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      ‘Malcolm & Marie’ Review: Fight Flub

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Malcolm & Marie’ Review: Fight FlubA gorgeous Hollywood couple has an extended, exhausting argument in this claustrophobic example of pandemic filmmaking from Netflix.John David Washington and Zendaya in “Malcolm & Marie.”Credit…Dominic Miller/NetflixFeb. 4, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETMalcolm & MarieDirected by Sam LevinsonDrama, RomanceR1h 46mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.A movie of dueling monologues and competing grievances, Sam Levinson’s “Malcolm & Marie” traps us inside the luxury rental and dysfunctional relationship of two enormously privileged, fiercely self-involved people.The mood is so depressingly combative that the elation and grace of the opening scene feels like an unfulfilled promise. As the golden beats of James Brown’s “Down and Out in New York City” flood the soundtrack, Malcolm (John David Washington), a rising-star filmmaker, dances exuberantly across his living-room. He and his girlfriend, Marie (Zendaya), have just returned from a successful premiere, and he’s high on acclaim and his own virtuosity.His peacocking, however, irritates Marie, who heads for the bathroom in a sulk. A former drug addict whose grueling experiences inspired Malcolm’s film, Marie is about to unload a wealth of resentment on her unsuspecting partner. First, though, she’ll have to listen to him, his joy evaporated, complain about critics who define him by his Blackness — a justifiable loathing of categorization that doesn’t prevent him, later in the film, from singling out one female Los Angeles Times critic for special scorn.That rant, an almost 10-minute scream-and-stomp tirade against, in part, the inadequacies of film criticism, isn’t the movie’s lowest point, only its most exhausting. (In Levinson’s script, the couple’s relationship woes are constantly competing with industry-related whining.) Malcolm may or may not be a megaphone for his director’s personal gripes, but Washington, a charismatically intense and supple performer, is ill-served by speeches that have the cadence and calculation of acting-school exercises.Zendaya, for her part, fares slightly better with a character who is more willing to be vulnerable. When Malcolm cruelly tells Marie she’s not special, listing all the damaged women he has known who could have served as inspiration, she is touchingly wounded. Yet she also senses the insecurities behind his swaggering egotism, smartly pointing out — given his educated, upper-middle-class background — the artifice of his underdog posturing.Fighting the metronomic beats of the movie’s equal-time speeches, Zendaya (who has the advantage of working with the crew and creator of her HBO show, “Euphoria”) allows us to glimpse the suffering that brought Marie to this point, and to this man. And while Marcell Rev’s high-contrast, black-and-white photography is often quite lovely — in one surreal shot, trees outside the home rear up like twisted, fairy-tale villains — only occasionally do his camera movements ease the claustrophobia of the stage-like setting.A stylized stab at pandemic filmmaking, “Malcolm & Marie,” is at once mildly admirable and deeply unlikable. Beneath the film’s Old-Hollywood gleam and self-conscious sniping, serious questions are raised, only to lie fallow. What obligation, if any, does an artist have to their muse? And how do we separate an artist’s work from their ethnicity?“I promise you, nothing productive is going to be said tonight,” Marie says near the beginning of the movie. Sadly, she’s telling the truth.Malcolm & MarieRated R for foul language, crude foreplay and toxic egotism. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Son of the South’ Review: Tale of an Alabama Activist

