What classics did you see last week ? (16 Feb - 22 Feb 2020)

I hope you are enjoying the Torchy Blane series. I am crazy for Glenda Farrell who, with maybe the exception of her real life gal pal Joan Blondell, can talk faster than anyone else in movies. She is a perpetual motion machine.

The Last Valley (1971) 8/10

Shade (2004) 3/10

When Worlds Collide (1953) 7/10

The Other Guys (2010) 8/10

Joe Versus The Volcano (1990) 4/10

Downton Abbey (2019) 6/10

The Manchurian Candidate (2004) 5/10

Frenchman’s Creek (1944) 4/10

Random Hearts (1999) 6/10

Billy Bathgate (1991) 4/10

Apology For Murder / Sam Newfield (1945). Producers Releasing Company (PRC). Cinematography by Jack Greenhalgh. Toni Kirkland (Ann Savage) is married to the much older but rich Harvey Kirkland (Russell Hicks) who keeps her on a tight spending leash. She wants out but Kirkland would never agree to a settlement. Enter newspaper reporter Kenny Blake (Hugh Beaumont). He immediately falls for Toni. She then entices him into a scheme to murder her husband, making it look like an accident. The police arrest an innocent person for the crime. Say, wait a minute! Does that plot sound familiar? It should because Paramount threatened a law suit for plagiarism of their own film “Double Indemnity” from the previous year. Many years later in an interview, the PRC now cult director Edgar Ulmer said that the first title for the “Apology” had been “Single Indemnity,” but when asked what it was changed to, Ulmer named the wrong film (he said “Blonde Ice”) so a question remains about the accuracy of Ulmer’s memory. There are various tales about how this all played out, but the lawsuit never came off, and PRC released its film under the title we now know. Hugh Beaumont, as anyone of a certain age well knows, played Ward Cleaver on the 1950s TV series, “Leave It To Beaver.” He is remembered as Television’s Greatest Dad. But he was under contract to the Poverty Row studio PRC for much of the 1940s and appeared in many crime films as hard-boiled detectives, suspects, and, in a couple of pictures, a killer. It was also good to see Ann Savage as the glammed-up evil rich lady who, later in 1945, became immortal as the hard-bitten, down and dirty evil lady, Vera, in Ulmer’s “Detour” for the same studio. Charles D. Brown is also in the cast as Kenny Blake’s editor who serves as substitute for the Edward G. Robinson character from “Double Indemnity.” This is still a watchable thriller for its leads and sometimes witty and suggestive dialog (when the Production Code comes through the door, the script goes innuendo). Just don’t go in expecting a hidden gem.



Hugh Beaumont and Ann Savage



Dick Tracy / William Berke (1945). RKO Radio Pictures. Cinematography by Frank Redman. A slasher is on the loose. A woman schoolteacher is stabbed to death after refusing to pay an extortion letter. A man who did pay is killed nonetheless. The mayor of the city is threatened. But there seems to be no connection between the three. Dick Tracy was an extremely popular syndicated newspaper comic strip that began in 1931. Tracy’s creator, Chester Gould, retired in 1977 yet the strip continued. I have not seen a paper with the Dick Tracy strip but it may still be running new stories to this day. Dick Tracy has already been seen on movie screens in four cliffhanger serials from Republic Pictures in the 1930s, but this is the first of four feature films. Morgan Conway takes the role. His girlfriend Tess Trueheart is played by Anne Jeffreys (Marion Kerby, the ghostess with the mostess, on the 1950s TV sitcom “Topper.” The killer, Splitface, is taken by Mike Mazurki. Jane Greer (Out Of The Past) is a woman who needs protecting from Splitface. A good tense underscore and some noirish shadings and angles make this a pleasant time at 1940s movies.



