyllenhaal who is giving the most compelling performance (kind of a good-natured sociopath whom I enjoyed watching even if I didn’t really for a minute care about him) while Cam and Will are the people the movie wants us to empathize with. I found myself character-wise most interested in random police lady Dzaghig (Olivia Stambouliah) and her banter with Monroe, a character who feels like he’s given too big a helping of personality before he’s sort of shrugged off in the movie’s final third.

Despite all of this and the at least 35 unnecessary minutes of padding that help to push this movie past the two-hour mark, Ambulance wasn’t a bad watch. It keeps you right there with the in-the-second action, it has some plot fun with its cops and robbers pursuit and it makes very little sense if you stop to think about any element of it but it all works well enough as you’re watching the chase go from freeway to side street to paved river bed that you feel entertained enough to continue the ride. B-

Rated R for intense violence, bloody images (like, seriously bloody, in-moving-vehicle surgery-type bloody) and language throughout, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Michael Bay with a screenplay by Chris Fedak (based on a movie called Ambulancen), Ambulance is two hours and 16 minutes long and distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: Ambulance.

Morbius (PG-13)

Morbius (PG-13)

A genius scientist who is slowly dying from a genetic disorder accidentally turns himself into a vampire in the Marvel-comics-based Morbius, which feels like “what if Venom but thoroughly charmless.”

This is the Sony wing of the Marvel universe, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but, as end-credit scenes remind us, those universes are now in conversation with each other. Which is my way of saying stay for the end-credit scenes, I guess, if you’re into this enough to see it in a theater.

Renowned scientist Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) creates a serum from vampire bat DNA to combat a genetic disease that has left him and his lifelong best friend Lucien (Matt Smith), whom he affectionately calls Milo, weak, in constant pain and in daily need of blood transfusions. Using himself as a human trial, Michael does see physical improvements to his disease — suddenly becoming ripped seems to play a big part in gaining superpowers — but only after he has a little flip-out session where he drains the blood from all the crewmembers on the boat where he had been running his experiments. The only survivor from the boat is Michael’s longtime friend and professional partner Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona).

Yes, she is a love interest; no, the characters don’t have any real chemistry. But then nobody really has any chemistry with anybody in this movie, so this isn’t just a case of another comic book movie not knowing how to do romance.

As the movie reassures us a couple of times, the guys on the boat were all jerky mercenary types, who cares about them. But then Good People start being exsanguinated and investigators, Agents Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Rodriguez (Al Madrigal), are on the hunt for Morbius, who is himself desperate to find out how to either reverse or control the more kill-y parts of his “cure.”

For Lucien, however, becoming a bloodthirsty vampire is a fair trade for getting abs and being able to walk without crutches. Since he has bankrolled Morbius’ experiments, he feels he’s owed some vampire juice and injects himself in spite of Morbius’ warnings because of course he does. Though Morbius doesn’t totally hate his new powers, he tends to think of his new state mostly as a curse that he is willing to die to lift. But he also realizes he is the only person who can control his old friend who plans to have way more “fun” with his superstrength and vampire qualities.

The movie also drags Jared Harris into this mess as an older mentor to both men, but kind of forgets to do anything useful with him. I feel like that approach to this one character sort of typifies the movie overall; this movie has the basics of its form (genius with a sad backstory, long simmer not-quite-romance, new Great Powers he has to learn to use with Great Responsibility, opponent who uses the same powers for the Wrong Reasons, etc.) but Morbius has absolutely no novelty or liveliness to it. This movie is filled with so much bat imagery and booming bass score you think you’re in some kind of knock-off Batman. But it isn’t actually dark, tonally, for as darkly lit as it is and how dark and moody it thinks it is. It also isn’t the bouncy MCU or the Deadpool-ish, er, Deadpool movies or the goofy but watchable mess that is Venom. It just flaps about, so much gasping cartoon fish on a dock — so, like, without even the pathos that would be involved if we believed it was a real live fish.

Leto in Emo Jesus cosplay is just not a compelling character, not as a villain, not as a hero/dark hero/anti-hero whatever he’s supposed to be. Matt Smith is never not distractingly goofy. Arjona’s Martine doesn’t really get more personality depth than “girl character.”

Much like with Venom, Morbius and its canon are beyond the fringes of my Marvel knowledge and so I went in with zero expectations. But somehow it was still a letdown. C- I guess, but I could probably be convinced into D territory….

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Daniel Espinosa with a screenplay by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless, Morbius is an hour and 44 minutes long and distributed by Columbia.

