Review: "Cruella"

“Cruella” is not the movie I was expecting them to make.

I’ve wavered on Disney’s recent obsession with turning its iconic animated titles into live action films. “Cinderella” was perfectly wonderful, “Dumbo” was a horrid embarrassment, and most of the rest have been somewhere in the middle like “The Lion King” -- technically accomplished but artistically unnecessary.

So for “101 Dalmatians,” I was expecting them to crank out another iteration of the live-action version featuring Glenn Close 25 years ago, putting iconic villainess Cruella de Vil in the driver’s seat in a family-friendly romp. Emma Stone seemed a strange casting choice, as Cruella is definitively a well-etched harridan, and Stone is barely past the ingénue stage.

“Cruella” is deeper, darker and more ambitious than I could’ve hoped. I should have expected nothing less from director Craig Gillespie, known for odd and offbeat fare like “Lars and the Real Girl” and “I, Tonya.”

It’s rated PG-13 and is an edgy origin story in which Dalmatians barely show up -- and only then as furry antagonists. That’s right, Cruella is recast as a misunderstood antiheroine who’s not trying to turn spotted puppies into a fur coat but is someone who’s been victimized and traumatized and learns to lash out.

It’s also an exquisitely striking movie filled with vibrant colors and fabulous clothes. You can already go ahead and bank on costume designer Jenny Beavan getting an Oscar nomination for all the fabulous, ostentatious gowns and get-ups Stone and the rest of the cast get to wear.

I was also impressed with the originality of the backstory (screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara). Here she is Estella, an orphaned moppet born with shocking black-and-white hair raised by a kindly British mum (Emily Beecham) who instructs her to bury her nastier instincts, even when she’s picked on by prigs at her posh school. (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland plays the role as a child.)

In this version, “Cruella” is the name they come up with for her evil-leaning alter ego. But Estella learns to push down these characteristics, both figuratively and literally, dying her bi-color hair red and hiding behind owlish glasses. After her mother’s shocking death, she grows up as a petty thief with fellow orphans Jasper and Horace (Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser), though she aspires to be a fashion designer.

She gets a job at the snooty Liberty of London store but is consigned to cleaning lady. A drunken sabotage of a display window lands her a position with the Baroness (Emma Thompson), the queen of Brit fashion, who takes her under her wing and teaches Estella the finer points of being a sneering, hateful overlord.

The Emmas, Stone and Thompson, are a delicious pairing, a battle of haughty English accents and upturned noses. The comparison to Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” seems obvious, and welcome. Though in this case, Estella looks upon her tormentor as someone to be emulated and defeated rather than serve as cautionary tale.

Estella revives her Cruella persona as the public challenger to the Baroness’ tight grip on the fashion world, using her criminal team -- the two boys plus two little dogs, including one in an eye patch -- to pull off a series of attention-grabbing stunts that double as crimes and put-downs. With a story set in the 1970s, there’s a bittersweet feminism subtext at play about extraordinary women who must command fear because they aren’t allowed to earn respect.

“Aren’t they gorgeous and vicious? It’s my favorite combination,” Baroness says of her trio of guard Dalmatians.

John McCrea turns up as Artie, a gender-fluid vintage clothing store owner who becomes a friend and ally; Mark Strong as John, the Baroness’ right-hand man and the only person allowed to talk back to her; Andrew Leung as a more toadying flunky, perpetually astonished or horrified; and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as a childhood friend turned fashion journalist.

Rather than fall back on formula, “Cruella” uses its animated and live action predecessors as a mere launch pad for something different and -- dare I say about a remake of an old cartoon? -- dazzlingly original.

  

Review: "In the Earth"

 

"In the Earth" reminds me of old 1970s-era horror films like "The Wicker Man" or "Soylent Green" -- loopy, sensuous, a bit satirical, a tad psychedelic, more unnerving than blood-soaked gorefest. It's the sort of movie, deliberate and slow-paced, that seeps its way into your skin and makes you feel unwell (in a good way) having watched it.

It also skillfully taps into our current anxiety and fears surrounding pandemic, with its backdrop of a mysterious virus that has plunged the Earth into a panic. Interestingly, writer/director Ben Wheatley ("Rebeca") doesn't show us any of that broad scope, just the smaller microcosm of scientists working in the remote forest on a potential cure.

