Bliss (Movie)

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    ‘Bliss’ Review: Working Girls

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    Two sex workers fall in love in this low-key L.G.B.T.Q. drama from Germany.“Bliss,” by the German director Henrika Kull, is a moody art-house romance about the everyday struggles of two Berlin sex workers. Shot in an actual legal brothel, the film avoids sensationalizing the profession and sidesteps commentary about the exploitation of women. There are several graphic sex scenes involving the two lovers and their clients, but Kull captures these events with an admirable sense of regularity — the film, for better or worse, doesn’t make any big statements; it simply attempts to get at the knottiness of its characters’ inner lives.A veteran sex worker, the middle-aged Sascha (Katharina Behrens) is intrigued by the 20-something new girl, Maria (Adam Hoya, a former escort and the star of the 2019 documentary profile “Searching Eva”), who is from Italy. Maria’s German-language skills are rudimentary, so the couple speak to each other in English, summoning prickly power dynamics in the moments the older woman reverts to her native tongue.Sascha and Maria’s relationship unfolds somewhat banally, which would normally detract from a story with such generic romantic plotting: The two fall in love; trouble ensues when they enter the unfamiliar territory of Sascha’s rural hometown, Brandenburg, where elements of her former life emerge; the promise of reconciliation lingers in the final act. But because “Bliss” is about lesbians stealing kisses between sessions with their male customers, the formula works to normalize what might otherwise seem willfully risqué.Instead, the film’s brothel setting inspires questions about the attitudes of sex workers from distinct generations — Sascha sees it all as plain dirty work, but the more idealistic Maria, who calls herself a “performer,” buys in a bit more to the profession’s fantasies of empowerment. Kull frames this discrepancy as an extension of their sundry personal differences, many of which feel completely ordinary. We tend to look at the sex lives of sex workers as endlessly fascinating, but in “Bliss” the line of work is instead part of a larger take on the hurdles of modern romance.BlissNot rated. In German, English and Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Bliss’ Review: A High Concept, Under-Designed

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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‘Bliss’ Review: A High Concept, Under-DesignedNot even the charisma of Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek could energize this science-fiction film about telekinetic drifters.Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek in “Bliss.”Credit…Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Amazon StudiosFeb. 4, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ET”Bliss”Directed by Mike CahillDrama, Romance, Sci-FiR1h 43mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Greg (Owen Wilson) begins the science-fiction film “Bliss” at the end of his rope. He’s in the middle of a divorce and has just been fired from his job when he meets a mysterious woman at a bar. Her name is Isabel (Salma Hayek), and with a wave of her wrist, she shows Greg that she has a telekinetic ability to manipulate reality.Isabel promises a bewildered Greg that the world he believes to be real is a simulation. They are the only real people among fakes.“Bliss” doesn’t try to poke holes in Isabel’s reality-altering claims; it’s plain that Isabel’s powers have material effects. She shows Greg how to light fire at a distance, how to crumple a car with his mind — and the writer and director Mike Cahill creates practical effects that look real enough to confirm Isabel’s story.[embedded content]Cahill previously explored the idea of multiple universes in his film, “Another Earth,” but in this movie, he flounders with creating a sensory experience to match the story’s cerebral ideas. Greg and Isabel gallivant around a dingy, dark Los Angeles and entertain dreams of the better, cleaner, realer world that lies outside the simulation. But when Cahill gets a chance to show the audience what that true home might look like, it’s as color-corrected, underlit and under-designed as the reality they abandoned.There may be a way to justify the shoddiness of the movie’s images with a high-concept explanation — maybe it’s intentional that no matter what reality Greg and Isabel occupy, it looks grubby, flimsy and fake. But “Bliss” fails to engage the senses, resulting in cinematic disappointment.BlissRated R for drug use as a metaphor, language and brief sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. Watch on Amazon.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO Max, Hulu and More in February

