Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Sniper: The White Raven’ Review: Rage and Resilience

      by

      This slick fictional portrait of a Ukrainian sniper begins in tranquillity before thrusting us into the silent brutality of the battlefield.The polished character study “Sniper: The White Raven” tells the fictional story of a Ukrainian free spirit turned specialized soldier. Its release arrives as troubling reports on Russia’s invasion of the country break almost daily, and the movie’s themes of nationalism, rage and resilience resonate even as its glassiness holds viewers at a distance.Directed by the Ukrainian filmmaker Marian Bushan, the movie begins in 2014, as Mykola (Pavlo Aldoshyn), an amiable science teacher, leads a nonconformist existence. He and his wife (Maryna Koshkina) live in a shanty carved into a hillside, and use energy from a rudimentary windmill erected above. A primal mood steers these early scenes, and the looseness of the storytelling makes for a lovely and cogent prologue.But once Russia invades Ukraine that year and Mykola faces a cataclysmic tragedy, the film hardens and darkens. Despairing, Mykola enlists in the military, where he sheds his pacifism and volunteers to train as a marksman. After Mykola commits to the army, he hardly looks back, and we spend much of the remaining running time observing his silent focus on the battlefield.Like many other movies trailing a lone gunslinger, “Sniper: The White Raven” builds to a tense face-off, which for our hero comes to represent a small measure of justice. The story’s beginning in such a tranquil place makes its ultimate devotion to vengeance somewhat difficult to comprehend — though, one might argue, so is an imperialist war.Sniper: The White RavenRated R. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 63 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Clara Sola’ Review: Breaking Free

      by

      A 40-year-old woman, believed to be blessed with divine powers, has her sexual awakening in Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s debut feature.A sad paradox of being a woman in this world is that the more one is exalted — as a goddess, a saint, a provider — the less one is allowed to be a person, flawed and whole. Such is the predicament of the heroine of Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s debut feature, “Clara Sola.”Clara (Wendy Chinchilla Araya) is a 40-year-old woman, with a childlike, volatile nature. She lives in a verdant Costa Rican village with her mother, Fresia (Flor María Vargas Chaves), and her niece, Maria (Ana Julia Porras Espinoza). Because Clara is believed to have been blessed with healing powers by the Virgin Mary, she is trussed up and trotted out by Fresia to help visitors seeking miracles, and guarded fiercely as a model of purity. Fresia won’t let Clara get surgery for a spinal problem (“God gave her to me like this,” she declares), and she rubs Clara’s fingers in chilies to prevent her from masturbating.As the arrival of a handsome horse-wrangler sets off a slow, feral combustion in Clara, the film unfolds as a familiar drama of sexual awakening amid religious repression (with cues from “Carrie,” no less). But “Clara Sola” compels when it dwells in its central mysteries, like Clara’s special, empathic connection to nature and animals. Araya is remarkably tender as she sinks her fingers into the earth or gingerly lifts bugs off the ground, while Sophie Winqvist Loggins’s hushed, soft-focus camerawork imbues these moments with an almost spiritual grace.Is Clara neurodivergent, thus prompting her mother’s coddling, or has her deification had a stunting effect on her social capacities? Does she truly have otherworldly powers, or is she just attuned to the world differently? With its elliptical telling, “Clara Sola” leaves these questions unresolved, gently balancing between magic realism and the more tragic, sobering realities of our world.Clara SolaNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ Review: They’re Yellow but Not Mellow

      by

      This latest edition featuring the animated creatures is an origin story of sorts for their master, Gru.The cartoon characters called Minions, sufficiently popular to anchor two ostensibly discrete animated film franchises, are diminutive capsule-shaped yellow yammerers outfitted in goggles and overalls, whose bearing for the most part is simultaneously hyper and insouciant. While one of their number seems a relatively competent D.J., the remainder of this innumerable lot aren’t very adept, especially as henchminions. Kids love them. Parents, as far as one can see, tolerate them.Their latest outing, directed by Kyle Balda, Brad Abelson and Jonathan Del Val, is “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” in which the arguably epicene creatures again try to help out their master Gru — only, as the title implies, Gru here is a kid and it’s the cartoon 1970s. The movie opens with a nostalgia-inducing, feel-good Earth, Wind and Fire song, no surprise given contemporary movie convention, as the gang called the Vicious Six engages in Indiana-Jones-style high jinks for a heist of a supernatural stone. Double crosses ensue: The Vicious Six try to ax their senior member, Wild Knuckles (voiced by Alan Arkin), and little Gru auditions for the gang, then makes off with the aforementioned stone after being insulted by the baddies.The title characters have classic toon precedent — remember the maladroit elves in Tex Avery’s 1950 “The Peachy Cobbler,” or the gremlin in that Bugs Bunny cartoon? The peculiar nonchalance of the Minions is funniest when they hijack an aircraft and successfully fly it to San Francisco without having a clue as to what they’re doing.Throughout, the gang speaks speedy gibberish derived from at least six recognizable European languages — a westernized variant of Stitch-speak, maybe. Michelle Yeoh lends her voice to a character who’s both Kung Fu master and acupuncturist. And that’s all, folks — amiable and colorful as it is, the movie is also spectacularly inconsequential.Minions: The Rise of GruRated PG for action, violence and rude humor. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 63 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Rubikon’ Review: Waiting to Inhale

