I enjoyed “Mission: Impossible -- Fallout,” as I’ve liked all the movies starring Tom Cruise as international superspy Ethan Hunt. The franchise has been going for 22 years now if you can believe it, though only six films total. It seems like anytime talk of “Is Tom Cruise’s star starting to fade?” pops up, he quickly runs back for another MI megahit.
“Fallout” is essentially a retread of the last one, again featuring the same villain: Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), a terrorist who wants world peace but thinks it can only be achieved by mass destruction and death. Ethan put him in jail in the last movie, but he manages to break out and start mayhem anew.
The new wrinkle is the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), a famous philanthropist by day who is assisting Lane on the sly. There’s a suggestion of an attraction between Ethan and her, though I get the sense any coupling would be of the praying mantis variety. (Google it.)
The various sidekicks are back: Ving Rhames as Luther, munitions man extraordinaire; Simon Pegg as Benji, sort of a nerdy Q knockoff; Angela Bassett and Alec Baldwin as Washington politicians tut-tutting Ethan’s methods; and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, a British agent who’s been both an ally and nuisance over the years.
Henry Cavill plays a new ally-slash-competitor, CIA wetboy Walker. He and Ethan have a memorable two-against-one fight in a men’s bathroom against a little dude who’s more than a match for them. Of course, their own confrontation is telegraphed so much it feels inevitable.
“Mission: Impossible -- Fallout” is a perfect example of a popcorn movie. It tastes good going down, but it’s empty calories you soon forget.
Bonus features are quite good. These include three separate commentary tracks: one with director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise, another with McQuarrie and editor Eddie Hamilton, and the third with composer Lorne Balfe.
There’s also an expansive making-of documentary, deleted scenes with optional commentary, a musical breakdown of a key foot chase, storyboards and an isolated musical track score.
Maria Callas may have been the most photographed and filmed woman of her day, or any. It’s difficult for a normal person to think what it’s like to have almost your every daily movement tracked and recorded for posterity, often to be consumed by a public with an insatiable appetite for it. I think most of us would wilt in such a glare.
Luckily, one benefit of such a life lived is that it provides an abundance of material to document it, which is why “Maria by Callas” is an atypical and often compelling documentary film.
Rather than have a bunch of people talking about the opera diva’s legacy as an artist, director Tom Volf tells Callas’ tale in exactly her own words. The two-hour movie consists entirely of interviews with her, footage of her performances or public appearances, and deeply personal letters to friends read by (speaking voice) sound-alike Joyce DiDonato.
I confess I am not an opera aficionado; I don’t care for the way it bends the human voice into unnatural reverberations, and as a storytelling vehicle it feels very static and contrived. One of its chief obstacles as a popular art is that you’re looked down upon for not liking it.
But “Maria by Callas” focuses more on the woman than the artist. This is suggested by the title, as well as one of the earliest interviews shown, in which she talks about the dichotomy of living as the singer, Callas, and as a simple, shy woman, Maria. Savaged in the press for her tempestuous relationship with composers and maestros, as well as her often chaotic love life, Callas was loved and hated on an immense international scale.
She comes across in the film as self-involved, extremely intelligent, confident in her professional choices and retiring in her personal life. Decades before women were instructed they could “have it all,” she talks with open regret about the impossibility of having both a family, which she regarded as a woman’s highest calling, and enjoying the kind of career she did.
The documentary tracks her early life, born and raised in Brooklyn to Greek immigrants until they decided to move back to their homeland when she was a teenager, and being pressed into a musical career by her mother at age 13.
Curiously, the film offers nothing about her courtship and wedding to the much-older Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who she says traded on her celebrity. There is quite a bit, though, about her long-running romance with Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis, which began as a friendship, then turned into an affair, then bounced back and forth between for the rest of their lives.
She was taken aback when Onassis suddenly married Jackie Kennedy in 1968 --- something Callas says she learned about by reading the newspapers. One letter written to him shortly before the betrayal is heartbreaking in the almost pathetic way she offers herself to him.
There are also several long performances from various parts of her career, which Volf feels compelled to relate in their entirety. I couldn’t tell you how wonderful a singer Callas was, though some dub her the greatest songstress of the 20th century, while others have called her sound “ugly” and “arid.”
I was more interested in her acting than her singing. While performing, Callas often clutched her hands to her chest, almost as if trying to protect herself while forcing the air out of her lungs. With her large, expressive eyes, bold protruding nose and wide mouth, Callas was not a classical beauty. But her presentation, like her voice, was so arresting because she did not seem to resemble any other person.
