“Radioactive” Distributed by StudioCanal, 110 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released July 24, 2020:
“Radioactive” is almost precisely what you’d expect from a comic book version of the life and career of Marie and Pierre Curie, if the comic book were adapted into a movie. Told from the perspective of the 67-year-old Marie as she lies dying in a Paris hospital in 1934 and flashing back to significant moments in her life, the picture moves with a breathtaking pace, just like a comic book. Unfortunately, it moves in too many directions simultaneously.
Adapted by British screenwriter and dramatist Jack Thorne from Lauren Redniss’ graphic novel “Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout” and directed by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian-born French illustrator and cartoonist known for the 2003 comic book “Persepolis” and the 2007 animated feature based on it, “Radioactive” depicts the life and work of the Polish-born scientist Marie Sklodowska (Rosamund Pike) and her romance and partnership with colleague Pierre Curie (Sam Riley).
Despite the elaborate trappings, a reported $20 million-plus budget, some fine performances--especially from Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley--and international collaboration between Great Britain, France, Hungary, China, and the United States, “Radioactive” is decidedly not a sum of its parts, and actually contains very little information you didn’t already know from fourth grade history...and possibly even less than you learned in eleventh grade chemistry.
Events are recounted with a shallowness familiar to anyone who’s ever read a comic book, and often framed by filmmaker Satrapi with a sort of barely-controlled creative hysteria that feels more appropriate to a Mad Magazine parody of an ostentatious biographical picture. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle’s dark and almost colorless photography is sometimes reminiscent of the works of Rembrandt, but also renders the City of Light in dark, damp, and dirty tones--conspicuously unromantic especially during the scenes depicting the Curies’ romance and honeymoon.
Interwoven with scenes depicting the eventual and frequently destructive future impact of their pioneering research in the field of physics, the film dramatizes the life and career of the Curies--their whirlwind romance and marriage, their discovery of radium and polonium, and the worldwide shifts in science and popular culture which occurred as a result.
Because of the flashback structure of “Radioactive,” the narrative frequently becomes disjointed, and sometimes almost kaleidoscopic. Dramatizations of the Curies’ scientific breakthroughs are juxtaposed with sequences illustrating their often destructive uses half a century later. Pierre Curie’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1903, for example, is intercut with the 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. That the Hiroshima sequence is among the most harrowing nuclear attack depictions since “The Day After” is beside the point--the film’s juxtaposition of the images serves to minimize the historical impact of both events.
Worse, some of the cross-cutting, scene-switching, and epoch-jumping is illogical, and even nonsensical. A scene showing Marie Curie cooking cereal for her daughters is intercut with a sequence depicting a nuclear test in the Nevada desert in 1960, juxtaposed in such a way that the viewer has to wonder whether Madame Curie is feeding her kids cobalt for breakfast.
The most unfortunate casualty of director Satrapi’s piecemeal structure of “Radioactive” is Rosamund Pike’s performance as Marie Curie--we see only relatively brief flashes of a performance that in a more traditional narrative might’ve been a full-bodied and full-blooded, sympathetic, and even brilliant characterization. Unfortunately, what little we’re given is about 90% unsympathetic. Arrogance is one component of Curie’s personality, but it’s the component Satrapi leads with--one part of a performance that’s chopped up and served as a course on a buffet rather than as an entree.
A militant feminist a full century before the era of #MeToo, Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie has no illusions or pretenses about her brilliance--her only problem is persuading others to accept it. Even when the Curies are nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1903, the nomination is in Pierre’s name only...an omission which causes friction in their marriage, although Pierre is quick to inform the Nobel Committee, “If we won, we won it together.” Still, as Marie notes to Pierre, “You have one of the finest minds I’ve ever met--it just so happens that mine is finer.”
Almost defiantly unconventional in her choices of film roles, eschewing the trappings of a traditional contemporary movie star, Rosamund Pike is at her best in character roles which showcase her skills as an actress rather than her physical beauty...although her biggest and most financial successful films--”Jack Reacher” in 2012 is one, and 2014’s ”Gone Girl”--have emphasized both qualities. Pike was nominated for both Golden Globe and Director’s Guild Awards for her unglamorous role as real-life photojournalist Marie Colvin in 2018’s “A Private War”...after beginning her movie career as James Bond’s comely nemesis in the 2002 adventure “Die Another Day.”
