Video review: "Aquaman"

There are trashy movies and there are garbage movies. The former are decent flicks that engage in various tawdry indulgences and lowered ambitions; the latter have surrendered to them completely.

As the late, great Pauline Kael said, there is trash and then there is glorious trash. And while “Aquaman” may not exactly be glorious, it is an entertaining film that revels in its own trashiness.

Yes, Jason Momoa still can’t act his way out of a bag. But if any actor today deserves to have the “Seinfeld” term of “mimbo” bestowed upon him, it’s Momoa. He’s easy on the eyes, if your thing is beefy-but-not-overly-‘roided Polynesian dudes with long dark ringlets.

He doesn’t exactly look like the sort of guy who swims with the fishes and talks to them too, but he’s a charismatic, swarthy presence.

I’ll pause here to note that once again Hollywood has managed to take a blond superhero and turn him brunette. Captain America, the Human Torch, the Flash -- it’s practically an entire super-team’s worth of color changers. Even Thor was revealed to have brown roots when his ‘do got buzzed in his last solo flick. Aquaman at least has a little sun-dappling around the edges.

Anyway, the premise is that Arthur is the long-lost son of the queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman), who fell in love with a land dweller (Temuera Morrison) and grew up estranged from his people. He still has the powers of a high-born Atlantean, including super-strength, durability and swimming crazy fast, plus the additional trick of communicating with sea life.

Worlds collide when his brother, King Orm (Patrick Wilson), declares war on the surface world -- mostly as an excuse to unite the tribes of Atlantis and have himself declared the supreme Ocean Master.

(Sounds like a fad diet.)

Aided by wise sage Vulko (Willem Dafoe) and plucky princess Mera (Amber Heard), Arthur goes on a quest to recover the lost trident of his forbears, depose his wayward sibling and bring about peace. Besides Orm the heavy duties are shared by Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a modern-day pirate who bears a special grudge against Aquaman.

The realm of Atlantis is represented in Day-Glo colors and trippy mood music, as director James Wan and script men Will Beall and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (got enough names, dude?) milk the comedy and science fiction angles.

It’s like “Flash Gordon” meets the briny deep. You may find yourself sniggering at this trashy gen, but doubtless having a good time while doing it.

Bonus features are pretty nice. They include breakdowns of key scenes and the following featurettes: “Going Deep Into the World of Aquaman,” Becoming Aquaman,” “James Wan: World Builder,” “Aqua Tech,” “Atlantis Warfare,” “The Dark Depths of Black Manta,” “Heroines of Atlantis,” “Villainous Training,” “Kingdoms of the Seven Seas,” “Creating Undersea Creatures” and “A Match Made in Atlantis.”

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Review: "The Danish Girl"

“The Danish Girl” is the true-ish story of Einar Wegener, a well-known Danish painter who became a woman in the early 20th century. Today we would refer to this as a transwoman “transitioning” to her true gender, and use her adopted name, Lili Elbe, and the appropriate pronouns.

But the film is less about conforming to modern-day sensibilities than presenting Lili/Einar as she/he was -- a gentle soul confused about the journey being undertaken, but who steadily gains strength and resolve as the challenges grow.

Directed by Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) from a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, based on the historical novel by David Ebershoff, “The Danish Girl” powerfully shows what it was like to question one’s gender at a time and place when such roles were rigidly defined and enforced. Eddie Redmayne, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Actor, is sure to pick up another nomination for his nuanced turn.

The story opens with Einar married to Gerda Wegener. Both young painters with a carefree lifestyle and a strong desire for children, they live rather unequal lives. Einar is feted at gallery shows, celebrated by powerful patrons, while she toils in his shadow. It’s puzzling, since he -- by his own admission -- essentially paints the same thing over and over: pastoral scenes from his drab, lonely childhood.

Gerda (Alicia Vikander, vibrant and emotive) plays Einar’s wife, who actually kick-starts his journey by asking him to don some hose and shoes so she can finish her painting after her (female) model takes ill. Einar finds himself ensorcelled by the look and feel of women’s clothing. The couple playfully continues the game, going to a party with Einar dressed as his cousin, “Lili.” She even attracts the attention of a discerning young man (Ben Whishaw), who pitches woo.

Soon, though, Einar is spending more and more time as Lili, studying the mannerisms of the fair gender and copying them – even to the point of exaggeration. Lili is easily the most girlish woman in any room she occuppies. Redmayne is convincingly coquettish and shy, showing how just because a person’s outward identity changes, the inner soul doesn’t. Since Einar was something of a blushing wallflower, Lili is, too.

