Review: "Let Them All Talk"

Reviewing movies is a little different these days. It's fair to say we're having to work extra hard. It used to be a relatively simple matter of seeing what new theatrical releases were coming up, scheduling/lobbying for screenings with the regional studios reps, and making a plan of what to cover.

With everything format-neutral now, it's difficult to know what's coming out in theaters, on Video on Demand and the varying streaming services in any kind of strategic way. I kind of have to take an educated guess about what's most important to review, and do that. The end result is that some outlets get more attention than others.

But this week was an easy call: I heard that a movie was coming out on HBO Max starring Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen and said, "I'm there." Throw in Lucas Hedges and director Steven Soderbergh, and that's 29 Oscar nominations and six wins between them.

Talk about pedigree, and the film didn't disappoint.

Consider that over the past four decades, there has never been longer than a five-year period in which Streep was not up for an Academy Award. And she's earned every one of them. Streep continues to show ferocious strength and emotional subtleties in nearly all her roles, and "Let Them All Talk" is no exception.

She plays Alice Hughes, a renowned novelist nearing the end of her career. Alice is one of those smart people who works very hard to let everyone know how smart she is. She's observant, sensitive, and has a generosity of spirit, even if it only goes a certain way. Not a bad person, a little full of herself, though most people agree she has every right to be.

The story (screenplay by rookie screenwriter Deborah Eisenberg) entails a cross-ocean ship voyage Alice is taking with her two oldest friends, Roberta (Bergen) and Susan (Wiest), as well as her nephew, Tyler (Hedges). The purpose is to collect a major literary award in England, and Alice does not fly. 

Her agent, Karen (Gemma Chan), also tags along, unbeknownst to Alice. Her latest manuscript is due, and no one in the publishing world even knows what it's about. Karen and her peers hope it is a sequel to Alice's most celebrated novel from 35 years ago about a woman, Rowena, who tanked her marriage horribly. It was a best-seller that was turned into a movie, and the agents and publishers can smell the surefire green of a follow-up.

Several dynamics are happening at once on board the ship. Alice has brought Tyler along to look after her two friends, since she stays in her cabin most of the day working, only emerging for a shared lunch and a solo swim. But Tyler gets recruited by Karen to be her spy to find out more about the new book, and becomes infatuated with her.

Meanwhile, Roberta and Susan are feeling left out and stiffed. Although they were the closest of friends in college, they don't really see each other much and their friendship has evolved to that stage of Christmas cards and occasional phone calls.

Susan, who works with abused families, is fine with this arrangement but Roberta is not. She seethes with resentment toward Alice, believing that the Rowena character was based on her. 

Roberta is a real piece of work, toiling at a lowly (to her) job selling lingerie while openly campaigning for a rich man to marry. She's one of those people whose life hasn't worked out the way they hoped and now feel they are owed something -- and Roberta has decided Alice is the one who owes it.

For her part, Alice thinks she's doing her pals a great favor by getting them free passage on a glorious two-week ship cruise. It never occurs to her that spending time with her friends should be part of the bargain.

Left more or less to themselves, Susan and Roberta play loads of board games and natter away about the situation with Alice. They bump into Kelvin Krantz (Dan Algrant), a famous mystery writer -- think John Grisham and Dean Koontz rolled together -- who's also on the cruise. At first heaving-breast fangirls, they are delighted to strike up a chatty friendship.

There's a great juxtaposition of two scenes between Alice and Kelvin. She makes a great show of protesting she's never heard of him, even though it's likely he has sold many times the number of her books. While she's giving a talk, Kelvin gets up and gives a lovely paean to her favorite book (not the Rowena one). Later, she asks him about his own writing process and manages to insult him without seeming aware she's doing so.

(Though I suspect Alice is keenly cognizant of how she comes across.)

"Let Them All Talk" is a gem of a little movie with a half-dozen well-drawn characters, each of whom we feel like we get to know, and would like to do so even further. Even though Roberta and Alice can be rather unpleasant, the feel like full-bodied, authentic women who live in the real world.

I wasn't familiar with Algrant and Chan as actors, and both give very nice supporting performances that are small in screen time but feel big in their impact on the story. In most movies Karen would be depicted as a one-dimensional, conniving character but here we get to see all sorts of shadings we didn't expect. My only regret is she kind of gets pushed to the background in the last act.

And there's Streep, a cinematic giant who, at 71, somehow still seems to be building toward her peak rather than sliding down the back end of it. She's America's greatest living film actress (or actor), and I never get tired of talking about that.

Video review: "Little Women"

It’s a strange thing today where people can’t accept that you merely like a film -- you must love it.

Every year I have movies I adore that other people just think are pretty good or even so-so. “Harriet” is a prime example from 2019. More commonly, films that the consensus of critic and audiences insist are great I find admirable but hardly exceptional.

The most recent Best Picture Oscar winner, “Parasite,” is one of these. Another that many lamented didn’t make a bigger splash during the awards cycle was “Little Women.”

Perhaps it was because I found writer/director Greta Gerwig’s first effort behind the camera, “Lady Bird,” so extravagantly original and vibrant that her follow-up feels like a bit of a letdown. Having her choose as her sophomore effort to make the eighth adaptation of a 150-year-old novel struck me as uninspiring and unchallenging.

What did Gerwig bring to the table that couldn’t be found in the last high-profile adaptation a quarter-century ago with Winona Ryder as the proto-feminist budding writer, Jo March? Nothing that I could see.

The one bit of innovation that others have lauded, Gerwig’s use of parallel storytelling to jump back and forth in time between the first and second sections of the novel by Louisa May Alcott, many found confusing or off-putting.

Saoirse Ronan plays Jo, the headstrong of four daughters of the Marches, a well-regarded but economically struggling family from Concord. Father is away fighting in the Civil War, mother Marmee (Laura Dern) is saintly and supportive, eldest child Meg (Emma Watson) is in a hurry to marry, youngest Amy (Florence Pugh) feels overshadowed by Jo and the pure-hearted Beth (Eliza Scanlen) loves music and is destined to die.

(Sorry, no spoiler warnings extend back as far as 1868.)

Next door live the wealthy Laurences, with Chris Cooper as the stern patriarch whose heart softens in friendship to the Marches. Timothée Chalamet plays his grandson, Laurie, a spoiled brat who the March girls go ga-ga over. Laurie pitches his woo at Jo, who haughtily refuses in order to pursue her ambitions as a writer in New York... though things have a way of turning.

This is a gorgeous-looking film, filled with bright faces and colorful costumes and tables heaped with glistening food. (Though one keeps wondering exactly how indigent the Marches really are.)

“Little Women” is a well-made film with an engaging cast. It’s also the sort of movie where characters tend to just speak the underlying themes of the movie rather than acting them out and letting us come around on our own. For me that’s an easy line to draw between the merely good and truly exemplary.

