Strong dominates ‘The Apprentice’

 

    It's difficult to imagine a world full of people who have yet to form an opinion about Donald Trump. Few public figures have so rampantly flaunted themselves as the Queens, N.Y.-born 45th president.

    In The Apprentice, director Ali Abbasi tries to explain how Trump became what the filmmaker has called an icon of American culture. Abbasi returns to  the 1970s and 80s, focusing on what the movie regards as Trump's formative relationship with attorney Roy Cohn. 

   The Apprentice moves quickly through a bold-faced telling of its tale, playing like a highlight reel. I wouldn't call The Apprentice essential viewing, something you might expect from a movie about a man now running for president. 

    To use the lingo currently applied to comic-book movies, The Apprentice qualifies as an origins story -- albeit one with the involving kick of a New York tabloid.

     Known for his unflinching brutality, Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong, took Trump under wing when the future president was beginning to spread his ambitious wings By the time Trump met him, Cohn already had gained notoriety for arguing in favor of the death penalty for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and serving as Chief Counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings.

     In a key scene, Cohn, who has been portrayed as a closeted gay man, shares three rules for life with Trump: 1. Attack. Attack. Attack. 2. Admit nothing. Deny everything. 3. No matter what happens, claim victory. Never admit defeat.

       Strong's bold performance captures Cohn's unrelenting aggression, which he carried under the shielding umbrella of extreme patriotism. It's easy to imagine that Logan Roy, the media magnate of Succession, would have been pleased if -- apart from sexuality -- his son Kendall (also played by Strong) had become more like Cohn, a flaming comet of ambition aimed at reducing foes to ashes.

     Sebastian Stan's portrayal of Trump may present a challenge for audiences. Stan gives Trump a familiar lumbering walk. He brings a tone of faux confidentiality to Trump’s speech, the illusion of an insider sharing the “real” story. He gradually enlarges the bravado of a man who believes he was blessed with winner genes.

      Stan creates a real character; he's not doing an impression. Still, I found myself asking whether I was buying Stan's portrayal, an uncertainty that speaks to the difficulty of playing a person who's inescapable to anyone who owns a TV.

       The supporting cast adds credibility. Martin Donovan convinces as Fred Trump, Donald's authoritarian father, a man who made his mark in New York real estate. Trump wanted to make his own impression. To illustrate the point, Abbasi concentrates on Trump's plan to renovate the Commodore Hotel, located near Grand Central Station. Cohn abetted Trump's efforts.

       Charlie Carrick plays Freddy, Trump's sad older brother, an airline pilot whose job embarrassed Fred Trump. "A flying bus driver,'' the elder Trump calls him. Freddy's alcoholism and suicide sound a somber note.

        Maria Bakalova comes on strong as Ivana Zelnickova, the model who'll become Ivana Trump. Trump eventually grows bored with the Czech-born Ivana, who's too eager to share the limelight with her husband.

        Abbasi doesn't skimp when showing Trump's vanity: As part of the movie's finale, Trump undergoes liposuction and hair transplants. It's a bit much; we've already seen Trump's ego at work.

         If you're searching for psychological subtext, you won't have to dig deeply. Trump sought to please and then surpass his harshly judgmental dad. 

          The Apprentice isn't exactly revelatory. Much of what's depicted has been written about elsewhere, and how audiences view the movie probably depends on how they feel about Trump and to a lesser degree Cohn, whose AIDS-related demise arrives after Trump moves on from his declining tutor.

        Those who regard Trump as a narcissistic blimp floating ominously over the American landscape will find what they want. Those who think otherwise may not bother with the film, or they may view Trump's emerging killer instinct as an asset in a kill-or-be-killed world.

        However you see it, it's difficult not to view the movie with curiosity in an election year.  I generally try not to pay too much attention to box office numbers, but I'm curious to see how many people are eager to see more of a Trump story than is already available on the nation's airways. 

       

         

            

An uneven look at SNL’s first show

 

  Who among us doesn't know what the letters SNL stand for? OK, it's Saturday Night Live, the show that recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. That's half a century of sketches, new comic faces, weekend updates, and cold opens. The show has hooked successive generations of younger viewers and created long-time loyalists.

    Perhaps understanding the place SNL has earned in American culture, director Jason Reitman, working from a script he co-wrote with Gil Kenan, has made Saturday Night, an energized look at the 90 minutes preceding the first time Chevy Chase uttered the keynote words, "Live from New York. It's Saturday Night."

    If you're a committed SNL fan, you may find amusement in Reitman's brisk examination of how producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) survived turmoil that included the use of drugs on set, personality clashes, and what sometimes looks like a show-threatening helping of amateurism.

   Difficulties seem to compound as air time approaches: John Belushi (Matt Wood) hadn't yet signed his contract, and an NBC executive (Willem Dafoe) threatened to pull the plug in favor of a Johnny Carson Tonight Show rerun.

