Review: The Apprentice

Image courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment.

Ali Abbasi's controversial new film, "The Apprentice," is a surprisingly watchable and frequently unsettling origin story for America's worst person. The picture's title refers to the popular reality show in which Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) was once the star, but in the context of this story it refers to Trump's mentor-friend relationship with the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).

There are more than a few scenes here in which the groundwork is laid for the Trump who would later go on to become its 45th president and is currently seeking the role of its first fascist dictator, but mostly the picture is a well written and intriguing story about how a guy with few morals but a lot of bluster was able to rise to the top through the tutelage of an unscrupulous mentor.

As the film opens in the 1970s, Trump has just been admitted to the Manhattan billionaire's club and has taken a date to an exclusive lounge where he fawns over the wealthy and powerful people hanging out there. It's here that he meets Cohn, an unrepentant bigot and sleaze merchant who is proud of his ability to hob knob with Richard Nixon (he previously worked with Joseph McCarthy) and blackmail people.

Trump wants Cohn to represent his family after his father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), and he have been sued by the federal government for refusing to rent to Black people. Cohn decides to take the family on as a client but, more importantly, take Donald under his wing.

Cohn teaches him the three most important tricks of business: attack, attack, attack; reframe the truth as being only what you say and deny every accusation; and never admit defeat, but rather claim victory even when the truth shows otherwise. Sound familiar?

A viewer who dislikes Trump might believe it would be hard to spend two hours in his company - and while this is somewhat true, I still found "The Apprentice" to be compelling and watchable. The film is shot in the seedy 1970s style one might expect from a film set in that era and there's an ever present sense of menace during its entire running time. 

Stan gives a solid performance as Trump, looking somewhat like him and and sounding a little bit like the real estate tycoon, but certainly nailing his mannerisms. In many ways, Strong gives the most compelling performance as Cohn, a ruthless man who views those lower on the societal totem pole as weak and not deserving compassion, that is, until he contracts AIDS (Cohn was gay, although he denied it) and suddenly finds himself being viewed by Trump in the same manner.

Ali Abbasi's filmography has been one that never fails to surprise. His "Border" was a freakish film about a Danish border security guard, while "The Holy Spider" was a haunting true crime film about an Iranian serial killer that cracked my top 10 of 2022. "The Apprentice" feels more in line with Abbasi's second film in that both study sociopathic behavior that comes to be deemed as acceptable by society. 

While I wouldn't go as far as saying that "The Apprentice" does a great job of capturing the essence of what has made Trump such a prominent figure in American politics and culture, it's an often fascinating origin story about how a sociopath is given the tools through a mentor of equally questionable morals to conquer the world or, at least, smooth talk his way to the top. 

Yes, it was difficult to spend two hours in Trump's company - especially during the scene in which he rapes his first wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova) - when we are inundated with his awfulness on an hourly basis thanks to our feckless media, but "The Apprentice" is a film that is a little more watchable than you might expect.

Review: Saturday Night

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Jason Reitman's "Saturday Night" is nothing less than what it appears to be - a play-by-play of the hours and minutes leading up to one of the most momentous nights in comedy TV history. Filmed in the style of Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu's "Birdman," the picture follows a number of personalities as they navigate the sets of NBC just before the show was set to go on the air in 1975.

Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), the show's creator, is our main window into the proceedings as he attempts to get one of his stars, John Belushi (Matt Wood), to sign his contract as well as nail down a final script - a board is covered with numerous pieces of paper with skit titles, clearly too many to squeeze into 90 minutes of television - and hob knob with skittish producers (Willem Dafoe is NBC big wig David Tebet while Cooper Hoffman is producer Dick Ebersol, who takes a lot of abuse from pretty much everyone).