Anne Jeffreys, Jane Greer, Morgan Conway


Mike Mazurki as Splitface



Intruder In The Dust / Clarence Brown (1949). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Cinematography by Robert Surtees (Act Of Violence, The Bad And The Beautiful). Until after World War II Hollywood movies didn’t take much notice of race relations in the United States. After the war, though, resentments over segregation and injustices began to take shape. In the late 1940s we saw Stanley Kramer’s “Home Of The Brave,” Elia Kazan’s “Pinky,” Alfred Werker’s “Lost Boundaries” (not seen by me) and, greatest of all, this adaptation of a novel by southern American writer William Faulkner which, without preachiness and wrapped in a murder mystery thriller, showed the ugly face of white supremacy. Young Mississippi teen Chick Mallison (Claude Jarman, Jr.) falls into an icy river while hunting. He is rescued by his African-American buddy Alex (Elzie Emanuel) and is offered the hospitality of warmth and food by Lucas Beauchamp (Juano Hernandez), a proud, upright, land owing black man. Chick, raised in a radically segregated society, is angered by being in debt to such a man. Later, Lucas is arrested for shooting a white man in the back. Chick, feeling guilty about how he treated Lucas, asks his uncle John (called Gavin in the novel) Stevens (David Brian) to represent Lucas. Stevens automatically assumes Lucas’ guilt but, in one of the greatest left turns in movies or literature, an elderly client of Stevens’, Mrs. Habersham (Elizabeth Patterson), suggests that Lucas might be innocent. So, the most unusual detective team ever – a 75-year-old woman, Chick, and Alex (two teenage boys: one black, one white) - set out to clear Lucas even as a lynch mob is forming. There are two really great supporting performances by Will Geer as the county sheriff and Porter Hall as the feared father of the murder victim. An absolute essential.

NOTE: William Faulkner wrote detective stories. His novel of “Intruder In The Dust” was written in his particular stream-of-consciousness style but the characters of Chick and his Uncle Gavin, the attorney, are in a half-dozen murder mystery short stories – composed in straight forward prose – that are collected in a book called “Knight’s Gambit” first published in 1949 (all but the title story were published before “Intruder”). Chick narrates while Uncle Gavin solves the cases. They are a lot of fun.



Juano Hernandez


Claude Jarman, Jr., Elizabeth Patterson, David Brian



Backfire / Vincent Sherman (1950). Warner Bros. Cinematography by Carl E. Guthrie. Although listed third or fourth in the opening titles, Gordon McRae is the main character. He plays Bob Corey, a WWII vet in a hospital needing several serious operations to heal wartime wounds. He is hoping to be well soon because he and army buddy Steve Connelly (Edmund O’Brien) have plans to invest in a ranch. One night, while groggy on pain medication, Bob is visited in his room by a mysterious woman (Viveca Lindfors) who tells him that Steve is badly injured and needs his help. In the morning, no one else in the hospital, including Nurse Julie (Virginia Mayo) who Bob has become romantically involved with, knows anything about this. A hallucination? Or something real that needs investigating? When Bob and Julie begin to look into this, Bob is picked up by Captain Garcia of the police (Ed Begley) who informs him that Steve is wanted on a murder charge. Bob is also helped out by another army pal played by Dane Clark. As our heroes thread their way though a labyrinth of criminal plans and characters, more murders are committed to cover the killer’s tracks. BTW, for all you amateur sleuths out there who like to solve it for yourselves, you can pick out the main baddie using Ebert’s Law Of Economy Of Characters, viz.: “All characters in a movie are necessary to the story—even those who do not seem to be. Sophisticated viewers can use this Law to deduce the identity of a person being kept secret by the movie's plot: This ‘mystery’ person is always the only character in the movie who seems otherwise extraneous.” Still, a more than just competent thriller with a couple of good performances, mainly that of Edmund O’Brien whose story is told mostly in flashback.




