"A Haunting in Venice"

 ☆☆☆ 

There have been some pretty good Agatha Christie film adaptations over the years, and some pretty bad ones, and some truly awful ones (word to the wise: avoid 1985's Ordeal By Innocence at all costs), and Kenneth Branagh has made films that fall into both of the latter camps. Overwhelmed by unnecessary CGI, filled with performances that border on camp, and unhelped by overripe camera work, Branagh's first two Christie efforts were not good films.

The third time's sort of the charm, then, as Branagh returns as both director and star of A Haunting in Venice, which is an intriguing riff on one of Christie's lesser-known novels ("Hallowe'en Party") that is neither particularly faithful to or precious about the source work. It's mostly an entertaining diversion, but it sure does move like a lead brick sometimes.

Its terrible pacing is not helped by dark and murky photography, which would be appropriately moody if it weren't combined with directorial choices that mistake slow for atmospheric. As an Agatha Christie drawing-room mystery, A Haunting in Venice is filled with dialogue, narration and lots and lots and lots of flashbacks to things we can't possibly have known ... which usually are part of the fun, but this time bog the whole thing down with a dismal, glum air.

So, why in the world am I recommending A Haunting in Venice? Mostly because it's fun to see a labyrinthine mystery play out on screen, fun to see strong performers like Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey chew up the scenery with necessary overacting, and fun to see such sumptuous production and costume design ... when you can make anything out. The whole affair is murky, both in plot and in physical appearance, but in the end as Branagh's Hercule Poirot susses out the shenanigans—this time involving one suspicious death, one outright murder, and a whole host of other nefarious deeds, all on Halloween Eve in the heart of Venice—it's one of moviegoing's core delights to see a good, old-fashioned murder mystery with a clever, I thought so! kind of conclusion.

Watching A Haunting in Venice takes some effort, but it's worth the extra work.

Viewed Sept. 17, 2023 — AMC Burbank 6

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"Oppenheimer"

     ☆☆☆½ 

The first time I saw Oppenheimer, in 70mm at a spectacular old movie palace, something was off. It might well have been me, but I came away feeling overwhelmed by Christopher Nolan's film—not in that sense of being overwhelmed by something spectacular and new, but overwhelmed as if I had been beaten into submission for three hours by a relentless, pounding score and rapid-fire editing that left me dizzy.

Now I wonder if part of my problem—which led me to not reviewing the film at the time, sensing I was missing something—was how I saw Oppenheimer. I'll never say no to seeing a movie projected on 70mm film, but that more standard cinematic version of Nolan's film felt claustrophobic and close-up. Now I understand why.

I've seen the film again in its "native" format of 70mm IMAX, and it's an entirely different experience. The story is still often confusing, the film still feels overlong and sometimes preposterously talky, and the non-stop score is still hypnotically distracting. Yet, opened up for the IMAX screen, particularly when Nolan has chosen to use the entire IMAX screen, that felt muddled and tight now feels free and at least mostly coherent.

Oppenheimer still bears all the hallmarks of being a Christopher Nolan film, and I'm beginning to realize a cinematic truth that Nolan and I aren't really on the same wavelength. He's so enamored by the mechanics of filmmaking that simple things like narrative cohesion aren't entirely important to him. At least in Oppenheimer the dialogue is almost always clear (something that's not often true in Nolan movies), and the story's non-linear structure works because if shorn of it, Oppenheimer might be tediously dull.

Most of the film is structured around three dialogue-heavy meetings: One in which J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) has his security clearance revoked; one in which Oppenheimer, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) and other physicists meet to discuss the ramifications of nuclear arms; and a Senate hearing to confirm Strauss for a presidential cabinet post. It's hardly the stuff of mesmerizing drama, so Nolan mixes it all up with a more straightforward narrative of Oppenheimer's development of the team that created the first atomic bomb.