Video extras are quite nice, consisting of six making-of featurettes:

• “A New Generation of Little Women”
• “Making a Modern Classic”
• “Greta Gerwig: Women Making Art”
• “Hair & Make-Up Test Sequence”
• “Little Women Behind the Scenes”
• “Orchard House, Home of Louisa May Alcott”

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Review: "LIttle Women"

I’ve never read “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, and I think that hurts my perception of the latest cinematic adaptation of it by writer/director Greta Gerwig. (The eighth, it is believed.) I was a huge fan of Gerwig’s debut film, “Ladybird,” and although I liked this one, too, I couldn’t escape the feeling I was a tourist wandering through this story.

Alcott’s seminal semi-autobiographical tale follows the four March sisters as they progress from girls to young women, struggle with their places in 19th century society and their various romantic and familial entanglements. Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) is more or less the lead character, a headstrong proto-feminist who wants to be a writer first and a wife maybe never.

I had not realized that the book was published in two volumes, or that Alcott actually produced a pair of sequels. Gerwig’s screenplay juxtaposes the two sections, set seven years apart, using parallel storylines with the March sisters roughly occupying their teen years during the first and 20s during the second.

In addition to Ronan, who also was Gerwig’s star in “Ladybird,” the cast is uniformly superb. Emma Watson plays oldest daughter, Meg, who yearns to be an actress but embraces the push to marry and have children. Florence Pugh is Amy, the youngest and most willful child, who seethes in Jo’s shadow. Beth (Eliza Scanlen) is the wan one who loves music and has the purest heart, so we all know her fate.

Laura Dern plays their mother, aka “Marmee,” who seems impossibly upbeat and saintly but is allowed a few moments of eye-level humanity. Bob Odenkirk turns up late as their father, perennially away serving in the Civil War and not very consequential to the story even when he is around.

The Marches call themselves poor, though they have a nice, large house in Concord and a servant, and give away astonishing piles of food to the truly indigent. Their next-door neighbors are the super-wealthy Laurences, acquaintances who eventually become friends. Chris Cooper plays the patriarch, whose sternness fades after he takes a shine to Beth. Timothée Chalamet plays his layabout grandson Theodore aka “Laurie,” the object of myriad affections.

With his foppy hair, pencil-thin frame and insolent eyes -- if he were a March, he'd unquestionably be the prettiest sister -- Chalamet is the very picture of unearned privilege. He convinces Jo that he loves her, though we sense that emotionally Laurie is a renter, not a buyer. She rejects him, though later comes to regret it.

In the early scenes the March house practically hums with warmth and energy, while in the later sequences it has become drab and colorless. The family suffers setbacks and heartbreak, but carries on.

In the later section, Jo has moved to New York City to work to pursue a career as a writer, with some success. Tracy Letts plays the publisher who mercilessly cuts her pages and encourages her to write short, pulpy stories in which single women are dead or married by the end. “Either one will do.”

Meryl Streep plays their wealthy Aunt March, who could help them a lot more than she does, though she does offer some employment to the daughters and stresses the importance of marrying well. She’s distraught when Meg falls for John Brooke (James Norton), a penniless tutor. Louis Garrel enters the picture late as Friedrich, a romantic alternative for Jo.

I can see why generations of women have grown up loving “Little Women,” because it embraces them as they are and shows how crushing expectations can be, then or now. We instinctively like Jo because she rejects the wife-or-spinster dichotomy and forges her own path. We understand Amy’s impatience and admire Marmee’s innate generosity of the heart.

The movie tells women it’s OK to embrace a family life, or reject it, fall for boys or shove them away, feel strong but sometimes vulnerable, too. “Girls should go out into the world and make up their own minds about things,” Aunt March says.

If I were a woman or an Alcott reader, I’d probably love this film instead of just admiring it.

Review: "Mary Poppins Returns"

“Mary Poppins Returns” doesn’t just bring back the characters and settings from the iconic 1964 film. It actually attempts to revive the musical genre as it was more than a half-century ago: blessedly un-ironic, family-friendly and with snappy old-school Broadway-style show tunes.

It garnered a PG rating from the MPAA, but really it doesn’t even merit a hard G.

I’ll be curious to see how modern audiences respond to a movie that, aside from a little CGI animation, could’ve been plucked straight out of the 1960s and dropped into theaters today. There are some zippy action sequences and big show pieces, but I’m not sure if dancing and singing is enough to hold the interest of smaller children. (My kids’ attention wandered.)

First and foremost, let’s talk about Emily Blunt taking over Julie Andrews’ first, and most famous, role. She’s terrific, and her singing is tremendous. Blunt brings some of that slight touch of imperiousness but without trying to mimic Andrews’ mannerisms. Her Mary is friendly but a little frosty. All her interactions are tinged with the certain knowledge that she will soon depart.

Still, when she first comes riding down out of the clouds, holding her umbrella and with her high heels cocked akimbo, it’s a pretty magical moment.

The story, based on the works of P. L. Travers, again has her helping out the Banks children, though a new generation. Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane ( Emily Mortimer) are now grown up, and Michael has three moppets of his own. He’s recently a widower, and money is tight in Great Depression-era London. The tale opens with a pair of bank collectors nailing an eviction notice on the door of the Banks family home.

The head banker, Wilkins (Colin Firth), offers his sympathy but we don’t really believe him; he twirls his gold pocket watch a little too flippantly. Mary Poppins arrives just in time to watch over the children -- Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh) and Georgie (Joel Dawson) -- while Michael and Jane search desperately for the certificate of bank shares that will save the day.

(If you can’t spot where it is early on, you’re not paying attention.)

Of course, the story (screenplay by David Magee) is merely an excuse to set up adventures and singing. The score and songs are by Marc Shaiman, with lyrics by Scott Wittman. They’re quite good, though I’m not sure if any will go on to become as immortal as “A Spoonful of Sugar” or “Super‐cali‐fragil‐istic‐expi‐ali‐docious.”

Personally, my favorites are “Trip a Little Light Fantastic,” which is accompanied by some ravishing animation that the characters step into, and “Nowhere to Go But Up,” a helium-fueled flight of fancy.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, no stranger to musicals, cements the supporting cast as Jack, a working-class lamplighter who apprenticed to Bert, the Dick Van Dyke character from the original. Speaking of, Van Dyke himself pops up for a little number, showing off a nice little soft-shoe at age 92. Julie Walters is the cantankerous Banks housekeeper, Ellen.

Meryl Streep turns up as Topsy, a vaguely Slavic cousin of Mary’s who can fix most anything, when her home isn’t turned upside down. Angela Lansbury also has a bit role, and David Warner plays Admiral Boom, the retired naval office next door who insists upon firing a cannon to mark the hour, though he’s getting older and is always five minutes off.

Director Rob Marshall is a musical veteran (“Chicago,” “Nine”) who keeps things moving at a brisk pace, providing just enough characterization and story to glide us into the next razzle-dazzle musical number. This is good old-fashioned moviemaking with no ambitions beyond to entertain. But that it does, and in many spoonfuls.

Video review: "The Post"

In a time when journalism in general and newspapers in particular are under so much attack -- both from economic tidal forces within the industry and political assaults from the White House --- here is a good old-fashioned drama very much in the vein of “All the President’s Men” that extols those who risk much for the simple reward of telling the truth.