Now You See Me 2 / John M. Chu (2016). A worthy sequel to the 2013 caper film about The Four Horsemen, gonzo illusionists, magicians, and slight-of-hand artists who are recruited by a mysterious organization called The Eye, to rob from the rich and crooked and give to the victims. Three return for this second go-round: Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrellson), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco). They are joined by Lula (Lizzy Caplin) and FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo). Also back are two nemeses: rival magician Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) who motives are murky and who can lay one deception upon another and evil gazillionaire Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine). Daniel Radcliff also stars as a mysterious figure who demands that the Horsemen work for him. While this second chapter may not be quite so light on its feet as the first installment, the illusions that are pulled off (always explained), the comical, smart-guy dialog, especially between Daniel and Merritt, kept me smiling and laughing all the way through. I love watching magic, close-up slight-of-hand particularly, so I found the basic concept of the two pictures very attractive. As Thaddeus tells Rhodes, “There’s always, always more than what’s on the surface.”

 

Started off my week with a few cartoons, just like the movies themselves used to do!

Ye Olden Days (1933)



Gawrsh, this is so far back that Goofy was going by some other name, Dippy Dog! Mickey tries to stop Minnie from marrying NotGoofy and it gets a little violent from then on. Loved it.



Society Dog Show (1939)



Mickey and Pluto attend a dog show. Pluto climbs stairs wearing roller skates to save a doggie damsel in distress! What else could you ask for in your entertainment? In color and the last time Mickey retained his classic look before the makeover.



How To Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007)



Just like those old Goofy shorts of years gone by in which he performs one disaster after another. And it succeeds in recreating the look and feel of those older shorts.

Check out Goofy's mantle:



The Ballad of Nessie (2011)



Sweet and hand-animated tale of Nessie the monster of Loch Ness. Narrated perfectly by Billy Connolly.



Get a Horse! (2013)



Just perfect! A genuine homage to the classic Mickey shorts, while being very creative and groundbreaking. Mickey and the gang burst out of the screen and into the theater. I really recommend this! Walt would have approved!



Running Wild (2017)



A horse ranch being run by convicts. Like some TV movie you'd fall asleep to on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. It's not bad, it's just average and unacceptional. Sharon Stone is the star power here.



Welcome the Stranger (2018)



Very slow and purposefully confusing, but the acting was the saving grace. It tries to be all eerie and surreal but just gets more and more convoluted as it goes on. Usually dreamlike movies are my thing but I was not really feeling this one. It left too many things still unanswered. Still, I didn't completely hate it like most people apparently did. Features Riley Keough, Elvis Presley's granddaughter, in a supporting role.



Parasite (2019)



Somehow I managed to avoid learning anything about this before seeing it, and I recommend that everyone also see it without knowing too much beforehand. The emotions I experienced while watching this ran the full spectrum. Although this takes place mainly in one house in South Korea, I feel like I was transported to another world entirely. Bong Joon Ho has a way of luring you into his stories and keeping you fully invested, and then the ride begins!



The main characters are not necessarily nice people, but they aren't evil either. You never really know if you like what they're doing or not. Showing them at their worst, their best and their even worse still keeps things interesting. You'll never know where this story is going, it keeps you thinking. I'm still thinking about it all, my brain is still trying to digest all this movie roughage!



After (2012)



Has a great premise, survivors of a bus crash awaken to find themselves alone in a town where everyone has disappeared. A bit like a merger between Phantoms and Silent Hill, but it never quite fulfills its promise. There's a cool looking Guillermo del Toro-esque monster, that was a high point!



Not a bad movie, just a little slow at times. I found it for $2.00 at the Dollarama so I wasn't expecting The Shining or anything.

After (2019)



Based on fan fiction about Harry Styles of One Direction that turned into an actual novel. How's that for a premise? Stars young Hero Fiennes Tiffin, nephew of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, who also played young Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. About a young girl and her first love at college. It's a bit average and sort of just ends without much resolution, I think there are/were plans for sequels, although how much can you milk this? Then again, there was Fifty Shades of Grey and that spilled over into three movies, so it's possible. Selma Blair is in this so that's pretty great.



Have a great movie week & see you next time!

Captain Marvel(19)(3D)

Ant-Man and the Wasp(18)

^^

S Is for Stanley(15)(doc)

The Florida Project(17)

“Brahms:  The Boy II”  Distributed by STX Entertainment, 86 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Feleased February 21, 2020:

The only thing Hollywood studios like better than a horror movie is a horror movie sequel.  