As in so many Nolan movies, the key to Oppenheimer is keeping up with the narrative time shifts, and this becomes slightly easier in the IMAX version, as Nolan uses both aspect ratio and black-and-white film to indicate different periods. There are double-crosses and triple-crosses and tales of espionage, and of course there's the development of the bomb itself, and the spectacular scenes involving the first Trinity tests. The history is portrayed by what we used to call an "all-star cast," an impressive roster of talent, some of whom get more screen time than others, and a few of whom feel terribly wasted, underserved by a screenplay that might have spent more time getting the words, thoughts and feelings as sharp as the visuals.

It all adds up to a film that is both more and less engrossing than it might have been if told more traditionally. Nolan's storytelling techniques make Oppenheimer a bit of a muddle sometimes—though its more confusing moments somehow seemed slightly more coherent on the massive IMAX screen—while his filmmaking techniques make the film an experience to be savored on the giant screen. IMAX really is the optimal way to see the film; Nolan's use of the format isn't a gimmick, even if it's unfortunately not easy to see the film in the combination 70mm film and IMAX he intended. If you're near one of the 30 movie theaters (in the U.S.) where that's possible, Oppenheimer is truly an event. If you're not, you may walk away wondering what all the fuss is about. 

Viewed July 25, 2023 (70mm) — Regency Village; and September 3, 2023 (70mm IMAX) — AMC Universal 16

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"Barbie"

    ☆☆☆½ 

Being this late to the cultural watershed moment of Barbie is an interesting experience: I've heard everyone raving, I've read both the reviews, criticisms, analyses and musings. And, finally, I've at long last seen the movie itself. I really liked it. Barbie is, for the most part, an undeniably good film. When it's bad, like in the long stretches with a supremely unfunny Will Ferrell, it's still amusing. There is hardly anything negative to say about Barbie.

That in itself is a more than spectacular achievement on behalf of director Greta Gerwig and the script she wrote with Noah Baumbach. It's a huge credit to Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and Rhea Pearlman and America Ferrara and Kate McKinnon and every one of the other performers, almost all of whom are just wonderful. ("Almost" because of the movie's big, unavoidable Will Ferrell problem.)

When Barbie reaches its emotional climax, not only is it shocking that a movie about a toy has an emotion climax (but, really, after all those Toy Story movies, should it be shocking?), but that the film has so successfully and confidently navigated its path from absurdist, satirical comedy to sensitive emotional drama that, in an age of mindless superhero, horror and "franchise" fluff, Barbie at its core is just a really, really good, satisfying, enjoyable, less-than-two-hour-long movie.

The overwhelming box-office success of the film might, if nothing else, force some serious self-reflection from today's crop of writers. As they carry their picket signs, they might also consider how amazingly well Barbie illustrates that a complete character arc, a wonderfully satisfying screen-based entertainment, does not need to play itself out over 3½ or 10 or 26 hours. Two will do just fine.

The core story of Barbie's quest for self-discovery, her mythical journey into the "real world" from her home in Barbieland, and the effects it has not just on her self-determination but that of her self-proclaimed "boyfriend" Ken, is engaging and wonderful. Except for Will Ferrell's big, gaping wound of non-comedy, it's all splendid.

Which gets me to the crux of this. In improv parlance, not the but... as much as the and ...

Because Barbie is using its anti-consumerist story to supremely consumerist ends. The movie seems to poke fun at Barbie manufacturer Mattel—yet every joke in it was approved by and presumably encouraged by Mattel itself with the idea that being hip and cool and "meta" could ultimately help it sell more Barbie dolls. It is impossible to watch Barbie and not be constantly aware of its smug, look-at-me corporate antics. The "subversion" helps it sell dolls in the 21st century.

It is, ultimately, a two-hour commercial.

Do I hold that against Barbie? I don't think so. It's still a very, very good, sensationally entertaining film. It does bear the imprimatur of an important, exciting filmmaking talent. And it's also a corporate marketing gimmick. It exists to revive a moribund toy franchise.

The story of Barbie is both light and airy and silly, and also deeply thoughtful and not a little cynical. And so is the very existence of Barbie itself. If nothing else, Barbie is living proof of the paradoxes it seeks to show are endemic in the world: It is possible to adore Barbie and be deeply suspicious of it all the same. It is possible to know Barbie is, above all, a hugely successful marketing initiative, but also one fine movie. Which is, in the end, the only place to leave it, really. It exists in the flawed, imperfect world Barbie herself comes to realize is all around is ... and it is very much part of that world. 

