Since I was
talking to Moose about it earlier let's start with
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the sequel to the sans-subtitle 2014 film starring Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning (both of whom reprise their roles here) which per the aggregated scores was at least superior to the villainess-cum-antiheroine-cum-Disney heroine par excellence's latest outing. I'm not sure what the reviewers think they saw, but what I saw was a marked improvement over the bland original across the board, due in no small part to the introduction of Queen Ingrith (played to perfection by Michelle Pfeiffer) who's every bit Maleficent's equal in every scene they share or she claims by herself. It's a rare treat to see such luminous beauties face off in a battle of wits that does not call upon their physical assets - once you get past Jolie's suitably freaky fangs and cheekbones, that is - and I say the showdown between the two at the pre-wedding dinner reception alone is worth the price of admission (a brief snippet in this trailer):
Still I can't say that I enjoyed this more than
The Huntsman: Winter's War, its maligned blockbuster sibling from 2016 which was labeled a bust for the cardinal sin of underperforming at the box office. No major character save maybe one dies here (talk about a big spoiler, eh?), and more importantly there's no complex relationship between love and fate to speak of. Also while Fanning as Princess Aurora and the rest of the cast do an admirable job this is decidedly Maleficent/Jolie and Ingrith/Pfeiffer's show, so when the two are absent the movie tends to drag, especially in the climactic battle sequence which could've been shorter. When the stars do show up, though, it's glorious, especially on the big screen. You know what to do.
Got one more (if less wholehearted) thumbs-up:
Cyrano, My Love or
Edmond (depending on your region), an adaptation of Alexis Michalik's 2016 play of the same (latter) name in his feature directorial debut. Much comparison has been made with
Shakespeare in Love with which it presumably shares the conceit of an in-real-life play begetting a real play, and it's been so long since I've seen the latter (basically when it came out) that I can't make much of the comparison itself, but I highly doubt that this welcome effort from the Franco-British director will prove as forgettable as the earlier fluff whose raison d'etre was not to challenge the audience but to flatter their sense of sophistication for having engaged with the Bard via a two-hour arthouse film. I don't mean to overplay this distinction - the play-in-play conceit has been invoked too many time to count - and we should also keep in mind that this film is about Edmond Rostand's play
Cyrano de Bergerac, whose subjects - both its creation and the man himself who was a distinguished writer in his own right - are less familiar to most of us English speakers including yours truly. All that said I cannot second the seeming consensus that this new film is less fun and more derivative than the 1998 Best Picture Oscar winner, especially when it rightly directs its focus less on the great man (Edmond) than on the creative process itself - in typical French fashion, less a series of sparks of individual genius than one of serendipitous collaboration - while offering familiar but heartfelt meditations on love that do not feel for one moment misplaced.
Wish I'd posted this at least a week sooner (the film's no longer playing in my area), but hope you can still catch it in your own hood:
Now we come to
Jojo Rabbit, one of the year's surefire Oscar nominees. I've before
named Taika Waititi as an emerging talent to keep an eye on and my guarded enthusiasm remains, and I was glad to see that he tries to treat the Holocaust with the seriousness it deserves (this is a clearly superior effort to
Life Is Beautiful, or its unctuous second half at any rate). But I must say I'm still not sure any Holocaust comedy can avoid calling to mind Adorno's famous pronouncement that "
to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." I suppose I should add at this point that the whole cast (including Waititi himself as Adolf, the protagonist's imaginary incarnation of the Führer) could hardly be bettered and the director's way with the child/teen actors deserves special praise, but as you can see I'm still trying to digest this one:
On to housekeeping:
Best of the decade lists are starting to come out
https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/the-best-films-of-the-2010s
Not a bad list, but too Americacentric. Not surprised to see Tree of Life at #1
Yes a bit too much emphasis on Hollywood I think.
I've never cared for the RB gang but they've really exposed themselves as industry stooges now. Most of their picks are precisely the very award favorites I'd say have been overrated even among American candidates, and their inclusion of the two Joshua Oppenheimer documentaries shows where their politics truly lies. Of course the latter isn't exactly a minority position, but if they're going to keep insisting that the sensory shocks and proven tropes of genre films - including not just the Oppenheimer docs but also such recent examples as
Us,
The Realm,
Ready or Not and
Parasite - are the most illuminating ways we can understand the world via cinema then they should make no bones about it, rather than pretend they care just as much about the victims portrayed (if they're portrayed at all) or the audience's self-critique and -contemplation which said films are decidedly less interested in if not outright silent on.
And speaking of superior candidates....
Here's one. Among
my top five picks of 2015 (though I'd need to go back and see if I've come across other worthy titles since then) and one I'd clearly put above most of the RE gang's picks.
All things considered, probably Bergman's best feature. But his trademark misanthropy and misogyny were already creeping in, which (largely) can't be said of
my fave Bergman, the achingly ravishing Summer Interlude:
"Motherless Brooklyn"
Edward Norton wrote, directed, and stars in this mildly engaging sleuth drama revolving around a character based on master builder Robert Moses. Made more interesting when you recall that Norton's grandfather was master builder James Rouse. A bit long but worth a try.
I was actually intrigued by this one 'cause Norton is a thoughtful actor and seems to have
somewhat intimate knowledge of Robert Caro's magnum opus The Power Broker, and while his first directorial feature
Keeping the Faith was a barely passable romcom this was going to be his first one which he both wrote and directed. But then I came across
another interview where he said this: "Too much power truly does warp a person, even a very brilliant person who was once an authentic idealist." In other words, the old chestnut that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I hate to break it to you, Ed, but you missed Caro's central insight: power
reveals, and whatever corruption stems from the erstwhile "authentic idealist" is in fact an authentic map of where his priorities lie. And something tells me the great biographer would dispute your characterization of Moses as "once an authentic idealist."
It's still a fine thriller and despite its length I can't say I was bored for one second (Alec Baldwin gives one of his very best performances here), but given all the talents involved the film could've been much better. Norton seems to have consulted the novelist Jonathan Lethem but not Robert Caro himself, and that potentially fatal mistake indeed doomed this venture which toes the familiar Hollywood line that corruption in America is inevitable and can be avoided only by individuals through cunning and gaming of the system (Norton plays a savant with Tourette syndrome, go figure):
P.S. Forgot a couple of links which now have been included.