A strong cast lifts 'The Piano Lesson'

  Members of the Washington family -- as in Denzel, Malcolm, and John David -- are playing a major role in preserving the literary legacy of the late August Wilson, at least on screen. It has been eight years since Denzel Washington directed and starred in Fences, but the deep connection between Wilson's material and the Washingtons continues.

    For the latest entry, The Piano Lesson, Denzel Washington serves as one of the film's producers. His son -- director Malcom Washington -- offers a screen version of The Piano Lesson, one of 10 pieces in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle. 

  Ma Rainy's Black Bottom (2020), another play in the cycle, was directed by George C. Wolfe with Denzel Washington as one of the film's producers.

   Marked by inspired acting and richly colored cinematography, The Piano Lesson features John David Washington, the oldest of Denzel's four children, as Boy Willie, a young man who arrives in Pittsburgh during the 1930s with hopes of selling an elaborately carved piano that has become a prized family possession. 

   When Boy Willie's sister Bernice (Danielle Deadwyler) refuses to sell, a drama about memory, family history, and heritage begins to take shape.

 A strong supporting cast adds to the movie's richness. Samuel L. Jackson portrays Doaker, a family uncle who presides over the house where Bernice and her 11-year-old daughter (Skylar Aleece Smith) also live. They've become the northern branch of the family.

 Corey Hawkins plays Avery, a Pittsburgh man who wants to marry Bernice and establish himself as a local preacher. Michael Potts appears as Doaker's older brother, a former piano player and heavy drinker who adds jolts of live wire energy whenever he's on screen. 

  Adapted from Wilson's play by Malcom Washington and Virgil Williams, the movie uses a ghostly reminder of the Old South to symbolize the lingering oppression that the family tried to escape by moving north. It struck me as a bit too literal.

  This part of the play, complete with an exorcism, rattles the screen but doesn't go down easily. Attempts to open the confinement of an essentially  one-room drama are semi-successful.

   But Wilson’s strength, his ability to find characters who encapsulate and enrich depictions of Black American life remains and his themes (family tensions, crushed dreams) have broad reach.

   Malcom Washington's debut directorial effort gives a strong ensemble cast an opportunity to bring memorable life to Wilson's richly drawn characters. They take full advantage of it. So should we.*

*The Piano Lesson currently is available for streaming on Netflix.

‘The Creator’ aims big, falls short

 I rooted for The Creator, hoping this latest futuristic extravaganza would be a major addition to the big-screen sci-fi canon. Although the movie comes close, it ultimately falls short.

 The subject -- a war between humans and AI -- couldn't be more topical but director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) gives his two-hour and 15-minute adventure a bric-a-brac feel that keeps the movie from gathering force.

   Edwards's movie evokes memories of bygone sci-fi -- notably AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001) and The Terminator (2024). You also may find yourself thinking about a variety of Vietnam movies that showed Asian populations being decimated by American military might. 

    That's because much of the story takes place in the fictional location of New Asia, the place where special forces warrior Joshua (John David Washington) is sent to forestall the extinction of humanity.

   The story begins with a jumble of action set in 2065, ten years after Los Angeles was destroyed by nukes, a catastrophic attack attributed to the AI on which humans had become too dependent. The US has outlawed AI, vowing never to let it strike again.

   Early on, we meet special forces warrior Washington's Joshua. A  needless raid by the US military blows Joshua's cover during a spy mission in New Asia. During the melee, Joshua's pregnant wife Mia (Gemma Chan) is killed. 

    Joshua was supposed to coax Mia into revealing the location of  Nirmata. a creator with that the power to program AI for maximum destruction. Still, Joshua loved her and thought he could work to benefit both humans and AI.

    The US's imperialist objectives are anything but subtle. The US military operates NOMAD, a Flying Fortress that hovers over the earth beaming destructive rays on designated targets. 

    Leave it to humans. When encountering a force with superior intellect, the response: Blow it up.

    General Andrews (Ralph Ineson), a one-note hard ass of a military man, presides over NOMAD. Allison Janey portrays Colonel Howell, an officer who tries to be more sympathetic toward the mistrustful Joshua.

    As if to signal a theme, Joshua comes equipped with prosthetic robotic limbs acquired after suffering terrible war wounds. He's part robot, suggesting that a blend of AI and humanity might be possible. 

    New Asia is enemy turf, but wait. Why are some bots in New Asia wearing Buddhist robes and acting as if they've mastered the art of cosmic serenity? Why do they have spinning gears in the back of their heads?

