Leto, Jared

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares99 Views

    ‘Morbius’ Review: Jared Leto Is the Other Bat, Man

    by

    Jared Leto bares his teeth as a neo-vampire who walks by day and tries to keep his monstrous thirst at bay in the latest Marvel adaptation.My, what sharp teeth he has — and what lovely skin, too. One of the revelations of “Morbius” — the latest movie to take a marginal Marvel character out of mothballs for his blockbuster close-up — is that regular blood smoothies do wonders for the skin. To judge by the chiseled planes of Morbius’s arms and torso, pounding shots of the slurpy stuff also builds muscles much faster than mainlining anabolic steroids can.Still, the bigger surprise about “Morbius” is that it doesn’t suck, at least as a movie. Against the odds and despite the insufferable persona that its star Jared Leto has cultivated, it provides all you want from a diversion about a brilliant scientist with bottomless financial resources (as well as a hot but smart assistant) who, after refusing his Nobel for his genius scientific invention, secretly develops a serum that turn him into a batlike creature with razor nails, great powers and a hunger for human blood. It also runs under two hours, i.e., a full hour less than that recent slugfest “The Batman.” I mean, what’s not to like?As usual, it opens with some temporal scrambling in the present-day Costa Rica, where the adult Morbius (Leto) swoops in on a helicopter, a darkly romantic vision with a curtain of jet-black hair, billowing clothes and hired guns. There, he embarks on a close encounter with vampire bats, as one does when swimming with dolphins has become too pedestrian. Slicing open his palm, he draws first blood and is inundated by a cloud of bats. After a leisurely flashback to his sad childhood, Morbius is back in his New York lab, experimenting and knitting brows alongside a colleague, Monica (Adria Arjona).Like “The Batman,” “Morbius” is a classic American tale of personal trauma, existential agony, regenerative violence … and bats. Once again, the trauma reaches to childhood, though in this case it involves the young Michael Morbius being treated in a Greek children’s hospital for a rare blood disease. (Why Greece? I have no idea.) There he had a sympathetic doctor (Jared Harris) and befriends a boy he calls Milo, who has the same disease. Milo grows up to become a louche moneybags played by Matt Smith, who’s best known for playing Prince Philip in “The Crown,” a bit of casting history that gives his role here amusing tang.The movie’s first half is better shaped than its second, and there are narrative lacunae here and there that suggest some late-breaking editing busywork. Even so, as a neo-vampiric tale of dread and desire, the entire thing more or less makes sense on its own improbable terms. The characters are similarly coherent, not just sketches that are designated to be filled out in successive franchise chapters. This modulation also extends to the visuals, despite the overall Goth gloom; here, lights are actually turned on and sometimes the sun even shines, if only to explain that Morbius isn’t your granny’s Dracula.The filmmakers — Daniel Espinosa directed, from a story and script by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless — reference earlier bloodsuckers, tucking in nods both to Bram Stoker’s novel and to F.W. Murnau’s silent film “Nosferatu.” But Morbius is a hybrid creation, one that recasts Dracula as a kind of contemporary Dr. Frankenstein figure, if one who, like Peter Parker, is transformed by his encounter with another species. Once Morbius goes batty, everything becomes increasingly more complicated and violent, and while bodies fall en masse and one character revels in carnage, the movie doesn’t get off too gleefully on its mayhem.Leto and Adria Arjona in a scene from the film.Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures/Sony PicturesLike Leto’s performance, Espinosa’s directing settles into a moody middle ground that’s neither too jokey nor overly self-serious, one reason that the movie may appeal more to civilians than to comic-book fundamentalists. It isn’t shrouded in reverence and, in contrast to some other industrial productions of its ilk, you don’t need a Talmudic scholar’s familiarity with the source material to go with the flow. Perhaps as a consequence, it plays more like a movie than an introductory installment. It may well remain a stand-alone given both the negative early word and the uncharacteristically muted reaction of the audience I saw it with.Leto’s history of needless showboating (as in that wreck “House of Gucci”) may not have boded well, but he fits the role and delivers an actual performance, not just shtick and brooding poses. His dramatic physicality — his body fluctuates between the skeletal and the pumping-iron robust — read as more vainglorious than strictly necessary. But the rest of the performance dovetails with the movie, tonally and otherwise. Greasy or glammed, Leto fills in Morbius with restraint, sensitivity and gestural expressivity, creating a solid-enough emotional foundation that deepens the character’s struggles with his own monstrosity.That isn’t to oversell “Morbius.” Its virtues are minor, even if they are a relief. The movie doesn’t have the visual wit and playfulness of the first “Doctor Strange,” and it’s nowhere as fun as the original “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which had a lightness of touch that’s almost entirely missing from the contemporary comic-book movie. “Morbius” is a ghoulish, suitably downbeat tale of madness, hubris, suffering and weird science set in a world that offers little solace. And while most of it is as predictably familiar as expected, it does something unusual for a movie like this: It entertains you, rather than bludgeons you into submission.MorbiusRated PG-13 for standard comic-book movie violence, including gun deaths. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

