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Are There ANY Strong Gay-Themed Films Besides "Brokeback Mountain"?
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Anything Else (2003)
Middling Woody Allen comedy
60-year-old gag writer for standup comics in New York City mentors a kid in his twenties who's in analysis after his marriage broke-up and his new girlfriend, an actress, is proving to be quite a handful. Well-made but nearly laughless effort might have been more successful with funnier actors. Jason Biggs (often breaking the fourth wall) tries to be loose and nimble; he talks fast and stammers well (like Allen), but his spirit is sodden. Christina Ricci is a sharp-eyed, no-nonsense actress with a natural edge to her personality--but she's not funny, either. These two are stuck in the Movie Relationship Blues, and it's up to the grown-ups (Allen, Stockard Channing and, to a lesser degree, Danny DeVito) to give the picture a goose. Allen has become overly-fond of name-dropping in his scripts, but for what purpose? In the first 20mns, we hear the names of comedians, authors, jazz singers and movie personalities dropped "casually" in conversation (though each one sticks out as an artifice: "You like Billie Holiday? She's my favorite too!"). "Anything Else" isn't a Woody turkey--it has the filmmaker's customary urban/neurotic fussiness that crackles on occasion--but the laugh lines fall flat coming out of the mouths of these big city babes. *1/2 from ****
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Some good zingers in Allen misfire...
Has-been Hollywood director gets a comeback opportunity thanks to his ex-wife, but learns he's suffering from psychosomatic blindness--something he hopes to hide while directing his movie. One-joke comedy from writer-director-star Woody Allen's junk-drawer, although even his misfires usually have two or three good laughs in them. A very bright cast--including Téa Leoni, George Hamilton, Treat Williams, Debra Messing, Bob Dorian, Mark Rydell and Tiffani Thiessen--adds some much-needed sparkle. Cinematography from Wedigo von Schultzendorff too burnished and 'prestigious' for a fluffball farce. ** from ****
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Misbegotten
Nazi youth in World War II-era Germany, mentored by the spirit of a chummy Adolf Hitler, is a disaster at training camp, and so returns home to live with his mother and discovers she's hiding a Jewish girl under their very roof. Boisterously disrespectful black comedy is generally unfunny despite a solid cast and an audacious vision--all in the service of a premise that simply doesn't play. Writer-director Taika Waititi, adapting Christine Leunens' novel "Caging Skies", also co-stars as buddy Adolf, and it's hard to imagine which of his jobs here is the more misbegotten. Intending his film to be an over-the-top anti-hate satire, one must credit the work as original--but some will laugh or others won't. Six Oscar nominations with one win: Waititi for Best Adapted Screenplay. Two Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture-Musical or Comedy. Six BAFTA nominations, winning for Best Adapted Screenplay. Taika Waititi was also a DGA nominee for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, a WGA nominee for Adapted Screenplay, and a Grammy nominee as producer of the compilation soundtrack. *1/2 from ****
The Quiet Earth (1985)
"I've been condemned to live..."
