Review: "Hillbilly Elegy"

How do you translate to the screen a book that’s not so much a narrative memoir as an evocation of a place, a culture and a mindset? This was the challenge facing director Ron Howard and screenwriter Vanessa Taylor (“The Shape of Water”) in translating J.D. Vance’s best-seller, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

The path they chose was probably the best one laid before them, resulting in a solid if somewhat constructed-feeling look at one man’s journey from the hollers of Appalachian Kentucky to Yale Law School graduate. It boasts a pair of spectacular performances by Glenn Close and Amy Adams, both of whom should get awards notice.

The book came out in 2016 and was quickly tabbed as a political artifact, a wayfinder to the reason why many rural, white lower-class voters chose the way they did. The filmmakers behind “Hillbilly Elegy” wisely eschew any outright political machinations, rightly guessing that any such attempt would come across as a bunch of Hollywood leftists looking down their noses at a bunch of hicks.

Indeed, the biggest strength of the film is that it approaches its characters at eye level. The main dynamic centers around the trio of Vance himself -- played by Gabriel Basso and Owen Asztalos in his 20s and teens, respectively -- his mother, Bev (Adams), and grandmother (Close).

The family moved north to Middletown, Ohio, when J.D. was small, but he spent most of his childhood summers in Kentucky and that’s where their roots lie. The Vances are dirt poor living among others just so, but every clan holds firmly to the belief they’re a bit better than their neighbors.

The story shifts back and forth between the years of J.D.’s childhood and a few days in his life in law school, bucking for an internship at a top Washington D.C. firm. In the latter frame, his motivation is both practical -- he needs the money from a high-end gig to make up the shortfall in his financial aid -- and personal, wanting to stay with his girlfriend, Usha (Freida Pinto), an Indian-American who already has a job lined up there.

In the earlier timeframe, J.D. ping-pongs back and forth between his mom and “Meemaw,” preferring the stability of the latter but emotionally tethered to the former. Bev is a nurse who lost her job due to drug addiction, and the film is unrelenting in depicting how a broken person can be simultaneously fiercely protective and outright abusive of their child.

His only protection is Meemaw, who has a corrosive tongue and rude manner but understands that family is the only thing that really matters. Close is spot-on playing a certain Southern type, the chain-smoking old lady with crazy witch hair who can barely walk but will pin anyone to their spot with a flinty stare and a few acid words.

In the later timeframe, set around 2011, the guileless but graceless J.D. tries to fit in with snooty Beltway types, not knowing the difference between varieties of white wine or which piece of silverware to use at a fancy dinner. At the same time he is summoned back to Ohio to deal with his mom’s latest overdose, as his sister (Haley Bennett) has her own passel of kids and responsibilities now.

We can practically feel the weight of the massive chip on J.D.’s shoulder, a guy who wants to do the right thing but feels blocked at every turn. Basso seems to positively slump onscreen before our eyes. He owes a responsibility to his mother, even though she neglected and abused him horribly, and a loyalty to Meemaw’s edict about being the leader of the family after she’s gone.

There are a lot of things to admire about “Hillbilly Elegy.” It really sings when it focuses on the twisted but unshakeable triad of J.D. and the two women who raised him. It also makes a genuine and largely successful attempt to portray the sorts of folks people in showbiz and politics usually see as zoological exhibits.

It’s also one of those movies where the lead character tends to be the least interesting person in the room. So anytime we wander too far from Bev’s pitiful, manipulative antics or Meemaw’s iron rule, the movie loses air.

Still, Howard, Taylor and company deserve credit for making this movie in the first place, and making it in a way that feels true to the author and the book he wrote. We live in a time where so many are ruled by hatred and fear, and here’s a film filled with those things -- but feels like a small spring of hope.

Video review: "Solo: A Star Wars Story"

“Solo: A Star Wars Story” was the first bona fide flop for the storied sci-fi franchise. I’m not sure why. Although it certainly deserves a ranking toward the bottom of the Star Wars canon, it’s still a fun, action-filled entry with plenty of entertainment value.

My 7-year-old declared it the best Star Wars flick of all. That’s overstating the case, though I would put it at least above “Rogue One” and “The Last Jedi.”

