Billie Eilish powers 3D concert film

    I am not a Billie Eilish fan. I'm also not a Billie Eilish detractor. Put another way,  I've had limited exposure to the work of the Grammy-winning artist whose distinctive style tempers disaffection with rebellious assertion. Eilish's music has been used in movies such as No Time To Die, Barbie, and Turning Red. She takes charge of her image, embracing desexualized, oversized clothing that evokes a youthful Hip-Hop sense of freedom. 

 Eilish shares directing credits with James Cameron for Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft -- The Tour Live in 3D, a movie filmed during four arena concerts in Manchester, England. Cameron and his team use 3D to add depth, intimacy, and immersive presence to a film that may appeal mostly to Eilish's legion of fans. But even those with only passing knowledge of Eilish's musical catalog should acknowledge the undeniably strong connection the singer makes with her audience. 

  Forget the idea that someone might attend a concert to listen to music. Eilish's fans sing along with her. Shown in Cameron's somewhat repetitive close-ups, many of her fans are moved to tears by lyrics they know by heart. Fans don't just mouth the words; they deliver them with the conviction of true believers. Many watch with cell phones raised, recording moments that suggest a near spiritual communion.

    Maybe the film is slanted, but interviews with fans suggest that Eilish's music makes them feel seen, offering assurances that they're not alone. Watching the film is like attending a convention of outsiders who have suddenly become the majority.

     I'll leave it to others to comment on the songs. Eilish sings them on an empty stage. Musicians and back-up singers work in two pits separated by another strip of stage. Two female singers dressed like school girls sometimes appear on stage, as does Eilish's brother and frequent song-writing collaborator Finneas O'Connell. 

     But mostly, Eilish commands the spotlight, racing across a rectangular stage or occupying an illuminated square structure that's raised and lowered for dramatic effect, often with her standing on top of it. Cameron, who occasionally appears on camera, reinforces the notion that the stage belongs to Eilish. Her power rests in working without a surfeit of production-oriented frills. 

      Eilish seems to be aiming for a kind of purity of performance. She's the special effect.  Cameron relies on close-ups of Eilish, and uses 3D to reinforce the idea that the concert isn't just a series of songs; it's a communal experience.

      Cameron's interviews aren't especially revealing, and images of the stage and lighting being assembled and later dismantled don't add much either. Cameron breaks up the film with scenes of pre-concert preparation, and Eilish dispenses bits of incidental information. We learn she likes to have a puppy room at her venues: It's populated by adoptable dogs from wherever she's appearing. 

     More importantly, Eilish articulates what her fans presumably already know. She refuses to be imprisoned by the gender stereotypes that too often have defined female performers. She wants to be as wild on stage as any male rapper, and if you're in the target audience, her apparent abandon comes across as playful and liberating.

     A confession: When Eilish announced that the time for the last song had arrived, I was ready for the concert to end. But that doesn't mean that the film didn't make me aware of Eilish's magnetism.  Watching her hold 20,000-plus people in thrall for one hour and 54 minutes is something to see.

 

'Sheep Detectives' on the case

  What a preposterous idea. Who wants to watch a movie about a flock of sheep intent on discovering who murdered their beloved shepherd? Director Kyle Balda (Despicable Me 3, Minions: The Rise of Gru) turns to live action in The Sheep Detectives and finds more charm than any movie about sleuthing sheep deserves. 

  Based on German novelist Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full, Sheep Detectives has its eye on younger viewers but doesn't leave their adult escorts far behind. Sheep Detectives smartly follows a standard whodunit arc, arriving at the expected plot points with pleasing efficiency.

   The sheep know the mystery formula because the shepherd -- Hugh Jackman's George Hardy -- used to read them detective novels before they retired to the barn for a night's rest. Balda adds a bit of darkness to the bucolic background. The good-guy shepherd is murdered early on, reducing Jackman's screen time, and the story makes room for greedy ambition among its human characters.

   Overall, though, The Sheep Detectives involves endearing CGI animals who speak to one another in English. (Human characters can't hear them). Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) portrays the flock's leader. Regina King gives voice to Cloud, a sheep who gets by on good grooming. 

   Previous to the loss of their caretaker, the sheep had been living an idyllic life. They suppress bad memories, and soothe themselves with a belief about the afterlife: Sheep don't die; they turn into fluffy clouds. Chris O'Dowd's Mopple is the only sheep who remembers the flock's history. Byran Cranston voices a ram who lives apart from the rest of the group.

   A winter lamb, rejected by the others, paves the way for an instructional layer about tolerating creatures who don't fit in.

   The town's human population includes Derry (Nicholas Braun), a policeman of blatant incompetence. Emma Thompson signs on as a brittle lawyer who tries to administer the late shepherd's will.  Molly Gordon plays the shepherd's daughter; she hasn't seen her father in years. The town's butcher, the appropriately named Ham (Conleth Hill), regards the sheep as potential source of profit. Nicholas Galitzine portrays a reporter who's investigating the murder, and Hong Chau plays the operator of the town's hotel.

   The human characters add some of the eccentric flavor of an Ealing comedy to a story set in the English countryside. 

   It's a stretch to think of The Sheep Detectives as a family-oriented classic, but the movie proves amusing enough to earn its place in the world of talking animals that speak the language of quirky entertainment.