Since most horror pictures are made on the cheap, a lot of times they can earn back their entire budget during the first week of release.  The trick seems to be to get the movie into theaters just long enough to make a killing at the box office--pardon the pun--and then get it back out again before word gets around about how lousy it is.  And a sequel to a popular horror picture comes with a built-in audience waiting for it.

With over $64 million in box office earnings on an expenditure of $10 million, “The Boy” was sequel-bait to STX.  The picture itself was little more than a variation of the old Devil Doll theme, with an inanimate toy doll employing mind-control tactics to command people to perform its evil bidding...although as usual the filmmakers never quite got around to telling us why.

The new horror picture “Brahms: The Boy II” is pretty much what the title suggests.  The movie’s described by distributor STX Entertainment as a lateral stand-alone followup rather than a sequel to their popular 2016 picture “The Boy,” but likely you’ll never notice the difference between the distinctions.  

Written by Stacey Menear and directed by William Brent Bell, the same team behind the original 2016 picture, “Brahms:  The Boy II” concerns a modern family living in London--a workaholic dad, his American wife, and their sensitive and intelligent young son.  One evening, the mom and son are traumatized by a brutal home-invasion while dad’s at work. Upon recovery from her physical wounds, mom exhibits symptoms of PTSD, while the boy experiences selective mutism, the social anxiety disorder which results in a psychological inability to speak.

Feeling a sense of guilt over his absence during the burglary, dad moves the family out of London and into a rented cottage in the country.  And while exploring the neighborhood shortly after moving in, the family discovers a creepy old mansion near their temporary home, which although abandoned is still patrolled by a strange and menacing groundskeeper.  Nearby, the boy discovers a porcelain doll half-buried in the woods. He unearths the toy, dusts it off, takes it home, and names it “Brahms.”

Before you know it, the boy through the written notes he uses to communicate with his parents begins to claim that Brahms is using a telepathic means of not only speaking with him, but also issuing commands.  Pretty soon, son and doll are dressing alike, and mom is finding horrific drawings in the boy’s notepad...and starts locking up the cutlery. It isn’t long before dad learns that the creepy old mansion next door was the location of the ghastly events depicted in the 2016 picture...which were reportedly caused by a porcelain doll named Brahms.  You can guess the rest.

Clocking in at a compact 86 minutes but seeming much longer, “Brahms: The Boy II” adds a little shallow pop psychology to the customary jump scares, cutaway shots, and brief, fleeting glimpses of otherworldly elements, but otherwise is just an exercise in cinematic manipulation.  A shot of Mary and her Little Lamb would be scary too, if integrated into a movie with competent editing and sharp violin stabs on the music soundtrack, a staple of cheap horror pictures since “Psycho” in 1960.

Starring Katie Holmes, making a rare appearance outside society events and tabloid gossip columns as the mom, “Brahms:  The Boy II” might scratch your itch to see a horror movie, but it won’t satisfy your appetite. By using a stopwatch and a synopsis of every bad horror movie you’ve ever seen, you might be able to follow along with the picture without even looking at the screen.  And that’s not a good thing.

Released to 2151 theaters across the United States and Canada, distributor STX Entertainment was hoping “Brahms: The Boy II” would earn back its $10 million budget during its opening weekend.  The picture is gathering less-than-glowing reviews from the critics, including an approval rating of just 8% from Rotten Tomatoes and a weighted average of 30% from Metacritic. Even the usually lenient exit audiences polled by CinemaScore are assigning only an average grade of C-minus to the picture.

“Brahms: The Boy II” is rated PG-13 for terror, brief strong language, disturbing images, and thematic elements.  Likely the picture was edited carefully to avoid an R, which would’ve shut out the movie’s target audience of teenagers on dates.



“The Call of the Wild”   Distributed by 20th Century Pictures, 100 Minutes, Rated PG, Released February 21, 2020:

The fourteenth motion picture version of Jack London’s classic adventure tale “The Call of the Wild” is one of the best.  First adapted to the screen in 1908 by legendary film pioneer D.W. Griffith as a one-reel silent picture, the story has been remade and reimagined for the movies approximately once every generation, and sometimes more, since the book’s original publication in 1903, in versions long and short.