“The Post” is Steven Spielberg’s ode to an era when journalists and newspapers risked all to inform the public, and also a summoning of that same spirit in a time when it’s needed more than ever.

“This is who we were,” the film practically chants, and exhorts. “This is what we can be again.”

Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks play Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, the owner/publisher and editor of The Washington Post, respectively. In 1972 their rival, the New York Times, first published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers, a damning recitation of the nation’s failures in Vietnam, before a court injunction slammed down on them.

The Post team -- which also includes Bob Odenkirk, Carrie Coon and David Cross -- got hold of the papers and had a choice to make: publish, and face the quite literal possibility of putting the Post out of business, or press on. We all know the choice they made, but “The Post” is the story of what went on behind that agonizing decision.

Hanks is great -- he always is -- but Streep is the pivotal figure in the story. We learn about her own insecurities, a rich debutante inheriting the Post from her late husband; about what it takes to be a female leader in a time when women were routinely not listened to; and about the financial crisis that coincided with the decision, in which Graham took the company public on the stock exchange.

Part legal procedural, part historical drama, but most of all a portrait of the power -- and risks -- of journalism, “The Post” is director Steven Spielberg’s best film since “Lincoln.”

Bonus features are quite good. In a clever twist, they’re divided into sections like a newspaper would be. The DVD has:

• “The Style Section: Re-Creating of an Era,” which explores the look and feel of the Washington Post newsroom in the 1970s.
• “Arts and Entertainment: Music for the Post,” about the 44-year partnership between Spielberg and composer John Williams.
• “Stop the Presses: Filming The Post,” an on-set visit with Spielberg and crew during production.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition, and you add:

• “Layout: Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee & The Washington Post,” a look at the real-life personalities behind the legend.
• “Editorial: The Cast and Characters of The Post,” about putting together the cast of performers.

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Review: "The Post"

“The Post” is both rose-colored hagiography and a bracing call to arms. It summons up the days of our hallowed past, in which crusading newspapers took on the most powerful and risked their very enterprises to tell people the truth.

And it’s a not-at-all bashful reminder that this sort of thing is more needed now than ever before.

The film, directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, tells the tale of how the Washington Post in 1971 faced off with the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret review that captured the depth of the lies and depravity behind our nation’s tragic involvement in Vietnam.

It’s at once a terrific character study, with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks playing Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, respectively, the publisher and editor of the Post. Hanks is very good -- he’s always very good -- but ultimately Streep carries the picture as an accidental leader who reaches inside herself to find strength and resolve.

The movie is also an excellent procedural drama, taking place over the course of just a few days as the Post reporting team first races to obtain the papers, which their rivals at the New York Times already had, and then Graham agonizes over whether to publish them in defiance of a federal injunction.

All of this was happening at the exact moment the Graham family was taking the company public on the stock exchange, in an effort to transform the Post from a “regional paper” into a titan to rival the Times on a national stage. This little-recognized bit of history, in which Graham had to make her decision knowing it could literally doom the newspaper, adds an extra layer of weight to the film.

Co-screenwriter Singer is fresh off an Oscar win for “Spotlight,” so we again see the painstaking attention to detail of how reporters dig up information, and editors/publishers decide what to do with it. “The Post” is an unsentimental portrait that underscores Bradlee’s rampant ambition; at one point he dispatches an intern to take a train to New York City and spy on the doings at the Times.

Graham and Bradlee are depicted as antagonists rather than allies, at least at first. He sees her as little more than a rich debutante who was handed the reins of a great newspaper after her husband killed himself -- a woman more concerned with society events and friendships with the elite than running a newsroom.

It’s perhaps unkind, but it’s also true: that’s how Graham sees herself. But again: only at first.

“Kathryn, keep your finger out of my eye,” he snarls at her at one point, in an engagement between boss and employee that seems very alien in today’s top-down times.

The rest of the cast is magnificent, and also expansive: Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian, the lead reporter on the story; Carrie Coon as Meg Greenfield and David Cross as Howard Simons, other top scribes; Bruce Greenwood as Bob McNamara, former Defense Secretary and personal friend of Graham; Tracy Letts as Fritz Beebe, Graham’s right-hand man and rock; Bradley Whitford as the (overly) timid voice of caution; Matthew Rhys as Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the papers; Jesse Plemons as the young lawyer brought into defend the Post; and Michael Stuhlbarg as Abe Rosenthal, fierce competitor at the Times, and another Graham friend.

Spielberg’s direction shows the flair of a master who, at age 70, hasn’t lost anything off his fastball. I love the film’s tactile feel -- the dank grayness of the newsroom, the clanky busyness of the typesetters assembling the metal linotype for the next day’s front page. Longtime collaborator John Williams’ musical score paces the movie with energy and solidity.

“The Post” is a lot of things, and certainly a magnificent film is one of them. It’s about getting and running the truth, no matter the consequences. About how those in power use knowledge as something to withhold, distort or wield as a cudgel.

The thing I’ll take away the most from the movie is it’s a woman’s story. Katharine Graham, rich and renowned, suffered from imposter syndrome just as most of us do. She stood up in a world made by men and put her own mark on it.

There’s a terrific moment near the end, where they’re standing on the steps of the Supreme Court after having won a decision against the injunction. Rosenthal and the other men talk into the microphones, pronouncing for posterity. Kay Graham savors the victory for herself, striding down silently past a small sea of women who smile upon her with open admiration and gratitude.

Lovers of free speech, stand up: Your mother’s passing.

Review: "Florence Foster Jenkins"

What’s worse, a passionate hack or an artful fraud?

Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant play two sides of a coin in “Florence Foster Jenkins,” the true-ish story of a wealthy socialite who lived to sing, and was unspeakably awful at it. She lived until nearly the end of her days before anyone bothered to tell her how terrible was her voice.

Florence is one of those creatures of history whose story we would call too farfetched for fiction. Her recitals became the stuff of New York legend, with carefully cultivated lists of hifalutin guests for the invitation-only affairs.

Critics were forbidden, except those who could be relied upon to pen effusive, vaguely-worded reviews. Her common-law husband, British thespian St. Clair Bayfield (Grant), managed her career, which was another way of saying he took great pains – and spread lots of gratuities – to ensure nary a negative word ever reached her ears.

Last year the French made their own version of Jenkins’ life, “Marguerite,” which won actress Catherine Frot their equivalent of the Oscar and took great historical liberties. Now America’s grand dame of cinema makes her own go at the tale, more or less following the known biographical facts but adding a heavy ladling of artistic interpretation, courtesy of director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Nicholas Martin.

It’s another stupendous turn from Streep, playing a woman who led a life of happy delusion. Her Florence brims with a burning passion for music, with carefully hidden reservoirs of self-doubt. She’s domineering in a benevolent sort of way, a woman who’s spent decades expecting everyone around her to bend to her will.

Streep does her own singing, and it’s a testament to her skill that she’s so good at sounding so bad. Florence is off-key, off tempo, off everything. Her pitch is shaky and her diction questionable.

