The Killer (Movie)

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares147 Views

    ‘The Killer’ Review: John Woo With a French Twist

    by

    Woo’s new version of his Hong Kong action movie “The Killer,” starring Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy, may be a remake, but it’s not a retread.When he started a run of contemporary action movies in the early 1980s, the Hong Kong director John Woo forged a personal mode influenced by the stylized violence of American directors like Sam Peckinpah and Don Siegel (see the shootouts in “The Getaway” and “Dirty Harry”), and the mentholated cool of the French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville (à la the existential assassin of “Le Samouraï”). Before taking up in Hong Kong again in 2008, Woo created some galvanizing work in the United States: “Face/Off” (1997) and “Mission: Impossible 2” (2000).It is exhilarating, then, to see him set his sights on Paris with a remake of his 1989 Hong Kong classic, “The Killer.” He depicts the City of Lights with a loving, romantic eye.Woo’s original starred the incredibly charismatic Chow Yun-fat as the title assassin, a hired killer with an ethos who makes some sacrifices on behalf of a young woman he accidentally blinded during a shootout. (Woo has more than a touch of Chaplin’s “City Lights” in him, too.) One challenge for a remake would be finding a younger lead actor to match Chow’s magnetism. There is none, and Woo knows it as well as we do; hence, the film’s rather delightful surprise of gender-switching the title character.The British actress Nathalie Emmanuel plays the soulful marauder Zee, and man, does she cause a ruckus. The film’s first big blowout, in a cabaret-bar, features quarts of spilled blood, a skyscraper’s worth of shattered glass and mirrors, slow-motion flying bullets and, yes, a mishap in which a cabaret singer named Jenn (Diana Silvers) is blinded. Zee is a little more coldblooded than Jeffrey was in 1989; at first she tries to get rid of the singer rather than help her.Zee’s contractor, Finn, played by Sam Worthington, isn’t pleased that the singer was allowed to live. Zee is confused — she always asks before taking a job whether her future victims deserve to die. Finn tells her that this one had it coming. But Zee insists on keeping Jenn alive, despite the shadowy forces trying to wipe her out.Omar Sy plays Sey, a French cop who will, of course, form an uneasy alliance with Zee. (Woo’s world is like the one Mick Jagger’s devil envisions: Every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints. Sort of.) Sy projects assuredness and vulnerability in almost equal measure.Emmanuel, best known as Missandei, the trusted adviser to Daenerys in “Game of Thrones,” conveys a smooth, chameleonic expertise. As in the first film, the killer spends a lot of time in a moody, deconsecrated church, which is, of course, kitted out with a complement of doves — Woo’s favorite symbolic animals. The direction is energetic, incorporating frantic flashbacks and resourceful split-screen perspectives, and the plot adds several new twists not found in the first movie. Rest assured, this may be a remake, but it’s not a retread.The KillerRated R for — guess — violence. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. Watch on Peacock. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Ferrari’ and ‘The Killer’: 1 Cinematographer, 2 Very Different Looks

      by

      Erik Messerschmidt worked with the directors Michael Mann and David Fincher to create cohesive worlds that feel nothing alike.Michael Mann’s new drama “Ferrari,” about several important weeks in the life of the racecar driver and manufacturer Enzo Ferrari, is many things: biographical drama, thriller, period costume film, and also a story about business rivalries, domestic disputes and personal grief. Adam Driver plays the automotive magnate as a man divided between his obsessive pursuit of professional glory and his straining responsibilities as a husband and father. Accordingly Mann approaches these two worlds with different, even diametrically opposed styles. There are intense, breakneck racing sequences and dark, elegiac domestic scenes, and little in between.“There’s really two distinct aesthetic sensibilities in the film,” Erik Messerschmidt, the film’s director of photography, said in a recent interview. “Michael wanted the interpersonal drama parts of the film to be more classically made than the racing.”Messerschmidt said that for the heavier moments Mann “wanted to reference Italian Renaissance paintings,” with their pronounced shadows and dense compositions; the racing scenes, by contrast, made use of cutting-edge technology and contemporary techniques.Messerschmidt also served as the cinematographer on “The Killer,” David Fincher’s recent thriller about a hit man dealing with the fallout of a job gone wrong, now streaming on Netflix. Looking at the two films side by side reveals the marked contrasts in the directors’ approach.“Their use of the camera, in particular, is very different,” Messerschmidt said. “Michael is often looking for those spontaneous moments, and I think he’s a little more shoot-from-the-hip than David is. Whereas David is a very precise, methodical filmmaker — he’s one of a kind that way.”Here, Messerschmidt explains how the look of “Ferrari” was achieved on and off the track and how it compared with his work on “The Killer.”Vintage SpeedThe look of the opening montage was based on archival images of auto racing from when Ferrari was young.Neon“Ferrari” opens with a brisk montage of grainy black-and-white newsreel footage that shows Enzo in his youth racing for Alfa Romeo. Mann, who had been trying to make “Ferrari” since the early 2000s, spent a lot of time poring over archival footage of motor racing from this era, and he and the crew watched it often to help faithfully capture the look. While shooting an early racing sequence, Mann had the idea to open with Enzo himself on the track, to remind the audience that he used to be a racer.The scene is “a combination of actual archival footage and visual-effects compositions of Adam driving a period-correct