I grew up reading and loving the Arthurian Legends, and have mostly groaned at the cinematic adaptations of them. The sub-genre reached its zenith with 1981’s “Excalibur,” and hasn’t come anywhere close since. If John Boorman’s version was the pinnacle, then surely Guy Ritchie’s “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” represents rock bottom.
Some movies are confusing; others are simply confused. I doubt this seemingly random mash-up of King Arthur lore, martial arts chop-socky, steampunk criminal intrigue and New Age-y mysticism made much sense even to the people making the film.
Charlie Hunnan plays Arthur, reimagined here as a street urchin who grew up among thieves and has risen to be their lord. Just a little light extortion and prostitution, if you please. He watched his father, King Uther Pendragon, die at the hands of his evil uncle, Vortigern (Jude Law), and has evolved into a standard-issue Avoiding My Destiny protagonist, a la Simba from “The Lion King.”
Soon enough he pulls Excalibur from the stone, and assumes the leadership of the rebellion consisting of some Uther loyalists, the thieves’ guild, a wayward mage who can control animals and not much else, and the rest of the ragtag.
Meanwhile, Vortigern is building a magical tower that augments his own sorcery, which never really gets all that impressive. Behead that architect!
Ritchie’s whirling dervish directing style, which is the cinematic equivalent of attention deficit disorder, is known for jumping around in time and space with head-snapping velocity. It works in small doses with the right material -- see his 2015 “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” for a prime example.
But “Arthur” often seems like a random assembly of shots without any kind of cohesive aesthetic connecting them. We’ll see Arthur swinging his sword in battle, for instance, and then cut to a shot of the mage standing enchanted on a hill far away, a murder of CGI crows swirling about her in slo-mo.
It’s a great-looking movie, but the story, characters and tone are disconnected from each other, or anything that could be reasonably termed entertaining.
Video extras are decent. The DVD comes only with a single featurette, “Arthur with Swagger,” a profile of Hunnan’s take on the character.
Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition and you add seven more featurettes, focusing on Ritchie’s vision, sword training for the cast, creating a grimier Camelot, stunt choreography, behind-the-scenes relationships and the mythology behind Excalibur.
Political correctness is a sordid game I refuse to play. But even I admit I’m uncomfortable with a feature film about the 1967 Detroit riots with an almost entirely white creative team.
Director Kathryn Bigelow reteams with her “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker” screenwriter, Mark Boal, in a film that attempts to look at the watershed civic unrest from the perspective of African-Americans who suffered at the hands of brutal police tactics. While most of the cast is black, the movie struggles to get over a sense of existing more to soothe white guilt than chronicle a racist tragedy.
Indeed, the first words we see or hear refer to the 1967 riots, also known as the 12th Street riots, as “the Detroit Rebellion.” I don’t know any serious historian who would use that term, which refers to an organized uprising designed to topple the power hierarchy, either by replacing the exiting government or splitting off from it.
Somehow, I doubt even the people who took to the streets, throwing rocks and setting storefronts on fire, would have called their actions a rebellion. They were simply enraged at being continually abused and stepped upon, and reached a point where they didn’t want to take it anymore.
I admired the film but got stuck on the fact this wasn’t the movie I was expecting. This is not a comprehensive look at the root causes of the unrest, the tactics undertaken by authorities to quell the violence, or the aftermath suffered by a community that struggles to this day to overcome that dark moment in history.
Indeed, if any moment can be pinpointed as the tipping point of when the great modern divide in America began -- between cities and suburbs, whites and those of color, blue and red -- the ’67 riot is it.
Although Bigelow and Boal start their story in the streets, this is really the tale of the Algiers Motel incident. Largely forgotten now amidst the bigger backdrop of the riots, this was the case of Detroit police officers, state police and national guardsmen detaining a group of young black men and two 18-year-old white women after gunshots were heard from the annex of the motel, a party spot a few blocks away from the mayhem.
Over the course of several hours, the suspects -- who were never charged with anything -- were beaten, abused, assaulted. It became clear the white officers were angered by white girls dallying with black boys. Three black men were fatally shot, with trumped-up excuses after the fact to justify self-defense by the officers. It was, as depicted in the film, essentially torture.
