An academic faces oppression in Iran

    

   Collaborating on a screenplay with Marjorie David, Israeli director Eran Riklis tells a story of academic oppression in Iran, basing his movie on a best-selling memoir by Azar Nafisi.

     In 1979, Nafisi (Golshifteh Farahani) and her husband (Arash Marandi) returned to Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini had just come to power, and Nafisi  -- along with many other returnees -- leaned toward the notion that a newly liberated Iran offered opportunities for renewal. Nafisi wanted to teach Iranian university students and live in the country she loved, which she left as a teenager to continue her studies. 

      Hopeful about contributing, Nafisi met with disappointment. What followed her return was anything but a loosening of the tight jaws of oppression. Nafisi faced pushback about refusing to wear a head scarf and her attempts to teach openly and critically met with failure.

      After being forced to leave her university job, Nafisi began teaching classes privately to a small group of women who wanted to continue their studies. Eventually, the group got around to Nabokov's Lolita, a book which the hard-core religious rulers of Iran might deem as a perverse endorsement of pedophilia.

       The women share their views on books — Henry James' Daisy Miller, for example — but the story also deals with the problems Nafisi's students face as the regime continues to pervade daily life.  One student (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) is arrested and subjected to a forced virginity test after an arrest. She was also given  a 25-lash sentence. 

      The movie serves as a guide to the difficulties faced by educated women in Tehran, and a reminder of how oppressive regimes make their presence felt in education.

       Farahani captures Nafisi’s the increasing frustration that curdles the optimism and enthusiasm with which she had approached her return to Iran. 

       The main theme about the way oppression stifles artistic expression are clear, but the movie proceeds in programmatic fashion that seldom catches fire, and we’re left with a useful adaptation of a memoir that chronicles broken dreams and crushed hopes.

      

Tracking Christopher Nolan's 'Odyssey'

   You've already seen The Odyssey. You've probably seen it many times.  I'm not talking about filmed versions, one in 1954 and another in 1997. I'm talking about movies that -- knowingly or not -- have retold the Odyssey story, if not literally, then by mimicking its structure. 

    You know the drill. A valiant hero is separated from all that's familiar to him. He must overcome many obstacles to achieve a goal that resonates in movies as diverse as The Wizard of Oz and E.T. The hero wants to go home, home representing everything good, stable, and familiar. 

    Put another way, The Odyssey may date to the late 8th century BC, but it created one of the templates for storytellers that endures to this day. 

    Unless you've been living in isolation, you know that director Christopher Nolan has made his version of The Odyssey, opting to avoid literary flourishes that might have struck contemporary ears as unrecognizably florid. At one point, Telemachus, son of Odysseus, calls his mother "mom." I did a double take when I heard Odysseus referred to as "daddy."

    A bit strange, yes, but the heart of the movie involves an episodic account of the perils Odysseus faces on his return trip to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

    As you can guess, there isn't much smooth sailing in The Odyssey. Seas roil and blood is shed. Odysseus' adventures may remind younger viewers of horrors they've encountered in Marvel movies. In Nolan's hands, they serve as tests of Odysseus' character and cunning, with cunning sometimes trumping issues of character.  

     Looking grizzled and battle-worn, Matt Damon, as Odysseus, highlights Odysseus' internal conflicts. How many men must be sacrificed to save most of the loyal soldiers who accompany Odysseus on his journey home? Put another way, Odysseus  — the ultimate pragmatist — constantly wrestles with his conscience. 

    Odysseus’ journey pauses when he washes up on the shores of a secret island inhabited by Calypso (Charlize Theron), an immortal beauty who offers Odysseus a chance to live with her forever. 

     No, says Odysseus; he’d rather be mortal and return to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway). Embittered and lonely, Penelope has spent the last 20 years warding off freeloading suitors who have invaded Odysseus' home, notably the sly Antinous (a terrific Robert Pattinson).

    Nolan also adds many of the side characters that bring color to the epic story. Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), a blind swineherd, remains loyal to Odysseus throughout his long absence, demonstrating that virtue isn't necessarily confined to those of noble birth.

      All of this plays against a counter story. Telemachus (Tom Holland) leaves home to find the father he doesn't know, although his trip isn't quite as fraught as his father's.

     Nolan presents a narratively complex story in segments, some of which merge easily and others which can make the movie seem a bit discombobulated, particularly at the outset.

   Sometimes, Nolan hurls us into some of the movie's  episodes without build-up, but he brings the story's bits and pieces together in the movie's finale, arguably the best and most commanding part of this gargantuan effort.