Maria Callas was, in a word, unique. While this documentary skims over some portions of her life and career that I would’ve found interesting -- such as how her dramatic early weight loss may have contributed to her vocal decline -- it’s still a fascinating film. The art may not inspire me, but this portrait of the artist does.
“Searching” shows that even with new tools, good storytelling still follows some very old rules.
This mystery-thriller stars John Cho as a dad searching for his missing daughter by following her digital trail on social media, email and chats. The entire movie plays out on computer screens, as David Kim types and clicks is way through a byzantine trail of clues.
It may not sound like you could watch an entire movie this way, but it’s surprisingly effective. Director Aneesh Chaganty and co-screenwriter Sev Ohanian keep things moving along at a brisk pace, keeping the audience guessing.
David and his daughter, Margot (Michelle La), lost their wife and mother a couple of years ago, and haven’t really processed their own relationship going forward. They both keep busy, and she’s going off to college next year, and they’re fumbling their way through.
One day Margot doesn’t return her texts or phone calls. A study group trip turns out to be bogus, so David grows worried and calls in the cops. Rather than being dismissive, they’re right on top of the case. Soon it becomes a media sensation, which only adds to the pressure.
What David learns from his searching is that Margot is very different from the person he thought he knew. She’s rather lonely and estranged from her fellow students. No one’s bullying her; it’s just that in this age of Instagram and Facebook, it’s easy to present a picture of a happy life without actually living it.
“Searching” is an engaging look at the search for not just a person, but the truth behind the façade.
Video extras are pretty good. They include a feature-length commentary track by Chaganty and Ohanian, plus three documentary shorts: “Changing The Language Of Cinema,” “Update Username: Cast and Characters” and “Searching For Easter Eggs.”
“The Front Runner” is an unflattering portrait of American politics, but even more so of the media.
Based on a book by political journalist Matt Bai, who also co-wrote this screenplay, it examines the moment when tabloid and mainstream news intersected, merged and never really looked back. This was Gary Hart’s 1987 campaign for the presidency, when the U.S. senator from Colorado was seen as the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, only to have it all unwind in less than month when his serial philandering was reported.
For decades, Washington politicians held the journalists who covered them to a gentlemen’s agreement: look the other way when young ladies are seen going in and out of our doors, and we will give the access you need to do your jobs. It was a nearly all-male environment, both in the corridors of power and the newsrooms charged with checking them -- so the Faustian bargain was accepted.
Consider that just two years before Hart’s implosion, Teddy Kennedy was witnessed assaulting a waitress along with his protégé, Chris Dodd. It went unreported for five years, and only then in a chuckling passage in a men’s magazine.
That was the mentality held by Hart, a wonky and charismatic politician played by Hugh Jackman. Hart is a man of big ideas and enthusiasm for the future who was laid low by clinging to the unsavory practices of the past. He is annoyed, then outraged, that his philandering is not swept under the rug as it always has been.
“This is beneath you,” he seethes at a young Washington Post reporter (Mamoudou Athie) who dares bring up rumors of his affairs. “Follow me around, put a tail on me. You'll be very bored.”
This line has entered the lore of politics, but like a lot of legends it’s mostly fiction. Hart did not challenge journalists to follow him and then openly dally with bimbos. Reporters from the Miami Herald, acting on a tip from a friend of one of Hart’s conquests, staked out his D.C. townhouse and witnessed model/pharmaceutical saleswoman Donna Rice (Sara Paxton) going in and out. They only heard about the “follow me” line after the fact.
(It should also be noted that the Herald reporters, played by Steve Zissis and Bill Burr, did not “hide behind bushes” as Hart contended, which also became part of the erroneous mythology.)
Directed by Jason Reitman, who co-wrote the script with Bai and Jay Carson, “The Front Runner” is an ambitious, contemplative movie that asks hard questions without offering easy answers.
Was it unseemly for reporters to lurk around during Hart’s downtime to see who he dallied with? Should they have looked the other way, as had been practice? Was it fair for Hart’s talents and ambition to be the price our nation paid for demanding more of our politicians?
One female journalist gives a poignant speech pointing out that Hart, for all his blessings, was still just another man willing to employ his power to use and dispose of women who cater to his whims. There’s also a nice sequence where one of Hart’s campaign workers (Molly Ephraim) is charged with “handling” Rice as the story explodes, knowing she is about to be fed to the wolves.
The film reminded me a lot of early Robert Altman movies, with large casts of characters moving in and out of the frame as the camera slides past, their conversations overlapping and receding. It lends a sense of documentary-like authenticity.