Grant has a nice turn as Bayfield, a cad who lives a double life with another woman (Rebecca Ferguson), but truly is devoted to Florence. Every night he tucks her into bed, puts her to sleep with a recitation of Shakespeare, and then carefully removes the vestiges of vanity she clings to: the wig, the fake eyelashes, and so on.

He’s not so much Florence’s lover as caretaker of her carefully preserved mausoleum-in-waiting.

Simon Helberg plays Cosme McMoon, the meek but talented young pianist hired for $150 a week (that’s about two grand in today’s dollars) to accompany Florence during practices and, later, live performances. Cosme acts as our entrance into this constructed little world, where everyone up to famous conductors and composers go along with the ruse in return for money and patronage.

It’s easy, Bayfield instructs young Cosme, once you agree to “live life free from the tyranny of ambition.”

Eventually, of course, Florence is confronted with a dash of reality after she insists on funding a live performance for soldiers – at Carnegie Hall, no less. Then the proceedings, which have thrived on a fun and frivolous note, take on a tragic tone with a surprising amount of dramatic weight.

“People can say I can’t sing, but nobody can say I didn’t sing,” she says.

Is it really so hard to believe that a person could go so long completely deluded about their own merits? I’m sure Donald Trump is constantly surrounded by hangers-on who tell him his hair looks terrific, and Hillary Clinton’s sycophants give constant assurances her misstatements have an air of authenticity.

Seventy years after her death, Florence’s recordings and playbills are highly sought after, there have been plays about her life, a French movie and now an American one. Was ever a worse artist so lionized?

It’s often said it takes a great deal of bravery to get up in front of an audience and risk making a fool of yourself. “Florence Foster Jenkins” is the story of one of the fools.

Video review: "Ricki and the Flash"

If there’s nothing more exhilarating in a movie theater than finding a wonderful film where you didn’t expect, then little is more depressing than walking out let down by a movie you had awaited with enthusiasm. Such was the case for me and “Ricki and the Flash.”

I think Meryl Streep is the finest actor working in film today, and operate under the general assumption that having her in the cast makes anything worth the price of admission. And while “Ricki” certainly isn’t a bad flick, it’s got too many obvious problems in its structure and execution to ever had a chance at being good.

Streep plays a woman who ran out on her family decades ago to pursue her rock ‘n’ roll dreams on the West Coast. She never made it big, but continues to entertain at night while working days as a checkout clerk. Then Ricki gets the call that her daughter, Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life kid), is in a bad way after a terrible breakup.

You can’t go home again, at least not without stirring up old heartbreak, as Ricki discovers in a by-the-numbers trip through resentment and buried longing. The screenplay by Diablo Cody takes a “kitchen sink” approach, lobbing in all sorts of distracting sub-characters and side plots.

The main dynamic between mother and daughter gets lost, and Julie actually disappears for most of the second half. Kevin Kline is poorly used as Ricki’s ex-husband, a diffident but decent fellow who’s moved on from a shattered love life but still feels some warmth toward her.

Throw in the gay son’s coming out, the other son’s wedding, Ricki’s scratchy romance with her lead guitarist (Rick Springfield) and a face-off with her children’s stepmother, and there’s just too many notes in this cacophonous arrangement. And director Jonathan Demme can’t find a consistent tone amidst the chaos.

Streep’s great as always, but “Ricki and the Flash” gets the primary chords wrong.

Video extras are middling. The DVD comes with a making-through documentary, and that’s it. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, a photo gallery and a featurette on Springfield’s reemergence as a rock icon and actor.

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Review: "Suffragette"

In America we think of the suffragette movement in glowing, benevolent terms. Our public consciousness invokes halcyon memories of a non-violent, high-minded debate in which brave women who advocated for the right to vote were subjected to little more than frowning disapproval and comments about their diminished prospects for marriage, with jail time for a hardened few.

In actuality the movement took decades and included police brutality, mass arrests, hunger strikes, forced feedings and the separation of mothers from children. “Suffragette” is an attempt to shine a light on the darker, grittier side of the crusade, focusing specifically on a small group of working-class British women who kicked the push for the vote into high gear in their country.

It’s a well-intentioned film, which jumps through the tropes of the ‘inspiring historical drama’ genre 1-2-3. It takes miserly few chances with its story and characters. The actors are an impressive lot and the production values are fine, but it’s a rather dour affair with a scarcity of surprises.

Carey Mulligan plays a familiar type of protagonist: the indifferent youngster who falls in with the rebellious crowd, gets caught up by circumstance and ends up as hardest of the hardcore.

Her character is entirely made up, as are all the others but two: Meryl Streep has a bit role (two or three scenes) as Emmeline Pankhurst, the real-life founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union, who essentially operates as the leader-in-exile, flitting from place to place in secrecy for fear of arrest. And Natalie Press plays Emily Davison, a tertiary figure who only becomes important late in the proceedings.

Mulligan is Maud Watts, a 24-year-laundress who keeps her head down in 1912 London. She started working at 12 and was made forewoman at 20. Her factory is a brutish sweat shop, complete with a piggish manager (Geoff Bell) who sees taking liberties with the young girls as a perk of the job. Her husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) is a kindly but sheepish fellow who also works there. They have an adorable scamp of a son, are desperately poor but essentially happy.

The government is taking testimony from working women about getting the vote, and Maud is conscripted at the last minute to fill in for a fiery co-worker (Anne-Marie Duff) who has to demur. Her plain-spoken words seemingly move the chief official, but needless to say more challenges await.

She makes the rounds befriending the suffragette crew, including a wealthy benefactor (Romola Garai) and Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter), a female doctor who’s been jailed nine times and repeatedly urges more militant action, including breaking shop windows and blowing up mail boxes.

(Fun fact: Bonham Carter is the great-granddaughter of H. H. Asquith, who was Prime Minister during this time and a noted opponent of voting rights for women. Take that, great-grandpa!)

Brendan Gleeson has a nice turn as Steed, a cunning police inspector who outfoxes the suffragettes for a time. He views Maud as just an impressionable young woman and targets her for recruitment as an informer.

Things go on as you might expect. Maud is shocked when peaceful channels prove fruitless, agrees to more strident acts, is jailed and disgraced, her husband is mortified and warns her not to defy him again, the heroines make quotable pronouncements off the cuff, etc.

“You want me to respect the law? Then make the law respectable!” goes a typical refrain.

I didn’t dislike “Suffragette,” but it feels so workmanlike and even drab at times. Director Sarah Gavron and screenwriter Abi Morgan (“The Iron Lady”) might have been better served by focusing on actual historical figures instead of concocting a bunch of make-believe folks. These characters feel less like people and more conduits for a message, however noble it might be.

Review: "Ricki and the Flash"

I could've done with less singing.

That may be seem a strange criticism for a movie about a rock star. (Well, a rock musician, anyway.) But that was my main takeaway from "Ricki and the Flash": it spends way too much time with Meryl Streep and her eponymous band doing covers of (mostly) classic rock songs.

We all know how it goes with musical montages: the band will start playing, the scene will build energy as the song rises, the high point is the chorus, and then movie cuts away to a series of images that let us know they kept playing, but they're not going to show all of it. Director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Diablo Cody don't do this: we hear the whole song from beginning to end, just about every time.