    In one of the movie's more engaging episodes, Odysseus encounters Circe (a compelling Samantha Morton), a witch who can turn men into animals, thus exposing what she regards as their essential natures.

     Then there's Menelaus (a strong Jon Bernthal) and his wife Helen (Lupita Nyong'o), both of whom Telemachus visits in hopes of learning his father’s whereabouts. Zendaya turns up as Athena, the goddess who appears to Odysseus, sometimes as a reminder of the pain he has inflicted on others.

       As he customarily does, Nolan minimizes the use of special effects. I’ve read that the fearsome Cyclops was created with a mixture of puppetry, animatronics, and a performance by Bill Irwin. An enormous Trojan horse was built to lay the groundwork for one of the movie's most powerful scenes. A chastened Odysseus witnesses the carnage wrought when he deceived the Trojans, entered Troy, and conquered the city. 

    With victory comes horror and remorse, a twist that might be dubbed "the agony of victory." 

      The Odyssey is worth seeing, but I wasn't swept away by a film that seems targeted for greatness, an A-list production in front of and behind the camera.

     Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema keeps early scenes dark, simulating the look of candlelit interiors. He often presses his camera close to faces, presumably an effort to bring intimacy to the proceedings.

       Production designer Ruth De Jong opts for naturalism rather than period-piece cliche, and Ludwig Goransson's score pumps adrenaline into clangorous depictions of battle, perhaps trying to replicate the thudding rhythms with which Homer’s poetry originally was delivered. 

        A masterwork with ample amounts of blood and gore, the story retains much of its power, even if some of its monsters seem more related to the era of Ray Harryhausen’s artifice (1963's Jason and the Argonauts) than contemporary visual pyrotechnics. 

     Nolan sustains a clear vision, coaxes out several memorable performances, and hits home when it counts, but I was expecting something more encompassing; I wanted a movie in which I could get lost, and got a movie that I tracked with interest.

   Ah, the cyclops. Ah, the whirlpool. Yes, there's Odysseus tied to a ship's past because he insists on hearing the irresistible siren song that could cause him to leap overboard and face certain death.

   The movie seemed best when it didn't feel like a checklist of Odyssey high points bolstered by a strong cast and a commitment to imagery. The Odyssey was filmed with 70mm IMAX cameras that beautifully capture the sandy expanse of beaches and the imposing emptiness of seas at sunset. The Odyssey may not be consistently compelling, but in the stillness of those moments, Nolan writes poetry of his own.

Scams inside a senior living facility

  

   

   Night Nurse takes place inside a high-end assisted living facility where some residents have a nurse with them at all times -- one serving during the day and another at night. Many of the residents suffer from dementia. 

    From the outset, director Georgia Bernstein makes it clear that she's not interested in exposing elder-care abuse. Heavy on atmospherics, Night Nurse embarks on a study of how care-giving relationships can be tainted by perversity and exploitation.

   Bernstein begins by introducing Eleni (Cemre Paksoy), a young nurse who's being interviewed for a job by the residential community's director (Mimi Rogers). Despite a shaky interview, Paksoy's Eleni lands the job as night nurse for Douglas Callum (Bruce McKenzie), a crank who's recognized as one of the facility's more difficult patients.

    Douglas's day nurse (Eleonore Hendricks) tries to clue the newbie into the ways of the place, which -- as we'll discover -- become increasingly weird.

    Douglas may not be as deep into Alzheimer's as it seems. It doesn't take long for Douglas, who makes sexual advances toward Elena, to enlist her help in a scheme. She's asked to call other residents and pretend to be a granddaughter who has been arrested after an auto accident. Douglas then gets on the phone, poses as the girl's lawyer, and asks that money be sent at once.

     The scam works, and Eleni starts to crave the illicit charge provided by the fraud. Her desires are pitted against those Douglas displays or withholds.

      Still, as played by Paksoy, Eleni is difficult to read. She's kinky in complex ways that aren't easily understood because there's something guarded and protected about her. 

      It's not easy to predict where this self-contained movie might be headed or what it wants to say. Described as a "psychosexual thriller," the movie comes up short on at least half of that description, notably the "thriller" part. 

     Bernstein hints at themes involving the nurses' desire to be needed and how a willingness to care for someone can be distorted into something destructive. Beyond that, there are questions about who possesses the most power as the relationship seesaw tips this way or that.

      Those are interesting ideas to explore, but they're also difficult to contain in a film that doesn't have much of a story to tell. Night Nurse feels as if it's unfolding in a limbo where the mystery of it all can feel listless, as if the characters are living in a trance state in which the film imprisons them.