racecar from the ’20s,” Messerschmidt explained. Driver had to actually get on the track: it’s not a sound stage or a green screen but footage of him that’s been rotoscoped, which accounts for why this shot looks so realistic.Paris was depicted with cool shadows and warm highlights in “The Killer.”NetflixBy contrast, Messerschmidt and Fincher spent a lot of time adjusting images for “The Killer” in postproduction to hone the look of key locations in Paris, the Dominican Republic and Chicago, which they wanted to differentiate aesthetically. “All of those places have a unique look, in terms of architecture, design and how the light falls,” the cinematographer said. Paris, for instance, was depicted with “this kind of split-tone color palette of cool shadows and warm highlights.”While each location had its own visual identity, Messerschmidt said he was conscious of “still keeping them within one cohesive world.”“I didn’t want it to feel like a ransom note of color palettes,” he joked.Racing AlongTo get close to the racers, the “Ferrari” camera team followed at actual speed.NeonThe second half of “Ferrari” focuses on his efforts to win the 1957 Mille Miglia, a wildly competitive race that covers almost 1,000 miles on public roads. To capture its blistering intensity, Mann got extremely close to the vehicles, as in this shot of two cars speeding neck and neck on a winding mountain overpass. The camera team, Messerschmidt said, was following just behind in a Porsche Cayenne. “We were driving these cars at the actual speeds,” Messerschmidt said. “Michael was not interested in faking it or undercranking the camera.”As in this shot, many of the driving scenes have a rawness that emphasizes just how fast and dangerous the racing is. The style, Messerschmidt said, “has a very vérité feel to it,” which adds to the sensation of raw power. “These cars are visceral, they are loud, and the engines shake, and the suspension is stiff. That was something we wanted to show from very beginning.”Night DriveThe headlights were the only source of light for this scene.NeonPart of the Mille Miglia race takes place on an open stretch of road in the dead of night. The only sources of light are the cars’ headlights, which illuminate the rain-slick road and reflect off one another. Shooting this sequence without conventional movie lighting, Messerschmidt said, was a matter of necessity, because there was no obvious place to put up lights. “I had a lot of anxiety about that scene,” he said. “I didn’t really know what I was going to do.”Eventually, he said, he “decided to roll the dice and just do it with the headlights.”Nighttime lighting was also a factor for Messerschmidt in “The Killer.”Netflix“The Killer” makes striking use of nighttime as well, in part because the movie is about a man who “lives and lurks in the shadows,” Messerschmidt said. “We wanted to work in this murky world. It felt like an appropriate thing to lean into that in the film.”Up Close and PersonalThe cinematographer used a “skater scope” to get extremely close to Driver.NeonWhen “Ferrari” is not on the track, the camera has a tendency to probe the characters closely, sometimes getting right up in their faces. In this sequence on the factory grounds, the lens gets so near Enzo that his features become almost a blur. “When Michael really wants to get the audience into a character and bring you close, he will put you literally close to the actor,” Messerschmidt said.To achieve this “very odd point of view,” Messerschmidt employed a “skater scope,” which extends the lens about 10 inches from the body of the camera. That extension “means we can get very close to the actor without the Steadicam itself hitting the actor’s knees,” he explained.Fincher also wants to use the camera to understand his characters in “The Killer,” but “the camera has no personality in the way that Michael’s camera does,” Messerschmidt explained. “Ferrari” has “a very subjective camera,” while Fincher “is working with a conversation between subjectivity and objectivity.” The camera “reinforces” the unnamed executioner played by Michael Fassbender.The camera is far less subjective in “The Killer,” with meticulously composed shots.NetflixThis is clear in the many precise frames and symmetrical compositions — an aesthetic that mirrors the hit man’s meticulousness. “When the killer is in control and confident, the camera is extremely confident, in terms of how we operate it and how the shots cut together,” Messerschmidt said. “When the killer loses control and starts to fall apart, the camera falls apart as well.”Memories at SunsetThe flashbacks called to mind a Terrence Malick film.NeonA centerpiece of “Ferrari” takes place at an opera, where Enzo has an intense emotional reaction. Mourning the loss of his son, he thinks back to their time together, as the film cuts to brief, gauzy flashbacks, including this one, in which the two are playing in a field. The camera is very low to the ground, and the sun is just setting over the horizon; the delicate style is reminiscent of the work of Terrence Malick.“I think I get now maybe how Malick works,” Messerschmidt said. For this flashback, he and Mann started “working with the actors and the camera, improvising a bit,” he said, adding that they just happened to catch this interaction. “It was very spur of the moment. It wasn’t previsualized.”Small and AgileA camera the size of a Rubik’s Cube was affixed to the car.NeonAt times during the racing sequences in “Ferrari,” the camera is fixed to the body of the car itself, stuck alongside as the vehicle zooms at extraordinary speeds. In this shot, we see the bold Ferrari logo against a whooshing blur of grass and road. Because they were sticking a camera onto a car that was pushing its technical limits, “we had to be very conscious of weight distribution and aerodynamics,” Messerschmidt said. Their choice for these shots was a Red Komodo camera, “which is about the size of a Rubik’s Cube.” As Messerschmidt noted, “This would have been a very challenging film to make with a large, cumbersome motion picture camera.” More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Killer’ Review: He’s a Deadly Bore

