Review: Border

Image courtesy of Neon.

Deformed babies. Maggot eating. A pedophile ring. Troll sex (no, seriously). Suffice it to say that Ali Abbasi's peculiar and committed "Border" has something for everyone. The picture made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and critics appeared to take some delight in its outlandishness. But while its leading lady, Eva Melander (under seemingly pounds of makeup), gives a sterling performance and the movie wears its outrageousness as a badge of honor, the film never quite grabbed me the way it did others.

Still, there's a fair amount to praise in this oddly original fairy tale, starting with Melander, who gives an almost feral performance as Tina, a border security patrolwoman whose heightened senses - namely, her sense of smell - enables her to sniff out ne'er-do-wells attempting to sneak contraband items, from drugs to child pornography, across the border.

Aside from this odd ability to sniff out crime, we get the sense that there's something a little off about Tina from the large scar running up her back to her heavy brows, snaggleteeth and puffy face. One day, she meets a man named Vore (Eero Milonoff) bearing similarly distorted features, only he wears his proudly as opposed to a mask to hide behind as Tina tends to do. At first, Tina appears to be suspicious of Vore, and a full-body search leads to some shocking discoveries.

But her curiosity surrounding this man with a similarly misshapen face leads Tina to begin snooping around and, eventually, spending time with Vore. This all leads to one of the stranger sex scenes in recent memory as well as a subplot in which Tina works with law enforcement officials to root out a child porn ring.

While Melander's performance carries the day here, one of my issues with the movie is how the filmmakers sensationalize the characters' deformities. Not only that, but it equates their outward appearances with freakish behavior - Vore feeding maggots to Tina, for instance, or... well, don't get me started on what Vore keeps in his refrigerator.

There is, on the other hand, something to be said for the film's insistence that its two leads' outlandish behavior is no worse than its, for lack of a better phrase, normal humans - and I italicize that word for a reason you'll understand once you see the film. There's Tina's creep of a roommate who not only takes advantage of her kindness, but also attempts to force himself on her when he's drunk. Then, of course, there are the horrific people involved in the child sex tape ring that Tina helps to investigate. So, in this sense, the film nearly redeems its obsession with Tina and Vore's appearances through its concept that seemingly outward normalcy doesn't necessarily equal good intentions.

"Border" is a unique picture with a solid lead performance that injects some life into a film that seemingly traffics in drab scenery - with the exception of Tina and Vore's visits to the woods - on purpose. It is occasionally squirm inducing, but also suspenseful. In terms of a genre film - it's a strange romance-horror hybrid - it scores points for originality, even if it didn't always work for me.

Review: Green Book

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

"Green Book" proves that a time-worn formula can still feel fresh with the right casting - in this case, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, who proves himself to be a surprisingly able comedic performer. The film has all the makings of Oscar bait - a true story about a black musician (Ali) traveling through the deep south in the 1960s with a white man with backwards views and the eventual bond that is formed between them - but it manages to rise above such categorization due to the camaraderie of its leading men.

The film, which is set in 1962, opens with Tony Lip (Mortensen) working as a bouncer at a nightclub somewhere near his home in the Bronx. When the establishment closes temporarily, Tony finds himself in need of work and takes a gig as the chauffeur for Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), a pianist whose refinement is stark in contrast to Tony's working class background and self-proclaimed bullshit artistry. An early scene in which Tony throws away two glasses from which black men working on his home had been sipping is an indicator that the road trip concert tour will be fraught with tension.

And it often is, although much of that tension exists when the two men travel through such states as North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and other southern locales where they, not shockingly, come face to face with racism. Tony, on the other hand, attempts to display professionalism and, during the course of the trip, eventually comes to respect Shirley, both for his talent and his attempts to change the hearts and minds of people who are nakedly racist.

The road getting there is often hilarious. Who knew that Mortensen was such a gifted comedic actor? Some of this year's funniest lines and line readings belong to him, and Ali is a great foil for Tony Lip's blockbuster pronouncements of inanity. My personal favorite is his complete misread of one of Shirley's albums, which is centered around the story of Orpheus, although his butchering of a famous JFK quotable comes in a close second.

The film's title refers to a travel guide that, at the time, made note of restaurants and hotels that were friendly to African Americans in the United States. During the trip, Tony often stays at a white hotel, while Shirley - although he is the musician and Tony is the chauffeur - stays at more run-down spots, simply due to the color of his skin.