The would be fine if the five, six minutes or whatever of song propelled the plot and advanced the characters. Or if it was just good to listen to. But the complete tunes seem more like an excuse to let Streep stroke her ego and play rock god. And, frankly, Ricki and the Flash sound like what they are: a third-string cover band. We know Streep can sing pop ballads and folk music from other movies, but here she's trying to do that husky-voiced rock voice, and it's just not her bag.

They're going for Bonnie Raitt, but it sounds like Meryl Streep after gargling Wild Turkey and thumb tacks.

Ricki bailed on her Indianapolis family a quarter-century ago or so to pursue her rock 'n' roll dreams in Los Angeles. She never made it but never left, spending days as a cashier at Total Foods while working the Salt Well bar as the house band for the aging clientele who want a little shake with their suds.

Then Ricki gets a call from her former husband, Pete (an ill-used Kevin Kline): their daughter Julie has just been dumped by her husband and is in an emotional spin. Pete's second wife, Maureen, is off dealing with her own family problems. Can Ricki (real name: Linda) come back and be a mother to her kids again?

Things play out much as you'd expect. The children -- they also have two sons -- are stupendously resentful of the parent who walked out on them so long ago. There's a lot of screaming and recrimination at first. But slowly, Ricki starts to ease her way back into their lives.

As usual, Streep is the best thing about whatever movie she's in. Her Ricki is frayed and strained, riddled with guilt but also justifiably proud of the fact that rolled the dice on her dreams. She sports a weird braided hairdo, omnipresent necklaces and makeup that looks like it was applied with a bricklayer's trowel. Everywhere she goes, people stop and stare.

Julie is played by Streep's real-life daughter, Mamie Gummer, and it's no small thing for a movie to feature people playing relatives who actually resemble each other. Their early scenes together crackle with energy. Julie has become despondent and suicidal, with a convincing rat's nest hairdo and lips curling with ready insults for her wayward mom.

Cody, who took Hollywood by storm with her script for "Juno" and then has been unable to follow up with anything approaching it, goes for the kitchen sink approach to story construction. Just Ricki coming home, healing the rift with her daughter and negotiating a dance around old resentments with her ex is enough. But then Cody throws in other entanglements: her son's pending marriage; her other son's coming out; her bandmate and bedmate (a soulful Rick Springfield) desiring something more concrete; the stepmom (Audra McDonald) returning just in time to lay down the law and ruin the party.

Characters and subplots dance in and out of the foreground, some staying too long and others exiting the stage too soon. The emotionally resonant reunion between mother and daughter gets sort of... misplaced. Julie literally disappears for most of the second half. Wasn't she the entire reason for Ricki's homecoming?

I admit I had been eagerly looking forward to this movie, and came away disappointed. It's not a bad flick by any stretch, and I'm of the opinion that anything with Streep is worth the price of admission. Ricki comes into clear focus, but everything around her stays fuzzy.

Video review: "The Homesman"

If I were to measure "The Homesman" only by its two lead performances, I'd call it a home run deserving of multiple Academy Award nominations. Unfortunately, its story wanders this way and that, an open range Western that sometimes gallops, and sometimes stumbles.

Set in about 1850, the tale is of three pioneer wives who have gone mad on the lonely stretches of Nebraska. They need to be transported back to Iowa to be cared for by their families, but none of their husbands have the will or gumption to make the journey. So Mary Bee Cuddy volunteers to be their guardian and chaperone.

Mary Bee is played by Hilary Swank, in another signature performance of her career, and is a woman of immeasurable virtues. She runs her own farm and is, as one fellow says, "as good a man as any man in these parts." However, her soul is weighed down by her inability to find a husband, owing to her plain looks and bossiness.

Early in her journey she runs across George Briggs, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed and co-wrote the screenplay. Briggs has been strung up for claim jumping, but Mary Bee cuts him down in exchange for his help getting the women back to Iowa.

Along the way they encounter the familiar array of threats from American Indians, rapacious bandits, con men and natural elements. Somehow, these two fiercely independent souls must find a way to trust one another.

Even though the script could've used a few more runs around the corral, "The Homesman" is worth a look if only to see these two master thespians plying their trade.

Bonus features are rather disappointing. The Blu-ray and DVD editions both carry the same three featurettes: "Story to Script," "Shooting the Film" and "19th Century Life."

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "The Homesman"

“The Homesman” exists somewhere in that netherworld between the Western and the anti-Western. It celebrates the austerity and grit of the mid-1800s, and the people who settled west of the Mississippi River; but also casts an unsparing, gimlet eye on the brutality of those times -- and those who made it so.

It’s the sort of movie full of horses and guns and stare-downs between desperate folks, but it’s not really about those things. There is little actual violence, and that which does transpire ill comports with the uses traditionally seen in this terrain of filmmaking.

Story-wise it kind of jags this way and that, like a drunken rider upon a lame horse, neither one too sure about the navigation. But it contains a brilliant performance by Hilary Swank, full of contradictory emotions and urges that nonetheless seem perfectly confined inside a character who feels urgent and alive.

And Tommy Lee Jones, who co-stars and also directed and co-wrote the film, isn’t half-bad himself. Not to mention an impressive supporting cast that includes the likes of Meryl Streep, Hailee Steinfeld, John Lithgow, James Spader and Tim Blake Nelson.

Based upon a book by Glendon Swarthout, the story concerns a journey from Nebraska to Iowa roundabouts 1850 to return three wives who have gone crazy on the lonely plains to their families back East. Their husbands are reluctant to leave their crops or children to make the long, arduous journey, so Mary Bee Cuddy (Swank) steps forward.

To all outward appearances, Mary Bee is a marvel. An educated woman from New York, she runs a prosperous claim including prime farmland, stock and a tidy house. She is active in her church and community – as much as one can be when you measure the distance to neighbors in miles – and respected by all. She is, as one forthright fellow puts it, as good a man as any man in these parts.

But there is an itchy desperation to Mary Bee, driven by the fact that she is 31 years old (firmly into spinsterhood), a mite bossy and “plain as an old tin pail,” to use a variation on a common refrain. As the story opens she essentially throws herself at a callow clod with whom she has lately been social. “Why not marry?” she proposes, going on to outline the financial benefits of a pairing, and we sense this not the first time such a speech has been given.

Rejected, Mary Bee agrees to oversee three women who have been more successful in getting married, but not in what comes after. Played by Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter and Grace Gummer, each has experienced extreme tragedy that has driven them over the edge, including the death of children, due to causes natural ... and otherwise.

The trio exists as ghostly, wordless figures of pity, though Jones and his co-screenwriters (Wesley A. Oliver and Kieran Fitzgerald) are careful to show glimpses of the cruel lives that made them so.

Her charges locked into a boxed wagon, Mary Bee begins her expedition but stumbles across a man sitting on a horse with a noose around his neck. He is George Briggs (Jones), a claim-jumper and man of constant wanderings. He agrees to assist Mary Bee in exchange for saving his life, and thus begins a volatile relationship built on distrust and resentment, but also a shared sense of solitariness.