Unfortunately, what survives of Pike’s characterization in “Radioactive” is of a person who’s essentially unlikable, a fault multiplied when husband Pierre is trampled to death by a horse-drawn carriage in 1906 and Marie no longer can rely on his charm to smooth over her more abrupt impulses. So aggressively sensitive that she perceives hostility where none exists, Marie when offered a position at the prestigious Sorbonne university in Paris after Pierre’s death snaps at the trustees, “If you wish to give it to me as pity, don’t...It is not a job I want, but it is a job I will take.”
You have to give her points for trying. But admiring Pike’s performance in the context of “Radioactive” is a little like admiring lettuce in the context of a Big Mac--one healthy ingredient is not going to redeem the entire sandwich. Unfocused, scattered, and sometimes almost laughably pretentious, “Radioactive” is one movie you might want to skip in favor of just reading the source material again...even if the source material is a comic book.
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, disturbing images, brief nudity (Marie and Pierre indulge in a little skinny-dipping during their honeymoon), and a scene of sensuality, “Radioactive” is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
“If I Stay” Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, 106 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released August 22, 2014:
“If I Stay” is without shame, remorse, or apology a picture aimed straight at your tear ducts, presumably in the belief that a good crying spell is therapeutic and therefore cathartic for the spirit. And the picture mostly works hard to earn its tears honestly: The characters are attractive and appealing and likable, and the actors playing the characters also are attractive and likable. This is the rare picture which features no bad guys. Everybody’s a good guy.
Based on Gayle Forman’s 2009 young adult novel of the same name, ‘If I Stay” chronicles the emotional experience of buttoned-up 17-year-old cello prodigy Mia Hall and her worlds-colliding romance with a free-spirited, up-and-coming young rock-and-roll guitarist named Adam. That both Mia and Adam are on the cusp of professional breakthroughs in their budding musical careers accounts for most of the ups and downs in their relationship.
Unfortunately, their romance is in the middle of one of its downs when Mia and her family are involved in a catastrophic auto accident, casting Mia into an out-of-body experience a la “Between Two Worlds,” in which she can observe the people she loves but not communicate with them, or interfere with their actions. In this way, Mia’s able to view her life from a more objective perspective, and see the impact of her possible death on those she loves most.
“If I Stay” is a picture that gives you the same kind of satisfaction you get from following your doctor's orders, eating the right cereal, taking your vitamins, or getting a flu shot: You might rather be watching “The Avengers” or one of the Star Wars pictures, but you suspect that a movie with this much cello music in it just has to be good for you.
And it is fairly good. Young Mia has wonderful support from her parents, a set of amiably loopy former rockers played appealingly by Mirielle Enos and Joshua Leonard. Mia’s Love Generation folks grew up and embraced responsibility when it became apparent to them that the late nights and party lights of a rock ‘n roll lifestyle did not blend well with parenthood…an epiphany which makes even more perplexing their almost pushing young Mia out the door to be with her rocker boyfriend.
As Mia’s rock guitarist boyfriend, Jamie Blackley somehow manages to be sullen without being pouty, simultaneously withdrawn and inarticulate about romance yet strong-willed and verbose about music. You can see why Mia’s attracted to Adam, although if you’re the parent of a teenager you might be more than a little conflicted about the two youngsters falling into bed quite so quickly.
Unfortunately at some point about an hour into the picture the narrative becomes sticky and manipulative, almost maudlin, and the picture begins to rely on broad characterizations, familiar stereotypes, and the ghosts of movies past to sort of swindle the tears from the audience.
And that's too bad, because by that point you might have decided you enjoy the picture, and are unprepared to modify your opinion. That the scene which begins the manipulation features a showcase moment for veteran actor Stacy Keach as Mia’s crusty and lovable old Grandpa makes the cheat seem that much more unexpected. Keach, much like the late Robert Loggia, always seems to be such an honest and dependable actor.
Having said that, about 80% of the success of “If I Stay” belongs to young Chloe Grace Moretz in the central role as Mia. Moretz is earnest enough in her craft to make us care about young Mia even through her most puzzling and selfish interludes. Since beginning her career as the reluctant (and foul-mouthed) pint-size grade school superhero in 2010’s “Kick-Ass” and its 2013 sequel, young Moretz has matured into a charismatic and talented performer who always seems to be on the very cusp of a stellar career as a major star of motion pictures.
You might just enjoy “If I Stay.” Check it out.
“If I Stay” is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and some sexual material.