     If there's a larger point to any of this, it involves Reitman's recognition of a cultural shift. Gone were the days of the jokey brashness of Milton Berle, played here by J.K. Simmons, once known as Mr. Television. SNL pulled off a neat trick: It turned a parodic mindset against the mainstream while becoming part of it.

      The cast is mostly game with a variety of standouts, notably Cory Michael Smith as a self-impressed Chevy Chase. Dylan O'Brian scores as the comically intense Dan Aykroyd; and Tommy Dewey proves mordantly funny as writer Michael O'Donoghue. 

      Kim Matula portrays Jane Curtin with come-what-may ease, and Lamorne Morris appears as Garrett Morris, SNL's first Black cast member. Morris spends most of his time wondering what he's doing on a show no one seems to have a handle on.

       So, is Saturday Night anything more than a big-screen reconstruction of some fabled and some fictionalized moments? Not really.

          For some, the movie will provide a healthy dose of nostalgic pleasure. For me, Saturday Night didn’t generate enough laughs. I didn't buy Wood's scowling John Belushi, and in the end, the movie became a mixed bag: a blur of dizzying camera work and hit-and-miss portrayals of the original SNL cast. 

       Saturday Night aside, my idea of SNL nostalgia has less to do with the show than with watching Belushi in Animal House, Aykroyd in Doctor Detroit, and Chevy Chase in Caddyshack. Those were the days.

        

'Joker: Folie a Deux' -- dread with music

 

   Director Todd Phillips' Joker (2019) plunged into the heart of the rot-infested Gotham, where Arthur Fleck became the Joker, a maniacal misfit whose life had turned into an agonized scream, sometimes disguised as hysterical laughter. The result was scary, haunting, and grim.

   To deliver a sequel, Phillips has made a bold choice.   Joker: Folie a Deux adds musical numbers as part of the soundtrack and as performances. The story also  brings Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) into contact with Lee (Lady Gaga), the character who, in other movies, will evolve into Harley Quinn. 

   If you want an alternate title for Folie a Deux, try Psychopath, the Musical.

   Phillips opens the movie in Arkham, a fortress-like prison for the criminally insane. Amid a population of bereft inmates, a skeletal Arthur awaits trial for murder -- six of them.

   In the film's early going, Arthur seems weirdly withdrawn, a canny strategy on Phoenix's part. Arthur's eerie detachment fits the dark mood established by Hildur Gudnadottir's pounding, ominous score, reprised from the first movie.

    The screenplay lays the groundwork for Arthur's trial. Arthur's lawyer (Catherine Keener) wants to employ an insanity defense. She'll argue that the vicious Joker lives inside poor Arthur's tormented psyche. Arthur doesn't connect to this alternate self and hardly remembers his murderous outbursts. Abused as a child, Arthur's a wimp who can't accept his fiendishness -- or so his lawyer says.

      Gotham's district attorney (Harry Lawtey) argues otherwise; he dismisses talk of Arthur's alternate personality as hooey.

    As a Joker fan, I was predisposed to appreciate the inventiveness Phillips might bring to this sequel, which punctuates the movie's encompassing bleakness with musical numbers that evoke memories of a bygone Hollywood era.

   Phillips pays homage to musicals when Arthur watches a scene from 1953's The Band Wagon featuring the song, That's Entertainment; a number that's later performed by Gaga to highlight a theme found in both movies: the exploitative tendency to bestow celebrity status on notorious criminals.

   Lee and Arthur meet in Arkham, where she's serving time for arson. Lee belongs to a musical club that's supposed to help broken inmates heal. A prison guard (Brendan Gleeson) arranges for Arthur to join the group. Not only is Lee a fan of the Joker, but she's a kindred spirit, a lover of chaos.

    The match may not be as fortuitous as it seems. Arthur thinks he's finally met a woman who can pierce the thick walls of his loneliness, the prison he lives in whether he's behind bars or not. The poor sap wants love; Lee craves thrills.

    Phoenix adds sorrowful undertones to Arthur's edgy unpredictability. Gaga, who delivers lovely vocals, turns Lee into a thrill-seeker looking for a playmate. 

    Phoenix sings in a reedy yet effective style that's applied to songs such as When You're Smiling, an anthem for the Joker whose face is plastered with a lipstick smeared rictus. At one point, he fantasizes about appearing on TV with Lee, giving Phoenix and Gaga an opportunity to perform a duet.

    A movie that opens with a mock Looney Tunes cartoon has no interest in settling for formula. Whatever you think of Folie a Deux, it's impossible to accuse Phillips of taking the easy way out.

     He also tries to give the movie some moral weight. Leigh Gill delivers a brief but affecting performance as Gary Puddles, a witness in Arthur's trial. Puddles testifies about the harrowing consequences faced by those who come into Arthur's orbit.

    Familiar themes -- turning violence into entertainment and the twisted narcissism that craves celebrity -- remain, but Phillips, who wrote the screenplay with Joker co-author Scott Silver, doesn't generate enough story to keep the movie from losing steam.