Bob's Cinema Diary: 'Hokum' and 'One Spoon of Chocolate'

 Hokum 

Director Damian McCarthy tries to turn familiar ingredients into something unexpected in Hokum, a horror movie about an embittered novelist (Adam Scott) who visits the Irish hotel where his late parents spent their honeymoon and where Scott's Ohm Bauman plans to scatter their ashes. Oddly, the story begins with a deceptive prologue about a lost conquistador and the boy who's traveling with him; it's soon revealed that we've been watching the concluding scene of Bauman's latest novel, which McCarthy will re-introduce in the final going to add another  twist. The hotel's staff generates suspicion: there's an overly solicitous bellhop (Will O'Connell) and the hotel's clerk (Peter Coonan) happens to be the owner's son-in-law. Michael Patric plays a handyman who, early on, makes it clear that he's skilled with a crossbow. Florence Ordesh appears as Finona, the hotel's bartender; her disappearance motivates Bauman to search for her. Could Jerry (David Wilmot), a loner who lives in the woods where he concocts a drink powered by hallucinogenic mushrooms, have murdered the barmaid? Of course, there's a honeymoon suite no one's allowed to enter, and the hotel is so old-fashioned, you almost can smell the must.  McCarthy raises interesting questions: Does it really matter whether terrifying events are real or imagined? How does one exorcise the persistent demons of a troubled past? McCarthy also deserves credit for avoiding a flood of gore and for adding bits of Irish folklore involving a witch. But this overdose of atmospherics never quite lives up to its ambitions, a flaw that we suspect might also characterize Bauman's novels. Hokum, which offers a few effective jump scares, capitalizes on Scott's willingness to play a guilt-ridden character who generates little sympathy, but the movie  doesn't generate the kind of haunting fear that might have turned it into a small triumph.

One Spoon of Chocolate 

In One Spoon of Chocolate,  a Black veteran reacts angrily when confronted with injustice in a small Ohio town that's loaded with racists. The movie opens with a grisly prologue in which a young Black man (Isaiah R. Hill) is lured into a trap by a racist cabal that harvests organs for profit. Director RZA has lots in mind as the story settles into a tale involving Randy "Unique" Jackson (Shameik Moore). Newly released from prison, the ex-soldier wants to get on with his life, but the town of Karensville (fictional) stands in his way. Humiliations and troubles mount, and at least one member of Unique's family falls prey to the racists. All of this builds toward a Rambo-like outburst that turns the movie into a mediocre genre exercise culminating with mayhem delivered by a righteous warrior. The dialogue tips toward the obvious, and RZA's attempts to expose racist horrors wind up drowning in the blood of cliched violence.

A family story seen obliquely

  Blue Heron, an absorbing debut film from Canadian director Sophy Romvari, begins as if it's going to be an idyl about the joys of childhood. Romvari introduces us to the kids of a Hungarian immigrant family that's settling into a new home on Vancouver Island in the 1990s.

  A truck is unloaded, and the kids are encouraged to get out of the way. Romvari and cinematographer Maya Bankovic keep the camera close to their characters. You almost feel the children brushing past.

    Romvari bases the film on her experiences, and she shifts times and viewpoints to intriguing effect. Romvari juxtaposes a poetic cinematic vocabulary with more straightforward scenes. But even those can be tricky. At one point, Romvari's central character appears as an adult social worker who visits her parents to discuss what happened to her older brother.

      But I get ahead of myself. To clarify, Sasha — the story’s main character — is eight at the film's outset. Eylul Guven gives an amazingly unaffected performance as an eight-year-old who plays with her siblings and seems to be living a normal childhood. 

      Gradually, we learn that Sasha's older stepbrother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), has behavioral issues. At times, he seems fully present, but he's often remote. At one point, he falls asleep on the front porch steps and can't be roused. 

    Amid the disorientation, Romvari evokes richly evocative childhood moments: Sasha watching her mom peel potatoes, for example, an ordinary moment but one that lingers. Sasha is forming a memory.

        The role of each of Sasha's parents becomes clear. Dad (Ádám Tompa) works at his computer and sometimes takes photos of the kids. He's as much an observer as a parent. Mom (Iringó Réti) participates more actively in family life, although she can be frustrated by the demands of a difficult son and three other children.

       Romvari seldom offers context, slowly revealing as much as we need to know. Jeremy's  worst behaviors are kept off screen, but his impact registers in the faces of his parents and in Sasha's struggle to come to grips with what's happening.

       Before we have a complete handle on any of this, Ramvari pushes her film 20 years forward. Now grown, Sasha appears as a filmmaker played by Amy Zimmer. She's working on a documentary about her brother, who — we learn — committed suicide. Sasha films a scene in which a group of social workers reflects on whether anything might have prevented Jeremy's suicide. 

      At times,  Romvari’s shifting perspectives push us out of the film, forcing us to reorient ourselves. Some may find this distracting, but Romvari’s approach serves an important thematic purpose. You can turn Jeremy's story this way and that. You can talk to those involved. You can lament the lack of services that might have helped. In the end, though, there is no single revelation that puts Jeremy’s suicide into perspective. 

       But even if something traumatic can never be fully understood, it still must be remembered, mulled, and played again in the mind's eye. Romvari may not be able to explain Jeremy's suicide, but she makes the experience of growing up and carrying it into adulthood deeply affecting.

      Perhaps when it comes to visiting the past in search of answers, we all become immigrants in foreign terrain.

A road movie ends with heartbreak

   In the movie, Omaha, a recently widowed father (John Magaro) takes his nine-year-old daughter Ella (Molly Belle Wright) and his six-year-old son Charlie (Wyatt Solis) on a road trip. The family travels in a car that's so beat-up Ella must help Dad push the vehicle in hopes of getting a jump start. 

   From the outset of this ultimately troubling film, it's clear that this is no pleasure trip. 

   Setting a slight but emotionally rich story against lonely American landscapes, director Cole Webley focuses on two kids we can't help but worry about.

