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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" > <channel> <title>Rex Reed – Observer</title> <atom:link href="https://observer.com/author/rex-reed/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://observer.com</link> <description>News, data and insight about the powerful forces that shape the world.</description> <lastBuildDate>Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:27:04 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5</generator> <site xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">168679389</site> <item> <title>Surviving ‘Swept Away’: A Maritime Disaster in More Ways Than One</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/11/theater-review-swept-away-maritime-disaster-in-more-ways-than-one/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:26:19 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Broadway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Lina Wertmuller]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Madonna]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Wayne Duvall]]></category> <category><![CDATA[John Gallagher Jr]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Adrian Blake Enscoe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Stark Sands]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael Mayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Rachel Hauck]]></category> <category><![CDATA[John Logan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Seth Avett]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Scott Avett]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1498583</guid> <description><![CDATA[Four shipwreck survivors sing their way through despair, but 'Swept Away' capsizes under its uninspired score. ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1499173 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/The-Company-of-SWEPT-AWAY.-Photo-by-Emilio-Madrid.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A group of men in worn work eighteenth century fisherman's clothing dancing on the deck of a ship" width="970" height="647" data-caption='The company of Swept Away. Emilio Madrid'><noscript><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1499173 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/The-Company-of-SWEPT-AWAY.-Photo-by-Emilio-Madrid.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A group of men in worn work eighteenth century fisherman's clothing dancing on the deck of a ship" width="970" height="647" data-caption='The company of Swept Away. Emilio Madrid'></noscript> Fool that I am, I was excited to hear of a new Broadway play called Swept Away, figuring it would be a sexy adaptation of the great 1974 Italian film by Lina Wertmuller, unsuccessfully remade in 2002 as an ill-advised vehicle for Madonna. So imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be a dreary saga told in only 90 minutes without intermission at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre about—get ready for it—a shipwreck. The tedious plot centers on four survivors of a maritime disaster in 1884 who, after three weeks of sick, starving, stranded desperation in a tiny lifeboat without food or water, drink the blood of one of their companions and eat his skin to stay alive. It’s a musical. Confession: I hate folk, rock and bluegrass, all of which comprise the score, so reviewing this torture is a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it. What it’s doing on Broadway is still a mystery to me, but to their fans, the reason is the opportunity it provides for widespread exposure to the music and lyrics of The Avett Brothers. They’re labeled a “roots band,” which means a combination of tuneless noise some critics seem to enjoy. I’m not one of them, and if you think there’s one recognizable melody anywhere in the treacherous mashup of 14 bland, forgettable musical yawns in the score of Swept Away, I dare you to hum it for me. The show is based on an album the Avett Brothers recorded about a British yacht called the Mignonette that capsized in 1884 on its way to Australia, but the setting has been changed to a doomed 300-ton American whaling vessel off the coast of Massachusetts. When the onstage ship embarks, there are a dozen crew members on board, but they are present only to provide some action and quickly discarded after the ship’s collapse, leaving four people alive to tell the story: the gruff and disillusioned old captain referred to only as “Captain” (Wayne Duvall); the weathered, jaded and alcoholic first mate, who answers only to the name “Mate” (John Gallagher, Jr.); an idealistic teenager identified as “Little Brother” (Adrian Blake Enscoe) a farm boy with no experience as a sailor who signed up to seek adventure at sea, anxious to see those faraway places with strange-sounding names; and his “Big Brother” (Stark Sands), who comes on board to drag him back home, but the ship sails before he can disembark, so he’s stuck on the voyage, too. The Mignonette, it turns out, is a ship sold for scrap iron and lumber at the end of the whaling era, and this is its final trip (in more ways than one). With a plethora of depressing dilemmas and endless traumas, this is a sailing that is definitely not worth taking—for everyone on board, a pint-sized Titanic; for the audience, a Moby Dick without a fish. <img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1499172 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Adrian-Blake-Enscoe-as-Little-Brother.-Photo-by-Emilio-Madrid.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A young man with long dark hair jumps over a rope two other deck crew workers are holding" width="970" height="684" data-caption='Adrian Blake Enscoe as Little Brother in Swept Away. Emilio Madrid'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1499172 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Adrian-Blake-Enscoe-as-Little-Brother.-Photo-by-Emilio-Madrid.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A young man with long dark hair jumps over a rope two other deck crew workers are holding" width="970" height="684" data-caption='Adrian Blake Enscoe as Little Brother in Swept Away. Emilio Madrid'></noscript> The best thing in the show is the sinking of the ship. The thoughts and fears of all concerned meld with the catastrophic results of wind and rain and the sound of waves, at first gently rocked as inclement weather is signaled by the crash of thunder and the flash of lightning is signified by strobe lights, followed by the crumbling of the masts, collapsed rails and crushed riggings in Rachel Hauck’s impressive set, while the entire cast is whipped and thrashed all over the stage at the mercy of the angry sea. The sequence is the best example in the show of Michael Mayer’s ability as a director. Then it’s back to boredom while the four survivors sing about it. The only characters developed beyond an outline are the four leads, who work hard to no avail. Even this central quartet is anything but unique. We’ve seen them all in other conventional seafaring disaster movies. They’re wiped out and one foot away from death, but that doesn’t stop them from singing about it. The worthless songs all sound exactly alike while doing nothing to move the scant plot along. The Avett Brothers had no experience with lousy stage musicals, but playwright John Logan did. He’s the man who wrote the unspeakable book for Moulin Rouge. To everyone’s credit, Swept Away avoids any attempt to duplicate the noisy, pointless production numbers in the recent plethora of jukebox musicals, and thank goodness there is nothing in it that resembles the trashy vulgarity of Death Becomes Her. But there is nothing in it to warm the heart or produce a tear or two, either. Mate begins and ends it all 22 years later in a hospital bed with tuberculosis, while the ghosts of his dead companions urge him to tell their story for future generations to savor. Captain wants to find himself another vessel and search for his lost crew, shamed by his failure to go down with his ship. Little Brother wants to find the girlfriend he left behind. Big Brother wants to return to the farm, fall to his knees and thank God for dry land. Mate, oddly enough, plans to find a bathhouse and scrub himself clean with a bar of lavender soap. And we have to listen to them all sing about it…and sing about it…before they all keel over and die. In the end, all of the singing corpses join together to belt out, “We’re all in it together…” Wanna bet? <div class="entry-content"> Swept Away | 1hr 30 mins. No intermission. | Longacre Theatre | 220 W 48th Street | 866-302-0995 | <a target="_blank" target="_blank" href="https://sweptawaymusical.com/tickets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-lasso-id="2645368">Buy Tickets Here</a> </div> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1498583</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Is The Most Original, Most Beautiful Musical In Eons</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/11/maybe-happy-ending-is-the-most-original-most-beautiful-musical-in-eons/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 13 Nov 2024 16:11:25 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Broadway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Darren Criss]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Helen J Shen]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dez Duron]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Will Aronson]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Hue Park]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael Arden]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dane Laffrey]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1466248</guid> <description><![CDATA[This Broadway show about robots in love has rapturous music and lyrics, innovative staging and a superb cast. In short, an extraordinary work of theatre artistry.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1466276 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Darren-Criss-Helen-J-Shen-Photo-Credit_-Matthew-Murphy-and-Evan-Zimmerman.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Darren Criss and Helen J Shen in Maybe Happy Ending. Matthew Murphy'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1466276 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Darren-Criss-Helen-J-Shen-Photo-Credit_-Matthew-Murphy-and-Evan-Zimmerman.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Darren Criss and Helen J Shen in Maybe Happy Ending. Matthew Murphy'></noscript> A new Broadway musical about people in love? OK. A new Broadway musical about people in love who are robots? I don’t think so. That’s what I feared when I arrived with trepidation at the Belasco Theatre to see Maybe Happy Ending and stayed to be totally overwhelmed by the best, most beautiful, innovational and original musical I’ve seen in what feels like eons. To quote Alan Jay Lerner’s lyrics to “I Could Have Danced All Night” in My Fair Lady: <blockquote> I’ll never know what made it so exciting Why all at once my heart took flight…</blockquote> But I am in love with Maybe Happy Ending. If you care about enchantment I think you will be, too. Darren Criss, the dynamic and self-assured young actor who exploded on the television scene as the sexually confused killer in the TV mini-series The Assassination of Gianni Versace and won an Emmy, Golden Globe, Critic’s Choice and SAG award for it, makes a triumphant return to the New York stage as Oliver, a handsome Helperbot who has been involuntarily “retired” from active duty and assigned a small but pleasant flat in Korea where he spends his days caring for his only companion, a fading plant, and listening to his favorite jazz records by Duke Ellington and Chet Baker. One day he is startled by a disruptive and unheard-of knock on the door by the neighbor across the hall named Claire (Helen J. Shen, who makes a formidable Broadway debut). Oliver is a Helperbot 3, which means an earlier version with a longer shelf life, while Claire is an improved, updated Helperbot 5, which means she can do more things and impart more knowledge, but her structure fades faster (you know, like new appliances, which, we know from experience, are never as good as the old models). Now Claire’s battery is running down and she needs to borrow Oliver’s battery charger. <img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1466293 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Darren-Criss-Photo-Credit_-Matthew-Murphy-and-Evan-Zimmerman-1.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Darren Criss in Maybe Happy Ending. Evan Zimmerman'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1466293 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Darren-Criss-Photo-Credit_-Matthew-Murphy-and-Evan-Zimmerman-1.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Darren Criss in Maybe Happy Ending. Evan Zimmerman'></noscript> They’re wary at first, because neither robot has ever known—much less kissed—another robot, but as Oliver and Claire get to know each other, he teaches her to appreciate the sophistication of jazz, she shares with him her love for fireflies, and they join forces on a journey to reconnect with their original owners because Oliver feels it will help him regain his purpose since that is what he was constructed for. It is Claire who is wiser but leaving the world sooner than she planned. They come equipped with innovative devices such as paper cup phones, hard drives and passwords. But the more human they become, the closer they come to feelings of pain, loss and love. “Everything must end eventually,” sings Claire in one of the score’s most haunting and memorable songs, “living with people has taught this to me.” It is best to say nothing more about the plot. Going through the discovery of what happens next is one of the show’s most heartbreaking take-home rewards. Nothing is what they hoped for, but they find something better in each other. Maybe love will help them survive, without wi-fi. From this inept outline, I can only tell you how impossible it is to relate the freshness, the joy and the quality that elevate every aspect of this extraordinary work of theatre artistry. While the rapturous music and lyrics by the team of Will Aronson and Hue Park break your heart, the dazzling direction by Michael Arden reaches levels of perfection in staging and the technical marvels in the settings by Dane Laffrey leave you slack-jawed with awe. There is nothing familiar, no “seen it before” feeling to the action sequences that unfold within moveable neon squares that open, narrow or expand, depending on the size and stature of the scene. The unseen orchestra is conducted from a pair of television sets attached to the balcony. And to me, the gorgeous arrangements are a rapture to hear—lush and thrilling and a beatific antidote to the usual noisy rock and roll pandemonium that pollutes so many of today’s juke box musicals. <img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1466279 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Dez-Duron-Photo-Credit_-Matthew-Murphy-and-Evan-Zimmerman.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Dez Duron in Maybe Happy Ending. Matthew Murphy'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1466279 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Dez-Duron-Photo-Credit_-Matthew-Murphy-and-Evan-Zimmerman.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Dez Duron in Maybe Happy Ending. Matthew Murphy'></noscript> Best of all, in addition to Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, the two terrific leads, this show introduces a fellow from Shreveport, Louisiana named Dez Deron making his Broadway debut as a swinging headliner named Gil Brently from the big band era who opens and closes the show with a vocal style that moves the action in stanzas that illustrate the popular music that shaped the era in which the Helperbots lived up to their names and reputations. This musical marvel has got it all. He’s movie-star handsome, he croons like a knockout combination of Vic Damone and Mel Torme, and I can’t wait to hear him headline in a chic supper club or intimate jazz watering hole ASAP. Like everything else in Maybe Happy Ending, he is merely sensational. I love this show and cannot wait to see it again—and often. Maybe Happy Ending | 1hr. 45 mins. No intermission. | Belasco Theatre | 111 W. 44th St. | (212) 239-6200 | <a target="_blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.maybehappyending.com/tickets/" data-lasso-id="2638253">Buy Tickets Here</a> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1466248</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Hugh Grant Goes Full Villain in ‘Heretic’—But Who’s Really Terrified?