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Son of the South’ Review: Tale of an Alabama ActivistSometimes absorbing, sometimes mortifyingly tone-deaf, the film dramatizes the memoir of the white civil rights figure Bob Zellner.Lucas Till as Bob Zellner in “Son of the South.”Credit…Vertical EntertainmentFeb. 4, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETSon of the SouthDirected by Barry Alexander BrownBiography, DramaPG-131h 45mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.“Son of the South” gets off to an appalling start, with a man being dragged by two others, and then a freeze frame, accompanied by a voice-over: “That’s me, Bob Zellner.” As the meme goes, we’re probably wondering how he ended up in this situation — being dragged toward a noose. That Bob is white and not Black is presumably supposed to make the use of this glib and much-parodied device permissible in this context. But given that lynchings have historically been directed by whites against African-Americans, the introduction is mortifyingly tone-deaf.[embedded content]“Five months ago, life was simpler,” Bob explains, in another line so overworked it should have been cut. The screenplay, by the director, Barry Alexander Brown, a longtime editor for Spike Lee, somewhat eases up on the clichés from there. Based on the memoir that Zellner wrote with his fellow civil rights activist Constance Curry, the film tells the story of how Zellner (Lucas Till), the grandson of a Klansman (a late role for Brian Dennehy, who died in April), became an active figure in the civil rights movement in early-1960s Alabama, eventually becoming the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s first white field secretary.A biopic that foregrounds the perspective of a white Alabamian — who was treated violently for his activism but could protest from a position of relative safety — yet turns John Lewis (Dexter Darden) and other Black activists (including a love interest played by Lex Scott Davis) into supporting characters is an ideologically fraught proposition in 2021. Accepted on its terms, the film does a reasonably absorbing job of dramatizing how Zellner’s convictions strengthened, pulling him away from the security of inaction.Son of the SouthRated PG-13. Racist violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and on Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Two of Us’ Review: Thwarted Love