Anthony Mackie plays one of the victims, a recently discharged Army soldier, and Hannah Murray plays the mouthy girl. Algee Smith is Larry, lead singer of an up-and-coming Motown group called The Dramatics, who gets caught up along with his manager (Jacob Latimore).
Baby-faced Will Poulter is the central villain as the police officer directing the interrogation; earlier in the day we watched him pump two shotgun blasts into the back of a looter carrying groceries. Jay Reynor and Ben O’Toole are his wing men, dim and deliberate, respectively.
John Beyega is more or less the central character as Mel Dismukes, an African-American man working as a private security officer protecting a nearby business. He continually inserts himself into situations, using his uniform and officious demeanor to stave off some of the worst law enforcement abuses of black folks.
The film unequivocally presents Dismukes as a hero, when in fact he was charged with abusing the Algiers suspects along with the three police. All were found not guilty (though not, as the movie condenses, in the same trial).
Exactly what happened in the motel remains sketchy even today, though the movie carelessly presents its own version with crisp black-and-white lines, knowing this is what will be etched into the public consciousness.
From a narrative and technical standpoint, “Detroit” is a very well-crafted film that strings the audience’s emotions along with an expert hand. What’s less clear is who this movie is about, or for.
A lot of people were very upset about "Ryan's Daughter" when it came out, though feelings toward the romantic epic have warmed considerably with time.
Director David Lean was so hurt by harsh criticism of the film -- including some from the people who worked on it -- that he vowed never to make another. (He would, but only one more, "A Passage to India," 14 years later.)
Robert Mitchum said working with Lean was "like constructing the Taj Mahal with toothpicks." Others had already declined the role, including Pete O’Toole, and Mitchum nearly did so too, telling Lean he was contemplating suicide as an alternative. (Later, he would call Lean one of the best directors he ever worked with.)
Leon McKern lost his glass eye and nearly drowned while braving the crashing waves for a scene, and grumbled about the stretches of downtime on Lean's famously long, meticulous shoots.
How obsessed was Lean with getting a shot just right? He reportedly waited for an entire year for a sufficiently violent storm to film one of the most memorable scenes, when an entire Irish village turns out to help Irish Republican Brotherhood rebels retrieve weapons that have been dropped from a German ship for them.
Probably the person with the best case for complaining, though, is co-star Christopher Jones, playing the physically and spiritually mangled British soldier who falls for the Irish schoolteacher’s wife. “Ryan’s Daughter” effectively marked the end of his acting career.
Jones was already struggling with the death of ex-lover Sharon Tate in the Manson murders, and he repeatedly clashed with Lean on the set. Jones and star Sarah Miles detested each other to the extent that Lean struggled to shoot their love scenes together.
After Jones refused to film the famous forest tryst, Mitchum and Miles conspired to lace his morning cereal with a hallucinogenic, possibly with Lean’s consent, rendering him virtually catatonic and pliable. (No "allegedly" qualifier necessary; Miles herself confessed the deed in her autobiography.) Unaware of the drugging, Jones thought he was having a nervous breakdown, and crashed his car afterward.
As the final insult, Lean thought Jones’ line readings were too flat, and had his entire vocal performance redubbed by Julian Holloway. Jones didn’t even find out until he saw the movie. The vicious reviews made a point of singling him out -- "An actor could hardly express less without playing a corpse," wrote Roger Ebert -- and Jones gave up acting at age 29, spending the rest of his life as an artist and beach bum.
(Not counting a brief 1986 role.)
The only person who came out of the experience relative well was Miles, who broke out of a parade of rather obscure screen and stage roles to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She was helped by a bit of nepotism in that her husband, Robert Bolt, wrote the screenplay and pitched it to Lean with Miles in mind for the lead.
Bolt originally wanted to do a film version of “Madame Bovary,” but acquiesced to Lean’s request to change the setting and story dynamics. He chose 1916 Ireland in the days of the Easter Uprising, in the remote fictional seaside village of Kirrary on the Dingle Peninsula, where the movie was shot. (Though some of the beach scenes were filmed in South Africa.)