“7500” Distributed by Amazon Studios, 92 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released June 18, 2020:
Memories of September 11, 2001 might still be a little too raw for some viewers to truly enjoy “7500,” the new movie written and directed by German filmmaker Patrick Volrath and now playing on the Amazon Prime streaming service. But those nightmarish images and recollections might actually be the point of the picture--although the network describes “7500” as a thriller, during some sequences a disquieting sense of verisimilitude causes the picture to seem almost like psychological horror.
In “7500,” an international airliner flying from Berlin to Paris is commandeered by terrorists. The flight crew manages to expel the invaders from the cockpit and secure the door, but the plane’s captain is mortally wounded in the process. Also injured and bleeding, the flight’s first officer must take command of the plane and simultaneously negotiate with the terrorists and calm the passengers while guiding the plane to a secure destination.
Despite a few scenes and situations which will likely ring familiar to anyone who’s seen airborne disaster movies from 1954’s “The High and the Mighty” to 1980’s “Airplane!” taut direction and persuasive performances boost “7500” to a higher altitude than a run-of-the-mill adventure drama. In fact, the picture is a genuinely effective little thriller reminiscent of Paul Greengrass’ fact-based 9/11 docudrama “United 93” from 2006.
The picture establishes its credibility early with the opening sequence depicting eerily soundless black-and-while footage from an airport security camera--from that perspective, we all look like terrorists. And during the arrival of the flight crew, there’s a nice feeling of authenticity in the interactions between Paul Wollin’s captain and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s first officer--the usual jokey interplay switches to humorless professionalism as the flight crew runs through the preflight checklist, as solemn and unsmiling as surgeons performing delicate brain surgery.
The flying sequences too are depicted with a flair for stagecraft and lighting which belies the picture’s small budget and limited perspective (almost the entire movie takes place in the airliner’s tiny cockpit). The takeoff sequence in particular is startlingly realistic despite an absolute minimum of special optical effects. Whether the viewer considers air travel an adventure or a nuisance, this is one movie that gets the essence of the experience right.
The second third of the movie switches gears and really gets down to business. As the terrorists attack and are repelled from the flight deck and confined to the plane’s cabin along with the unprotected crew and passengers, “7500” becomes more of a suspense drama mixed with psychological horror. The terrorists’ incessant banging on the reinforced door to gain re-entry to the flight deck suggests the same persistent menace as the zombies doing much the same thing with earth’s solitary human survivor in 1964’s seminal “The Last Man on Earth.”
Although “7500” has a running time of only 92 minutes, the picture seems much longer...mostly because it goes on for a full 25 minutes after the point when every fiber of your moviegoing experience tells you it should end. During the picture’s third act “7500” in effect becomes a colloquy, a dramatic face-off between Gordon-Levitt’s First Officer Ellas and Murathan Muslu’s frightened and confused young terrorist, Kenan. The picture also loses a few points for finally ending more or less the way you figured it would, but by that point you might actually be too pooped from the movie’s intensity to care.
While Patrick Vollrath the writer can use a little more seasoning and experience in his craft--especially with narrative structure--Patrick Vollrath the director shows enormous promise in his first effort as a feature filmmaker (the director has a number of award-winning short subjects already on his professional resume). Vollrath is one filmmaker who plainly knows how to stage a scene for maximum effect. The fight scenes in the cockpit between the flight crew and the terrorists especially contain the same claustrophobic savagery as the train compartment brawl between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in 1963’s “From Russia With Love.”
But “7500” works best as a showcase for actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. With his quietly mature and authoritative performance as Flight 7500’s first officer, Gordon-Levitt at age 39 begins to finally shed the boyish image he’s possessed since his days on “3rd Rock from the Sun” in the 1990s.
Viewers who recall Gordon-Levitt’s astonishing recreation of Donald O’Connor’s legendary “Make ‘Em Laugh” act from “Singin’ in the Rain” live on TV’s SNL in 2009 already know he’s one performer who’ll give everything he has to put on a good show (at the end of SNL’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” performance, the actor collapsed exhausted to the stage). In “7500,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt contributes still another act which will be tough to follow, and nearly impossible to top.
Rated PG-13 for violence and some intense sequences, “7500” is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
“The Vast of Night” Distributed by Amazon Studios, 89 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released May 29, 2020:
Energetic direction, spirited performances, and excellent production values elevate “The Vast of Night” several steps above the 1950s drive-in movie fodder it purports to emulate, in the process making this agreeably creepy little picture almost a drive-in classic of its own.