    More stories

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      2022 Oscars Nominations: Snubs and Surprises for Lady Gaga and Jared Leto

      by

      “The Power of the Dog” led the Oscar nominations on Tuesday, but plenty of other high-profile contenders fell short. Here, the Projectionist muses on the morning’s most startling surprises and omissions.Kristen Stewart gets the royal treatment.Kristen Stewart’s role as Princess Diana in “Spencer” is the sort of thing Oscar voters usually rush to crown: It’s a juicy, transformative lead in a biopic, performed by a famous actress who has successfully leapt from blockbusters to prestige films. Then came a shocking snub from the Screen Actors Guild, followed by another shutout from BAFTA, and pundits worried whether she’d get nominated at all. Still, Stewart was game, continuing to do press and awards-season round tables, and the 31-year-old actress was rewarded Tuesday morning with her very first Oscar nomination.Lady Gaga and Jared Leto are shut out.“House of Gucci” was stripped to its studs Tuesday, as former winners Lady Gaga and Jared Leto were both snubbed by the academy. Few performances this year were talked about more — both by audiences and by the two actors themselves — and the red carpet will be a little lesser for their absence. (Hey, nobody said the Oscars were particularly ethical … but they are fair.)‘Drive My Car’ overperforms.Coming out of last summer’s Cannes Film Festival, no one had tagged Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” as a major Oscar spoiler: Instead, films like Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero” and Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” had all the buzz. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Dolby Theater: A year-end surge from critics’ groups put Hamaguchi’s contemplative three-hour drama in the thick of the awards conversation, thanks to high-profile best-film wins from the critics in New York and Los Angeles. Off that momentum, “Drive My Car” managed an astounding four Oscar nominations, with citations in picture, director, adapted screenplay and international film.‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ is snubbed.There was no bigger film last year than “Spider-Man: No Way Home” — in fact, with a domestic gross of more than $748 million so far, there are only three other films that have ever been bigger. As the superhero movie kept raking in cash, the drumbeat grew louder that if the Oscars really wanted to reflect the year in film, they should honor one of the few movies that kept theaters open at all. And the academy did … but only with a nomination in visual effects. A best-picture nomination proved well outside the web-slinger’s reach.The director of ‘Dune’ goes missing.The academy’s directing branch is often dazzled by technical achievement, and a filmmaker who can wield blockbuster scale in the service of a soulful story usually has a leg up over more intimate fare. That’s why it’s startling that this year’s best-director race didn’t make room for Denis Villeneuve, especially since his sci-fi film “Dune” did score 10 nominations in a host of categories. But history was made elsewhere in that category, as Jane Campion became the first woman to earn two directing nominations (for “The Power of the Dog” and 1993’s “The Piano”) and the “West Side Story” filmmaker Steven Spielberg became the first person to be nominated in that category in six different decades.Two couples were nominated.Not only did the real-life partners Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons score their first Oscar nominations this year for “The Power of the Dog,” so did Penélope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers”) and Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”), the rare married couple to have already won before. Even better: It’s a four-category split, as Cruz and Bardem were nominated in the lead races while Dunst and Plemons continued the spread in the supporting categories. Talk about a double date!Kenneth Branagh makes history.Even before “Belfast,” Branagh was an Oscar favorite, collecting five nominations over the course for his career in categories as varied as director, actor, supporting actor, adapted screenplay and live-action short film. But Tuesday morning’s collection of nods for the black-and-white film “Belfast” vaulted Branagh to a surprising Oscar record: He is now the first person to be nominated in seven different categories, having added citations for best picture and original screenplay to his haul. (Hopefully that makes up for a few surprising “Belfast” snubs in editing and cinematography.)‘Flee’ scores the hat trick.Look, it’s hard enough to earn just one Oscar nomination, as so many of the morning’s snubbed artists can attest. That makes what “Flee” just accomplished all the more remarkable: This animated documentary about an Afghan refugee is now the first film ever to receive Oscar nominations for documentary, animated film and international film all in the same year. A win in any of those categories seems unlikely, but at least when the makers of “Flee” claim it’s an honor just to be nominated, you’ll know that they mean it. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Oscar Contenders Like Lady Gaga and Ben Affleck Go Big