The town set was razed at the end of the production, but the ruins of the schoolhouse remain to this day and are a stopping point for tourists.
As you expect from a Lean film, the cinematography by Freddie Young and a lush musical score by Maurice Jarre, both constant collaborators, combine to give us a sense of immense space, and the tiny human contretemps happening as one small part of that vast environment. Young would win an Oscar for his work, beating out “Patton,” amongst others.
Whatever else you want to say about “Ryan’s Daughter,” it is a ravishingly beautiful movie to gaze upon.
Rosy Ryan (Miles), daughter of the local publican/pub owner, Tom Ryan (McKern), pines for her former schoolteacher, Charles Shaughnessy (Mitchum), a middle-aged widower. He resists her overtures, citing their age difference and lack of compatibility. She's a frisky Irish pony, and he's a dour dabbler in botany, collecting gorgeous native flowers just so he can press them into books no one will ever see.
But they marry anyway, and she is soon bored by a quiet life of little passion.
The local priest, Father Hugh Collins (a terrific Trevor Howard), tries to offer her counsel and comfort, to no avail. He’s up to his ears every day trying to keep his little flock of a couple hundred or so from straying too far into sinfulness beyond a little excessive drinking and carousing. He also protects Michael (John Mills), the resident village halfwit, from the taunts and abuse of the poor, plain folk.
Evin Crowley stands out as Moureen Cassidy, the brazen young woman leading the motley Greek chorus.
There’s a tiny British military outpost nearby, just over the hill from the schoolhouse. Insults are tossed but there’s little threat of real violence. But when a new commander is installed, war hero Maj. Randolph Doryan (Jones), things quickly sour – especially after he’s found to be carrying on an affair with Rosy.
Doryan is a complete wreck, shell-shocked and despondent. He wears the Victoria Cross for some vague heroics, and drags his right leg like a totem of the wounds inside. He even has a vertical scar near the corner of his eye that makes him look like he’s weeping. He’s treated with a slight sense of awe, but the man has nothing but the tatters of his soul.
The coupling with Rosy is sudden, almost violent, and inexplicable. He has a flashback to his war experiences while sitting alone in Ryan's bar, where Rosy is tending while her dad's away. Cradling the crumpled man in her arms, they kiss fiercely, which revives him instantly. Without exchanging names, they agree to meet again to consummate their passion.
Things go from there. Charles suspects right away, but receives her assurance that she'd never betray him. They carry out the affair more or less in the open, meeting for horse rides and walks, then sneaking off to ruined towers, beach caves or that idyllic forest to have sex.
There's one memorable scene where Charles' suspicions are aroused while taking his students on a field trip along the beach, and he spies footprints that he surmises belong to Rosy and the major. (His scraping walk is the telltale heart.) Lean intercuts Charles' imaginings with the couple playing out his dark fantasy -- when Rosy's footprints turn barefoot, he beholds Doryan tenderly removing her shoes for her.
Eventually, the cuckold and his betrayers are merged onto the same screen; Charles even slides behind a rock to conceal his spying.
He tracks them to a cave, and we expect a violent scene of discovery will follow. Instead, Charles turns away from that forbidding knowledge.
Rather, it is Michael who unwittingly gives them away. Sneaking into the cave -- possibly with the same suspicions as Charles -- he discovers Doryan's Victoria Cross in the sand. He pins it to his own chest and parades about town in a military uniform he makes out of junk, and the villagers put two and two together.
Mills would win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Michael, in a
wordless performance of pantomime, yearning emotions and a mouthful of
horrid teeth. He is desperately in love with Rosy, something that is
apparent to everyone, though they try to pass off his pleading behavior
toward her as characteristic of his quirks. She, in turn, is alternately mean and
tender toward him, clearly embarrassed by the attention.
At
Rosy and Charles' wedding, all the men push through the crowd to give
the bride a kiss (on the cheek), but when Michael presents himself for
the honor, everyone bursts into laughter and Rosy is humiliated. He finally gets that kiss in
the end, though.