It's also somewhat of a relief that Tony and Shirley end up relying on each other, rather than one doing all the heavy lifting for the other. During one particularly risky moment, Tony saves Shirley from the police, while Shirley helps Tony become more refined, from his personal behavior to the letters he writes to his wife (Linda Cardellini). The relationship between the two men is mutually beneficial and, as a result, Tony does not become the white savior and Shirley is not, as Spike Lee once dubbed it, the "magical negro."

On the one hand, it's easy to see where the story is going, right down to a finale that called to mind "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," of all things. On the other hand, director Peter Farrelly (yes, that Peter Farrelly, of "There's Something About Mary" fame), directs the picture with aplomb, the writing is snappy and Ali and Mortensen are both superb. Yes, you could call "Green Book" a feel-good movie, a crowd pleaser, etc., but it's a film that earns the title. It's highly enjoyable and a great showcase for its two leading men.

Review: The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Upon first glance, one might believe that "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," which started as a miniseries before being released in anthology film form via Netflix, is a Coen Brothers lark - more of a "Hail, Caesar!," which I thought was great by the way, than one of the duo's darker, more serious pictures.

And while viewing the film's first of six stories, the titular tale of a singing gunslinger, it's easy to be led astray due to that story's wacky aura and believe that "Buster Scruggs" is going to be one of the Coens' lighter affairs. It's not until the sixth and final story that one realizes there has been a consistent theme all along. In that final, enigmatic chapter, a character spells out a lesson that the titular character in the first chapter failed to learn: "We each have a life that is our own. We must spin our own wheel and play our own hand."

In the first story, Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) is a cheerful sociopath who sings - and shoots - his way through the Old West. This chapter is easily the most comedic, but also the bloodiest. It's the tale of an iconic outlaw who learns that being such a figure can only last so long. The second story, "Near Algodones," is one in which the Coens go heavy on the irony as James Franco's hapless bank robber nearly escapes a hanging following a robbery, only to find himself in another rotten situation due to bad luck.

"Meal Ticket," the film's third story, is the darkest and bleakest of the bunch. Liam Neeson plays a hard drinking traveling showman who lugs around an armless, legless young man (Harry Melling), who performs soliloquies and famous speeches, kicking off each performance with Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias": "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair." The film takes a brief comedic turn when Neeson's character witnesses another performer - of the avian persuasion - that draws larger crowds, but quickly becomes grim when he is faced with a ruthless business decision.

The fourth episode, "All Gold Canyon," is an oddly cheerful - well, mostly - tale of a prospector (Tom Waits, who has shockingly never worked with the Coens before) searching for gold, and whose excitement appears to revolve around the process itself, rather than the accumulation of the object he seeks.

The fifth episode is the longest - and saddest. "The Gal Who Got Rattled" tells the story of a young woman (a terrific Zoe Kazan) and her ailing brother who are seeking a new life by following the Oregon Trail. After her brother dies, the kindly leader of the caravan (Bill Heck) proposes a solution to her woes. Without going into much detail, this story starts with a hilarious dinner table conversation, involves a surprisingly potent romance, makes the best use of an animal since "Inside Llewyn Davis" and, ultimately, culminates with a shootout and a tragedy.

The final episode, "The Mortal Remains," is an enigmatic coda that involves two bounty hunters (Brendan Gleeson and Jongo O'Neill) traveling in a stagecoach with a frumpy older woman, a Frenchman and a kooky trapper. O'Neill's character discusses how he often lures his victims with a story, while Gleeson's character "thumps" them, and how he enjoys looking into men's eyes to see how they negotiate the border of life and death. Upon being asked if any of the victims were able to do such a thing, he responds, "I don't know. I'm only watching."

Although this final segment is one of the shortest and is light on story, it is also the chapter that ties all of the others together. O'Neill tells the stagecoach passengers that people like stories, and that most of the ones people hear include elements to which they can relate, but at the same time are not really about them. When one of the characters appears to be having some sort of physical ailment, the characters in the stagecoach call for the coachman to stop, but the coach - much like life itself - must continue to move forward.