Set in the 1950s, in “The Vast of Night” (even the title sounds like a Stephen King short story), when a mysterious radio signal interrupts life in tiny Cayuga, New Mexico on the night of the high school’s big basketball game, the local radio station’s disc jockey and an intrepid 16-year-old switchboard operator try to locate the source...which as the seconds tick by appears more and more to be something from another world.
Filmed in and around Whitney, Texas and framed as an episode of a 50s-era Twilight Zone-like television show called “Paradox Theater,” this nifty little potboiler evokes memories of practically every black-and-white science fiction cheapie you’ve ever seen, from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ to “The Day the Earth Stood Still”...but borrows or steals from practically none of them. This picture sets its own exacting standards and possesses its own unique personality and appeal.
Directed in his feature movie debut by Oklahoma filmmaker Andrew Patterson from a script--or rather a “teleplay,” according to the credits for Paradox Theater--by Craig W. Sanger and James Montague (a pseudonym for director Patterson), “The Vast of Night” is even canny enough to employ a dramatic technique from the days of radio dramas like Orson Welles’ legendary 1938 “The War of the World” radio broadcast in 1938--the filmmaker occasionally allows the screen to fade to black and focus on the soundtrack and dialogue. It’s a disquieting effect, and it works beautifully in the framework of the narrative. Patterson is one young director who knows how to punch a viewer’s buttons.
Loosely based on two actual incidents involving alleged interactions with UFOs and featuring likable performances from movie newcomer Jake Horowitz as the DJ and former child actress Sierra McCormick as the teenager, “The Vast of Night” is secure enough in its rich drive-in movie heritage to be released theatrically on May 15 to regional drive-in theaters prior to its “official” release on pay-per-view and the Amazon Prime streaming service on May 29. The picture is earning glowing reviews from the critics, including an approval rating of 92% from Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 82% from Metacritic, indicating rare universal acclaim.
Director and co-writer Patterson reportedly financed “The Vast of Night” with money he earned producing television commercials for the Oklahoma City Thunder professional basketball team. Filmed in four weeks during the autumn of 2016, Patterson spent over a year editing the picture before submitting it to the annual Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, which showcases emerging filmmakers and low-budget independent productions. After its exhibition at Slamdance, distribution rights for the picture were acquired by Amazon Studios.
Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, “The Vast of Night” is rated PG-13 for sequences of science fiction intensity.
“Space Force” Distributed by Netflix, 10 Episodes of 27-36 Minutes, Not Rated, Streaming from May 29, 2020:
Baby Boomers of a certain age will certainly recall with special fondness the Golden Days of Mad Magazine during the 1960s. Mad Magazine during that turbulent decade was the unquestioned arbiter of lowbrow humor for the nation’s delinquent youth.
Each month, Mad would present a parody of a popular television show or movie in current circulation. With writing by Frank Jacobs, Dick DeBartolo, or Larry Siegel, scenes and panels rendered in loving pen-and-ink cartoon by such legends of the genre as Mort Drucker, Wallace Wood, or the great Jack Davis, and titles like “Balmy and Clod” for 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid” for 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” no joke was too low nor any pun to tortured for a Mad Magazine parody.
If Mad Magazine had turned its attention to the present state of the United States military under the command of the Accidental President, the result might’ve looked a lot like “Space Force,” the new 10-episode comedy series now streaming on Netflix. Created by former “Parks and Recreation,” “The Office,” “The Simpsons” and SNL writer Greg Daniels in collaboration with all-around funny guy Steve Carell (who also stars in the show) ”Space Force” is a sort of elbow-in-the-ribs kidding of the sixth and youngest branch of the US Armed Forces.
In “Space Force,” Steve Carell stars as General Mark Naird, “the former number two at the Air Force” and aide to USAP Chief of Starr Kick Grabaston, selected over his former boss to become the very first Chief of Space Operations for the brand-new branch of the US military. So obtuse and uncompromising that he signs personal notes “Four-Star General Naird” and right-turns and about-faces even when getting out of bed for a drink of water, the new director is tasked with establishing Space Force (and his reluctant family) at their new base of operations in Wild Horse Colorado.