Alden Ehrenreich takes over the role of intergalactic smuggler/smirker Han Solo from Harrison Ford, and it’s a pretty seamless handoff. Aside from being a head shorter, Ehrenreich’s Han has all the scruffy charisma we’re used to. This story looks at his formative years prior to meeting Luke, Leia and the gang.

Raised on the crime-ridden planet of Corellia, Han manages to escape the den of thieves where he was raised, though his lady love, Qui’ra (Emilia Clarke), is captured. He vows to become a great pilot, snag his own ship and return to rescue her.

Flash forward a few years, and things didn’t turn out that way. After washing out as a pilot in the Imperial academy and deserting as a foot soldier, he stumbles into Qi’ra to find out she isn’t in need of any rescuing at all. She’s become the right hand woman for Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), a high-up in the criminal syndicate Crimson Dawn.

Han has fallen in with a group of bandits led by Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), who takes him under his wing, shows him how to spin a laser blaster and a few things about double-crosses, too. Their assignment -- failure means death -- is to boost some raw hyperspace fuel from inside the Kessel nebula.

It’s volatile stuff, so if they don’t get it out fast enough, the whole plan goes explodey-splodey.

We also get to witness Han’s meeting up with Chewbacca, and his first encounter with self-pleased rogue Lando Calrissian, captain of the Millennium Falcon. He’s played with dizzying charm by Donald Glover, and if the Star Wars honchos don’t give him his own movie, they’re dumber than nerf herders.

Another fun addition is Lando’s navigation droid L3 (voice/motion by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who is a distinct break from the polite/subservient model of C3PO and his ilk. Sassy and rebellious, she advocates for robots overthrowing their “organic overlords” and even hints at a possible romantic relationship with Lando.

I’m hoping more people will discover “Solo” on home video. It’s a worthy addition to the Star Wars library, fleshing out the backstory of (arguably) its most popular character and giving us some thrills along the way.

Bonus features are very good. They include eight deleted or extended scenes, including one showing Han as an Imperial cadet; a roundtable with director Ron Howard and his cast; interviews with veteran Star Wars scribe Lawrence Kasdan and his co-writer, son Jonathan; and much more.

One especially neat bonus feature: “The Millennium Falcon: From Page to Park,” depicting the history of the famous spacecraft and its upcoming translation into a theme park ride.

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Review: "Solo: A Star Wars Story"

“Solo: A Star Wars Story” is in a lot of ways daring, and in other ways plays it very safe.

It’s the first film in the franchise to cast another actor as one of the principal characters from the first trilogy, and attempt to sketch out a backstory for that universe’s most deliberately vague period: what smuggler/rogue/occasional nerf herder Han Solo was doing in the years before he bumped into Luke and Leia.

By all accounts Harrison Ford -- who seems to be lobbying to kill off all his iconic characters with the exception of Indiana Jones -- is happy to pass along Han’s mantle to Alden Ehrenreich. My guess is most audience members will be fine with it, too. Ehrenreich is cocky, twinkly and likeable.

(Wait until they cast someone besides Carrie Fisher as Leia, and we’ll see how people feel. Btw, I don't count Darth Vader because other actors played Annakin before his fall.)

The result is a film that’s fun and frivolous. There aren’t really a lot of stakes, since we know Han is going to survive, meet up with furry friend Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and acquire the Millennium Falcon in a game of cards with fellow scoundrel Lando Calrissian (a charismatic Donald Glover).

Pretty much any other character who shows up, we can make some good guesses about their fate.

There are two main new ones. Emilia Clarke plays Qi’ra, who grew up with Han on Correllia, a junk planet where runaway kids work for a local crime boss. They are separated while attempting their escape, and Han vows to become a pilot, buy (or otherwise acquire) his own ship and return for her. Instead, he winds up in the trenches as a grunt soldier for the Empire, after being kicked out of their version of pilot school.

The two do eventually meet up again, though circumstances are very much changed. Despite the old passion still burning, they play a cat-and-mouse game with their faith in each other.