Each of the characters in the film's six stories face uncertainty - and as one character indicates, the only certainty that everyone, including several characters in the picture, faces is death. The only thing one can do is play the cards that one is dealt. This includes Buster Scruggs, who tries to back out of a card game after literally being dealt a bad hand, but it also applies to Franco's bank robber, Neeson's unscrupulous showman, Waits' prospector, the caravan of characters heading to Oregon and the stagecoach passengers.

"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a gorgeously shot picture - in fact, I'd say it's one of the Coens' most visual films to date - with a remarkable attention to period detail. One might argue that, tonally, it's a little all over the map, but I'm not sure I'd agree. As usual, the Coens' mordant humor is on display, but the manner in which the stories are presented - two violent but comedic ones first, an unbearably dark one third, a fourth that defies tone altogether, a heartbreaking fifth entry and a mysterious finale that exists in the same universe as "A Serious Man" - makes the case that the film is anything but a hodgepodge.

In typical Coen fashion, the brothers set expectations early on, only to defy them again and again. In other words, this is a film that sneaks up on you and forces you to rethink its structure and concepts long after the viewing experience is over. It's one of the best movies I've seen this year and further proof that the Coens can take any setup - in this case, the anthology - and make it fascinating.

Reviews: Widows

Image courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.

"Widows" is not your typical heist movie - but then again, Steve McQueen, the director of the great "12 Years a Slave" and "Hunger," might not be the first filmmaker to come to mind regarding that type of genre exercise. Don't get me wrong, "Widows" is a pulse pounding action movie indeed, but its director's sensibilities are, thankfully, on full display here. Yes, the film involves a heist carried out by a group of characters with distinct personalities, but the picture is just as focused on themes of race, corruption and societal inequality, all the while feeling of the moment, especially considering the rise of the #MeToo movement.

The film opens with a daring heist gone wrong, in which lifelong criminal Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) and his partners appear to be killed after stealing millions of dollars from a criminal turned wannabe politician, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), and his brutal sidekick and brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya), who enjoys tormenting his victims before killing them.

The heist may or may not also involve another shady politico, Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), whose father - surly and racist Tom (Robert Duvall) - was the long-time representative in the Chicago neighborhood where the film is mostly set. As the movie opens, Jack is falling in the polls, while Manning appears to be getting a boost, some of which can be attributed to his wooing of a slightly shady pastor.

Following the heist's failure, Harry's wife, Veronica (Viola Davis), is left grieving and also in danger after the Mannings pay her a visit and threaten to hurt her if she doesn't fork over the money that her husband and his crew stole. Veronica knows that Harry kept a notebook that included details of his previous and future heists, so she gets the idea to enlist the widows of the other men in Harry's crew to carry out his next heist for $5 million, several of which will be used to pay back the Mannings and the rest will be split evenly.

The women include Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), whose husband provided the money for the store she operates. She has now been left out in the cold by his family, who blame her for his death. There's also Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a tall blonde woman of Polish descent who doesn't exactly seem broken up by the death of her abusive husband (Jon Bernthal), but more concerned that her nasty mother (Jacki Weaver) is attempting to push her into prostitution to make money. Alice becomes the paid date for a wealthy businessman (Lukas Haas), whose detachment unnerves her. Lastly, Linda recruits Belle (Cynthia Erivo, last seen at "Bad Times at the El Royale"), a hairdresser who loves to jog and whom Veronica assigns to be the getaway driver.

"Widows" is an exciting thriller - especially during every scene in which Jatemme wreaks havoc on his unsuspecting victims, from a wheelchair-bound bowling alley owner to two men who screw up a surveillance gig and are forced to freestyle as Jatemme looks on menacingly. The heist itself is a feat of great action moviemaking, which might come as a surprise, considering that McQueen's previous work is more avant garde ("Hunger") or arthouse ("Shame" and "12 Years a Slave") by nature.

However, it's not surprising to see the director give the picture more depth than you might expect from such a genre exercise. One particularly well-thought-out shot involves Farrell's smarmy politician having a conversation with his wife in a limousine about his campaign. But we only hear them talk as the camera focuses on the front of the limousine as it travels from the downtrodden neighborhood where the politician is holding a rally to his more luxurious abode, juxtaposing the have-nots whom Jack is supposed to represent with his posh reality.

