'Tuner': A caper movie with heart

    In Tuner, Leo Woodall plays Niki, a piano tuner who suffers from hyperacusis, a disorder that can turn everyday noises into deafening roars. Woodall's character works with Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman), the owner of a tuning business who reminisces about the jazz greats that inspired his love of music. 

    Director Daniel Roher (Navalny and The AI Doc) captures the ease with which Woodall and Hoffman relate -- Hoffman not shying away from Harry's encroaching dementia, and Woodall displaying affection for and patience with Harry.

   Once a gifted pianist, Niki's hearing disorder disrupted his budding career. Harry knows that Niki can play and constantly begs him for a sample of his work. Apparently content with his current life, Niki treats Harry and his wife (Tovah Feldshuh) as family. 

     The movie's plot hinges on a discovery: When he removes the ear plugs that keep his disorder under control, Niki's hearing is so keen that he can crack safes by listening for the clicks that reveal the combination. He demonstrates the skill while trying to open the home safe in which Harry, who has forgotten the combination, keeps his hearing aids.

     The caper elements begin when, Niki, on a tuning job at an upscale home, meets Uri (Lior Raz), a charismatic but shady figure. Uri runs a security business but steals from his clients. He says he concentrates on small, valuable items the very wealthy won't miss. He wants Niki to crack safes for him. 

     By this time, Harry has been hospitalized, medical bills are mounting, and Niki needs a major infusion of cash to help. Reluctantly, he begins working for Uri.

     Then, there's romance. While on another tuning job, Niki meets Ruthie (Havanah Rose Liu), an aspiring composer who gradually appreciates and falls for Niki. Ruthie hopes to earn an apprenticeship with a famous composer (Jean Reno), and it's easy to see why she falls for Niki, a sensitive young man who seems to have been blessed with good-guy genes.

      Niki's disorder and the movie's interest in music offer opportunities for creative sound design with Roher and his team effectively conveying the impact Niki's disorder has on him.

      We know that Niki's criminal pursuits will eventually clash with his basic decency and with Ruthie's belief in him. When that happens, the  movie moves into rougher, more wobbly territory, and Roher, who wrote the movie's screenplay with Robert Ramsey, winds up with too many loose ends to tie up before the story concludes.

     Tuner can't quite go the distance as an engaging caper movie. But the movie is warmed by a cast -- most notably Woodall -- that makes for a winning combination of talent, story, and heart.

‘Backrooms’ isn't about making sense

   Backrooms, an addition to the growing list of self-consciously inventive horror movies, arrives with a pedigree that may impress aficionados. Produced by horror masters James Wan and Osgood Perkins, the movie also features performances by actors with hefty resumes: Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. 

  A bit about the movie's background: It springs from a movement called "creepypasta,'' i.e., horror stories posted and shared on the internet. Director Kane Parsons, now 20, began uploading Backrooms episodes in 2022, expanding  a previous "creepypasta" concept into 22 short films.

   I learned this from Googling and had no exposure to Backrooms before I saw Parsons' movie. I say this because Parsons' movie may have more appeal to those familiar with his online work than I am.

  On one hand, Backrooms can be seen as a creative immersion in a liminal world composed of endless rooms. Liminal worlds, by the way, are currently big in horror, bland, sometimes transitional locations that resonate with eerie emptiness.

   Set during the 1990s, Backrooms slips easily into its  off-kilter tale, partly because of the aural atmosphere the film creates, a mixture of unintelligible voices and synth music by Edo Van Breemen and Parsons.

    The movie has a story of sorts, which Parsons shows us is being watched by ill-defined researchers,  a conceit that adds more cause for apprehension. 

   Ejiofor plays Clark, a furniture store owner whose life is headed in the wrong direction. His wife recently left him, and Clark has been unable to launch his desired career as an architect.

    To get on the right track, Clark visits Mary (Reinsve), a therapist he hopes will open new doors for him. She's written a book conveniently titled The Window Within. 