The role as written by Bolt seems
rather antiquated now, not to mention insensitive toward the
mentally and physically challenged. In addition to his simple-mindedness, Michael drags one leg around in a clear mirror of Doryan's. Both are wounded souls pierced by the arrows of outrageous fortune, who have little left to give. Their affection for Rosy is their one redeeming quality.
The storytelling moves along with the re-arrival of Barry Foster as Tim O'Leary, a famous Irish rebel who has decided to start a beach head of revolt on this quiet stretch of shore. He turns to Tom Ryan, the local publican -- a sort of small-town office dating back to medieval times -- for help in rounding up some good lads to help.
What nobody knows is that Ryan is secretly on the payroll of the British. You'd think somebody would be curious about his (relative) wealth in the poor fishing town, wearing smart suits and even buying an expensive mare for Rosy to ride. Faced with going turncoat against his people or being exposed by the English, he chooses to have it both ways -- with dire consequences for the village, and the tragic love triangle in particular.
Admittedly, there's not a lot of story for a film stretching past 3½ hours, including musical interludes at the beginning, middle and end. Much of the criticism of "Ryan's Daughter" upon its initial release focused on its indolent plotting. Ebert again: "Lean's characters, well written and well acted, are finally dwarfed by his excessive scale."
Some movies require the right moment and mood to be truly enjoyed. By today's standards, "Ryan's Daughter" is rather slow-paced and self-obsessed, stretching out shots that could be three seconds into 30.
But I just think that's part and parcel of the David Lean aesthetic. The man just didn't do small pictures. So even an intimate portrait of an Irish lass on the wrong side of love is churned up into a maelstrom of rent emotions and deeper meaning.
Whatever devastation it wrought on the lives of those who made it, it's a storm worth witnessing.
Three old guys hard up for cash and with an axe to grind turn to a life of crime -- or, at least an outing -- and in the process discover a sense of purpose that’s been missing.
Sound familiar? And not just because “Going in Style” is a remake of a 1979 film. It turns out movies about oldsters robbing banks and such are a veritable enterprise unto themselves.
There are zero surprises to be had with this dramedy caper starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin. We know how everything’s going to go, 1-2-3. Part 1: Grievances. Part 2: Planning the Heist. Part 3: Things Don’t Go Exactly as Planned, But Turn Out Fine.
The main reason to watch this film is the threesome of outstanding lead actors plus a nice supporting cast. They convey a sense of lived-in warmth and contrariness that you just can’t fake without four-fifths of a century of living, or thereabouts.
Freeman plays Willie, Arkin is Albert and Caine is Joe. All three are retirees from the same steel company that’s pulling up stakes and moving overseas, dissolving their pensions in the process. Turns out their bank is complicit in the move, so they feel no qualms about robbing the place.
They’re not greedy: They just want what they’re owed, and not a penny more.
John Ortiz plays a career criminal who hooks up with the boys and walks them through the paces. Matt Dillon plays the obtuse FBI agent leading the chase. Ann-Margret is the local seventysomething hottie who casts an amorous eye at Albert.
“Going in Style” isn’t a bad movie, just an unambitious one. With three great actors like this, you could just have them read random Tweets onscreen and it’d probably be equally entertaining.
Bonus features are rather modest in scope. The DVD version contains a feature-length commentary track by director Zach Braff. Upgrade to the Blu-ray combo pack, and you add a handful of deleted scenes.
Most people are aware of the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler by some German officers in the waning days of World War II. It's been chronicled many times, including "Valkyrie" starring Tom Cruise. But few, including myself, are familiar with the attempt to kill Hitler in 1939 by a solitary German man who saw the coming apocalypse and tried to head it off.
"13 Minutes" is a compelling drama that portrays the life and actions of Georg Esler, who set off a bomb in the Bürgerbräukeller, where Hitler and his Nazi mob initiated the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, and where the Fuhrer was scheduled to give an anniversary speech 16 years later. The explosion went exactly according to Esler's plans, bringing down the roof, killing eight and wounding dozens of others. But Hitler had wrapped up his speech and departed 13 minutes earlier than expected.
