Review: Mother Mary

Image courtesy of A24.

David Lowery's surreal pop star saga "Mother Mary" is half of a good movie and half of a baffling one. If you're aware of my tastes, you'll know that I appreciate - and often love - movies that might be labeled as weird, but this one's purpose is somewhat nebulous. To quote Anne Hathaway's pop singer, after whom the film is named, at one point in the picture: "The metaphors are exhausting."

The film opens with Mother Mary (Hathaway) dealing with some sort of crisis by seeking out an old friend and collaborator, Sam (Michaela Coel), at the latter's secluded house, where it seemingly rains nonstop. Sam is a fashion designer and we learn early on that not only did she and Mother Mary once work together, but she is possibly the one who came up with the singer's wardrobe and look. It is also suggested that she was not given proper credit for her efforts.

Mother Mary needs a need dress for an upcoming performance and believes that the one designed by her team doesn't cut it. She seemingly only trusts Sam to do the job, but there's obvious tension between the two women as they sequester themselves in a large room on Sam's property, despite Sam having an upcoming fashion show for which she needs to prepare.

Sam refuses to listen to Mother Mary's music, so when the time comes for the singer to show Sam a dance that she plans to perform in the new dress, she does it without music. It's one of the film's stronger moments and it takes place during the first half, which is better than the second.

At about the midway point, Sam discusses what could best be described as a "ghost" - a large piece of red fabric that takes on different shapes - that she's been seeing. Oddly enough, Mother Mary has seen it as well. The film detours into Mother Mary's history with the "ghost," which began at a seance. As the film goes on, it becomes more symbolic and opaque.

Does the ghost symbolize the two women's partnership - as work collaborators - or is it representative of their friendship that has been lost? The film is often compelling visually, but during its second half, the filmmakers seem to have a difficult time expressing what this all means. Despite this, Hathaway and Coel - who was very good in last week's "The Christophers" - give strong performances, and the film's best scenes involve their monologues or squabbles with each other.

Lowery has delved into offbeat terrain before - namely, "A Ghost Story" and "The Green Knight" - but those films felt as if the strange goings-on merely complemented the overall style and story. Here, the film takes a sharp-right turn in its second half and it feels as if we are watching two distinctly different movies. The first one is compelling, while the second - although visually rich - might leave the viewer scratching their head. The film is a wild swing - the type I'm glad to see directors make - but it only connects about half of the time.

Review: Michael

Image courtesy of Lionsgate.

There has been a fair amount of invective hurled at Antoine Fuqua's "Michael" biopic - and some of it is fair. Some complaints should, perhaps, be saved for later, considering that the story of Michael Jackson is being broken up into two films.

I don't intend to make this the focal point of the review - but to be up front: No, the film does not tackle the allegations made against Jackson involving sexual misconduct. A number of critics have, as a result, blasted the movie for this reason, but they are criticizing a movie that doesn't exist - at least, not yet.

The picture starts in Gary, Indiana in 1966 and ends during Jackson's "Bad" tour in 1988, a period during which no allegations took place. Some might argue that ending the film at this point is a choice in itself - a means of avoiding the problem altogether. Then again, as I mentioned, this biopic is meant to be two films. Considering that the film has been Jackson family-approved, one might have reason to be skeptical as to what will be covered in the second film - but we're not there yet.

To get back to the film that currently exists, my biggest complaint is that, despite Jaafar Jackson's committed performance as his uncle, the film provides a mostly skin-deep portrayal of the King of Pop. Most of the information we get is what we already knew - that Michael was shy, probably lonely, and had a menagerie of animals - including Bubbles the chimp - that he considered friends; and that he had a difficult relationship with Joseph Jackson (Colman Domingo), who ruled over Michael and his brothers with an iron fist and, according to this movie, wasn't afraid to use his belt as an incentive.

But what ultimately makes "Michael" work well enough as a biopic is a combination of two things: the first of which is Jaafar Jackson's portrayal of Michael that, despite being underwritten, is an incredible act of mimicry. It's easy enough to make up someone - especially a relative of the subject - to look like someone else, but it's a whole other thing to capture their aura, their vocal tics, cadence, and dance moves - but Jaafar Jackson does this, especially during scenes recreating the making of the "Beat It" and "Thriller" videos.

It also helps that the movie is chock full of great music and performance sequences - though some might argue that the nonstop concert scenes are meant to pad out a movie in which background is kept at a minimum. There are some curious choices, however - other than the fact that Janet Jackson seemingly doesn't exist, the film barely pays attention to the music from the great 1979 record "Off the Wall," other than a recording session for "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough." The making of and publicity for the "Thriller" album makes up the bulk of the adult years - and I was glad that "Human Nature," my personal favorite Jackson song, makes an appearance.