In the end, then, Barbie is a toy commercial that is impossibly better than anyone would ever have thought possible. It is effective both as a marketing tool and a film. And that alone, perhaps, is something worth marveling about.

 Viewed August 26, 2023 — AMC Topanga 12

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"Haunted Mansion"

      ☆☆ 

If there were an Oscar for Most Valiant Effort, almost certainly it would go this year to Lakeith Stanfield, who, mystifyingly and astonishingly, finds an emotional, believable doorway into Haunted Mansion, the second film made from the Disney theme park attraction. He's the only reason to see the film, and while he's undeniably good, he's ultimately not enough—unless you're the kind who knows all the words to "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and the Ghost Host's narration by heart. Then, Haunted Mansion might work. But it's still iffy.

Stanfield plays Ben, a man mourning the loss of his wife. The word "grief" is uttered at least a dozen times in this film, perhaps in the hopes that naming this complicated emotion will help the young children for whom the film is ostensibly targeted. Stanfield finds a character with a real, beating heart at the core, which is something nobody else in this star-studded affair is able to do. Rosario Dawson comes close, but if Stanfield is given little to hang onto, Dawson is given nothing at all, nor is anyone of the other talented actors who flail about, hoping, perhaps, that they'll upstaged by the CGI ghosts. Mostly, no such luck.

Dawson plays the mother of a 9-year-old boy who, seeking a fresh start, apparently decides to buy (or rent? I'm not sure the movie makes it clear) an old, decrepit mansion deep in Louisiana back country without bothering to check it out first. Unfazed by decades worth of cobwebs and dust, they attempt to make a go of it, and it becomes apparent that neither of them has ever gone to Disneyland because they don't recognize that the interior of the place is taken straight from the ride.

Never mind that the lights don't work and the paintings on the wall are sinister at best. The fact that we're supposed to believe that this mother and son would set foot in the place—in the dead of night, no less—is the first of many, many problems the movie presents in its opening minutes.

Less complicated and more affecting is the story of Stanfield's Ben and his lost love, but even that runs into problems as the movie struggles to find some way to bring the two stories together, which it does with a bored-looking Owen Wilson playing the world's least-believable priest. Tiffany Haddish and Danny DeVito soon come on board, through various machinations, though neither is given a single funny thing to do or say.

Mostly, the film exists to offer fan service to the ride. The rooms, the wallpaper, the hallways and paintings, the house itself all look just like the one at Disneyland, and, yes, one of the haunted rooms actually stretches, but by the time it does the film has given up trying for a plot, and nothing about the action or the story makes even a semblance of sense.

Jamie Lee Curtis shows up as the head (and later body) of Madame Leota, the woman in the crystal ball, and Jared Leto is credited as The Hatbox Ghost—and if you know who the Hatbox Ghost is, and his history in the ride, and you know all about the effect of his head in a hatbox that he carries with him like a lantern, then you're likely the target audience for this film, which is neither particularly scary nor particularly funny, and not particularly good.

If you don't know the Hatbox Ghost, and you can't identify immediately why a tracking shot from above of a haunted dining room would prompt some Disney fans to smile knowingly, or why ghosts follow people home, then you're not the target audience. And if you're not under the age of 10 and you're looking for a movie with a coherent and complete story and interesting characters doing interesting things, then I'm afraid you're out of luck on this one. As fan service, it sometimes works. As a movie, it rarely does.

Viewed August 6, 2023 — AMC Burbank 16

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"Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One"

    ☆☆☆☆½ 

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to explain the plot of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, a title as un-punctuatable as the movie is inexplicable. I wasn't 30 minutes into this latest Mission: Impossible movie before I gave up trying to follow along, and I'm not sure my experience was diminished in any way.

I've seen all of the other Mission: Impossible movies, and of them and their globe-hopping, labyrinthine plots, here are the things I remember: Tom Cruise hanging on to a train inside a Chunnel tunnel; Tom Cruise hanging from wires; Tom Cruise hanging from the side of the Burj Khalifa; Tom Cruise in a motorcycle chase through Paris; Tom Cruise hanging from the side of an airplane.