</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/11/heretic-movie-review-hugh-grant-is-too-charming-to-play-a-villain/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 12 Nov 2024 15:30:17 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[1-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Horror Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Hugh Grant]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Scott Beck]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bryan Woods]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sophie Thatcher]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Chloe East]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1465914</guid> <description><![CDATA[In this scathing review, Rex Reed rips into Hugh Grant's misguided attempt at horror, describing the film as a “pointless screamfest” that’s more ideology lecture than thriller. The verdict? A 1-Star, “eye-rolling disaster” that leaves viewers longing for the exit.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1465917 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/https___cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_b0f78bc5df62a2c6e796369a8a702c3d412746ed-6048x4024-1.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A man in a checkered robe sits opposite two young women wearing Mormon missionary name tags." width="970" height="645" data-caption='From this still, you&#8217;d be forgiven for mistaking &#8216;Heretic&#8217; as another Hugh Grant rom-com. This is an actor who couldn’t turn off the charm even if directed to, which nobody does. Kimberley French/Courtesy of A24'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1465917 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/https___cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_b0f78bc5df62a2c6e796369a8a702c3d412746ed-6048x4024-1.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A man in a checkered robe sits opposite two young women wearing Mormon missionary name tags." width="970" height="645" data-caption='From this still, you&#8217;d be forgiven for mistaking &#8216;Heretic&#8217; as another Hugh Grant rom-com. This is an actor who couldn’t turn off the charm even if directed to, which nobody does. Kimberley French/Courtesy of A24'></noscript> So much junk has already been written about the risky change of pace Hugh Grant exhibits in an overrated, undercooked fright flick called Heretic that it seems purposeless to contribute more. I’ll simply say he deserves applause, but the question is, “So what?” He’s a fine actor who should be able to switch from a charming romantic lead to a menacing, diabolical villain with superior ease, and the monster he plays in Heretic is not only skillfully freakish but not altogether without charm, either. It seems like a natural fit. The question: is it scary? In my opinion, the answer is a big, yawning “No way.” Shaving too fast with an old razor blade, I’ve had more scares than anything in Heretic from my bathroom mirror. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> HERETIC ★ (1/4 stars) Directed by: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods Written by: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods Starring: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East Running time: 111 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Helmed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the writing-directing-sometimes producing team responsible for B movies like Haunt and The Boogeyman, Heretic has been mistaken as a horror-genre innovator, but there’s nothing innovative about it. Instead of horror, Heretic exudes more of a long and tiresome ideological debate about the horror of religion combined with the horrors of bad movies. It could be called a whydunit as opposed to a whodunit. The premise begins with promise. Two lovely Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) on a mission to convert non-believers to salvation arrive at a creepy, imposing house (in the midst of fog, rain, and a coming snowstorm, natch). The creaking door is opened by a genial, smiling Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant, turning on his customary charm), who invites them in and offers them a slice of blueberry pie freshly baked by his wife, who never appears. But instead of pie, what Mr. Reed provides is a challenging debate about the role of religion through the ages. Whether the women are fundraising or simply hoping to find a friendly soulmate is left to the imagination, although the dark and gloomy manse soon becomes a testament to the host’s behavior and his perilous plans for unsuspecting visitors, many of whom turn out to be imprisoned in cages in underground dungeons below. Before you can say, “Girls in movie peril who saw Psycho should know better than to go out after dark”, the proceedings turn into a screamfest, and the charming Mr. Reed turns into a serial killer who verbally accompanies each of his murders with mumbo jumbo jabberwocky that begins with ominous questions like “How do you feel about polygamy?” It should be no surprise when the girls discover the exit doors are locked, the blueberry pie is poison, and there’s no wife. As the snowstorm rages outside, the girls flee to the cellar where future victims await their turn for execution. “Why do you do this?” asks one of the misguided missionaries in one of the film’s unintentional comedy misfires. “The question,” answers Mr. Reed with a lethal grin, “is why do you all let me?” That’s the film’s only point—that there is no point. Heretic has occasional moments of suspense, but nothing is grounded in any kind of logic, which pretty much leaves Hugh Grant to guide the wobbly, disorganized and pointless third act to its gruesome conclusion with maximum, eye-rolling, lip-licking glee. He’s the only reason to keep one eye on the screen and the other eye glued to the exit door. You can’t teach an old pro new tricks, and this is an actor who couldn’t turn off the charm even if directed to, which nobody does. Even when he cuts off a victim’s hand, one finger at a time, he seems jovial. Let’s hope that, having proven himself more than capable of handling gory nonsense, he will be offered a meatier role next time. In the disappointing greeting-card finale of Heretic, everything collapses into hearts, flowers and butterflies, but only one person is still alive. I won’t reveal who it is. I will only tell you that when Hugh Grant leaves the screen, it has an impact not unlike saying goodbye to Casper, the Friendly Ghost. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1465914</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Here’ Goes Nowhere: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and the AI Gimmick that Fell Flat</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/11/here-review-tom-hanks-robin-wright-in-an-ai-driven-disappointment/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2024 20:23:28 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[1-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Fantasy Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tom Hanks]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Robin Wright]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Eric Roth]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Robert Zemeckis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Richard Mcguire]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Paul Bettany]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Kelly Reilly]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Zsa Zsa Zemeckis]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1462967</guid> <description><![CDATA[This is nostalgia without the charm.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1462968 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Here-3-Credit_-Sony-Pictures-Entertainment.jpeg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A cozy living room with soft lighting and vintage decor. A young blonde woman and a man embrace tightly in an emotional moment. The room features patterned wallpaper, antique furniture, and a sense of mid-century warmth" width="970" height="546" data-caption='Tom Hanks and Robin Wright’s reunion in &#8216;Here&#8217; falls flat. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1462968 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Here-3-Credit_-Sony-Pictures-Entertainment.jpeg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A cozy living room with soft lighting and vintage decor. A young blonde woman and a man embrace tightly in an emotional moment. The room features patterned wallpaper, antique furniture, and a sense of mid-century warmth" width="970" height="546" data-caption='Tom Hanks and Robin Wright’s reunion in &#8216;Here&#8217; falls flat. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment'></noscript> If you think Tom Hanks cannot make a bad movie, you haven’t seen Here. This phony, gimmicky and tedious waste of time might not be the first film in the abominable new process called A.I., but I pray it will be the last. The lure going in is that it reunites the major players from the smash hit 1994 comedy Forrest Gump—Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, writer Eric Roth and director Robert Zemeckis—in a lame attempt to make more money by capitalizing on a great film’s financial success using a revolutionary new technology that reduces overhead by eliminating the need to hire real actors. It’s a hateful experiment that backfires, because filling the screen with computer-generated robots defeats the whole purpose of making movies in the first place. Here isn’t here, there, or anywhere at all. It’s like an aimless, meandering comic book you can thumb your way through just by looking at the pictures. Dare I mention it is also a colossal bore? <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> HERE ★ (1/4 stars) Directed by: Robert Zemeckis Written by: Eric Roth, Robert Zemeckis, Richard McGuire Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Zsa Zsa Zemeckis, Kelly Reilly Running time: 104 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Based on a novel by Richard McGuire I never intend to read, Here is a long and plotless mess about the passage of time in a single space defined through the years by imagery that begins with dinosaurs, progresses through cowboys and arrow-pointing Indians to the invention of the wheel, and ends up with traffic horns and supermarkets—all seen through the eyes of a single family. Enter a couple named Al and Rose (Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly) who are looking for a house. They can’t afford the 1800-sq.-foot manse erected in 1900 that replaces the dinosaurs with a permanent residence on the property, but they buy it anyway and spend the rest of their lives in the same living room where the only thing that changes is the sofa. Along with avoiding the threat of a gargantuan budget, the movie saves a fortune on sets. Through the years, Al and Rose are joined by a growing family that includes their son Richard (a dull performance by Tom Hanks), his wife Margaret (gorgeous but wasted Robin Wright), and their daughter Vanessa (a fledgling actor from the director’s own family with the ghastly monicker Zsa Zsa Zemeckis). Richard is a character of unspecific value to the family, although he is the first one to go to college, and Margaret, on her 5oth birthday, regrets all the things she missed through the years, trapped in this kind of house (and this kind of movie). She never went to college because she was too busy being a wife and mother, never saw Paris in the spring because it was too far away from home, and never spent the night in Yellowstone National Park because it was always too crowded. Rose dies, Al has a stroke and moves in with Richard and Margaret, intruding on any possibility of peace and togetherness in their autumnal years by prattling on nostalgically about what he did in World War Two. Generations of friends and relatives come and go, nobody ever seems to go to work, and it’s always Christmas. These people are not rich, powerful, controversial, accomplished or even tortured enough to sustain interest while the viewer waits for them to change the world or hire an interior decorator. There’s no tension, no schadenfreude, no complexity woven into the narrative to demonstrate why we’re expected to care about these folks for nearly two hours that seem more like nearly two days. When Margaret finally walks out on the entire family, we only wonder what took her so long. Tom Hanks does what’s right for the film, convincingly aging from a high-school student to a wrinkled old man near death in ways that can’t be solved by the makeup department, but he can’t invent a cinematic raison d’etre if it isn’t in the script. While it’s a film about the passage of time, there’s no archival footage or revealing intimacy in the relationships among characters to explain why Here is anything to enhance enthusiasm for more movies about A.I. Color it long, clumsy, gimmicky, schmaltzy and pointless. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1462967</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Juror #2’ Proves Clint Eastwood Is Still a Master of Suspense—and Hollywood</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/11/juror-2-review-clint-eastwoods-tense-thriller-stars-nicholas-hoult/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 04 Nov 2024 19:02:36 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[3-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Thrillers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Clint Eastwood]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jonathan Abrams]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Nicholas Hoult]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Toni Collette]]></category> <category><![CDATA[J.K. Simmons]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Kiefer Sutherland]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Chris Messina]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1462351</guid> <description><![CDATA[Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 is a masterclass in suspense and moral dilemma, led by a powerhouse performance from Nicholas Hoult. If this is Eastwood’s farewell, he’s leaving Hollywood on a high.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1462361 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Juror-2-Credit_-Claire-Folger-1.jpeg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A serious-looking jury sits in a wood-paneled courtroom, focused and taking notes, with natural light streaming through blinds, creating a subdued atmosphere." width="970" height="647" data-caption='In &#8216;Juror #2&#8217; Nicholas Hoult, one of the best of the young breed of actors currently impacting the movie scene, plays Justin Kemp, a successful, clean-cut Savannah journalist with a new home, a promising career and a pregnant wife. Warner Bros.'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1462361 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/Juror-2-Credit_-Claire-Folger-1.jpeg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A serious-looking jury sits in a wood-paneled courtroom, focused and taking notes, with natural light streaming through blinds, creating a subdued atmosphere." width="970" height="647" data-caption='In &#8216;Juror #2&#8217; Nicholas Hoult, one of the best of the young breed of actors currently impacting the movie scene, plays Justin Kemp, a successful, clean-cut Savannah journalist with a new home, a promising career and a pregnant wife. Warner Bros.'></noscript> Politically, we might be on different planets, but my admiration and respect for director Clint Eastwood is boundless when it comes to movies. Now in his 90s, the iconic action star turned filmmaker talks about retirement (say it isn’t so!). Even his occasional fumbles, like the dismal Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, contain lively surprises and a work of consummate skill, control and suspense—such as Juror #2, which finds him at the top of his game—proves he’s still got plenty of skill and imagination to spare. Hopefully, Eastwood’s career has no end in sight. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> JUROR #2 ★★★ (3.5/4 stars) Directed by: Clint Eastwood Written by: Jonathan Abrams Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Messina Running time: 113 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Although Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil turned out to be a big mistake, Eastwood loved making it so much that he returns to the same setting in Savannah, Georgia, for his latest film, a shattering courtroom drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the first scene to last. When Juror #2 ends, your nails may very well be shorter. Nicholas Hoult, one of the best of the young breed of actors currently impacting the movie scene, plays Justin Kemp, a successful, clean-cut Savannah journalist with a new home, a promising career and a pregnant wife. When he gets the annoying notice for jury duty, he does what we all do—he tries to get out of it and fails. Assigned to a serious case of homicide, he hopes it will be over soon, but as the facts are unraveled by the dead-serious prosecuting attorney (Toni Collette, in the best performance of her career) and the equally dedicated defense (Chris Messina), it turns into a high-profile courtroom thriller with many mysterious twists to uncover. The defendant is accused of drinking with his girlfriend in a bar on a stormy October night when they fought, and he turned her out in the pouring rain to walk home alone, then beat and murdered her, leaving her to die. Now, by sheer coincidence, Justin finds he’s on the jury to decide the fate of the man on trial, and in the opening arguments, he realizes he was in the bar at the same time and discovered the body on his way home in the blinding fog. He thought he hit a deer, but it was really the girl. A moral dilemma ensues. It was an accident, but if he’s honest and admits it was the dead girl he hit instead of a deer, it could mean 30 years to life. The screenplay by Jonathan Abrams, Eastwood’s direction and the uniformly great acting are so sincere and believable that you’ll find this movie impossible to watch without asking yourself, “What would I do?” The trial, the cross-examinations and the summaries are all familiar (and slightly dull) until Justin becomes the only juror who refuses to vote guilty. His objections based on lack of evidence are so convincing that another juror (the always reliable J.K. Simmons), a retired ex-cop named Harold, decides in the private jury room to join him, becoming the second of the 12 jurors to vote not guilty. A deadlock ensues, and Harold illegally pursues new evidence that sways the case, resulting in a hung jury, 6 to 6. Breaking the law, he is fired by the prosecuting attorney, opening up a can of worms that could lead to either a conviction or a hung jury, change the verdict and end in a mistrial. How does it end? I won’t ruin the outcome with any spoilers. I’ll simply say it’s worth the effort it takes to make your own discovery about what happens to a good person caught up in terrible circumstances. I haven’t seen a courtroom drama this riveting since Witness for the Prosecution. Clint Eastwood builds tension so palpitating you could sweat profusely and then faint. In a star-making performance, Nicholas Hoult has the rare ability to relate every emotion as much with his facial expressions as he does with dialogue. The film has two endings and an epilogue that asks new questions about the definition of justice. If Juror #2 does turn out to be Clint Eastwood’s final film, he’s gone out with fireworks. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1462351</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Left On Tenth’ Is Funny, Touching, Intelligently Written And Beautifully Acted</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/10/left-on-tenth-is-funny-touching-intelligently-written-and-beautifully-acted/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 24 Oct 2024 20:27:53 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Broadway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Romantic Comedies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Julianna Margulies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Peter Gallagher]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Delia Ephron]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Nora Ephron]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Susan Stroman]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1460690</guid> <description><![CDATA[Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher have sensational charm and chemistry, and this exquisitely directed stage adaption of Delia Ephron's best-selling memoir with put a catch in your throat and tears in your eyes. ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1460697 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/Left-on-Tenth-1-Peter-Gallagher-Julianna-Margulies-Credit-Joan-Marcus-1.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies sitting closely on a stage with a dog" width="970" height="728" data-caption='Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies in Left on Tenth. Joan Marcus'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1460697 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/Left-on-Tenth-1-Peter-Gallagher-Julianna-Margulies-Credit-Joan-Marcus-1.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies sitting closely on a stage with a dog" width="970" height="728" data-caption='Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies in Left on Tenth. Joan Marcus'></noscript> If you’re a veteran theatergoer lamenting the absence of good, old-fashioned love stories on Broadway, hope has arrived. Left on Tenth—the new play by Delia Ephron, the playwright and sister of beloved writer-director Nora Ephron—is funny, touching, intelligently written, beautifully acted, deeply personal in every detail yet widely universal in concept. It’s at the New York theater named after James Earl Jones, the catch in your throat and the tears it will put in your eyes will be genuine because every word of it is true, and I honestly don’t know what you’re waiting for. Still mourning the loss of Nora, her sibling and mentor who died at 71 in 2012, Delia was doubly unhinged when writer Jerome Kass, her husband for three decades, died four years later and left her alone in their flat on Tenth Street. Both of them taught her the value of humor in her writing (among other things, Delia co-authored Nora’s great movie You’ve Got Mail) but the emotional assault of so many losses left her so depleted that she didn’t feel like writing anything very joyous. Instead, she collected all of her feelings in a best-selling memoir that is now adapted for the stage. The bad times congealed when she decided to sever all ties to the past and wrote a funny essay in the New York Times about the difficulties involved in getting rid of Jerry’s Verizon cell phone, an act of closure that opened new doors instead. Out of the blue, old friends re-entered her life. One of them was Peter, a shrink in San Francisco with three grown children she didn’t remember, even though they met through her sister Nora and dated a few times. When their phone calls and emails persisted, compounded by a few cross-country plane rides and surprisingly unexpected mutual satisfaction in the designer sheets, the serendipity between the two, both widowed and lonely, eventually grew into love and marriage. Through the minutiae of everyday topics (“How do you feel about tipping?”) their camaraderie deepens. <img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1460695 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/Left-on-Tenth-2-Peter-Gallagher-Julianna-Margulies-Credit-Joan-Marcus.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies sitting across from each other at a table holding hands" width="970" height="646" data-caption='Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies in Left on Tenth. Joan Marcus'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1460695 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/Left-on-Tenth-2-Peter-Gallagher-Julianna-Margulies-Credit-Joan-Marcus.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies sitting across from each other at a table holding hands" width="970" height="646" data-caption='Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies in Left on Tenth. Joan Marcus'></noscript> But then, in the middle of a deliriously new kind of happiness, as soon as they let down their defenses and admit they’re in it for keeps and ready for a new chapter of happy-ever-after, Delia is diagnosed with the same cancer that killed Nora, and it becomes Peter’s focus to save her. For under two hours without intermission, Left on Tenth works hard to stay light, juicing the wit out of one harrowing crisis after the next, including Delia’s repeated bone marrow tests. The play’s final chapter grows dark, but succeeds in relieving tension thanks to the sensational charm and chemistry of its two stars, both exquisitely directed by Susan Stroman. Julianna Margulies has been terrific in a number of TV series, but nothing I’ve seen her do equals the range of emotions she shows here. She’s a sharp, focused Delia, and Peter Gallagher is a handsome, appealing life force in every scene they share onstage—supportive, brave, and too good to be true. I’ve admired him often onstage, especially as Sky Masterson in the smash-hit revival of Guys and Dolls and opposite Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand in Mike Nichols’ superb production of The Country Girl, but never have his diverse skills melded so consummately as they do in Left on Tenth.“Life wasn’t meant to be celebrated in only one way,” he says to Delia when she prays for death in the hospital. “Life is joy and life is pain, and it’s OK to experience both.” The point, I think, is that it’s admirable for three-dimensional people to give each other the space to forge ahead in the face of life’s constant defeats. This is a story of compassion, danger, and hope on a heartfelt personal level as it highlights the way a dealt with the death of her sister, husband, and two devoted dogs (played adorably by two four-legged scene stealers named Dulce and Charlie)—but without a trace of remorse or self-indulgence. “This is rough,” says Delia. “This,” answers her oncologist, “is war.” She won the battle and it’s no spoiler to remind you that we know going in it has a happy ending. It’s as much a comedy about second chances as it is a drama about survival—a skinny dip into the courage and decency of two extraordinary people who never took the easy way out as they fought for a better life in a world of life’s most turbulent challenges. Left on Tenth | 1hr 40mins. No intermission. | James Earl Jones Theater | 138 W 48th St | 212-239-6200 | <a target="_blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://leftontenthbroadway.com/" data-lasso-id="2628211">Buy Tickets Here</a> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1460690</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Michael Keaton Shines in ‘Goodrich’—A Heartfelt Comeback for Real Men on Screen</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/10/rex-reed-movie-review-michael-keaton-shines-in-goodrich/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:58:48 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[3-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Comedy Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael Keaton]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Paul Newman]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Cary Grant]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Humphrey Bogart]]></category> <category><![CDATA[John Wayne]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Hallie Meyers-Shyer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Nancy Meyers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mila Kunis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Andie MacDowell]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Carmen Ejogo]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Keven Pollak]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael Urie]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Laura Benanti]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Frank Sinatra]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1459716</guid> <description><![CDATA[With wit, warmth and a stellar supporting cast, 'Goodrich' delivers laughs and tears in one of Michael Keaton’s most charming roles yet.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1459715 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/GOODRICH-Photo-Credit-courtesy-of-Black-Bear.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis sitting in folding chairs holding wine glasses" width="970" height="675" data-caption='Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis in Goodrich. Courtesy of Black Bear'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1459715 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/GOODRICH-Photo-Credit-courtesy-of-Black-Bear.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis sitting in folding chairs holding wine glasses" width="970" height="675" data-caption='Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis in Goodrich. Courtesy of Black Bear'></noscript> One of the things I like best about watching Michael Keaton on the screen in movies, good or <a href="https://observer.com/2014/10/michael-keaton-is-the-sole-redeeming-thing-about-birdman-which-isnt-saying-much/">bad</a> (and especially in human and often hilarious comedies like Goodrich), is <a href="https://observer.com/2024/03/knox-goes-away-movie-review-michael-keatons-exemplary-crime-drama/">the rare and gratifying skill set</a> he shows us in his acting. He’s a master of the kind of <a href="https://observer.com/2017/01/the-founder-review-michael-keaton-rex-reed/">uniquely personal leading-man character</a> filmmakers no longer have much interest in—a real-as-breathing combination of calloused toughness and warm sensitivity many stage actors work to perfect but few film actors get the chance to try. Men on the screen are expected to cohere to the kind of <a href="https://observer.com/2024/09/the-thicket-rex-reed-review-blood-violence-in-bleak-western/">one-dimensional masculine clichés</a> moviegoers applaud—the two-fisted graduates of the Nautilus School of Dramatic Art that keep <a href="https://observer.com/2024/05/poolman-movie-review-zero-stars-chris-pine-trash-directorial-debut/">muscles toned and brains safe</a> from any activity that might challenge the IQ. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> GOODRICH ★★★ (3.5/4 stars) Directed by: Hallie Meyers-Shyer Written by: Hallie Meyers-Shyer Starring: Michael Keaton, Mila Kunis, Andie MacDowell, Carmen Ejogo, Keven Pollak, Michael Urie, Laura Benanti Running time: 110 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Both the male and female personality traits all men have—but most men hide, disguise or camouflage—used to be attractively personified on the screen by actors as diverse as Van Johnson and Robert Walker (and, to some extent, by Glenn Ford, Paul Newman and Cary Grant) in roles Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne could never play. From <a href="https://observer.com/tag/batman/">Batman</a> to <a href="https://observer.com/tag/james-bond/">007</a> and an endless parade of assorted spies and secret agents who blow up cars and slap women around, three-dimensional male characters today seldom exist beyond the pages of <a href="https://observer.com/tag/comic-books/">Marvel Comics</a>. A man who can cry? Screenwriters don’t know how to write one, and actors can’t play them. In the movies, real men don’t exist. That’s where Michael Keaton comes in. In Goodrich, he plays Andy, the high-profile owner of a struggling boutique art gallery in Los Angeles, so caught up in the distractions of business and the demands of social life that he has unwisely forgotten to share himself with the people who love him. When his wife phones him in the middle of the night to inform him she’s checked into a 90-day rehab to treat her addiction to drugs, an illness he didn’t even know about, he freaks out, then drives to the posh, expensive hospital for distinguished addicts he’s paying for without knowing it, and discovers she’s also left him. Suddenly, after ignoring everything about parenting throughout two marriages, he finds himself in the awkward, terrifying position of taking on the responsibility of raising a pair of nine-year-old twins, first feeding his son Chinese takeout, which the boy is allergic to, then facing an unsympathetic blank wall when he turns for help to his estranged, pregnant, 36-year-old daughter Gracie (a wonderful Mila Kunis), who has her own problems. On top of that, the art gallery that keeps them all afloat is suddenly facing bankruptcy. Balancing stress, juggling his mounting responsibilities, and finding himself gobsmacked in his new role of father to multiple-age children, Goodrich faces disaster at every turn, with results both harrowing and fraught with tenderness and compassion. There’s one very funny scene in which Goodrich stays home at a great cost to his business and, in an attempt to be a better person, agrees to watch a movie with them, then labors to explain Casablanca. There’s no way to avoid the resemblances of this film to one of Keaton’s biggest past successes, Mr. Mom, but it’s consistently more intelligent and original. This is due in no small part to the writing and direction of Hallie Meyers-Shyer, the daughter of Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, the innovational husband-wife team responsible for such memorable and enduring comedy classics as Private Benjamin and Baby Boom. The skills she’s learned from her parents are refreshing and numerous. But it is Michael Keaton who keeps the film balanced and beautifully timed, his face so full of emotion and feeling that he lets you know what he’s thinking even without words. The film matches his charm with an abundance of charms of its own, exploring a lot of characters without ever straining credulity, all played by a superb supporting cast that includes Andie MacDowell as the first Mrs. Goodrich, Carmen Ejogo as a customer who almost saves the gallery from its inevitable demise, Keven Pollak as the business partner who succumbs to the demands of financial logic, Michael Urie as a divorced gay man with a terminally ill child of his own, and Laura Benanti as the new and hopelessly despondent wife in rehab. Each one is diagrammed just enough that you get to know them about them without overstaying their welcome. Some support Goodrich, others disappoint him, and one even ruins his business but never stops smiling—but none leave him untouched. Or you. By the time Frank Sinatra sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” you’ll be hard to suppress a tear yourself. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1459716</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Kate Winslet’s Transfixing Performance Makes ‘Lee’ Vivid and Unforgettable</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/09/rex-reed-movie-review-lee-miller-kate-winslet/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 30 Sep 2024 18:46:12 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[4-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Biopics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Historical Drama]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Kate Winslet]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Lee Miller]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Man Ray]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Roland Penrose]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Alexander Skarsgard]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Andy Samberg]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ellen Kuras]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Liz Hannah]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marion Hume]]></category> <category><![CDATA[John Collee]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Adolf Hitler]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Josh O'Connor]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1456601</guid> <description><![CDATA[Great biopics about great people demand great writing and great centerpiece performances.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1456425 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Lee-3.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Woman in 1940s warzone dress and a helmet holding a camera" width="970" height="645" data-caption='Kate Winslet as Lee Miller. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1456425 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Lee-3.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Woman in 1940s warzone dress and a helmet holding a camera" width="970" height="645" data-caption='Kate Winslet as Lee Miller. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions'></noscript> Great biopics about great people demand great writing and great centerpiece performances. The splendid film Lee, a riveting, honorable and comprehensive chronicle about the extraordinary life, work and importance of the impactful, world-famous photojournalist Lee Miller, with a sensational focus on the truth by Oscar winner Kate Winslet in the starring role, gets both. Everything in this exemplary picture spells <a href="https://observer.com/2023/07/oppenheimer-review-an-unforgettable-rarity-in-the-swamp-of-movie-mediocrity/" data-lasso-id="2609902">the kind of quality</a> I haven’t seen on the screen since Oppenheimer. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> LEE ★★★★ (4/4 stars) Directed by: Ellen Kuras Written by: Liz Hannah, Marion Hume, John Collee Starring: Kate Winslet, Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgard, Josh O’Connor Running time: 116 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Framed by an interview with a British journalist shortly before she died in 1977, the narrative uses the celebrated photos she took of the horrors of World War II to serve as guideposts to her reputation as a pioneer and fearlessly honest truthteller about what she saw and experienced, reported with a unique style, bringing the facts of war to a public readership in, among other places, the pages of British Vogue—read by a league of fans who were otherwise hugely unconscious and unaware of the futility of war. She used her camera as her companion to reveal crimes of humanity that awakened people to atrocities they never otherwise suspected. A native American from upstate New York who first achieved fame as a fashion model, Miller settled in France in 1938 and became a photographer under the guidance of her mentor, the illustrious Man Ray, then moved to London, married art dealer-poet-leader of the British surrealist art movement Roland Penrose (played by uber-handsome Alexander Skarsgard), and teamed up with scruffy, unconventional fellow photographer David Scherman (solidly, supportively played by Andy Samberg) to expose the ravages of the approaching war in the pages of Life magazine. Defying the odds, among the stories they covered that grabbed worldwide attention were the fight against British traditions that refused to send women to the European front even as England itself was being bombed, photographing the first uses of napalm, the shame of French women with shaved heads who had served as collaborators, and the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation. Even when she had the chance to go home, Lee moved closer to the German border, capturing for posterity images of amputee soldiers, murdered children and dead Red Cross workers. She and partner Scherman were the first journalists to record the liberation of the camps at Buchenwald and Dachau, as well as the devastation left behind in the streets of Berlin by the Reich. These images—some preserved in their originality, but also recreated brilliantly by cinematographer-turned-director Ellen Kuras—include the legendary photo that appeared in Life magazine after Lee, using her charm and beauty as a familiar fashion icon, bribed her way into Adolf Hitler’s private living quarters, stripped naked and posed in the Fuhrer’s bathtub after his suicide. Driven to the edge of insanity by what she saw and recorded for history, Lee Miller retired from public life after the war, but she was restored to legendary global status after she died in 1977 by the efforts of her son (another superb characterization by Josh O’Connor) and every important aspect of her story’s important significance is tensely, captivatingly preserved in the mesmerizing screenplay by Liz Hannah, John Collee and Marion Hume. Enough cannot be said about the film or Kate Winslet’s transfixing performance in it—irritating, admirable, challenging, sometimes unlikeable, always heroic—as she elevates the complex personality conflicts of Lee Miller into a cohesive, resplendent, three-dimensional whole. Filmed in England, Hungary and Croatia, Lee is a vivid and unforgettable tribute to one of the bold women who devoted her life to the penetration of male dominance to change the way we see the world. Don’t even think about missing it. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1456601</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Who Can Blame an Apathetic Halle Berry? ‘Never Let Go’ Is Relentlessly Obtuse.</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/09/rex-reed-movie-review-never-let-go/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 30 Sep 2024 13:59:17 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[1-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Horror Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Halle Berry]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Anthony B. Jenkins]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Alexandre Aja]]></category> <category><![CDATA[M. Night Shyamalan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Percy Daggs IV]]></category> <category><![CDATA[KC Coughlin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ryan Grassby]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Stephanie Lavigne]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1456496</guid> <description><![CDATA["Confusing and indecisive from start to finish."]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1456498 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/nlg-unit-230421-00363rc2.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Woman staring toward the ground in fear" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Halle Berry as Momma in Never Let Go. Liane Hentscher/Lionsgate'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1456498 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/nlg-unit-230421-00363rc2.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Woman staring toward the ground in fear" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Halle Berry as Momma in Never Let Go. Liane Hentscher/Lionsgate'></noscript> A state of desperate deprivation that signifies the lack of imagination that plagues most movies today and deprives decent performers from doing their usual work with pride is seriously damaging a lot of otherwise admirable careers. Oscar winner Halle Berry is <a href="https://observer.com/2018/04/movie-review-halle-berry-daniel-craig-star-in-haphazard-mess-kings/" data-lasso-id="2609714">one of the most undeserving victims</a> of the mediocrity that is rampant on screens from coast to coast. <a href="https://observer.com/2024/08/rex-reed-the-union-movie-review-endless-predictable-cliches-1-star/" data-lasso-id="2609715">Her most recent handful of flops</a> have disappeared overnight, and a stupid, time-wasting horror film called Never Let Go might vanish even faster than that. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> NEVER LET GO ★ (1/4 stars) Directed by: Alexandre Aja Written by: KC Coughlin, Ryan Grassby Starring: Halle Berry, Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV, Stephanie Lavigne Running time: 101 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Confusing and indecisive from start to finish, the film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a paranoid mother (Halle Berry, stripped of her usual glamour and beauty) lives in an isolated cabin in the woods with her twin sons and spends every hour protecting them from a mysterious evil presence lurking outside. As long as they stay inside, behind locked doors, or connect their bodies to the house with ropes, they are safe. But if they ask two many questions or stray too far, all hell threatens to break loose. Unfortunately, the film is so relentlessly obtuse that questions are inescapable. What is going on here? Why are they living in the middle of a dark and murky woods in the first place instead of somewhere closer to what’s left of civilization? And what is the evil spell that threatens them with physical and psychological danger every day and especially after dark? Never Let Go never manages to answer any of a number of recurring questions adequately, and the movie makes no more sense than one of those head-scratchers by M. Night Shyamalan, which it annoyingly resembles. Searching for any kind of meaning is a waste of time and energy besides hints at themes of parenthood and survival in a dystopian future, but the script is uninspired, the third act resolution is incomprehensible, there are too many contrived surprises and twists to keep the audience awake, and although Halle Berry and the two children, Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins, struggle with what they’ve got, the performances seem phoned in. French director Alexandre Aja also helmed The Hills Have Eyes, which was one of the scariest and least compromising horror flicks of all time, and Piranha 3-D, which was not. This time, he’s come up with nothing more than a weak time waster for people seeking a brief Halloween distraction. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1456496</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone Are a Perfect Pair in ‘The Roommate’</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/09/theater-review-mia-farrow-patti-lupone-the-roommate/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 13 Sep 2024 15:15:16 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Booth Theatre]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Broadway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Theater Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mia Farrow]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Patti LuPone]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jen Silverman]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jack O]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jack O'Brien]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1451566</guid> <description><![CDATA[Call 'The Roommate' glamorous summer stock. Sometimes, that’s enough, even on Broadway.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1451561 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/The-Roommate-2.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A strawberry blond woman in glasses and a brown cardigan pours coffee on a kitchen island while a brunette woman across from her holds a bottle of creamer" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Patti Lupone and Mia Farrow star in &#8216;The Roommate&#8217; at Booth Theatre. Matthew Murphy'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1451561 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/The-Roommate-2.