Updates!

Since last we spoke, I've seen a number of films that have been all over the map. Let me just give you some capsule reviews to serve as catch-up.

First, on our way out West for vacation (dry heat is hot, yes, but it's not 90% humidity like it is at home!), I watched Florence Foster Jenkins and was surprised by how charming I found it to be. It could have been a simple one-trick pony - after all, the basic plotline is rich woman loves music, wants to sing, is just awful, but those around her shield her from this knowledge.

As Florence, Meryl Streep is wonderful. Her performance is not an over-the-top caricature, which would have been easy to do. Instead, Streep pulls in and lets us see this ageing socialite as a real person with real concerns. Jenkins' singing may have been treated as a joke, but her much-younger husband (played by Hugh Grant with rare restraint) has deep affection for her that transcends money (although they have an "arrangement," the need for which is described in heartbreaking detail) and her pianist (Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg) comes to value the underlying warmth that emanates from this woman. While not a movie for the ages, it's a solid film and one with a simple underpinning of compassion and heart - you could do far worse.

Case in point - Spider-Man: Homecoming. I've had trouble putting my finger on it, but this movie left me just unsatisfied. It's far from bad, Tom Holland is solid, and there are some nice twists and turns in here (especially regarding Peter Parker's schoolmates), yet it never quite added up to WOW! for me. Yeah, yeah - Tony Stark. Yeah, yeah - a non-cadaverous Aunt May. Yeah, yeah - Michael Keaton as a much more interesting birdman than I thought he was in that other movie. It just never was quite enough for me. Still - I prefer Holland to Andrew Garfield's turn as the Web-Slinger. (Then again, after his turn in Hacksaw Ridge, all is forgiven, Andy!) I say it's a rental, but others may well disagree, and that's okay.

Then - zoinks! as Shaggy might say. FryDaddy and I had a rare opportunity to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid shown outside on a clear Utah night as part of the Sundance Institute's summer programming series. Think picnic on the grounds and you're there. I'd never seen Butch on the big screen and I was entranced enough to ignore my (very) cold feet. Butch is just a fantastic film and the obvious chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford is glorious to watch. Also, we both won small prizes for our knowledge of Butch trivia, and yay! for prizes. Seriously, scout around your own area - outside summer movies are quite a thing and they are worth seeking out!

Last one - on the flight home, I finally watched Arrival, which turns out to be one of the most thought-provoking science fiction films I've seen in the last few years. How do we manage first contact with an alien species when neither side knows the language of the other? There's some GREAT stuff in here about the tricks and traps that are built into language and the high degree of skill required to truly understand a language, as opposed to just understanding the surface of it, like "milk," "ball," or "war." It's a film that isn't afraid to take its time to build, which I loved. Others may find it too slow, but I say that if you like your science fiction to make you think, Arrival is for you.

Then, just yesterday, I saw War for the Planet of the Apes, which seems to close the gap between the new movies (which began with Rise in 2011 and continued with Dawn in 2014) and the original franchise. I think there could be one more film to actually close that gap and shift the audience's sympathies back to the humans from the apes, but it ends at a darned good place. Woody Harrelson has been watching Apocalypse Now and would someone just please give Andy Serkis all the awards right now? Again, thought-provoking science fiction and it plugs a major hole in the storyline - namely, why can't the humans in the 1968 version speak? Yes, the effects are incredible, but without Serkis to sell it - I just don't think it would matter.

Whew! That's enough! Several movies are still to be released this summer that I'm VERY excited about - check back to see if Valerian by the eccentric genius Luc Besson is worth your popcorn money and, on another front, let's see about Dunkirk!