During another sequence, Jatemme trails someone in his vehicle, listening to a radio report about Alfred Woodfox, a real-life black prisoner who spent 43 years in solitary confinement. There's also a grueling scene in which a young black man is shot by a policeman that plays a heavy role in the relationship between two of the film's characters. All of these sequences provide thematic weight to the proceedings, but without ever coming across as heavy handed.

Meanwhile, the film's timing is noteworthy. The four women involved in the heist have been given the short end of the stick by men - Veronica, for reasons I won't discuss so as not to give away plot points; Alice was abused by her husband and treated as an object by men; Linda was at her husband's mercy for money; and Belle makes no mention of any men, but she is a single mother working multiple jobs. "Widows" is doubly powerful in that it portrays tough women getting by without the help of men and taking part in an action-oriented story that is typically reserved for male actors. During one scene, Kaluuya's character is listening to a radio broadcast, in which a man proclaims that "nothing you do is gonna change your situation." But "Widows" is a thrilling, socially conscious action movie about four women who take action to do just that.

Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Melissa McCarthy veers away from the slapstick comedies in which she typically stars and gives a terrific leading performance in Marielle Heller's "Can You Ever Forgive Me?," which chronicles the true life saga of Lee Israel, an author whose career was on the skids circa 1991 and, in an effort to drum up some cash, began forging letters from such famous figures as Fanny Brice, Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker.

Israel is portrayed as a sad sack when we first meet her, drinking on the job at a low-level paying gig as her literary career, overseen by a not-so-encouraging agent, takes a downslide. Regardless, Israel's biting tongue makes her a pleasure to watch. When a young woman pleads with another to "kill her" if she finds herself in Israel's circumstances at that age, Israel offers to help with the process.

Although she dreams of focusing on her own creative writing, Israel specializes in writing other people's stories - biographies that her agent tells her are not in demand. Israel spends her day sulking with her beloved cat or drinking the day away in a bar with newfound friend Jack (a delightfully droll Richard E. Grant), an aging gay lothario who seems to be sleeping his way through Manhattan.

One day, while researching Brice for a biography that she's writing, Israel stumbles upon an old letter written by that comedienne, takes it to a collector and makes a decent amount of money for it. A light turns on in her head, and Israel begins forging fake - but convincing - letters from literary figures, movie stars and other famous people of yesteryear and selling them for increasingly higher prices - that is, until the FBI begins snooping around.

Heller's previous film was "The Diary of a Teenage Girl," which I liked, although I enjoyed her latest picture even more. Her work, so far, has focused on intriguing, but flawed, female characters with whom we are able to relate, despite their penchant for taking part in self destructive and vindictive behavior. And the film is at its best when focusing on the friendship between Israel and Jack. They're a match made in, well, purgatory, but their bizarre love-hate relationship and witty repartee is in turns humorous and heartbreaking.

McCarthy really shines here as Israel, and it's a performance that I'm hoping will lead to more of its type for the actress, rather than the typically silly comedies for which she's known. She really digs into the role and makes Israel a character with whom we can sympathize, despite her cantankerous personality and occasional criminal behavior. "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" is well worth seeing.

Review: The Girl In The Spider's Web

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Claire Foy slips easily into the role of Lisbeth Salander, the Swedish hacker and avenging angel for women abused by men, in "The Girl in the Spider's Web," which is based on the novel by David Lagercrantz that picks up the story from Stieg Larsson's original trilogy. It's too bad that this fourth entry in the series - which has been split up between American and Swedish adaptations - is the weakest film in this franchise to date.

The original "Girl" films were entertaining, if occasionally improbable, thrillers that followed the exploits of the tattooed Salander and her friend and occasional lover, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played here by Sverrir Gudnason). In this latest entry, Salander is seemingly a full-time vigilante. At the film's beginning, we see her freeing the wife of an abusive business magnate. Prior to that, there's a prelude in which young Lisbeth frees herself from her sexually abusive criminal father, leaving her sister behind.

The plot in "Spider's Web" is semi-convoluted and involves some sort of weapons system that Lisbeth has stolen from the Americans to give back to the scientist (Stephen Merchant) who invented it, only to have it then stolen from her by her sister - who, as it turns out, is not only not dead, but has taken over their father's dirty business - and find herself being trailed by an American NSA worker and former marine (LaKeith Stanfield).