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Two of Us’ Review: Thwarted LoveAn older lesbian couple is met with unexpected devastation in this aching romantic drama by Filippo Meneghetti.Martine Chevallier and Barbara Sukowa in “Two of Us.”Credit…Magnolia PicturesFeb. 4, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETTwo of UsDirected by Filippo MeneghettiDrama, Romance1h 39mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Nina (the distinguished German actress Barbara Sukowa) and Madeleine (Martine Chevalier) have waited decades to love one another freely. At the beginning of “Two of Us,” the retired women — their romance long hidden under the guise of friendship — prepare to leave France for new beginnings in Rome. Timid, dutiful Madeleine, a widowed mother whose nickname is “Mado,” must first come out to her children before realizing her dream, but tragedy strikes before she can speak her truth. A stroke leaves Mado speechless and paralyzed, throwing the couple even deeper into the closet during already devastating times.Filippo Meneghetti’s pulsing romantic drama forges heartache and intrigue out of Nina’s tireless efforts to connect with her impaired lover. Played with palpable desperation and ferocity by Sukowa (“Hannah Arendt,” “Lola”), Nina is relegated to the status of friendly neighbor by Mado’s unsuspecting children. Yet she craftily maneuvers her way into Mado’s life with a tenacity that never overshadows her pain.[embedded content]The film’s us-against-them dynamic inflates the injustice of the situation, injecting rage and pathos into this tale of thwarted love at the cost of its supporting players: a frumpy caregiver with North African roots makes for a cheap punching bag, and Mado’s thinly-drawn children — clinging to the fantasy of their parents’ true love — prove disproportionately villainous.Despite these contrivances, and a climax that veers into maudlin territory, Meneghetti and the cinematographer Aurélien Marra beautifully summon the ache of queer desire. Through the use of symbolic peepholes, eavesdropping and dark rooms that provide cover for whispered assurances of devotion, “Two of Us” succeeds as a stealthy depiction of lesbian erotics, one that mirrors the inhibitions of a generation.Two of UsNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theater and on virtual cinemas. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      We Live in Disastrous Times. Why Can’t Disaster Movies Evolve?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyScreenlandWe Live in Disastrous Times. Why Can’t Disaster Movies Evolve?Credit…Photo illustration by Najeebah Al-GhadbanFeb. 4, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETEveryone on Earth is dead, or will be soon. We don’t know exactly what happened — fallout from a nuclear catastrophe? — but whatever it was, it’s still spreading, still killing people, not going away. Some survivors are hiding underground, but they can’t last long. There seem to be a few people left aboveground, near the planet’s poles, but it’s clear that whatever came for everyone else is also coming for them. We are doomed — all of us, that is, apart from the five astronauts aboard Aether, a spaceship en route back to Earth after scouting a potentially habitable moon of Jupiter.So begins “The Midnight Sky,” George Clooney’s latest outing as a director and a star — a worldwide Netflix hit and a telling artifact of our relationship with the idea of disaster. As Aether approaches Earth, the astronauts are faced with a choice. Those who board one of the ship’s landing crafts — in hopes, say, of rushing to the side of still-living loved ones — will be returning to Earth to die there. Those who stay in space will remain for the rest of their lives.In an emotionally climactic scene, one crew member follows another to an equipment locker to confess his decision. But the two don’t discuss what’s happening on Earth, or why, or what it would mean to strand themselves in space. Instead, they grow philosophical about life. “I’ve been thinking,” the crew member says, his eyes moistening. “Been thinking a lot about time, and how it gets used, and why. Why one person lives a lifetime and another only gets a few years.”[embedded content]At first, the vague catastrophe of “The Midnight Sky” feels like a neat tweak to the usual disaster-movie formulas, which lavish attention on the apocalypse itself: Either we follow its slow, terrible progress through the first act, or we see it parceled out in ominous flashbacks. These days, it seems, those mechanics can be skipped over. It’s already all too easy to imagine how the end of the world might work. Every day, news and government reports remind us that we are living through a planetary crisis, bringing new projections of worse pandemics, rolling climate shocks, mass migrations that shatter our political systems. “The Midnight Sky” takes advantage of our dread-saturated imagination to skip the disaster altogether and cut straight to the pressure it puts on individual characters.But as the equipment-locker scene makes clear, this movie is more traditional than it seems. The story, in the end, uses the same dramatic conceit as just about every other disaster movie: The decimation of Earth becomes a backdrop that lends weight to the choices of a few individuals, which are meant to point to bigger truths about humanity. Two work buddies speculating about time and mortality sounds like a Samuel Beckett play, but two space explorers talking about time and mortality after the apocalypse, plus a few action scenes, sounds like Netflix gold. Rushing past the disaster doesn’t change the equation so much as boil it down into a purer version of itself — and, in doing so, reveal its fundamental inadequacies.Most disaster movies aren’t much interested in disasters in and of themselves. The disaster sparks the action and makes its resolution feel momentous, but when it comes to considering where it came from — why it unfolds one way and not another — things tend to get hazy. We see, perhaps, a montage of news reports, or a beaker taking a sinister spill in a lab somewhere. The disaster always seems to be attributed not to any specific cause, but to something nebulous and universal: “human nature,” hubris, evil business moguls. We’re offered just enough explanation to stop us from asking questions.By opting for maximum disaster briskness, though, “The Midnight Sky” actually makes it harder than usual to ignore those pesky questions. What human history underpinned the mysterious Big Bad Thing that killed everyone? What collective arrangements, decisions and failures underpinned the apocalypse, and how did they dictate how it played out? I found myself dwelling on those underground shelters: Who was in them? Who was shut out? Why, exactly? There is one brief mention of a “colony flight” that may or may not have managed to launch, carrying settlers into space. If it did, who was on board, and who watched it soar away?Once upon a time these details might have felt like distracting trivialities. But questions of this sort are among the most pressing facing humanity today. We are not living through a Big Bad Apocalyptic Thing; we are staring down a whole planetary patchwork of bad stuff that threatens death and suffering on a sweeping scale. It’s possible that the very idea of the discrete, one-shot “apocalypse” should be retired; it risks fixing our imagination on a definitive break that will never come, instead of the tangled moral drama of what needs to happen now. How are we preparing, as a species and a planet, for the hardships of the future? Will these preparations do more for some people than others? What hope do we have of modifying them for the better?[embedded content]By starting with Earth’s fate already settled, “The Midnight Sky” gives itself a pass on this line of inquiry, and an excuse to dwell instead in the pathos of small moments of loss and acceptance. It reminded me, discomfitingly, of figures like Elon Musk, who often seem more interested in triumphant dreams of life in space than in any effort to help address the earthbound problems that would send us there in the first place. Colonizing space feels exciting: a new life under a new sky, free from the entanglements of the past. Dealing with Earth’s problems involves something we’re not accustomed to seeing as romantic: accounting for other people’s basic needs on a global scale.If our planetary crises were the same as conflicts negotiated between small groups of individuals, they would be much more straightforward to resolve. But they’re not. Could we start telling disaster stories that reflect this fact, and grapple with it? The most powerful recent example comes not from film but from literature: Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel “The Ministry for the Future,” which cuts between — to give just a partial list — scenes of climate disaster, government and financial bureaucracy, geoengineering experiments, street protests, refugee camps and eco-terrorism. Each strand takes meaning not just from the experiences of its characters but also from the reader’s awareness of their deep interconnections.Until we have more disaster tales like this, the genre will only ever function as a smudged, distorted mirror for humanity. “The Midnight Sky” is suffused from the start with a distinctly current dread about our missteps, but it refuses to face the dilemmas those missteps now force upon us, even as the need to do so becomes more pressing by the day.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Zack Snyder Claps Back at Critics of 'Toxic Fandom' for Pushing His Version of 'Justice League'