The other main addition is Woody Harrelson as Tobias Beckett, an old scallywag who takes Han under his wing. He teaches him how to shoot a blaster with finesse, pull off daring heists and, above all, to trust no one.

Paul Bettany turns up as Dryden Vos, the scarred, sneering boss for the criminal syndicate, Crimson Dawn. The long and short of it: after failing to steal a batch of hyperspace fuel from the Empire, Beckett and Han are tasked with pilfering a load of its unstable raw component from a mining world deep within the dangerous Kessel nebula.

If that name sounds familiar, especially in context with the avowed speed of a certain spaceship, you won’t come away disappointed. 

Phoebe Waller-Bridge provides the voice and motion of L3, Lando’s sassy droid/copilot. It’s a very different take on the subservient role robots usually take in the Star Wars universe, with L3 making puns about her supposed “organic overlord,” and encouraging other droids to rise up against their masters.

Director Ron Howard isn’t known as a master of action scenes, and I often found the fights hard to follow. The film also seemed very murky to me, as if they shot it without a lot of foreground lighting, though that may just have been the theater where I saw it.

But Howard, who took over the film from a pair of co-directors several months into production, finds a nice balance between comedy, character development and laser blasts. The screenplay is by Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan -- hey, how come no one’s ever thought to let him direct one of these? -- and his son, Jonathan.

I feel about “Solo: A Star Wars Story” about the same as I did “Rogue One,” “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi.” They’re fun rides, and I like dancing around in this universe as much as anyone. But they don’t hold a candle to the original trilogy, which no one would debate, and aren’t even as good as the second trilogy -- a statement I know will inflame my fellow geeks everywhere.

It’s a peppy rehash, but a rehash it remains.

Review: "Inferno"

The Robert Langdon movies have been an undeniable buttress for the careers of author Dan Brown, director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks.

I don’t know anyone who considers “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons” great movies, but they were energetic and got people to go to the theater to check out the hubbub. And maybe along the way a few became interested in a tidbit of history or a religious artifact contained in the movie and decided to explore their world further. Or maybe they saw a Coming Soon poster for another, better film and came back to see that.

In short, the Langdon flicks are the sort of popular movies that come along, make a ton of money and are then promptly forgotten. For instance, I couldn’t remember how long it had been since the last one: seven years. Their existence is unnecessary but not objectionable.

They’re probably my least favorite Tom Hanks movies, because instead of building a character he’s made to chase a chimera around for two hours while looking pained. It’s like asking LeBron to be the ball boy.

If Indiana Jones was an adventurer who reluctantly deigned to drop in at the university from time to time, then Robert Langdon is a dweeby academic with a penchant for puzzles who keeps getting sucked into dangerous escapades. These always involve clues hidden in ancient works of art and schemes to destroy/upend the world as we know it.

(Are there any other kind of schemes in the movies?)

The newest, “Inferno,” has decidedly less of a religious bent than its predecessors, which caused them to be controversial. “Da Vinci” posited that the Catholic Church covered up that Jesus actually married and had a family, producing modern descendants. (Sorry, after 10 years spoiler warnings become moot.) Maybe Dan Brown grew tired of all the protests, but there’s no Christian conspiracy theories in this one.

This threat comes from Bertrand Zobrist, a billionaire bioengineer played by Ben Foster who thinks overpopulation spells mankind’s doom within the next couple of generations. So he hatches a plot to kill half the world with a nasty virus called Inferno. Langdon spends the movie trying to foil it, traveling to Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

But he’s at a disadvantage. As the story opens, Langdon wakes up in a hospital, groggy and in pain. He’s been shot in the head (grazed) and can’t remember anything that’s happened to him recently. There are horrible visions of rivers of blood, hellfire and damnation, bodies twisted and riddled with pestilence. A helpful ER doctor, Sienna (Felicity Jones), tries to fill in the blanks.

“You won’t be able to trust your own thoughts for a while,” she warns.

But then a slavering assassin dressed as a policewoman shows up firing her pistol willy-nilly, and Langdon and the doc are on the run. The assassin is played by Ana Ularu, who has a great aggressive face, like the pointed muzzle of wolf.