Things go on from there. There are marriage troubles as Gerda grows distraught about “losing” her husband. She enlists Einar’s old childhood friend, Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts), on whom he had a boyhood crush, to act as a touchstone. But Gerda ends up developing feelings for him herself.

Doctors of the time are no help, subjecting Einar to radiation treatments that leave him bedridden, then reporting him to the authorities as a deviant when their barbaric procedures bring no result.

There are, of course, many liberties taken with Lili’s story, which flow from Ebershoff’s fictionalized portrait of her. The main one is showing her struggling with her surgical transformation more or less in private, when in fact it was quite a renowned feat at the time. Her autobiography, published two years after her death, was a watershed moment in the transgender movement.

It also depicts Gerda as staying by her side throughout this process and her demise, when in fact their marriage was legally dissolved as a result of Lili’s gender change, and Gerda had moved on to other romantic partners. (She was not even present at the death, hearing about it through the news.)

Still, this falls under the filmmaking rubric of ‘lying in order to tell a greater truth,’ as we saw in the excellent “Steve Jobs” earlier this year. “The Danish Girl” may skirt the historical facts, but it still has the compelling illumination of trueness.

Review: "The Joneses"

Some movies present a bigger challenge to review. I'd prefer to write about "The Joneses" without revealing the film's big surprise, but I would have to be so circumspect and vague as to be of dubious use to you.

So I'm trying something new: Review A and Review B. Only read the first one if you want to discover the film's secret for yourself. Move on to B if you want a fuller picture.

REVIEW A

The Joneses, the new family in an unnamed town, are a curiosity. Steve and Kate (David Duchovny and Demi Moore) and their teen children Jenn and Mick (Amber Heard, Ben Hollingsworth) seem to have it all. Each of them is gorgeous and charismatic, and immediately grab the center of attention in their respective social circles.

Their huge house has been tastefully outfitted with the poshest furniture and decorations, and they have all the newest gizmos, golf clubs, clothes, beauty products and toys.

They are, by all measures available, perfect.

But strange clues abound. While the envy of other married couples for their copious gift exchanging and passionate PDAs, Kate and Steve sleep in separate beds. The kids seem especially emotionally detached from their parents -- even by teen standards.

With all their newfound friends and neighbors trying to emulate their swank lifestyle, the Joneses have to work hard to maintain appearances. And yet, none of them seem to have jobs to pay for it all. Steve spends most of his time at the golf course, and Kate apparently gets a mani-pedi every other day.

Clearly, there's more to keeping up with these upscale Joneses than meets the eye.

OK, read no further if don't want to learn the big reveal. Spoilers, ahoy.

REVIEW B

The Joneses are not a real family. They're "self marketers" -- peopled hired by companies to peddle their products indirectly. Instead of knocking on doors to sell stuff, the Joneses move from city to city living the high life, subtly convincing their neighbors to buy the high-end goods of their clients.

K.C. (Lauren Hutton), the mysterious supervisor who occasionally shows up in a black limo to go over the numbers, explains it best:

"You're here to sell a lifestyle, an attitude. If they like you, they'll want what you've got."

This may sound conniving and underhanded, but some version of it is already happening in all sorts of industries. Heck, film studios have been putting "plants" into promotional screenings for years, to laugh and cry at just the right places to pump up the audience's reaction.

So in reality, Steve is a failed golf pro and car salesman, hired to play dream hubby to Kate, an ambitious veteran and the boss of this "unit." And Mick and Jenn -- played, appropriately enough, by actors in their mid-20s slumming as high schoolers -- have more grown-up proclivities than their would-be peers.

Writer/director Derrick Borte (working from a story by Randy T. Dinzler) ladles on the satire of consumer culture with a generous hand, but manages to keep the tone light and biting -- at least until the ending, which is pat and predictable.

Given our current economic trough, it can be a bit sickening to witness all the conspicuous consumption of luxury cars and unnecessary junk -- "He who dies with the most toys, wins!" is Steve's declared motto.

I feel compelled to point out that the merchandise featured in "The Joneses" is real stuff from real companies, who are duly listed in the end credits. It would seem strange that they would want to be identified as product placement perpetrators in a film mocking such practices.

Maybe K.C. was right, and if people like the movie, they'll want the stuff they saw in it. "What a wonderful send-up of the culture of envy! Now where can I test-drive one of those Audi R8's?"

3 stars out of four