The movie gets a little too fixated on hallucinatory sequences in the last act, with characters blitzed out on mushroom spore clouds while kaleidoscopic imagery flashes and twists onscreen for minutes at a time. It looks like a lava lamp stuck in a blender backlit by neon.

But it genuinely intrigued and scared me, and that ain't easy to do.

Joel Fry plays Martin, a young scientist arriving in the countryside to help tackle the unnamed virus. It isn't COVID per se, but people wear masks around each other and take similar precautions. Newcomers get spritzed down in disinfectant from a sprayer that's the same thing you use with Weed B-Gon.

Tall, gangly and unsure of himself, Martin doesn't exactly seem like the sort of guy who's going to be a horror movie hero. He's come to work with Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), a former colleague and mentor who seems to be ahead of everyone else on beating the virus. But she's far off in the woods where there's no cellphone signal, so her only contact has been by leaving written communiques that have recently tapered off.

("Satellite phone?" asks I, the eternal literalist and plothole-sniffer.)

He's assigned a ranger to be his guide. Alma (Ellora Torchia) is everything he's not: confident, experienced, someone who looks you in the eye and asks sensible questions, whereas Martin is an inveterate shoe-starer and mouth-mumbler. 

(Honestly, he's kind of a drip, and by the midway point Alma has clearly shouldered past him into the lead position.)

Off they go on foot into the dense forest, which is also haunted by the legend of Parnag Fegg. It's unclear if this is supposed to be a specific witch-like figure or an ancient druidic cult singing to the trees while slicing open animal intestines. But it doesn't exactly bolster confidence. There are also tales of recent disappearances, and they happen across an abandoned campsite with a child's toys.

One night they are surprised and beaten by some unseen assailant, waking up to find their shoes and Martin's equipment stolen. He soon lacerates his foot badly on something -- pay attention to the film's opening moments and remember -- and their quest seems cursed.

Then they run into a quiet, kindly man named Zach (Reese Shearsmith). Sporting long graying hair and big, intelligent eyes, he appears to be a peaceful hippie checked out of society. His biggest fear is that Alma will report him and the rangers will make him leave his home, which is basically just a haphazard assemblage of tarps and poles. There he gives them food, clothing and sweet-tasting drinks made from various flower petals.

It soon becomes clear there's more to Zach than moonwater and good vibes. He has some curious ideas about communing with nature, seeing it as the opposite and adversary of the civilization that produced the virus.

Eventually they do make it to the camp of Dr. Wendle, which at first seems like a respite but is in some ways even weirder than Zach's place. She has lots of computers and other expensive equipment, and has set up strobe lights in the woods and a network of speakers to churn out haunting natural sounds she's recorded and amplified. 

Trees actually make noise as they grow if you listen carefully enough, she insists as way of explaining her little nightly concertos.

I can't say much more without giving things away. Suffice it to say that Alma and Martin are our avatars as they stumble into an increasingly deeper thicket of the mind. There will be altered states, conflict, strange photography sessions and not a little blood. A good test is if you liked "The Blair Witch Project," you'll probably hearken to this, too.

"In the Earth" is a strange but enjoyable film, if you're into things like not always being exactly sure of what's going on, who's doing what, or how, or why. It's the sort of thing you have to just sit back and let the movie's mood grow over you like aggressive plants, not worrying if that's good or bad.

Video review: "Yesterday"

“Yesterday” is a feel-good romantic dramedy that telegraphs all its punches, but even though you know everything that’s going to happen, it’s still emotionally satisfying.

The set-up is that a struggling Indian-British musician gets bonked on the head in a traffic accident. When he wakes up, he’s astonished to learn that nobody in the world but him knows the music of the Beatles.

It’s as if the greatest (in some people’s opinion) rock band of all time had never existed, except Jack (Himiseh Patel) still has all those iconic songs at his fingertips. So he sets out to become the greatest overnight sensation in the history of popular music, passing off the tunes of George, Ringo, John and Paul as his very own.

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis don’t bother with the metaphysical causes of this event. This isn’t science fiction, it’s a comedic pluck at the heartstrings.

Lily James plays Ellie, Jack’s erstwhile manager/best friend/secret admirer. She’s been driving him around to penny-ante gigs and bucking up his spirits for years. Of course, we all know this is going to build toward a big reveal of suppressed emotions.

How very British.

The story wearily treads through some of the staples of the romantic comedy genre -- misunderstandings based on overheard conversations, or building toward a big conversation that gets interrupted by a phone call or knock at the door.