      by

      Michael Fassbender stars as a loquaciously dull hit man in David Fincher’s latest film about bloody exploits.David Fincher can’t get enough of that murderous stuff — his filmography bleedeth over with miscreants (“Alien 3”), home invaders (“Panic Room”) and multiple maniacs (“Seven,” “Zodiac,” “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “Gone Girl”). During one of his periodic breaks from painting the big screen red, Fincher served as a producer and director on the Netflix show “Mindhunter,” another of his visually impeccable, morgue-cold creep-outs. This one was about F.B.I. agents profiling serial killers like Edmund Kemper, a ghoul whose silkily insinuating manner resonated more deeply than the show, which ended after two seasons.“Mindhunter” was easier to admire than to love, which is habitually true of Fincher’s work and was certainly true of his last movie, “Mank,” an Old Hollywood exhumation about powerful people who kill dreams and souls. In Hobbesian terms, life in a Fincher film tends to be solitary and poor, nasty and brutish, if not necessarily short. That’s the case again in his most recent movie, “The Killer,” about a nameless hit man — played by Michael Fassbender — a chatty loner first seen waiting for a victim to show up. In time, the mark appears, the Killer shoots but misses, and spends the remainder of the story trying to clean up the mess.“The Killer” is based on a French comic book with the same title written by Alexis Nolent (who goes by Matz) and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. The protagonist is an outwardly ordinary-looking hit man who’s as physically unassuming as he is inevitably nihilistic: Other people are awful, the world is hopeless, “we’re living on a pile of corpses,” etc. He quotes Christ and Kazantzakis, pals around with kindred villains, regularly has sex with balloon-breasted ladies but also spends a lot of time alone, which means the comic panels overflow with his loathing and insipid thoughts. What makes him ostensibly interesting isn’t his job or body count; what’s intriguing, at least before your eyes finally glaze over, is that he’s dull.The idea of an anti-Bond type with an illegal license to kill is, yes, an idea, one that flickers weakly on the page amid a mass of genre clichés. What’s most distinctive about the comic is the contrast between its protagonist and Jacamon’s cinematic illustrations, with their rich hues, canted angles and interplay between realism and expressionism. You keep reading only to keep looking. Fincher’s visual approach in the movie is relatively muted by contrast. He bathes the screen with sulfurous yellow, throws in a few showy shots — an unblinking eye seen through a gun scope — and, as he likes to do, goes dark and then darker, as in one extended fight sequence that’s so dimly lit it sometimes hovers on the threshold of visibility.Written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”), the movie ditches a lot of the comic’s gasbag observations, shaves the plot to the bone, folds in some pop-culture yuks (the Killer uses sitcom aliases) and takes a jab at WeWork. Fassbender’s character still prattles on a lot, mostly in voice-over, both when he’s on the job and off, but much of what he says is repetitive and on occasion near-affirmational. “Forbid empathy,” he murmurs. “Trust no one.” On occasion, he sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself or just settle his mind so he can focus on the violent task at hand; at other times, he sounds as if he’s dispensing avuncular advice to students of slaughter: “This is what it takes if you want to succeed.”One problem with the movie is that without the Killer’s anti-humanist rants, his historical references and political entanglements, there isn’t much left other than Fincher’s virtuosity, Fassbender’s tamped-down charisma and the thorny pleasures of watching evil people commit evil with great finesse. What this Killer has are a lover (Sophie Charlotte), who’s merely a plot contrivance, a luxe beachfront house and a storage unit kitted out with the tools of his trade (guns, passports). What he doesn’t have is much of a personality or a code, a way of being that complicates the violence, as in the films of Jean-Pierre Melville and his admirers. So what is the Killer? Mostly, it seems, he is a way for Fincher to kill time.After the first job in the movie goes bad, the Killer finds that he’s now a target, which adds a bit of tension and mystery as he dodges threats amid the bang-bangs — the gunfire is more polyrhythmic than the metronomic editing — and the splashy entrances and exits from the other generic types: the Lawyer (Charles Parnell), the Client (Arliss Howard), the Expert (Tilda Swinton), the Brute (Sala Baker). Throughout, Fassbender holds the center with his lissome, controlled physicality and near-unmodulated voice. The character is boring and so is this movie, but like the supremely skilled Fincher, who can’t help but make images that hold your gaze even as your mind wanders, Fassbender does keep you watching.The KillerRated R for ultraviolence. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Movies to See This Winter: ‘Hunger Games,’ ‘Maestro’ and More

      by