The cast is massive. There's a cocky Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), a fast-talking Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien), affable Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), who fears he is the cast's token Black cast member. There's also George Carlin (Matthew Rhys), future Letterman band leader Paul Schaffer (Paul Rust), Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany), Nicholas Braun pulling double duty as the shy Jim Henson and eccentric Andy Kaufman, and even an appearance by Mr. Television himself, Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons).

The list goes on and on. Surprisingly, a number of the figures get their own memorable moments - Henson pleads gently over and over again with Michaels for a script for his Muppets bit, Carlin gets to rant and rave, Morris connects with musical guest Billy Preston and later with Curtin when he ponders what exactly he's doing there, Kaufman does his Mighty Mouse routine, Belushi goes ice skating, and Chase has a confrontation with Berle that he was not likely expecting.

And yet, the film feels more like a series of enjoyable moments, rather than any sort of deep dive into the relevance that "Saturday Night Live" represents for American pop culture. So while "Saturday Night" - the film's title refers to the show's original name, which later added a third word - isn't anything more than it purports to be, well, that's perfectly fine. It's an amusing behind-the-scenes look at what allegedly took place while the show's cast and crew struggled to get it on the air.

Considering that next year is the 50th anniversary of that evening, it should come as no surprise that Reitman's film exists. It's an enjoyable homage to the show's lasting legacy and a number of the cast members nail their impersonations. It's not likely to give anyone new insights into the show, but instead it celebrates the quirky collaborative spirit that has allowed it to last this long.

Review: Joker: Folie a deux

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

While I wasn't particularly a fan of Todd Phillips' first "Joker" movie, I could admire Joaquin Phoenix's committed performance and its visual style, clearly trying to mimic the 1970s films of Martin Scorsese or Sidney Lumet. One of my complaints with the film was its seeming self-importance; that it was a facile film that thought it was making a big statement. 

While its sequel, "Joker: Folie a deux," is technically a riskier venture - hell, it's sort of a musical - it also just feels, well, lost. My objection is not so much that it is a musical - in fact, there's a decent enough argument as to why that might have worked - but that the filmmakers once again think they are doing something so daring by making it one.

Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is by all accounts a deeply disturbed individual who often lives in a world of fantasy. If you think about it, musicals are movies in which characters suddenly exit the land of reality by breaking out into song and dance that is often choreographed and scored to music. Therefore, making this film a musical could have been an interesting way of approaching Fleck's story.

The film picks up where the other left off, that is with Fleck in a mental institution, where he's mocked and occasionally abused by the guards. His lawyer (Catherine Keener) seemingly has sympathy for him and is trying to ensure that he doesn't go to trial on the grounds that he is mentally ill. However, Arthur meets a woman named Lee (Lady Gaga) - short for Harley Quinn - in the institution and the two begin a, ahem, bad romance.

Lee appears to be a Joker fan and quickly endears herself to him. She encourages him to take control of his own narrative and, against all good judgement, he decides to fire his lawyer and defend himself in court. If making the film a musical seems like a strange choice, making its second half a courtroom drama is even weirder.

For starters, Phoenix, once he begins acting as his own counsel, speaks in the voice of a southern man for no apparent reason. His theatrics are occasionally tolerated in the courtroom to unbelievable lengths. At the end of all this, something happens that enables Arthur to be out on the streets, all leading up to an ending that will likely leave most people scratching their heads.

I'll say this: Phoenix again remains committed to this character and Gaga is pretty decent herself. It's too bad they're left to navigate this film full of strange choices without better direction. At various points in the film, Fleck laughs his bizarre, unnatural laugh - and like it did in the last film, it feels too forced, much like most of "Joker: Folie a deux."

Review: It's What's Inside

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Game nights are seemingly treacherous terrain, according to horror and thriller films as of late, from last year's "Talk to Me" to "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies." The latest in this subgenre, director Greg Jardin's "It's What's Inside," is more of a thriller with science fiction elements than a horror movie, and there's only one mildly bloody scene, but it still has some of the same trappings of the aforementioned films.

