Movie column by Eleanor Ringel Cater
Director Jonathon Demme has an Oscar for “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Screenwriter Diablo Cody has an Oscar for “Juno.”
Meryl Streep has Oscars (and nominations) for just about everything she’s ever done, which means Margaret Thatcher, Julia Child, an evil nun, an overwhelmed mother, a Holocaust survivor, a horrible boss, etc., etc., etc.
Amy Schumer is a Nora Ephron for a New Millennium.
She’s coarser, and she’s also more cutting edge. Granted, she and Ephron had to fight very different battles to validate themselves in a mostly male game But like Ephron, Schumer is one clever dame, with a sweet spot of romanticism right in the middle of her smart-girl snap.
“Newport Murder Mystery?” “Crud and Misdemeanors?” “Match Pointless?”
When you make as many movies as Woody Allen has, you’re bound to repeat yourself — at least a little bit.
But it’s better to repeat the good parts, not the ones that didn’t work.
“Irrational Man” is the newest from our most erratic director and, alas, it’s almost all bits that don’t work. Joaquin Phoenix is a Big Hire professor, as well known for his dissolute behavior as he is for his academic credentials.
When it comes to movies about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective, Sherlock Holmes, things are not always so elementary.
We’ve had a dashing Holmes (Basil Rathbone in countless films from the ‘30s and ‘40s), an addict Holmes (Nicol Williamson in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”), an adolescent Holmes (Nicholas Rowe in “Young Sherlock Holmes”), a closeted Holmes (Robert Stephens in “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”), a super-hero Holmes (Robert Downey’s recent outings), even a singing/dancing Holmes (Fritz Weaver in the 1965 Broadway musical, “Baker Street.”)
Full Disclosure: I am not a fan of “Madame Bovary.”
But then I wasn’t a fan of “Anna Karenina” until I saw Joe Wright’s dazzling 2012 movie.
I am still not a fan of “Madame Bovary.” If anything, “Gemma Bovery,” Anne Fontaine’s “clever” gloss on Flaubert’s classic, has made me like it even less.
The famed Hippocratic oath — “First, do no harm” — is perhaps the first thing out the window in Thomas Lilti’s scathing and often darkly comic “Hippocrates.”
Subtitled “Diary of a French Doctor,” this year-in-the-life of a passionate young intern assigned to a busy Parisian hospital hits the ground running — or would that be bleeding? — and rarely let’s up.
“Inside Out” is outstanding. Astonishing. Sensational.
It’s every word P.T. Barnum ever splashed across his museum. Only, this movie is the real thing — something so smart, so funny, so special that you almost regret it’s animated.
Except, you don’t. Because, in visual terms, “Inside Out” is out of this world.
“Live From New York” is often deadly dull.
That’s not to say it’s of no interest. Anything that survives for 40 years on TV has to have something going for it and “SNL” has that in spades: famous casts, famous hosts, celebrity politicos, even a collision or two with history (Rudy Guiliani’s post-9/11 appearance).
By now, “Spy” has been chased out of the No. 1 box office slot by “Jurassic World’s” mob of dinosaurs. Still, attention must be paid – as Linda Loman once said of her salesman husband, Willy – to an espionage caper starring a woman. Especially one that was itself a box office topper.
“Spy” stars Melissa McCarthy as Susan Cooper, a desk-bound CIA agent who spends her days helping a James Bond knock-off (Jude Law) out of scrapes.
In “Jerry Maguire,” Cameron Crowe had us at hello.
In “Aloha,” alas, he doesn’t have us at hello or goodbye.
Or anything in between.
Crowe is known for movies that don’t fit into an easily identifiable mold. Movies like “Almost Famous,” “Say Anything” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
The new movie “Good Kill” takes its title from what drone pilots — stationed in sterile trailers 7,000 miles away from the Middle East — say when they demolish a target (i.e., people).
They also say “Splash,” but that title was already taken (Millennials, please look up Tom Hanks on IMDB).
Hunkered down in their air-conditioned bunkers, these joystick killers experience war as the ultimate video game. That’s beginning to bother Air Force pilot Tom Egan (Ethan Hawke) who longs for the good old days when he flew F-16s.
“Mad Max: Fury Road” is beyond mad. It is insane.
Insanely creative. Insanely violent. Insanely satisfying.
Perhaps most insane of all, it’s as close to a futuristic feminist manifesto as any movie I’ve ever seen (the possible exception being Volker Schlondorff’s under-appreciated “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The credit goes to George Miller, who invented the “Mad Max” franchise almost 40 years ago. That particular Max was played with surly charisma and matinee-idol good looks by Mel Gibson.
Beware of border collies named George.
That’s one take-away from this pastoral beauty of a movie.
Another is, bad boys have more fun. At least, initially.
A feminist take on “Far from the Madding Crowd” may not be exactly what Thomas Hardy had in mind in 1874. However, consider this line of dialogue, lifted directly from the book: “It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
“A dormant peacekeeping program goes awry and the post-S.H.I.E.L.D. Avengers must save the world from the destructive Ultron.”
If that sentence makes any sense to you, you may be the perfect audience for “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
This blockbuster sequel has a plot more convoluted than the Biblical begats. Knowing that the New Yorker critic Anthony Lane was stumped as well makes me feel slightly better. But it didn’t make the movie-going experience any more enjoyable.
The Water Diviner” put me in mind of the Coleridge quote “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
There are fine things everywhere you look in this Australian historical drama. Yet, when it’s over, you’re still thirsty for a better movie.
Russell Crowe stars as Joshua Connor, an Australian farmer with a gift for finding water (as we see in the opening scene). Now he wants to find his three sons who went off to war four years earlier.
Imagine this scenario: the movie I intended to see for review is sold out. It is necessary to punt. A movie called “Unfriended” is about to start.
“Unfriended.” Hmm, I muse. That’s a Facebook term, isn’t it? Or something close enough. Hey, maybe this is “You’ve Got Mail” for the 21st century. Sell me that ticket for seat G-13.
If I read “True Story” correctly, apparently there is nothing — I mean, nothing — worse than being banned from the New York Times. Not even killing your wife and kids.
That’s what Christian Longo (James Franco) is accused of in this, yes, true story (more or less) about what happened to a former New York Times writer named Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill).
The last thing I expected from “Furious 7” was to be all choked up at the end. Remember, this is the series that sells itself on the dubious acting of Vin Diesel, the factory-stamped hunkiness of the late Paul Walker and, yes, fast cars. Lots of fast cars, preferably crashing at some point without harming anyone inside.
But even someone who’s “Furious” phobic will be moved by the picture’s final scenes which pay tribute to the late Walker who died — terrible irony — in a car crash two years ago.
In the oddest way, “Woman in Gold” somewhat resembles “Philomena.” Like that film, which starred Judi Dench, it’s based on a true story. More similarly, in both pictures, some relatively mundane — well, let’s be nice and say familiar — material is brightened by someone who knows what she’s doing. Exactly what she’s doing.
You can almost feel your arteries clog while watching “Deli Man.”
That’s how persuasive this documentary tribute to all things delicatessen can be.
It begins with a rather surprising statistic. In 1931, there were over a thousand delis in New York City alone. Today, there are around 150 delis in the entire United States.