There’s too many supporting actors to mention, although Vera Farmiga and J. K. Simmons stand out as, respectively, Hart’s wife, Lee, who is willing to overlook his dalliances until they become an embarrassment her, and the campaign manager who has spent years building a political machine only to watch it turn to ash virtually overnight.
Thirty years later, Hart’s fall seems almost quaint now in this day of presidential porn star mistresses, handsy politicians of all stripes and a media that has grown both quantifiably smaller and more meager in its ambitions.
Making do with the errors of the past is bad, but sometimes in reaching for something better we degrade ourselves. “The Front Runner” is the cautionary tale of our collective rise and fall.
“Ralph Breaks the Internet” has more brains than heart. The filmmakers seem to have thought very carefully through the implications of taking throwback arcade game villain (now reformed) Wreck-It Ralph and shooting him into the wild world of the Internet.
It’s represented as a vast, science fiction-y cityscape where every major Internet player has their own building hub -- Google, eBay, SnapChat, etc. People are represented by little blocky icons as they steer through the landscape. Those annoying pop-up ads are street barkers holding up signs imploring folks to click. Likes are hearts, which can translate into actual money. And so on.
(There’s no hint of a sleazier neighborhood, fleshy pursuits taking up an astonishing portion of the real digital domain. But hey, it’s a Disney animated flick.)
I wish the movie had given as much care to its emotional navigation. If the message of “Wreck-It Ralph” was to not put people in the little boxes society assigns them, then the sequel is a mushier muddle about setting someone free if you really love them, or something.
The story picks up six years later, the same amount of time that’s passed between movies. Ralph (John C. Reilly) and pint-sized racer Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) are still fast friends, spending virtually all their downtime when their arcade is closed sloshing root beers and having adventures in various other games. During the daytime they go to “work,” aka starring as characters in their own games.
In the last movie, Vanellope’s game, “Sugar Rush,” was the hot new thing, but time saps everyone’s glow. Vanellope is getting a little tired of winning all the time on the same old tracks. She’s craving the “not knowing what comes next feeling,” while Ralph is content with the same-old, same-old.
When the steering wheel on her game snaps off, the kindly old arcade owner doesn’t have the cash to buy a new one off eBay. So Ralph and Vanellope take a ride on the wifi he recently installed.
Finding out they need money to buy the wheel, they at first stumble upon the idea of acquiring rare items in online games to sell. They invade a post-apocalyptic game called Death Race, and encounter Shank (Gal Gadot), the smooth leader of a road gang whose car they’re supposed to steal. That doesn’t work out, but leads to the idea of making goofy videos starring Ralph to splash all over a YouTube clone with their head algorithm, Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), lending advice.
Things go from there. The movie hits a torpor around the middle, though it picks up soon enough.
By far the most interesting stuff is when Disney pokes fun at itself, represented as a chaotic mishmash of its classic cartoons and IPs it’s acquired in recent years: the Muppets, Marvel Comics, Star Wars. It’s the sort of thing you’ll want to freeze-frame when it comes out on video so you can catch all the Easter Eggs and inside jokes.
This leads to Vanellope, who’s at least nominally a princess, landing in the quarters of all the Disney princesses -- Snow White, Moana, Rapunzel, Belle, you name it, they’re here. Together they share a freewheeling moment where they trade their stiff gowns for comfy sweats and talk about the foibles of their trade.
There’s the downside, like being expected to wait for a strong man to solve all their problems, but also the bliss of finding your perfect dream song.
They actually bring back most of the original voice actresses to reprise their roles. I loved the self-poking fun of even the other princesses being unable to comprehend the thick Scottish brogue of Merida from “Brave.”
The last act gets very action-oriented and super hero-y, which the kiddies will love but I found a little rote. Still, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a fun sequel with lots of color and spectacle. It doesn’t quite pass the test of “Did this movie need to exist?” But I don’t mind having it around.
Tony Vallelonga, aka Tony Lip, stumbles out of bed to find his Bronx apartment filled with friends and relatives -- all men. It’s been another hard night working at the Copacabana, another face split open by his fists. It’s what he does. His people are there because a couple of plumbers are working in the kitchen while he was sleeping, and they are black.
How could you leave my sister alone with those “eggplants,” demands his brother-in-law (Sebastian Maniscalco). His father refers to the men (in Italian) as “sacks of coal.” After Tony spies his wife (Linda Cardellini) giving the plumbers lemonade, he quietly slips the offending glasses into the trash.