Scattered laughs in 'Sex Pass'

    

    Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass brings a slapdash quality to a comedy that opts for a glut of gags that bob on a sea of silliness. Director David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer) delivers a preposterous story, unremitting goofiness, and a disregard for credibility, driving his movie to zany extremes. 

     There's something refreshing about a movie without pretensions, but the problem with a scattershot approach to  comedy is that the laughs can be scattershot, as well. Wain and his writing partner, Ken Marino, open a mixed bag of jokes and spill them across an uneven 93 minutes.

     Zoey Deutch stars as a small-town Kansas hairdresser who's engaged to her high school sweetheart (Michael Cassidy). Enter the sex pass of the title.

     In a conversation neither seems to take seriously, Deutch’s Gail and Cassidy’s Tom give each other permission to sleep with the celebrity of their choice. No judgments will be made. No one will harbor grudges. Each of them will allow the other an infidelity one-off. 

     When Cassidy's Tom makes an improbable connection with Jennifer Aniston, who arrives in Kansas for a book signing, Gail decides the only way she can save her looming marriage is by having sex with her chosen celebrity, Jon Hamm. Balance matters.

      As luck (or contrivance) would have it, Gail has an opportunity to attend a convention in Los Angeles, but she has more in mind than keeping up with the latest styles. She wants to sleep with Hamm as part of the ridiculous game she has played with her fiancé.

     Most of the movie takes place in Los Angeles, where Gail and her hairdressing colleague (Miles Gutierrez Riley) hook up with a lowly employee at the CAA talent agency (Ben Wang), a down-on-his-luck photographer (Marino), and John Slattery, the actor who worked with Hamm on Mad Men but who -- at least in the movie -- has fallen on hard times.

       A plot of sorts emerges. Thanks to the swap of  lookalike suitcases at LAX, Gail winds up in possession of plans drawn up by a conspiracy to tank the global economy. Joe Lo Truglio and Mather Zickel are the dumber-than-dirt henchmen who work for the plan's mastermind (Sabrina Impecciatore), who wants her documents returned.

        No sense pointing out more. Know, though, that Deutch makes an excellent plucky innocent who smiles her way through a showbiz world that might intimidate others. Some of the dialogue is funny, and Wain even finds a way to take a poke at big-screen violence with a gun-heavy scene set on an abandoned Western movie set.

       Initially appalled by the group, Slattery eventually buys in, and Wang delivers a flurry of amusing high-speed dialogue as an aspiring agent.

       I haven't mentioned that Fred Melamed plays a mailman, who functions as the move's occasional narrator. Off-kilter celebrity cameos are sprinkled throughout. Aided by ample portions of slapstick, a game cast dishes out non-stop silliness that finds a way to introduce a hot-air balloon into its finale.

  And, by the way, if you try this one, forget taste. Wain and his team mount an assault on decorum along with everything else -- and there's a whole lot of everything else. 

Sex, talk, and relationships on view

   I already knew that Penelope Cruz can be a terrific comic actress, but The Invite, a movie about sex and relationships, reminded me how good she can be. I can’t say I’m a huge Seth Rogen fan, but he gives what might be his best performance in this Olivia Wilde-directed movie. Wilde also has a starring role.

   Essentially, The Invite is a four-hander with Edward Norton joining the group as a firefighter who has formed a relationship with a psychotherapist (Cruz), who describes herself as a sexologist. 

   Putting two couples (Wilde, Rogen, and Cruz and Norton) into a San Francisco apartment sounds claustrophobic, but working from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, Wilde makes her movie both provocative and entertaining. 

   The movie opens with Rogen’s Joe riding his folding bicycle home from his job as a music teacher at a minor San Francisco conservatory. Everything about Joe suggests defeat — from his slouch to his saturnine countenance. In hilly San Francisco, riding a bike can be punishing. Joe shows no signs of being able to escape his fate.

   When he arrives home with a bad back, Joe quickly gets into a tiff with his wife Angela (Wilde). She tells him the upstairs neighbors are coming to dinner. Joe claims that he’s been ambushed by the news. Angela’s upset that he didn’t buy wine for the occasion. We're primed for an evening of familiar bickering.

    But Joe has a specific complaint about the neighbors — Cruz’s Pina and Norton’s Hawk — make wild, noisy love that disrupts Joe’s sleep. Pina’s orgasms evidently have an epic quality. Joe insists he plans to complain. Angela slides into don’t-you-dare mode.