      by

      Aim-for-the-fences performances from Lady Gaga, Ben Affleck and many others are making waves, and we’re here for the outrageous fun.There’s a great story Minnie Driver tells about the director Joel Schumacher, who responded dryly after a co-star complained that Driver’s performance in “The Phantom of the Opera” was too over the top.“Oh honey,” Schumacher replied, “no one ever paid to see under the top.”I’ve thought about that bon mot a lot during this movie season, where so many stars seem to be swinging for the fences. Think of Lady Gaga and Jared Leto, who go so daringly big in “House of Gucci,” or Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield as televangelists in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” where they pitch their performances nearly as wide as Tammy Faye Bakker’s mascara-laden eyes.In “The Last Duel,” Ben Affleck has outrageous fun playing his costume-drama blowhard to the hilt, and the fact that he does it all in a blond wig and a nu-metal goatee makes the role even more over the top. And then there’s Kristen Stewart, who eschews her trademark minimalism for the awfully maximalist “Spencer,” where she is asked to wobble, shout, dance and heave, sometimes all within the same scene.Ben Affleck as a costume-drama blowhard in “The Last Duel.”Jessica Forde/20th Century StudiosAfter the last Oscar season celebrated the quiet, naturalistic “Nomadland,” it’s a kick to see so many of this year’s prestige dramas go in a different direction and embrace enormousness. In an era dominated by superhero movies, perhaps smaller films now need a performance that feels event-sized. Or maybe, after a period when so many of us have led circumscribed lives, it’s invigorating simply to watch actors shake off their shackles and go for broke.Whatever the case, it’s working. “Tick, Tick … Boom!” is animated by Garfield’s gusto as the composer Jonathan Larson, a man who operates at an 11 at all times. Watching him, I remembered the “30 Rock” joke where Jenna Maroney lobbied the Tonys to add a category for “living theatrically in normal life.” And this month brings a double dose of big Cate Blanchett performances in “Don’t Look Up,” which casts her as a terrifyingly “yassified” cable-news host, and “Nightmare Alley,” in which she treats the film’s eye-popping production design as if it were all custom-made for her femme fatale to slink on.I don’t mean to suggest that these outsize performances are a miscalculation. Quite the opposite: An actress like Blanchett is as tuned in to the tone of her movies as a singer who asks for the intended key and then begins belting. When a skilled performer is able to hit all those high notes, it’s more than just technically dazzling: It makes the softly played notes to come feel even more resonant.Cate Blanchett, center, with Bradley Cooper and Rooney Mara in “Nightmare Alley.”Kerry Hayes/Searchlight PicturesBut hey, there’s nothing wrong with simply being dazzled for the sake of it. It’s fun when Bradley Cooper shows up in “Licorice Pizza” to terrorize the young leads with wild, nervy electricity: Just when it feels like the film is coming to a close, Cooper adds enough of a jolt to power “Licorice Pizza” for 30 more minutes. Part of the thrill of watching such a big performance is that you know how much derision is at stake if the actor fails to nail it. Just think of poor Ben Platt in the film adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen”: His crying jags, so potent on the stage, proved unfortunately memeable in the movies.And sometimes, the most fascinating thing about a film is the frisson between a performer who goes big and co-stars who don’t. The first time I saw “The Power of the Dog,” I’ll admit I didn’t connect with Benedict Cumberbatch, whose performance as the sadistic cattle rancher Phil Burbank felt far too broad. After all, his primary scene partners are Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, a real-life couple who happen to be two of the best practitioners of American naturalism: They can do anything onscreen and not only will you believe it, you’ll hardly even catch them doing it. Up against them, I found Cumberbatch too mannered, like an actor determined to show his work.Benedict Cumberbatch opposite Kodi Smit-McPhee in “The Power of the Dog.”NetflixBut the second time I watched the film, I realized all of that artifice is perfect for Phil, who is concealing more than just his silver-spoon upbringing and degree from Yale. Put the pieces of his back story together and you’ll realize that Phil’s grime-covered cowboy act is all shtick, a performance of machismo so fraught that an interloper like Dunst threatens it because she doesn’t have to put on any sort of act at all. It took nerve for Jane Campion, the movie’s director, to assemble that sort of cast and trust that it would work, just as it took nerve for Cumberbatch to push things just a little further than some actors would deem comfortable.And hey, at least those bigger-than-average performances will make for some good Oscar clips. Many of the stars who’ve gone for broke have been earning awards attention, though I do want to go to bat for Affleck, who is delicious as the pompous count in “The Last Duel” and deserves serious supporting-actor consideration. The Golden Globes instead nominated him for his low-key work in “The Tender Bar” — a mistake, since the only thing Affleck has done this year that’s even comparable to “The Last Duel” is the contribution he made to pop culture as one half of Bennifer 2.0.Maybe that’s part of the fun of these supersized performances: They’re finally scaled to the level of celebrity that we count on someone like Affleck or Gaga to serve. So often, Hollywood has asked the stars who live largest to shrink themselves down for critical acclaim. But where’s the fun in that? They made that screen big for a reason. More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Little Things’ Review: Good Old-Fashioned Police Work

