Ron Howard @ JBFC: Pavarotti

Anyone who sold 100 million albums qualifies as a singer of “popular music.” For the ten million people who saw him perform live, Luciano Pavarotti was the voice and face of opera, even more so than Andrea Bocelli, whose career Pavarotti helped launch. He is sort of like the Louis Armstrong of opera, popular with listeners who otherwise never listen to their styles of music. (They also both performed with handkerchiefs.) Even if they already recognize the great tenor, viewers will learn a good deal about his life and music in Ron Howard’s documentary, Pavarotti (where the above figures were cited), which screens as part of the Ron Howard Retrospective at the JBFC.

Perhaps somewhat anticlimactically, Howard starts with the film’s best sequence, incorporating amateur video of Pavarotti’s impromptu concert in the Teatro Amazonas, the world class opera house built literally in the middle of Brazil’s Amazon region. Howard then rewinds to chronicle Pavarotti’s rise to fame. It seems strange in retrospect, but Pavarotti was one of the first stars of the American Express “do you know me?” commercials.

Of course, just about everyone would soon know Pavarotti, thanks to his ambitious concert promoters, who found Pavarotti could draw just as well as rock stars. In fact, the tenor was recruited for his first stadium engagement when Bruce Springsteen backed out of his commitment, leaving the London concert producer holding the bag.

Howard has no shortage of material to draw from Pavarotti’s appearances with Johnny Carson, Phil Doahue, and pretty much all the morning show hosts of the 1980s. However, the film ignores his dramatic, non-operatic big screen debut in the widely panned Yes, Giorgio, maybe because nobody involved wanted to talk about it.

Yet, in general, Howard covers the bad times as well as the good. He fully examines the circumstances surrounding Pavarotti’s divorce and his romance with Nicoletta Mantovani, whom the Italian press rather unfairly characterized as a homewrecker. (Howard clearly establishes that she wasn’t Pavarotti’s first affair.) The film also acknowledges—and takes issue—with the late career criticism Pavarotti endured from opera purists. Indeed, Bono uses language jazz fans would appreciate to argue real artists use their life experience to interpret a song, which is what he heard in the mature Pavarotti.

Ron Howard’s Eden

In the 1930's, the Germans had a nasty habit of fighting with their neighbors. That was even true of the small colony on Floreana Island in the Galapagos. Would-be philosopher Friedrich Ritter and his partner Dore Strauch only had six neighbors, but they fought with all of them. The feuding took a scandalous turn that stoked decades of controversy in the German press and spawned three films. One was a French TV movie adapting a Georges Simenon novel transparently based on the case. The second was the classy “true-crime” documentary” The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden. This is the third. Director-producer Ron Howard recruited a famous cast, but like previous filmmakers, he shows strangely little interest in the Germany the Floreanans had expatriated themselves from in Eden, which opens Friday in theaters.

Strauch believes Ritter will save the world with his manifesto, but to contemporary ears, it sounds like a warmed-over fusion of Nietzsche and Rousseau, at least before he goes a little crazy. Heinz and Margaret Wittmer are the next to arrive. The couple seems to have an inkling of how bad things will get in Germany. They also believe their ailing son Harry will benefit from the tropical climate. The Rittmer’s instinctively look down on their square, middle-class neighbors, but they grudgingly start to respect the Wittmers for doggedly scraping out a home for themselves.

Unfortunately, “Baroness” Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn lands several months later, along with her two himbo lovers. She has grandiose plans to build a beach resort, but she is ill-prepared for the conditions she finds. As the self-dubbed Baroness’s supplies dwindle, she and her men set their eyes on the Wittmers’ supplies, making them a direct existential threat to the family. Yet, Ritter probably hates her even more, because of the way the Baroness needles his vanity.

Screenwriter Noah Pink offers explanations for the deaths on Floreana, but in real-life (if such a thing still exists), the truth has yet to be established beyond a shadow of a doubt. That is a large part of the story’s appeal. Regardless, despite its ultimate uncertainty, The Galapagos Affair is a much better film, in part due to a more sophisticated vibe (suggesting comparisons to Michael Bradford’s White Mischief). In contrast, Howard aims more for the overheated tone of an old school primetime soap opera. Frankly, he and Pink frequently neglect the mystery/thriller elements, focusing instead of the island’s festering jealousies, sexual power games, and [not-so]-micro aggressions. Consequently, it is often grabby, but in a lurid kind of way.

Jude Law is certainly fun to watch shamelessly chewing the scenery as the arrogant and wildly self-important Ritter. Daniel Bruhl anchors the film, portraying Heinz Wittmer with dignity and intensity that it maybe does not fully deserve. To her credit, Sydney Sweeney so thoroughly transforms herself into the hardscrabble Margaret Wittmer, a perpetually offended wokester could watch the entire film without getting “triggered”—at least not by Sweeney and her “good jeans.”

The Studio, on Apple TV+

In a way, you could say Continental Studios’ upcoming tent-pole is sort of a Marvel movie, because back in the 1980s, Marvel Comics released five promotional comics featuring the Kool-Aid Man. It was a little weird at the time, but a big-budget Kool-Aid Man movie is a daunting task for Matt Remick, but he had to feign enthusiasm to get promoted to run the studio. He wants to be Robert Evans, but his insecurities are only too obvious in writer-creators Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez’s 10-episode The Studio, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

Remick loves movies, so he wants his talent to love him back. Instead, they usually blow him off, at least until sleazy CEO, Griffin Mill, promotes him to studio chief, replacing his mentor, Patty Leigh. However, Remick soon offers her a lucrative producing deal to keep her in the fold. He will have many challenges shepherding Kool-Aid, as well as the rest of his upcoming slate, including Ron Howard’s Alphabet City and a Sarah Polley art film.

Fortunately, his core staff remains more-or-less loyal to him, including his hard-drinking buddy Sal Saperstein, his freshly promoted former assistant Quinn Hackett, and the caustic head of marketing, Maya Mason.

Obviously, The Studio takes a great deal of inspiration from Robert Altman’s The Player. It even pays homage to Tim Robbins’ character, the original Griffin Mill. It also features many real-life show business celebrities playing themselves, but some are considerably funnier than others. Frankly, the surprise scene-stealer is Dave Franco (as himself), who pokes fun at his image and career, while going for some big laughs. He even provides perhaps the funniest recap narration in TV history for the concluding episode, a two-part continuation.

Zoe Kravitz is also a very good sport. However, even though filmmaking legends Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese fully commit, their storylines are more cringy than humorous.

Indeed, the writing and execution varies wildly throughout the ten installments. The opener is an okay set-up, but episodes two, three, five, and six set-up excruciatingly uncomfortable situations that just keep piling on, rather than puncturing the tension. However, episode seven has some of the funniest TV/streaming writing of the 2020s that absolutely skewers Hollywood’s DEI mindset. Honestly, there is no way this episode could have been produced three or four years ago. Ice Cube is also savagely funny as himself.

The two-part conclusion, set during CinemaCon, is also vintage door-slamming farce that even pays tribute to Weekend at Bernie’s. It is mostly either feast or famine with The Studio, but episode four, “The Missing Reel,” is sort of an okay middle of the road offering, mostly because Zac Efron’s droll self-portrayal. It also somewhat amusingly uses elements of film noir.