      “The Color Purple” and “Poor Things” and Beyoncé lead a list packed with goodies. Mark your calendars.The leaves are falling, and at least one of the strikes looming over the film season has been resolved. From Wiseman to Wonka, Beyoncé to Ferrari, here is a select list of the films you need to know about this winter. Release dates and platforms are subject to change.NovemberDREAM SCENARIO An evolutionary biologist (Nicolas Cage) begins turning up in random people’s dreams, an inexplicable phenomenon that first intrigues the dreamers, then freaks them out. Julianne Nicholson also stars. Kristoffer Borgli wrote, directed and edited. (Nov. 10 in theaters)Brie Larson, front left, as Captain Marvel and Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel in, yes, “The Marvels.”Laura Radford/MarvelTHE KILLER Michael Fassbender plays a hyper-punctilious hit man who is forever checking his pulse and who soothes his nerves by listening to the Smiths. But his careful plans are upended when a job goes awry. The film reunites the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who together gave us “Seven” (1995), and here adapt the graphic-novel series by Matz and Luc Jacamon. (Nov. 10 on Netflix)THE MARVELS Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) join forces to take down whoever is threatening the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days. Nia DaCosta (the 2021 “Candyman” remake) directed. (Nov. 10 in theaters)ORLANDO, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY In this nonfiction feature, the philosopher Paul B. Preciado uses Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” as a lens for exploring issues of gender identity, enlisting transgender and nonbinary people to play the character and reflect on their lives. (Nov. 10 in theaters)STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING The academic and activist Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 book, “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” becomes a documentary film with commentary from Kendi and others, including Angela Davis and the poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Roger Ross Williams directed. (Nov. 10 in theaters, Nov. 20 on Netflix)Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in the prequel “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” Murray Close/LionsgateA STILL SMALL VOICE A nonfiction highlight at Sundance, this documentary from Luke Lorentzen (“Midnight Family”) follows a hospital chaplain during a residency as she discovers whether she has the fortitude for the job. (Nov. 10 in theaters)YOUTH (SPRING) Known for documentaries with lengthy running times and an unobtrusive style, the acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing (“Dead Souls”) chronicles the lives of migrants toiling in the textile workshops of Zhili, China. (Nov. 10 in theaters)THE LADY BIRD DIARIES The latest nonfiction feature from Dawn Porter (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”) draws on archival audio of the first lady Lady Bird Johnson and assesses the part she played in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. (Nov. 13 on Hulu)Natalie Portman as an actress studying her subject in “May December.”Francois Duhamel/NetflixBEST. CHRISTMAS. EVER! Mary Lambert (the original “Pet Sematary”) directed this holiday movie about a woman who tries to puncture her friend’s carefully cultivated aura of good cheer. Heather Graham and Brandy star. (Nov. 16 on Netflix)DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW Magic helps restore the Yuletide spirit for a social worker (Chris Bridges, a.k.a. Ludacris) and his 9-year-old (Madison Skye). Lil Rel Howery and Teyonah Parris also star; Tim Story directed. (Nov. 17 on Disney+)THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE Nicole Newnham (a director of “Crip Camp”) made this documentary on the work of Shere Hite, who in 1976 published “The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality,” which advanced the then-radical notion that women could achieve sexual satisfaction without intercourse. (Nov. 17 in theaters)FALLEN LEAVES The latest from the Finnish treasure Aki Kaurismaki won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival; the award scanned as an affectionate third place. It’s a love story — in an unusually bittersweet and low-key register — between lonesome members of the working class (Alma Poysti and Jussi Vatanen), and between Kaurismaki and cinema. (Nov. 17 in theaters)Michael Potts, third from left, Aml Ameen, Chris Rock, Glynn Turman and Kevin Mambo as civil rights leaders in “Rustin.”David Lee/NetflixTHE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES Set before the events of the Jennifer Lawrence films, this screen installment from Suzanne Collins’s books casts Tom Blyth as a teenage tyrant in the making and Rachel Zegler as the tribute he tries to prepare for the deadly games. Francis Lawrence returns to direct. (Nov. 17 in theaters)MAXINE’S BABY: THE TYLER PERRY STORY Normally, Perry projects begin with “Tyler Perry’s” this or that in their titles. But this biographical documentary bears his mother’s name, and traces how Perry built his universe of film and TV shows. Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz directed. (Nov. 17 on Amazon Prime Video)MAY DECEMBER Todd Haynes investigates what constitutes realistic acting — and what attracts viewers to tabloid sensationalism — in this drama, which casts Natalie Portman as a TV star shadowing her latest role’s infamous real-life inspiration (Julianne Moore), a woman whose past is not dissimilar from Mary Kay Letourneau’s. With Charles Melton. (Nov. 17 in theaters, Dec. 1 on Netflix)John Dory (left, voiced by Eric André) joins Poppy (Anna Kendrick) in “Trolls Band Together.”Universal PicturesNEXT GOAL WINS Smarting from a record-breaking loss, American Samoa’s soccer team braces for another try at the World Cup qualifying matches, this time with a new, curmudgeonly coach (Michael Fassbender). Taika Waititi directed. The team’s story was also told in a documentary with the same title. (Nov. 17 in theaters)RUSTIN Colman Domingo plays the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who was a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and whose legacy has received renewed attention. (In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California granted him a posthumous pardon for a 1953 conviction on a charge that had been used to criminalize homosexual activity.) George C. Wolfe directed. Chris Rock, Glynn Turman and Audra McDonald co-star. (Nov. 17 on Netflix)SALTBURN The writer-director Emerald Fennell’s first feature behind the camera since “Promising Young Woman” centers on a student at Oxford (Barry Keoghan) who becomes taken with the lifestyle of a classmate (Jacob Elordi) and accepts an invitation to his lavish home. (Nov. 17 in theaters)The animation master Hayao Miyazaki returns to theaters with “The Boy and the Heron.” GkidsTHANKSGIVING Sixteen years is a long time from trailer to release. But