They follow a trail of clues to the virus left by Zobrist because… well, otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie, would there? This includes an alteration of a famous painting contained in a bone flashlight, stealing Dante’s death mask, a beautiful old cistern that’s been turned into a concert hall, and other cool artsy crossovers.

Joining the hunt are Sidse Babette Knudsen and Omar Sy as agents of the World Health Organization, here depicted as indistinguishable from James Bond types in suits and deadly skills. And Irrfan Khan plays the head of a mysterious private agency that pulls lots of global strings from their HQ aboard a seaborne ship.

It’s obvious that Langdon is being played for a sap. The burning question is, by whom?

“Inferno” is about on par with the other Langdon flicks, maybe a tad better. You’ll never be bored, but if quizzed on the story the next day I bet most people would score a grade of D or lower.

Review: "In the Heart of the Sea"

“In the Heart of the Sea” works as a rousing sea adventure story, the inspiration for “Moby-Dick,” though it suffers from more grandiose aspirations that largely go unrealized. And some bad Boston accents.

The film makes a half-hearted attempt at a man-corrupts-nature environmental theme, and begins a Christian-vs.-Bligh type of conflict between the ship’s first mate and captain, only to drop it halfway through. Based on a nonfiction book by Nathaniel Philbrick, the screenplay by Charles Leavitt has some structural problems, with a big dead spot about two-thirds of the way through.

But director Ron Howard ably helms the action scenes, including the thrilling bout with the massive white sperm whale. And the movie brings a great sense of authenticity about what it’s like to be aboard a Nantucket whaling boat in 1820 -- the sun-creased faces, the creaking of the sails, the ever-present fear of a squall, the way men’s personalities rub against each other after a year at sea.

Howard reunites with Chris Hemsworth, who starred in the criminally overlooked racing movie “Rush.” Here he plays Owen Chase, a seasoned whaler who thinks he’s in line to become captain, but is instead put under the thumb of George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), a greenhorn with the right family name and financial backing.

As a “landsman,” the son of a poor farmer, Chase has had to work his way up from the bottom, and naturally resents the aristocratic captain. Pollard insists on showing the crew who’s boss, and nearly sinks the ship on their second day out of port. They spar, but agree to put their differences aside long enough to collect 2,000 barrels of whale oil.

Eventually they make their way into the Pacific Ocean, where they hear tales of a remote spot where the whales are bountiful. The story turns out to be true, but so does the warning of a giant bull who does not take kindly to having his colony attacked.

Their ship, the Essex, is sunk and the survivors are forced to flee on small boats thousands of miles from land, and things quickly grow dire. The actors make a believable transformation into starving skeletons -- unlike the recent “The 33” -- with the help of a little CGI.

The film uses a framing device of Thomas Nickerson, a 14-year-old member of the crew, being interviewed by Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) 30 years later as inspiration for his most famous novel. Now a mean old drunk played by Brendan Gleeson, he’s reluctant to share the true story of the Essex, which was officially recorded as having run aground. Tom Holland plays him as a boy.

(There’s a certain amount of historical shenanigans going on here with the storyline. Chase actually published an account of the Essex disaster immediately afterward, which was what inspired Melville. It was another writer who interviewed Nickerson, convincing him to write his own book. Interestingly, the film largely gets the events that happened at sea right but finagles with the epilogue.)

I’m not sure whose idea it was to have all these actors of different English-speaking vintages talk in realistic 1820s Nantucket accents, but the result is a mishmash of bent vowels and oft-indecipherable dialogue. At one point Hemsworth greets Cillian Murphy as an old comrade and they share a jaunty banter, of which I couldn’t understand a thing.

(Hemsworth is Australian, Murphy and Gleeson are Irish, Holland is English and Walker is American.)

Another swing-and-a-miss is the attempt to correlate 1820s energy challenges with our own. Whale and petroleum both lit the world in their respective eras and neither is a renewable resource (except as fast as adult whales can spawn new ones, anyway). The parallel is given a few feeble gestures, then dismissed.

“In the Heart of the Sea” is a great-looking picture; Howard is a top-drawer visual storyteller. It’s a good movie that could have been a much better one, either by being less ambitious, or more. Sometimes you have to drown your darlings.