After nearly being killed herself, Lisbeth ends up becoming the caretaker for the scientist's young son, whose ability to understand the codes for the weapons program stretches the imagination slightly, and teaming up with Mikael and Stanfield's Needham to prevent it from falling into the hands of her sister and her cronies. Meanwhile, in a somewhat tired thriller plot line, Salander herself becomes the principal suspect in a series of killings relating to the theft of the weapons system.

Foy makes a convincing Salander, but one of the film's problems is that it completely dials down many of the elements that made her intriguing, such as her bottled up rage and proclivity towards bisexuality. Instead, here she is closer to a Wonder Woman action star, rather than a crusader against a misogynistic society.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that Hollywood is now banking on female action movies, but Salander's character has always been more interesting than someone who just totes a gun. "Spider's Web" isn't a bad movie, just a missed opportunity.

Review: The Other Side Of The Wind

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Bringing Orson Welles' final film, "The Other Side of the Wind," to the screen was a herculean task that has taken 48 years to complete. Although not nearly as difficult, reviewing the film in an adequate manner presents its own challenges.

In his final picture - which he shot between 1970 and 1976, only to languish in various locales around the world before being assembled and edited together, thanks to Netflix, Frank Marshall and various others - Welles appears to be taking a page from Jean Luc Godard's book. There is a Godardian quote at one point in the picture when a character poses the question, "Is the camera eye a reflection of reality or is reality a reflection of the camera eye?" Much like Godard's later work, Welles appears disinterested in telling a linear narrative story here, and the picture often feels as if he is, as the British might say, "taking the piss."

This is not to say that "The Other Side of the Wind" is anything less than beguiling. And maddening. The film kicks off with a voiceover by director Peter Bogdanovich, who notes that the proceedings are set on the 70th birthday of Jake Hannaford (played here acerbically by legendary filmmaker John Huston, whose character might be a stand-in for Welles), who is in the process of putting together a film that has left his collaborators and studio bosses scratching their heads. We first meet him as he wraps up filming a decadent nudie scene.

Bogdanovich - who plays Hannaford's protege and right-hand man - is among the many classic Hollywood figures who pop up in small roles in the picture. Others include Huston, Dennis Hopper, Susan Strasberg, Mercedes McCambridge, Henry Jaglom, Claude Chabrol, Edmond O'Brien, Paul Stewart and Paul Mazursky. Hannaford's birthday party is populated by friends, well wishers, enemies, critics, studio heads, groupies, academics, spies and journalists chronicling the director's life. But Hannaford's intention is to brush them off, occasionally shock them and, during one scene, get physically violent. At one point, he gets bored and begins firing a rifle at some mannequins during his party.

These scenes - most of which are in black and white and have a jarring handheld, cinema verite style - are intercut with sequences from Hannaford's movie, which appears to be some sort of parody of Antonioni's late 1960s, early 1970s output, namely "Zabriskie Point." In that film, a mostly nude Native American woman (played mostly silently by Croatia's Oja Kodar, Welles' paramour at the time and the film's co-writer) stalks a young man on a motorcycle (Robert Random), who eventually walks off Hannaford's set after being forced to engage in a peculiar sex scene involving a pair of scissors.

While the party scenes give off a caustic vibe, the scenes from Hannaford's film are purposefully ludicrous and visually stunning. There's a dreamlike, near out-of-body sequence involving two people having sex in a moving car during a rainstorm that is preceded by a trippy, psychedelic sequence at a rock 'n' roll venue. And there's another gorgeously shot scene in which Kodar walks in slow motion through a bathroom as the people hiding behind the stalls observe her.

But while the film fixates - some might argue to an uncomfortable degree - on the naked female form, it does so to the point of parody, and Welles' film feels like a strangely timely take on toxic masculinity in Hollywood. The film is, at times, exhilarating, tedious, visually stunning, chaotic and bursting with ideas.

It's also not an easy sit - and certainly deserves a second viewing at some point - and one that I would not rank among Welles' best ("Citizen Kane," "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Touch of Evil"), although such comparisons are unfair. Welles is one of cinema's greatest pioneers and this oddball artifact, which has thankfully been saved from obscurity, is a fascinating coda to his career. Film enthusiasts won't want to miss it for the world.