This is the opening for “Green Book,” one of the finest films of 2018. It’s about two very different men who forge an unexpected bond while traveling in the Deep South in 1962. It’s a historical tale that has an urgent relevancy to our very divided times.
Few films move me to real tears; this one did, and not just once.
The Copa is closing down for a couple months for renovations, and Tony needs a paycheck. The slicked-back-hair types can always find work for him; Tony has a talent for the rough stuff but doesn’t relish it. Another prospect presents itself: chauffeur a doctor around for eight weeks.
It turns out this is Dr. Don Shirley, a famous pianist (and owner of several doctorates) who is about to embark on a private concert tour in the Midwest and South. He is everything Tony is not: black, educated, literate, well-dressed, finely mannered, aloof. Shirley is put off by Tony’s Guido manners, but knows that when the tour turns left into lands of overt segregation, he will need not just a driver but a bodyguard.
The physical divide between the lead actors is striking. As Shirley, Mahershali Ali seems to have grown taller and leaner from when he won an Oscar for “Moonlight.” His Don Shirley is a man of very refined tastes. He plays only Steinway grand pianos and drinks nothing but Cutty Sark. Riding in the back of a brand-new turquoise Cadillac Sedan De Ville, he places a fine cloth over his legs, as if creating a barrier from the ordinary.
Vigo Mortensen’s Tony Lip has simple but voracious appetites. He is seemingly perpetually eating, stuffing his hole with sandwiches, steaks, burgers, whatever he can get. I’d guess Mortensen packed 40 pounds on for this role. Affecting a stumblebum patois, he seeds his speech liberally with “deese and dose,” along with plenty of epithets.
They cruise around the country, sharing extended conversations that gradually move from boss/worker to adversaries to something like an alliance. Tony isn’t hateful, but grew up with racism seeped into his skin. Shirley is a more complex character, proud of his blackness but aware of his estrangement from regular folks with his skin color.
Shirley sits atop a throne of his own making, but as he tells Tony, a high castle can be a lonely place.
Food and music are the fuel that drives their journey. Tony is astounded to learn that Shirley has never tasted fried chicken, and promptly pulls over in Kentucky for a bucketful. He’s also amazed that Shirley is unaware of celebrated black pop singers of the day like Aretha Franklin, Chubby Checkers or Little Richard. In a fit of hyperbole, Tony declares himself more authentically black than his passenger.
Shirley’s band, the Don Shirley Trio, plays intricate jazz with a deep overlay of classical music that belies his training. He’d prefer to play Chopin, but the record label doesn’t think that would sell. Shirley goes along, both for the sake of his own ambitions and for ulterior motives, which prompted this tour of swanky rich folk’s homes and country clubs.
As they turn south, their fortunes follow. There are expected run-ins with police and rednecks, but also the subtler kind where well-heeled types invite Shirley into their mansions but won’t let him use the bathroom. He’s a man of massive resolve and dignity, but there are limits.
At first Tony helps Shirley because it’s his job; he will not receive the back end of his contract if they miss any performance dates. But later, he stops seeing Shirley as an “other” but one of his own, to be backed up and stuck to.
People will no doubt be surprised to learn “Green Book” is directed by Peter Farrelly, best known for the “Dumb and Dumber” flicks. He co-wrote the script with Brian Hayes Currie and Nick Vallelonga, Tony’s son. The title comes from real publications of the day that instructed black travelers on safe places in the South where they could eat or sleep.
I kept waiting for the film to stumble or a strike a false note, but it never does. As the men face adversity together, their natural enmity falls away. It’s a simple tale, personal yet timeless. With so much in the world beating us down every day, I savored being uplifted.
"Well, you ain't much. But you're a helluva lot better than nothin'." --John Lawler
I'm not sure if "Molly and Lawless John" fits in with the so-called "Acid Western" genre that I've only recently stumbled across. I'm starting to get the sense that it's a very loosely defined collection of films that spanned only a handful of years. It seems more like an idea that was only retroactively applied to a very disparate sort of cowboy pictures.
The late, great Pauline Kael coined the term in her 1971 review of "El Topo," which I think may be the only movie everyone can say without reservation deserves that label. Maybe also Jim Jarmusch's much-later "Dead Man" -- a film that receives the highest critical censure I have to offer: "unwatchable."
"Molly" is interesting for a few reasons. First, it features Sam Elliott in one of his earliest starring roles. Like Spencer Tracy and a handful of other fine actors akin to himself, Elliott seems like he was born middle-aged, his mien gaining more and more character as it assumed an increasingly craggy appearance.