Video review: "Rush"

Put “Rush” in the bin of most criminally ignored films of 2013. This terrific drama/action from director Ron Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan may just be the best car racing movie ever made.

American audiences largely ignored it, probably because it’s about European Formula 1 racing. The two main figures, James Hunt and Niki Lauda, are giants in their sport but virtually unknown here in the States. In the 1970s they fought an epic battle of wills for the racing crown, resulting in tragic events but also a strange, powerful bond that forms between rivals.

Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) is the prototypical bigger-than-life playboy, who raced for the fame and the thrills. Lauda (Daniel Brühl, who should’ve gotten an Oscar nomination) is the precise technician who approached racing like a business and a science, but had trouble getting along with the people.

The racing scenes are amazing both visually and aurally, as the filmmakers wrap the audience inside the buzzing tornado of a Formula 1 car.

Even better, though, are the exchanges between the rivals, which are sniping and ugly at first, but later take on a comradely, warm aspect that surprises both of them. The secret to this movie is that it’s a character study hiding inside the clothes of a racing flick.

It didn’t win at the box office, but hopefully “Rush” will take the checkered flag in its video release.

Video goodies are quite good indeed, including an expansive making-of documentary, “Race for the Checkered Flag: The Making of Rush,” and “The Real Story of Rush,” which explores the real-world events that inspired the movie. Howard also provides a behind-the-scenes look at his filmmaking process, and there are deleted scenes.

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Review: "Rush"

Really good racing movies are quite rare. They tend to slalom between being too obsessed with the on-track action ("Le Mans") or serving as vehicles for the star persona of the actors appearing in them ("Days of Thunder").

Ron Howard's "Rush" hits the sweet groove down the middle of the lane, coming up with a compelling story based on the real-life rivalry between 1970s Formula 1 superstars James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl). It's less a straight racing flick than a character portrait of two very different men who clashed violently in their contrasting approaches to pursuing the same goal. Brühl gives an Oscar-caliber performance as the driven, distant purist who relates better to machines than people.

But Howard and his crew hardly give the racing sequences short shrift. Mixing recreations of existing footage with special effects and camera work in and around the cars, they've created a high-velocity thrill ride that gives the audience a sense of the, well, rush of driving a 500-horsepower metal beast. The sound work is especially good, the engines sounding like the biggest, angriest buzzing bee in the world zooming in and around your head.

Hunt and Lauda were as different as two men can be. Hunt was a British playboy, a natural talent and thrill-seeker whose aggressive moves on the track make him a dangerous but formidable opponent. He beds women prodigiously, boozes and smokes, and is quick as lightning behind the wheel.

Lauda was an Austrian (but dismissed as a "Kraut" by Hunt and his fellows) from a family of businessmen, who approached world-class racing with methodical precision. He knows every piece of his car better than the mechanics who built it, and can tell what's wrong with how it drives just through the vibrations it sends through his body. (My mind is pretty good, he says, but I was born with a great ass -- which is as close to a joke as Lauda gets.)

There's one telling scene where Lauda, stranded with his would-be girlfriend on a lonely road, is picked up by some racing fans who beg him to drive their car for him. This he does, but the women scolds him for driving "like a grandfather." Lauda is genuinely perplexed: Why would he risk an accident when he's not being paid for it? He can handle risk at his job, but if he found something less risky that paid better, he says he'd do that instead -- and we believe him.

The movie quickly -- and wisely -- skips over their rise from the lower tiers of racing to their campaign in the big leagues. Their 1976 contest for the Formula 1 championship is still the stuff of legends, with Lauda driving for the Ferrari team and Hunt his match in a McLaren car. They traded victories and taunts with equal relish.

I'm not giving anything away by revealing that toward the end of the season Lauda had a horrific crash (which has always been suspected to be caused by a failure in his suspension, something Howard explicitly points to as the reason). This was at a time when Formula 1 had a handful of drivers die every year. Lauda spent more than a minute trapped in his car roasting in 800 degree flames, suffering severe burns to his face after his helmet slipped off.