the tongue-in-cheek coming attraction that Eli Roth made for the midpoint of “Grindhouse” (2007) is now a feature film in its own right. Patrick Dempsey stars. (Nov. 17 in theaters)TROLLS BAND TOGETHER The Troll universe expands again as Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) seek out Branch’s brothers, with whom he previously formed a boy band. Who knew the Trolls universe had one? (Nov. 17 in theaters)LEO Adam Sandler lends his inimitable vocal stylings to a lizard in an elementary school classroom; it only has a year to live. Bill Burr and Cecily Strong also star. (Nov. 21 on Netflix)THE BOY AND THE HERON Ten years after “The Wind Rises,” which had been billed as a final feature, the master animator Hayao Miyazaki gives us this story of a boy who moves from Tokyo after his mother’s death during World War II. An enigmatic tower that stands near his new home becomes a gateway to a parallel world — a quintessentially Miyazakian realm. (Nov. 22 in theaters)Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross deal with holiday woes in “Candy Cane Lane.”Amazon Prime VideoLEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND Julia Roberts plays a misanthropic New Yorker who ropes her husband (Ethan Hawke) and children into an impromptu getaway on Long Island. But after strange things start to happen, and the family who owns the rental house (Mahershala Ali and Myha’la play father and daughter) turns up, the atmosphere gets tense. Barack and Michelle Obama are among the executive producers. Sam Esmail directed. (Nov. 22 in theaters, Dec. 8 on Netflix)MAESTRO In the director’s chair again after “A Star Is Born” (2018), Bradley Cooper also stars as the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, in a biopic that focuses in particular on his marriage. A top-billed Carey Mulligan plays the actress Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, his wife for nearly three decades until her death. (Nov. 22 in theaters, Dec. 20 on Netflix)MENUS-PLAISIRS — LES TROISGROS The 93-year-old Frederick Wiseman has made more than 40 feature documentaries, but never one as culinarily tantalizing as this four-hour look at a three-star restaurant (per Michelin) in France. You’ll see how the food is sourced, how dishes are devised, how patrons react and much more. (Nov. 22 in theaters)Joaquin Phoenix as the title character in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon.”Sony Pictures/Apple OriginalNAPOLEON Stanley Kubrick’s Bonaparte biography will, alas, always be one of cinema’s great what-ifs. But we are getting Ridley Scott’s version of the life of the French military leader, with Joaquin Phoenix donning the bicorn. Vanessa Kirby also stars. (Nov. 22 in theaters)WISH Will Ariana DeBose belt out a hit as big as “Let It Go”? Disney’s latest animated offering, advertising its affinities with “Frozen,” among other movies, casts the “West Side Story” Oscar winner as a heroine who takes on a king with the help of a cosmic force and a goat. Alan Tudyk and Chris Pine lend their voices as well. (Nov. 22 in theaters)AMERICAN SYMPHONY While the musician Jon Batiste is planning a symphony, his partner, the writer Suleika Jaouad, has a recurrence of cancer. Matthew Heineman (“Cartel Land”) documented their experiences. (Jaouad had previously written for The New York Times about having cancer in her 20s.) (Nov. 24 in theaters, Nov. 29 on Netflix)Beyoncé at the Toronto stop on her Renaissance tour, the subject of her new movie.The New York TimesSMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD The director Anna Hints documents the lives of women sweating things out in an Estonian sauna. The movie won a directing prize at Sundance. (Nov. 24 in theaters)THEY SHOT THE PIANO PLAYER Jeff Goldblum provides the voice of a journalist investigating the disappearance of a Brazilian pianist in this animated documentary. Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal directed. (Nov. 24 in theaters)SOUTH TO BLACK POWER In his book “The Devil You Know,” the New York Times Opinion columnist Charles M. Blow argued that Black Americans should reverse-migrate to the South. This documentary, directed by Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”) and Llewellyn M. Smith, explores that idea. (Nov. 28 on Max)FAMILY SWITCH In the tradition of “Freaky Friday” and “Vice Versa,” this movie casts Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms as parents in a family that gets scrambled in a body swap before a big day. McG directed. (Nov. 30 on Netflix)Emma Stone in “Poor Things,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.Searchlight PicturesDecemberBAD PRESS In 2018, officials in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation repealed an act guaranteeing freedom of the press. This documentary concerns a reporter’s efforts to fight back. (Dec. 1 in theaters and on demand)CANDY CANE LANE A spell cast by an elf (Jillian Bell) causes Christmastime trouble for a man (Eddie Murphy) and his family. With Tracee Ellis Ross. Reginald Hudlin directed. (Dec. 1 on Amazon Prime Video)EILEEN A sophisticated new counselor at a Massachusetts prison (Anne Hathaway) piques the curiosity of a younger woman who works there (Thomasin McKenzie). William Oldroyd (“Lady Macbeth”) directed this adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel. (Dec. 1 in theaters)IN WATER It’s not uncommon for the prolific South Korean director Hong Sangsoo to turn out two films per year, with a high consistency of style and subject. The gimmick in this one is that, for most of the movie, the picture is out of focus. (Dec. 1 in theaters)Jeffrey Wright, left, Leslie Uggams and Tracee Ellis Ross in “American Fiction,” directed by Cord Jefferson.Orion ReleasingLA SYNDICALISTE Isabelle Huppert plays a whistleblower who reveals secrets about France’s nuclear sector. But when she is sexually assaulted, the investigation calls into question her veracity. (Dec. 1 in theaters)RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ Last month, Taylor Swift conquered theaters with a cinematic document of her Eras Tour. Now it’s Beyoncé’s turn, in a movie that goes behind the scenes of the artist’s Renaissance World Tour, which ended Oct. 1. (Dec. 1 in theaters)SHAYDA Zar Amir Ebrahimi plays a woman from Iran residing in a shelter in Australia who is desperate to prevent her estranged husband from taking their child back with him. Noora Niasari wrote and directed. (Dec. 1 in theaters)Rocky (voiced by Zachary Levi) and Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) return to action in “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.”Aardman/NetflixSILENT NIGHT A father (Joel Kinnaman) seeks revenge for the Christmas Eve killing of his son. No, it’s not another “Death Wish” reboot — the director, in fact, is John Woo. (Dec. 1 in theaters)THE SWEET EAST After getting away from an attack by a PizzaGate-style conspiracy theorist, a high schooler (Talia Ryder) has a series of outlandish adventures as she travels from place to place. Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O. Harris and Simon Rex also star. The cinematographer Sean Price Williams directed from a script by the film critic Nick Pinkerton. (Dec. 1 in theaters)THE APOCALYPTIC IS THE MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY The experimental filmmaker Jim Finn examines the ideas of the apostle Paul using oddball cultural detritus, including board games and sponsored films. (Dec. 6 in theaters)WAITRESS: THE MUSICAL Sara Bareilles plays the lead role in the movie version of the stage musical for which she wrote the music and lyrics. The show was itself adapted from Adrienne Shelly’s posthumously released 2007 film. (Dec. 7 in theaters)Timothée Chalamet takes over as the title character in “Wonka.” Hugh Grant is an Oompa Loompa, of course.Warner Bros.ANSELM Similarly to what he did in “Pina,” his 2011 documentary tribute to the choreographer Pina Bausch, Wim Wenders uses 3-D and high-resolution digital camerawork to give viewers a sense of the monumentality of Anselm Kiefer’s art. (Dec. 8 in theaters)FAST CHARLIE Michael Fassbender’s character in “The Killer” isn’t the only assassin with a problem this season. There’s also the hit man in this movie (Pierce Brosnan), who has trouble proving that the headless person he has killed was the intended mark. James Caan, who died last year, plays the hit man’s mentor. Phillip Noyce directed. (Dec. 8 in theaters and on demand)MERRY LITTLE BATMAN Bruce Wayne’s son has to become a mini-Batman to thwart what sound like “Home Alone”-style shenanigans in this animated feature. Luke Wilson is in the voice cast. (Dec. 8 on Amazon Prime Video)ORIGIN Reviewing “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” the 2020 book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, Dwight Garner of The New York Times called it “an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.” With Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson, Ava DuVernay dramatizes the period of the book’s writing. (Dec. 8 in theaters)Jason Momoa dives back into “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.”Warner Bros./DC ComicsPOOR THINGS Yorgos Lanthimos combines the costume drama of “The Favourite” with the social satire of “Dogtooth” to follow the odyssey of Bella Baxter (a wildly dexterous Emma Stone), who, thanks to a Frankensteining by a mad-scientist father figure (Willem Dafoe), begins the movie as a grown woman with a child’s brain. Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef also star. Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, it won the top prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival. (Dec. 8 in theaters)TOTAL TRUST In this documentary, the director Jialing Zhang looks at the nature of the surveillance state in China. (Dec. 8 in theaters)THE TASTE OF THINGS Tran Anh Hung won the directing prize at Cannes for a film that, along with Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” boasts the most mouthwatering display of cuisine in any movie this year. Inspired by the French novel known in English as “The Passionate Epicure,” it concerns the relationship between that epicure (Benoît Magimel) and his longtime cook and companion (Juliette Binoche). (Dec. 13 in theaters)CHRISTMAS RESCUE Kidnapping the bride from a wedding in an effort to win her love sounds like a horrifying thing to do, but maybe it works out for these two crazy kids in this movie? With Robin Givens, Raven Goodwin and Mario Van Peebles. (Dec. 14 on BET+)AMERICAN FICTION Adapting a 2001 satirical novel by Percival Everett, the TV writer and former Gawker editor Cord Jefferson directed Jeffrey Wright as a Black author who, in frustration and jest, writes a book that plays into stereotypes — and suddenly finds the success that has eluded him. Erika Alexander plays a potential love interest; Sterling K. Brown and Issa Rae also star. It won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. (Dec. 15 in theaters)Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are absolutely not interested in each other in “Anyone but You.”Brook Rushton/Sony PicturesCHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET To counter the existential threat posed by exceptionally delicious chicken nuggets, Ginger, Rocky and their daughter break into a poultry-processing plant. Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi and Bella Ramsey provide some of the voices. (Dec. 15 on Netflix)THE FAMILY PLAN When his past catches up with him, a government assassin turned car salesman (Mark Wahlberg) tries to save his family while keeping his previous occupation secret. Michelle Monaghan also stars. (Dec. 15 on Apple TV+)GODARD CINEMA The legacy of Jean-Luc Godard, who died last year, is impossible to distill almost by design; he reinvented film with his first feature, “Breathless,” and never stopped reinventing. Still, the documentarian Cyril Leuthy gives a survey a try, interviewing people who worked with Godard. In New York, Film Forum will show this feature with a final short Godard work, “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars.’” (Dec. 15 in theaters)WONKA While “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and Roald Dahl’s book left many questions, how Wonka defeated a chocolate cartel to found his