  Dad doesn't tell the kids where he's going or why he's rushed them out of the house. Ella is old enough to sense that all is not well, and it's clear that this road trip isn't an interlude; it's a departure. Dad even takes the family dog Rex along. He also instructs Ella to bring something she values. She should, he says, act as if the house they're leaving is on fire and a hasty escape has become necessary. 

  At times, cinematographer Paul Meyers turns the movie into an ode to childhood play. At one point, Ella and Charlie fly a kite, and Rex chases them across an open field. But we can't let go of the uneasy foreboding about what's in store for these kids.

  Both young actors give amazingly naturalistic performances. Magaro ably plays a troubled but reticent father. Perhaps a construction worker by trade, Dad  clearly loves these kids but can't express himself about the emotional and financial burdens he carries.

   Dad and his kids stop at stop at motels, take dips in pools, and visit fast-food outlets. Clearly under economic strain, Dad scrapes together just enough money to pay for food. 

  Working from a screenplay by Robert Machoian, Webley reaches a conclusion that throws the rest of the movie into sad perspective. We're tempted to try to extend the story in our heads. What will become of three characters whose lives will never be the same after their trip to Omaha? 

  As we suspected, the destination of this road trip is heartbreak.

'Prada 2': Less devlish but still amusing

 

  It has been 20 years since The Devil Wears Prada became a box-office hit. The Devil Wears Prada 2, a belated sequel, reunites the principal players -- Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci -- for a movie that loads up on glamor, fashion, and unbridled ambition in the world of magazine publishing.

   Director David Frankel returns with a story that contrives to bring Hathaway's Andy Sachs back into the world of Miranda Priestly (Streep), the tyrannical taste-making editor of the first installment.  Tucci's loyal Nigel still works as the design maven at Priestly's Runway magazine, which resembles Vogue in stature in the world of high fashion.

   Blunt's Emily has moved on to an influential position with Dior, which receives a major plug here. She's still embroiled in a rivalry with Andy, who's more or less the movie's main character. 

    Andy's trouble's begin when the newspaper for which she has been working is closed, a bit of news delivered by text while half the staff is attending an awards ceremony. Andy's investigative reporting wins first prize, a Pyrrhic victory that precedes her unemployment.

     No unemployment checks for Andy, though; she's quickly hired to help bring some "integrity" to Runway, where she once worked. In the midst of a PR crisis, Runway's owner hires Andy behind Miranda's back.

     The luxe atmospherics, definitely part of the movie's appeal, seem a little at odds with the many lofty defenses of journalism that are launched, mostly by Andy.

    A few other characters work mostly in service of the plot. Justin Theroux plays gazillionnaire Benji Barnes, who also happens to be Emily's new love interest; Lucy Liu, plays Benji's wealthy ex-wife, a woman who's not caught up in all the corporate craziness, and Kenneth Branagh portrays Miranda's new love interest, a role that pretty much wastes his talents. Same goes for Patrick Brammall, who's squeezed in as Andy's partner in a superfluous romance.

    Devil Wears Prada 2 also plays a game of cinematic name-dropping with cameo appearances by Donatella Versace, Naomi Campbell, Heidi Klum, Tina Brown, Molly Jong-Fast, Kara Swisher, Jon Batiste, Marc Jacobs, Karl-Anthony Towns, and more. The movie even manages to add a number by  Lady Gaga to its bold-faced parade of glitter.

     Despite the celebrity glut, the real attraction centers on the interactions between the principal actors who are part of a scheme in which Andy tries to save the magazine and Miranda's job as a corporate takeover and major cutbacks loom.

     Miranda may be as haughty as ever, but Streep makes her a bit more subdued in this outing. If the rest of the cast breaks no new ground, the actors ably meet the script's requirements, and the movie passes easily.

     Put another way, Prada 2 delivers a fair measure of upscale amusement in an expectedly glossy package. 

     

An arty but remote 'Mother Mary'

    All I can say after watching Mother Mary, a muddled quasi-horror film, is that actress Michaela Coel has one of the most expressive voices in contemporary cinema. In Mother Mary, Coel delivers her dialogue with a whispery authority that masks some down-to-earth bite. If the voice is an instrument, Coel sure knows how to play it.

    So much for the enjoyment I got from Mother Mary, a movie about a American pop star (Anne Hathaway) who travels to Great Britain to have a dress designed by a woman (Coel) who the movie establishes as an important voice in the world of exotic fashion. 

    In desperation, Hathaway’s Mary barges into the life of Coel's Sam Anselm. The two may once have had an affair, or maybe they were close friends, or maybe they shared the kind of relationship a gifted designer might have with her most important client — until, that is, the designer is summarily dropped. 

     Director David Lowery has written a movie that mostly takes place in Sam's barn-like studio, where Mary and Sam engage in verbal sparring before the movie gets around to blurring genre lines and dabbling in symbolism. Lowery even includes a seance and what appears to be an exorcism in which a floating amorphous stream of red is extracted from Mary's body. 

    Of course, the gossamer stream represents more than a color; perhaps it's a stand-in for the conflicted essence of Hathaway’s character and a nod (complete with some cutting of flesh) to the movie's vaguely defined horror aspirations.

     All of this has something to do with Mary's request for a dress in which she feels like herself. She's evidently trying to burst from the cocoon of rock star life; she wants to fully release herself.

     Somewhere after the halfway mark, I gave up trying to determine what Lowery was after. Hathaway wears some showy costumes when the movie flashes back to Mary's concerts, scenes in which Hathaway  sings songs written by Charli XCX, Jack Antonoff, and FKA Twigs.