Review: Suspiria

Image courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Much more of an homage than a remake, Luca Guadagnino's reimagining of Dario Argento's 1977 horror masterpiece "Suspiria" is a bit too long, extremely violent, much more visually muted than the colorful original, extremely odd, ambitious and, in its final moments, deliriously over the top. It's a film that I'd recommend, although the picture is meant to be divisive and one's enjoyment of it might depend on whether one buys the historical context that was missing in Argento's original film, but is ever-present here.

Clocking in at two-and-a-half hours, "Suspiria" takes some patience. At the film's beginning, we are told that the picture will present "Six Acts and an Epilogue in Divided Germany." While Argento's garish original film was marked by its frequent, brightly colored splashes of blood, Guadagnino's version has a muted visual style that recalls the work of Rainer Werner Fassbender.

It also includes a political and historical context - and, perhaps, a questionable one - that was nowhere to be found in the original. For starters, the ballerina school in which this new version is set is located directly across from the Berlin Wall, which the filmmakers mistakenly believe acts as some sort of statement by sheer inclusion alone.

But there's also an elderly man named Dr. Josef Klemperer (I'll allow you to be surprised to see who plays this part) who acts as the film's detective, and once lost a wife to the Nazis after he failed to act years before and flee the country in time. And the filmmakers make a curious choice of allowing the exploits of the notorious Baader Meinhof Complex, a left wing terrorist organization, to play out in news reports in the background. What exactly, you might ask, is the purpose of all this context in a film about a coven of witches running a ballet school for sinister reasons? The film only occasionally provides answers.

The characters' names are mostly similar to those of the original. Dakota Johnson fills in for Jessica Harper - who makes a cameo here - in the role of Susie Bannion, a former Mennonite with an abusive mother whose talents catch the attention of the school's visionary leader, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), during a rehearsal. Soon, Susie has become the lead dancer in "Volk," a frenetic piece created by Blanc in 1948 that is going through the rehearsal stages for its final performance.

Meanwhile, Kemperer is investigating the disappearance of Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) - a ballerina whom we meet in the film's opening chapter before she disappears. Patricia is believed to have gotten mixed up with Baader Meinhof, although Kemperer is skeptical. Patricia previously had the lead in "Volk," and as the film opens she is trying to convince the elderly man that the ballet school's teachers are all witches who have menacing designs on Patricia.

While "Suspiria" often takes too long getting to where it is going, it casts a creepy spell and is filled with stunning - and occasionally shocking - imagery: a woman floating up a wall, psychedelic nightmares, intestines being pulled from a stomach and a Grand Guignol ending that would be at home in a work by Hieronymus Bosch. There's a particularly grueling sequence during which Susie's dance moves are, for reasons mostly left to the imagination, the cause of another young dancer's body being twisted and snapped into a pretzel beyond her control.

While the filmmakers' choices - from the political and historical context to the meaning behind the wild finale - are somewhat mysterious, it seems obvious that this new "Suspiria" is fixated on the perversion of power. At the ballet school, the teachers are using the bodies of the young women for nefarious purposes, and there's a line of some thematic interest spoken to Kemperer - regarding his wife's failed attempt to flee from Nazi-occupied Germany - about believing a woman when she tells you that she's in danger.

Although the purpose behind some of the film's choices remain obscured, "Suspiria" is a mostly bewitching homage to Argento's nightmarish original. As is typically the case, it is not as good as the original, but it's a worthy attempt to capture the ambience of that Italian director's oeuvre. And it also serves as a noteworthy break from the high-minded arthouse films one would typically expect from Guadagnino - such as "I Am Love" and last year's wonderful "Call Me By Your Name" - to allow the director to engage in some genre exploration. Overall, "Suspiria" casts an imperfect, but unsettling, spell.

Review: Beautiful Boy

Image courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Based on the books "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff (portrayed here by Steve Carell) and "Tweak" by Nic Sheff, David's son (portrayed by Timothee Chalamet), Felix van Groeningen's "Beautiful Boy" is a decently made and well acted portrayal of drug addiction. Its emotional potency and visual palettes often feel muted and the picture occasionally relies on cliched cinematic depictions of drug addiction, but the film's strongpoint is its wrenching portrayal of the helplessness of a parent whose child abuses hard drugs.

In the film, David Sheff, a successful freelance writer for such publications as Rolling Stone and The New York Times, views his son, Nic, as special, much like most parents do their own children. So, it remains an enigma to David how sensitive Nic, who had shown promise as a writer in his late teens, becomes addicted to a garden variety of drugs - the most worrisome of which is crystal meth.