      by

      In this somber morality tale, the bare-bones crew of a space station is faced with an impossible choice.“Rubikon,” a talky, soporific sci-fi drama, is partly an environmental heads up and partly an ethical argument that hews mainly toward utilitarianism. Yet there’s sufficient ambivalence in the screenplay (by the Austrian director, Leni Lauritsch, and Jessica Lind) to suggest that, given the characters’ minuscule odds of long-term survival, their philosophical choices are less consequential than they appear.It’s 2056 and a poisoned Earth is ruled by corporations and their armies. While the wealthy huddle comfortably in filtered biodomes, the poor are left to choke. Aboard Rubikon, Earth’s sole remaining space research station, a scientist (Mark Ivanir) has invented a game-changing, algae-based filtration system. And just in time: As Hannah (Julia Franz Richter), a corporate soldier, and a colleague (George Blagden) arrive to evaluate the system, a creeping brown fog seems intent on extinguishing all life on Earth. Should the crew members risk their lives to save what remains of humanity?However thoughtful and well-intentioned, this debut feature is too airless and long-winded to excite. Winking screens and sterile corridors, cleanly photographed by Xiaosu Han and Andreas Thalhammer, make for clinically repetitive visuals and a depressing mood that the constant quarreling and no-good-choices plot only intensify. In short, the film’s sobriety is a drag, offering the actors little room to add color, their characters’ moral disparities less interesting than the small details of corporate-controlled life — the crippling debt burdens, the expendability of the soldiers, the compulsory contraceptive device behind Hannah’s ear — scattered throughout the speeches. There’s a whole world of deprivation in those details, if only the filmmakers had the budget to bring it to life.RubikonNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Beauty’ Review: Requiem for a Pop Star

      by

      The ghost of Whitney Houston haunts “Beauty,” the story of a singer, her family and best friend on the edge of fame.Befitting its title, “Beauty” opens looking lovely, even if much of what transpires in this story of a Black pop star set to ink a record deal will be ugly. Played by Gracie Marie Bradley, Beauty stands in front of a microphone in a recording studio. This close-up image will be repeated several times, challenging timeline expectations by looping what will be with what is.In this lilting, lyrical work, the director Andrew Dosunmu and the writer Lena Waithe mine, mourn and tease the Whitney Houston story. Consider “Beauty” an elegy with an edge, one that touches on faith and financials, love and condemnation.Giancarlo Esposito plays Beauty’s malefic father and Niecy Nash is her vocally exacting mother. Sharon Stone leans into her Mephistophelian role as record exec. “God was showing off a little when he created her,” she tells the TV talk show host Irv Merlin (James Urbaniak). Any doubts about the movie’s interests in religious sanctimony and patriarchal cruelties are dispelled in a scene in which dad pits Beauty’s brothers, Abel (Kyle Bary) and Cain (Micheal Ward) against each other.Like Irv’s name, other coy gestures suggest proximity to Houston’s saga while end-running biopic issues. Yet, the movie remains intriguingly withholding. Will we hear Beauty sing? Will she and her romantic friend Jasmine (Aleyse Shannon) finally “go there”? When the two dance to the Force M.D.’s slow-jam gem “Tender Love,” it’s romance not sex that gets its close-up. Instead of an evasion, this feels like respect: the filmmakers honoring but not naming what the actual star so clearly evoked here never acknowledged.BeautyRated R for language and drug use. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in Movies