Featured photo: Morbius.

The Lost City (PG-13)

The Lost City (PG-13)

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum are accidental explorers seeking ancient treasure and running from a petulant Daniel Radcliffe in The Lost City, a movie that should have kept its original title, The Lost City of D.

Why “of D”? The movie has an “ancient tribe of D-yada yada” answer but mostly it’s exactly why you think it’s “D” and for that reason the movie also should have gone for an R rating. This is a “ladies meeting up for a movie” kind of movie and it should have gone to town with its female-friendly bawdy comedy goofiness. As it is, it’s more like the movie went to the end of the driveway, maybe a bit down the block, but then decided, eh, maybe not all the way to town this time.

Loretta (Bullock) is a successful author of a series of romance novels about Angel Lovemore and Dash, two adventurers who find themselves in situations like being menaced by a villain in a temple full of snakes while professing their love, all heaving chests and throbbing other things. But real-life Loretta isn’t feeling the love for her characters; still mourning the loss of her husband, she’s having a hard time writing her latest book and when she finally finishes it it’s not well-received by the public.

To try to gin up sales, publisher Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) sends Loretta to a romance convention and pairs her with Allen (Tatum), the cover model who has posed as Dash all these years. Loretta doesn’t have much patience for conventions, Q&As or Allen and suffers through it until her car arrives to take her home.

Or, at least, she thinks it’s her car. It turns out to be what she describes as a low-key Taken scenario, more of a whisking-away, really, by Abigail Fairfax (Radcliffe), the very rich, very indignant son of a media family. His younger brother has just been given the family business and Abigail is looking to one-up him by discovering a priceless ancient treasure. Since she worked some real-world archaeology into her books, Loretta is the perfect person to help him on his quest, Fairfax thinks, whether she wants to or not.

Allen, who wants Loretta’s respect and maybe more, sees her being taken-ed and decides to rescue her. Or at least he decides to participate in her rescuing: He calls in his trainer, named, naturally, Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), to help him free Loretta.

Some 15 or so years ago, I think The Lost City would have really annoyed me, with its dumb plot and its sharp-as-a-butter-knife-or-maybe-a-spoon humor. But now, saying a movie is “a goofy premise filled with dumb jokes” feels like more of a recommendation and Bullock and Tatum know exactly what they’re doing here and exactly how to do it. Bullock presents a variation on the smart-but-prickly characters she’s been playing over the last decade in comedies and Tatum knows how to mix the “beefcake with a meathead but a sweet heart” cocktail and serve up a character who — OK, every way I could think of to finish that metaphor sounds dirty. Basically, Tatum knows what he looks like and knows how to make that guy funny. Even though The Lost City isn’t as smart as it could be, isn’t as big-dumb-laugh as it could be, it is pretty dumb and it is pretty fun. It uses Radcliffe and Randolph well, even if both could probably have done more. And it’s a good time, if not right now in theaters definitely in the near future in your living room. B

Rated PG-13 for violence and some bloody images, suggestive material (though not nearly suggestive enough), partial nudity (ditto) and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Aaron Nee and Adam Nee with a screenplay by Oren Uziel and Dana Fox and Adam Nee & Aaron Nee, The Lost City is an hour and 52 minutes long and is distributed by Paramount Pictures in theaters.

Infinite Storm (R)

Naomi Watts plays Pam Bales, a former Granite Stater who rescued a man from a particularly stormy Mount Washington, in Infinite Storm.

Pam heads out for a hike on Mount Washington on a day that, based on a conversation with ex-husband Dave (Denis O’Hare), is already heavy with some kind of grief for her. As she hikes, the weather gets colder, clouds roll in and a storm starts. She finds the hike harder, she falls and has to climb out of the snow and then she comes upon a man just sitting on the mountain. John (Billy Howle) is what she calls him when he declines to give his name or say anything about why he’s sitting in a blizzard in what appears to be shorts and sneakers. She tells him they’re leaving, going down the mountain, and they begin the slow, painful trek down, with John often giving up and Pam essentially ignoring that and keeping him going, even when it’s clear she’s putting her own life at risk.

At points, this movie reminded me a bit of 127 Hours, with Watts’ Pam frequently either talking to herself or talking to John, who doesn’t really answer her. Watts’ performance is a solid one that the whole movie is basically hung on. It’s a strong enough performance that the movie probably doesn’t need the flashbacks to Pam and her young daughters or the movie’s final 15 or so minutes that do a lot of unnecessary telling after Watts has spent a good deal of the movie showing us Pam’s inner turmoil and her determined personality. Infinite Storm is ultimately a thin but interesting watch about this slice of recent New Hampshire history. B-

Rated R for some language and brief nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Malgorzata Szumowska with a screenplay by Joshua Rollins, Infinite Storm is an hour and 37 minutes long and is distributed by Bleecker Street.