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A strawberry blond woman in glasses and a brown cardigan pours coffee on a kitchen island while a brunette woman across from her holds a bottle of creamer" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Patti Lupone and Mia Farrow star in &#8216;The Roommate&#8217; at Booth Theatre. Matthew Murphy'></noscript> Mia Farrow has not been on a Broadway stage for so long that we forgot how much we missed her. Now she’s back in a new play called The Roommate, and she’s forgotten nothing, so why should we? She’s got the same fragile, pink, not-quite-grownup beauty and the same transcendental, understated charm she always had, but she’s added a few tricks to the mix in the direction of been-around maturity that spells wisdom. The play, by rookie playwright Jen Silverman, is a two-hander, which means there are two stars for the price of one, and the other half of the stage is more than fully occupied by the formidable Patti LuPone. To be honest, nobody who knows—or cares—about the theatre would call The Roommate anything to write home about. But with co-stars like these, you certainly get your money’s worth. If opposites attract, then the Farrow-LuPone combo is what I call perfect casting. Farrow plays Sharon, a lonely 65-year-old divorced nerd with dated pigtails, square midwestern values, and a future as bleak as the big, ugly kitchen in Sharon’s dismal house in, of all places, Iowa City. Desperate for someone to talk to and fill her spare bedroom, she places an ad for a roommate and gets Robyn, a tough, jaded, pot-smoking Bronx lesbian with a sordid past the word “unconventional” doesn’t begin to cover. Sharon never had a roommate in her life, much less a lesbian roommate. She doesn’t drink anything stronger than Sanka and never smoked so much as a chlorophyll filter, while Robyn carries around a bottle of whiskey and grows her own “medicinal herbs” in pots on the window sill, which she puffs until cross-eyed. Sharon likes to cook, and Robyn is a vegetarian. They both were once married and they each have grown children who live as far away from their mothers as they can get and communicate only by long distance. Sharon says she’s retired from marriage, but as the play drags on, it becomes pretty obvious that she’s really retired from life. With a familiarity that slowly grows into a cautious but relaxed trust, Robyn reveals her criminal past, which grew from scamming the elderly out of their life savings to stealing automobiles. Sharon finds it all so fascinating that she longs to fill Robyn’s shoes, eager to try everything. Before it’s over, under her roommate’s supervision, Sharon is running a big business baking pot brownies, ripping off the women in her book club, buying assault weapons at the Walmart in Cedar Rapids, and even entertaining the idea of same-sex hanky panky. Robbing and stealing and selling dope, mild-mannered Sharon at last finds a good reason to get up in the morning. The Roommate, I’m sorry to say, is not very good. Nothing ever happens in it. The ladies talk incessantly but never say anything relevant. It’s only 100 minutes in length without an intermission, but seems much longer. Still, the comic timing of Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, under the polished direction of veteran Jack O’Brien, provided the elements for a satisfactory evening, and the deafening cheers of the audience the night I saw the play seemed to agree. If nothing else, call The Roommate glamorous summer stock. But sometimes, that’s enough, even on Broadway. The Roommate | 1hr 30mins. No intermission. | Booth Theatre | 222 W 45th Street | 866-302-0995 | <a target="_blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://theroommatebway.com/">Buy Tickets Here</a> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1451566</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Speak No Evil’ Collapses in Carnage</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/09/rex-reed-speak-no-evil-movie-review-james-mcavoys-one-man-show/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 13 Sep 2024 00:03:50 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[3-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Horror Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Thrillers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[James McAvoy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[James Watkins]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Christian Tafdrup]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mads Tafdrup]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mackenzie Davis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Scoot McNairy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Alix West Lefler]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Aisling Franciosi]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dan Hough]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Blumhouse]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1451550</guid> <description><![CDATA['An assault on the senses.']]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1451549 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Speak-No-Evil-Courtesy-of-Universal-Pictures.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Angry man in a red checked flannel looking in a mirror" width="970" height="647" data-caption='From start to finish, James McAvoy mesmerizes. Courtesy of Universal Pictures'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1451549 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Speak-No-Evil-Courtesy-of-Universal-Pictures.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Angry man in a red checked flannel looking in a mirror" width="970" height="647" data-caption='From start to finish, James McAvoy mesmerizes. Courtesy of Universal Pictures'></noscript> Remakes are odious, but Speak No Evil, while thoroughly unneeded and unasked for, is an Americanized remake of a 2022 thriller from Denmark that services its original material well, thanks mostly to a sprawling, contradictory and totally galvanizing centerpiece performance by James McAvoy. He’s the fine Scottish actor best known for <a href="https://observer.com/2007/12/iatonementi-is-my-favorite-of-the-year/" data-lasso-id="2601476">his outstanding work</a> in The Last King of Scotland and Atonement, not to mention <a href="https://observer.com/2022/04/jamie-lloyd-on-directing-james-mcavoy-at-bam-and-why-we-all-have-cyranos-nose/" data-lasso-id="2601477">his memorable Cyrano de Bergerac</a> on the New York stage. In Speak No Evil, McAvoy plays the villain, over the top and all over the place, and he has such a blast doing it that you can’t take your eyes off him for a minute. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> SPEAK NO EVIL ★★★ (3/4 stars) Directed by: James Watkins Written by: James Watkins, Christian Tafdrup, Mads Tafdrup Starring: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Alix West Lefler, Aisling Franciosi, Dan Hough Running time: 110 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Despite some updates by writer-director James Watkins and a lot of savage violence to make it more palatable for an American movie audience, the plot begins in basically the same way as it did two years ago: Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) are an American couple living in London with their daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler), who meet a friendly British family during a getaway in Italy. Paddy (McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their mute son Ant (terrific young newcomer Dan Hough) are all so charming that the Daltons accept an invitation to visit them for a weekend at their rambling farm in the British countryside. Things begin oddly. <img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1451548 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Speak-No-Evil-3-Courtesy-of-Universal-Picturesjpg.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Worried man and woman with their daughter" width="970" height="646" data-caption='Why don’t they just leave? They try. Courtesy of Universal Pictures'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1451548 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Speak-No-Evil-3-Courtesy-of-Universal-Picturesjpg.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Worried man and woman with their daughter" width="970" height="646" data-caption='Why don’t they just leave? They try. Courtesy of Universal Pictures'></noscript> Louise and Ben can’t hide their marital problems. Their daughter Agnes is almost 13 but still emotionally attached to a stuffed rabbit. Ben is an unemployed lawyer who feels emasculated by his inability to get a job in England. Paddy knows Ciara is a vegetarian but insists on feeding her a goose for dinner. Ciara pretends to perform oral sex on Paddy under the table. Louise is at first aghast by their role-playing, then annoyed when they lecture Agnes on how to behave publicly. Tensions turn to horror when Agnes and Ant, forced to share a bedroom, become intimate friends and the little boy confides in the little girl that the Daltons are not his parents at all, but two fiends who killed his real family, kidnapped him and cut out his tongue with a pair of scissors so he could never tell anyone the truth. Why don’t they just leave? They try. Horrified, the Americans plan to escape in the middle of the night and save Ant in the process, but somebody always does something stupid in horror flicks like this, so they all foolishly return to fetch Agnes’ stuffed rabbit. From here on, Speak No Evil loses its claim to reality and goes berserk in an assault on the senses that defies credibility and collapses in carnage. It’s all rather far-fetched and silly. The thrills are contrived but effective enough to make your hair stand on end. I had a good time watching it, against my better judgment. And I especially applaud the relentless one-man show that is James McAvoy, from start to finish. He’s mesmerizing. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1451550</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘The Thicket’ Review: Blood, Violence and Little Else in This Bleak Western</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/09/the-thicket-rex-reed-review-blood-violence-in-bleak-western/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 21:02:13 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[2-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Action Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Westerns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Peter Dinklage]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Juliette Lewis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Annie Oakley]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Elliott Lester]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Chris Kelley]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Leslie Grace]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Esme Creed-Miles]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Levon Hawke]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1450248</guid> <description><![CDATA[There’s no plot to write home about, slim hope for a happy ending and among a multitude of characters, a parade of villains that outnumber the heroes.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1450323 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/THE-THICKET-Juliette-Lewis-22.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Woman on horseback in a snowy landscape" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Juliette Lewis steals every scene in The Thicket as a vicious bank robber and serial killer. © 2023 Thicket Alberta Productions Inc. / The Thicket US Inc.'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1450323 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/THE-THICKET-Juliette-Lewis-22.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Woman on horseback in a snowy landscape" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Juliette Lewis steals every scene in The Thicket as a vicious bank robber and serial killer. © 2023 Thicket Alberta Productions Inc. / The Thicket US Inc.'></noscript> The search never ends for ways to make old genres like cowboy movies look fresh and different. To this purpose, there is a shoot-em-up called The Thicket. No cowboys here, but it’s still a Western, with plenty of shooting. Call it a nouveau western, which means more psychology than action, and fewer saddle horses than arty rock formations. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> THE THICKET ★★ (2/4 stars) Directed by: Elliott Lester Written by: Chris Kelley, Joe R. Lansdale Starring: Juliette Lewis, Peter Dinklage, Levon Hawk Running time: 108 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> One thing is the same: there’s no plot to write home about, slim hope for a happy ending, and among a multitude of characters, a parade of villains that outnumber the heroes. When their parents die from smallpox, Jack Parker (Levon Hawke) and his younger sister Lula (Esme Creed-Miles) are escorted by their grandfather to a ferry that will take them to the home of a guardian aunt. But before they can cross the river, a vicious bank robber-serial killer called Cut Throat Bill (played by a woman, Juliette Lewis) kills Grandpa, kidnaps Lula, and drags her off to a remote landscape called The Thicket. The boy enlists the services of a bounty hunter called Reginald Jones (Peter Dinklage) and his accomplice, an ex-slave who digs graves for a living, to track down Cut Throat Bill and save his sister from a fate worse than death. (In addition to murdering half of the populace, Bill is also something of a pervert. She takes great pleasure forcing her terrified lady prisoner to strip, then curls up in her arms by the fire while she sleeps. Other female captives who refused Bill’s advances in the past, we are told, ended up with body parts strewn across the prairie.) On the journey to find Lula, Jack lands in a brutal fight in a town brothel and rescues a prostitute named Jimmie Sue (Leslie Grace), who joins the three men on their search and does her share of the killings. To pass the time and justify the film’s nearly two-hour length, director Elliott Lester and screenwriter Chris Kelley concentrate on loading everyone with enough oddball characteristics to convince jaded viewers who hate Westerns that they are watching something unique. The bounty hunter is a dwarf whose father sold him as a freak to a carnival show for $40 and two goats when he was just a child; his pride and joy is a rifle he drags around that was a gift from Annie Oakley. The film’s most outrageous and consistently interesting character is the savage Cut Throat Bill, played with evil, cackling glee by Juliette Lewis. Addicted to licorice, she slaughters everybody who has any, sucking and chewing her way through every scene—covered with scars, scowling with a septic grin, and speaking in a voice that sounds like a slow-moving tractor wheel. She’s over the top, but even though this is not the kind of movie that shows actors off at their best, it is the kind of film an actor can easily steal just by being hammier than everyone else—a job she manages quite well. People speak in crude, clipped grunts, the dialogue blurred, along with the action and all muted attempts at character motivation and time frames meld uncomfortably. In one scene, Lula searches for a trace of plant life in the primitive west while a man in goggles flies by on a motorcycle, decades before the invention of the engine. It all plays out in a vast, snowy wasteland that is no phony setting. When the horses snort, the air fills with steam from their breath. There’s a lot of bloody action to satisfy the director’s need for photographing red blood splattered on white snow. It looks as bleak as it should and in spite of its pointlessness, there’s always something visual to admire. By my calculation, only two cast members are still alive at the end of this movie, and I won’t reveal any spoilers about who they are or where they’re going, although I’m not sure what it is anyone could spoil about The Thicket. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1450248</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Hemingway’s Worst Novel Gets Worse: ‘Across the River’ Is a Dull, Pointless Misfire</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/09/across-the-river-rex-reed-review-a-lifeless-adaptation-of-hemingways-novel/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:01:20 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[1-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Historical Drama]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ernest Hemingway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Paula Ortiz]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Liev Schreiber]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Javier Aguirresarobe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Matilda De Angelis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Peter Flannery]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1449544</guid> <description><![CDATA["A lifeless stump destined for box-office doom."]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1449513 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/ACROSS-THE-RIVER-_-MATILDA-_-LIEV-e1725371645141.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A man and a woman looking at each over on a bridge overlooking a canal" width="970" height="710" data-caption='Matilda de Angelis and Liev Schreiber star in &#8216;Across the River and Into the Trees,&#8217; a lifeless stump destined for box-office doom. Courtesy Tribune Pictures'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1449513 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/ACROSS-THE-RIVER-_-MATILDA-_-LIEV-e1725371645141.