Howard depicts the crash and its aftermath with a stark,  unblinking eye. Perhaps the most teeth-grating thing to watch is Lauda having to repeatedly have his lungs "vacuumed" of debris from the fire. Of course, he watches Hunt racing and winning on an omnipresent television, closing the gap on his points lead while he endures the pain.

The apex of the story would be dismissed as the fantasies of a Hollywood screenwriter if it hadn't actually happened. Just six weeks after his crash, the skin grafts on his face still raw and bloody, Lauda climbed back into a racing car to continue his struggle against Hunt. The eventual winner would take the championship by a single point.

The once-bitter enemies find themselves growing a strange sort of respect for each other, which surprises even them. The dashing Hunt had often mocked the uncomely Lauda for his rat-like appearance, and even jokes that he was the only man who could have his face burnt off and it be an improvement. Yet when a journalist pesters Lauda with invasive questions about how his appearance will affect his marriage, it's Hunt who rallies to his defense.

The film starts with Hunt the clear center of attention, but in the end it becomes Lauda's tale to tell. Here is a man so closed off from others that he complains to his new bride on their honeymoon that having something to lose will weaken him as a driver. Yet in his competition with Hunt he found his own best self, leading him to unexpected but fully satisfying choices.

"Hunt was one of the few I liked, and fewer still that I respected," Lauda narrates. "He remains the only person I ever envied."

I have a feeling anyone with dreams of making a film about racing will say something similar about "Rush."

Review: "The Dilemma"

"You're bouncing around. You do that a lot."

This line, delivered in the opening moments of "The Dilemma," is used to describe Vince Vaughn's character -- which is pretty much the same as every other Vince Vaughn character.

Vaughn's become a bankable star employing the same charming motormouth routine over and over. His signature move is to get rolling on a verbal treadmill from which he cannot easily climb off. We've seen it so many times ("Couples Retreat," "Wedding Crashers") that we've come to understand that what he says isn't important -- it's the feat itself, keeping the words coming faster and faster as he bounces around from one thought to the next.

The standout example of this in "The Dilemma" is when his character, Ronny, is giving a toast at his girlfriend Beth's (Jennifer Connelly) parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Ronny has recently learned that his best friend Nick's (Kevin James) wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) has been playing around on him.

He tries to use the toast to talk about the importance of honesty in marriage, as a way of shaming Geneva into confessing her affair to Nick so Ronny won't have to spill the beans himself. But he gets off on a tangent about temptation, imagining scenarios of Beth's mother dallying with the pool boy, and it's all downhill from there -- zigging and zagging all the way.

"The Dilemma" bounces around a lot, too. The movie can't quite decide what it wants to be when it grows up.

Ostensibly it's a comedy about Ronny's predicament -- whether to tell the man he loves like a brother about his wife's infidelity. The movie simply forgets to be funny for long stretches, as in one sequence where Ronny prays to God for guidance. "I know I'm supposed to give you things, but I'm scared to give you this," he tells the Almighty.

The biggest thing that's missing from the story (screenplay by Allan Loeb) is a sense of how important these relationships really are. Ronny's supposed to cherish his friendship with Nick so much that the prospect of telling him about Geneva tears him up inside. But we never see them doing much more than normal buddy-buddy stuff.

Ronny's relationship with Beth is off-kilter, too. He's a 40-year-old commitment-phobe, and can't bring himself to ask her to marry him. But what she gets out of this pairing is rather murky.

Geneva doesn't make a lick of sense, either. For awhile it's suggested she might actually be nutso, as demonstrated in a scene where Ronny confronts her and she cows him by threatening to claim he's made advances toward her.

Even Ronny and Nick's business partnership is goofy. Nick is supposed to be a brilliant engineer, but their dream is rather mundane: To make electric vehicles that look and sound like muscle cars. So basically they're just installing speakers under the hood to simulate the rumble of a gasoline engine.

(The movie has caused some controversy for a scene where they're pitching some General Motors executives, and Ronny calls electric cars "gay." I'll decline to enter the fray other than saying I think "South Park" already covered this topic sufficiently.)

Queen Latifah pops up as Susan, the liaison between the car company and our boys, who has a tendency to talk in inappropriate, hyper-sexualized terms. The joke is supposed to be that usually it's the guys in movies like this who speak that way. But she just comes across as another unexplained weird quirk of the movie.

