Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘¿Y Cómo Es Él?’ Review: A Fraught Buddy Comedy

      by

      A jealous man tries to exact revenge on his wife’s lover, but ends up taking a road trip with him instead.“¿Y Cómo Es Él?”, a Mexican love-triangle comedy by the Argentine director Ariel Winograd, translates to “And What’s He Like?”“He,” we find out immediately, is Jero (Omar Chaparro), a taxi driver and businessman, who is the lover of Marcia (Zuria Vega), who is married to Tomás (Mauricio Ochmann).The film opens with Tomás, our edgy protagonist, scrutinizing pictures of a dashing hunk while on a flight to Puerto Vallarta.Tómas, unemployed, jealous and insecure, tells Marcia he’s traveling for a job interview. He’s actually on his way to kick Jero’s butt — or tase him, or blow him to pieces with a machine gun. These violent fantasies play out in comic bursts, but when faced with the opportunity to exact revenge, Tómas gets cold feet. Then, he accidentally stabs himself, passes out, and wakes up in his nemesis’s back seat.It turns out that Jero is a pretty nice guy — he even offers Tomás a ride back to Mexico City.Cue the fraught male bonding, which (predictably for this kind of straight guy buddy comedy) includes a trip to a brothel and run-ins with thuggish debt collectors.The film, a remake of a 2007 Korean film bluntly translated as “Driving With My Wife’s Lover,” will seem retrograde to contemporary viewers. In addition to homophobic quips, the premise relies on the idea that an adulterous wife is the greatest offense to a man’s dignity. As such, it caters to an older, more traditional Latino audience who might still be tickled by such a conceit — and for whom the cast, which includes Chaparro (a prolific comedian and singer), along with several other popular Mexican personalities, will be a draw.Though Winograd questions the film’s gender biases in the conclusion, he does so unconvincingly. At a quick 95 minutes, at least the whole thing zips by, however brainlessly.¿Y Cómo Es Él?Rated PG-13. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Saturday Fiction’ Review: Theater of History

      by

      In this period drama set in Shanghai in December 1941, the resplendent Gong Li conveys depths of pain and longing even when the script offers none.The resplendent Gong Li anchors a mysterious — and often mystifying — tale of intrigue in “Saturday Fiction,” the latest feature by the Chinese director Lou Ye. As in films like “Summer Palace” and “Purple Butterfly,” Lou sets a Hitchcockian thriller of identity and passion on the cusp of major historical events, though in “Saturday Fiction,” personal and political dramas collide in particularly combustible ways.The film takes place in December 1941, on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack, in a Shanghai occupied by Japan and crisscrossed by Allied and Axis spies. Gong plays a famed actress, Jean Yu, who has just returned to the city after an absence, ostensibly to star in a play directed by her lover, Tan Na (Mark Chao).But Jean’s true reasons remain elusive, mired in a web of allegiances involving, among others, her ex-husband, who has been kidnapped by Japanese forces, and a fatherly French diplomat who tasks her with an espionage mission. Lou further obscures Jean’s motives with some clever, metafictional sleight of hand: Often, the film segues deceptively between onstage rehearsals of Tan’s play and Jean’s offstage encounters.Visually, the effect is one of elegant chaos. The cinematographer Zeng Jian captures a rain-drenched, period-dressed Shanghai in soft black-and-white, with a restless hand-held camera that lends poetry even to high-octane shootouts. On the level of narrative, however, the film tips over into plain old confusion, as Jean’s increasingly illogical actions contribute to one of history’s great disasters.Yet star power is a logic unto itself, and Lou has ensured a limitless supply by casting Gong as an actress-spy. She conveys depths of pain and longing even when the script offers none, seducing us as effortlessly as Jean seduces her enemies.Saturday FictionNot rated. In Mandarin, English, Japanese and French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Duke’ Review: Suspect’s 61