factory was not exactly foremost among them. Will the movie at least explain how Timothée Chalamet, who plays Wonka in this prequel, could grow into Gene Wilder? (Dec. 15 in theaters)THE ZONE OF INTEREST Loosely based on Martin Amis’s 2014 Holocaust novel, the director Jonathan Glazer’s first feature since “Under the Skin” a decade ago is an intensely formal exercise that tries to immerse viewers in the perspective of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, as he carried on with his life next to the camp. With Sandra Hüller as Höss’s wife. (Dec. 15 in theaters)Kumail Nanjiani provides the voice for one of the Mallards in “Migration.”IlluminationALL OF US STRANGERS A run-in with a neighbor (Paul Mescal) somehow causes a rupture in the life of a screenwriter (Andrew Scott), who visits the home where he grew up and encounters his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) — who died years earlier, but who now have a chance to get to know him as an adult. Andrew Haigh (“45 Years”) directed. (Dec. 22 in theaters)ANYONE BUT YOU Advance word suggests that this film, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as two wedding guests who pretend to be together but aren’t, is unusually racy by the standards of comedies faintly inspired by “Much Ado About Nothing.” Will Gluck directed. (Dec. 22 in theaters)AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM Jason Momoa has to form an alliance with his brother (Patrick Wilson) to save Atlantis. Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman return for this DC sequel, along with the director James Wan. (Dec. 22 in theaters)THE IRON CLAW Sean Durkin (“The Nest”) directed this dramatization of what happened to the real-life Von Erich brothers, who beginning in the 1970s made a name for themselves wrestling and who almost all died young. Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White star. (Dec. 22 in theaters)MIGRATION A family of ducks — the Mallards — do what a lot of American families do: fly south for a winter getaway. Not surprisingly, travel proves to be a hassle. Mike White, a long way from “The White Lotus,” wrote the screenplay for this animated feature, which has the voices of Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Awkwafina and Keegan-Michael Key, among others. (Dec. 22 in theaters)Sofia Boutella is trying to save the galaxy in “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire.”Clay Enos/NetflixREBEL MOON — PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE Sofia Boutella bands together misfit warriors to save the galaxy. Untethered from DC Comics characters and the zombies of his “Dawn of the Dead” and “Army of the Dead,” this could be the most unfiltered dose of Zack Snyder since “Sucker Punch” (2011). This is the first of two installments, with the next one due in April. (Dec. 22 on Netflix)THE BOYS IN THE BOAT In 1936, the United States’s eight-man rowing team bested Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the Berlin Olympics. How the American team did it, and how its members got to that point from the University of Washington, is chronicled in this drama, directed by George Clooney and starring Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner. (Dec. 25 in theaters)THE COLOR PURPLE The Broadway musical version of Alice Walker’s novel, which itself was already adapted into a movie by Steven Spielberg in 1985, hits the big screen. The singer Fantasia, a.k.a. Fantasia Barrino, plays Celie, the role Whoopi Goldberg embodied in the original film. With Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo and Halle Bailey. Blitz Bazawule directed. (Dec. 25 in theaters)THE CRIME IS MINE A stage actress (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) is accused of murdering a lecherous producer in this 1930s-set film from François Ozon. It also features Rebecca Marder and, as a Sarah Bernhardt-like star, Isabelle Huppert. (Dec. 25 in theaters)Adam Driver is playing another figure synonymous with Italy in “Ferrari.”Eros Hoagland/NeonFERRARI Michael Mann and the sleek Italian auto brand go way back. (See also “Miami Vice” in its TV and movie versions.) Adam Driver plays the sports car maker Enzo Ferrari in 1957, as he grieves the death of one son, tries to keep the existence of a mistress (Shailene Woodley) and an out-of-wedlock child from his wife (Penélope Cruz) and braces for the Mille Miglia race across Italy. (Dec. 25 in theaters)OCCUPIED CITY Working from a book by his wife, the Dutch filmmaker Bianca Stigter, the director Steve McQueen combines documentary footage from present-day Amsterdam with narration that recounts events in the city throughout World War II. “With formal rigor and adamant focus, it maps — street by street, address by address — the catastrophe that befell Amsterdam’s Jewish population,” Manohla Dargis wrote when the film played at Cannes. (Dec. 25 in theaters)THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE A schoolteacher (Leonie Benesch) winds up in an awkward professional position — and a deepening ethical quagmire — after leveling an accusation against one of the school’s staff members. İlker Çatak directed this festival favorite. (Dec. 25 in theaters)GOOD GRIEF Dan Levy (“Schitt’s Creek”) casts himself — in his first directorial feature — as a man who takes a trip to Paris with two friends (Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel) while grieving his husband’s death. (Dec. 29 in theaters, Jan. 5 on Netflix) More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Venice Film Festival: Why David Fincher Wanted Michael Fassbender to Look ‘Dorky’

      by