The strangest thing about "The Dilemma" is that it was directed by Ron Howard, and has to be the most un-Ron-Howard-like film he's ever made.

The depressing part is not that it's not very good, or that a guy who's mostly done serious Oscar-bait movies has returned to his comedy roots. It's that this movie could have been directed by anyone.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Angels & Demons"

Tom Hanks' hair is sleeker, shorter and just plain less ridiculous. The movie, too.

"Angels & Demons" is the sequel to "The Da Vinci Code," which managed to be both controversial and lackluster. Hanks, as symbologist Robert Langdon, wore a silly, swoopy hairdo and a perpetually glum expression as he uncovered nefarious plots by the Catholic Church.

"Angels" was actually written by author Dan Brown before "Da Vinci" and takes place earlier, too, but director Ron Howard and his screenwriters neatly sidestep that issue, rejiggering the timeline so Langdon is ostracized by the church for airing their dirty laundry.

This time, though, they need his help. The ancient order of Illuminati, a group of scientists persecuted by the church, has vowed to destroy Vatican City. Most of the cardinals are in conclave to elect a new pope, but four have been kidnapped. One will die each hour, publicly, until a device containing antimatter detonates at midnight, killing thousands.

Ultimately, it's the chase rather than the history lesson that makes "Angels & Demons" something "The Da Vinci Code" was not: Fun.

Despite the lack of a commentary track, video extras are fairly broad in scope, and include the participation of all major cast and crew. However, they tend to be a little more geared toward hype than illumination.

The DVD comes with seven featurettes totaling nearly 90 minutes of material on such topics as special effects, props and the writing process (Brown himself chimes in). There's even a bit about the guy who created the upside-down ambigrams used in the book and movie, who lent his name to the Langdon character.

Especially interesting is how the filmmakers recreated Vatican sites such as the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Square using a combination of real footage, sets and computer-generated images.

In addition, the Blu-ray version comes with an unrated extended version of the film that adds eight minutes to the run time, and "The Path of Illumination," an interactive guide through Rome with additional information and interviews tied to key locations. And, a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 3 stars

New podcast on Ron Howard's films

Our weekly podcast is now up at The Film Yap:

http://www.thefilmyap.com/?attachment_id=695

This week's topic is the directing career of Ron Howard, starting with his new film "Angels & Demons."

Review: "Angels and Demons"

Tom Hanks' hair is sleeker, shorter and just plain less ridiculous. The movie, too.

"Angels & Demons" is the sequel to "The Da Vinci Code," which managed to be both controversial and lackluster. Hanks, as symbologist Robert Langdon, wore a ridiculous swoopy hairdo that made Wolverine's coiffure look tame, plus a perpetually glum expression as he uncovered nefarious plots by the Catholic Church.

Actually, "Angels" was written by author Dan Brown before "Da Vinci" and takes place earlier, too, but director Ron Howard and screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman neatly sidestep that issue, rejiggering the timeline so that Langdon is ostracized by the church because he aired their dirty laundry.

This time, though, they need his help. The ancient order of Illuminati, a group of scientists persecuted by the church, has vowed to destroy Vatican City and everyone in it. The cardinals are all in conclave to elect a new pope, but four of them have been kidnapped. One will die each hour, publicly, until at midnight a device containing antimatter will detonate, killing the thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square to witness the election of a new pontiff.

At first, it seems that "Angels" will fall into the same trap that "Da Vinci" did, lulling into a seemingly endless churn of exposition and setup. But after 45 minutes or so, the chase through Rome's historical sites and legends takes on real urgency, and genuine horror as the holy men are put to very gruesome deaths one by one. (The film is rated PG-13, but is one of the "hardest" PG-13s I've ever seen.)

Langdon's partner is Vittorio Vitra (Ayelet Zurer), an Italian physicist who discovered the antimatter and is brought in to help recover it. Opposing them is Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), the head of the Swiss Army detachment that guards the pope, who views Langdon disdainfully and accuses him of anti-religious bias.