    Displaced from his home, Clark has been relegated to sleeping in his store. He also appears as a peg-legged pirate in awful commercials made by one of his employees (Finn Bennett). We never see any customers in Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire, one more ploy that augments the sense of vacancy that permeates Backrooms -- absence that's meant to be felt.

    When Clark discovers a portal in the store's basement, he enters a weird alternate reality. Upon returning to "normal," he shares his discovery  with his therapist, who probably thinks he's delusional.

     To convince a skeptical Mary that his experience was "real," Clark convinces Bennett's Bobby and another employee (Lukita Maxwell) to pass through the portal with him. Clark wants Bobby to film their trippy experience so that he can prove the existence of the rooms that both frighten and attract him.

      It doesn't take long for Mary to visit the store, find the portal, and enter the weird dimension in which Clark has lost himself.

     Working from a screenplay by Will Soodik, Parsons includes flashbacks to Mary's childhood with a paranoid mother. Her childhood home was demolished by developers leaving only a shard, a handprint she saved from the rubble of a concrete driveway. It will come in handy.

    Parsons offers a variety of surreal sights: piles of discarded furniture, a stop sign with the word "stop" spelled backwards, and glimpses of figures who make us suspect that the place is occupied and dangerous.

     Parsons excels at alternate-reality building: rooms full of wall-to-wall carpeting and yellow walls, and, eventually, figures with distorted features. Are we seeing funhouse reflections of the reality of Clark and Mary's lives? Maybe.

      Not surprisingly, we're primed for the big reveal that will make sense of everything we've been watching. The movie, which functions as an inventive tease, has little interest in tidying up after itself, offering only the notion that we trap ourselves in behaviors we keep repeating, no matter how many times they lead us nowhere.

       Neither Ejiofor nor Reinsve has much to develop. Mostly, they react to the movie's increasingly alienating atmospherics. Mark Duplass turns up in a role that seems as if it's going to provide the explanation we've been waiting for, but his character doesn't seem to know much about what's happening,  either. 

        Blood and gore are in short supply, and some of the movie's twisted jokes, expressionless human figures whose insides can be scooped out and eaten, feel as if they've popped out of nowhere.

      There's talent on display in Backrooms, notably Danny Vermette's creative production design, but the found-footage quality and art-horror atmospherics only take the movie so far. Ambiguity  isn't a fatal flaw, but Backrooms begins to feel repetitive as it crawls inside our heads.

      Backrooms works like a maze. Homes and offices are creepy. Lives are empty. Something's always missing. Some will find all this intriguing. Others may just want out. 

     My reaction was mixed. I appreciated Parsons' willingness to experiment and was disappointed that the characters often play second fiddle to so many half-baked ideas that suggest more than the film is  able (or perhaps willing) to realize.

Intriguing story buoys 'Pressure'

  On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy launched the brutal series of battles that brought Hitler’s ambitions in Western Europe to a halt. The movie Pressure deals with the 72 hours leading up to the momentous D-Day invasion.

  Director Anthony Maras, focuses on a part of the story that sounds prosaic but proves essential to Allied success, an accurate weather forecast.

    Pressure delivers a dramatized version of events that unfolded at Allied headquarters in Southwick House, Hampshire, relying on sharpening tensions between a low-key but obstinate Royal Air Force meteorologist (Andrew Scott) and a brash American meteorologist (Chris Messina). 

    Messina's Irving Krick, who had enormous successes predicting the weather during the North African campaign, relied on analog charts, arguing that the weather would be fine on June 5th, the original D-Day date.  

    Scott’s James Stagg rejected Krick's approach. He surveyed many locations in the North Atlantic to discover what he considered the requisite conditions for a mission-wrecking storm. Later, Stagg identified a brief window in which the beaches could be stormed. 

     Following Stagg's advice, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Force, delayed the mission by a day.

    Working from a screenplay he co-wrote with David Haig, who also wrote the play on which the movie is based, Maras concentrates mostly on Stagg, an officer whose wife is on the brink of delivering their first child when he's ordered to join Eisenhower's command. 

   As Eisenhower, Brendan Fraser doesn't exactly become an Ike lookalike, even with make-up that gives him a bald pate. Still, Fraser conveys the pressure Eisenhower felt about obtaining a definitive forecast.