    These bots, by the way, have human skin -- or a simulated version of it -- and digital parts. Same goes for an achingly cute six-year-old girl Joshua dubs Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Alphie has powers that she's only learning to harness.

  To complicate matters, she might be the very creation that Joshua has been ordered to kill.

    A scattered story includes a predictable twist, concluding with a mega blast of emotion built around sacrifice and hope. Some may be moved but I didn't know whether to be inspired or go with the one-word question I wrote in my notebook, “risible?”

   I presume you know which way I leaned.

   We've seen worse movies than The Creator and Edwards deserves credit for creating an immersive look and nailing an intriguing final shot. But The Creator seldom scales the heights of imaginative writing that could have matched its visual accomplishments and outsized ambitions.

     

He's on the run but doesn't know why

 Italian director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino directs John David Washington in a thriller that has its moments but ultimately fails to find a galvanizing gear. Washington plays the title character, a young man who's vacationing in Greece with his girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander). The couple leaves Athens because their hotel happens to be situated on the spot where an upcoming political protest has been scheduled. When two people seem as happy as Beckett and April, it hardly comes as a surprise when tragedy strikes. On a country road at night, Beckett falls asleep at the wheel. His car topples down a hill and crashes into a house. April doesn't survive the accident. Not only must Beckett deal with grief and guilt, but he also  finds himself running from a policeman (Panos Koronis) and the cop's female associate (Lena Kitsopoulou). Beckett, who speaks no Greek, has no idea why he's being pursued. The details are mostly irrelevant, but Beckett unwittingly finds himself in the middle of a plot against a leftist candidate that also involves a kidnapping. Beckett tries to outrun his pursuers as he makes his way to Athens and the American embassy. Along the way, Beckett meets two activists (Vicky Krieps and Maria Votti) who give him a ride. Boyd Holbrook, part of a cast of undercooked supporting characters, shows up as an American embassy official whose offers of help may conceal other motives. Beckett's final flight pushes him into violent action. This last-act eruption may have been intended to reflect the frustration Beckett has been building for the entire movie, but it can seem more like a last-minute attempt to up the action ante.  Beckett gets what it can from its Greek settings, but can't distinguish itself as either a straight-ahead thriller or a political drama. 

A great house and a battling couple

 

   There's something so arty and insular about Malcolm & Marie that I found it nearly impossible to forget that I was watching a movie. 

   Director Sam Levinson has made a two-hander about a battling couple played by John David Washington and Zendaya. 

   The movie may remind you of other battling couples, notably Edward Albee's George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a movie that also was shot in black-and-white.

    I'll get to the couple -- a filmmaker and his muse -- in a moment. 

     First, though, a word about architecture. If a movie is to take place almost entirely within one house, the house better be interesting and evocative. Levinson has chosen the Caterpillar House in Carmel, Ca. 

     Set mostly at night, we're keenly aware of the vast glass walls of the living room, the sense of West Coast openness and the self-conscious modernity of a house that seems as much a statement as a home.

   Of course, I digress. So let me say that inside the house we find an uneven mixture of battling, rants and emotional exposure -- or, just another day in the life of a young couple.

   Washington plays Malcolm, a filmmaker who's returning to a home that has been provided by his production company. His new film has just had its premiere.

    Zendaya's Marie is the lover and partner Malcolm forgot to acknowledge in his thank-you speech after the movie, a bit of neglect sets off the fireworks. 

     A former drug addict, Marie also believes that Malcolm appropriated events from her life without bothering either to credit her or cast her in his movie.

   Initially, Malcolm rides an adrenalin-fueled wave of triumph as he dances through the living room. It seems as if his movie will give him career-making credibility. He's like a person who has learned he's just won the lottery -- only, in this case, his triumph has been earned.

     While Malcolm enthuses about himself or rants on other matters, Marie makes a bowl of mac and cheese -- from a box no-less. If this is an act of ego deflation, what to make of the fact that Malcolm eats it?

    Marie slowly pulls the rug out from under the joyous Malcolm and, in the process, raises questions about creativity, ethics, and self-image.

    Even when they're interesting or amusing, battling couples can get on your nerves. If you'd have been in the presence of Malcolm and Marie during their long evening of ire, it wouldn't take long before you began looking for the exits.

    This is not to fault the acting. Zendaya punches well in the emotional clinches. Washington finds a groove, at one point delivering a rapid-fire monologue about being pigeon-holed as a black filmmaker by a critic. Ironically, the same critic also called his film a "master work."

    The lengthy soliloquy is impressive if only for Washington's ability to sustain the energy and powers of elocution required to deliver it.