      by

      This film from the director Roger Michell has a compelling art-thief protagonist, but is weighed down by soggy family drama.A Robin Hood figure polarizes England in “The Duke,” an ambling, sentimental account of the 1961 heist of Francisco de Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. The police assume that the thief is a criminal mastermind. The public imagines the villain from Dr. No (1963), who displayed the purloined painting in his lair. But the man standing trial is a more unusual suspect: a 61-year-old cabdriver, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), who claims that he swiped the art over frustration that the British government would rather spend money lionizing the dead than lifting up its working class. His ransom notes demand a charitable donation. (The real painting was returned in 1965; Bunton turned himself in.)An anti-establishment autodidact with a quick stride and a fast mouth — “I feel about 23,” he says, and for a moment Broadbent’s gleaming eyes make you believe it — Bunton is a rabble-rouser and a compelling hero for this film by the director Roger Michell, who died in September after a career of humanist charmers including “Notting Hill” and “Venus.” It is a pity that Richard Bean and Clive Coleman’s script mires Bunton in a soggy family drama about an unresolved death; an elder son (Jack Bandeira) who flirts with crime; and a wife, Dorothy (Helen Mirren, so sheepish as to be near invisible), who is humiliated that her husband prefers prison to a stable home. These rather generic subplots diffuse the movie’s vibrant blue-collar crusade, which gets a boost from a tizzy jazz score. Thankfully, a barrister Jeremy Hutchinson (Matthew Goode) steps in to reward Bunton’s principles with a rousing defense. Though the climatic court battle feels a tad too inspirational, even Goya might admit that’s just what a flattering portrait does.The DukeRated R for swearing and a brief sexual scene. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Marvelous and the Black Hole’ Review: Finding Magic Amid Rage

      by

      A teenager reeling from the loss of her mother discovers an unlikely companion in an older magician.Sammy Ko (Miya Cech), the protagonist of this dark coming-of-age comedy, ticks all the boxes of adolescent angst. She smokes and acts out at school; secretly gives herself tattoos with a rudimentary rig in her bedroom; and lashes out at her father, Angus (Leonardo Nam), for dating so soon after the death of her mother.When Angus reaches his wit’s end with Sammy, he gives her an ultimatum: commit to a community-college class or go to a camp for troubled kids. During a smoke break in the college bathroom, Sammy meets Margot (Rhea Perlman), a whimsical magician who turns Sammy into her reluctant apprentice.That’s the setup for “Marvelous and the Black Hole,” the writer-director Kate Tsang’s debut feature, which combines folklore, sketch art and sleight-of-hand magic to explore grief, family ties and how to channel rage.Cech is believable as a troubled teenager, and it’s refreshing to see an Asian American girl as a protagonist, but the film has a limited emotional range, jumping among several plot elements without fully fleshing them out. Missing are scenes that show how this death affected Sammy’s relationship with her sister, Patricia, or what the family’s dynamic was before the tragedy. The film focuses instead on Sammy’s all-consuming rage and self-destruction, making it feel one-note, with too few moments of redemption or connection.Marvelous and the Black HoleNot rated. Running time 1 hour 21 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Sexual Drive’ Review: Best Served Hot and Heavy

      by

      Natto, mapo tofu and fatty ramen become objects of titillation in this intriguing Japanese triptych that centers on sex without ever depicting it.A sexless husband queries his wife’s lover over a package of natto. A nervous driver on her way to buy mapo sauce finds her panic attack transform into a paroxysm of passion when she collides with an old schoolmate. And a married man obeys enigmatic instructions to rescue his paramour after she’s kidnapped from a ramen shop.These three encounters form the wry Japanese triptych “Sexual Drive,” directed by Kota Yoshida. Consistently intriguing and occasionally hilarious, the movie does not depict sex itself. Instead, the characters eat food items that become objects of titillation, lust and pleasure: the sticky goo around soybeans, chili oil sizzling in a wok.A man named Kurita (Tateto Serizawa) appears in each vignette as a mysterious raconteur spinning tales of lechery that — however disturbing and perhaps untrue — succeed in rousing his counterparts to their own desires. In two of the stories, Kurita is in conversation with men, and because of this, the movie lends disproportionate attention to the male libido. One can only take so many instances of male characters bragging about a sexual conquest or groaning in shame over being cuckolded.But in the best of the three parts, called “Mapo Tofu,” a woman takes center stage. Driving to the grocery store, the anxious Akane (Honami Sato) bumps into Kurita, whom she used to bully in elementary school, and his memories of that time reawaken her taste for spice. Running a brief 70 minutes, “Sexual Drive” might have benefited from more women owning their appetites, especially since its erotica is such a fascinating new flavor.Sexual DriveNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      Stephanie Hsu on the Costumes in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’