     To complicate matters, Eisenhower was being pressured by British Field Marshal Montgomery (Damian Lewis) to proceed as planned, lest the invasion be jeopardized, scuttling chances for an Allied victory.

    Pressure takes some liberties with the historical record, as it transforms an abstract theme (differing  approaches to weather forecasting) into a high-stakes conflict.

     Both Scott (subdued, focused, and intense) and Messina (confident to a fault) do their best to incorporate the essence of opposing personalities, but Pressure can be more informative than exciting, a re-enactment with added dramatic flourishes. 

      Beyond that, the drama unfolds in programmatic fashion, building toward the expectedly tense encounters between men whose advice will affect the war’s outcome. Well and good, but turning disagreements about the weather into a clash of styles (American vs. British) feels a bit inflated. 

     A bit of emotional leavening is added by Kerry Condon, whose Kay Summersby functions as an aide and confidant to the troubled Eisenhower; Summersby provides the steadying hand for Ike, who's tormented by the failure of a preparatory operation in which GIs died.

       In sum, Pressure benefits from a story that may be unfamiliar to contemporary audiences. It may not be a great wartime drama, but it shows how a decision based on technical expertise can alter the course of history.  Think of it as a historical footnote without which the sweeping main drama depicted in many other movies could not have unfolded.

A so-so helping of Jack Ryan

Like many burnt-out CIA agents, Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) wants to be left alone. But CIA agents, don't retire -- not in movies. So at the beginning of Jack Ryan: Ghost War, Jack is lured back into action by his boss, James Greer (Wendell Pierce). Screenwriters Krasinski, Aaron Rabin, and Noah Oppenheim bring the series to a close with a movie that alternates exposition and action in roughly equal measures. Jack's joined by colleague Mike November (Michael Kelly) on a supposedly routine mission turns into a complicated globe-threatening plot that teams Jack with Emma Marlow, a British intelligence agent played by Sienna Miller. Both are trying to locate a rogue agent (Max Beesley) who runs a group that wants to revive Starling, a deep-cover operation that believes dirty fighting is essential if those who would crash the gates of western civilization are to be quashed. Moving from Dubai to London, Ghost War bids goodbye to  characters, who -- before the end -- affirm their camaraderie, good-guy warriors who want to make a better world. The clash between decent operatives and those who go too far gives the movie a patina of seriousness, but overall Ghost War feels like a formulaic, mildly serviceable wrap-up. Ghost War is not playing theatrically, but is being released on Prime Video.

'The Mandalorian' hits the big screen

   In some respects, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu qualifies as one of the biggest puppet shows ever staged. The creatures who populate The Mandalorian may not look entirely real, but they display the imagination and skill created by a seamless mix of CGI, animatronics, puppetry, and models.

      I guess I'm saying that realism takes a backseat to craft in The Mandalorian and Grogu, a movie that's better than I thought it would be, even if it lacks the super thrills of the best Star Wars movies.

     For those unversed in the Mandalorian world, here are a few essentials:

     The Mandalorian, a.k.a. Din Djarin, works as a hired gun for the anti-imperial New Republic.

      In this case, The Mandalorian is charged with finding and arresting Lord Janu (Jonny Coyne), one of the series' villains. The Republic makes a deal with a couple of Hutts (yes, a duo of the familiar blubbery creatures) to locate Rotta the Hutt and return him to Hutt control.

      Jeremy Allen White gives voice to Rotta. If you're expecting to hear the voice associated with White's character in The Bear, forget it. White's voice sounds as if it has been given an electronic assist.

       Whatever else it is, The Mandalorian isn't a star showcase. The Mandalorian seldom appears without his helmet, which means Pedro Pascal, makes heavy use of voice work.

       Martin Scorsese's jangled delivery as a four-armed food truck operator feels more connected to Scorsese's personality and provides a welcome dash of humor.

       Looking unsettlingly like ... well ... herself, Sigourney Weaver turns up as Col. Ward, the New Republic commander who sends the Mandalorian on the mission that defines the movie's structure: Set a goal, confront an obstacle, stage a fight, and then proceed to the next set piece.