      Mary Mara, Actress on ‘ER,’ ‘Dexter’ and ‘Nash Bridges,’ Dies at 61

      by

      She appeared in dozens of movies and television shows in a career of more than 30 years. The police said they believed she died in a drowning accident.Mary Mara, a character actress who appeared on television shows including “Nash Bridges,” “Dexter” and “ER” in a career that spanned more than 30 years, has died in upstate New York. She was 61.The death was announced by the New York State Police, who said that Ms. Mara’s body was found on Sunday morning in the St. Lawrence River near Cape Vincent, N.Y., near the Canadian border, and that a preliminary investigation suggested that she had drowned while swimming.She lived in Cape Vincent.Ms. Mara was born on Sept. 21, 1960, in Syracuse, N.Y., to Roger Mara, the former director of special events for the New York State Fair, and Lucille Mara, an accountant. Her brother, Roger, who was a puppeteer, told The San Francisco Examiner in 1996 that he and Mary were encouraged by their mother’s flair for the dramatic.After graduating from Corcoran High School in Syracuse, Ms. Mara studied at San Francisco State University and later earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the Yale School of Drama. Throughout her career she dabbled in theater, most notably in 1989 in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Twelfth Night,” alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.That same year, she had her first onscreen credit, in the television movie “The Preppie Murder,” based on the true story of a young woman’s murder in New York. In 1992 she appeared in “Love Potion No. 9” and “Mr. Saturday Night,” in which Billy Crystal starred as a veteran stand-up comedian. Ms. Mara played his estranged daughter.Her other films included the 2008 horror movie “Prom Night.”She was perhaps best known for her recurring roles on “ER,” in which she played a patient, Loretta Sweet, from 1995-96, and on “Nash Bridges,” in which she played Inspector Bryn Carson from 1996-97.She once said she thought her character had been overshadowed by the male detectives played by Don Johnson and Cheech Marin on the latter show.“It is a male-dominated show with Don and Cheech the principals,” she told The Post-Standard of Syracuse in 1999. Although the show’s writers “started to write for me really well about halfway through the season,” she added, the producers “were afraid I would stand out too much.”Ms. Mara later appeared on “Dexter,” “Ray Donovan,” “Bones,” “Star Trek: Enterprise” and other shows. Her last credit was in the 2020 movie “Break Even.”In a statement, Ms. Mara’s manager, Craig Dorfman, described her as “electric, funny and a true individual.”Her survivors include a stepdaughter, Katie Mersola, and two sisters, Martha Mara and Susan Dailey, according to Variety.The Associated Press contributed reporting. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Art of Making It’ Review: Seeking a Bigger Canvas

      by

      Despite its haphazard approach, this documentary about the contemporary art world serves as a decent explainer for the industry’s fraught dynamics.It’s no wonder that the art world, especially in recent years, has inspired a number of scathing dark comedies — think “Velvet Buzzsaw” or the Palme d’Or winner “The Square,” films that mock the industry’s elitism and its entanglement with capitalism.“The Art of Making It,” a documentary by Kelcey Edwards, doesn’t entirely depart from those pessimistic fictional portraits. It does, however, offer a more pragmatic, occasionally hopeful, perspective on the visual arts ecosystem and the collectors, gallery owners, curators, critics and artists that play by its rules — or, for better or worse, try to make their own.“Making It” boasts a number of first-rate talking heads — there’s the famed New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz; the notorious art dealer Stefan Simchowitz; the critic and media influencer known for her art-world memes, Hilde Lynn Helphenstein (a.k.a. Jerry Gogosian). As Edwards jumps to and from these insiders, she traces the careers of several artists, like Jenna Gribbon, a figurative painter whose social media savvy helped launch her career; and Chris Watts, a multimedia artist who was kicked out his M.F.A. program at Yale for not conforming to that institution’s standards of marketability. (Annoyingly, only Gribbon’s work is explored in detail.)
      For those unfamiliar with the industry, “Making It” is a decent explainer of its fraught dynamics: the M.F.A.-to-gallery representation pipeline; the desire for more commercial artwork; the mercenary practices of certain buyers and collectors.But Edwards’s generic approach — heavy on talking heads and explanatory title cards — often yields fuzzy results, with a haphazard rush of information overwhelming the rare moments the documentary settles into a more defined and compelling point of view. And as much as Edwards attempts to cover multiple bases, she’s also looking at the art world through the narrowest peephole — more like the art world establishment, featuring a handful of black sheep.The Art of Making ItNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 63 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Stream These Three Great Documentaries