Told from an animal’s perspective, simultaneously vivid and lyrical, poetic and haunting, London’s classic novella describes the story of Buck, a 140-pound mixture of St. Bernard and Scotch Collie, the pampered and privileged pet of a suburban California county judge.  Buck is stolen from his home, transported to the remote Yukon region of then-Canada, and sold into a kind of canine slavery as a sled dog during the Gold Rush of 1899.  

The tenderfoot dog eventually toughens to become a valued and coveted companion, but gradually regresses into the more instinctive primal incarnation of his prehistoric ancestors through his interactions with a series of owners both cruel and kind.  Still, the dog never quite loses his inherent tendencies of loyalty and affection, particularly when he falls under the ownership and care of the rugged John Thornton, a tough but morally decent northern prospector.

For about the first half of the new film version of the novel, “The Call of the Wild” remains surprisingly--and admirably--accurate to both the spirit and letter London’s novella, with the more brutal interludes either toned down or removed entirely.  As the playful and sweet-spirited Buck is broken, beaten, and tamed by his kidnappers, the cruelty of the first beating is thankfully restrained, cleverly depicted through shadows on the wall of a cabin. And even then, the worst of the brutality is represented by impact scorings on the billy club used for the beatings.

Unfortunately, the second half of the movie is more in the spirit of the bland but successful recent canine-based pictures such as “A Dog’s Purpose” and “A Dog’s Journey.”  It’s at the halfway point that “Call of the Wild” becomes a fairly standard shaggy dog story...or rather a shaggy Harrison story, with the film’s star Harrison Ford arriving in the narrative full-time, in a more unkempt and hirsute than usual incarnation as John Thornton.  Sporting collar-length hair and a full beard, the aging matinee idol Ford somewhat resembles Robert Redford’s title frontiersman in 1972’s “Jeremiah Johnson.”

From the point of Ford’s arrival forward “The Call of the Wild” transitions from Buck’s story into a Harrison Ford picture, with the Thornton character now complete with an affecting back-story involving the tragic death of his beloved adolescent son, a retreat into alcoholism, and a withdrawal from civilization.  And despite Ford’s best efforts to pass himself off as a Great White North incarnation of Walter Huston in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford, and from his arrival forward it doesn’t take much imagination to start thinking of the picture as a Han and Chewie kind of thing.

Directed by former Disney animator Chris Sanders from a screenplay adapted from London’s novella by Michael Green, who also wrote the scripts for 2017’s “Logan,” “Blade Runner 2049” and “Murder on the Orient Express,” “The Call of the Wild” is a triumph of computer-generated animation, giving the picture a sort of Once Upon a Time storybook quality, an effort augmented by star Ford’s narration, read from London’s own matchless prose.  

The film’s central character, Buck, is a fairly realistic recreation but 100% computer-generated, about as authentic as the baby elephant in Tim Burton’s recent live-action remake of Disney’s classic cartoon “Dumbo,” and at least twice as heart-tugging.  As a result of the obvious computer-generated imagery, at no point during the narrative is the viewer fully persuaded that Buck is a flesh-and-blood character--probably a good thing, considering the brutal reality of some of the film’s content.  

Still, nobody does this sort of thing as well as the folks at Walt Disney Studios--or rather the Disney-owned 20th Century Pictures.  An abridged and truncated version of Jack London’s vivid prose is better than no Jack London at all, and an accurate representation of the final pages of London’s story would likely have landed the picture squarely into R-rated territory and been politically incorrect besides.  This new version is miles ahead of, say, the 1935 movie version of the tale, which effectively removed Buck’s story entirely and ultimately became more noteworthy for the scandalous (for the time) off-screen location antics of stars Clark Gable and Loretta Young.