A government project initiated by the US titled Flashlight--energy transmissions sent through a grid around the Earth--has malfunctioned, creating a rip in space-time that has eliminated all life from the planet except for an executive at the New Zealand headquarters. He wakes up that morning following a suicide attempt only to find empty streets and stores, a plane crash, and the radiated corpse of a co-worker. After a period of complete solitude, he begins to lose his sanity--but two other survivors eventually turn up: a woman and another man. Bruno Lawrence holds the screen alone for a solid 30mns and does it exceptionally well (he was the absolute right actor for this role); however, there must be a movie rule that dictates there cannot be merely a single character in a feature-length film, and so the others are introduced rather disappointingly (the woman, played by Alison Routledge, is clipped and dryly efficient--carrying a purse!--hardly the type of a woman who must have thought for a two-week span she was the only living human on Earth). Very well-made, well-shot by James Bartle, and with terrific sound, but at some point the movie stops being fun and becomes "an exercise". Lawrence also co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Baer and Sam Pillsbury, from Craig Harrison's novel. The film swept the New Zealand Film Awards, winning in all eight categories including Best Film, Best Actor for Lawrence, and Best Supporting Actor for Pete Smith. ** from ****
The Whale (2022)
Pure theatre
Director Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale," adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his play, has been made with great care, lots of fiery and tender emotions, and a plaintive heart--yet it is mostly staffed with the kind of spouting-off characters I can do without. Brendan Fraser is quite wonderful portraying Charlie, an English professor in Idaho--obese and housebound--who instructs his students online, his webcam "broken". Charlie's meals consist of takeout food and candy bars, while his caregiver (the sister of his lover, who has committed suicide) indulges his eating habits while also berating him for not seeking medical help. This woman, played by Hong Chau, is ostensibly here to order the other characters around, to get mad at our sad sack protagonist (but always with love and understanding) and to cry freely because she feels he'll be dead from congestive heart failure in a week. Others on the stage (because this material is very stagey) include Charlie's ex-wife and teenage daughter--whom Charlie left for the love of his life, another man--and a young male missionary who feels he was brought to Charlie's front door by God's will to save him. Hunter's material doesn't allow for a life outside Charlie's apartment, and so we unavoidably have characters making big, dramatic entrances and exits. Charlie is an achingly sensitive character--even the outrageous things he does such as going on a food binge and throwing it all up doesn't detract from his sweet, gentle nature. When Fraser's big eyes and smeary mouth register the abuse heaped upon him by his willful daughter, he's never less than marvelous. However, these impossible family members and that worrisome kid with the Bible are little more than writer's pretentions--even the caregiver is bad news (she preaches and teaches). True, we must be filled in on who everyone is and what their connection is to Charlie, but they keep returning to the scene with the same lofty rhetoric. "The Whale", its title referring to a (secret) writer's simple-but-direct thesis on Melville's "Moby Dick", isn't honest, exactly--it's pure theatre. Hunter introduces elements such as the bedroom of the deceased boyfriend (kept 'just as he left it') and a bird who relies on Charlie to feed it, but he doesn't take them anywhere (they're not even sentimentalized). There are moments of beauty and anguish here, but not enough to bring this twisted family portrait together. ** from ****
My Massive Cock (2022)
Not especially enlightening or titillating--if that's what they were going for...
British lads with large members air their grievances in being exploited/disrespected/fetishized for their endowments. With the average size of a man's penis being around 5", the group of mostly heterosexual men gathered here seem to have a communal chip on their shoulders much larger than that. There's the lonely guy who can't get a woman to love him for the person he is (he inquires about a penis reduction from a urologist); there's a muscular, tattooed ex-plumber who is using his size for hook-ups and to make extra money; one man takes a cast of his member and shows the model off to his lady friends (they giggle), while another man with a full package is tired of his mates joking about him in the changing room. For balance (I guess), a few women are interviewed for their thoughts: some enjoy a large penis and some don't, some are intimated by a massive erection and at least one woman actively seeks them out (using her flexible boyfriend of seven years to complete a threesome). Not-shy UK documentary special with a Polish distributor is narrated by "Love Actually" actress Julia Davis, who has a dry smirk in her voice. It isn't especially enlightening, nor is it titillating--if that's what they were going for. Mostly, these men seem unhappy. Their romantic failures appear to be directly linked to the phallus but, as one woman says, "A big penis is one thing, but you've got to know how to swing it." *1/2 from ****
Lost Souls (2000)
Winona Ryder Meets the Antichrist (and no, it's not Beetlejuice)...
Critically-drubbed, commercially-ignored thriller opened the same day as the re-release of "The Exorcist" and promptly vanished (after being held on the shelf for over a year). I'm hard-pressed to summarize the film's plot, as it made no sense to me while watching the movie and seems even more illogical now. Winona Ryder has a sketchily-defined character, that of a troubled young woman in New York City who lost her parents early and went into a downward spiral. She's now a teacher who assists in exorcisms on her time off, receiving a message in code from a possessed asylum patient that spells out a name--the name of a 32-year-old man who, on his 33rd birthday, will become the Antichrist--Satan's "transformation". Luckily for Ryder, the unsuspecting guy is right there in the city, and he doesn't believe a word of any of this when the girl confronts him (would you?). The man in question is Ben Chaplin, playing a writer of non-fiction crime; he has a beautifully-sculpted face (though one without much modulation) and takes to the camera quite handsomely, so naturally when Ryder infiltrates his office at night, she gets herself dolled-up and does her makeup! This has to be one of the silliest devil thrillers ever, with two exorcisms (mostly from behind closed doors), neither of which turns out well. At the end, when Chaplin realizes the only way to escape his fate as Satan's disciple is to be killed, he hands Ryder a gun and they wait while a digital clock ticks down to his birth-time--and when we get to the big moment, there's a hilarious pause before the clock reads 666! Hopefully, everyone had a good time and was well-paid. Viewers might enjoy laughing through this one, which is admittedly never dull. *1/2 from ****
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968)
Satisfactory comedy vehicle for Don Knotts...