     It’s clear from the start that these two couples aren’t destined to be best friends forever. Norton’s Hawk has a self-possessed arrogance about him, and Pina has a pushy personality, an openness that borders on aggression. She presents herself as a free spirit.

    So where is all this going? The Invite soon turns into a movie about contemporary sexual mores and styles. Hawk and Pina, we learn, are into group sex. The noise Joe has been hearing comes from some of their orgy mates. Hawk upends Joe by bringing the subject up before Joe has a chance to complain. He feels he owes Joe an explanation.

     Wilde’s jittery uneasiness and Rogen’s inbred cynicism play well against two people who pride themselves on their maturity. I won’t describe the results, but the dialogue becomes sharply funny, and the actors are in peak form. 

     Wilde keeps things humming as we learn more about each character. Pina goes beyond her obvious eroticism. Hawk reveals a sobering part of his past, and Angela and Joe begin to see the truth that underlies their constant arguing: Their increasingly stale relationship may be teetering on the edge of extinction

     No fair telling more. The movie can’t quite decide how to end, but Wilde avoids a sentimental resolution and by the time the movie concludes, each character stands more revealed. Emotions, vulnerabilities, and personal truths have been bared. 

     Look, The Invite isn’t Chekov or Albee, but it’s engaging and deftly realized. That’s more than can be said about lots of current movies.

A foodie struggles with bulimia

In Maddie's Secret, director John Early plays the lead character, a woman dealing with a long-standing eating disorder, in this case, bulimia. A comedian, actor, and singer, Early's sex isn't the secret to which the movie's title refers. Early plays a female character. That’s it. The movie’s secret involves Maddie's bulimia, a condition she has been hiding for years. Maddie works in the food industry, beginning the movie as a dishwasher on a cooking show. A vegan who also knows how to cook, Maddie lands her own show and becomes a serious influencer. Up to that point, Maddie's husband Jake (Eric Rahill) had been the main beneficiary of Maddie's culinary talents. Her best friend Deena (Kate Bertlant) also plays a big role in Maddie's life. A lesbian who's crushing on Maddie, Deena is blindly supportive, maybe to the point of obsession. Early's screenplay piles on soap-operatic complications. When Jake discovers Maddie vomiting in the bathroom, he assumes she's pregnant. Claudia O'Doherty plays a co-worker who -- until Maddie's ascendance -- was the cooking network's star attraction. She’s not happy about slipping into second place. Early mostly succeeds in mixing humor and melodrama as he leads the story to Maddie's hospitalization after an eating disorder-induced heart attack. A late-picture scene involving Maddie's mother (Kristen Johnston) offers an explanation for Maddie's disorder that feels like an example of parental abuse played as much for melodramatic effect as for illuminating clarity. Still, Maddie's Secret isn't glib or dismissive, and Early plays Maddie with an undeniable sincerity that acknowledges the character's humanity as well as her disorder.

This 'Minions' is fun -- for a while

— A massive orange blob of a monster tries to devour much of Hollywood. 

— Images of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Dooley Wilson, who played Sam the piano player in Casablanca's Rick's Cafe, flicker by.

—  An animated George Lucas under glass asks to be released from his display at a museum.

—  Georges Milies's A Trip to the Moon crops up.

   All of that and more can be found in Minions & Monsters, the third stand-alone Minions movie since their solo debut in 2015. For the record, the Minions first appeared in 2010's Despicable Me.

  As you may be able to tell from the list above, Minions and Monsters is an eclectic -- sometimes frenzied -- addition to the series that places Henry and James -- two new Minion heroes -- in Hollywood during the silent era. 

   Director Pierre Coffin accelerates the action in ways that may remind older audiences of the smashing mayhem found in many Looney Tunes cartoons.

  As is their way, the Minions will race about looking for a new evil master to serve, but the story is framed by a guide named Olivia (voiced by Allison Janney) who's leading a Hollywood studio tour built around the idea that the minions invented Hollywood, a story that unfolds in flashbacks.

  In that story, Henry and James align themselves with Bright Brothers Studio, headed by two brothers voiced by Jeff Bridges. Bottom-line guys, the brothers prioritize  profits over aesthetics. The Minions are a hit.

  The arrival of sound finishes the Minions Hollywood triumph, but their trademark gibberish keeps them out of the Talkies.

   The story delivers additional commotion when Henry and James attempt to make a monster movie on their own, an effort that has them chanting magic spells to summon suitable monsters. 

  And, yes, that's Jesse Eisenberg's voice you hear as Dort, the alien robot who falls for a human woman.