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A man and a woman looking at each over on a bridge overlooking a canal" width="970" height="710" data-caption='Matilda de Angelis and Liev Schreiber star in &#8216;Across the River and Into the Trees,&#8217; a lifeless stump destined for box-office doom. Courtesy Tribune Pictures'></noscript> Does anyone know how to make a movie these days that makes sense, with enough plot, narrative coherence and character development to <a href="https://observer.com/2024/05/jeanne-du-barry-movie-review-maiwenn-johnny-depp/" data-lasso-id="2592534">keep a viewer from falling asleep</a>? Hope springs eternal, but the answer, <a href="https://observer.com/2024/08/rex-reed-the-union-movie-review-endless-predictable-cliches-1-star/" data-lasso-id="2592535">from almost everything I’ve seen lately</a>, is no. The newest time-waster is Across the River and Into the Trees, a dismal disappointment based on the last full-length novel written by Ernest Hemingway and published to abysmal reviews in 1950 (later came The Old Man and the Sea, but that was a short novella, not a novel). Now, more than 70 years later and for reasons unexplained, along comes a dull, pointless movie version of Across the River, proving Hemingway’s worst book has not improved with age. Director Paula Ortiz, obviously obsessed with the source material but understandably realizing how resistant it has always been to film, has changed practically everything about the book, including the plot, the characters and even the postwar years in which it takes place. Nothing, I regret to say, helps. It’s lifeless as a stump, and destined for box-office doom. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES ★ (1/4 stars) Directed by: Paula Ortiz Written by: Ernest Hemingway, Peter Flannery Starring: Leiv Schreiber, Matilda De Angelis Running time: 106 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> In the novel, irascible American army colonel Richard Cantwell returns to Venice after World War I, driven to his rendezvous with the beautiful young countess Renata Contarini while suffering from a terminal heart condition, remembering both the passion of their romance and the beauty of the most beautiful city in Italy and died, leaving readers scratching their heads with frustration, wondering how a work of such emptiness could emanate from so exalted a literary source. For this new version of the story, the time is updated until shortly after World War II, and the colonel now meets Renata when she is moonlighting as the driver of a <keyword data-keyword-id="262208">water</keyword> taxi on the Grand Canal. She is preparing for her wedding, but for reasons not altogether plausible, she devotes enough days and nights to her sudden infatuation with the gruff, crude colonel to fall in love. He is played by Liev Schreiber, a dour, sour-faced actor who never smiles, without a shred of humor or irony. Worse still, Cantwell suffers from a coronary thrombosis, popping nitroglycerine, smoking incessantly and dangerously swigging booze. When all else fails, there is always Venice, but as the humorless American military man and his lovely Italian guide meander around the historic treasures, cobblestone alleys and moonlit canals (gorgeously photographed by cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe, I dare you to say that one three times in a row without reaching for a valium) he invests less time enjoying the always restorative pleasure of sitting under the moon listening to a jazz orchestra in the Piazza San Marco, and more time being tortured with guilt about a wartime ambush in a nearby town that cost the lives of 338 men. He quotes Stonewall Jackson and after Renata’s wedding, pretends to go duck hunting, but after the sound of his rifle is heard, the camera pans the lake, the boat is empty, and no dead duck falls from the sky on its way to a dish of duck l’orange. Despite the muted talk about love, death, growing old, war and pasta, you can draw your own conclusions. A few tender scenes are enlivened by the beautiful and charm of Schreiber’s co-star Matilda De Angelis, an enchanting newcomer who lights up the screen as Countess Renata, but the dreary screenplay by Peter Flannery fails to find a dramatic thread that makes this a movie worth sitting through, and Schreiber never gets anywhere near the key to colonel’s heart and soul. I didn’t think it possible to make a boring movie about Venice, but this one manages to do so. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1449544</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘The Union’: Noisy, Deadly and Boring All at Once</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/08/rex-reed-the-union-movie-review-endless-predictable-cliches-1-star/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 16 Aug 2024 23:34:31 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[1-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Action Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[James Bond]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Thrillers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Halle Berry]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mark Wahlberg]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Julian Farino]]></category> <category><![CDATA[joe barton]]></category> <category><![CDATA[J.K. Simmons]]></category> <category><![CDATA[David Guggenheim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tom Cruise]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Netflix]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1445489</guid> <description><![CDATA[The goofball heroics are so second-rate they rob the film of any personality of its own.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1445493 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/UNN_20220626_17181_R.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry in The Union. Laura Radford/Netflix'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1445493 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/UNN_20220626_17181_R.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry in The Union. Laura Radford/Netflix'></noscript> <a href="https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-fabulous-four-movie-review-an-unsalvageable-mess/" data-lasso-id="2583918">I’m no stranger to lament</a> when it comes to <a href="https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-fly-me-to-the-moon-movie-review-sad-silly-over-produced/" data-lasso-id="2583919">the disintegration of quality</a> in <a href="https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-movie-review-longlegs-is-a-stupid-zero-star-dumpster-fire/" data-lasso-id="2583920">what passes for movies today</a>, but then along comes a bucket of swill like The Union to remind me things are even worse than I thought. This contrived, pointless, blindingly boring vehicle is a pathetic, desperate attempt to keep Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg’s careers alive. Berry’s beauty is pleasant enough for a single-star rating, but the rest arrives six feet under and stays that way. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> THE UNION ★ (1/4 stars) Directed by: Julian Farino Written by: Joe Barton, David Guggenheim Starring: Hally Berry, J.K. Simmons, Mark Wahlberg Running time: 109 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> She plays Roxanne, a sexy spy and two-fisted killer who works for a powerful secret agency called “The Union,” dedicated to saving the free world. (It’s not clear from what.) After a job that goes wrong in Trieste, Italy, resulting in a colossal massacre, The Union decides it needs a new face, plain as pizza dough and unrecognizable to the criminal underworld (translation: i.e., a nobody). Roxanne thinks immediately of her old high school boyfriend Mike (Mark Wahlberg), a construction worker in New Jersey whose banal life of sophistication and adventure extends no further than climbing ladders and hanging out with his brain-dead buddies drinking beer. When she looks him up to renew old memories, he moves in for a clinch, but instead of a kiss, she stabs him in the neck with a hypodermic tranquilizer and he wakes up in London, where the boss of The Union (J.K. Simmons) encourages Roxanne to teach him the power of persuasion any way she can. Mike hasn’t seen Roxanne for 25 years, and now she’s recruiting him to risk his life as an innocent, inexperienced and untrained secret 007. The purpose of all this hugga-mugga is neither coherent nor believable, but <a href="https://observer.com/2021/10/no-time-to-die/" data-lasso-id="2583921">the lure of being the next James Bond</a>, delivering five million dollars to an army of the world’s most dangerous international thugs while simultaneously falling for a sexy spy with an assault weapon, convinces Mike to join The Union immediately (provided, of course, that he gets back to Jersey in time to be the best man in a pal’s wedding). He’s never been anywhere beyond downtown Hoboken, but before <a href="https://observer.com/2008/01/manhattan-weekend-box-office-iramboi-beats-the-ispartansi-unleashes-nagging-selfdoubt/" data-lasso-id="2583922">you can say Rambo</a>, he’s dodging bullets, leaping from London rooftops, and driving on the wrong side of the street. The movie doesn’t make one lick of sense, which means it falls perfectly in line with most of the other moronic time-wasters that are polluting the ozone these days. Roxanne focuses on rigorous physical and psychological training to prepare Mike for his first mission: infiltrating an auction offering stolen intelligence information to the highest bidder for hundreds of millions to retrieve a hard drive containing the names and identities of every spy in the history of Western civilization which, if obtained by the wrong spies, could destroy the free world. In a movie composed of endless predictable cliches, it’s got Iranian terrorists, a motorcycle race through the Italian streets, <a href="https://observer.com/2020/06/the-6-dos-and-donts-of-legacy-sequels/" data-lasso-id="2583923">mediocre explosions and shootouts we’ve seen before</a> in scores of Tom Cruise programmers. The goofball heroics are so second-rate they rob the film of any personality of its own. Hack director Julian Farino lacks the talent and the interest to explain what The Union is all about in terms anyone can understand. The script by Joe Barton and David Guggenheim never rises above a second-grade level, and there is nothing original or engaging about the film or the shallow performances in it. Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg have zero chemistry, but who can blame them for being so bland in a movie that reads like a manual from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? It’s not surprising for an action picture to be this humorless, but how can any film be so noisy, deadly and boring at the same time? The Union is to movies what salami on rye is to four-star gastronomy. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1445489</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Close to You’ Review: Elliot Page’s Brave, Bold, Confusing Performance</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/08/rex-reed-movie-review-of-elliot-page-in-close-to-you/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 13 Aug 2024 19:12:15 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[2-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LGBTQ]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Elliot Page]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dominic Savage]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Hillary Baack]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1444454</guid> <description><![CDATA[Nothing ends the way you think it will.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1444444 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/SAM_Day-9_IW_0007.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Actor Elliot Page sitting down holding mail in the film Close to You." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Elliot Page as Sam in Close to You. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1444444 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/SAM_Day-9_IW_0007.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Actor Elliot Page sitting down holding mail in the film Close to You." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Elliot Page as Sam in Close to You. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment'></noscript> After <a href="https://observer.com/2008/02/2008-best-picture-nominees-show-the-nation-in-midsquall/" data-lasso-id="2583839">a triumphant splash</a> in Juno, Elliot Page got Oscar nominated, was on his way to a promising career as an important film star with range and talent, and then suddenly disappeared for 17 years. What happened? Where did he go? Now we know. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> CLOSE TO YOU ★★(2/4 stars) Directed by: Dominic Savage Written by: Dominic Savage, Elliot Page Starring: Elliot Page, Hillary Baack Running time: 98 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Close to You is my first exposure to Page since his emergence as a wistful, sensitive and dedicated man named Elliot. His absence from the screen is entirely understandable for a variety of obvious reasons, and <a target="_blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a40011366/elliot-page-umbrella-academy-euphoria/" data-lasso-id="2583840">Elliot has expressed a serious need</a> to reach out to the vast number of friends, fans and prospective employers who wondered about his transition. To make sure you get the point, he has found a perfect vehicle in Close to You, emerging from bed in the opening scene naked, with a place for every feature, every feature in its place—flat-chested, no Adam’s apple, a clean-shaved chin with evidence of a five o’clock shadow, and a muscular torso that has been to the gym (but still a mystery about what goes where below the waist). I guess you could call it a brave, bold performance, but when you think about it you realize Page has no other choice if he wants to be both honest and a working artist with a viable future. He also wrote the screenplay with director Dominic Savage, so I think it’s safe to say the film includes excerpts from his personal experience. In Close to You, he plays Sam, a man living in Toronto, adjusting to his transition with a new job and a new life. Sam hasn’t seen his family for four years, but now he bites the bullet and takes a long-dreaded trip back home for his father’s birthday. On the train, he runs into Katherine, an old high school friend, and feelings from their unresolved past refresh old memories of deeply troubled times when they experienced a lesbian relationship that traumatized them both. Katherine is married with children, but still drawn to Sam. In the weekend that follows, there are more chance encounters, and the superficial circumstances that bring them together force them to interact in intensely personal ways that open old wounds and open new doors. Part of the problem with Close to You is Hillary Baack, who plays Katherine. Miscast and inexperienced, she is not up to Page’s standards and mumbles so incoherently that whole scenes clumsily pass by without clarity. At home, Sam is impacted even more. Every concern about how his parents and his siblings will react—plus the unsolicited comments and questions he receives about his transition—mirrors the ignorance, discomfort and terror in the eyes of the people who say they love him best but understand him least. The film is an emotionally observant drama about coming home as yourself, only for everyone to treat you like a stranger. “I’m happy,” Sam explains, “I’m living my life; I just need space. You weren’t worrying about me when I was not OK.” But as the domestic anxieties and challenges build, Sam must face the painful knowledge that coping is not his responsibility, and things have never really changed in a toxic environment that never felt fully welcoming in the first place. Things build to a violent explosion, Sam leaves with high expectations reduced to unresolved despair, and nothing ends the way you think it will, with everyone making nice and saying, “I forgive you.” But in a weak, vacillating postscript, raw honesty wanes when Katherine arrives in Toronto, gives in to her true feelings, and ends up in bed with Sam before she exits forever, with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. Despite Page’s lack of uncertainty about how to play a tender scene with maximum feeling, I didn’t believe this soapy resolve, and I found their nude sex scene not only a confusing way to end Close to You, but also just a little bit creepy. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1444454</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘The Fabulous Four’ Is the Latest Humiliation of Seniors Seeking Employment</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-fabulous-four-movie-review-an-unsalvageable-mess/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Jul 2024 16:17:44 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[1-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Comedy Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jane Fonda]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Diane Keaton]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mary Steenburgen]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Lily Tomlin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sally Field]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Rita Moreno]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Susan Sarandon]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sheryl Lee Ralph]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Megan Mullally]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bette Midler]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ernest Hemingway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bruce Greenwood]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jocelyn Moorhouse]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ann Marie Allison]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jenna Milly]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Candice Bergen]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1440826</guid> <description><![CDATA[Something about a cat with six toes from a museum in the former home of Ernest Hemingway?]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1440153 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/The-Fabulous-Four-1.png?w=970" alt="Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally in 'The Fabulous Four'" width="970" height="643" data-caption='Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally make fools of themselves in in &#8216;The Fabulous Four&#8217; Courtesy of Bleecker Street'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1440153 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/The-Fabulous-Four-1.png?w=970" alt="Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally in 'The Fabulous Four'" width="970" height="643" data-caption='Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally make fools of themselves in in &#8216;The Fabulous Four&#8217; Courtesy of Bleecker Street'></noscript> At a time when mature women are making giant strides toward honor, respect and dignity in every walk of life, progress to gain equal footing is evident everywhere except the movies. Even for accomplished award winners, if you’re a woman over 60 you’re toast. This has led to an alarming trend for aging stars still ready, willing and able to take their chances, pool their talents and band together on the same marquee to prove there’s safety in numbers. The results have so far been a sorry group of star-studded artistic and commercial flops that have failed to raise box-office expectations—ambitious projects such as <a href="https://observer.com/2023/05/book-club-the-next-chapter-rex-reed-movie-review-jane-fonda/" data-lasso-id="2568326">Book Club </a>(Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen) and 80 for Brady (Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, Rita Moreno). Their eulogies were more interesting than the films themselves. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> THE FABULOUS FOUR ★(1/4 stars) Directed by: Jocelyn Moorhouse Written by: Ann Marie Allison, Jenna Milly Starring: Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally, Bruce Greenwood Running time: 98 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The latest example of the humiliations lovely seniors desperately seeking employment are forced to endure in order to call themselves working actors is a dismal comedy without a shred of wit, imagination or originality called The Fabulous Four. A piddling plot so thin you could write it on a matchbook cover centers on four aging gal pals—friends and roommates through college who vowed to stay loyal and supportive through life. Lou (Susan Sarandon) is now a renowned heart surgeon, Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) is a successful organic farmer who has made a fortune turning her knowledge of plant life into a legal cannabis business, and Alice (Megan Mullally) is a rock star with a passion for booze, drugs, sex with younger men, and Kitty’s endless supply of pot. The fourth member of the quartet is the silly, wealthy, fun-seeking, champagne-guzzling, recently widowed Marilyn (Bette Midler). When Marilyn announces without warning that she’s going to be married again at her mansion in Key West, Kitty and Alice quickly plan to be bridesmaids, and talk the reluctant Lou into joining them. Lou hasn’t spoken to Marilyn for 40 years since she seduced Lou’s boyfriend and married him. Lou would never attend a wedding or anything else if it involved Marilyn, but Kitty and Alice convince her to tag along under false pretenses by promising her a cat with six toes from a museum in the former home of Ernest Hemingway. A lot of rage ensues when Lou discovers she’s been betrayed, and they all meander, scene by scene, through what’s left of the contrived screenplay. In a week tantamount to a reunion in hell, Lou falls in love with a bar owner (an aging Bruce Greenwood) who turns out to be the guy Marilyn is going to marry, Kitty becomes infatuated with a gay male stripper who turns out to be her grandson, and a lot of time is wasted on moronic dialogue (“Why are you sweating like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs?”) and confusing sex jokes. Much confusion results from one scene in which Marilyn plants a purple sex toy on a string called a Kegel ball in Lou’s bed. “What are you supposed to do with that?” asks Kitty. “You shove it up your vagina,” Lou answers dryly. So much for the screenplay. The action ends in a vicious fistfight between Bette Midler and Susan Sarandon, before it all leads up in a preposterous musical number with the whole cast singing and awkwardly dancing to the 1972 pop tune “I Can See Clearly Now.” So much for the direction. The movie is an unsalvageable mess, but the most appalling problem is its premise that women will do anything to be admired, respected and taken seriously, but once they accomplish any kind of stronghold position as equals, they make fools of themselves with any demeaning misstep that will get them into the arms (and beds) of men. Sarandon’s the intelligent, straight-laced pragmatist in the quartet, but she turns out to be the biggest birdbrain of them all by giving up her lifelong dedication to medicine, staying in Key West, and spending the rest of her life snorkeling. The way the fragments come together is implausible, but the way they all resolve in time for a happy ending is loopy and downright ludicrous. There is nothing fabulous about The Fabulous Four. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1440826</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>Drop-Dead Glamour-Puss Glen Powell Is a Reason to See ‘Twisters’</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-twisters-movie-review-dull-romance-great-special-effects/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:10:59 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[2-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Action Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Thrillers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Richard Rodgers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Oscar Hammerstein]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Helen Hunt]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bill Paxton]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Daisy Edgar-Jones]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Daryl McCormack]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Glen Powell]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Robert Redford]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mark L. Smith]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Lee Isaac Chung]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Anthony Ramos]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1436435</guid> <description><![CDATA[I guess my scoreboard reads: Twisters, 10. People: 0.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1436436 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Twisters-2.jpeg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A woman and a man stand in front of a open field with the sky and a truck in the background." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell star in &#8216;Twisters&#8217;, but the love affair part of the film is so wholesomely family-oriented that they never share even one single kiss. Courtesy of Universal Pictures'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1436436 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Twisters-2.jpeg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A woman and a man stand in front of a open field with the sky and a truck in the background." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell star in &#8216;Twisters&#8217;, but the love affair part of the film is so wholesomely family-oriented that they never share even one single kiss. Courtesy of Universal Pictures'></noscript> Before tornado movies threaten to become a cottage industry, just remember that in spite of both the bad ones and the forthcoming plans for more that are being assembled on the drawing boards as we speak, the only one that ever reached blockbuster status was the 1996 action epic Twister. In the realm of tornado movies, we now have Twisters. Erroneous publicity misleads us to consider it a sequel, which it isn’t. In fact, Twisters has nothing whatsoever to do with Twister, aside from the fact that it consists primarily of the same computer-generated special effects and it also takes place in Oklahoma, where the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein corn is no longer high as an elephant’s eye, but on its way to almost total crop destruction thanks to not one but an army of lethal, never-ending new twisters that seem to arrive every ten minutes, and the wind comes sweeping down the plain with pulse-pounding noise and life-altering force. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> TWISTERS ★★(2/4 stars) Directed by: Lee Isaac Chung Written by: Mark L. Smith Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, Glen Powell Running time: 122 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> There is also something of an obstacle-riddled romance, but nothing as interesting as the one in Twister. (You can’t improve on Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton, and only a fool would try.) The new female centerpiece is Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a lovely would-be scientist who grew up obsessed with weather, first shown in a prologue as a college student, placing some kind of gizmo inside the heart of a ferocious tornado in a dangerous project designed to record enough scientific data to give folks in the paths of devastating storms a better chance to prepare and run for their lives in advance of weather patterns. The research fails, killing three of her best friends who are blown away to Tornado Heaven, leaving Kate so depressed and disillusioned that she retires from studying the weather forever. Five years later, she’s a meteorologist in a Manhattan research lab, safe and far away from the dangers of Oklahoma twisters. An old boyfriend named Javi (Anthony Ramos), one of the few survivors of the college tragedy five years earlier, appears suddenly and, for reasons known only by the screenwriter, talks Kate into returning to Oklahoma to track another deadly storm. Subplots about Javi’s secret job working for a crook and a brief, aborted attempt to revive their stale romance are deleted fast between lightning flashes, ear-splitting wind tunnels and hail the size of billiard balls while Kate falls in with a new heartthrob named Tyler, played by drop dead Glen Powell, the fastest rising glamour-puss movie star since the young Robert Redford first appeared on the scene. The hot sparks between these two are leavened by their constant hostility. Kate and her crew aim to make a difference; Tyler is a storm tracker in it for excitement and adventure. References to the twister in The Wizard of Oz are annoying gimmicks inserted to inject some humor into the proceedings, including Tyler’s crew of storm chasers, with names like Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. But clearly, the only true wizards in Twisters are not in Kansas anymore—or Oz. They’re the fearless computer geniuses who have conjured up the fantastic special effects in this movie and made them work—the tractors flying through deafening decibel levels of howling wind and rain, the towns razed and obliterated by airborne trucks, barns, farmhouses, trees, chickens and even a rodeo. The thunderous effects they create would keep the Weather Channel in business for years. The sets, lighting design, and computer-generated special effects are superb, enhancing the viewer’s fascination with the subject matter. By comparison, the humans in Twisters are so unimportant and so undeveloped they seem like interlopers. The one-dimensional plot is tedious and the charm, good looks and style of the two leads are the only elements of the film that try but fail to invigorate. There don’t seem to be any limits to Glen Powell’s charisma. Even his smile is in Cinemascope and Technicolor, and he can act, too—although the benign script by Mark L. Smith is so mired in technology about pollen counts, anchor funnels, velocity measurements and silver oxide, and Lee Isaac Chung’s mediocre direction is so camouflaged in technical obscurity that they don’t give Mr. Powell much of an opportunity to show what he can do. The love affair part of the film is so wholesomely family-oriented that it’s about as sexy as an algebra book. There isn’t even one single kiss. Fortunately, the action sequences are nothing bland or dull, adding up to a whale of entertainment. I guess my scoreboard reads: Twisters, 10. People: 0. In the end, Kate prepares to return to New York, Tyler wants to know when she’ll come back, and there’s evidence that a lot of unfinished business is waiting to be solved. Twisters 2, anyone? ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1436435</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Is a Sad, Silly, Over-Produced Disappointment</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-fly-me-to-the-moon-movie-review-sad-silly-over-produced/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:01:13 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[2-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[NASA]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Romantic Comedies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Richard Nixon]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Scarlett Johansson]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Channing Tatum]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Buzz Aldrin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Neil Armstrong]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael Collins]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Walter Cronkite]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Henry Mancini]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Greg Berlanti]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Woody Harrelson]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1432624</guid> <description><![CDATA[I could do without the corny ploy of using “Destination Moon”, Henry Mancini’s “Moon River”, Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and other moon songs—but at least they got the year right.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1432627 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Fly_Me_To_The_Moon_Photo_0101.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum lack charisma in &#8216;Fly Me to the Moon&#8217;. © 2024 CTMG, Inc.'