Remake of Bob Hope's "The Paleface" from 1948 stars Don Knotts as a graduated dental student in 1870 Philadelphia who travels West, becoming involved with sexy Barbara Rhodes, a stagecoach robber (she says to him, "I have a terrrrible toothache!" to which Knotts unsteadily replies, "Is it in your mouth?"). Not-bad star-vehicle has that dreary, cut-rate Universal look but also some witty writing and funny sight gags, a lively Vic Mizzy score and an adept comedy cast including Carl Ballantine, Pat Morita, Herbert Voland, Ruth McDevitt, and Leonard Stone and Naomi Stevens (both uncredited). **1/2 from ****
The Devil's Daughter (1973)
Another off-the-rails performance by Shelley Winters...
Possibly conceived by writer Colin Higgins after a "Rosemary's Baby" binge, this surprisingly engrossing movie-of-the-week from director Jeannot Szwarc still manages to be a tasty occult offering. After her estranged mother is found dead, 21-year-old Belinda J. Montgomery meets her mother's childhood best friend at the funeral who takes the sweet orphan into her home. Montgomery sparkles with youthful ignorance, and doesn't even take notice of the Satanic painting in Shelley Winters' living room on her first visit (when she finally does see it, she's not even curious enough to ask questions about its origin). Higgins delights in throwing every conceivable trick from the devil's manual into his script: black cats, recurring nightmares, an insignia ring that portends evil, Satanic honchos who look like mobster bodyguards, a mute chauffeur who tries to warn the girl, and a kindly priest who says "I don't listen to any of the gossip." A terrific cast backs up the ladies: Jonathan Frid, Robert Foxworth, Martha Scott, Joseph Cotten, Abe Vigoda, Diane Ladd. It's not Polanski, but it is creepy and has been made with a modicum of style. **1/2 from ****
Some Velvet Morning (2013)
"This isn't going to end well. Didn't you read 'Lolita'?"
Two-character ex-lovers' drama, one which appears to be about an unhappily married attorney finally leaving his wife and going back to the mistress he broke up with four years prior, lifts its title from the Nancy Sinatra-Lee Hazlewood song of 1967 (though it isn't played or even referenced). Writer-director Neil LaBute doesn't write dialogue, he writes arguments. There's a plot twist, of course (there'd better be one), but not before Stanley Tucci and Alice Eve moan and groan over each other for close to 84mns. Tucci and the London-born, heavily-accented Eve don't make music with their voices--and they don't match up right visually, either: she's boxy and disheveled and she overwhelms him. LaBute hopes to hold our attention by adding a few near-altercations and some specific lines of sexuality (which, when coming from the classy, urbane Tucci, do nothing but make us uncomfortable). The direction isn't static, but it does little more than move us from room to room in Eve's ridiculously high townhouse (with much clomping about up and down the stairs). Meanwhile, the the verbal jousting is so angry and resentful, we can't perceive any former passion in this relationship. But do any of these criticisms matter when the final scene trivializes all that came before it? Is LaBute laughing at us? After sitting through "Some Velvet Morning", many viewers might wish to have a joust with LaBute themselves. *1/2 from ****
Separate Tables (1958)
Handsome, chatty drawing-room drama with accent on character...
Set at the ornately-designed Hotel Beauregard in England, David Niven's easily-flustered Major Pollock is mooned over by a spinster (Deborah Kerr) while failing to hide a scandalous part of his past; meanwhile, glamorous Anne (Rita Hayworth) crosses paths again with volatile ex-husband John (Burt Lancaster), who is engaged to Miss Cooper (Wendy Hiller), the hotel's manager. Adapting two of his one-act plays, co-screenwriter Terence Rattigan offers dryly clever chit-chat and grand theatrical opportunities for the masterful acting ensemble. It remains, however, a stage bound experience without the electricity of a live performance. Niven won his only Oscar for this performance; Hiller also received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. **1/2 from ****
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
For the most part, junk...