      by

      #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‘The Little Things’ Review: Good Old-Fashioned Police WorkDenzel Washington and Rami Malek play detectives on the trail of a serial killer in John Lee Hancock’s vintage thriller.Denzel Washington and Jared Leto in “The Little Things.”Credit…Nicola Goode/Warner BrosJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe Little ThingsDirected by John Lee HancockCrime, Drama, ThrillerR2h 7mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.A note during the first scene in “The Little Things” — an effective cold opening, full of danger and suspense — indicates that it’s 1990. At first, I thought this meant that the action would quickly vault forward into the present day, but instead the movie, which takes place mainly in Los Angeles, settles into a fairly generic version of the semi-recent past, occasionally flashing back to a few years earlier.There aren’t many historical details or period flourishes that would justify this choice. It seems mostly like a pretext for removing cellphones, internet searches, GPS tracking and other modern conveniences that might ruin the analog ambience needed for an old-fashioned serial-killer thriller. Which is fair enough. When it comes to spooky neo-noir resonance, it’s hard to beat a ringing pay phone on an empty nighttime street or an envelope full of Polaroids.Written and directed by John Lee Hancock and starring Denzel Washington as a weary professional with keen instincts and a battered conscience, “The Little Things” is an unapologetic throwback. It broods over the psychologically and spiritually damaging effects of police work as its two main detectives (Rami Malek alongside Washington) pursue an elusive, malignant murderer of women. You might think of “Se7en” or “Zodiac” or a lost season of “True Detective,” though this movie is less self-consciously stylized than any of those.And that’s partly because “The Little Things” is both a latecomer and a forerunner. (Time is a flat circle, doncha know.) Hancock wrote the screenplay almost 30 years ago, and in the ’90s possible directors included Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood. Hancock wrote the scripts for two Eastwood films in that decade, “A Perfect World” and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” More recently, he has directed “The Blind Side,” “Saving Mr. Banks” and “The Highwaymen.”At their best, those movies are competent rather than groundbreaking — admirable in their sturdy commitment to filmmaking craft even as their stories stubbornly cling to convention. This one rises to a slightly higher level, though it doesn’t entirely avoid the clichés of its genre: “You know, you and I have a lot in common,” a suspect says to one of the detectives. That the apparent bad guy is played by Jared Leto doesn’t necessarily help matters.But Leto, as a self-confessed “crime buff” with a creepily calm demeanor, isn’t bad. Malek as Jim Baxter, a zealous and ambitious Los Angeles detective flirting with career and personal catastrophe, is pretty good too. Who are we kidding, though? This movie is a coat that has been hanging in the closet for decades waiting for Washington to slip it on.Not that the man’s actual clothes fit. That’s part of the texture of the performance. Joe Deacon, usually addressed as Deke, starts the movie as a sheriff’s deputy in a dusty stretch of California’s Central Valley. The khaki uniform does him no favors, and Deke carries himself like a man buckling under a long-carried burden — round in the shoulders, thick in the middle, slow and heavy in his stride.You get the sense that it wasn’t always that way. You get that sense partly because you have seen Denzel Washington in this kind of role before, but the great ones can play endless variations on the same theme. When Deke drives down to Los Angeles on some irrelevant police business, we learn that he was once an L.A.P.D. homicide hotshot. He receives a mixed welcome. The captain (Terry Kinney) can barely stand to look at him. Deke’s former partner (Chris Bauer) and the medical examiner (Michael Hyatt) greet him warmly, but their kindness is edged with pity and disappointment.Deke partners up with Baxter to hunt down a killer preying on young women, who may have been active back when Deke was on the force. (The cop who seems to be Jim’s actual partner, played by Natalie Morales, doesn’t have much to do). The case takes some expected turns, and some that are less so, but as the clues and leads accumulate the film’s interest is less in who done it than in what it does to the detectives. There is something Eastwoodian not only in Hancock’s clean, unpretentious directing, but also in the ethical universe he sketches. The line between good and evil is clear, but that doesn’t banish moral ambiguity or save the righteous from guilt. Nor does it guarantee justice.That’s a heavy idea, and “The Little Things” doesn’t quite earn its weight. Thanks to Hancock’s craft and the discipline of the actors, it’s more than watchable, but you are unlikely to be haunted, disturbed or even surprised. You haven’t exactly seen this before. It just feels that way.The Little ThingsRated R. Tortured souls and tortured bodies. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters and on HBO Max. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More