I don't much remember why, and most importantly, I don't really care. The Mission: Impossible films seem to transcend plot, which is not to say they don't have any. Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One (there's got to be some punctuation in there other than that colon?) has a whole lot of plot, and even more characters. In one of the film's pivotal scenes, about six of the characters all meet up and discuss who's going to do what to whom, and when, and although it's all fantastically well acted, you can imagine the performers crying out, "What did I just say?" as soon as the camera shut off.

But it doesn't matter, and whenever the plot seems to overwhelming (which is frequently), there's only one thing to keep in mind: There's something everyone wants. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, naturally) and his tiny team from the Impossible Mission Force are looking for it. So is everyone else. And if the wrong people find it, something really, really bad will happen.

This time around, that something relates to artificial intelligence, and watching the film suddenly made me wonder if all the latest hand-wringing about ChatGPT and other AI systems hasn't all been a very elaborate marketing scheme for this film.

There are so many unanswered questions—none of which I can actually write here for fear of spoilers—and so many characters with murky motivations that you might be excused for thinking I'm putting this one on par with the equally murky and convoluted Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But I'm not, because Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One has all of the things Indy doesn't:

This movie is impeccably well made, terrifically suspenseful, and moves with unbelievable swiftness: Its running time of 2 hours, 45 minutes may well be bloated, yet there's never any time this movie lets up. On top of that, one of the best car chase scenes in many years, this one involving Rome's Spanish Steps, is also the source of entirely unexpected humor—I laughed a lot at Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, and also gasped and even squirmed in my seat a time or two, and really, what more can you ask from a movie? Well, except a coherent plot.

But the best thing about this movie is that even if you're thoroughly baffled by what's happening on screen, you won't have time or the inclination to notice. 

Oh, but if you are, and you've seen the film, here's a terrific, spoiler-filled exploration of what you might have missed—because, let's be honest, you almost certainly did miss at least some of it. And, let's also be honest, it doesn't much matter. In 20 years, you're going to remember Tom Cruise on that motorcycle, or Tom Cruise on that train, or Tom Cruise in Venice, and that's what you came for, anyway.

Viewed July 22, 2023 — AMC Universal

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"The Blackening"

     ☆☆☆½ 

With Get Out and Us, Jordan Peele managed to be scary and socially trenchant. With Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard managed to be scary, funny and meta. But with The Blackening, Tim Story has created a film that's all of those things — while still being an engaging thriller with a mystery whose final revelation is one I never saw coming.

The Blackening begins with a pre-credit sequence that recalls movies like Scream with an unnerving twist as a couple visiting a remote house in the woods (more than a cabin one of the characters points out) to prepare for a 10-year college reunion timed to Juneteenth discovers a mind-numbingly racist board game. They decide to play a round. Bad move.

More of their friends show up, unaware of what has happened. The gang is made up of ridiculous stereotypes, which fuels the concepts of the film, and ensures the scenes in which we learn about their histories seemingly don't require too much in the way of attention — but offer ample opportunity for well-written zingers and one-liners. Then, in grand Agatha Christie style, they find themselves at the center of a sinister, murderous plot.

They're nominally led by Lisa (Antoinette Robertson) and Allison (Grace Byers), though it's truly an ensemble cast. In the midst of laughs and screams—and there are plenty of both, though the film is relatively bloodless for a slasher satire—their personalities come through thanks to a game cast and clever direction.

There's been no dearth of films with a similar approach recently: The Menu, Glass Onion, not to mention yet another Scream sequel, but The Blackening stands apart with its willingness to make cutting social observations and offer up some well-earned discomfort for viewers, while never forgetting its mission as a comedy, above all. At times you'll need to follow along closely, and by the end you may wish you had been listening just a little more closely at the start. The Blackening knows and appreciates that Black audiences will understand more of its references than non-Black audiences—and wears that knowledge proudly. Yet, few will ever really feel left out by its rare and winning combination of fun, games and just a little bit of gore.