    Levinson inches the characters toward sexual intimacy and then retreats; he primes us for deep revelation but none seems to be forthcoming. Sometimes rant substitutes for dialogue. 

    The total effect is oddly unsettling. By the time the movie ended, I felt as I'd been watching a skillful simulation of an art movie rather than the real thing.

     Put another way, Malcolm & Marie requires too much effort for too little reward.

Great action in a muddled ‘Tenet’

    Tenet involves an ingenious conceit: the idea that time can be manipulated to flow forward and backward simultaneously. This means that a car chase could be proceeding at breakneck speeds while the same cars move in opposite directions — or something like that.

    Graspable more in outline than in detail, Tenet creates an often frustrating mixture of consternation and thrills. 
    Director Christopher Nolan brings Inception-like complexity to a story that probably will have fans filling chat rooms and Zoom calls with speculation, insights, and connections to whatever they perceive as the movie’s meaning.

    Then there’s me.

    First off, I saw Tenet at a screening in which a handful of critics were spatially distanced in a large IMAX theater. 
    I’m not sure what awaits moviegoers when they venture into newly re-opened theaters but I admit to feeling a bit of guilt at having seen Tenet under what surely must be the safest possible conditions. I hope you’ll be able to do the same.

     The movie tosses four principal characters into a mind-bending Cuisinart built around the concept of inversion, a state in which effect can precede cause.
     John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) plays a character described in the credits only as The Protagonist, a secret agent who must save the world from dreams of annihilation by Andrei (Kenneth Branagh), a crazed Russian oligarch.        
     Andrei's art appraiser wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) develops a flirtatious relationship with The Protagonist, but her main concern involves rescuing her young son from the clutches of his evil and monumentally abusive father.
     As his mission unfolds, Washington’s character acquires a sidekick, the devilishly stylish Neil (Robert Pattinson).
    Not much else needs to be known about the cast. Michael Caine makes a brief appearance as a British spy and Indian actress Dimple Kapadia plays a sophisticated woman who traffics in arms.
     For all its theories, talk of algorithms and such, Tenet plays like almost every other summer movie, by which I mean it alternates exposition (a lot of it) with imaginatively conceived action set pieces.
      I half wondered whether Tenet might be a movie that’s best enjoyed by throwing out the bathwater (the story) and keeping the baby (the action).
      A chase involving speeding trucks is particularly exciting and Nolan excels at making the movie's theoretical conceits visible: bullets fly backward into guns and demolished buildings reassemble, for example. 
    Did I mention that birds can be seen flying backward?
    Because the characters need to wear oxygen masks when they are "inverting," some of the burdens of performance have been lifted. But these days, not seeing everyone's face all the time seems depressingly familiar.
    Of the performances, Debicki stands out. Her Kat is sexy, calculating, and possessed of worldly intelligence.  Pattinson brings casual charm to his portrayal and Washington gives a forceful, straight-ahead performance that provides the movie with its continuity.
    Speaking with a Russian accent, Branagh alternates understatement and outbursts, giving the movie a full quota of human menace.
    I presume that Nolan and company collected major frequent flyer miles as they location-hopped to places as far-flung as Italy's Amalfi Coast, Mumbai, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, and London.
    All this is accompanied by a score (credit Swiss composer Ludwig Goransson) that pulses and pulses -- and then pulses some more.
    After a well-staged opening which seems to have been inspired by a real-life 2002 terrorist attack on a Moscow theater, the movie quickly leaps from what many will see as Bondian terrain to one involving alternate realities. 
    With Nolan, the reality in which we all reside never seems complex and baffling enough. His worst enemy: the chronological order that marks the way most of us experience the passing of time.
      I leave it to you to determine whether it's important to catch every line of dialogue. I know I missed a lot.
     And that seems to sum up the Tenet conundrum; you’re often left wondering whether you’ve lost your place or whether the story simply has gone on without you. The result, at least for me: Increasing indifference.
    It’s obviously up to you to decide whether you want to see Tenet, which only can be viewed in theaters. Exhibitors, studios, and other representatives of what might be described as the motion-picture industrial complex certainly hope you do.
    I  have mixed feelings about the reopening of theaters and I’m eager to hear from those who go. I’m less interested in what you think of Tenet than in whether you felt safe in a theater where masks could be lowered to consume snacks.
    In the end, how safely theaters can operate during a pandemic (it may take time to tell) strikes me as a far more important question than any I could raise about Nolan's latest spectacle.
     

A black cop infiltrates the KKK

In BlacKkKlansman, director Spike Lee tells an incredible true story about American racism.