“The Call of the Wild” is receiving approving notices from the critics, including an approval rating of 65% from Rotten Tomatoes and an weighted average of 47% from Metacritic.  Rotten Tomatoes notes that “this heartwarming ‘Call of the Wild’ remains a classic story, affectionately retold.” Produced on a budget estimated to have been north of $125 million and released to some 3700 theaters across the United States and Canada (presumably including the Yukon), the film was expected to earn up to $20 million during its opening weekend.

According to literary legend, Jack London spent a year in Canada’s Yukon conducting research into the background of the novella, and used the book’s profits to purchase the vessel on which he wrote his classic 1904 novel “The Sea Wolf.”  As an historic note, the new film version of “The Call of the Wild” is the first motion picture using the “20th Century Pictures” logo (minus the “Fox”) since…well, since ”The Call of the Wild” in 1935.

Also featuring spirited performances from Bradley Whitford as Buck’s original California owner, Omar Sy and Cara Gee as a dedicated team of Royal Mail couriers, Michael Horse as a frontier judge, and Dan Stevens as a vengeful novice prospector with gold fever, “The Call of the Wild” is rated PG for violence, peril, thematic elements, and mild language.



“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island”  Distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing and Columbia Pictures, 109 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released February 14, 2020:

You already know the drill--you’ve heard it often enough: “De plane!  De plane!”

Based on the classic adventure series which ran on American television from 1977 to 1984, the new motion pictures adaptation of “Fantasy Island” tweaks the familiar premise of the show with a few modern touches, but the idea remains essentially the same:  A disparate handful of strangers is delivered by a seaplane to a luxurious tropical island resort, where each is given the opportunity to have his or her single dearest fantasy fulfilled. The catch: Each must allow the individual wish to spin out to its logical conclusion.

While two of the four initial fantasies fulfilled in the picture (a woman wishes to accept a marriage proposal she refused years before, and two half-brothers want to experience a taste of excitement and danger) could’ve been lifted whole from a 1970s episode of the original series, the other two have an edgier, more timely twist:  One man wants to taste the experience of being a soldier in combat like his KIA dad, and a bitter and caustic woman wishes to avenge her mistreatment in high school at the hands of a bully.

But after a promising beginning with the arriving visitors comparing popular urban legends about the origins of the island and its owner, their mysterious host Mr. Roarke, when the fairly mundane and pedestrian truth is revealed at about the halfway point of the movie, and the individual fantasies begin to bump into each other, the movie dissolves into a confusing, sadistic, and gory mess...which is to say that it becomes a fairly routine Blumhouse Pictures release.

Directed by Jeff Wadlow from a screenplay by Wadlow, Chris Roach, and Jillian Jacobs, “Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” is more like a disappointing episode of “Night Gallery” than an update of the beloved television series on which it’s based.  The all-important moral, if you’re looking fairly hard for it, is intriguing enough...but the movie is too clunky to pull it off with the wit and aplomb of the original show. And despite a clever final twist, in the end the movie is less than a fantasy for the viewer, and leaves a curiously bad taste.

With his casual hands-in-pockets demeanor, indifferent posture and rumpled white suit, Michael Pena as the mysterious Mr. Roarke, ”the ambassador to your deepest desires,” is a stark contrast to the stately, regal, and immaculately dressed Ricardo Montalban of the TV series.  Of the other members of the cast, Maggie Q, Portia Doubleday, and Austin Stowell probably fare best, while Ryan Hanson and Jimmy O. Yang contribute some much-needed comedy relief. And a heroic Michael Rooker shows up at about the one-hour point with some unsettling news indeed.

“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” is receiving disappointing reviews from the critics, including an approval rating of just 9% from Rotten Tomatoes against a slightly more forgiving 22% from Metacritic.  Exit audiences polled by CinemaScore assign the picture an average grade of C-minus. Expected by distributor Columbia Pictures to earn up to $20 million from 2770 screens across North America during its opening weekend, the picture instead delivered a disappointing $12.4 million, scoring a third-place finish in the weekend’s Box Office Moto Top Ten.

“Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island” is rated PG-13 for violence, terror, drug content, suggestive material, and brief strong language.