      The movie's emotional core involves father/son issues, a Star Wars favorite. Imprisoned by Lord Janu, Rotta -- son of Jabba-- has attained a degree of stardom as a kind of gladiator. He rejects his father's criminal past, and aims to lead a life of his own, once he escapes Janu's clutches.

      More importantly, The Mandalorian serves as a father figure to Grogu, who's devoted to him, and, who, thanks to one of the movie's better plot twists, eventually is asked to save his surrogate father.

      There's something happily unsophisticated about The Mandalorian, both in its dialogue and characterizations. Although he's responsible for the movie's more tender moments, Grogu offers as much cuteness as clout, underscoring a vibe that feels less like hard-core sci-fi than Disneyesque fantasy.

        Maybe it fits the current moment, but The Mandalaorian works for money rather than for a vision of a free and thriving universe. To ensure that we don't see him as too greedy, the screenplay offers instances in which The Mandalorian doesn't accept payment. If nothing else, he deserves a vacation after engaging in an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) string of battles.

         I should note that I haven't watched the series on Disney Plus and still found the story easy enough to follow.  I didn't expect a deep-space adventure rendered in epic proportions; a bit of Googling primed me for a Star Wars descendant with less imposing villains and lower stakes. That's what I got.

       Scale aside, the battle between the New Republic and the forces of evil imperialism have been dragging on for nearly 50 years. Who knows? Maybe Grogu  one day will no longer rest on The Mandalorian's shoulders, but ....

        Oh, forget it.

         The Star Wars universe is geared for endless battling to save the Republic. One expects the fight to continue. Talk about "forever wars."

A look behind the Kremlin's walls

  It's easy to see why director Olivier Assayas may have been drawn to Giuliano Da Empoli's novel about the machinations behind Vladimir Putin's rise to power in post-Soviet Russia. We seem to relish behind-the-scenes looks at powerful institutions, perhaps hoping that we'll enjoy the contradictory pleasures of savoring and condemning the rot we find.

  Employing a strong cast led by Paul Dano, as Vadim Baranov, a master manipulator who becomes a backstage force in Putin's career, Assayas presents a highlight reel of Russian history from the 1980s to the invasion of Crimea. 

    Assayas unifies the movie's various segments with a narration by Baranov, who meets at his country home with a visiting Yale professor (a wasted Jeffrey Wright) to whom he tells his story, a framing device that weighs the movie down.

   Shifting focus and locations, Assayas introduces various important characters in the story, notably Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen), an oligarch who identifies Putin as a successor to the increasingly ineffectual and doddering Boris Yeltsin. Berezovski mistakenly thinks Putin can be controlled.

   It takes awhile for him to appear, but Jude Law's Putin turns out to be a powerful addition to the movie. Compact, brutal and cunning, Putin's forceful presence can be felt even when he's off screen.  

   Working from a screenplay by Emmanuel Carrere, Assayas finds youthful energy in the wild days just after the fall of the Soviet Union. At this point, Baranov is a young theater student who samples the libertine freedoms of the 80s and 90s. 

    Baranov's theatrical background proves critical to his advancement; he's assigned the role of creating the illusory reality around Putin. He becomes skilled in the use of TV and eventually the internet. He's a master manipulator who operates without conscience, a technician who wants to be part of the action.

    Looking back on Dano's performance as Baranov, it's understandable that he chose to play this schemer with a low-key whispery voice. Baranov isn't a man of conviction; he's a man of prowess. Still, Dano's choice can feel a bit undercooked, and the characters surrounding Baranov can be more interesting than he, a problem the movie can't always overcome. 

     Early on, Baranov is smitten by a young woman (Alicia Vikander) who will crop up throughout in relationships with various characters, including a flamboyant, budding oligarch (Tom Sturridge) who lures her away from Baranov.

     Some of the actors are playing real people; others -- including Dano -- portray fictionalized characters. Baranov reportedly is based on Vladislav Surkov, a former Putin confidant and advisor. I'm always a bit wary of movies that mix the real and the fictional, especially when dealing with people who are still alive.