The picture primarily takes place at a large, somewhat secluded house where a group of friends are gathered to celebrate the impending marriage of Reuben (Devon Terrell). The group includes a couple experiencing problems with their sex life - Cyrus (James Morosini) and Shelby (Brittany O'Grady) - which allows for an amusing opening sequence involving this issue.

Others include ultimate bro Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), hippie Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), influencer Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and stoner Brooke (Reina Hardesty). A final member of their group when they were in college - Forbes (David Thompson) - is mentioned and seems like a distant memory until, that is, he suddenly arrives and Reuben mentions that he'd invited him.

The last time Forbes was seen was during a raucous party that led to him being kicked out of school and his at the time underage sister, who had been having a fling with Dennis, to go into a mental hospital. Upon his arrival, Forbes introduces the idea of playing a game, which turns out to be a little more than anyone bargained for.

The game involves flipping a switch on a box - any explanation I could give would probably be as flimsy as that given by the film - that leads to all of the persons at the party switching bodies. In other words, their consciousness pops up in the bodies of one of the others present. Some members of the group are put off by the game, while others seem to relish in the freedoms it allows.

One of those freedoms ultimately becomes being able to hide which personality has ended up in which body, leading to some double crosses and secrets being unearthed. When two of the characters run off for a quickie on a balcony, tragedy ensues and the rest of the film revolves around the various characters debating whether to return to their original bodies, especially considering that two of those bodies are now corpses.

While I'm sure that something deeper could have been done with a story involving the quandaries of swapping bodies with someone else and what freedoms that might entail, "It's What's Inside" is content with merely plot twists and seeing actors portray other characters who have become disembodied. It's amusing enough, but not as memorable as "Talk to Me," which I liked well enough and had a fair amount of atmosphere and some decent shocks.

"It's What's Inside" often feels like a dark comedy with bits of horror or science fiction thrown into the mix. It's funnier than it is scary, and its final punchline - despite that you could probably see it from a mile away - will likely result in a smile. But I feel like this film could have been more than what it ultimately is - a mild divertissement.

Review: Megalopolis

Image courtesy of Lionsgate.

According to legend, Francis Ford Coppola – a legend if there ever was one – has been working to get his mad vision, “Megalopolis,” onto the screen for at least 40 years. This would have followed shortly after the release of his 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now,” a film with a fabled, gonzo film shoot that left some baffled upon viewing it. Whether “Megalopolis” will one day be as esteemed as that classic remains to be seen, but if nothing else can be said for it, the film is certainly a picture that could only have been made by Coppola and is clearly a work of a highly personal nature to the filmmaker.

Exactly what the film is about is open to debate. Narrated by Laurence Fishburne – who also has a small part in the picture – the film references everyone from Marcus Aurelius to Shakespeare (in fact, Adam Driver’s first bit of dialogue in the film is from “Hamlet”) and features characters named Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), Clodio (Shia LaBeouf), and Cesar (Driver). It is set in New Rome – which is, much like Gotham City, basically New York – amid talk of its decline.

The mayor is at odds with Cesar, an architect of some sort who wants to build a utopia known as Megalopolis within New Rome, which prompts Cicero to remind him that “utopias eventually become dystopias.” In a plot point that is well utilized but never quite explained, Cesar is able to momentarily stop time. At moments, he sits atop towers that he may have built and views the city below, much as an artist or filmmaker might look upon his creation and determine where fixes need to be made.

A TV reporter named Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) – yes, that’s really her name – is seeing Cesar on the sly while also carrying on an affair with his aged uncle, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), a business mogul. LaBeouf’s character is a cousin who often acts as a henchman for Crassus. Other figures within this orbit are played by Fishburne (Cesar’s driver), Dustin Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, and Talia Shire.

Cesar has a hint of mystery about him. His wife died under mysterious circumstances, and Mayor Cicero – then a district attorney – prosecuted him for it but didn’t get a conviction, and it is hinted that the mayor’s case against him might have been a corrupt attempt to take out a possible political rival.