Featured photo: The Lost City.

Oscar night excitement — really!

Close the book on 2021 at the movies with Sunday’s awards show

Get excited about the Oscars!

Yes, I’m talking to you, person interested in movies enough to be lingering in the film section. But I’m also talking to me, an official Oscars Fan who proclaimed her love for the Oscars last year and yet can’t quite seem to get as jazzed about this year’s ceremony the way I did about 2018 (Ladybird! Get Out!) or 2019 (Black Panther! The Favourite! A Star Is Born and everything to do with Lady Gaga!) or even last year’s weird train station Oscars (Minari! Regina King! The song “Husavik” from Eurovision Song Contest!).

But even if, like me, you haven’t seen all of the Best Picture nominees (I’ll get to the three-hour Drive My Car, I promise) there is still a lot to get even casual movie fans enthused about this year — in terms of the movies, the ceremony and Oscar season. Pop your popcorn, open the prosecco you’re going to pretend is Champagne and don that vintage Old Navy and let’s get excited about Oscar Sunday (March 27 at 8 p.m., on ABC) together. Time to get excited about…

• The Best Picture nominees: Kenneth Branagh’s Northern Ireland-set Belfast has six nominations (available for rent or purchase). CODA, about the hearing teen daughter of deaf parents, has three nominations (Apple TV+). Adam McKay’s apocalypse, I don’t know, comedy I guess, Don’t Look Up (Netflix) has four nominations. The Japanese drama Drive My Car (HBO Max and rent or purchase) has four nominations including best international feature film. Beautiful, slow-moving Dune(HBO Max or for purchase) has 10 nominations and while I didn’t love the movie I feel like it’s a strong and worthy competitor for the sound and visual categories. The Will Smith-starring biopic of Serena and Venus Williams’ dad, King Richard, has six nominees (in theaters and returning to HBO Max on March 24, and available for rent or purchase). Paul Thomas Anderson’s nostalgia trip to 1970s L.A., Licorice Pizza (available for rent or purchase), has three nominations. The Guillermo del Toro-directed beautiful-looking but meh Nightmare Alley (HBO Max and for purchase) has four nominations. Jane Campion’s menace-filled Western The Power of the Dog (Netflix) has 11 nominations including Campion for director. Steven Spielberg’s surprisingly joyful (I mean, bleak if you think about it but joyful to watch) West Side Story (HBO Max, Disney+ and for rent or purchase) has seven nominations including what I would consider maybe the surest-thing nomination of Ariana DeBose for Anita.

• The ceremony: This year’s Oscar ceremony has the potential to be an entertaining grab bag of winners with Thoughts About This Moment We’re In globally, Academy members angry about the move of some categories off the broadcast proper and a whole bunch of people low-level freaked out about the state of their industry. For the first time in a while, domestic U.S. politics is probably, like, fourth or fifth on the list of issues that will be part of the mood of the night. I feel like last year’s Oscars missed an opportunity to get people revved up for either the nominated films specifically or the theatrical experience in general (Google “Marvel Studios Celebrates the Movies” for a look at how to do that). With movie-going still not fully Back, it would be great if the ceremony helped sell us on the concept again and helped to actually introduce people to some of the lesser-known films on the nominees list.

And crazy stuff will likely happen because crazy stuff always happens and I hope that includes, as was speculated by the folks at Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast, some actor winner pulling up the Makeup and Hairstyling winner or a Directing winner shouting out Production Design or Editing winner. Those are some of the eight categories that, as has been widely reported, have been pushed to a pre-broadcast first hour largely at the behest of ABC to make the broadcast ceremony shorter, which will somehow translate into more viewers. What will be part of the broadcast, though, is some kind of recognition of the “fan favorite film” of the year that was voted on largely via Twitter, so you know that will be weird. Anyway, tune in at 8 p.m. for the ceremony; a preshow starts at 6:30 p.m., according to Indiewire.

• The other award-granting organizations: Between this year’s Oscar season being a month longer than the pre-pandemic awards season schedule and the collapse of the Golden Globes (which were announced via Twitter a million years ago back in early January), I feel like some of the precursor awards got less attention, particularly if you’re not someone who goes seeking that info. So let’s go seeking, shall we? As with the Oscars, other awards nominee lists offer a great place to turn when you’re trying to figure out what to watch tonight.