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel, who also directed the well-known "Downfall" portraying the final days of Hitler, and screenwriters Léonie-Claire Breinersdorfer and Fred Breinersdorfer take a big-picture view that goes far beyond the actual bombing and aftermath.
Well played by Christian Friede, Georg is depicted as an earnest, passionate artist who loved his country and his fiancee, Elsa (Katharina Schüttler). Using his interrogation and torture after the bombing as a framing device, we look back on his life from 1932 forward, as the Nazi regime gradually asserted its yoke even in his remote village.
We watch as the friendly barkeep adopts the uniform and demeanor of the brownshirts, and soon the entire town is awash in swastikas. Sweet young children taunt Jews, Christians and foreigners. As religious people, Georg and his family are tolerated but resented.
For a time Georg is content to look the other way, dealing with family issues -- his drunkard father is constantly in danger of losing the farm -- and his burgeoning romance to Elsa, who is married to an abusive lout (Rüdiger Klink). He works as a carpenter, plays the accordion at the local beer hall, and dallies with friends who are members of the Red Front communist party (though he himself never joins).
In the 1939 setting, Georg is subjected to all sorts of physical and emotional torture, including truth serums and hypnosis, in order to say that he was the pawn of collaborators or foreigners. He initially refuses to say a word, humming a pastoral tune in response to all their questions. But when the Nazis round him Georg's family and Elsa, with the clear threat that they will suffer the same fate as him, he finally relents and confesses.
The problem is, Hitler and his minions don't want to believe that a single man working in isolation could have come so close to killing him and dashing the fated triumph of the Third Reich. So the torture goes on, the interrogations continue, and his truth is dismissed as lies -- even after Georg draws detailed sketches of his plans and the triggering device he built from scratch.
Burghart Klaußner plays Arthur Nebe, the police chief charged with conducting the investigation. He's a true believer and wants to do his duty, but is hounded by Heinrich Müller (Johann von Bülow), the infamous Gestapo chief, to make the truth their superiors want.
Illuminating a little-known piece of history, "13 Minutes" shows us the humanity behind the figures in our history books.
Look, I see a daggone lot of movies -- 200 a year, I reckon --
so it’s pretty hard to impress me. I’m the guy who yawns at a 20-second piece
of CGI that cost $5 million and took a team of computer animators six months to
create. But there were parts of “Atomic Blonde” where I had to scoop my jaw off
the sticky floor of the theater.
Essentially the first imitator in the “John Wick” mold, this
spy action/thriller combines unbelievable kick-butt stunt sequences with a
whole lot of intrigue and double crosses. Charlize Theron plays Lorraine
Broughton, a British MI6 agent sent into the rat’s nest of Berlin on the eve of
the Wall coming down in 1989.
The plot is a largely forgettable dance through the usual
spy movie tropes: enemies, allies, those lying somewhere in between, all sides
playing the long game of leverage, with the threat of a double agent and a
MacGuffin-esque “list” that could bring the whole order tumbling down.
What sets “Blonde” apart are the in-your-face stunts.
Director David Leitch is a rookie behind the camera but a veteran stunt
coordinator -- much the same as "Wick" -- and he shows an audacious verve that kicks the usual hand-to-hand
combat scenes to the next level.
The high point is a sequence on a flight of stairs that
segues from one group of opponents to the next, with the camera following
Broughton every step of the way. She gets thrown down a flight, the camera
tumbles right along with her. And Leitch uses minimal cutting, so we get to see
the whole thing play out from beginning to end, as the combatants grow battered
and exhausted.
Theron proves an able physical presence, completely
believable as someone who could take on her all-male gallery of adversaries.
She also brings subtle acting chops to the connective scenes, lending Broughton
a haunted quality -- a deceiver and killer who flings herself into the life
she’s chosen, but doesn’t enjoy it.
James McAvoy plays David Percival, a fellow Brit agent who
acts as her sneering host, helper and foil. He’s been stationed in East Berlin for a
decade, carving out an identity as a black market dealer in Western goods and
information. Percival knows everyone, has all the angles covered, is familiar with
the back ways and hidden passages. What’s unclear is where his true loyalties
lie.