     I'm sure there will be critics and audience members who find deep meanings in all of this. But Mother Mary struck me as duller than deep, a self-conscious display of arty choices that often made the movie feel too remote to connect. 

    

      

 

Music, dance dominate 'Michael'

     It's probably a mistake to look at Michael as a biopic that explores every facet of Michael Jackson’s life with nuance and studied objectivity. Approved by the Jackson estate and made with its participation, the movie makes no mention of the widely known child sex abuse claims against Jackson. The deconstruction of Jackson’s image began in 1993. Michael concludes in 1988, offering a terse title card at the end, “The story continues.” 

  I’ll say.

  Whatever you think about Michael Jackson, director Antoine Fuqua concentrates on something incontestable: Michael Jackson’s riveting performance skills and the connection he made and still makes with his legion of fans.

   If you think that’s insufficient, stay home. Otherwise, you’ll find a movie that can be regarded as an entertaining slice of showmanship with selective biographical footnotes. 

   Fuqua begins with 10-year-old Michael (Julian Valdi). who’s under the dictatorial sway of his father Joe Jackson, a menacing Colman Domingo. 

   From the start, it’s clear that Michael occupies his own world, separate even from the brothers who make up the increasingly popular Jackson Five. 

    Michael's relationships with his brothers get short shrift. Instead, Fuqua concentrates on Joe’s command of his sons. When Michael errs during rehearsal, Joe beats him with a belt. Mom (Nia Long) remains sympathetic to Michael, but Joe runs the show.

     A father/son conflict sets the stage for the movie’s theme: Michael struggles to gain independence, to become the master of his destiny, without rejecting his family. Michael lives at the family home throughout most of the movie,  albeit a much improved version when the newly prosperous Jacksons relocate from Gary, Indiana, to Encino, Ca.  The entire movie takes place in pre-Neverland days.

     In many ways, Michael remains a child throughout. He reads illustrated versions of Peter Pan, amasses an army of stuffed animals, and then begins collecting real ones, notably Bubbles, a chimp that becomes his friend. (It's evidently a CGI creation.) The movie seems to accept all this at face value, leaving us to decide whether there's something slightly pathetic about Michael's juvenile preoccupations.

    The movie also deals with the business side of Michael’s life: his alliances with Motown and Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate); his work with Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson), and his move toward solo performing, which culminates with the firing of his father as his manager. Michael instructs his attorney, John Branca (Miles Teller), to deliver the news. He does so by fax.

      Another glimpse of Michael’s manipulative power comes into view when he meets with the head of CBS (Mike Meyers) and threatens to persuade the label’s major white artists— Bruce Springsteen among them — to quit the label unless Michael’s creative and dazzlingly produced videos are shown on MTV, which at the time didn’t play much work by Black artists.

    Without the right Michael, the movie would have been laughable. It doesn’t take long for the movie to be placed squarely on the shoulders of Jafaar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew and the son of Jackson Five member, Jermaine. 

    Jafaar looks like Michael, moves like Michael, and sings with a voice that — to my untrained ears — sounds like Michael. It’s either an amazing act of mimicry or an amazing performance. Either way, Jackson's presence in the movie feels real.

     Jafaar also gives Michael an aura of innocence; he visits sick kids in cancer wards and donates big money to the burn center where he's hospitalized after a serious accident during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. Michael's relationship with his mother remains tender throughout, and he plays peacemaker when he meets with Crips and Bloods to lower antagonisms. He also uses the gang members as inspiration for the choreography in his “Beat It” video.

    Michael's battle with Joe continues to the end. The elder Jackson tries to cling to Michael’s earning power as long as possible, even concocting a deal with Don King (Deon Cole) to promote the famous “Victory Tour.” 

    At its best, the movie functions as the best imitation act you’ve ever seen. Jafaar does his own singing and the score has been cranked to maximum effect. The infectious rhythms of a showcase number such as Billie Jean prove irresistible.

    Sure, reality, or what we know of it, casts a shadow of skepticism here, and it occurred to me that the family might still be riding Michael’s coattails, but if you see Michael as a show that captures the magnetism and performance energy that underscored Michael’s ascendance, you may have to agree that the King of Pop earned his crown.

His struggles with Tourette's

   Coprolalia is the term applied to people with Tourette's Syndrome who are subject to involuntary bursts of profanity. These often untimely explosions affect somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of those afflicted with Tourette's.

     The movie I Swear uses coprolalia to serious and comic effect in telling the real-life story of John Davidson (Robert Aramayo), a young Scottish man who suffers from the rejections of those who don't realize that his disruptions are involuntary. Davidson eventually becomes an educator about the syndrome, as well as a helpmate to those who, like him, suffer from it.

     Director Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine) begins his film in 2019 with a scene in which Davidson is about to receive an award from Queen Elizabeth. Nervous about appearing at a public ceremony, Davidson is struck by an outburst in which he shouts, "Fuck the Queen."

      This prologue encapsulates the difficulties faced by those dealing with Tourette's. Elizabeth carries on, obviously prepared for a man who's being honored for his service to the Tourette's community. 

      The movie then flashes back to 1983 when, at the age of 14, Davidson (played as a boy by Scott Ellis Watson) began to develop Tourette's, perhaps the most effective part of the movie because a relatively unknown affliction is misunderstood by the educators who encounter it and by Davidson's parents.

    Davidson's mom (Shirley Henderson) treats the malady as if it were a breach of propriety. His father (Steven Cree) leaves the family, and Davidson begins to suffer from isolation and rejection.

      Later, as a young man, Davidson meets Dotty (Maxine Peake), a nurse who invites him into her home, encourages him to get off the drugs he's being fed, and tries to normalize Davidson's life. She becomes a surrogate mom, aided by a caretaker at a local community center (Peter Mullan), where Davidson finds employment.