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1432627 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/Fly_Me_To_The_Moon_Photo_0101.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="647" data-caption='Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum lack charisma in &#8216;Fly Me to the Moon&#8217;. © 2024 CTMG, Inc.'></noscript> At a sorry time when most movies are about nothing, Fly Me to the Moon, a rom-com set in the chaos and cross purposes of the heroic Apollo 11 moon landing, deserves attention because even though it is a sad, silly, over-produced disappointment, at least it’s about something. Not very much, I’m afraid, but something. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> FLY ME TO THE MOON ★★(2/4 stars) Directed by: Greg Berlanti Written by: Rose Gilroy Starring: Woody Harrelson, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum Running time: 132 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The fatal tragedy that killed the astronauts in the deadly Apollo 1 disaster in 1961 so devastated the world that by the time NASA was ready to launch Apollo 11 in 1969, public enthusiasm had waned and Congress was reluctant to continue the financing. Underfunded and understaffed, the future of the space program was in serious jeopardy, but President Richard Nixon was so desperate to beat the Russians and get the first man on the moon that he dispatched one of his goons to hire a public relations expert to jazz up NASA’s public image. In this ambitious cinema confection with political icing, a nefarious Nixon puppet played with customary duplicitous charm by Woody Harrelson hires a fast-talking Madison Avenue con artist named Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), who is such a great combination market specialist and scam artist that she could sell ice cubes to the Eskimos. Before you can say “Mad Men,” she’s put NASA on the map, to the disgust and consternation of Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), the Apollo 11 launch director, who craves dignity, professionalism and ethics over the vulgarity of advertising. But with the approval and endorsement of Nixon, Kelly is in the catbird seat, with the power to run the program with her own personal philosophy that no commercial idea is too small, no technology too premature, and no expense too great. In record time, commerce triumphs over science as she finds endless ways to work Apollo 11 into every product endorsement from Peter Pan peanut butter to Fruit of the Loom underwear (well, she says, in outer space, even astronauts have to wear something). In the dynamics of this contrived narrative, she puts NASA on the map, he wants to put her six feet under, and because this is, above all, a glamorous rom-com with two beautiful people, while they’re fighting, they’re also falling in love. It’s not a bad formula for romance, but it has such severe narrative limitations it runs out of energy before the epic space vessel leaves the ground. “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” You can say that again. Eventually, Fly Me to the Moon loses its grip on the viewer’s concentration and falls apart when the Nixon stooge forces Kelly to stage a phony alternative moon landing on a sound stage to beat the Russians at claiming the first moon landing in case the actual Apollo 11 event goes wrong. The exaggerated limp-wristed eccentric Kelly hires to direct this farce (played by Jim Rash) is not as amusing a character as the movie intends, but the uneven, overwritten screenplay by Rose Gilroy does get a few laughs when the three actors hired to play astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins have problems remembering their lines. Director Greg Berlanti interjects so many conflicting subplots that they crash into each other faster than TV test pilot rewrites, resulting in uneven pacing. Scarlett Johansson is gorgeous despite the hideous blonde wigs she’s forced to wear, but every scene guarantees her unconventional love. No matter what she does in her playbook to outwit, humiliate or mow down every other character to get her own way, they all end up loving her anyway. Even the launch director sacrifices his values to surrender to her sex appeal. Together, the two stars lack maximum charisma, the love story almost disappears from whole sections of the film, and clocking in at 2 hours and 12 minutes, it’s all much too long. I could also do without the corny ploy of using “Destination Moon”, Henry Mancini’s “Moon River”, Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and other moon songs, but at least they got the year right. What I liked most about Fly Me to the Moon was the way it mixes fact and fantasy with mixed results, but an overriding basis in reality, including the fake moon landing. Fact: In 1969, when millions of people watched the U.S. announce victory as the first country to land on the moon, the Russians claimed the footage of the astronauts on the lunar surface was staged by Hollywood. It all ends with Walter Cronkite saying, “This day will live in history!” And it will, even if the movie will not. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1432624</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Longlegs’ Is a Stupid, Zero-Star Dumpster Fire</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/07/rex-reed-movie-review-longlegs-is-a-stupid-zero-star-dumpster-fire/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Jul 2024 13:32:58 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[0-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Horror Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Oz Perkins]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Maika Monroe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Nicolas Cage]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Jodie Foster]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Alfred Hitchcock]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tony Perkins]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1432611</guid> <description><![CDATA[The film’s ponderous third act, in which everything comes together in a tsunami of delirium, is nothing less than moronic.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1432612 size-full-width" title="Rex Reed's Review of 'Longlegs' Movie" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/01_LONGLEGS_MaikaMonroe_CourtesyofNEON-e1721048858945.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Actress Maika Monroe plays an FBI agent in 'Longlegs'." width="970" height="598" data-caption='There is no plot, but basically, &#8216;Longlegs&#8217; centers on a rookie FBI agent named Lee, played by a charmless actress named Maika Monroe. Courtesy of NEON'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1432612 size-full-width" title="Rex Reed's Review of 'Longlegs' Movie" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/01_LONGLEGS_MaikaMonroe_CourtesyofNEON-e1721048858945.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="Actress Maika Monroe plays an FBI agent in 'Longlegs'." width="970" height="598" data-caption='There is no plot, but basically, &#8216;Longlegs&#8217; centers on a rookie FBI agent named Lee, played by a charmless actress named Maika Monroe. Courtesy of NEON'></noscript> It’s summer, when multiplex marquees are <a href="https://observer.com/2024/06/rex-reed-daddio-review-dakota-johnson-is-a-lovely-sexy-listener/" data-lasso-id="2552408">bloated with hunks of junk</a>. One learns, through experience, to expect mediocrity at the movies. What one does not expect is a load of total trash full of gimmicks instead of ideas, stolen scenes from other movies instead of originality, amateurish posturing instead of professional performances, clueless meandering instead of organized screenplays, and pointless confusion instead of clear-eyed direction. Every negative just listed is glaringly evident as part of the incomprehensible gibberish that makes a crummy horror flick called Longlegs not only the worst movie in the summer of 2024 but one of the worst movies of all time. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> LONGLEGS (0/4 stars) Directed by: Oz Perkins Written by: Oz Perkins Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage Running time: 101 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> There is no plot, but basically, it centers on a rookie FBI agent named Lee, played by a charmless actress named Maika Monroe, and fashioned in the style of Clarice in Silence of the Lambs, played with much more force and individuality by Jodie Foster. Lee is also a psychic (duh) whose boss assigns her to the case of a mad serial killer called, for no explicable reason, Longlegs, who massacres entire families with daughters who have the same birthday as Lee. (You don’t need to have seen a dozen serial-killer movies already to know this means Lee is targeted for the next victim.) There is no mystery about Longlegs. Suspense wanes in the first scene, a sort of prologue to the rest of the movie, in which Lee dredges from her subconscious the memory of a horrifying childhood visit to her home by a creature called “Longlegs” who has some kind of relationship to her abusive single mother. Longlegs is played in drag by Nicolas Cage, replete with dresses, a raspy voice like a shrieking banshee, and a white wig that looks like a rat’s nest. He is also a Satan worshipper. (Double duh.) While Lee busies herself forming clues in groups of numbers and deciphering codes, Longlegs is arrested, but before anyone at FBI headquarters can question him about his motives, he smashes his head to hamburger meat on an interrogation table. Teeth fly, blood splashes all over the room faster than the plot, and Longlegs dies, but the massacres continue. Lee’s mother heads the long list of red herrings as an eye-rolling religious nut who also has ties to the devil worshippers. (Say what?) None of it makes a great deal of sense, but it is relentlessly, constantly, savagely and intensely gory, gloomy and so mystifyingly preposterous that they seem to be making it all up as they go along. Longlegs is like a big gasoline fire, with a new match lit every minute. The ridiculous script and paralyzing direction are both by Oz Perkins, son of the late and versatile Tony Perkins. Considering the fact that he created one of the most memorable lunatics in screen history in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, you’d think some of his skill would rub off on his son. Sad to say, there is no evidence in the loopy Longlegs that Oz Perkins has inherited any of his dad’s understated cinematic abhorrence. To be charitable, he is careful not to reveal more at any time than Lee figures out for herself, and there is some style to the dark foreboding, but in my opinion, even a hair-raising creep flick needs logic, and this one has none. It is never clear what Longlegs’ motives are, what the supernatural undertones have to do with the serial killings, and even less with how and why the slaughters continue after Longlegs is dead. The best thing about the film is the grim lighting and camerawork, which set its ghoulish mood and never brighten its consistency. The worst thing is Nicolas Cage in his most hysterical, unhinged, over-the-top performance since he played Dracula like a vaudeville act. The film’s ponderous third act, in which everything comes together in a tsunami of delirium, is nothing less than moronic. In the end, you’re left asking more questions than anyone involved can (or will) ever answer. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1432611</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> <item> <title>‘Daddio’ Is Intimate Without Warrant</title> <link>https://observer.com/2024/06/rex-reed-daddio-review-dakota-johnson-is-a-lovely-sexy-listener/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rex Reed]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 29 Jun 2024 17:02:25 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[2-Star Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drama Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Movie Reviews]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Christy Hall]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sean Penn]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dakota Johnson]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://observer.com/?p=1429972</guid> <description><![CDATA[Any movie with only two characters in a confined space for close to two hours had better be pretty terrific to avoid sinking into the kind of incalculable claustrophobia that is alarmingly evident in Christy Hall's directorial debut. ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1429973 size-full-width" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/1.png?w=970" alt="" width="970" height="580" data-caption='Dakota Johnson plays &#8220;a lovely, sexy listener&#8221; in Daddio. Sony Classics'><noscript><img decoding="async" class="lazyload wp-image-1429973 size-full-width" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/1.png?w=970" alt="" width="970" height="580" data-caption='Dakota Johnson plays &#8220;a lovely, sexy listener&#8221; in Daddio. Sony Classics'></noscript> Daddio is a dreary two-hander with the look, feel and sound of one hand clapping. Conceived and word processed by first-time writer-director Christy Hall, it takes place in the form of a dialogue between two people in a taxi cab trapped in a traffic jam between JFK and midtown Manhattan. The driver is a salty working-class bore named Clark (Sean Penn). The unnamed passenger he labels “Girlie” (a wonderful Dakota Johnson) is returning from an unhappy trip to her hometown in Oklahoma. He begins as nothing more than a face she sees in the rearview mirror who breaks the icy silence with, “You’re my last fare of the day.” She makes the mistake of a friendly response. From there, the silly, pointlessly titled Daddio turns into a terminal talkathon. <table width="329" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" align="left"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <hr /> DADDIO ★★(2/4 stars) Directed by: Christy Hall Written by: Christy Hall Starring: Dakota Johnson, Sean Penn Running time: 101 mins. <hr /> </td> <td width="20"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> While he rants about credit cards, smart phones and a tsunami of assorted trivia, she indulges out of boredom and curiosity. He babbles incessantly out of irritability, and she’s a lovely, sexy listener. He begins with a grumpy diatribe about taxi etiquette, then morphs tediously into a nosey invasion of privacy that turns into a monologue about everything from bodily functions to why she’s texting a married lover. After a fatal highway accident turns the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway into a parking lot, she loosens up enough to join in with trivia of her own about her failures in life, love and sex, while he offers unsolicited advice culled from his numerous disastrous marriages. Some of the talk Ms. Hall has piled on to pad the running time sounds natural, if less than plausible, but there’s no thread that the conversation follows, and most of it is intimate without warrant. Every woman I’ve ever known would start looking for an escape from a cabbie who turns as embarrassingly intimate as this one does—just as an impatient audience is likely to do with a movie like Daddio. Any movie with only two characters in a confined space for close to two hours had better be pretty terrific to avoid sinking into the kind of incalculable claustrophobia that is alarmingly evident in Daddio. This one manages it occasionally, thanks to the two stars. Dakota Johnson, a veteran of those <a href="https://observer.com/2015/02/fifty-shades-of-grey-is-as-sexy-as-a-root-canal/" data-lasso-id="2534843">Fifty Shades of Trash flicks</a>, displays a vast supply of mood changes, and it’s nice for a change to see what she can do with her clothes on. Sean Penn’s cabbie is a creep, but as his obnoxious verbal diarrhea softens from gossipy intrusion to old-fashioned idealism, he displays a surprising amount of charm and the film finds something, at last, to say about how human connection through the art of conversation is slowly being lost. Otherwise, travel to Daddio at your own risk. ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1429972</post-id><author><![CDATA[Rex Reed ]]></author><section><![CDATA[ ]]></section> </item> </channel> </rss>