As is the case with every state in America's often wobbly union, Colorado has no shortage of shameful racist history. In the 1920s and 1930s, Denver’s mayor — Ben Stapleton — was a known member of the Ku Klux Klan, as were other notable public figures in the state. The controversy over Stapleton's Klan affiliation continues: Some argue that Denver's Stapleton neighborhood, built on the site of the old Stapleton International Airport, should be renamed.

But Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman -- set in Colorado Springs -- doesn't derive its power exclusively from the state's shameful past. In telling the story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), a black Colorado Springs detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, Lee turns a glaring spotlight on a moment that has relevance in the deeply troubled present. Post Charlottesville, it's no longer possible -- if it ever has been -- to give hate-group activities the security of historical shelter.

No stranger to controversy, Lee can be both a cinematic agitator and a gifted filmmaker. Often he’s both — and in the same movie. He's able to mix the stark strokes of agitprop with softer dramatic tones; he can allow for nuance and humor or he can ignore dramatic shading entirely. The approach makes sense when Lee works in areas in which clear racial lines are drawn, the most famous example being Lee’s incendiary Do the Right Thing, now 29 years old.

With BlacKkKlansman — co-written by Lee and three other writers -- Lee has hold of another story that allows him to address racial issues in a way that's volatile, telling and sharply attuned to the tragic absurdity of unleashed bigotry and ignorance.

As the first African-American member of the Colorado Springs Police Department, Stallworth (John David Washington) faced racism from some of his co-workers but found his niche as an undercover officer. His work in exposing the Klan began when he responded by phone to a newspaper ad seeking KKK recruits.

Eventually, Stallworth even spoke with white supremacist David Duke (Topher Grace), then Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Obviously, infiltrating the Klan required face-to-face contacts that Stallworth couldn’t make. Enter fellow detective Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver). In meetings with Klan members, Zimmerman posed as Stallworth, another bit of deception because Zimmerman happened to be Jewish, not a favored group among Klansmen.

Early on, Lee connects Stallworth's story to period realities about race. Sent to a speech by Kwame Ture -- formerly Stokely Carmichael (Corey Hawkins) -- Stallworth finds himself in the awkward position of being a "spy" who’s not necessarily at odds with Ture’s analysis of America's racial situation.

Stallworth's presence at Ture's speech in itself qualifies as racially suspect: The Colorado Springs police worried that Ture would inspire violent protests among the city’s black population.

Let me leap ahead: Perhaps because he's both a storyteller and commentator, Lee concludes his movie with footage of what happened in Charlottesville, Va., the white supremacist rally that Donald Trump tried to address evenhandedly with his good-people-on-both-sides comments.

Let's be honest, there aren’t two sides to a story of bluntly expressed racism that, in BlacKkKlansman, is directed at the African-American students of Colorado College. One of those students (Laura Harrier) also becomes a romantic interest for Stallworth, a man grappling with conflicting identities. He understands racism as well as anyone but is also reluctant to accept his comrades as “pigs," lest he is branded with the same label. Initially, he doesn't tell Harrier's character that he's a cop.

Washington, son of Denzel Washington, handles the movie’s double-identity requirements with simmering anger and wit. He and an excellent Driver don’t become immediate soul mates, which seems entirely realistic. They’re both doing their jobs. Driver plays a Jew without a strong Jewish identity. He hasn't given much previous thought to racism.

This being a Lee movie — Jordan Peele of Get Out fame produced — you won't find many subtly expressed ideas; the defense for the movie’s lack of nuance becomes obvious: When dealing with Klansmen, nuance would not only be superfluous but a notably stupid form of moral temporizing.

And, yes, Lee uses the absurdity of Stallworth’s situation to give the movie a variety of humorous scenes. When Duke visits Colorado Springs, Stallworth is assigned the task of guarding him. He even convinces Duke to pose for a picture with him, the city's only black policeman.

Finnish actor Jasper Pääkkönen plays the scariest of the racist Klansmen, who — at one point — confronts Driver’s Flip Zimmerman with suspicions that he might be Jewish, a tensely comic scene that hinges on whether Zimmerman has been circumcised. These Klansmen are in no danger of being confused with MENSA members.

Lee also adds references that link his movie to the American movie past, strategically inserting footage from Birth of a Nation, the 1915 D.W. Griffith movie that lionized the Klan, as well as from Gone with the Wind.

Lee has taken dramatic liberties to be sure -- Harrier's character is an invention and Driver's character wasn't Jewish. Overall, though, Lee does justice to a story that would be impossible to believe if it weren’t true. Lee again puts the pedal to the metal in trying to acknowledge an ugly part of American life that shouldn’t be swept under any red, white and blue rug -- then or now.