      A barroom brawl lands Davidson in court, an example of what can happen when others misread his behavior, which sometimes includes abrupt lunging movements. Later, he'll take part in a University of Nottingham study that uses a device to control tics and disruptive speech. Davidson gets a taste of normality.

     Eventually, Jones turns the movie into didactic lesson on Tourette's that's clearly designed to expand audience awareness, somewhat in the fashion of a public service announcement. By then we've already gotten the point, the problem with Tourette's isn't Davidson; it's an ignorant public.

    Marked by explosive tics and inappropriate outbursts of profanity as it is, Aramayo's performance brings Davidson's Tourette's to life while making sure that we can relate to the human  behind it. *

*Ironically, the real John Davidson found himself in the news recently when he disrupted Britain's BAFTA awards, shouting a racial epithet when actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were on stage for Sinners. The BBC apologized for not editing Davidson's outburst from the broadcast, which was shown on tape delay. The point of I Swear is to remind viewers that people with Tourette's can't control these episodes. At the awards, Robert Aramayo won best actor for his performance. 

        

An Egyptian actor gets in over his head

   In Eagles of the Republic, an Egyptian movie star finds himself caught in the dangerous machinations of Egypt's authoritarian government. 

   In a commanding performance, Fares Fares, a Lebanese-Swedish actor, plays George Fahmy, an actor who so dominates the Egyptian film scene he has been dubbed "Pharaoh of the Screen." Toping six feet, George also commands most of the social situations in which he finds himself. He knows how to use his magnetism.

  That may sound like familiar terrain, but Fares's portrayal doesn't dip into caricature. Although George no longer lives with his wife (Donia Massoud), he stays in touch with his 20something son (Suhaib Nashwan). George doesn't always know how to handle his role as a father, but when he talks about acting and art, we believe he's sincere. 

     George lives with a younger woman (Lyne Khoudri), but we understand that he's been around several blocks when it comes to romance; he's skilled in the arts of flirting and philandering. 

    George's world begins to unravel when he's enlisted to play the lead in a biopic about Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. George looks nothing like el-Sisi, but the government's representative on set (Amr Waked) insists a stubby, balding el-Sisi doesn't care. The president wants to look like a movie star. He wants to look like George.

   Director Tarik Saleh, who lives in Sweden, turns out a movie of engaging surfaces that veers toward a pointed depiction of how authoritarian governments employ coercion to put the squeeze on artists. George takes a role he doesn't want because state agents threaten his son.

     Saleh, who also wrote the screenplay, pulls George deeper into an environment populated by the regime's officials. He meets the minister of defense (Tamim Heikal) and becomes attracted to the minister's beautiful, sophisticated wife (Zineb Triki). He uses his influence to help friends who are threatened by the regime.  He thinks he's untouchable -- until he isn't.

   All of this leads to an explosive finale built around a shocking attempted assassination.

   Saleh's satirical cinema savvy doesn't always mesh with the movie's increasingly sketchy political thriller elements. That may be part of the point. Artistic ambition and governmental control make for a bad, sometimes murderous marriage.

     George is bound for trouble he won't be able to act his way out of. Celebrity may not be powerful enough to resist heavy applications of tyrannical power. Poor George. He may be a star, but he's out of his depth.

Big violence erupts in a small town

 If you’ve been following the career of Bob Odenkirk, you already know that the star of Better Call Saul has become an unlikely kick-ass action hero. Normal, which follows 2021’s Nobody and its 2025 sequel, continues Odenkirk’s foray into big-screen mayhem with a story about the sheriff of a small Minnesota town called Normal.

  You needn't know much about irony to guess that the town of Normal won’t be anything like its name.  

  Clocking in at a brief (by current standards) hour and 30 minutes, Normal spins out a shamelessly improbable plot in which Yakuza gangsters use the town to store part of their American loot. The townsfolk profit, and the mayor (Henry Winkler) wants to keep the funds flowing.

  After a prologue set in Japan, director Ben Wheatley moves to Normal, where we meet Odenkirk’s Ulysses, a law officer with a troubled past that uprooted his life and disrupted his marriage.

    Having lost his bearings, Ulysses found work as Normal’s “interim” sheriff, an opening created by the previous sheriff's death.

   The residents of the small town immediately strike Ulysses (and us) as odd. Moira (Lena Headey), the town's bartender, seems a bit too straightforward. One of Ulysses’s over-eager deputies (Billy MacLellan) wears a leather jacket so squeaky, you can hear him approaching. Another deputy (Ryan Allen) wants to be the next full-time sheriff. Ulyssses also meets the late sheriff’s daughter (Jess McLeod), a troubled young woman.

    After about half an hour of goofing on small-town USA, Wheatley gets around to the movie’s point: comic violence that mixes laughter and revulsion. The slaughter begins when a couple of thieves (Reeana Jolly and Brendan Fletcher) try to rob the local bank.

     A twist that shifts rooting interests makes for a nice touch, but Normal isn't really about taking sides. No, Normal is more about watching the chaos, which is designed to play in a familiar jokey, gross-out key with enough armaments to fight a small war. But wait. That's pretty much what the movie becomes, a small war.

    Odenkirk gives his character a core of decency; the rest of the cast resembles cartoon creations, but no one goes to movies such as Normal for deeply explored character development. 

    Written by Derek Kolstad, who also wrote the Nobody movies, Normal makes no bones about what it is, but I've been down this road too many times to fully embrace another movie that can be likened to a fireworks display -- only with blood.

    And if Normal never seems particularly brainy, maybe it's because so many of the town's 1,890 residents have gotten their heads blown off.