Along the way they encounter the usual sorts of challenges – Indians, rapacious cowboys, bitter snows and stomachs shriveled from hunger. The real journey is in these two damaged people venturing toward a nexus where they can both abide. It would seem impossible; she has a despairing desire to be needed, while he holds his rootless freedom as his most cherished (and often only) possession.

I wish “The Homesman” had as coherent a sense of narrative as it does well-limned portraits of its main characters. Some of the encounters in the film, particularly in the second half, have little connective tissue with the themes and story that surround them. (One, a visit to an intended town that so far has only built a hotel, tries too transparently to borrow a page from “Unforgiven.”)

But Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones are well worth the price of admission on their own. In most Westerns the actions define the character, but here it’s the words, said and unsaid, that offer a peek inside distant souls.

Review: "August: Osage County"

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts, who also penned the screenplay, “August: Osage County” is the sort of movie that shows its stage roots.

The action -- and by “action,” I mean people talking -- takes place in more or less a single location. There’s a certain showiness to the dialogue and performances, as if broadcasting to the back of the room. And it relies on two or three big, booming plot twists to carry the narrative, which by itself is rather meager.

This is the sort of movie that has close on to a dozen important characters, and every single one of them has at least one look-at-me moment where they get to have a big speech to deliver or an emotional crisis in which to wallow. For the minor characters, it practically feels like a checklist: “OK, here’s the timid son’s time in the spotlight.” The major players enjoy several of these.

All this isn’t to say “August” isn’t a thoroughly enjoyable cinematic experience. It is. It just doesn’t hold a grand sense of newness about itself. It feels like latter-day William Faulkner with a wink.

The film skates by on some pretty tremendous performances by some pretty amazing actors, starting with Meryl Streep. As family matriarch Violet Weston, Streep is like an Oklahoma tornado sweeping through her own house, hurling things this way and that. Suffering from mouth cancer and constantly addled by the many drugs she takes to address it, Violet feels no compunction about saying perfectly horrible things to anyone and everyone around here.

She saves her most venomous bile for her own clan. As the story opens her husband, Beverly (Sam Shepard), a noted poet, has died under mysterious circumstances, probably a suicide. As the family gathers to lay him to rest, it’s also an occasion to hash any number of squabbles, secrets and recriminations.

Oldest daughter Barbara (Julia Roberts) loathes the vindictive creature her mother has become, and fears she’s treading down the same path. Separated from her husband (Ewan McGregor) and estranged from their teen daughter (Abigail Breslin), she’s not spoiling for a fight with Violet, but she’s not about to back down from one, either.

The other two daughters are Karen (Juliette Lewis) and Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), both sporting man problems. Karen, brittle and self-deluded, has shown up with her latest beau, a glib sports car-driving business type (Dermot Mulroney). Ivy, the lonely child who stuck around to care for their parents, is resentful and reticent to share news about a new love.

I really enjoyed Margo Martindale as Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae, who has fewer sharp edges but hides a steely, mean streak underneath, and Chris Cooper as her husband Charles, a man with a tendency to smile through the pain. Their son Little Charles is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a grown man with a childlike disposition and challenges.

Director John Wells is a TV guy whose only previous stint helming a feature film, “The Company Men,” was seen and appreciated by myself, and few others. He more or less hangs back and lets the actors rip, shrewing and harping and haranguing.

“August: Osage County” is a perfectly serviceable drama that’s worth a ticket, if only to see Meryl Streep’s latest masterwork. Even if she’s not always in the best movies, it’s hard to debate her status as the best film actor working today. She racks up Oscar nominations with astonishing regularity, and there’s a reason why.

Video review: "The Iron Lady"

With a lot of biopics I see starring a tremendous actor in an Oscar-worthy turn, the performance often trumps the movie around it.

Movie stars by their definition get the most screen time and the best lines of dialogue. But when it's a film about a historical figure, with lots of big events and emotions, oftentimes the performer can be so dominant that the story can't get any air. Think Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote" or Jamie Foxx in "Ray."

"The Iron Lady" follows in this tradition, featuring Meryl Streep in a role so meaty -- as seminal British prime minister Margaret Thatcher -- that the rest of the movie occasionally turns to mush.

Streep is so good, she carries the picture during the insipid stretches, such as when she's battling her government underlings like a schoolmarm fussing at some ill-behaved boys in knee pants.

The film reaches a brighter note when Thatcher is communing with the spirit of her deceased husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). It's not delusion; they both acknowledge that he's dead. It's just that neither one wants to lose whatever argument they're currently having.

In the end, "The Iron Lady" is worth watching just to see the way Streep nails the iconic Thatcher, from that swoop of sprayed hair to the commanding screech of a voice. There's greatness in that performance, if not the movie that contains it.

Video extras are fairly minimalist, and are the same for both DVD and Blu-ray editions.

There's a making-of featurette and four mini-featurettes: “Recreating the Young Margaret Thatcher,” “Battle in the House of Commons,” “Costume Design: Pearls and Power Suits,” and “Denis: The Man Behind the Woman.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I think the real Margaret Thatcher would deem this video release as lacking proper ambition.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "The Iron Lady"

"The Iron Lady" is a fairly standard biopic containing an extraordinary performance. That it is by Meryl Streep is not surprising; I'd say she has made a career resurgence in her 50s and early 60s, except she never really experienced a lull. Streep arguably occupies the place where Morgan Freeman sat 15 years ago: America's greatest living film actor.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science might as well give her a nomination now. This would be her 17th Oscar nod, a number so astounding its impact is dwarfed only by the fact that her last win was in 1983, for "Sophie's Choice."

Based on her riveting, spot-on turn as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, I'd say her dry spell for taking home golden statues may well come to an end.

I often feel that with movies of this sort, containing a performance that is so dominating and full-bodied, the film around it tends to suffer. Like Jamie Foxx in "Ray" or Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote," Streep's gravitational pull is so powerful, story arcs and secondary characters tend to get sucked into the vortex.

Only Jim Broadbent, giving his own golden-caliber turn as Thatcher's long-suffering husband Denis, is given time to add more than perfunctory notes.

Most films about politicians tend to shy away from the politics -- especially when they don't sync up with Hollywood's leftist tilt. Director Phyllida Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan make the bold and I think proper choice to put Thatcher's Conservative party ideals front and center to the story.

The movie isn't a diatribe for right-wing political conclusions, but shows how Thatcher's self-reliant upbringing and tendency to demand the best of those around her colored her way of thinking. In an age awash in self-reflection and where the slacker mentality is idolized, this portrait of the vinegary Thatcher and her stern exhortations has a sort of bracing throw-back freshness.

"It used to be about trying to do something," an elderly Thatcher complains to an admirer. "Now it's about trying to be someone."

The story unspools with old, doddering Thatcher reflecting on her life in flashback. Alexandra Roach plays young Thatcher, a grocer's daughter who ran for Parliament at age 24 (and lost). Over time, though, she gains standing until she believes it's time to run for leader of her party -- not because she thinks she can win, but because she wants to bolster ideals she believes have grown flabby.