Based on the graphic novel, “The Coldest City” by Antony
Johnston and Sam Hart, the screenplay by Kurt Johnstad (“300”) is long on too-cool mood
and punk imagery. What people say isn’t nearly as important as how and why they
are saying it.
It seems a Soviet intelligence agent code-named Spyglass
(Eddie Marsan) is ready to defect, and is dangling a list that contains the
identities of every known spy of every nationality. Everyone is desperate to
get their hands on it, so the orders are “trust no one.”
Sofia Boutella plays a mysterious French woman tagging along
everywhere, whose importance will grow. Roland Møller is Bremovych, the local
Russian chief, who has hands in every pot. Bill Skarsgård plays a helpful young
proto-computer geek, and Daniel Bernhardt is memorable as a local tough who
goes toe-to-toe with our heroine in a couple of brutal blond vs. blonde matchups.
The film is told through the framing device of a debriefing
interview back in West Berlin, where Broughton has turned up beaten to a pulp,
her mission failed. Toby Jones and John Goodman play English and American
spooks, respectively, giving her the business and trying to interrogate some
straight answers out of her.
Theron works the poker face, letting her mask slip
but once.
Sexy, smart and seriously high-energy, “Atomic Blonde” is
like James Bond mixed up with steampunk fantasy and a heavy dollop of feminism.
John Wick, meet your match.
A few years back writer/director David Lowery made the expressive, offbeat “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara as a star-crossed couple whose story is pulled along more by imagery and music than a conventional narrative.
Now the trio has reteamed for another film that pushes the boundaries of the cinematic experience even further, and with keener effect.
“A Ghost Story” may sound superficially like “Ghost,” in which Patrick Swayze famously played a dead man whose spirit lingered long enough to watch over his beloved. Similarly, the Affleck character (nobody’s ever named) stays in his old house after his death, watching his girlfriend (Mara) as she mourns and, eventually, moves on.
Thematically, though, the films couldn’t be wider apart.
Affleck is represented entirely in his afterlife like a cheap Halloween ghost: literally, just a voluminous white sheet with two ragged eyeholes cut out. At first off-putting or even slightly comic, the look soon becomes a totemic representation for a soul who has always been wandering, even as it refuses to leave its chosen domain.
The ghost mostly just stands around, observing the doings of the living with an air of pained regret. It also walks about seemingly normally -- people amble by unawares, rather than passing through an immaterial figure.
For him, time flows with great irregularity, a turn of the head resulting in days or even weeks passing in the living world. We get the sense of a guest stranded in a vast museum, who becomes enraptured with small details and doesn’t notice when the doors open and close.
We see glimpses of their life before, as she urges them to move out of their decaying rural home to someplace nicer in the city, but he resists with a form of passive obstinacy. Later, the ghost has further encounters with others, about which I’ll say no more, other than these do not conform to a strict temporal progression.
Shot mostly in a single derelict house for a reported budget of $100,000 -- or about how much they spend on one week’s worth of catering on a superhero flick -- “A Ghost Story” is an indescribably eerie, affecting experience.
It is very deliberately paced, with Lowery holding his camera for long unmoving takes and unspoken pauses. For instance, there is one scene that goes for probably five minutes, consisting entirely of Mara wolfing down a giant pie.
And yet, rather than becoming boring, time flew. I was astonished when the closing credits came up; I had assumed we were only 30 or 40 minutes into the movie.
Once again Lowery teams up with musical composer Daniel Hart, whose blend of melodies and atonal sounds adds immeasurably to the moody mixture. There are portions of the score that sound like just random clangs and effects, other parts with the grand air of church music, and even an eerie art-pop song sung by Affleck’s character, a musician in life.
It’s hard to judge Affleck’s performance using a traditional ruler -- after all, some might say, all he does is literally stand around with a sheet over his head. Mara and other actors -- notably Sonia Acevedo and Will Oldham -- project an unfailing naturalistic quality; we never catch them performing for the camera.
I’m quite sure “A Ghost Story” is not everyone’s bag. Many will find it dull or maybe self-indulgent. But for those with patience and curiosity, here is a truly audacious take on the hereafter that makes us desperately cling to the now.