Much of the picture is told from David's point of view, although his ex-wife, Vicki (Amy Ryan), and current wife, Karen (Maura Tierney), share in his quest to attempt to save Nic. The film occasionally tells the story from Nic's perspective - but while Chalamet does a solid job of portraying a soul wasting away from drug addiction, his character is given the shortest end of the stick. We never know quite why Nic has made the choices he has made, other than that he likes the feeling of being high.

The movie jumps around in time a fair amount and this, to an extent, mutes its emotional impact. It also uses a meeting between David and a doctor (Timothy Hutton) as a framing device, but it's unclear why the filmmakers chose to do so. The film's soundtrack makes some inspired choices (Nirvana's "Territorial Pissings"), some odd ones ("Sunrise, Sunset") and others that are a little too obvious ("Beautiful Boy" and "Heart of Gold").

But what ultimately saves "Beautiful Boy" from being yet another drug addiction drama of the week is Carell's powerful lead performance - which occasionally takes emotional turns that are surprising due to the character's otherwise measured persona - and Chalamet's supporting work. The film's strongest attribute, however, is the degree to which it successfully portrays the personal hell of being a parent with a drug addicted child and the powerlessness and ups and downs - from hopefulness to hopelessness - that come with such a role. The film may have its flaws, but when it's working, it has a powerful effect.

Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

Image courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.

There's been a fair amount of criticism of Bryan Singer's "Bohemian Rhapsody," which chronicles the story of the British rock band Queen and its lively frontman, Freddie Mercury, and much of that criticism has been fair - from its strangely erroneous timeline to the sense that the film often feels as if it is moving from the creation of one iconic song to the next, rather than telling a story. But Rami Malek, who plays Mercury - born Farrokh Bulsara to a Parsi family that moved from Zanzibar to England - does such a convincing job of capturing the rock star's flamboyant persona and incredible stage presence that the film manages to work well enough.

As the film opens, Freddie is ignoring the concerns of his conservative family that he isn't taking his life seriously and attending a performance at a club of a band comprised of Queens' other members - Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) and John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) - who have just lost their frontman. Mercury puts himself forward for the role, but is at first brushed off due to his prominent buck teeth. But after belting out a few chords, he has them convinced.

Much of the film follows the familiar trajectory of rock bio pics - the band gets together, band produces hits, band produces more hits, band starts to squabble, drugs make a mess of things and relationships fray. But Malek's committed and energetic portrayal of Mercury holds things together, even when the film falters.

And falter it occasionally does. Much has been made of the film's fictionalization of Queens' actual timeline. I'm not a stickler when it comes to "sticking to the facts" when making movies about real people. I understand the need for poetic license when adding some fiction to factual proceedings for the sake of thematic cohesion. So, while I wasn't put off by the fact that the filmmakers depict the band writing "We Will Rock You" in the early 1980s, I found it a little strange, considering that the song was a big hit in 1977.

But I can kind of see why some might be offended when the film has Mercury telling his bandmates that he has been diagnosed with AIDS right before the group takes the stage for their seminal performance at 1985's Live Aid for Africa concert, a scene around which the entire film is structured. The purpose of doing so here appears merely for the sake of adding more drama and, as a result, comes off as a cheap tactic.

Also, from what I've read, Taylor was the first to break off from the band in the early 1980s to make some solo albums, but this film portrays Mercury as the one to do so, mostly so that he can be portrayed as having been overtaken by greed and a sense of his own importance. I'm not sure why the filmmakers found it necessary to paint Mercury as the bad guy for portions of the story. Also, his relationship with fiancee Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) is portrayed as Mercury's saving grace, while his homosexuality - and relationship with conniving manager Paul Prenter (Allen Leech) - is given more of a sinister treatment. I'm not sure if that's how Singer intended it to come off, but it is.

So, yes, "Bohemian Rhapsody" has its share of issues, but it's an otherwise well acted and enjoyable rock 'n' roll biopic that does a solid job of capturing the energy of Queens' live performances, especially during the band's set at Live Aid, which is frequently ranked among the best live performances of all time. It also helps that Malek disappears so completely into the role and makes Mercury a compelling figure. Singer's film is far from perfect - but for a movie of this type, it's good enough.