While Jaafar Jackson is obviously the focus in the film, the supporting cast has its moments, from Miles Teller's John Branca to Larenz Tate's Berry Gordy. Nia Long has some strong moments as Katherine Jackson, Michael's mother. Domingo, who is very good in nearly every movie he is in, has his moments, but Joseph is written as the film's primary villain - and the role mostly requires him to be as unlikable as possible in every scene he's in, not leaving much room for subtlety. 

So, no, "Michael" isn't on the level of some of the best music biopics of recent years - Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" and F. Gary Gray's "Straight Outta Compton" are high points in the subgenre - and follows the beats one would expect from this type of film. We don't learn much about Michael Jackson, but the film does a good job of capturing his aura, his meteoric rise to the top of the charts, and that moment during the 1980s when he was ubiquitous. 

It's a movie in which energy and music carry the weaker moments just past the finish line. As to what has been left out, it remains to be seen how that will - or won't - be handled in the next film. "Michael" works well enough and should please Jackson fans - for others with reservations, reactions are likely to vary.

Review: The Christophers

Image courtesy of Neon.

Can one be a great artist if one's work isn't recognize - or, in the case of Steven Soderbergh's new film, "The Christophers," can one be considered great if others believe that a great work of art they produced was created by someone else?

That's one of the questions driving the film, which is for much of its running time a two-hander starring Ian McKellen in a great performance as Julian Sklar, a washed up artist who has become cranky and sour, and Michaela Coel as Lori Butler, a young painter with a talent for forging others' work who is hired by Sklar's greedy children to complete a series of unfinished Sklar paintings, so that when he dies they can sell them for a large profit. 

Lori, who has a bit of history with Sklar that is only later revealed, is tasked with obtaining the job of Sklar's assistant, locating the unfinished works (known as "The Christophers"), and completing them in Sklar's style.

Once a fashionable artist in the 1960s, Sklar has become a parody of himself. The only remaining interest in him from the art world revolves around the incomplete paintings, which he made to pay homage to a former lover around the time he came out as gay. In recent years, he has taken to selling his painting on street corners for much less than they are worth to thumb his nose at the art world, and was once on a TV show that can best be described as an "American Idol" for artists where he treated contestants shabbily.

It doesn't take long before Lori admits to Julian that she has been hired by his children (James Corden and Jessica Gunning) to complete "The Christophers," and despite his continuous assertion that he wants to destroy the paintings, Lori recognizes that he, perhaps, actually wants to revisit them.

This is a smaller film for Soderbergh - some critics have called it minor, though I'm not sure that description fits - and its success is derived from the two lead performances. McKellen, always a treasure, is great here as Sklar, whose obvious talent as an artist is often overshadowed by his ego and ability to always say something that will offend others around him. Coel's character is a bit more of a cypher, but there's a reason why her character would need to play it closer to the vest.

Soderbergh has recently been on a tear, releasing three movies in the past year - including the very good and twisty "Black Bag" and the low-budget ghost story "Presence." "The Christophers" is the middle of these recent three - better than the horror movie but not quite on the level of "Black Bag" - but it's a film that follows two intriguing characters who are played by talented actors and provides an interesting twist on the concept of communal art. It's a film that leaves you with something to chew on.

Review: Faces Of Death

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

As a movie-obsessed child of the 1980s who spent a lot of time watching trashy horror movies, I have naturally come across the "Faces of Death" series - at least, the first one - at some point. I'm not sure if I've seen one of the films in full - but suffice it to say, I've seen enough. 

So, it comes as a surprise that director Daniel Goldhaber - whose "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" was a very effective low budget political thriller - has used the notorious mondo series as a jumping-off point for a solid meta slasher film about how the internet has essentially desensitized us all - and begs the question of why people would enjoy watching the real-life suffering of others.

In the film, Barbie Ferreira plays Margot, a young woman who works at a company named Kino that has a TikTok vibe. Her job is to allow content online or flag it as inappropriate, and much of her day is spent watching videos and then either pushing them through or pumping the brakes. Tellingly, she is told to flag anything that is remotely sexual in nature or has to do with drugs - even videos showing how to properly administer Narcan during overdoses - but most of the violent and disturbing content gets a pass.

When Margot flags a series of videos in which a masked man seemingly kills people in gruesome and realistic manners while surrounded by mannequins, her boss essentially tells her to take a chill pill. "We have to give the people what they want," he says, arguing that the videos are probably fake anyway. But Margot is not convinced.