In the modern sections, Denis Thatcher has long been dead, but Margaret still talks to him (raising great concern on the part of her handlers). On a conscious level, she knows he's not there, but her soul so aches for his companionship that she refuses to dismiss his apparition.

Ever the chameleon, Streep is made up to resemble Thatcher rather closely, including that famous swoop of helmet hair. She gets the iconic voice just right, a squeaky goose's honk that she employed to scold and argue her point. Once scene, showing her receiving vocal training in preparation for her national campaign, has (deliberate?) similarities to last year's "The King's Speech."

I thoroughly enjoyed "The Iron Lady," or more rather I enjoyed watching Streep embody Margaret Thatcher with a convincing mix of steel and velvet. This is a movie that contains greatness, though it never quite reaches it.

3 stars out of four

SAG awards are Oscar harbinger

A week ago, I wrote in this space assessing how much the Golden Globes are an indicator of the Academy Awards. Short version: Not very much.

Last night's Screen Actors Guild Awards, though are different. Unlike the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is basically a phantom organization, the SAG is the powerful actors union. Like the Producers Guild, Directors Guild and Writers Guild, these groups' awards are notable because of the overlap with Academy voters.

People who are members of one of these guilds are often (though certainly not always) also voting members of the Academy. The SAG awards are especially notable because actors make up the largest voting bloc of the Academy.

So as the guild awards go, so often go the Oscars.

There wasn't too much surprise in last night's awards: Jeff Bridges won Best Actor for "Crazy Heart," Christoph Waltz took supporting actor for "Inglourious Basterds," Mo'Nique won supporting actress for "Precious."

At this point, those three should be considered heavy favorites to win the Oscar. Colin Firth didn't get a lot of traction for "A Single Man," mainly because few people saw it. And everyone loves George Clooney in "Up in the Air," but I think there's a sense floating around that he was playing a version of himself -- or at least his star persona.

Whereas Oscar voters love to award actors (actresses, not so much) lifetime achievement awards. So, often a respected actor will take home the statue for a movie most reasonable people would agree is not their best work. Thus, Paul Newman finally won for "The Color of Money" and Al Pacino for "Scent of a Woman" -- fine movies and fine performances, but hardly the pinnacle of their careers.

Essentially, there's a movement underway pushing the idea that it's Jeff Bridges' time. I don't mind, since in this case I think "Crazy Heart" does represent some of his finest work.

The real surprise was Sandra Bullock winning Best Actress for "The Blind Side." Her SAG win is starting me to changing my mind that she can't win the Oscar.

Unlike the Globes, the SAG awards and Oscars don't split up the acting category into dramas and comedies/musicals. So the fact that Bullock won over award favorite Meryl Streep is an indication of genuine respect for Bullock's performance. I think we could dismiss her Globe win to her film's excellent box office performance -- the Globes are the epitome of favoring the most popular over the best films. Not SAG.

The other big contender, Carey Mulligan, appears to be sliding. Not very many people saw "An Education," which was a critical darling. And given Mulligan's youth and inexperience -- "An Education" represents her first starring role -- there may be a willingness to view an Oscar nomination as its own reward for a rising star. Even Hilary Swank, who seemed to come out of nowhere a decade ago to win for "Boys Don't Cry," had headlined a couple of small movies prior to that.

This is one occasion where it helps to be the established actress in her 40s rather than the ingenue in her early 20s.

Personally, I still think Streep gave the best performance of the year. But it's starting to look more and more like Bullock's turn in "The Blind Side" has come out of nowhere to take the lead.

Review: "It's Complicated"

"It's Complicated" covers familiar ground, but this comedy about autumn romance is charming enough to entertain despite its slightly stale themes.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are a tremendous cinematic pairing as a long-divorced couple who unexpectedly re-stoke the dying embers. Since he's now married to the woman he left her for, she effectively switches places as the Other Woman.

To add to the mix, Steve Martin is cast very much against type as a straitlaced architect with the hots for Streep.

Writer/director Nancy Meyers has trod down the path of oldster canoodling before, most notably with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give." The idea of a woman nearing 60 having to fend off multiple suitors clearly appeals to the filmmaker, and probably a lot of audience members.

Streep plays Jane, who's sending her youngest daughter off to college, watching the middle son graduate, and helping her oldest daughter prepare for her wedding. She and Jake (Baldwin) were married for 20 years, divorced for 10, and after years of consternation have reached a comfortable sort of detente.

But by the way Jane glares at Jake's much-younger wife (Lake Bell), it's clear she has unresolved issues about the relationship ending -- not to mention that she's in a pretty long dry spell herself romantically.

A successful baker, Jane is looking to add an addition onto her house, and thus meets Adam (Martin). The architect is shy, a bit awkward, and just getting over his own divorce. It's kind of a flat role as written, and Martin doesn't really fill out the part satisfactorily.

Whenever the film wanders off into Adam territory, it loses steam. The Jane/Jake dynamic is what keeps things moving.

The scenes of them together are playful and sexy -- the twinkle in Baldwin's eyes speaks of a lifelong rogue who decides the homefires were the warmest. Streep's character is confused and reticent at first, but eventually decides she deserves a romp.

Jake points out that, by virtue of their age, they have simply aged out of all the problems they had while they were married. He's no longer obsessed with work, and she doesn't have to put family before herself anymore.

"We both grew into the people we wanted each other to be," he says.

There's several laugh-out-loud moments, including one where Streep tells a doctor something that you never expected to hear out of Hollywood's Oscar queen. Along with her fleshy, exuberant turn as Julia Child earlier this year, Streep is Tinseltown's latest-blooming sexpot.

Baldwin bares himself, too, though in a more literal sense. All I will say is it's the funniest use of a webcam since the first "American Pie."

"It's Complicated" isn't terribly original, but it's a generous and entertaining look at life and love while rounding third base.

3 stars

Video review: "Julie & Julia"

It's strange to me that many of my acquaintances have felt rather lackluster about "Julie & Julia," which I consider my favorite film of 2009 (thus far).

Among those whose ardor does not match my own, the feeling is virtually universal: They loved the period section with Meryl Streep portraying Julia Child during her life in France while she was writing her masterpiece, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." But they found the modern section with Amy Adams as a New York worker drone who resolves to cook her way through Child's entire book rather drab.

I can't account for the difference in taste. To me, writer/director Nora Ephron's marriage of the stories of the two women was a masterstroke.

Julie and Julia were not similar as people: Child, with her iconic warbling speech and towering height, was adventurous and outgoing. Julie Powell was a self-described underachiever, even a bit of a loser.

But it's the twin stories of Julia and Julie finding themselves through their love of food that makes this film such a tasty cinematic meal.

Video extras are decent for the DVD, but the real frisson comes with the Blu-ray version.

Both formats include "Secret Ingredients," a 27-minute making-of documentary, and a commentary track by Ephron. The doc is interesting enough -- Streep reveals that she gained 15 pounds while shooting the film -- but tends to be a lot of everyone talking about how great everyone else was. Ephron's commentary is entertaining but rather sparse, going silent for long stretches.