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      Twitter

      The filmmaker defends his fans against ‘fakers’ who were against the campaign for ‘The Snyder Cut’ of the superhero movie, asking their credibility for saying something about his fanbase.

      Feb 4, 2021
      AceShowbiz – While “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is a deemed blessing for fans of the filmmaker who are dying for his version of the superhero film, not a few were against the campaign of “The Snyder Cut”. These people believed that Zack Snyder’s cut of “Justice League” would never exist and even after HBO Max gave the greenlight to the project, they insisted that this “toxic fandom” should not be rewarded.
      Now, on the heels of “The Snyder Cut” release, Snyder has addressed the criticism leveled at his fanbase. Speaking to CinemaBlend, the filmmaker saw it as “sour grapes.” He elaborated, “There’s really no other way to say it. We know the people who were the architects of that narrative, and it’s pretty obvious what their agenda is. Those are people that I’ve been held back from confronting, by wiser people in the room.”
      “Because I’d love to get at some of these characters. Some direct conversation would be nice,” he added. “Just to say, one, you don’t know s**t about what you’re talking about. And we can break down everything they’ve ever [said]. I can make a list. There’s a few of these guys where I could just get a list of everything they’ve ever said, that they thought was right, and [I could tell them] every single thing they’ve said is wrong.”

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      Defending his fanbase, the director questioned these critics’ credibility for speaking on his fans. “And so, in what world do you have any credibility anywhere, to any- one? I would love the opportunity to just say to the world, and to fandom in general, who these fakers are and what should be done to them, or with them. It’s just a bunch of BS,” he clapped back.
      He went on citing his fans’ good deeds as saying, “In regards to that toxic fandom, or it’s ‘a win for toxic fandom,’ again, in what world does this ‘toxic fandom’ raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for suicide prevention? How is that toxic fandom? They’ve probably achieved more than any other fan base, [and done more] good than any other group. So I don’t understand.”
      For “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”, HBO Max gave the director $70 million budget for reshoots, additional visual effects, score and editing. Jared Leto, Amber Heard and Joe Manganiello are also added to the cast to reprise their DCEU roles as Joker, Mera and Deathstroke respectively, though their characters were not featured in the original version released in 2017.
      Snyder’s version will premiere on the streaming service on March 18.

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      'Fantastic Beasts 3' Shuts Down Production After Crew Member Tests Positive for Covid-19

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      Warner Bros. Pictures

      The filming of the third upcoming ‘Fantastic Beasts’ feature film in the United Kingdom has been put on hold after a crew member contracted the coronavirus.

      Feb 4, 2021
      AceShowbiz – Production on the third “Fantastic Beasts” film has hit another snag – a crew member has tested positive for coronavirus.
      The “Harry Potter” spin-off, filming at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, England, has been temporarily shut down until health experts deem the set safe.
      “The diagnosis was confirmed as a result of required and ongoing testing that all production employees receive, and the team member is currently in isolation,” a crew spokesman states. “Out of an abundance of caution, Fantastic Beasts 3 paused production and will be back up in accordance with safety guidelines.”
      Production on the new “Fantastic Beasts” movie, starring Eddie Redmayne and Jude Law, was scheduled to begin in March 2020 but the coronavirus pandemic prompted Warner Bros. studio bosses to postpone until September.