Harrison Ford is back as Indiana Jones, this time up against time fissures and with a "former" Nazi as his chief rival for two-halves of a mechanism built by mathematician Archimedes. "Fast-paced" would be an understatement; this thing is designed like a theme park ride (though it still didn't keep the kids in their seats--most of them were out in the theater lobby on their phones after the opening half-hour). Director and co-writer James Mangold (of all people) used to be a great actors' director, but it's only when he (finally) slows down the pace do we have time to engage with the characters. Is "Dial of Destiny" junk? For the most part, yes (and, in regards to the villain's initial fate, it also feels like a cheat). But it is nice to see Ford back in action, and there's a great chase involving a horse--CGI-infused, of course. One SAG nomination: for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble (!). ** from ****
You & I (2014)
The mysteries of male-to-male attraction...
Confusing homosexual feelings consume an otherwise straight young man on a jaunt through northeastern Germany with his gay best friend. The two men are buddies, nothing more, but when they pick up a male hitchhiker and an attraction forms between the gay friend and the stranger, the heterosexual feels an emotional conflict. Unassuming German drama with lots of photogenic scenes of muscular young bodies at play in the fields and in the water. A minor piece of work, not particularly moving or interesting until near the end, but certainly well-acted by the trio and handsomely-made. One serious quibble: the grating, generic rock tunes on the soundtrack. *1/2 from ****
White Nights (1985)
Nyet!
He won't dance, don't ask him... Probably the worst film to ever to earn an Oscar (for the substandard Lionel Ritchie song "Say You Say Me"), this Taylor Hackford-directed drama buddies up tap dancer Gregory Hines with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov amidst wives, ex-lovers and the KGB! Hines is an American who defected to the USSR in protest against the treatment of blacks during the Vietnam War; Baryshnikov is a celebrated Russian dancer who defected to the US. After Mikhail's plane bound for Tokyo is forced down in Siberia, Hines is pressured by the Kremlin to get the ballet star back on-stage with the Kirov Academy of Ballet. The dancing rehearsals are fun, but the ridiculous plot leaves one in a state of apoplexy. Sloppily (or, rather, lazily) put together, the picture is weighed down with sniveling, smirking villains and a "You're free! You're free!" finale that defies explanation. * from ****
Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval (2024)
Final stand-up comedy special from Ellen is a love letter...to herself and, ostensibly, to her own 'perseverance' in the face of adversity
Two years after leaving her chummy afternoon chat show, which ran on TV for 19 seasons, Ellen pretty much disappeared following reports that not only wasn't she the nice lady we all thought she was but that the workplace environment at "Ellen" was toxic. Live on-stage at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, DeGeneres tiptoes around the topic after a brief prologue where she appears to reflect on her career (but not verbally--it's just Ellen looking wistful and maybe vulnerable while headlines pass before us). After a few silly stories about her car and the joy of living with chickens, Ellen attempts to address her fall from grace in a humorous way (the adoring audience enjoys it). But, by belittling the accusations and shrugging off her detractors with sarcasm, Ellen comes off as tense and bitter. Looking more and more like Glenn Close with elfin ears, DeGeneres doesn't smile anymore: her down-turned mouth makes a smile into a hard-set grimace, while her eyes pop open as if she were caught stealing. Her patter can be amusing (Ellen hasn't lost her touch with a story or her rueful delivery); however, when she morphs into defense mode, the shield that comes up is unshakeable and a little frightening. Admitting she's demanding and impatient, Ellen ends with, "But I'm a strong woman"--and the audience gives her a 1mn standing ovation. Reportedly paid an exorbitant sum by Netflix, the victim stance DeGeneres perpetuates here doesn't hold much value for us. She says she "played tag" with her employees, dropped fake snakes from the ceiling during a meeting, played pranks--but does that make her a mean person? Ellen never intended to become "a boss", and she didn't feel like one despite her face and name being "the brand" ("That's like Ronald McDonald being CEO at McDonald's"). Yet one would think she would have more to say about "being kicked out of show business" than telling us, "I loved doing that show. It felt like family." Ellen wants our approval--and she gets it from this crowd--but she's apparently through with performing and wants to retreat home to her chickens. Happy trails.
