Spirited, on Apple TV+

Charles Dickens was a professional writer, so right now, he’s probably looking down from Heaven, wondering if he’s ever going to be paid all the royalties and licensing fees he’s due for A Christmas Carol. Disney, Looney Tunes, and Mr. Magoo all had their versions. Now its Apple’s turn. It is a musical this time around and sort of a sequel, but a lousy jerk still has to learn the real meaning of Christmas from three Christmas spirits in Sean Anders’ Spirited, which premieres tomorrow on Apple TV+.

Clint Briggs is a slimy PR-management consultant, who stokes social division for a living. As the manager of the elaborate Christmas-haunting division of the afterlife, Marley does not want to waste their time on Briggs, because he has been deemed irredeemable. However, Ghost of Christmas Present wants to take a shot at him, because he too was once considered irredeemable. If they convert him, the ripple effects will be enormous. There is even a ripple-themed song to drive the point home, but Marley reluctantly agrees, to prevent Present from singing it.

Briggs will be a really hard case. It turns out he is that annoying type of person who always turns questions back around on the asker, which Present is not used to. He is also thrown by Briggs’ regretful deputy, Kimberly, who inexplicably sees and interacts with him during his ghostly scouting trips. There might even be some chemistry there.

The world of the Christmas spirits is rather cleverly conceived, sort of like the visions of the after-life seen in films like Defending Your Life. Even in death, you cannot escape bureaucracy. It is indeed a musical, but many of the numbers are designed as comedic set pieces rather than show stoppers. Nevertheless, “The View from Here” is quite a lovely medium-tempo ballad. However, a way-too-extended gag and musical number suggesting “good afternoon” were fighting words in Dickensian times gets down-right cringy.

In general, the jokes are hit or miss, but Ryan Reynolds is consistently funny as Briggs. Frankly, he regularly upstages Will Ferrell, who is clearly falling back on his Buddy the Elf shtick. Still, Ferrell has nice chemistry with Octavia Spencer’s Kimberly, who is believably flawed, in a down-to-earth, human kind of way. Sunita Mani also livens up every scene as the oddly hip and youthful Past.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard: Also Starring Frank Grillo

Brexit just keeps looking better and better, doesn’t it? Currently, the UK is far out-performing the EU when it comes to vaccinations. It should also be safely out of the crosshairs when a Greek super-patriot hatches an apocalyptic scheme to avenge Brussels’ policies that humbled his country. Europe’s only hope rests in the three characters referenced in the title of Patrick Hughes’ The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, which is now playing in actual theaters.

In The Hitman’s Bodyguard, bodyguard Michael Bryce protected his old contract-killer nemesis long enough to testify against an Alexander Lukashenko-like dictator at The Hague, but he is still haunted by Darius Kincaid’s assassination of his most important client. His shrink wants him to move on to safer employment, but Kincaid’s wife Sonia pulls him back in to save her husband (against both of their wishes).

Even though Bryce has temporarily sworn off guns, he and Ms. Kincaid successfully rescue her hubby from the Euro gangster holding him. Inconveniently, they also kill him before Interpol Agent Bobby O’Neil can recover the sensitive European infrastructure information he acquired for the shadowy mastermind. It turns out the villain is Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Papdopolous, who needs a briefcase full of codes linked to an explosive device that winds up strapped to Sonia’s wrist.

Like its predecessor, HWB is definitely a meathead movie, but it is a rare sequel that manages to be funnier than the original. Obviously, Samuel L. Jackson does his F-bomb-dropping thing as Kincaid—and it is still works as well as ever. Ryan Reynolds probably gets even more laughs as the wildly neurotic Bryce. However, Salma Hayek (who was conspicuously under-utilized in the first film) steals the show as the spectacularly foul-mouthed and hair-trigger-tempered Sonia Kincaid. She is a riot, pretty much literally.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard: Guarding Samuel L. Jackson