    Folie a Deux begins to peter out about three-quarters of the way through its two-hour and 18-minute running time. Courtroom scenes undercut the dread that festers during Arthur's imprisonment, and the film's ending ... well ... let's just say, the movie ends.

    Reservations aside, I want to conclude with an addendum. This edition of Joker may not entirely work, but it's daring, ambitious, and ungainly in crazy  ways. Phillips' bold choices don't all pay off, but they beat the fan-serving rehash that might have been.

     

Diving into one woman's alcoholism

 

    Saoirse Ronan's deeply realized portrayal of a 29-year-old alcoholic struggling to conquer her addiction might be reason enough to see The Outrun, a movie based on a 2017 memoir by Amy Liptrot. 

   In the hands of German director Nora Fingscheidt, the movie can feel bleary-eyed, almost inebriated. Shifting back and forth in time, The Outrun brims with rue and regret, unfolding in piecemeal fashion on the Orkney archipelago off Scotland's northern shore. 

   Forget notions of island idyls; the island we see become studies in desolation. Waves crash against forbidding cliffs, powerful reminders of the devastations that follow alcohol-fueled trajectories . Dizzying heights smash their way toward self-destructive lows.

   Ronan's Rona gives the movie its twisted spine; Rona equates alcohol with happiness. Her drunkenness mixes barroom bonhomie with embarrassing, fall-down stumbles.  Her good times usually turn sour.

   The story provides telling glimpses of Rona's island upbringing with a bipolar father (Stephen Dillane) and a devoutly religious mother (Saskia Reeves). The movie doesn't blame Rona's upbringing for her alcoholism; her mother may be a staunch believer, but she's also kind and caring.

   During Rona's childhood, her father's mental illness added to the domestic turmoil; in yoyo fashion, he dropped in and out of institutions.

   Paapa Essiedu portrays Rona's boyfriend, a young man she pushes away when she becomes abusive. He's forgiving -- until he reaches his breaking point.

   Living a bare-bones existence, Rona is tasked with monitoring the movements of the corncrake, a threatened species of bird. Flingsheidt seems interested in watching Rona try to synch her internal life with the surrounding natural world.

    Not everything about The Outrun leaves a mark. At times, the movie climbs the 12-step ladder. We may have seen too many confessional scenes to find much that feels fresh about Rona's participation in meetings.

   The movie's time shifts require constant  adjustment, and The Outrun can't quite reach the poetic heights Fingscheidt strives for, particularly with references to Selkies, mythological creatures that can morph from seals into humans. 

   Still, Ronan’s brave, uncompromising performance carries the movie through the raging journey of a damaged soul seeking repair. 

Bob's Cinema Diary: Oct. 1, 2024 -- 'The Wild Robot' and 'Wolfs'

Here are two quick, catch-up reviews of two movies that I couldn't review on their opening days. Blame scheduling conflicts and movie overload. The Wild Robot, which has won favor with both critics and audiences, has the potential to become an animated classic. Wolfs, on the other hand, a disposable feel of familiarity, a comic thriller in which Brad Pitt and George Clooney break little new ground.

 

The Wild Robot. Can a robot develop emotions? Can that same robot bond with an orphaned gosling and become its surrogate mother? Can the robot, an automaton that lives apart from other robots on a wooded island, be accepted by the island's natural denizens?  Based on 2020 bestseller by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot provides a stylish and often poignant response to these questions. Rozzum Unit 7134, voiced by Lupita  Nyong'o, becomes the movie's centerpiece as the robot develops relationships with Fink, a sly fox voiced by Pedro Pascal. Kit Connor does the voice work for Brightbill, the gosling. Director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stich, How to Train Your Dragon) offers a mixture of cartoonish action, layered meaning, and appealing characters as both Roz and Brightbill struggle with issues of belonging and connection. Eventually, Roz's maker sends a more strident robot (Stephanie Hsu) to retrieve the wayward bot and wipe its memory. Skillfully animated by Brown's team, The Wild Robot stands as family entertainment that avoids the worst pitfalls of such fare, notably unearned sentiment. Although it leans heavily toward children, adults may appreciate the way the movie balances the predatory instincts of animals with their need to achieve common goals.

Wolfs

Brad Pitt and George Clooney team for a comic thriller about two men with unusual jobs. For handsome fees, they dispose of bodies that otherwise might lead to murder indictments. As loners who've never met before, Pitt and Clooney's bickering fixers are pushed into an uneasy alliance; they must get rid of the body of a young man (Austin Abrams) who had been taken to a high-end New York hotel by a politician (Amy Ryan) looking for a fling. Nothing like a body on the floor to ruin a reputation. Pitt and Clooney deliver the expected banter, but the story, which unfolds during the course of a single night, doesn't feel nearly as offbeat as might have been intended. Undeniable star power boosts director Jon Watts's (Spider-Man: Homecoming) effort, but Pitt and Clooney can't make this stale vehicle shine.