The film’s drama lies in Cesar’s latest love interest, Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, who takes an interest in Cesar’s worldview and work. Their romance is a little undercooked, but becomes a major plot point when Julia becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, LaBeouf’s Clodio is a rabble rouser from a rich family trying to act as a man of the people in order to radicalize them and turn them against the establishment – sound familiar?

There’s a lot going on in “Megalopolis” and not all of it completely makes sense or is fleshed out – there are several mentions of a satellite heading toward Earth, but it eventually is forgotten, and there’s a threat of a large-scale riot near the film’s end that never quite materializes. Amid all this is the sense of a civilization on the decline and whether it’s possible or worthwhile to save it – which also, unfortunately, sounds familiar.

But even if the film’s story – and what it all means – remains somewhat obscure, there are plenty of incredible visuals upon which to feast and a number of interesting ideas bouncing around. One particularly memorable scene involves Cesar being chauffeured around New Rome at night, driving through the mist and neon lights. During this voyage, a large concrete statue representing the scales of justice bends over in dismay and lies wounded in the street as police attack a homeless encampment nearby.

At several points in the film, “Megalopolis” features a three-way split screen with gorgeous visuals filling all three. At another, we are mesmerized by a gorgeous shot of the cosmos. At a birthday celebration, a Roman-style chariot race takes center stage and, at another moment, an actor in the actual audience of the movie theater in which I saw the film interviews Driver onscreen during a press conference sequence.

Where it might occasionally be lacking in cohesion or structure, “Megalopolis” makes up for with chutzpah and vision. This is a film that will likely garner love-it-or-hate-it responses, something which Coppola himself admitted during a New York Film Festival interview with Spike Lee, Robert De Niro, and Dennis Lim that ran before the screening I attended.

While I can’t quite say I loved “Megalopolis” – and it’s certainly not on par with his greatest works, namely “The Godfather” films, “Apocalypse Now,” or “The Conversation” – I admired it, and it’s well worth the price of admission for filmgoers seeking a unique experience and excited about wandering through the imagination of one of the all-time greats, both in terms of influence and body of work.

Review: The Substance

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Coralie Fargeat's gore-splattered, provocative, and completely outrageous "The Substance" should come with a warning about the dangers of lock-jaw, considering how many times that appendage is likely to drop during its 140-minute running time. Fargeat's Cannes sensation is stylistically bold, incredibly acted - especially Demi Moore in her finest performance in years - and sure to shock the feint of heart.

A parody on society's impossible beauty standards and the fixation on staying young forever, the picture follows the story of an actress-turned-fitness-guru named Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore). There's a phenomenal sequence early in the picture in which we watch - through a sequence of overhead shots - as Elisabeth gets her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and then how it cracks over time, begins to fade, and even falls victim to a messy eater.

When we meet her at the film's beginning, Elisabeth is just past her prime - that is, at least in the eyes of the misogynist executives who control her career, especially one played as the biggest sleazeball on earth by Dennis Quaid - and gets the boot from her daytime fitness show. 

Shortly thereafter, she stumbles upon a proclaimed miracle drug known as The Substance that supposedly reverses aging. Well, that's one way of explaining it. After injecting herself, Elisabeth's back cracks open and a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley) pops out. The way it works is that only one of the two can be conscious at any given time and must, therefore, tend to the needs of the other while the other is in slumber. It also means that choices made by the one can affect the other.

Qually's Sue auditions and lands the gig for the sexed-up fitness program. I'm not sure if Fargeat being a French director is the reason why the fitness show sequences are so over-the-top and it's difficult to discern whether she is lampooning such things to a delirious degree or if that's how the French actually view American television programs. Regardless, these scenes are colorful.