Alexander Lukashenko must be bent out of shape. Hollywood makes a movie about a Belarusian dictator trying to escape prosecution for crimes against humanity, but they can’t be bothered to call him out by name? Instead, it is one Vladislav Dukhovich who has put a price on the only international assassin crazy enough to testify against him. All the other potentially damaging witnesses have been killed, but Darius Kincaid is bizarrely hard to kill. He will also have old nemesis, personal security specialist Michael Bryce watching his back, whether he likes it or not, in Patrick Hughes’ The Hitman’s Bodyguard (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Several years ago, a Japanese arms dealer under Bryce’s protection was drilled between the eyes, dragging Bryce’s business down with him. It was Kincaid who made the shot. In the small world department, Bryce’s ex, Interpol Agent Amelia Roussel is in charge of Kincaid’s security. Captured through a fluke, Kincaid cut a deal to testify against Dukhovich in exchange for his wife’s freedom. Unfortunately, his lack of faith in Interpol’s security protocols will be vindicated when Dukhovich’s mercenaries ambush their motorcade. Suspecting a mole in the agency, Roussel contracts Bryce to safely transport Kincaid to The Hague, despite their bitter history as rivals. Much Odd Couple-style humor ensues, as the body count escalates.

In between car chases and gun fights, Kincaid and Bryce will bicker and banter—and in the case of the former, drop MF bombs like there is no tomorrow. Yep, he would be the one played by Samuel L. Jackson. Frankly, this is the sort of loopy action comedy that were a staple of 1980s second run dollar theaters. It is therefore rather fitting Richard E. Grant has a cameo in the prologue as Bryce’s latest sleazy client.

It should be readily stipulated Jackson and Ryan Reynolds develop an amusing comedic chemistry together. They settle into a nice rhythm playing off each other and neither is too shy to mug a little for the camera. Jackson is basically recycling his Pulp Fiction persona yet again, but it still hasn’t gotten old yet, so it’s tough to blame him. Reynolds is well cast as the armed-and-dangerous Felix Unger. It is also nice to see Elodie Yung get to participate in the action as Roussel, while Gary Oldman (a reliable villain if ever there was one) chews the scenery as an entitled dictator would. However, Salma Hayek is under-employed as Kincaid’s borderline psychotic wife Sonia.

Bodyguard has plenty of action, exotic locales (getting riddled with bullet holes, but whatever), and some classic blues and R&B tunes licensed for the soundtrack. That doesn’t exactly add up to a masterpiece, but it is fun in a goofy, meathead kind of way. Thanks to the gung-ho commitment of Jackson and Reynolds, it all works on a basic laughter-and-mayhem level. Recommended for fans of Jackson and old school action-comedies, The Hitman’s Bodyguard opens this Friday (8/18) throughout the City, including the AMC Empire in Midtown.

Life: It’s Out There

Now that NASA is not so temporarily out of the manned space flight business, we have to hitch a ride with the Russians if we want to visit the International Space Station (ISS) that we helped build. Perhaps we should just leave it to them, if it really is the veritable playground for hostile extraterrestrials this film suggests. The good news is scientists have confirmed the existence of an alien life-form, but the bad news is it will inevitably start killing everyone in Daniel Espinosa’s Life (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

Due to technical malfunctions, the ISS crew nearly fails to retrieve the fateful sample from their Mars probe, which would have ended the film prematurely but prolonged the characters’ lives. Naturally, once they start analyzing the sample, they find some kind of alien entity within. Nicknamed “Calvin” by driven lead researcher Hugh Derry, the creature starts out as an amoeba like cellular organism, but soon grows into a hissing, slithery alien not unlike the one from a certain 1979 science fiction-horror film we could mention. For a while, Calvin appears to go into hibernation, but it rouses in a foul mood when Derry gives it a series of electro-shocks. What a super idea that turns out to be.

Before you can say “in space nobody can hear you scream,” Calvin starts killing off crew-members one-by-one. He has a rather nasty technique of invading the body through open orifices and then exploding outward—again not wildly dissimilar from the Ridley Scott classic (it truly casts a giant shadow over Espinosa’s entire film).

So yeah, it is a heck of a lot like Alien, but not as scary. However, what really works here is the ISS setting and easy-going camaraderie of the crew. Espinosa and production designer Nigel Phelps really give viewers a sense of what it is like to live and work on the ISS. We feel like we understand exactly how the station operates, thanks to some surprisingly tense duct-closing sequences. Furthermore, Life arguably has some of the best weightlessness scenes rendered to-date on film. Screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick also differentiate the crew-members’ personalities much more than the typical “bug hunt” movie. Yet, those merits make it even more disappointing when the film stops trying to be original and resigns itself to ripping off Alien during the third act.