Little Bites (2024)
Nothing wrong with the acting or production, but the script seems half-finished
Single mother shoos her kid away with grandma so she can deal with the bloodthirsty demon/vampire living in her downstairs storage room. Minor, independently-produced horror outing was something of a family affair: writer-director Spider One is also married to the lead, Krsy Fox, who doubled as the film's editor; both were producers on the film, along with executive producers Cher and her son, Chaz Bono, who has a supporting role. There's nothing at all wrong with the acting--which is quite solid--and the production doesn't feel slapdash; however, Spider One's script doesn't go in for a backstory, leaving itself open to unanswered questions and gaps of logic. This guy just wants to get to the finale, which has a comical twist--though, again, it doesn't make much sense. *1/2 from ****
The Buttercup Chain (1970)
Flashy and frisky
The son and daughter of twin sisters, born at the same time in the same hospital, grow up to become best friends; they help each other find romantic partners--however, they are the ones who share the intense relationship. Intriguing little drama from the UK, adapted from the novel by Janice Elliott and released in the US in 1971, examines the intricate feelings between couples rather shrewdly, though it has a very light, frisky beginning (the cousins pick up a Swedish boat rower, who is instantly smitten with the girl and does cartwheels for her in the nude!). Hywel Bennett, in a panama hat and neckerchiefs, continues to be an actor ill-suited to non-hysterical drama (his eyes say Crazy), but the rest of the cast--Jane Asher, Leigh Taylor-Young, Sven-Bertil Taube, and Clive Revill as an unloved millionaire--are quite good. Production and editing both flashy, while director Robert Ellis Miller (a nominee at Cannes for the Palme d'Or) keeps a brisk pace. **1/2 from ****
The Mafu Cage (1978)
The metaphor is obvious, so there's no suspense...
Despite two extraordinary acting talents--Lee Grant and Carol Kane--"The Mafu Cage" is a mess, a psychological thriller that isn't just dreadful but also ridiculous in a most obvious way. Astronomer in Los Angeles is unable to have her own life while saddled with her mentally-ill sister, a Bohemian shut-in who cares for/torments/kills a series of primates that occupy a cage in the house. One can clearly see the metaphor early on--that the astronomer is really the "mafu" prisoner in this scenario--and so there's no suspense in the slow build-up of the plot. Grant was likely attracted to this $1M art project due to its female director, Karen Arthur, and female producer, Diana Young, but she should have taken a better look at the haphazard script, adapted from Éric Wesphal's French play "You and the Clouds" by Don Chastain. "The Mafu Cage" is a drag--a distinctly uncommercial, unpleasant endeavor--but, worse than that, it's also a waste of these talents. NO STARS from ****
Flipside (2023)
"It's not hoarding if all your **** is awesome!"
Lured out to California from the East Coast by movie director Judd Apatow, documentary filmmaker and family man Chris Wilcha makes a bonus short film used for the DVD but soon finds follow-up work scarce. After "selling out" doing TV commercials, Wilcha returns to his first love, going back to the unfinished documentaries he once had a passion for, left by the wayside or abandoned by circumstance. One of his documentaries is about Flipside Records in New Jersey, a record shop packed with vinyl, where Wilcha worked years ago and today finds remarkably unchanged. This treatise on growing up and letting go of our youthful dreams and endeavors gets off to a rocky start (Wilcha begins with footage from a would-be documentary on jazz photographer Herman Leonard that doesn't help us get our bearings). However, what follows is quite poignant and beautiful, a paean to the past that may still have a future. We meet a lot of interesting people in the course of this little gem, including Wilcha's own father, an avid collector of hotel soaps and shampoos...but not a hoarder! Worth-finding. *** from ****
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)
It promises a sumptuous spread...