      Movies are full of glamorous hit men. For “The Killer,” the director put his star in a bucket hat: “The $3,000 suit seems like it’s played out.”It’s been 24 years since David Fincher brought one of his movies to the Venice Film Festival, and the last time, things didn’t go so well.“I came here with a little film called ‘Fight Club’” in 1999, he told me during an interview on the Lido this week. “We were fairly run out of town for being fascists.” Even before the premiere of that controversial Brad Pitt flick, the director could sense trouble. “I looked down and the youngest person in our row was Giorgio Armani,” Fincher said. “I was like, ‘I’m not sure the guest list is the right guest list for this.’”So what makes lofty Venice the right place to premiere “The Killer,” Fincher’s new thriller and his first film since the Oscar-winning Hollywood drama “Mank”?“Nothing,” cracked Fincher. “Venice seems like it’s very highbrow — important movies about important subjects — and then there’s our skeevy little movie.”Still, Fincher has always enjoyed toying with people’s expectations. He does it even within the world of “The Killer,” which premiered in Venice on Sunday and stars Fassbender as a hired gun who has to improvise after a fatal assignment goes awry.Based on a French graphic novel and adapted by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”), the film at first feels like a high-end take on the usual genre tropes: There’s the assassin with no name, the innocent woman in the way and the methodical list of revenge targets to be pursued. But then our protagonist’s constant patter of narration starts to show cracks, as the Killer often thinks one thing and does another. By the end, you’ll wonder if we know this guy at all, or whether he’s ever really known himself.And then there’s what he’s wearing. Though Hollywood would have us believe that assassins always look impossibly chic and well-tailored, Fincher puts his protagonist in Skechers, a zip-up fleece and a bucket hat.“He’s totally dorky!” the director said. “We were never intending for it to look glamorous.”Inspiration struck when Fincher flipped through reference photos and landed on a German tourist snapped wearing those nondescript items on the streets of Paris. “I was like, ‘All of this stuff could be purchased in an airport,’” said Fincher, who sent the photo to his costume designer, Cate Adams. “I said, ‘This is what he needs to be, a guy who can get off a plane and buy a whole wardrobe on his way from the gate to the rental car.’”Fincher found no complaints from his leading man, who wasn’t in Venice because of the SAG-AFTRA strike: “Michael’s cool. He was not freaked out about having to look a little dorky.” And that aesthetic extends even to the Killer’s escape from a botched job, which takes place not via high-speed car chase but with a zippy little motor scooter, though Fincher considered taking that sequence in an even dweebier direction. “At one point, we even debated the Razor scooter,” he said, nixing that only because it wouldn’t perform well during a stair stunt.So though the Killer remains a mystery to himself, at least one thing can be said for sure of this indifferently dressed man: He ain’t exactly John Wick.“The $3,000 suit seems like it’s played out,” Fincher said. Still, he was surprised to find someone wearing his protagonist’s silly headwear in another recent assassin movie: “It’s funny because when Pitt told me he had selected a bucket hat for ‘Bullet Train,’ I was like, ‘OK, dude, you’re stepping into our sandbox.’”Though Fincher has a skill for image-making that extends back to the music videos he directed for the likes of Madonna, with “The Killer,” he was more interested in dismantling that sort of cinematic iconography. Instead of a glamorous lair, Fassbender’s character keeps his weapons in a mundane storage locker, and instead of using high-tech gadgets to break into targets’ homes, he orders key-duplication tools off Amazon.“I was like, ‘I want James Bond by way of Home Depot,’” Fincher said. “By the end of this, you should be like, who’s the guy in the rental car line with you, and why is he wearing that outdated hat? You ignore the German tourist at your peril.”And while the movies would have us believe that the world is full of clever, high-flying assassins, Fincher sought to ground his character’s tunnel vision in a more mundane reality. “I love the idea of a Charles Bronson character who’s maybe misdiagnosed adult autistic,” he said. “And before 2023, I’m not sure anybody would have gone, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’”So if the Killer’s fashion choices or inner motivations sometimes stump you, just know that’s by design.“He seems to have a hard time reading the room,” Fincher said. “And any room that he goes into, eventually, he’s the only guy in it.” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Killer’ Review: Stylistic Action Without the Heart

      by

      In this South Korean film, a teenage girl kidnapped by human traffickers brings an assassin out of retirement to save her.It was only days ago that the retired assassin Ui-gang (Jang Hyuk) was enjoying a happy life with his wife (Bang Eun-jung). Now, after the kidnapping of a girl in the director Choi Jae-hoon’s muscular action flick “The Killer,” Ui-gang is facing down a barrage of goons in a narrow hallway to rescue her. He doesn’t flinch when an ax whizzes past his ear. Instead, with unblinking precision, he tears through two would-be killers while a shocked group of tough guys watch in fear from an elevator.Choi spends the first half of the film building back to this moment: Ui-Gang’s wife wants to take a trip with her friend, who has a teenage daughter, Yoon-ji (Lee Seo-young). An unamused Ui-gang is charged with babysitting the girl while the pair go on vacation. Soon after they leave, the 17-year-old is kidnapped by a sex-trafficking ring with Russian ties. Whoever is pulling the strings specifically wants Yoon-ji and Ui-gang needs to kill that person to save the girl.While the tightly choreographed action scenes in “The Killer” take their cue from “John Wick” and “The Man From Nowhere,” the film lacks heart.Adapted from the novel “The Girl Who Deserves to Die” by Bang Jin-ho, the screenwriter Nam Ji-woong’s undercooked script leaves the interpersonal dynamics between Ui-gang and his wife underwritten. While the nimble Jang holds together the robust action sequences — bloody freakouts often captured in slow motion — no one else grounds any of the scenes with any emotion. Consequently, “The Killer” fails to land a real knockout blow.The KillerNot rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More