Even though We Don’t Talk About the Golden Globes (no no no…), it is a place where the list of nominees includes Mahershala Ali in Swan Song(Apple TV+), Marion Cotillard in the musical Annette (Amazon Prime), Ruth Negga in the lovely-looking melodrama Passing (Netflix) and the score for Wes Andreson’s latest, The French Dispatch (currently on HBO Max).

The Indie Spirit Awards, which usually happen the Saturday evening before the Oscars, took place in early March this year. On that list, non-Oscar nominees include the sweet family dramedy C’mon C’mon (available for rent or purchase), the excellent Nicholas Cage drama Pig (Hulu) and the claustrophobically funny Shiva Baby (HBO Max).

The Critics Choice Awards, handed out a few weeks ago, included nominations for the delightful Western, starring Regina King and Idris Elba, The Harder They Fall (Netflix) as well as, thanks to its comedy category my favorite movie of last year, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Hulu, rent or purchase).

• The night of capital F Fashion: After two years of stretchy pants, I’m not necessarily in a hurry to dress fancy myself but I do enjoy watching others do it.

• The nominees I’m rooting for: Of the nine Best Picture nominees I’ve seen, my favorite is CODA, probably followed by West Side Story and a tie between Belfast and Licorice Pizza. In other categories, I’d pick Denzel Washington to win for his titular role in The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple TV+).

I’d be happy with any of the nominees for best actress taking the win: Jessica Chastain, who went the extra mile in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (HBO Max, rent or purchase); Penélope Cruz in Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers (available for rent), also nominated for score; Olivia Coleman, always great, in the Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed The Lost Daughter (Netflix), also nominated in supporting actress for Jessie Buckley and for adapted screenplay; Kristen Stewart, who is maybe the frontrunner for playing Princess Diana in Spencer, and depending on the day I might even agree to Nicole Kidman, a decent Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos (Amazon Prime).

The other “I’d be happy with any win” category is animated feature film: Find Encanto (the favorite to win, I think?), Luca and Raya and the Last Dragon, all beautiful and solid films, on Disney+; Flee, which is also nominated in the documentary and international categories and is a compelling tale of one man’s flight from Afghanistan, is available on Hulu and for rent or purchase, and The Mitchells vs. the Machines, a fun tale of family and technology, is on Netflix. While I agree that there are like two or even three better songs in Encanto, I am also rooting for it to win the original song category for “Dos Oruguitas.”

In what could be called the “movies people actually saw” category (visual effects), Spider-Man: No Way Home (available for purchase), the No. 1 2021 movie at the box office, faces off against the No. 2 movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Disney+, rent or purchase); the last Daniel Craig James Bond and the year’s No. 7 movie, No Time to Die (rent or purchase), and the 10th biggest box office of 2021, the Ryan Reynolds-starring Free Guy (HBO Max, Disney+, rent or purchase), as well as Dune. It’s a solid list — and my vote might actually go to Dune.

• Saying a final goodbye to 2021: And as at any good New Year’s Eve party, enjoy a glass of bubbly and some time to reflect (House of Gucci — that was really something, wasn’t it?) and make your resolutions: more in-theater movies, more searching for the cool weird stuff on streaming, more embracing what we get instead of wishing everything was John Wick. And, of course, a whole new year of award contenders.

Hey, look at that, I’m excited!

Featured photo: West Side Story.

Deep Water (R)

Deep Water (R)

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas chew all the scenery and bring all the ham as a sexy couple in the uproarious comedy Deep Water.

Or.

Beautiful people Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas play a couple whose relationship is as much ruled by tormenting each other as it is by desire in Deep Water, an intense and sexy thriller with a twisted sense of humor.

I feel like I’m supposed to feel the latter but for me it’s all the former. This movie was frequently “what? HA!” when I think it was supposed to be “ooo, twist!”

Married couple Vic (Affleck) and Melinda (de Armas) have some kind of kink that seems to involve her openly dating handsome young dudes and him menacing and maybe killing them. Which feels like an unsustainable situation, both as couple foreplay and as a serial killer pattern. Especially since they seem well-known in their town and always going to parties where members of their friend-group ask Vic why he’s letting Melinda flirt with these dudes right there, at the parties, in front of everyone. “It’s our sexy arrangement” would actually be a great answer and would make sure that they always get invited to parties because people love to be bystanders to drama. But instead, he sidesteps these discussions and only intervenes when Melinda’s drinking puts her or a host’s furniture in peril.