Written by Terence Rattigan, this British-produced comedy for MGM promises a sumptuous spread with its all-star cast, but the odd matching-up of talent works against it. Trio of stories begins with Lord Rex Harrison and Marchioness Jeanne Moreau having marital troubles--he discovers she's being unfaithful after buying her a yellow Rolls-Royce for their 10th anniversary (originally owned by the Marquess of Frinton, the titular vehicle already seems cursed!). Harrison and Moreau are actually well-suited to each other while portraying long-suffering marrieds, but the story's a big yawn. Better (but not by much) is the second episode featuring George C. Scott as an American gangster in Rome, traveling with assistant Art Carney and Scott's "moll", Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine becomes infatuated with tourist photographer Alain Delon, leading to heartbreak and a not-so-happy ending. It isn't much of a story--and the car is superfluous in this setting--but Shirley nearly saves it (meanwhile, Scott's strange makeup job causes him to resemble an actor out of an old horror movie). The third chapter provides the best and worst of the picture: traveling abroad in 1941, an entitled, self-absorbed American (Ingrid Bergman!) meets a Yugoslavian resistance fighter (Omar Sharif!), who hopes to rally his people against the invading Nazis (using her Rolls-Royce--and her erratic driving skills--to bring villagers out of hiding and into camp). This installment--beginning with Ingrid's yapping dog and a head-scratching cameo from Wally Cox--shouldn't work as well as it does, and the two leads are an unsuccessful romantic match, but it does have a satisfying dramatic arc. Bergman learns to think of others and take pride in her philanthropy, and here the Rolls is utilized brilliantly. A mixed-bag overall, the film is still interesting for movie star-watchers. Opening in the UK after Christmas in 1964, the picture didn't roll into US theaters until the following Spring. It garnered two 1966 Golden Globe nominations: for Riz Ortolani's assaultive score and for Best Original Song "Forget Domani", composed by Ortolani and Norman Newell (there was some confusion with this nomination, as some voters apparently thought the song's title was "The Yellow Rolls-Royce"). **1/2 from ****
Saturday Night (2024)
Padded chaos: impersonation-heavy, with an overload of name-dropping
Director Jason Reitman also co-wrote this stream-of-consciousness-styled look at the organized chaos behind the first episode of television's long-running hit "Saturday Night Live" in 1975. Egos, star behavior, rampant drug use, too many sketches and musicians, George Carlin suffering from cocaine-induced lockjaw, Jim Henson and his Muppets...all this plus network executives itching to pull the plug (NBC realized they could make more money from advertisers by simply re-running the Carson show). It's all highly suspect and impersonation-heavy--and padded, what with J. K. Simmons doing a visiting Milton Berle as if it were an Oscar turn--and yet there's enough manic energy in the presentation to make the film worthwhile for fans. Reitman ensures a moving, whizzing, tracking camera, and the actors are well-enough cast. But is there anything here we don't already know? Chevy Chase was in love with himself and did not get along with John Belushi, who was high on everything and harboring a Brando complex; Dan Aykroyd was eccentric and brilliant and on-guard; Garrett Morris wanted to assert himself as a black man; Gilda Radner was a buddy to both the women and the men; producer Lorne Michaels was practically unflappable and a real nice guy. The way everyone and everything is shuffled about, we don't get to know these personalities very well--and their interactions with Lorne and with each other is highly suspect, anyway. Is it that "Saturday Night" is comically ridiculous on-purpose or is Reitman really presenting this night as "the way it was". I didn't believe anything here as factual, but I don't think that's the point (it's an "entertainment"). Still, this kind of fanciful daring can be dangerous: in time, curious newcomers might just accept all this nonsense as nostalgic gospel. *1/2 from ****
The Neptune Factor (1973)
Calling Jules Verne!
Underwater Oceanlab, being used as a base for Marine scientists doing oceanographic research in the Atlantic, is ripped from its moorings during an earthquake. Rugged sea adventure from screenwriter Jack DeWitt, commendably attempting a complicated rescue story without all that trendy '70s-disaster hype, is ultimately too bland and square to work with matinee audiences hoping for big suspense. The picture isn't completely waterlogged--there's some fantasy and wonderment in the second-half--but it isn't the "Poseidon"-like adventure 20th Century-Fox was probably banking on (it's much more like "Fantastic Voyage" minus the "Fantastic"). Retitled "The Neptune Disaster" for TV, this "all-star cast"--Ben Gazzara, Yvette Mimieux, Walter Pidgeon and Ernest Borgnine--look mostly nonplussed. The miniatures employed are so childlike they're rather a hoot, but serious sci-fi fans will only scoff. *1/2 from ****
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
All work and no play makes Arthur Fleck a downtrodden man...