Life in Black and White

It's extremely unusual these days for a wide-release movie to be filmed in black and white. (Oh, sure, the 2011 Oscar winner The Artist was [and it was a silent film, to boot], but that was a case of the exception proving the rule.) But just this week I've seen two new releases that are primarily filmed* in B&W, with radically different results. So let's take a look at Sin City 2 and The Giver, which actually have more similarities than you might think at first glance.\

Sin City 2 is the prequel/sequel to 2005's Sin City, which first brought Frank Miller's stark B&W neo-noir graphic novels to the screen. While Miller is listed as a director (along with Quentin Tarentino), the film is primarily Robert Rodriguez's effort. Stunning in its faithfulness to the original source material, audiences flocked to the first Sin City, for nothing like this had been seen.

But nine years have passed. Sin City 2 was stuck in pre-production hell for a while and the finished film suffers as a result. Several roles had to be recast - Brittany Murphy (Shellie) and Michael Clarke Duncan (Manute) had both passed away, and scheduling conflicts necessitated a few other changes, including substituting Josh Brolin for Clive Owen in the role of Dwight. Sin City 2 is based on four Miller stories - two of which were written for the film - and that may have been a mistake. (Again, the film is both a prequel and a sequel - if you go, just enjoy the ride and don't try to figure out how "B" could happen when "A" happened in the first film.) Sin City 2 feels stitched together; possibly the result of trying to cover too many stories. Then again, I understand the temptation with a cast this strong. Mickey Rourke is back as stone-cold killer Marv and Powers Boothe chews the scenery as the sociopathic senator Roark (no relation, I'm sure). Jessica Alba's Nancy seems tacked on to the story - I much prefer Miho in this film, but I always had a weakness for that character, anyway. The breakout performance here is undoubtedly Eva Green's Ava, the "Dame to Kill For" of the subtitle, although a strong case could also be made for Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Visually, Sin City 2 is gorgeous. The stark black and white is shot through with pops of vivid color - red lips, a blue silk coat, emerald eyes, and so on, but some of the most memorable shots involve the black and white - look for Nancy curling up in satin sheets - and cigarette smoke hasn't been this sexy in years. The problem is, even as lush as it is, we've seen this before - and the stories are so-so. Ultra-violent in that Miller style (if you haven't read his "Dark Knight" work, do yourself a favor and seek it out), Sin City 2 is stylish and slick, but ultimately, not all that much to get excited about. I saw it in 3D, which just didn't add a lick to the experience. Rental.

The Giver is also shot primarily in B&W, but for other reasons. In Sin City 2, the B&W is a deliberate attempt to harken back to the noir feel of the graphic novels, while in The Giver it serves a narrative purpose - the people living in the "Communities" can't see color. Well, most of them, anyway. It's a very peaceful society; quite the opposite of Miller's (Ba)sin City, but it's just as corrupt at the core. Based on Lois Lowry's best-selling and Newberry Award -winning young adult dystopian novel, The Giver centers around some very basic questions - is safety worth sacrificing emotion? Is it a sacrifice if you don't know any other option is out there? How much control over your life should be entrust to others? Valuable questions to examine, but the film falls flat. It departs substantially from the novel in a few key places and a dream cast is basically left with not much to do. Seriously - Meryl Streep [18 Oscar nominations with 3 wins for Kramer v. Kramer, Sophie's Choice and The Iron Lady) and Jeff Bridges [six Oscar nominations with 1 win for Crazy Heart] should be an embarrassment of riches. Bridges gets to sink his teeth into his role, Streep doesn't, and Katie Holmes shouldn't view this exactly as her triumphant return to the big screen. On the plus side, The Giver is a good vehicle for Brenton Thwaites (Jonas) who is breaking into American films. His last role was as Prince Phillip in Maleficent, where he didn't have much to do. Here, he gets to show off his chops and Thwaites comes out of this standing tall.  Keep your eye on him. The Giver isn't bad - in fact, there are some very touching bits that I daresay the target audience will cling to and there was one montage about "receiving strength" that nearly had me tear up. It's just not that good, either. Read the book instead. Rental.


*I suppose it's not quite accurate to use the term "filmed" since most movies nowadays aren't shot on film stock anymore, but rather on digital media. Still, the old term dies hard and I'm so glad the term "talkie" never really caught on.