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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 storyThe Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO Max, Hulu and More in FebruaryEvery month, streaming services add a new batch of titles to their libraries. Here are our picks for February.Jan. 31, 2021, 5:03 p.m. ETNote: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our twice-weekly Watching newsletter here.Waldorf, left, and Statler in a scene from “The Muppet Show.”Credit…DisneyNew to Disney+‘The Muppet Show’ Seasons 1-5Starts streaming: Feb. 19Fans of the puppeteer and filmmaker Jim Henson have been waiting a while for his TV series “The Muppet Show” — perhaps his most enduring masterpiece — to arrive on a subscription streaming service. For five seasons and 120 episodes between 1976 and 1981, Henson and his team of writers, craftspeople and performers brought joy and whimsy to the small screen, through the conceit of a low-rent variety show run by high-strung weirdos. From its catchy songs to its string of A-list guest hosts (including pretty much every big-name entertainer of the era), “The Muppet Show” helped define the popular culture of its time while always remaining family-friendly. The complete series has never been released on any home video format and isn’t currently running on any U.S. cable network, so this addition to Disney+ is a major event.Also arriving:Feb. 19“Flora & Ulysses”Feb. 26“Myth: A Frozen Tale”Salma Hayek and Owen Wilson in “Bliss.”Credit…Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Amazon StudiosNew to Amazon‘Bliss’Starts streaming: Feb. 5In his films “Another Earth” and “I Origins,” the writer-director Mike Cahill has pondered big ideas — alternate universes, the existence of God — via muted character studies which skirt the edges of science fiction. In his latest movie, “Bliss,” Owen Wilson plays Greg, a mopey divorcé who is in the middle of one of the worst days of his life when he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), a homeless eccentric who convinces him they are living in a computer simulation, controlled with the help of special crystals. Is she right? Or are Greg and Isabel both mentally ill drug addicts? Cahill keeps this question unanswered for as long as possible, while making both scenarios seem plausible. What results is a strange trip through multiple realities, moving at a faster pace than Cahill’s earlier films but still ultimately concerned with the existential angst of ordinary people.‘Tell Me Your Secrets’Starts streaming: Feb. 19The secrets in the title of the mystery/suspense series “Tell Me Your Secrets” are buried deep, and unearthed slowly over the course of the show’s 10-episode first season. Across multiple interwoven plotlines, the creator Harriet Warner follows three main characters: a woman in hiding (Lily Rabe), a mother (Amy Brenneman) doggedly fighting to find out what happened to her long-missing daughter and a psychopath (Hamish Linklater) offering his help to law enforcement to atone for old crimes. The sometimes surprising and often grim details of the connections between these people and the mistakes they are trying to make up for drive the narrative of a crime show that’s about how hard it is for the victims of violence and trauma to move on with their lives.Also arriving:Feb. 12“The Hunter’s Anthology”“The Map of Tiny Perfect Things”Feb. 19“The Boarding School: Las Cumbres”Andra Day, center, as Billie Holiday in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”Credit…Takashi Seida/Paramount Pictures/HuluNew to Hulu‘Nomadland’Starts streaming: Feb. 19Likely to be a strong contender at the Academy Awards this year, the slice-of-life drama “Nomadland” is a vivid and emotionally affecting depiction of a growing American subculture: people who live in mobile homes and roam the country, working a succession of seasonal jobs. Frances McDormand plays a recent widow who had worked most of her life at a plant that closed and who now has to adjust to living on the road, with the help of some fellow travelers who’ve turned their paycheck-to-paycheck circumstances into a quasi-communal lifestyle. The writer-director Chloé Zhao — loosely adapting Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book — avoids big confrontations and heavy plotting, instead emphasizing the everyday stresses and unexpected wonders of a life on the edge.‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’Starts streaming: Feb. 26The source material for the historical drama “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” sets it apart from a typical biopic. Instead of covering one person’s entire life, the director Lee Daniels and the screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks have adapted passages from Johann Hari’s book-length exposé, “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs,” in which the author uses profiles of a few well-known addicts, including Billie Holiday, and dealers to critique the ways some governments have tackled the narcotics trade. The Grammy-nominated R&B singer Andra Day gives a bracing performance as the jazz legend Holiday, who so scandalized the establishment with the anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” that — according to this raw and hard-hitting film — some reactionaries in the U.S. government conspired to use her drug habit to stifle her.Also arriving:Feb. 1“Possessor”Feb. 12“Into the Dark: Tentacles”Feb. 13“Hip Hop Uncovered”Feb. 25“Snowfall” Season 4A scene from “Earwig and the Witch” from Studio Ghibli.Credit…Studio Ghibli/HBO MaxNew to HBO Max‘The Investigation’Starts streaming: Feb. 1The accomplished Danish screenwriter and director Tobias Lindholm tackles a bizarre recent true-crime story in “The Investigation,” a six-part mini-series about what happened after the Swedish journalist Kim Wall’s dismembered corpse was found scattered around Koge Bay in Denmark in 2017. Lindholm doesn’t dramatize the incident itself, which eventually led to the arrest and conviction of the entrepreneur Peter Madsen, who had invited Wall to interview him on his submarine right before she went missing. Instead, he follows the two cops on the case (played by Soren Malling and Pilou Asbaek) as they doggedly pursue the gruesome clues, sacrificing their personal lives in the name of justice. “The Investigation” is a different kind of procedural, detailing how the time it takes to build a case weighs heavy on both the victim’s family and the detectives.‘Earwig and the Witch’Starts streaming: Feb. 5The animators at Japan’s venerable Studio Ghibli make their first foray into full computer animation with this adaptation of a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, whose book “Howl’s Moving Castle” was previously adapted by Ghibli’s co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. His son Goro directed “Earwig and the Witch,” the story of a plucky and bossy 10-year-old orphan adopted by a pair of curiously gruff adults who teach her more about her birth family’s history with rock ’n’ roll and the occult. Fans of the Miyazakis and Ghibli may balk initially at the look of this film, which is different from classics like “Spirited Away” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” But “Earwig” covers similar themes of spiritual wonder and youthful independence, and there’s something distinctive about Goro Miyazaki’s visual style, which is much simpler than Pixar’s fine detail.‘Judas and the Black Messiah’Starts streaming: Feb. 12In 1969, Fred Hampton — the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party — was killed during a police raid on his Chicago apartment following an extended federal law enforcement campaign to tag him as a dangerous radical. In the political drama “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Daniel Kaluuya gives a knockout performance as Hampton and is matched scene-for-scene by Lakeith Stanfield as William O’Neal, a small-time crook recruited by the FBI to inform on the Panthers. The writer-director Shaka King and the co-writer Will Berson capture the revolutionary fervor of the times, subtly noting the parallels to today in the raging arguments about overzealous cops and systemic racism. The film focuses on Hampton’s complex, passionate and surprisingly open-armed political philosophies, as well as on the circumstances that forced a man who might otherwise have been a devout disciple to betray him.Also arriving:Feb. 2“Fake Famous”Feb. 4“Esme & Roy”“The Head”Feb. 18“It’s a Sin”Feb. 22“Beartown”Feb. 26“Tom & Jerry”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More