“Downhill”   Distributed by Searchlight Pictures, 86 Minutes, Rated R, Released February 14, 2020:

Neither comedy nor drama, in “Downhill,” a comfortably-married fiftyish American couple enjoying an Austrian skiing vacation at an adult-oriented resort hotel with their two adolescent sons are compelled to re-examine their relationship when they’re all placed into brief peril by a controlled avalanche...and dad impulsively makes a run for it instead of remaining to protect the family.

An inferior remake of the 2014 French comedy “Force Majeure,” “Downhill” becomes an awkward and uncomfortable hybrid for noted comedy stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell.  The performers--particularly Ferrell--are fine in their roles, and certainly persuasive during their dramatic scenes. But the audience might find itself becoming a little restless with the notion of spending good money to watch two television comedy legends stretching their talents to embrace a sort of lite version of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” 

Written (with an assist from British screenwriter Jesse Armstrong) and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the Academy Award-winning screenwriters of Alexander Payne’s “The Descendents,” the picture starts out well, but descends into confusion when the filmmakers can’t quite seem to figure out what the picture is about, or where the narrative wants to go.  At its best in scenes which depict a clash of cultures at the multinational Austrian resort, in the end “Downhill” mostly resembles a sketch on television’s Saturday Night Live that goes bad and then just keeps going.

The film’s frequent use of extreme closeups might be more effective when the movie ends its theatrical run and graduates to television and home video...which despite the inclusion of two F-bombs and one scene suggesting solo sexuality is where the picture ultimately belongs.  In legal terms, “force majeure”--the title of the original French comedy on which “Downhill” is based--refers to a contractual clause absolving both parties of liability in the event of a natural disaster.

Opening in some 2275 theaters across the United States and Canada, “Downhill” is receiving understanding reviews from the critics, including an approval rating of 41% from Rotten Tomatoes against a weighted average of 49% from Metacritic.  Exit audiences polled by CinemaScore award the picture a more revealing average grade of D. The picture was expected by distributor Searchlight Pictures to earn an conservative $4 million at the box office, and actually brought in some $4.6 million, taking the tenth-place spot on the weekend’s Box Office Mojo Top Ten.

“Downhill” is rated R for language concerns and some sexual material.



“The Photograph”   Distributed by Universal Pictures, 106 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released February 14, 2020:

Released just in time for Valentine’s Day, in the romance picture “The Photograph” a noted journalist becomes intrigued by the work of a recently-deceased photographer, and begins to research her life as background for a magazine article.  His journalistic quest leads him to the late photographer’s estranged museum curator daughter, and unforeseen romantic complications ensue.

The audience’s enjoyment of “The Photograph” might be directly proportional to the viewer’s individual ability to swallow a number of improbable plot developments and mind-bendingly unlikely implausibilities, including a whopper toward the film’s climax which genuinely strains the viewer’s “oh, come on” capacity.  But that’s pretty much par for the course for a romantic picture...and possibly even for most romances. “The Photograph” easily passes the most important test of a movie romance--from the picture’s first frame forward, the viewer is rooting for the central characters to hook up. So grab some popcorn, kick back, and just go with it.

Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Stella Meghie, the filmmaker behind the 2017 romantic drama “Everything, Everything” and the 2018 comedy “The Weekend,” “The Photograph” contains marked similarities with both 2004’s “The Notebook” and 1980’s “Somewhere in Time.”  But despite a disappointing resolution, the picture makes the material its own thanks to evocative, appealing, and very attractive performances by the charismatic Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield in the picture’s central roles as the late photographer’s estranged adult daughter and the journalist who ardently pursues her.

“The Photograph” represents a departure of sorts for both of its stars.  Issa Rae is usually noted for her comedic performances, both on television series such as HBO’s “Insecure” and in movies like “Little” and the upcoming “The Lovebirds.”  Lakeith Stanfield is known primarily for his dramatic turns in a number of biographical roles, portraying real-life civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in 2014’s “Selma” and entertainer Snoop Dogg in 2015’s “Straight Outta Compton.”  “The Photograph” is one of a trio of Stanfield pictures currently playing in the nation’s cinemas, along with the drama “Uncut Gems” and the comedy “Knives Out.” 