      by

      This month’s nonfiction picks include a reflection on a father, a immersive dive into the fishing industry and an alternative approach to the rock band biopic doc.The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll choose three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.‘Film About a Father Who’ (2020)Stream it on the Criterion Channel. Rent it on Apple TV and Vudu.In “Film About a Father Who,” the director Lynne Sachs sorts through her feelings about her elusive, problematic dad, Ira Sachs Sr. The movie, which mixes film and video formats, brings together footage that Lynne shot over more than 30 years along with other material from her filmmaker brother, Ira Sachs Jr. (“Love Is Strange”), and Ira Sr. himself.Right from the start, Ira Sr. sounds like a bit of a flake. Lynne, explaining what her dad did for a living, calls him “a hippie businessman, buying land so steep you couldn’t build, bottling mineral water he couldn’t put on the shelves, using other people’s money to develop hotels named for flowers.” He also seems to have been a serial compartmentalizer. That trait may have been harmless enough when it came to extravagances (he owned twin Cadillac convertibles and kept one secret), but it caused a great deal of drama for his family. Lynne interviews some of the women Ira Sr. had been involved with and the many children he fathered, including two grown half sisters Lynne didn’t know about until 2016. Did she have suspicions, you might ask? Lynne suggests that Ira Sr.’s secret-keeping led her and her siblings to adopt a stance of what she calls “complicit ignorance.” And Ira Sr.’s mother, called Maw-Maw by Lynne, only complicated matters when she was alive, because, Lynne says, she “could not take the constant flow of people that she was supposed to, quote, ‘love,’ in the way that we’re taught to love family.”In interviews, Ira Sr. nevertheless comes across as a genial lug — maybe fun at parties, but surely a handful to have as a father or a partner. “Film About a Father Who,” whose title was inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s “Film About a Woman Who,” is a consideration of how one man’s easygoing attitude yielded anything but an easy family dynamic as it rippled across generations. The movie runs only 74 minutes, but it contains lifetimes.‘Leviathan’ (2012)Stream it on Kanopy or Mubi. Rent it on Google Play and Vudu.Some documentaries aim to impose order on the world. “Leviathan,” by contrast, revels in abstraction and disorientation, as Dennis Lim noted in 2012 when profiling the filmmakers for The New York Times. The co-directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, a group that merges the academic discipline of ethnography with the artistic possibilities of filmmaking, shot it during six trips aboard a Massachusetts fishing trawler. But it’s hardly an exposé or elucidation of the fishing industry. It opens with a quote from the Book of Job and unleashes a furious torrent of images in which it’s often difficult to know which way is up or even whether it’s day or night.As the title implies, the human presence is something of a secondary concern next to the monstrous churn of the sea or the clanking, threatening chains of the boat’s equipment. The waterlogged, slicker-wearing fishermen aren’t identified until the closing credits; their voices are often barely possible to understand (the distortions of their words suggest Charlie Brown’s teacher fed through some sort of metallic feedback), and their routines are never explained.In interviews, the filmmakers noted that they sought to surrender some of their agency to the elements. Waterproof cameras get dragged underwater like a fishing net or pulled above the surface to skip along with some hovering seabirds. They slosh around on the floor with the day’s catch, as much a part of the detritus as the ginger-ale can that rattles around in a pile of shells. Shooting at ultra-close-range from boot height or at odd angles, Paravel and Castaing-Taylor offer perspectives on the way the boat looks and sounds that seem untethered from where our eyes would naturally dart for meaning. It’s so vivid that at times, you swear you can smell the ship as well.‘The Velvet Underground’ (2021)Stream it on Apple TV+.Todd Haynes doesn’t exactly reinvent the rock-band-biopic documentary in “The Velvet Underground,” but there are times when he seems pretty close to it. The title is in some ways a misnomer: The focus isn’t so much on the band as the Warholian cultural ferment of the 1960s that the group grew out of. (It’s more underground and less, uh, velvet.) Dedicated to the memory of Jonas Mekas, who appears, and featuring excerpts from films by him and film-artist contemporaries like Bruce Conner, Stan Brakhage and many others, Haynes’s movie is as interested in picture, sound and sensation as it is in recording history.The copious use of split screen evokes Warhol’s “Chelsea Girls,” a work that places imagery from two projectors side by side while the soundtrack alternates between the film strips, allowing viewers to draw connections. In a similar spirit, Haynes is devoted to capturing the cultural crosscurrents that shaped the band and its members.John Cale, one of the band’s founders, speaks of the influence of experimental musicians like John Cage and La Monte Young on the music he was making. Later, offering a fan’s perspective, the musician Jonathan Richman talks about hearing “overtones that you couldn’t account for” while seeing the Velvet Underground play. The film critic Amy Taubin draws a link between Warhol’s silent films — meant to be played at the slower-than-standard speed of 16 frames per second — and the avant-garde music scene: “It was all about extended time.”Haynes’s film doesn’t avoid standard biographical details. There are tales of Lou Reed’s prickliness and a long section about what happened to the band after its game-changing (if famously not best-selling) first album. But you don’t have to be interested in the music, or music at all, to appreciate “The Velvet Underground” as a movie. More