A little research leads her to discover that the murders are inspired by the first "Faces of Death," a film posing as a documentary but in which most of the deaths were actually faked. That film, directed by John Alan Schwartz, featured a fictitious Dr. Francis B. Gross, whose studies revolving around death led him to capture people's demises via alligators, firing squads, and decapitations as well as a sequence involving the killing of a monkey and the devouring of its brains. Yeah, icky stuff.

Curiously, the film's second lead character is Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), a mobile phone store employee who is the person carrying out the murders on film. When necessary, Arthur can charm people to keep them off his trail - there's a scene in which he smooth talks the police into walking away from his house, where he has a young woman wrapped in plastic and fighting for survival. There's a consistent theme in the picture of law enforcement not believing victims.

The film's other - and most fascinating - concept is why we have all become so numb to what we see online. Margot's past involves a video gone wrong on a train track, and her mission to unmask the killer is mostly driven by her desire to clean up the internet. Most of the victims whom Arthur tracks down, drugs, and then reenacts "Faces of Death" sequences upon are influencers or members of the media.

Although the film's gory finale, perhaps, is a case of a movie eating its cake and wanting to have it too, the picture is an effective, disturbing, and suspenseful story that examines why people have a desire to see horrific things online - which include everything from people performing stupid stunts and getting injured in the process to violent death or dismemberment. 

And it's fascinating that it takes an infamous object created prior to the age of viral video - the "Faces of Death" series - and uses it as a commentary on the dehumanizing impact of the life lived online. For a movie birthed from such a disreputable source, this was a genuine surprise.

Review: Miroirs No. 3

Image courtesy of The Match Factory.

The films of German director Christian Petzold are often stories about identity or memory, and often feature people on the run from something. Both of these concepts apply to "Miroirs No. 3," a film that might seem like a slight entry in the director's oeuvre, but is more substantive than one might originally recognize.

Petzold's films "Transit" and "Phoenix" were both films about characters fleeing fascism and the latter had to do with a woman under a new guise seeking revenge, while "Undine" was a story that involved a mermaid. "Miroirs No. 3" also fixates - though more subtly - on transformation and identity and, to an extent, a character fleeing something.

In the film's beginning, a depressed piano student named Laura (played by Petzold muse Paula Beer) tells her boyfriend (Philip Froissant) at the last minute that she doesn't want to take a trip with him and his friends, so he is forced to drive her back, a trip during which they get into a car accident that kills him and leaves her dazed.

A woman named Betty (Barbara Auer), who lives near the crash site, finds Laura and brings her to her home. Surprisingly, while talking to the police, Laura tells them that she doesn't want to go home, but instead hopes to continue staying at Betty's house, an arrangement to which Betty agrees without much deliberation.

The two women get along, and we learn that Laura wasn't particularly close to her boyfriend and, therefore, not as distraught as one might think. We then meet Betty's husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt), and son, Max (Enno Trebs), whose existence comes as somewhat of a surprise. It is suggested that the woman and two men might be somewhat estranged - and it's only later that we realize the full circumstances.

Richard takes to Laura pretty quickly, but there's an edge between her and Max, who is somewhat reluctantly tasked with driving her around and helping to fix her bike whenever it needs repairs (which is frequently). Then, a secret is revealed and the group splinters. The picture's final scenes involve a concert in which Laura is performing and ends with a reaction shot of her face that is likely to be debated as much as the ending of Jafar Panahi's recent "It Was Just an Accident."

I won't debate those who'd consider "Miroirs No. 3" a small - or even minor - film for Petzold. It certainly isn't a film that could be considered his defining work - that would be the excellent "Transit," which focuses on his obsessions and themes on a grander scale - and isn't one of his historical dramas or thrillers (such as "Barbara" or "Phoenix"). 

It's a smaller-scale and intimate film about human nature, but there's a lot going on in the picture for a relatively short movie in which not a whole lot happens narratively. It's well performed - especially by Beer and Auer, each of whose characters are fragile in their own right - and written, and makes great use of its desolate locales. Patient viewers who enjoy subtle character dramas will be rewarded.

Review: You, Me and Tuscany

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

There's an entire sub-genre of movies about people, often women, traveling abroad and discovering love and things they didn't know about themselves - two of which get name-checked in "You, Me and Tuscany" during the film's funniest running gag - while traveling abroad, although it usually takes place in Italy.

The difference for "Tuscany" is that, unlike so many of the other films in this sub-genre that lean toward being syrupy or maudlin, it's actually funny and, for the most part, a good time. It's a film filled with characters whose offbeat and often amusing traits are utilized for maximum effect.