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      Johnny Depp then had to step down as villain Gellert Grindelwald after losing his libel case against The Sun newspaper over an article, in which he was described as a “wife beater.”
      Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen has stepped in to replace Depp.
      Mikkelsen previously said he would love to talk to his predecessor to help build “a bridge between what Johnny did and what [he’s] going to do.”
      “I wish I had his phone number, but unfortunately that’s not the case,” he said. “There’s nothing else I can do, to be honest. The only approach I can have is connect the bridge between what he did and what I’m gonna do and then we’ll see what lands. There has to be a bridge between what Johnny did and what I’m going to do. And at the same time, I also have to make it my own.”

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      Helena Zengel, 12, Thrilled Being One of the Youngest People to Land Golden Globe Nomination

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      The 12-year-old German actress is over the moon as she becomes one of the youngest stars to receive a Golden Globe nomination, thanks to her role in ‘News of the World’.

      Feb 4, 2021
      AceShowbiz – German actress Helena Zengel is pinching herself after becoming one of the youngest people to land a Golden Globe nomination.
      The 12-year-old “News of the World” star is younger than Saoirse Ronan, Evan Rachel Wood, Natalie Portman, and Jodie Foster when they were first nominated, and she ties with Haley Joel Osment and Kirsten Dunst, who were also 12, when they received nods for “The Sixth Sense” and “Interview with the Vampire”, respectively.
      Stunned by her nomination on Wednesday (03Feb21), Zengel tells Deadline, “I didn’t expect that at all and I’m so excited about it.”
      In Paul Greengrass’ film, Zengel plays a young girl bonding with Tom Hanks’ travelling news reader Captain Kidd in post-Civil War America.

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      She’ll battle Glenn Close (“Hillbilly Elegy”), Olivia Colman (“The Father”), Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”), and Foster (“The Mauritanian”) for the Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture prize.
      And she has already landed a string of new movie offers thanks to “News of the World”.
      “I can’t say much,” she said, “but (I’m) going to be (doing) some new, great movies.”
      In addition to helping Helena Zengel to get a nomination, “News of the World” is also up for Best Original Score, thanks to James Newton Howard’s work. It’s up against “Soul”, “Mank”, “The Midnight Sky”, and “Tenet”.
      Zengel’s Golden Globe nomination came a year after she won Best Actress title at Palm Springs International Film Festival and Deutscher Filmpreis for her impressive onscreen performance in “System Crasher” or “Systemsprenger”.

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      Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to Host 2021 Golden Globes From Different Locations

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      ETOnline

      The ’30 Rock’ star and the ‘Parks and Recreation’ star are scheduled to host the upcoming 78th annual Golden Globe Awards on separate coasts amid pandemic.

      Feb 4, 2021
      AceShowbiz – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will co-host the first-ever bicoastal Golden Globes.
      The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced that this year’s ceremony on 28 February (21) will be slightly different than previous years, with Tina set to host from the New York’s Rainbow Room and Amy at the Globes’ usual venue – the Beverly Hilton hotel.
      The pair previously anchored the event for three years between 2013 and 2015.
      It’s not known if the nominees will appear remotely or in person, or a mix of the two.
      The ceremony is having to adapt amid the Covid-19 pandemic and had already been postponed from January.

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      The news came hours before Sarah Jessica Parker and Taraji P. Henson were set to announce the nominees on NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday (03Feb21) from 8.35 am ET.
      Jane Fonda is set to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award while Spike Lee’s children Satchel and Jackson Lee have been named the 2021 Golden Globes Ambassadors.
      The 2020 Golden Globes was hosted for the fifth time by Ricky Gervais, who promised it would be his last stint as presenter of the Hollywood event.
      This year, female filmmakers dominated the Best Director – Motion Picture category. Regina King was nominated for her movie “One Night in Miami” while Chloe Zhao received nominations for both her directing and movie “Nomadland” as did “Promising Young Woman” director Emerald Fennell. The remaining spots were taken by veterans David Fincher for “Mank” and Aaron Sorkin for “The Trial of the Chicago 7”, which will also compete for the Best Motion Picture – Drama prize.
      Ava DuVernay was the last woman nominated in the category for her work on Selma in 2015 while Barbra Streisand remains the only woman to ever win the best director prize in 1984 for “Yentl”.

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      ‘The Crown’ Tops TV Nominations at 2021 Golden Globes

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