Viewed July 4, 2023 — AMC Universal City

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"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"

          ☆☆        

"And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it,

But I probably will."

— Bruce Springsteen, "Glory Days"

When Raiders of the Lost Ark burst on the scene in 1981, it breathed entirely new life into an old, tired movie genre, turning cheesy Saturday-morning serials and slapdash adventure films into something grand and new. Four decades later, we have a new Indiana Jones film, and it's sad to say that it's more like the wheezing contrivances Raiders was sending up, and is nothing grand and new.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny calls to mind The Boss's lyrics of the embarrassing inevitability of looking back instead of moving forward. "Saturday matinées" are history themselves — today's audiences haven't known them and probably weren't born when Raiders of the Lost Ark or its first two sequels were released. Who is this film for? One audience only, that I can tell: Old guys who remember the glory days of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Considered entirely on its own merits, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny fails rather spectacularly. There's no sense of character or setting, no effort to evoke a sense of urgency or consequences, no forward momentum to a story that, for all its kinetic movement, feels oddly inert. The movie is filled with a sense of fan service, of obligation. Instead of an abiding, giddy desire to take us on a new adventure, there's a dutiful and dull responsibility to hit the marks and remember the lines.

Appearances by a couple of characters from previous films feel jammed in to a story that largely borders on incomprehensible. There is a "MacGuffin," as Hitchcock used to call it — a thing that everyone in the story is after — but it's a pretty dim one here: an ancient mechanism that, we are meant to believe, can identify previously unknown "fissures in time" that appear as big reverse funnel clouds in the sky. Since this film takes place in 1969 (it begins not just in 1969, but on the day of the moon landing, no less), you'd imagine that science might have observed these strange phenomena into which entire airplanes can fly, but, nope.

The chief bad guy is a Nazi (yes, again — that's Nazis in 60% of the Indiana Jones films so far) still alive and well in 1969 and working for the U.S. government designing the rockets that take men to the moon. Now, there's an interesting story: Indiana Jones working to expose the bad guy in NASA's ranks. But that's not at all what Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has in mind. The Nazi's motives are sketchy, but even cloudier are the motives and loyalties of Indiana Jones' goddaughter, Helena, who just happens to show up at exactly the right moment to set this convoluted story in motion.

It's impossible to fault Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for never stopping — it is wall-to-wall action in a way that we like to recall the previous films being, even though they actually weren't. Until the final scene, there's not a moment of reflection or even explanation: when the film needs to explain something (which it frequently does), characters shout at each other while on the run.

Some characters, including one key "sidekick," appear and disappear seemingly at random, while another shows up at the last moment for a scene that tries hard to evoke real emotion, never minding that it undermines the only other moment of humanity in the film. It's false and fabricated, contrived to meet the expectations of fans, which so much of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny seems designed to do.

I've intentionally stayed away from revealing too much of the story for fear of spoiling the film for anyone yet to see it — but also because I'm not sure I understand much of it. Too many characters do and say too many things, to the point that the film seems to wind in on itself, and isn't even sure of its own trajectory. This is one strange, messy film that contains none of the assured storytelling and sharp wit that was the hallmark of the first three movies in the series.

As it nears its climax, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny goes in such a weird direction that I suddenly started thinking of the sharp and funny Bill and Ted movies. These scenes would be embarrassing except that they embrace their craziness so fully — and, oddly, they end up being the only ones in the movie I'm really likely to remember. For one weird, brief moment, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny comes fully to life, resulting in a massive choice for Indy to make. But he doesn't make it, and for the umpteenth time in an Indiana Jones movie, our hero is denied the chance to embrace his own story, deflating the film just as it should be reaching its climax.

For the most part, Indiana Jones is a long, lumbering, confusing escape room puzzle. It often seems inspired less by its own predecessors than by The DaVinci Code and National Treasure. That both of those films were, in turn, trying to evoke the spirit of Indiana Jones films seems at once illuminating and awfully depressing.

Indiana Jones has had some glory days. Now, it really is past time for him to hang up that hat for good.

Viewed July 2, 2023 — AMC Topanga 12

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