Several more extras are exclusive to Blu-ray. There is a 47-minute featurette of family and friends reminiscing about Julia Childs, which includes tons of photographs and tidbits about her life. There are five video cooking lessons, including Julia herself poaching eggs and making Hollandaise sauce.

"Julia's Kitchen," a 22-minute doc about the process of transporting Child's entire home kitchen for display at the Smithsonian, is unexpectedly riveting, with its intimate trip through her personal cooking tools and tchochkes.

Movie: 4 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

Imagine if a group of ironic hipster movie-makers decided to do their own version of a beloved children's book, and in stop-motion animation to boot. It retained the basic story, but layered in a lot of dry humor that appealed to adults -- basically, a kiddie tale tailored for grown-ups.

You can stop imagining, because "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is that movie.

Director/co-writer Wes Anderson brings along many of the actors and all of the sensibilities of "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Rushmore" to this adaptation of Roald Dahl's book about a fox who can't give up his chicken-hunting ways.

Dahl has been a virtual one-man fount for children's flicks: "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory," "James and the Giant Peach," "Matilda" and more. Meanwhile, Anderson's movies are marked by their detached quality and wry characters, punctuated by quirky/folksy music.

The combination may not seem obvious, but they mesh together deliciously. "Fox" is one of the funniest movies of the year, though in a deadpan sort of way.

Mr. Fox is voiced by George Clooney, doing his debonair rogue thing. After nearly being captured by a farmer while stealing chickens, his wife (Meryl Streep) makes him promise to give up his life of danger.

Flash forward a few years, and they're a happily domesticated couple with a son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman, whose vocal performance is top-notch). Ash is undersized and resentful, a state that only grows when his athletic cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson) comes to stay with them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Fox decides that his life as a newspaper columnist is too dull, so he enlists his opossum friend Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) to take aim at the mega-farms of Boggus, Bunce and Bean -- the three meanest farmers around. He draws up elaborate master plans to make off with their chickens, ducks and apple cider.

Unfortunately, the farmers hatch their revenge by lying in ambush outside Fox's tree home, shooting his tail off in the process. They're led by the lean Mr. Bean, scarily voiced by Michael Gambon. They even bring in big earth-movers to uproot the whole hill, with throws Badger (Bill Murray) and a lot of the other members of the animal community out of their homes, too.

One of the most delightful things about the movie is how the animals outwardly behave liked civilized humans -- Mr. Fox wears a suit, Mrs. Fox is a watercolorist, Badger is a lawyer, etc. But Mr. Fox believes they're really wild animals inside, and have wandered too far from their feral instincts.

Still, it's fun to watch Fox and Bean square off as equal adversaries, rather than hunter/prey -- they even exchange threatening letters. Fox also has an old nemesis, Rat (Willem Dafoe), who wields a switchblade and has been hired by Bean.

I really enjoyed Whack Bat, the game the animal children play at school, which is like a Rube Goldberg version of cricket.

Oh, and it's witty how instead of swearing, the critters just substitute the word "cuss" wherever the naughty one would be: "What the cuss?!?"

The stop-motion animation is amazing, hitting that sweet spot between reality and stylized embellishments.

The title of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" comes from Fox's neurotic need to be the best at whatever he does so others to like him. Based on his movie -- which should give "Up" a run for the Academy Award for best animated film -- he has no need for worry.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Manhattan"

When it comes to Woody Allen movies, I'm with Ned Flanders.

The do-gooder neighbor on "The Simpsons," who's sort of a caricature of middle-America suburbanites, once opined that "I like his films except for that nervous fella that's always in them."

I've seen nearly all of Allen's movies, liked most of them, loved a handful, been indifferent to a few, never outright hated any of them. But when I think about it, I tend to like his movies in which he, Woody Allen, is not the main character -- "Hannah and Her Sisters" is probably my favorite.

The Woody persona of the nerdy, high-strung New York intellectual may bear little relation to Woody the Manhattan filmmaker, but I find that a small dose of it goes a long way in his movies.

So it's strange that 1979's "Manhattan" is also among my favorite Woody Allen movies, since he's in almost every scene, and is at the very center of the story.

He also narrates it, as he did in "Annie Hall," but I really feel that movie was about the Diane Keaton character, with Woody acting as the lens through which we viewed her. In grammatical terms, she was the subject and he was the object. In "Manhattan," Woody is the object, subject and all the adjectives, too.

There's a scene near the end where Isaac Davis, Woody's cinematic alter-ego, muses that people like him are so self-obsessed and tie themselves into all sorts of psychological knots in order to prevent themselves from thinking about the really big, scary stuff: Life, death, God, love. If this constitutes his attempt to justify the narcissism that is a hallmark of his characters, then he fails miserably.

The main plot of the movie is a love triangle -- or rather, a love quadrangle. Isaac falls for the mistress of his best friend, Yale (Michael Murphy), who is married. Mary (Diane Keaton) is a self-doubting writer and feminist who can't believe she's fooling around with a married guy. She turns to Isaac, almost as a way to ween herself off Yale. But eventually she changes her mind, dumps Isaac and runs back to Yale's arms.

The other notable thing about "Manhattan" 30 years later is its resemblance to controversial parts of Woody Allen's real life. In the movie, Isaac (who is 42) is dating a 17-year-old girl, Tracy, played by Mariel Hemingway (nominated for an Oscar). Allen, of course, was involved in a long-term relationship with Mia Farrow that ended when she learned that he had been carrying on a dalliance with one of her adopted daughters, Soon-Yi Previn. He was 56 and she 22 when this came to light, and they eventually married and remain so to this day.

The film ends with Isaac, who had pushed Tracy to forget about him and take up a scholarship to study acting in Europe, arriving just before her taxi leaves to take her to the airport. In a grand gesture, her begs her to stay and take him back. Tracy, who despite her youth is perhaps the most centered and mature character in the film, asks him to wait for her and to trust her. The film ends on that ambiguous note.

There is much to say about a romantic relationship between a 42-year-old man and a girl in high school, the most important of which is that this is a crime. Isaac even lightly jokes about being arrested once or twice during the movie. I cannot for the life of me imagine what sort of parents have so slight a yoke on their teenage daughter's life that allow her to wander New York at all hours of the night, even sleeping over at someone else's apartment, without objection. I hope that such parents exist only in the movies.

Meryl Streep, who was just launching her film career three decades ago, has a small but interesting turn as Isaac's ex-wife, who is now a lesbian and has written a tell-all book about their sordid marriage. It's an underwritten role -- as most of Allen's non-lead female roles tend to be -- but she makes quite an impression.

Perhaps the thing most remembered now about "Manhattan" is the black-and-white cinematography by the great Gordon Willis, which somehow was not nominated for an Oscar that year. The film is an unapologetic love song to the Big Apple, with its loving portraits of majestic skylines and many shots of Central Park. The shot of Mary and Isaac looking at the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun comes up is perhaps the most famous image of Woody Allens long and storied film career. I lived in Manhattan for nearly two years while attending school, and the city never looked as good as it does in this movie.

3.5 stars