Don’t get too attached to anyone, but while he is around, Ryan Reynolds is jolly good fun to watch as Rory Adams, the ISS’s cocky space cowboy. Ariyon Bakare and Hiroyuki Sanada add tragic heft as Derry and Sho Kendo, respectively. Although Olga (Twilight Portrait) Dihovichnaya’s Russian Captain Golovkina is more of a stock character, she gets the best death scene.

Despite its genre-ness, Life still manages to show its respect for the sacrifice and idealism of the space program, which is rather nice. It is somewhat akin to Sebastián Cordero’s Europa Report, but it is more conventionally monster-driven. While it falls short of its ambitions, it is considerably better than it had to be. Frankly, it is kind of impressive Life has ambitions in the first place. It probably doesn’t justify Manhattan ticket prices, but it will seem like a surprisingly good sleeper movie for those who stream it on impulse in a few months’ time. For those who can’t wait, Life opens in wide release today (3/24), including the AMC Empire in New York.

Woman in Gold: Restituting a Plundered Klimt Masterpiece

Thanks to Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, art lovers around the world will instantly recognize Maria Altmann’s beloved aunt and her iconic choker necklace. After the annexation of Austria, Bloch-Bauer’s necklace found its way into the possession of Herman Goering’s wife, while her stunning portrait was plundered by Vienna’s Belvedere Gallery. For years, it was the cornerstone of their collection, but Altmann filed a restitution claim as the last surviving Bloch-Bauer heir that ultimately forced Austria to confront its National Socialist past. Altmann’s dramatic early years in Austria and her protracted legal battle are chronicled in Simon Curtis’s The Woman in Gold (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

The Bloch-Bauers were a wealthy, assimilated Jewish Austrian family with a reputation for supporting the arts. This was especially true of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Altmann’s childless aunt. The Bauer sisters had married the Bloch brothers, so the entire family lived together in their elegant Elisabethstrasse home during Adele’s lifetime. Sadly, Adele Bloch-Bauer died tragically prematurely from meningitis in 1925, but she would be spared the horrors that her family would face. She also made quite an impression on young Altmann, which is why her portrait meant more to the niece than its mere one hundred million dollar-plus estimated value.

For years, the Belvedere simply dubbed the painting “The Woman in Gold” to disguise its Jewish provenance, but the world knew it for what it was. Eventually, Austria announced a new restitution process, in hopes of improving its post-Waldheim image, but it was mostly just for show. Altmann and her initially reluctant lawyer Randol Schoenberg (grandson of the composer) make a good faith try to work within the Austrian legal framework, but soon find a more hospitable reception in the U.S. Federal court system. Whether or not Altmann even has standing to sue the Belvedere, an agency of a foreign government, becomes the crux of the litigation dramatized in the film.

Curtis and screenwriter Alexi Kaye Campbell nicely illuminate the various legal technicalities of the case without getting bogged down in excessive detail. Curtis also juggles the 1938 Austrian timeline with the more contemporary legal drama rather adroitly. He was particularly fortunate to find such a convincing younger analog for Dame Helen Mirren in Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany, who grew up listening to her German language speaking parents in their Canadian household.

Of course, Dame Helen dominates the film and she is terrific as usual. She projects Altmann’s regal bearing as well as her no-nonsense pragmatism. While Schoenberg’s character is somewhat underwritten in the first two acts, Ryan Reynolds capitalizes on some crucial humanizing moments down the stretch. He gives some bite to what might otherwise been a relatively milquetoast role.

On the other hand, Katie Holmes really has nothing interesting to do as Schoenberg’s wife, Pam—and never elevates the thankless part either. However, Jonathan Pryce absolutely kills it in his too brief scene as Chief Justice William Rehnquist, portraying the jurist as quite a witty and gracious gentleman, which is rather sporting of the film, considering he ruled against Altmann in his dissent.