As Sue becomes more famous, she has more of an incentive to stay in the land of the living longer, thereby leaving Elisabeth slumbering and gradually fading away. When Elisabeth is awake, she begins to notice alarming decay due to Sue's carelessness. A rivalry between the two eventually gets, shall we say, pretty out of hand.

"The Substance" is a picture that starts out as a slickly filmed, highly exaggerated satire but eventually becomes more of a body horror nightmare. It is often imaginatively grotesque but almost to the degree that it stops being gross through desensitization. There's a final scene during which a third figure who makes their way into the world due to The Substance gets up on stage before an audience, and the result gives off a vibe of the finale of Peter Jackson's ultra-gory "Dead Alive." The film also features what has to be the funniest scene ever involving an egg beater.

Fargeat's previous best known work in the United States is the bloody thriller "Revenge," which is also memorable and occasionally shocking. But "The Substance" is a gigantic leap forward. This is a film that takes a subject ripe for satire - the fixation on beauty and youth - and does something unique with it.

It's also among a small handful of films that have done an incredible job of making Los Angeles seem like such a foreboding place. The eerie, low-angle shots of palm trees swaying in the wind - not to mention the world's most impossibly long corridor - and the creepy scenes on film shoot sets give the picture a vibe that often reminded me of David Lynch's neo-noir classic "Mulholland Drive" and, more recently, Bertrand Bonello's unsettling "The Beast." 

For those who can stomach it, "The Substance" is likely to be among the more memorable moviegoing experiences of 2024. Moore gives an incredible performance that ranges from horrifying to deeply sympathetic and Qualley is also impressive as her nemesis. This is a movie that is so outrageous and shocking for much of its running time that one might wonder how the filmmakers could possibly outdo themselves for the finale. Suffice it to say, they do. This is one warped movie - and I mean that as a compliment.

Review: Close Your Eyes

Image courtesy of Film Movement.

The Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice has made four films in about 50 years, so it’s good that with his latest, “Close Your Eyes,” his first in 31 years, he makes it count.

The first 20 minutes or so of the picture – which clocks in at just under three hours – casts a spell as we watch an old man, at some point after World War II and the Spanish Civil War, has called another man to his estate for a mission. The visitor (Jose Coronado) is asked to find a young woman, who is half-Spanish, half-Chinese, who has gone missing.

The spell is broken when we learn that this interlude was a prolonged scene from an unfinished movie titled “The Farewell Gaze” that was shot in 1990 and never completed when Julio Arenas (Coronado, who portrayed the visiting man to the estate in the opening scenes) walked off the set and was never seen again.

This disappearance has haunted the film’s director, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), ever since – not only because it derailed his career, but also because Arenas was his close friend; they’d served in the military together and even shared a girlfriend at one point.

Miguel is interviewed by a TV show that focuses on solving mysteries about Arenas’ disappearance and while he seems reluctant to take part in it, the fact that he has never been able to move past it makes him curious enough to get involved.

He meets up with the now-adult daughter of Arenas (played by Ana Torrent, the start of Erice’s 1973 classic and greatest film to date, “The Spirit of the Beehive”), who clearly has affection for Miguel but is not interested in being interviewed for the show.

Then, a break in the Arenas case sets into motion a new series of events in its final third. I won’t give away what happens, but suffice it to say that the last section of the movie involves Miguel and some of his friends trying to – for lack of a better phrase – save a life through cinema.

Much of the film’s action moves at a pace that some might find glacial and it takes patience to get where it’s ultimately going. But those who are accustomed to so-called slow cinema will be rewarded. Erice’s debut, “Beehive,” is one of film’s greatest and is among the undisputed classics of 1970s European cinema. His next two films – “El Sur” and “The Quince Tree Sun” (unseen by me) – were well liked but not as rapturously received.

Therefore, “Close Your Eyes” is Erice’s finest work since his debut. It’s a moving testament to plundering the past to heal wounds – which, in this case, is carried out through the medium in which Erice has plied his trade. This is a mysterious, haunting, and powerful film.