Also containing likable performances from Lil Rel Howery, Chelsea Peretti, Teyonah Parris, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Rob Morgan, and Courtney B. Vance, “The Photograph” is earning appreciative reviews from the critics, including an approval rating of 75% from Rotten Tomatoes against a weighted average of 63% from Metacritic.  Exit audiences polled by CinemaScore assign the picture an average grade of B-plus. The picture earned $12.3 million in revenues during its opening weekend, securing a fourth-place spot on the Box Office Mojo Top Ten.

“The Photograph” is rated PG-13 for one scene depicting soft-focus sexuality, and for brief strong language.



“Sonic the Hedgehog”   Distributed by Paramount Pictures, 99 Minutes, Rated PG, Released
February 14, 2020:

And they say there are no original ideas in movies today...

A blue extraterrestrial hedgehog, named Sonic for his unique ability to run at hypersonic speeds, is transported to earth while escaping an attack by hostile platypuses on his home planet, and becomes stranded in Green Hills, Montana.  

After laying low for a decade, Sonic in his longing for companionship befriends a local sheriff, who agrees to help the lonely alien hedgehog to escape back to his home planet.  But first they have to elude the hot-in-pursuit US Department of Defense and subdue the villainous Dr. Robotnik, a mad scientist who seeks to steal Sonic’s distinctive natural abilities for his robotic creations.

Directed in his feature filmmaking debut by noted visual effects artist Jeff Fowler from a screenplay dapted by Pat Casey and Josh “Worm” Miller from the popular video game franchise created by the Japanese Sega corporation, “Sonic the Hedgehog” surprisingly manages to overcome its troubled six-year production history to become a genuinely inventive, exciting, and entertaining blend of animation and live action.

Featuring likeable performances from virtually the entire cast, particularly the dependable James Marsden as the sheriff, Tika Sumpter as his patient wife, and actor-comedian Ben Schwartz as the voice of the title character, “Sonic” also marks a return to form of sorts for co-star Jim Carrey, whose broad, cartoonish characterization as the nefarious Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik is strongly reminiscent of his early manic appearances in pictures like 1994’s “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “The Mask,” and “Dumb and Dumber.”

Plainly targeted squarely at the eight-to-ten year old demographic which forms the loyal fan base of the Sonic character and the video game he inhabits, “Sonic the Hedgehog” with its lively, fast-moving plot, sharp humor, and popular culture references is equally entertaining for adult viewers.  Like the classic Bugs Bunny or Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoons from the Warner Bros. animation studios in the 1950s and 60s, “Sonic the Hedgehog” is one picture the entire family can enjoy...albeit for different reasons.

In various stages of production since 2014 and filmed during late 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, “Sonic the Hedgehog” was originally scheduled for release on November 15, 2019.  But when the picture’s original trailer provoked a strongly critical reaction to the title character’s unsettlingly realistic appearance, distributor Paramount Pictures delayed the film’s release to allow the filmmakers an opportunity to redesign Sonic and digitally reinsert the character into the picture.  Most likely you won’t notice any problem at all.

Released on Valentine’s Day to 4130 movie theaters across the United States and Canada and receiving almost exclusively positive reviews, “Sonic the Hedgehog” was initially projected by Paramount Pictures to gross up to $50 million during its opening four-day weekend.  But after earning some $21 million on its opening day alone, projections were raised to $64 million. By Sunday, February 16, “Sonic the Hedgehog” had delivered some $57 million in earnings, handily soaring to the first-place spot in the Box Office Mojo Top Ten, with “Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey” in a distant second after earning an additional $17.1 million during its second week in release.

“Sonic the Hedgehog” is rated PG for action, some violence, the customary rude humor, and brief, mild language concerns.

Hi, wmccclain. I watched that^ on DVD back in 2018 and wrote a review for it in my thread for 'What TV show did you last watch a season of on DVD/Blu-ray?'.

imdb2.freeforums.net/thread/82711/show-last-watch-season-dvd?page=4

What'd you think of it?