But here he is, still in his 20s, smooth-faced and lacking his iconic mustache (aside from a beard his character grows midway through the story, which I suspect was a face merkin).
How powerful is the imagery of Elliott's upper lip hairs? Do a search
for photos related to this movie and you'll find that the film has been
reissued on video a number of times with DVD covers and posters that
depict an older, bountifully mustachioed Elliott. One of them is so recent, the actor must've been at least 60 at the time.
John Lawler is actually referred to as "just a boy" by the main character, Molly, a forlorn sheriff's wife edging up against motherless middle age played by Vera Miles. The setup is that he's captured after robbing a bank, killing several men in the process, and her husband, Marvin Parker (John Anderson), puts him in his jail until the judge can arrive to authorize the stringing up.
Molly, like a lot of sheriff's wives in the movies, has an unofficial capacity as cleaner of the jail and feeder of the prisoners. She loiters in these errands, clearly intrigued by the rangy cowpoke making eyes at her, and they steal a few quick conversations.
She then arranges to send off the tired deputy on guard duty so they can have a few hours alone together, and John sweet-talks her mercilessly, saying she favors his mother with her long brown hair, and he regrets that he'll swing from a rope without getting to see her have the child she so desperately wants -- and that he could help her have, unlike that crusty old sheriff.
She doesn't take much convincing to bust him out, and off they ride together, dodging posses and having adventures. It's soon quite clear that John's affections for her extended only so far as her ability to get him out of certain death. He even tells her so, quite explicitly, that he lied to her to save her neck.
Yet Molly retains a grim, doomed hope that the bandit will turn out to be the man of her dreams she thought the sheriff would be. He even ditches her on several occasions, only to return. In one sequence he leaves her stranded alone in the desert, and when his horses appears over the dune a few days later, the gullible, parched woman even smiles at him.
Just as our pity for Molly has started to curdle toward distaste, she starts to show some backbone. When an American Indian squaw with a newborn babe stumbles upon them and promptly dies, Molly latches onto the infant with ferocious, if passive determination. It's immediately evident that she views this as her last, best opportunity for motherhood.
She names him "Little John" and makes it clear she wants big John to act like a father to him. He seems ready to put the boy on a spit and roast him, though he does (albeit briefly) show him some tenderness, when Molly has to go into town to pick up supplies and run an errand on his behalf.
It turns out this chore is the breaking point. Molly is to seek out Dolly (Cynthia Myers), a whore that he traffics with whenever he passes her way. In Dolly Molly sees the same neediness and dependence that has come to define her own interaction with him. John actually makes Molly and the baby sit on the stoop outside their hideout shack while and he and Dolly have extended, celebratory sex.
The next time John's fickle moods bend southward, Molly has finally toughened up enough to take a genuine stand in the sand. "I loved you..." are her parting -- and for him, final -- words.
This was the first feature film for director Gary Nelson, a television veteran who would go on to helm some notable pictures including "Freaky Friday" and "The Black Hole." The version I saw (via Amazon streaming) had apparently been cropped on the sides to play on TV, resulting in a nearly square image that I'm sure left off some important panoramic vistas. "Molly" has a spare, cinema verite sort of beauty.
The screenplay, the only one by erstwhile actor Terry Kingsley-Smith, has a great premise but doesn't really flesh out the characters enough. John in particular remains largely an enigma, his actions swinging this way and that along with his regard for Molly. He's a user, only caring for people as far as they can do for him. But Elliott's face shows several flashes where it seems like he's tempted by her stubborn goodness -- particularly the way she always seems to have faith in his ability to change, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I'm not sure if they're intentional, but there are some tinges of proto-feminist themes in this movie. Molly remains the clear central character throughout, and John is the external force that plows into her life and shakes things up. Starting out as a passive wallflower who wants only to be a mommy, by the end she's a seasoned veteran of the open range, her hair shorn, her face sun-blasted and her demeanor abrupt and commanding.
Miles had a long and distinguished career, doubtlessly best known for playing the snooping sister in "Psycho" -- a role she reprised in the regrettable sequel nearly a quarter-century later.
She was hardly a stranger to Westerns, playing a key role in "The Searchers." After this film she made two other family-themed Westerns in quick succession, "One Little Indian" and pairing with James Garner in "The Castaway Cowboy." She largely returned to her roots in TV after that, remaining active into the 1990s. (And, at nearly 90, she's still with us.)
"Molly and Lawless John" isn't a great movie or even a particularly good one, but it's an interesting time capsule of how the most venerable of film genres was aging after the apex of the counter-culture. It may not be acid, but it's a strange trip.