  Young fans may not appreciate all the movie references because much of Minions & Monsters takes place during the 1920s. Older audiences may get a kick out of the movie's riotous first act, and those with a taste for colorful  clutter may be amused by the rest.

   Me? About three-quarters of the way through this one-hour-and-thirty-minute hunk of Minion maximalism,  the movie's early-picture cleverness began to fade, and I found myself looking forward to the end credits, which -- as it turns out -- include even more jokes.

'Couture' skims the fashion world

  

 Director Alice Winocour takes us to Paris for fashion week in Couture, a movie that tells three loosely related stories, one featuring Angelina Jolie.

 Perhaps you can already sense a problem. By having to switch the movie's focus from one character to another, Winocour loses the opportunity for in-depth looks at any of them, and Couture becomes more of a skim than a revelation.

  Jolie plays Maxine, an American director of an indie  horror film who's been invited to make a short opening film to kick off fashion week. 

   Eighteen-year-old Ada (Anyier Anei), an inexperienced, long-legged model, has been chosen to lead the parade of models that will open the show. Ada arrives in Paris from Kenya, where her family lives having fled wars in Sudan. 

    Finally, we meet Angele (Elle Rumpf), a make-up artist who's writing a book about her experiences in the fashion world. 

    Each of these characters faces different problems and opportunities. Maxine's participation in fashion week may provide her with a major career boost. 

   Ada must overcome shyness and fear as she enters a highly competitive and demanding business. 

   Angele wants to write successfully, to use her experience as a source of reflection.

   A health crisis adds to Maxine's anxieties. Early on, she receives a call from her doctor in the US. He insists that Maxine immediately see a French specialist. It turns out she has breast cancer. The news about her diagnosis worsens throughout the course of the movie.

    Following Ada provides an opportunity for Winocour to sketch the lives of young models, some of whom have already become cynical high-fashion veterans.

     Eventually, parts of Angele's book are heard in a voice over narration. Presumably meant to add arty flavor, they can sound a bit pretentious.

     Couture easily could have focused only on Jolie's character. Maxine’s issues become the movie’s most evocative and also do more to highlight complexities about women and their career paths, one of the movie's interests.

   Strong casting and a potentially rich setting aren't entirely wasted, but the resultant effort shortchanges the movie's major characters without finding enough meaningful ways to mingle their stories.

Wild and crazy? Maybe too much so

     

  Boots Riley directed an impressive and entertaining debut film with 2018's Sorry to Bother You, an eye-popping critique of telemarketing that hit a broad range of satirical targets. Riley boosted his distinctive aesthetic -- bold colors, sight gags, and preposterous turns of plot -- with giddy bursts of energy.

  Riley returns with I Love Boosters, a movie about women who steal clothing from a high-end store and sell it at a discount.

  Diving headlong into a sea of cartoonish chaos, I Love Boosters introduces two partners in crime -- Corvette (Keke Palmer) and Sade (Naomi Ackie). The duo has mastered the art of pilfering from retail outlets, stuffing purloined clothes under the clothes they're wearing. They waddle out of stores looking like parade floats.

   Don't mistake I Love Boosters for a caper movie. Riley has bigger aims. The movie's thieves target Christie Smith (Demi Moore), a big-name clothes designer who steals designs, one of them from aspiring designer Corvette.

   Thus begins a battle between working-class rogues and a corporate power broker who covers her thievery with elitism and arrogance.

  The rest of the cast includes Taylour Paige, Robin Thede, and LaKeith Stanfield. Stanfield turns up as a charming character with demonic abilities. Don't ask me why. Whatever the reason, he's part of what may be the year's most surreal sex scene. 

   Moving outward from the Bay Area, Riley adds an international twist. Poppy Liu appears as a rebellious worker at the Chinese factory where Smith's company makes its clothes, endangering workers' health by sandblasting jeans to make them look fashionably worn.

   That's a lot of movie, but as low-rent TV commercials used to say, "Wait. There's more."

    About three-quarters of the way through, Riley adds a teleportation device, which becomes a sci-fi goof and a source of silly sight gags.

   I Love Boosters gets off to a strong start, but three quarters of the way through, visual and plot overload begin to kick in, leaving us with sporadic giggles and lingering admiration for Riley's willingness to pull out every stop. 

   Riley's films have been taken as assaults on capitalist exploitation. If so, they're playful attacks from someone who, at his best, turns his films into  cornucopias of mischief. Some may even want to  categorize Riley's work as a form of cinematic performance art.

   In this second outing, though, Riley floods the screen with so many ideas and so much invention that not enough of it sticks. Perhaps it's a case of too much of a good thing.