Kate McKinnon, Joel Fry and Ed Sheeran round out the supporting cast, playing a mercenary music producer, feel-good buddy/roadie and himself, respectively.

“Yesterday” is a whipped sundae of a film -- not very substantial or nutritious, but engineered to deliver easy, sweet pleasures. That it does, along with a lot of great music.

Video extras are quite good. There’s an alternate opening and ending, a dozen deleted scenes and a gag reel.

Boyle and Curtis team up for a feature-length commentary track, and also have their own documentary featurette. There are similar shorts about McKinnon, Sheeran, a performance by Patel at Abbey Road Studios, and more.

Movie: 4 Yaps

Extras: 4 yaps

Review: "Yesterday"

“Yesterday” is a little bit daffy, a little bit sappy and lotta bit heartwarming.

This does not seem like something out of the oeuvre of Danny Boyle, the British director known for “Trainspotting,” “127 Hours,” “28 Days Later” and other dire portraits of humanity at its brink. But then he also made “Slumdog Millionaire,” a fairy tale-ish story about an Indian kid changing his life by winning a game show, and it’s to that more tenderhearted, hopeful skew that this film belongs.

But then, he is paired with screenwriter Richard Curtis, an expert heartstring-puller: “Love Actually,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” as well as the criminally unseen “About Time.”

Himesh Patel plays Jack Malik, a 27-year-old Indian-Brit who’s been trying to make it as a singer -- and failing spectacularly. His gigs consist of street warbling for tips, dive bars and kids’ birthday parties. Pretty much his only fan is Ellie (Lily James), his childhood friend and erstwhile manager.

She drives him around, bucks him up and -- because this is a romantic comedy -- is ravishingly in love with him, despite Jack being completely blinkered about it.

He’s ready to pitch it in when a strange thing happens -- a worldwide electrical blackout, possibly caused by solar flares, during which he is clocked by a bus. When he wakes up in the hospital, he is astonished to discover that nobody else has ever heard of The Beatles. When he strums out “Yesterday” for his friends, they are entranced and wonder at how such a mediocre musician wrote a masterpiece.

Jack quickly realizes his opportunity: he can pass off the entire Beatles songbook as his own work, instantly catapulting to fame and fortune. Of course, there are bumps along the way, like indifferent parents (Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal), difficulty recalling some of the lyrics and the lack of recording equipment.

A nice local fellow named Gavin (Alexander Arnold) provides the latter, and Jack also gets a boost from Ed Sheeran, playing himself, who invites Jack to be his opening act and is quickly eclipsed by him. It’s an odd, anxious turn for a real-life star, who at one point challenges Jack to a speed songwriting contest, only to be bested by John, Paul, Ringo and George.

Patel is a winning presence and a pretty decent singer, too. I also liked James a lot, squishing up her face and doing a charming/frumpy thing that would’ve been played by Winona Ryder 25 years ago.

My patience wore thin at some of the obvious romcom baggage, like Ellie waiting a decade and a half to tell Jack that she cares for him, and then making unreasonable demands at the moment he begins to return her favor. Or the constant interruption of pivotal conversations by ringing phones or intruding people.

There’s a silent mode, Jack!

Kate McKinnon turns up fairly late as Debra, a mercenary producer from L.A. who is quite open about the fact that she views Jack as a “product” who will make her money. She sets him up with a bunch of phony marketing types and frets about his image. “Is this the best that you can look?” she asks.

Even though it’s totally a Kate-McKinnon-doing-her-SNL-shtick turn, I still welcomed the comic relief. Some is also supplied by Joel Fry as Rocky, who’s the dimwitted screw-up of Jack’s social circle but also kindhearted and genuine. Rocky becomes Jack’s roadie/body man/spirit guide, keeping him (mostly) on schedule and humble.

And, of course, there’s the glory of all that Beatles music. I risk eternal damnation and a Twitter pox by opining that I think the Beatles are a really good band that somehow got exalted to GOAT status. Still, toe-tapping will unavoidably commence.

“Yesterday” takes a lot of obvious turns, though there are a few unexpected ones that demonstrate a little more storytelling ambition. Jack is increasingly haunted by thoughts that he will be exposed as a fraud, which leads to a final act that is both farfetched and emotionally pleasing.

A few discordant notes aside, it’s a lovely tune of a tale.