More helpful is Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the carmelengo -- the chief aid to the Pope who temporarily holds the power of that office until conclave is concluded. The carmelengo is forthright in acknowledging past oppression by the church, and wants to let the world know about the current threat against it. But the young priest is overruled by Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who's in charge of running the conclave and seems to be angling for the top job himself.

The film version diverges in numerous ways from the book, although most of them are minor details, such as changing the carmelengo from Italian to Irish, and making the scientist whose murder opens the film Vittoria's colleague rather than her father. There are a few events toward the end that are changed more monumentally, but they are unobjectionable as they tend to streamline the action as it builds toward the climax.

It's doubtful that even the most educated audience members will be able to follow the dizzying assault of details thrown at them -- Biblical stories, names of artists and scientists, little-known chapels and monuments that form the pieces of the puzzle that lead Langdon to the lair of the Illuminati.

Ultimately, though, it's the chase rather than the history lesson that makes "Angels & Demons" compelling, and something "The Da Vinci Code" was not: Fun.

3 stars

"Frost/Nixon"

I've finally seen all the big contenders. "Frost/Nixon" was the only Oscar hopeful that I was not able to see in advance, and we rectified it with an afternoon screening at AMC Castleton.

(A couple of quick asides before I get to the meat of the review. Why was this movie playing exclusively at Castleton instead of the Landmark "art cinema" a few miles to the west? By playing more mainstream fare and now letting some of the bigger indie films be booked elsewhere, Landmark is in danger of losing its reputation as the place to go for alternative cinema in Indianapolis. Also, AMC charged us the full admission price of $19 to attend a 4:20 p.m. show. Before long they'll be claiming that a 2:30 show is not a matinee.)

"Frost/Nixon" would not have made my Top 10 List had I seen it in time, but it would be very close -- let's call it No. 11. It's a solid political/media drama, nowhere in the class of heavyweights like "All the President's Men," but comfortably ensconced in that second tier of worthy efforts like "Primary Colors." It's not to be missed mainly because of Frank Langella's powerhouse performance as Richard Nixon.

Now, Langella looks and sounds absolutely nothing like Nixon. But in his mannerisms and the way he pitches his voice, we believe that he could be the 37th president, who resigned in disgrace after the Watergate cover-up. Langella has gotten to the essence of the man -- the grandeur, the venality, the puckish impudence against those who looked down on his humble origins. The actor has captured the man, in a way that I think Josh Brolin did not do with George W. Bush in "W." Watching that film, I never thought I was looking at anything other than Oliver Stone's own green-eyed interpretation of a president he despises. Frank Langella's Nixon carries a piece of the real man's spirit in his pocket.

Less successful as a performance and as a character is Michael Sheen as David Frost, the British talk show fop who somehow managed to be the one who gave Nixon the only real grilling he ever got over his crimes. Frost is depicted as a man who always had a genial, lightweight front put up before him. If that is true, they were too successful in portraying him, since we never get to see behind the facade. Oh, there are scenes of him pleading with an advertiser or network honcho and calling friends for cash to make the Nixon interview happen, but they center more on the process than the man. David Frost remains an affable, good-looking enigma, which is perhaps appropriate since he his role was to ask the questions, not exist as the answer.

The film, written by Peter Morgan and based on his play, is beautifully shot by Ron Howard, whose visual style has grown admirably from his early beginnings. The scenes of Nixon at his retirement estate at San Clemente are hauntingly evocative -- the fallen king doomed to dole out his remaining years in powerless exile, chewing the bitter root of his failings. It reminds me of some of the later scenes in "Citizen Kane," and the real man it was based on, William Randolph Hearst, stewing in his own overblown castle a few hundred miles north on the California coast.

The story reaches a crescendo with the actual tapings of the interview, which start out horribly for Frost, before he finally gets his licks in when discussing Watergate.

Nixon comes across more charismatic than you'd think, a man who ascended the ladder of power by sheer grit and ruthless determination, and was brought down by the vindictive things he did to get and retain power. In many ways, the qualities that got Richard Nixon to the White House determined that he would exit it so ignobly. "Frost/Nixon" is a compelling peek at his legacy, and his shame.

3.5 stars out of four