      by

      The actress Stephanie Hsu talks about how clothes convey the full range of character in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a new and genre-defying film set in an expansive multiverse, identity isn’t fixed but fractured into a constellation of possibilities.The movie’s central characters — Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh), her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), and their daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu) — travel through various universes as they fight to save their struggling family business and to defeat an all-powerful villain named Jobu Tupaki, who has taken up residence in Joy’s human form. As they jump from one timeline to the next, the characters inhabit numerous distinct selves: their alternate destinies, their untapped skills and their sartorial sensibilities.“I think it’s so rare that you get to experience the scope of range within one character in one movie,” Ms. Hsu, 31, said in a Zoom interview on Saturday.Playing both Joy and Jobu required the actress to mine the depths of depression and explore the destructive highs of mania — an emotional range that the film conveys in part through costume.Ms. Hsu also plays Joy, a young woman grappling with depression and the pressure to please her family.via A24“She is so despondent and so lost and has so much despair and carries that ugliness with her,” Ms. Hsu said of Joy, who is introduced in a somber flannel shirt and an oversize hoodie, the kind of clothing people wear to hide. “But I knew that I could really go there with her because I also was about to get to wear the most fabulous things and be a nemesis.”Jobu’s style is loud, experimental and confrontational. She shows up at various points in head-to-toe tartan, her face obscured by a mask and visor; a preppy pink polo with an argyle sweater vest and a pleated skirt, wielding a golf club as a weapon; a sparkly white Elvis-inspired jumpsuit and a pink wig; a psychedelic zip-up with teddy bears on either sleeve. Her makeup is, likewise, unsubtle and unnerving: She paints red hearts on her cheeks and covers her face in pearls and rhinestones. (A keen observer may notice that one gem is shaped like a teardrop.)Ms. Hsu noted that small details in her costumes and makeup were meant to tether the ruthless Jobu to Joy, who, despite her constant conflicts with her mother, still wants the best for her family.via A24Ms. Hsu said the teardrop and hearts were meant to tether the ruthless Jobu to Joy, who, despite her constant conflicts with her mother, still wants the best for her family. During a fight scene with Evelyn, Jobu wears an outfit that is pure chaos, mashing up the character’s many dissonant styles to an alarming effect. But when she lifts up a fist, she reveals a glove with a cutout in the shape of a heart.“I remember putting that glove on and being like, ‘I love that this fist is actually still symbolizing love and that we’re having this fist fight,’” Ms. Hsu said. “It was just such a helpful reminder for me.”Allyson RiggsShe emphasized that all of the looks were the product of a close collaboration between the film’s costume designer, Shirley Kurata (whom she described as “an artistic genius”), and the directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.“The three of them are maximalists who still care deeply about aesthetics,” Ms. Hsu said. “And so even though I was wearing really crazy things, sometimes it was really important that it was still fabulous and very couture.” Anissa Salazar, who oversaw the production’s hair department, and Michelle Chung, the head of makeup, also contributed to the overall effect.Ms. Hsu said that the look that took the longest to complete was “Goddess Jobu,” as she referred to it, for which she wore a long white gown, an Elizabethan ruff, iridescent makeup and a braided hairdo that culminated in a bagel-like bun at the crown of her head.Ms. Hsu said that transforming into “Goddess Jobu” took the longest of all her looks.via A24“The bagel was a hairpiece,” she said. “And then there are these braids that go across my hair. So that took a lot of glue and things like that. But that one was actually easier than it looked.”Much more challenging, she said, was putting on all the layers of the outfit. “There was a leather bodysuit, leggings, a skirt, gloves and then these arm shields,” she said. “And then we had to also hang jewels on my body.”Ms. Hsu was cast in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in 2019, a week after she moved to Los Angeles from New York City, a place that had shaped her sense of style.Allyson Riggs“I lived in New York for 11 years. I think that New York really gave me functional swag because you have to walk everywhere,” Ms. Hsu said. “But now when I’m in L.A., it’s really fun to wear fun shoes. I love shoes.”She said that working on the film, seeing herself in Jobu’s various costumes and hearing responses from fans of the movie also gave her the confidence to unlock a more expressive mode of dressing.“I feel like my freak flag flew way higher when I was younger,” Ms. Hsu said, “and so I think I’m trying to embrace that again.” More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Johnny Depp, Accused of Spousal Abuse, Says Ex-Wife Was the Aggressor