    

McKellen, Coel shine in art drama

   Ian McKellen probably could read your tax return and make it sound as if Shakespeare had written it. The 86-year-old British actor has a voice that can mellow like aged wine or cut as sharply as a newly stropped razor.
   In an age of mumbled, half-whispered dialogue, McKellen delivers the written word with a theatrical precision that's perfectly suited to director Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers, a movie in which McKellen plays Julian Sklar, an aging but once prominent painter.

   Time and disrepair may have made Sklar vulnerable. It doesn't take long for Michaela Coel’s Lori, a talented younger painter, to become Sklar’s sparring partner, quasi-mentee, and muse.

  Working from a screenplay by Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move), Soderbergh fleshes out what’s basically a two-hander by introducing a couple of additional characters, notably Sklar’s conniving adult children (Jessica Gunning and James Corden). 

   For variety’s sake, the story occasionally leaves the confines of Sklar’s cluttered studio, another cliched association of creativity with messiness. Small matter, I suppose. 

   The spotlight rests on McKellen and Coel. Sklar once sold paintings for millions and is now regarded as a spent talent whose late work amounts to rubbish, an assessment he himself acknowledges. Even in sweaters that always seem two sizes too large, McKellen manages to project an air of royal authority, suggesting that Sklar hasn’t totally abandoned his art-star stature. 

     Wary but also wily, Coel’s Lori stands up to McKellen's Sklar. Lori  can’t easily be read, a quality that works to her advantage when Solomon’s screenplay deploys a series of tricky moves based on art forgery, greed, and betrayal.  Skilled at cagey silences, Coel also makes the most of Solomon’s arch, funny, and perceptive comments about art. 

     The Christophers, by the way, are a series of unfinished paintings Sklar made of a former lover. The relationship ended badly, and Sklar refuses to discuss it with Lori. He goes one step further, insisting that she destroy the paintings. This presents a key conflict because Lori has been hired by Sklar’s duplicitous offspring to secretly complete the Christophers for sale upon Sklar’s demise, which we learn is fairly imminent.

     Criticisms of the contemporary art world poke their way toward the surface. Works are bought for tax purposes, and billionaires buy paintings at ridiculously inflated prices that turn them into one more luxury acquisition. None of this feels fresh, but Solomon’s screenplay doesn’t belabor its art-world criticisms, either.

     Good as McKellen and Coel are, the screenplay's trickier plot points and revelations lack the satisfying snap of crisply thrown punches and counterpunches, lessening the story’s overall impact.

      Still, it’s possible to deem The Christophers as a worthy showcase for McKellen and Coel, each of whom paints with the precision of actors who know what marks they wish to make on the canvas Soderbergh and Solomon have given them.

    

Love and cliches in Tuscany

    Tuscan tourist associations should collect royalties on every ticket sold for You, Me & Tuscany, a glossy romcom in which every meal looks ready for its close-up and the countryside seems blessed by  soft summer light. 

   It's hardly surprising that the movie's Tuscan locations add convivial charm to a contrived story about a professional house sitter (Halle Bailey) who finds her true calling and also love in Italy.

   Bailey stars as Anna, a New York woman who dropped out of culinary school after her mother's death. Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page joins Bailey for a romance that casts him as the movie's hunk in residence, offering him an opportunity to display his abs to the delight of Anna and a group of touring women who conveniently show up at the vineyard he runs.

     The story begins in a bar in New York where Anna meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor). Matteo and Anna trade stories. A foodie at heart, Anna's at loose ends. Matteo left his native Tuscany because he wanted no part of the family restaurant business. He advises Anna to be bold and visit Italy, a trip she once hoped to make with her late mother. 

    Against the advice of her best friend (Aziza Scott), Anna heads for Matteo's Tuscan village only to discover that all the hotels are booked because of a summer festival. Desperate, she decides to crash at Matteo's empty villa. She knows he's not there.

     Once discovered by Matteo's mother and grandmother, Anna avoids being arrested for trespassing by posing as Matteo's fiancee. His family is joyous that the wayward Matteo soon will return.

    In Matteo's absence, Page's Michael, an Englishman by birth, serves as Anna's guide to the village and to the family, which he has become part of. We know Anna and Michael will fall for each other, raising the movie's big problem: How will Anna extricate herself from the lie she's told?

     Additional complications arise when Matteo turns up and learns about Anna's ruse. 

     Working from a screenplay by Ryan Engle, director Kat Coiro forks up a heaping plateful of stereotypes. A robust gardener (Emanuele Pacca) makes like Pavarotti, singing opera while trimming hedges. A local cab driver (Marco Calvani) offers Anna advice, and cousin Francesca (Stella Pecollo) makes winking jokes about her sexual exploits.

    The family patriarch (Paolo Sassanelli) must be convinced that Anna is special before he welcomes her into the tribe. Mom (Isabella Ferrari) fawns over Anna. Scowling grandma (Stefania Casini) remains skeptical.

      Oh hell, why say more? You, Me & Tuscany is a picture postcard masquerading as a movie. Bailey radiates enough warmth to toast marshmallows, and Page exudes the kind of charm that can seem as much directed at the audience as at Anna.

     Judging by the reaction at a preview screening, there's an audience for the mix of comedy, romance, and escape that You, Me & Tuscany serves. I'm not part of it. If you're not, either, join me as I roll my eyes and look for what's next on the menu.

  

       

A feverish ‘Hamlet’ with Riz Ahmed'

  I’d been looking forward to Riz Ahmed’s Hamlet, a new interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic play directed by Aneil Karia, a director who had won an Oscar for his short film, The Long Goodbye, a harrowing take on an encounter between a South Asian family and right-wing racists.