Assisting Naird in establishing the Space Force is scientist Dr. Adrian Mallory, played by actor John Malkovich with his signature withering sarcasm and acidic observations. A civilian advisor to the military who in the convoluted order of the military bureaucracy technically outranks Naird on certain scientific matters (such as the authority to occasionally ‘scrub’ missions), Mallory is repeatedly, and often loudly, skeptical to the type of reasoning he terms “military jackassery.” Naird at one point chastises Mallory with the words, “As a scientist you have a loyalty to reason...which makes you a little untrustworthy.”
“Space Force” supporting cast members include the talented Diana Silver, familiar from her appearances in the films “Booksmart” and “Glass,” as Naird’s teenage daughter Erin, who’s quietly furious at being uprooted from cosmopolitan Washington DC to the frontier of Wild Horse Colorado, Jimmy O. Yang as Dr. Chan, Mallory’s equally-sarcastic assistant, Tawny Newsome as Space Force pilot and astronaut Angela Ali, who’s also an occasional babysitter for Erin, and the hilarious Ben Schwartz as smarmy social media director F. Tony Scarapiducci, casually called by a nickname unprintable here but easily figured out by glancing at his first initial.
Recurring characters in the series include testosterone-crazed USAP General Kick Grabaston, Don Lake as Brigadier General Gregory, Naird’s aide, a hilariously unbalanced Lisa Kudrow as Maggie Naird, General Naird’s institutionalized wife, the preternaturally clueless Diedrich Bader as Army Chief of Staff General Rongley, and Alex Sparrow as Captain Yuri Telatovich, a Russian Air Force liaison who likes to be called Bobby. Comic actor Fred Willard, in his final role, also appears occasionally as Naird’s elderly and addled father.
The genius of “Space Force” is that the show is able to depict with remarkable accuracy an image of the youngest branch of the military as a seven-year-old child might imagine it, while still delivering satiric punch through wry, dry, and straight-faced observations about virtually anything and everything--including, but not limited to, political and military bureaucracy, family life, personal interrelationships, international rivalry, regional pop culture, and life on the scientific frontier.
During an early mission, the scientific staff is alarmed to learn that the spacecraft’s payload includes ten assault rifles “ordered by POTUS himself so that the Manchester Arms Company can advertise the R-9 as the Official Space Force gun.” Touring Space Force’s headquarters, one character refers to a building as the place “where Dr. Banner works with gamma rays.” And in one sidesplitting episode the branch’s general staff is advised the First Lady herself will be designing the new Space Force uniforms...complete with capes (“She knows we’re not Avengers...right?” wonders one perplexed officer).
At its best, “Space Force” walks gingerly along the narrow path between the outrageously absurd and the type of bureaucratic nonsense you can almost imagine occurring, the same inspired silliness seen in “M*A*S*H” (the 1970 Robert Altman movie, not the beloved television series) or even in the pages of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.” Episodes 1 and 2 are especially funny, depicting the origins of the new service branch and their first major mission to launch the (very expensive) Epsilon One satellite and its animal crew--a mission eventually disabled by the Chinese, who clip the solar panels from the craft in a sort of interstellar act of pantsing.
Unfortunately, from somewhere around Episode 5, depicting a war games contest between Space Force and the USAF which actually becomes more of a battle of the exoskeletons, “Space Force” descends into the realm of updated service comedy, little different--or better--than old TV series from “Sergeant Bilko” and “McHale’s Navy” to “Hogan’s Heroes” and even “Gomer Pyle USMC”--with more adult-oriented language and situations, of course. But thankfully the series recovers its momentum, and its whimsical punch, in time for the series finale in Episodes 8 through 10.
With only ten episodes (so far) filmed for streaming on Netflix, individual episodes feature running times of between 27 and 36 minutes...or apparently until the writers ran out of funny lines to put into the mouths of the show’s characters. If the new series has a fault, it might be that certain episodes occasionally feel as if they’re being made up as they go along, unusual for a project occasionally requiring relatively elaborate special effects. But of course, no expense is too high for the Space Force. And keep an eye on the background--as in Mad Magazine, there’s often something funny going on there too.
Even in the worst of its episodes, though, “Space Force” marks a welcome return to form, and television comedy, for series co-creator and star Steve Carell. Even when Carell seems to be channeling George C. Scott as General Patton--which he tends to do a lot in “Space Force”--it’s good to have him back, showing us that even during the present sorry state of the world there are still a few things we can chuckle about. Television comedy was always among Carell’s greatest strengths, and in “Space Force” he steps up to the plate and bats one into orbit...literally.
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