      by

      The actor testified in a defamation case that he filed against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who has said he often struck her during their relationship.The actor Johnny Depp took the stand for the second day on Wednesday to describe his turbulent marriage to the actress Amber Heard, whom he has sued for defamation, accusing her of “demeaning name-calling” that often escalated into physical violence.“It could begin with a slap, it could begin with a shove, it could begin with throwing a TV remote at my head, throwing a glass of wine in my face,” Mr. Depp told a jury at Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia.Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp in court papers of repeatedly assaulting her throughout their relationship, from slapping and kicking to dragging her across the floor by her hair and grasping her throat, making her fearful that he would kill her.But over the past few years of legal wrangling in the United States and Britain, Mr. Depp has maintained that Ms. Heard was the one who was violent toward him. In testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Depp denied ever striking Ms. Heard or any woman.“She has a need for conflict, she has a need for violence,” he said of Ms. Heard. “It erupts out of nowhere.”Ms. Heard denied in court papers that she had ever struck Mr. Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister.Mr. Depp has sued Ms. Heard for defamation over an op-ed she wrote in 2018 in which she said she was a ​​“public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article did not mention Mr. Depp’s name, but he testified that the time-frame reference in the op-ed was clearly in reference to their marriage, which lasted less than two years.The seven-person jury will also consider Ms. Heard’s countersuit, which asserts that Mr. Depp defamed her when his former lawyer made statements saying that her allegations of domestic abuse were a hoax.During more than five hours of testimony on Wednesday, the jury heard snippets of recorded arguments between the couple. Those included audio of Mr. Depp confronting Ms. Heard about kicking a door into his head the previous night and Ms. Heard asking, “Why are you obsessing over the fact that I can’t remember it the way you remember it?”During his testimony, Mr. Depp strove to present his side of several incidents that have surfaced as their problems in their relationship became public, including the time Mr. Depp’s middle finger was severed. The injury occurred in 2015 while the couple was in Australia for the filming of the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.Mr. Depp told the jury that, at the time, Ms. Heard was angry about a meeting she had with a lawyer about a potential postnuptial agreement and threw two vodka bottles at him, one of which missed while another shattered into his hand, causing his finger to bleed “like Vesuvius.” He testified that he then experienced a “nervous breakdown” and used his bloody finger to write on the walls messages that “represented lies that she told me.”Ms. Heard, who is expected to take the stand later in the trial, has given a very different account of the incident in Australia, writing in court papers that Mr. Depp became violent with her during an argument about his drug use. She has said that at one point he grabbed her by the neck and collarbone and slammed her into a countertop, then hit her with the back of his hand and slammed a phone against a wall until it “smashed into smithereens,” injuring his finger.Upon her return to Los Angeles, Ms. Heard wrote in court papers that “I had a busted lip, a swollen nose and cuts all over my body.”Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Some Like It Hot’ Musical Plans Fall Opening on Broadway

      by

      Christian Borle, J. Harrison Ghee and Adrianna Hicks will star in a stage adaptation of the 1959 film comedy about two musicians on the run.A new musical adaptation of “Some Like It Hot,” a classic cross-dressing comedy that is being recalibrated for contemporary audiences, will start performances in November and open in December on Broadway, the show’s producers said Wednesday.The musical will star Christian Borle (a two-time Tony winner, for “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “Something Rotten!”) and J. Harrison Ghee (“Kinky Boots”) as two musicians fleeing the mob after witnessing a gangland massacre, and Adrianna Hicks (“Six”) as a singer they befriend. In the acclaimed 1959 film, those roles were played by Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.The production, first announced four years ago, has faced challenges on its path to Broadway: One of the original producers, Craig Zadan, died; the pandemic prompted the cancellation of a pre-Broadway run in Chicago; and the whole question of how jokes about men dressing as women work has become increasingly contested.“It’s a complicated picture, bracingly ahead of its time in some ways, wincingly dated in others,” A.O. Scott, a critic at large and the co-chief film critic for The New York Times, wrote in 2020.The job of reimagining the story, still set in Prohibition-era Chicago, falls to Matthew López, the Tony-winning writer of “The Inheritance,” and Amber Ruffin, the writer and talk show host. The songs are by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who previously wrote the Tony-winning score for “Hairspray.”Casey Nicholaw, the Tony-winning director of “The Book of Mormon,” will direct and choreograph.“Some Like It Hot” is being produced by the Shubert Organization and Neil Meron, along with MGM on Stage, Roy Furman, Robert Greenblatt, James L. Nederlander and Kenny Leon. The musical will be capitalized for up to $17.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The show is scheduled to begin performances Nov. 1 and to open Dec. 11 at the Shubert Theater. More