  To set the stage, let me say that I don’t insist that Shakespeare be approached with liturgical reverence. Why not set a big-screen adaptation in an East Asian community in contemporary London? And instead of royalty, how about centering the play on corporate big shots vying for control of (ready for it?) the Elsinore corporation?

  Karia also takes liberties with Shakespeare’s dialogue, giving certain speeches to characters who didn’t deliver them in the original. I guess that’s OK. too. 

   After all, this lean one-hour and 53-minute rendition of Hamlet has been given a modernist edge that includes a foray into a nightclub where Hamlet snorts cocaine, an activity that seems superfluous for an already amped up prince who might be wobbling on the edge of insanity.

   Artistic license notwithstanding, some things in this bleary, agitated fever dream of a Hamlet seem like self-inflicted errors. Timothy Spall plays Polonius but the character's pompous cautionary speech to his son Laertes (Joe Alwyn), has been scrapped. (“Neither a borrower nor lender be.”)  

   If you're familiar with the play, you'll find other  such omissions in a work that writer Michael Lesslie adapted for the screen..

   Those who see this version of Hamlet may welcome seeing Ahmed deliver Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy behind the wheel of a BMW that’s racing on a rainy highway. It suggests that a reckless Hamlet might actually stop being at any moment. 

   But I wanted to focus  I wanted to focus on Hamlet's speech without worrying about the fact that Hamlet, at one point, takes his hands off the steering wheel while driving on the wrong side of the road.

  A dance number recreates the play in which Hamlet stages his view of the way Claudius (Art Malik) bumped off Hamlet’s dad so that he could marry his mom, Gertrude (an excellent Sheeba Chaddah),  and take over a corporate kingdom.

 Maybe it’s me, but much of the dialogue seemed mumbled, and Ahmed’s performance leans heavily on half-crazed anger. It's almost as if Hamlet is  being devoured by revenge-seeking demons.

   Karia's invention tends to de-emphasize Shakespeare’s language. And as much as anything, isn't the spoken word the point?

   Viewing this risk-riddled Hamlet can feel a bit like buying a ticket to hear your favorite musical group only to discover that it won’t be performing the tunes that made you love them in the first place. 

   You get why they wanted to branch out, but sometimes, the old tunes are better.

    

'The Drama' can't find its footing

 

  An intriguing movie gets lost somewhere in The Drama, the story of a pending marriage that's shaken when one of the partners reveals something horrible about her past.

  I won't spoil the big reveal, but I will say that Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli might have done well to pick a less explosive issue for a story that begins with a coffeeshop cute-meet between the partners in this prospective couple.

   Museum curator Robert Pattinson falls quickly for literary editor Emma (Zendaya). They seem headed for the proverbial happily-ever-after, but Borgli's jittery direction suggests otherwise. 

  The story kicks into gear when Emma and Charlie meet with a couple who have become friends (Alana Haim and Momoudou Athie). After some drinking, Haim's character suggests they play a game in which each of them reveals the worst thing they've ever done. Emma's revelation shocks everyone and turns Haim's character judgmental. None of them are able to look at Emma in quite the same way again.

  At its best, The Drama toys with the way information can change and distort perception, creating a near-paranoid vision for Pattinson's Charlie, who turns out to be the least stable character in the movie. 

  Flashbacks to Emma's high school years feature Jordyn Curet as a teenager who was bullied, pointing to possible reasons for Emma's extreme youthful behavior, but these scenes aren't developed well enough to dig deeply. 

   Zendaya is caught between Borgli's comic aspirations and the story 's seriousness, and Pattinson delivers a stammering, halting performance that looks as disheveled as his haircut. Charlie's an annoying wreck, and we begin to wonder why Emma, the supposed shaky one, doesn't just dump him.

   Not surprisingly, the whole business moves toward a big wedding scene that features a major helping of excruciatingly presented comic conflict. By then, I'd given up on Borgli's ability to handle the movie's abundant tonal shifts. Throughout, Borgli leaps around in time, cutting into scenes to offer bits of flashback and fantasy and striking discordant notes with a musical score that, at times, suggests horror. 

     The Drama doesn't lack ambition. It uses an extreme example to pose interesting questions about relationships, but winds up being a dispiriting collection of hits, misses, and questionable choices.

An agreeable comic drama

  Movies about psychologically damaged people can easily lead to dramatic overkill. Fantasy Life, which stars Amanda Peet as a 50ish actress whose career has evaporated, takes a different approach. Written and directed by Matthew Shear, who also plays a lead role, the movie takes place against a backdrop of ongoing crises that have become the soundtrack for the characters’ lives.

  Shear plays Sam, a schlub who, after losing his job as a paralegal, consults with his therapist (Judd Hirsch). Hirsch’s Fred prescribes drugs for OCD and also suggests that the unemployed Sam might babysit for his son’s three preteen daughters. 

   Shy and subject to panic attacks, Sam seems entirely unsuited for the job, which — of course — he takes.

  David (Alessandro Nivola), the girls’ father, works as a musician who’ll soon depart on an Australian tour as a fill-in bassist with a popular rock band. 

  The real story begins when Mom (Peet) arrives in Manhattan after having taken a mental health break on Martha’s Vineyard. Mired in depression about her vanishing career, Dianne decides that Sam should accompany her to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer. He’ll look after the kids, and she’ll continue with her inertia.

   Sam agrees. It doesn’t take long to see that he’s attracted to Dianne. Why not? Dianne’s attractive, both she and Sam are emotionally wounded, and Dianne’s marriage has hit a rough patch. It’s also clear that Dianne likes Sam, who makes no demands and praises her skills as an actress.  Less a matter of sexual attraction, the two create a comfort zone that both of them desperately need.