The picture opens with Anna (Halle Bailey) getting booted from her latest job as a house sitter after the boss gets home early from a trip and finds out that she's been parading around town in the boss's clothes and taking her cute pup out for a stroll, pretending it belongs to her. Anna later admits that she does a better job pretending to be someone else than living her own life. This likely has to do with her giving up on her dream of becoming a chef after her mother died from an illness.

A chance encounter at a bar with a suave Italian named Matteo (Lorenzo De Moor) that almost results in a one-night stand gives Anna the idea to go to the Tuscan town of which Matteo showed her numerous, gorgeous photos. She goes and when she realizes that she has arrived during the height of a popular festival - and, therefore, she can't find a hotel - she finds Matteo's abandoned villa (he's living abroad, much to the dismay of his family, who wants him to take over the family restaurant), locates an extra key, and breaks in.

After being discovered by the family, she is nearly arrested until they spot her wearing a ring she found in the villa and believe her to be Matteo's fiancee. A run-in with Matteo's at-first gruff, but then later charming, brother, Michael (Rege-Jean Page), leads to a conundrum: She can't exactly strike up a romance with him when he and his family believe that she'll marry Matteo.

Story-wise, the film doesn't go anywhere you don't expect it to, with the exception of Anna taking over the family's restaurant for a special occasion that further endears her to them. But what makes up for a lack of originality and the familiar terrain is the gorgeous scenery, the likable and amusing characters, and the film's good-natured approach to the story.

Typically, these type of romance-abroad-while-finding-yourself movies don't typically lay on the humor too heavily, so it's a breath of fresh air that "You, Me and Tuscany" does. There's a particularly amusing running joke involving tour buses full of women, there's an energetic member of Matteo's family who treats Anna like a confidant regarding her affair with a plumber, and Anna's best friend from home, Claire (Aziza Scott) is the queen of voicemail messages.

Again, the film's beats from start to finish feel overly familiar. But there's a theory that there are basically only seven plots in fiction, whether it's a novel or a movie, so what makes a work successful is the how, rather than the what. "You, Me and Tuscany" approaches its material lightheartedly and with a good sense of humor and, as a result, it makes for a pretty good time.

Review: The Drama

Image courtesy of A24.

Much like Kristoffer Borgli's previous film, the oddball "Dream Scenario," the director's latest film - "The Drama" - works much better when it realizes that it's a dark comedy and finds the absurdity in its premise. It's when the film tries pushing the envelope too hard in being provocative or exploring its back story with any amount of seriousness that it feels less sure of itself.

This is the type of film that audiences will want to walk into without knowing too much as there is a significant twist that comes about 30 minutes into the film that resets the course of the rest of its story. It is nearly impossible for me to write about the film without discussing it, so anyone who doesn't want the plot to be spoiled should stop reading now.

Still here? If you've seen the trailer for "The Drama," you'll know that Robert Pattinson and Zendaya play Charlie and Emma, a couple in love who are about to tie the knot. However, at a dinner with two friends - Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie) - the conversation turns to the subject of the worst things that those at the table have ever done.

For three of the participants, it's all stuff that involves shitty decisions, but Emma, probably a bit drunk, reveals that she once planned and nearly carried out a school shooting when she was a bullied teenager. She later got rid of her father's gun and went on to become involved with gun control activism, all of which she later explains to Charlie, but the damage is done.

From there, the relationship begins to unravel, but mostly due to Charlie's behavior. At first, he can't stop prodding her for information, and then becomes increasingly awkward with others - at one point, he sort of harasses a wheel chair-bound cousin of Rachel and, during another, he acts erratically toward and then borderline sexually harasses a coworker. 

Everything culminates with a wedding dinner sequence that makes the scene in "Rachel Getting Married" where Anne Hathaway gets up to speak seem tame by comparison. And scenes like that one, as outrageous as they are, play best as comedy. Despite the dark subject matter, there's a fair amount of humor to be mined from the scenario.

It's when "The Drama" aims to be provocative, or especially when it tries to over-explain Emma's backstory - which remains somewhat thin regardless - that it stumbles. Much like Borgli's previous film, the strange "Dream Scenario," in which a guy played by Nicolas Cage began showing up in everyone's dreams and, as a result, got shunned by society, the film works best when it leans into the oddball humor of its scenario. Although a film that seriously explores material like that in "The Drama" would no doubt be fascinating, this picture only does so half-heartedly.

One dramatic element of the film that works is the crumbling of Charlie and Emma's relationship, and it's in these scenes that Pattinson and Zendaya are most effective. But this is the rare example of a movie where it might have benefited if the character's backstory was kept more under wraps. How ironic that a film titled "The Drama" works much better as a comedy.