His odd calm, tendency to brood at his wife from afar and his hobby of raising snails would, in any normal circumstance, make him an obvious suspect when one of her boyfriends goes missing. But when Vic tells Joel (Brendan Miller), Melinda’s latest fling, that he murdered the previous guy and Joel apparently goes and tells, like, Everybody, all of Vic’s friends laugh it off. Buddies Jonas (Dash Mihok) and Grant (Lil Rel Howery) seem to think if anything Vic needs to show more of a reaction to rein in Melinda’s behavior.

But Vic doesn’t need or want to control Melinda, he claims. And Melinda seems to need the drama of these romances to make her life exciting. Perhaps this is what happens when, like Vic, you basically don’t need to work because you’ve retired very early and very wealthy from making computer chips. Specifically, the computer chips that help guide military drones, which means that even if Vic hasn’t actually offed any of his wife’s special friends, some people think of him as someone who has killed people. “Some people” include Don (Tracy Letts), the writer who smells both guilt and a story in Vic’s whole situation and who has newly become friends with Vic’s crew.

So I guess you could spend time wondering how much of this movie’s comedy is intentional, how much of the melodramatic acting of Affleck and de Armas is part of what the movie is doing to build atmosphere, how much of the score is supposed to send us to a Lifetime-esque Deadly Sexy: The Melinda Story-type place. Or, you could just go with it and “blah-ha!” at Melinda’s inappropriate behavior while Vic is trying to pay the babysitter (the couple has a 6-year-old daughter). Or at Vic’s whole deal with his snails — he has a Whole Lot of snails, it would definitely be one of the first things you would mention if you were describing him to someone: “he’s super rich, he has this bonkers wife and he has a thing about snails.”

Is this movie sexy? I’m not sure, the intentional sexiness is also kind of funny at times. And other than that this state of constant angst is just sort of their thing, the movie never gives a reason that this couple would stay together. I feel like there’s a Gone-Girl-ish destructive-people-who-are-addicted-to-each-other thing this movie is trying to build but it’s so much trashier and more ridiculous that it doesn’t elevate them from “movie characters” to “human-like.” But again, I think you just need to set logic, even the internal logic of this relationship aside, and enjoy the goofy ride. I do think a movie this soapy probably should have been as liberal with dude nudity as it is with de Armas’ toplessness. Also the elements about Vic’s concerns with Melinda’s drinking feel sort of like an unnecessary misdirection. This movie is at its best when its characters are being over-the-top bonkers.

Does this all mean you should skip Deep Water? No, but I think you need to choose the appropriate movie viewing situation. This is not the movie for when you want an actual thriller or a mystery of any kind or a romance. This is a movie for when you have a big bowl of popcorn and want to laugh about the nonsense you’re watching with someone who has an equal appreciation for what I think could arguably be described as camp. I think that makes it a C+?

Rate R for sexual content, nudity, language and some violence, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Adrian Lyne with a screenplay by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson (based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith), Deep Water, which also has the layer of everything you know about the former Ana de Armas/Ben Affleck relationship over it, is an hour and 55 minutes and is distributed by New Regency Productions and is available on Hulu.

Cheaper by the Dozen (PG)

A blended family does hijinx and occasionally addresses racism in Cheaper by the Dozen, a gentle family movie.

I assume this is the kind of movie the whole family (of like tweens and up) watches together as part of a chill-out movie night, i.e. a movie night where nothing is so exciting or scary that anybody will have a hard time going to sleep and some people will likely nod off during the movie. By that standard, this movie is fine — as mildly funny as it needs to be, thanks largely to the always awesome Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff, and sweet in a way that mostly isn’t too treacle-y. And I appreciate the way the movie addresses the different ways Black, white and brown family members feel in situations.

Chef/diner owner Paul (Zach Braff) and his three children (Harley played by Caylee Blosenski, Ella played by Kylie Rogers and Haresh played by Aryan Simhadri) — and his omnipresent ex-wife Kate (Erika Christensen) — joined marketing exec Zoey (Gabrielle Union) and her two kids (by NBA star Dom, played by Timon Kyle Durrett), Deja (Journee Brown) and DJ (Andre Robinson), in creating a happy blended family that then added four more members via two sets of twins (Luca and Luna played by Leo Abelo Perry and Mykal-Michelle Harris, and Bailey and Bronx played by Christian Cote and Sebastian Cote). The 11 Bakers become 12 when Paul’s sullen nephew Seth (Luke Prael) comes to stay.