    Many of the actors employ Russian accents; others (including Dano) don't, but Assayas deserves credit for creating the impression that we're watching Russian characters in a complex drama with moving  parts that collide and abrade, often in ways that create an intriguing picture of undisguised deceit and corruption.

    For all that, The Wizard can't quite live up to the magnitude of its subject. At 136 minutes, The Wizard of the Kremlin harbors a surfeit of betrayals and power moves, but the movie also comes across as a crowded, novelistic effort that's not without interest,  but too frequently gets lost in the weeds.

 

On the road to nowhere in Italy

Two wide-sodden thieves (Sergio Romano and Pierpaolo Capovilla) wander the Veneto region of Italy in The Last One for the Road.  Romano's Carlobianchi and Capovilla's Doriano have become low-level con artists since their lucrative business, selling stolen sunglasses, crumbled. The business hit the skids when Genio (Andrea Pennachi)  fled to Argentina to avoid jail.  He seemed to be the trio's mastermind. Now, Carlobianchi and Doriano are on their way to meet Genio, who's returning to Italy. En route, they pick up a reserved young architecture student (Filippo Scotti) who they introduce to their free-form world. The two men improvise various schemes, most of them illegal or unethical. With their reluctant protege offering help, they pose as a construction team for a count who's trying to stave off the building of a road through his garden. At various other times, Scotti's character imagines that he's Genio, assuming a more assertive role in the proceedings. Director Francesco Sossai keeps the tone light, but despite a number of amusing moments, Last One begins to lag as it drifts through drab bars and spent villages. At its best, though, The Last One for the Road works as a tattered Valentine to the Veneto region, seen here through the eyes of two men whose ceaseless search for one final drink has become the low-grade goal fueling their travels on the road to nowhere. 

  

His wish for love is granted, but ….

  Bear (Michael Johnston), who works at a store that sells musical instruments, has a major crush on Nikki (Inde Navarrette), a co-worker who seems to regard him only as a friend. Too timid to pursue a romantic  relationship, Bear stammers his way through attempts to express his feelings, even rehearsing them with another co-worker (Cooper Tomlinson). 

    When Nikki initiates the perfect moment for Bear to take their relationship to the next level, he blows it badly, partly because he’s off his already weak game. Upon arriving home from work that day, he found his beloved cat Sandy dead on the living room floor.

   Cat lovers beware, director Curry Baker will provide additional reasons for upset.

   The major plot point arrives when Bear finds himself in a novelty shop where he spots a 1980s collectible called One Wish Willow. The novelty costs $6.99 and promises to grant one wish when the buyer splits it in half. 

    Baker then dives headlong into the movie’s surreal premise. After missing an easy chance to declare his feelings to Nikki, Bear wishes for her to love him more than anyone else in the world.

     Of course, Bear’s wish comes true — with a vengeance that liberates Naverrette to give a performance bristling with fierce attachment, rage, jealousy, and ultimately, violence. 

    Baker gives the couple a period of happy communion, ably capturing the consuming excitement of love in its early stages. But as Nikki’s attachment to Bear deepens, her behavior begins the transition from peculiar to downright frightening.

    For his part, Bear begins to realize what we knew would happen: He has made a big mistake by not being careful about what he wished for.

     Bear voices his concern about Nikki's bizarre behavior, things like standing in a darkened corner of a bedroom and watching him sleep. Nikki immediately apologizes, showing flashes of the woman Bear so badly wanted. 

    When Nikki worms her way into what’s supposed to be a boys' night at Tomlinson’s character’s place, she delivers a demented monologue that mesmerizes and frightens her listeners, including another co-worker played by Megan Lawless as a character who seems to offer Bear an alternative to Nikki.

     Obsession, which includes effective jump scares and builds toward a seriously bloody finale, may not be the deepest hunk of horror, but Navarrette possesses the screen as she tries to do the same to poor, bumbling Bear, a guy whose wish becomes horrifyingly true.

    

    

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.