With Gold, Curtis does justice to a fascinating story with far reaching political and cultural implications. He helms with a sensitive hand, while maintaining a healthy pace. Frankly, it represents a marked improvement over My Week with Marilyn, which always seemed to focus on the blandest actor in any given scene. That never happens in a Dame Helen film. Still, the documentary The Rape of Europa remains the most authoritative and comprehensive cinematic word on the disputed ownership of Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and the systematic National Socialist looting of Jewish property in general (catch up with it now, if you haven’t already). Highly recommended (in its own right) for general audiences, Woman in Gold opens nationwide this Wednesday (4/1), including the venerable single-screen Paris Theatre in New York.

The Voices: Satrapi Tells an American Psycho Tale

Do you think talking cats are cute, like Garfield? Well, think again. Anthropomorphism can be a sinister business, but don’t worry, talking dogs are still cool. Regrettably, poor luckless Jerry Hickfang hears them both in Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Forklift-driving Hickfang is clearly trying too hard to be liked by his co-workers at the Milton faucet and bath factory, but he seems harmless enough. Of course, they do not hear the conversations he has with his cat, Mr. Whiskers, and his loyal canine, Bosco. Mr. Whiskers does not suffer fools gladly. In fact, he is all in favor of killing them. In contrast, the dim-witted but affectionate Bosco always tries to find the best in people. Fortunately, good old Bosco can usually counterbalance Mr. Whiskers’ devilish influence, but it gets difficult when Hickfang is under emotional stress.

Despite what he tells his court-ordered psychiatrist, Hickfang has gone off his meds (hence the conversations with his pets). To make matters worse, getting the brush-off from Fiona, the British office sexpot, will hardly help his mental stability. Still, Lisa, her slightly more demur office-mate, continues to carry a torch for him. She might be his perfect match, but it is hard to envision Hickfang developing a healthy relationship, especially when we see his apartment without the happy haze of his dementia.

Along with Mississippi Grind at this year’s Sundance, The Voices ought to give Ryan Reynolds’ career a new lease on life. If nothing else, he ought to be able to find plentiful cartoon voice-over work, because his voices for Mr. Whiskers and Bosco are terrific. Who knew he could do such a pitch-perfect snippy Scottish accent for the former? He also does quite an impressive job conveying Hickfang’s naïve earnestness, along with his mounting mania. He is a tragic monster, in the Lon Chaney, Jr.-Wolfman tradition, who does not want to kill, but puts himself in that position through his own disastrous, but understandable, decision-making.

Frankly, it is hard to understand why it takes Hickfang so long to notice Anna Kendrick’s Lisa, but she definitely adds to the film’s energy and chemistry. Yet, the x-factor might be Jacki Weaver, who adds considerable humanity and authority to the film in her relatively brief turn as the over-worked Dr. Warren.

It is hard to imagine this is the same Satrapi who made Persepolis and Chicken with Plums, but she displays the same eye for visuals, employing color in bold and distinctive ways. When she contrasts Hickfang’s lunacy-tinged perspective with the film’s objective reality, it is quite effective. Cinematographer Maxime Alexandre gives it a warm, stylish sheen that somehow manages to feel slightly off, in the right way.

On paper, it all might sound rather sad and grubby, but it is actually a rather elegant little macabre tragedy. Recommended for genre audiences and fans of Reynolds and Kendrick, who want to see the thesps in a radically different context, The Voices opens this Friday (2/6) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Sundance ’15: Mississippi Grind

Apparently, Gerry never heard the old Kenny Rogers song. He is the sort of gambler you bet against and feel fine about doing so. He might win for a while, because he spends every spare moment studying various games of chance, but he reeks of losing. However, he believes his fortunes have turned when he teams up with a younger, luckier gambler in Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s Mississippi Grind, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Curtis is just passing through. That’s what he does. Gerry really ought to be leaving soon. He owes a lot of people a lot of money, but just keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. Strangely enough, he wins when playing at Curtis’s table, but he promptly blows all his takings on an ill-advised bet shortly thereafter. When fate subsequently brings them together again, Gerry recognizes a good thing. Determined to keep it going, Gerry convinces Curtis to join forces to play regional games and hole-in-the-wall casinos as they work their way down the Mississippi towards a high stakes poker game in New Orleans.