Co-writer and director Todd Phillips' follow-up to his 2019 hit presents the next logical step for Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck: he's been incarcerated for his crimes (five murders) at a rough Department of Corrections and is preparing to stand trial. There's no escape plan, no one is plotting to break Arthur out, and so DC Comics fans might be disappointed in Phillips' approach. There are problems: Fleck's mental competency is tested before his trial begins and it's an early dud scene; Arthur is so dreamily disconnected that the sequence doesn't come to mean much--he's declared fit to go to trial (incredibly) and we don't even see a flash of Joker. Arthur meets a young woman in the next ward who seems just as dazed as he does and they form a bond, but Arthur's lawyer tells him the truth about this girl, Harley Quinn: she's not a convicted arsonist as she claims, she's from a wealthy family (still living) and checked herself into Arkham State Hospital voluntarily. Phoenix has his first terrific scene quietly confronting "Lee" (Lady Gaga) over her intentions, but after some blithe answers she breaks into song. This is an example of what DC Comics fans won't like: the substitution of drama--and character content--with singing (usually classic pop songs, like The Carpenters' "Close to You", or showtunes). Quinn never quite emerges here as a fully-developed character, even though Gaga is good and her early scenes are promising. The song numbers are used as a fantasy release--and we need that--but they don't move us or amuse us while Phillips' plot is spinning around in a circle. Fleck's trial (televised, with the world watching) isolates the movie. The prison scenes have action and movement, but the courtroom set is pretty dull. When Fleck fires his attorney (Catherine Keener) and represents himself as Joker, there's a burst of excitement--but what happens? He cross-examines one witness, Mr. Puddles (Leigh Gill) and he rests his case. Phillips is saving his big surprise for the third act and, while it isn't the firecracker we're hoping for, at least it takes viewers outside where we can breathe. "Joker" has fine performances, it is structurally sound and takes place on "real" ground, but it has only snippets of pizzazz. **1/2 from ****
Joker (2019)
Just a whiff of satire in Scorsese-wannabe
Just out of a mental asylum and living with his mother in a seedy section of Gotham, rent-a-clown Arthur Fleck takes seven different medications a day for a neurological disorder and dreams of a life as a stand-up comedian. After being jumped by some kids on the street--and later on the subway by a pack of bullies--Arthur uses a gun loaned to him by a co-worker to fight back against our enraged, apathetic society...and just as quickly becomes a part of it. Fake-gritty, fake-thrilling character portrait leaves one feeling glumly anesthetized by its darkly theatrical pomp. There's a whiff of satire in the news coverage of Fleck's crimes--also with Robert De Niro as a Johnny Carson-like talk show host--but gaunt, drained Joaquin Phoenix is disappointing in the showy lead (a role that seems to bring out the inner-demon in every actor who plays it, only Phoenix's maniac highs ring mostly false). Another hit. Two Oscar wins: for Phoenix as Best Actor and for Hildur Guðnadóttir's original score. *1/2 from ****
The Man from Button Willow (1965)
Pleasant songs and familiar voices
Dale Robertson presents this modest animated western with songs from United Screen Arts about post-Civil War "land grabbers" in 1860s California buying up all the property cheap before the government can use it to connect the East-to-West railroad, including land wrestled from innocent Settlers. The government, having sent out a senator to investigate the dirty doings, hires a bucolic trouble-shooter (voiced by Robertson) to come to the rescue after the senator disappears. Potentially interesting idea from writer-director David Detiege (who allegedly had a great deal of uncredited help) is loaded down with 'cute' asides to hold the attention of matinee audiences, such as a newborn colt saved from a mountain lion by a dog and a skunk, also a Chinese orphan girl named Stormy (voiced by Barbara Jean Wong) who talks and prays in pidgin English. The songs (worked on by an uncredited Henry Mancini) are pleasant, as are the familiar voices of Verna Felton, Edgar Buchanan and Ross Martin; the plot, however, is never given much of a chance to emerge. *1/2 from ****