   Shear gently develops a relationship that raises eyebrows with Dianne’s parents (Bob Balaban and Jessica Harper). Hirsch is joined by Andrea Martin, who plays his wife and secretary.

  Aside from Sam, the characters seem affluent enough not to have to worry about money, and Shear’s eye-averting characterization turns him into a kind of walking human apology. 

  The story builds toward a climactic dinner scene. Dianne’s resentments erupt in comic fashion — or at least that seems to be the intent.

  Shear operates on a human scale, but Fantasy Life can seem a bit edgeless, and Sam’s mental issues --he's Jewish but antisemitic phrases pop intrusively into his head -- feel under-explored. Sam's inability to cope is made clear enough without what seems an  extraneous embellishment.

  Mostly, though, Fantasy Life passes easily without being uproariously funny or straining for satire. Call it agreeably light.

Does AI spell promise or peril?

 Directors Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell's documentary, The AI Doc: or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, benefits from a personal twist. Already in progress, the movie’s urgency amps up when Roher, who does the movie's interviewing, learns that he and his wife are about to become parents. 

  Given the many dire forecasts about AI Roher has already heard, he's understandably apprehensive about the life that awaits the child he'll be raising.

  At first, Roher's questions seem motivated by a fear that AI, in relatively short order, will make humans superfluous, creating a society dominated by polarities: wealthy elites and impoverished masses. More extreme naysayers wonder whether AI will come to regard humanity as superfluous to its needs. In which case, goodbye to us.

  Roher poses his questions to a variety of computer scientists and corporate leaders who work in the field as he weaves a tightly edited film that includes news footage and amusing sketches drawn by Roher. The movie’s interviews have been mixed in ways that illuminate the documentary’s three parts: Doom, optimism, and reflection.

    Those interviewed include Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, Daniela Amodei, president of Anthropic, Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, and Deborah Raji, a computer scientist.

   Snippets of interviews fly by so quickly, I sometimes wondered whether it might have been worthwhile for Roher and Tyrell to slow down, but if they wanted viewers to begin thinking seriously about artificial intelligence, their documentary makes for an engaging beginning.

    Roher, who directed Navalny, a documentary about the Russian dissident, and Tyrell raise big questions about the race for all-powerful general artificial intelligence, the system that will surpass human intelligence. They frame the discussion in terms of a broad question: Will AI that's smarter than humans offer promise or peril?

   As the title suggests, Roher winds up somewhere near a cautious middle.

   Great at generating concern, AI: The Doc functions more as a one -hour and 44-minute skim of the topic rather than the deepest of dives. Never dull, the film outlines the pluses and minuses of a technology that, like it or not, seems to be developing faster than any of us can digest.

    

  

        

Sofia Coppola's 'Marc by Sofia'

                  

 Among the many things I generally ignore, high fashion ranks near the top of the list. Occasionally, I peruse the photos in one of the New York Times' glossy Sunday supplements, an activity that seldom fails to amuse. How could it not, with designs so exaggerated they might be taken as examples of human absurdity?

  Keep my attitude in mind as you read this review of Sofia Coppola's documentary, Marc by Sofia, a look at the way fashion icon Marc Jacobs goes about the business of designing clothes and creating a show. 

    Set in the months before Jacobs's 2024 spring show, the movie mixes show preparations with clips from the movies that inspired Jacobs (Sweet Charity, All That Jazz, and Hello Dolly). He's also partial to the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and an admirer of Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry. Diana Ross's sequins? The best.

    A long-time friend of Jacobs, Coppola takes a casual stroll through Jacobs' world, stitching together a tale that puts the designer's sensibilities on display while offering sketchy biographical material: At the age of 15, Jacobs left home to live with his grandmother, a meticulously organized shopper. His widowed mother had remarried, and Jacobs didn't like the stepdad. 

    Perhaps biographical detail doesn't matter. Jacobs seems to live in a world ruled less by the accumulated sediments of his past than the cultural ether he inhales, absorbs, and, then, transforms. 

   Some have seen Coppola's film as a look at Jacobs's creative process, which includes attention to every detail of his looming show: from set design to the quality of the false eyelashes for models to the music he’ll play. I approached the movie as I would a visit to another planet, a journey into exotic and unfamiliar terrain.

    In the 2024 show, women wearing wigs bigger than beach balls, display their chalky, mannequin-like expressions and wear outsized clothing that falls slightly short of qualifying as housing. 

   The clothing seems part of a satirical joke. 

   Is it?

   Beats me.

    It probably helps to be familiar with the arc of Jacobs' career, which Coppola presents mostly with references -- from his stint at Perry Ellis to his mold-breaking work at Louis Vuitton, where he added humor and flash that stretched the Vuitton brand. 

   And, of course, there's Jacobs' fabled Grunge period, that moment in the 1990s when sighs over elegance were replaced by the enraged banshee screams of rockers and those who followed them. We even see a clip from Jacobs' days as a student at the Parsons School of Design.

   But Jacobs works in the real world, too -- sort of. He once designed clothes for Winona Ryder's shoplifting trial. 

    The movie can be amusing, although it seems directed at those who already know that Jacobs is a major designer whose work has proven influential. 

   Coppola doesn't tell us, by the way, where Jacobs, now 62, stands in relation to other contemporary designers. And she doesn't include much by way of outside observation about his work. A little more context would have been welcome.

    I've admired Coppola's work in movies such as The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006), and The Bling Ring (2013). Nothing about Marc by Sofia made me think less of Coppola as a filmmaker, although it does seem like a bit of a digression.