It sounds like a winning proposition, but the “sign”-obsessed Gerry cannot change his spots. He is still a crummy person and when Curtis is not around, he keeps finding ways to lose. In contrast, Curtis might be slightly commitment-phobic, but he is dramatically healthier than Gerry, often preferring to visit the local blues club over a tacky gambling den. It is really quite considerate of him, since it justifies Grind’s savory blues soundtrack (and some original themes scored by Scott Bomar).

Although Gerry, the aggressive screw-up, is the flashier role, Grind still might prove to be a career pivot for Ryan Reynolds. As Curtis, he plays with and against his pretty-boy type-casting, showing surprising grit down the stretch. Although Ben Mendelsohn is relatively restrained compared to some of his scenery-chomping villainous turns, he fully embraces Gerry’s pathetic, self-deluding, self-centered nature. Frankly, sometimes it is painful to watch his debasement.

Granted, anyone who has seen a gambling road movie will have a general idea where Grind is headed, but Fleck & Boden give the material a few nice twists, including the ironic but wholly fitting third act source of the title. They exhibit a strong sense of place, grounding the film in picturesque Southern-border state locales. It is also certainly safe to say they never glamorize gambling. In fact, the film could almost be a PSA for Gamblers Anonymous and a seedier, more naturalistic corrective to noir-ish The Gambler and Chow Yun-fat’s heroic God of Gamblers franchise. Recommended for fans of gambling films with local flavor, Mississippi Grind screens again tomorrow (1/31) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Egoyan’s The Captive

Its population is less than ninety thousand, but evidently organized pedophilia a growing danger in Niagara Falls, Ontario. They now have a sizable police task force working full time on such crimes. The leader even becomes an Oprah style celebrity. However, they have not produced sterling results. After eight years, Matthew Lane’s daughter Cass is still missing. Past his breaking point, the desperate father is more than willing to take the law into his own hands, if he can finally find a target in Atom Egoyan’s The Captive (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

It has been a hard eight years for Lane and his wife Tina. She still blames him for their daughter’s abduction and so does he. He only briefly popped out to pick up a pie while she rested in the back seat of his truck after ice skating practice. Tragically, it was long enough for the pederast ringleader stalking them. As the years advanced and their marriage imploded, Tina started seeing Det. Nicole Dunlop for counseling, but her partner (and lover) Det. Jeff Cornwall still suspects Lane sold his daughter to a pedophile ring, because he reminds him of a guy he used to know. Seriously, that’s the best he can do after eight years?

Of course, Lane’s investigative techniques basically amount to him driving around looking for something suspicious, but he is still more effective than the cops, who will make a series of spectacular blunders. Eventually, Det. Dunlop will wind up in peril herself, following a head-scratchingly unlikely chain of events.

Frankly, it is a real shame Captive morphs into such a klutzy thriller, because Ryan Reynolds’ lead performance could have been a career game-changer in a tighter, more grounded film. He really digs in and digs deep as Lane. You feel his pain and his rage, without any cheap theatrics. He also makes the thriller mechanics work better than they deserve to, particularly an oblique confrontation with his daughter’s abductor late in the game.

Conversely, Kevin Durand is an excellent actor, but his performance as Mika, the pervert ringleader is beyond caricature. Everything about him, from his affected voice to his sinister sliver of a moustache screams “Chester Molester.” Yet, he still hob nobs with Niagara Falls’ elite without anyone getting suspicious. Rosario Dawson is reasonably competent as Det. Dunlop. She may not look like she is from Niagara Falls, Ont., but diversity in Canadian cinema is a good thing. As if on cue, Scott Speedman also turns up, underwhelming us as Cornwall, arguably the worst cop ever who wasn’t on the take, just to remind everyone this is a Canadian film.

There was a time during the mid-1990s and early 2000s people who did not normally patronize festivals and art cinemas still went to Egoyan’s films because they were so widely acclaimed and zeitgeisty. What a difference three or four films make. Many of his regular themes are still present and accounted for, but the narrative twists are rather clunky and therefore dashed difficult to buy into. Reynolds’ work is legitimately award caliber, but it really needs Ice-T and Richard Belzer. If you have DirecTV, it is almost worth watching just to see how Paul Sarossy’s uncompromisingly icy cinematography conflicts with the otherwise lurid vibe, but it is hard to recommended The Captive when it opens tomorrow (12/12) in New York, at the Village East.