Paul and Zoey and the kids old enough not to break labor laws all work in the family diner that serves breakfast all day and features Paul’s amazing sweet/savory breakfast sauce, which is so well-received he wants to bottle it and sell it nationwide. When he gets investors to help him develop the sauce brand, he pushes Zoey to use some of the money to buy a big new house, something that has individual rooms for more of the kids and enough bathrooms that mornings don’t have to be as hectic. Zoey is less delighted about the gated-community aspect of the new house, where she is immediately greeted by a security guard who tells her about the late-night noise policy. Many of the kids feel equally displeased with the move away from friends and, in Deja’s case, the basketball team where she was trying to catch the eye of a USC scout.

Paul is excited about this new money-having phase of his family’s life and excited to follow his investors’ lead in not only bottling the sauce but franchising his restaurant. But the bigger his business becomes the more it takes him away from the family, which worries Zoey, who feels like she’s reliving the success-related falling apart of a partnership that she experienced in her first marriage.

Among the kids there are also kid dramas — crushes, bullies, fears about the new house. It’s Deja, DJ and Haresh who get the most thoroughly developed storyline, though everybody and their personalities get a moment. Exes Kate and Dom also float around with their own bits of action but always landing on the spot of “we’re all family.”

I can’t tell if I’m being too hard on this movie wishing it was just a little bit more — more something, more about the physical comedy so that it could pull in younger viewers bored by all the talking maybe or more about the clash of all the different household personalities. Or, if I’m giving it too much of a pass for the little moments of surprisingly well-executed comedy, like some of the crazier antics of the little kids or Zoey’s ongoing struggle with Kate’s total lack of boundaries but her willingness to babysit whenever for free. So it’s fine, is where I land. Everybody here is doing fine, maybe not their most, maybe in Union’s case just enough to make you wish she had more opportunities to shine, but fine. And, if you don’t agree with this family movie night pick, you can always fall asleep. B-

Rated PG for thematic elements, suggestive material and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Gail Lerner with a screenplay by Kenya Barris & Jenifer Rice-Genzuk (based on the really cute novels by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbrath Casey that I read a million years ago), Cheaper by the Dozen is an hour and 47 minutes long and is available on Disney+.

Windfall (R)

A rich couple is held hostage by the man who has broken into their vacation home in the quirky suspense movie Windfall.

The nameless burglar (Jason Segel) is almost out the door of the couple’s house, having lifted some jewelry, cash and a gun, when the couple — a jerky tech billionaire (Jesse Plemons) and his unhappy wife (Lily Collins) — arrive. The wife spots him and soon the couple is being held at gunpoint (though it’s a while before anybody actually shows anybody a gun) and the burglar is demanding more cash. The billionaire gets it for him and then the burglar leaves, barricading the couple inside of their sauna to give himself time to escape.

He is starting his car, parked on the edge of the property, and ready to leave when he spots a security camera directly above him. He returns to the house, corrals the couple again and demands more money, now that his identity is likely known. He needs enough to disappear, start a new life, but an amount that is physically small enough for him to carry off. Thus begin negotiations for how much, how it will get to him and what the trio will do while they wait for the money to arrive.

Googling around, I couldn’t figure out if this tight, bottle-episode-like thriller was a pandemic-era-made film, though with its small on-screen cast (in addition to the main trio, Omar Leyva shows up as a gardener and that’s it) and its single location it has the feel of that in the best way. (Single location but what a location! The beautiful ranch-ish home is set in an orange grove and with a kind of desert-style stretch of manicured garden. You could spend an hour just gazing at shots from the house and surrounding property.) I did see the word “Hitchcockian” a lot, which fits with the choices this movie made with its score, its tone and even its title fonts. The burglar is committing the crime but everybody in the setup has secrets and parts of themselves they are holding back. Everybody also has bits of cruelty and selfishness running through them — add Plemons’ character to the growing list of horrible tech bro-characters. It’s not that the movie leads us to root for the burglar but neither are we filled with sympathy for Plemons. Collins gets the most complexity as a woman who is constantly making a choice to stay with Plemons that even she doesn’t seem to agree with.

There are moments of humor and moments of tension but overall there is a breezy engrossing-novel quality to Windfall that makes it a brisk, enjoyable watch. B

Rated R for language throughout and some violence, according to the MPA from filmratings.com. Written and directed by Charlie McDowell, Windfall is an hour and 32 minutes long and is distributed on Netflix.

Featured photo: Deep Water.

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