KNIGHT OF CUPS (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Christian Bale, Brian Dehnehy, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Freida Pinto, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick
GENRE: Drama/Romance


To frame it in language that my uncle Lemuel back in Nebraska would find user friendly: Terence Malick makes weird movies that some consider to be absolutely brilliant, while others just shake their heads and say:  Shit...I'll never get  those two hours back!

Case in point: Tree Of Life.  It was lauded as a masterpiece by many and was nominated for three Academy Awards. I found it to be disjointed and tedious. However, if I were to view it a second time, I might get a better grasp on what Mr. Malick was trying to convey. The same can probably be said for his latest offering, Knight Of Cups.

The "plot" is as follows. Rick (Christian Bale) is a Hollywood writer who drifts in and out of reverie with six pivotal women in his life--played by Imogeen Poots, Cate Blanchett, Freida Pinto, Natalie Portman, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas, and Brian Dennehy. WHOOPS...Dennehy plays his father...heh heh...with whom Rick has flashback encounters designed to give us an inkling of past tragedies.

The characters in Knight Of Cups speak solely through their own interior monologue--in other words, they are talking to themselves. The action moves from one dreamlike sequence to another, through the kaleidoscopic cityscapes and the "beautiful people" of L.A. and Las Vegas--to the beach, to the bedroom, to the boredom (my own).Through all of this cinematically pretty navel-gazing, Christian Bale, as Rick, is trying to figure out who he is...or what his life is all about...or maybe what he is doing in this film in the first place.

It's a lot of weirdness, Uncle Lemuel (which I'm not averse to), but after awhile it gets to be too much of the SAME KIND of weirdness--like watching Freddy Krueger come back to life every damn time they kill him, or listening to Marco Rubio up on the debate stage!

Maybe Malick is making a statement about the dreamlike nature of life. That I can grasp. You sit in your living room gazing at a chair where somebody sat weeks, or months, or years ago and you wonder...were they ever really there?

I didn't love Knight Of Cups. I didn't exactly hate it (it's smattered with " T " and "A"). But it's true. I'll never get those two hours back.

Grade: C


JILL'S TAKE

I suppose after seeing Remember, a movie I felt was one of the best I'd ever seen, it's only fitting that the next one should be – bar none -- worst movie I've ever seen! I have very little patience with stories that have no discernible story. Obviously the producers of this turkey knew what they were dealing with and decided (after seeing the final cut and tearing their hair out) to make the trailer look as if it was a triangle love story between Bale, Blanchett and Portman. That's what I thought I was going to see!

Instead I was subjected to long silences, Tarot card headings, self-indulgent soliloquies and a film that seemed to go on forever. The only people I think might get something out of this meandering mishmosh are the 420 crowd. Warning: Take a BIG toke before entering the theater...

Grade: D ----

A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS (2011)

Rated: R

Stars: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Danny Trejo

Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Genre: Comedy

On the raunch meter, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is on a par with Bridesmaids and Horrible Bosses. But because the theme is Christmas, there are additional sacred cows to be sacrificed to the gods of gross-out humor. No one--and I mean NO ONE--is immune!

The plot here is to get the estranged buddies--Harold, (John Cho) who is now a Wall Street businessman, and Kumar, (Kal Penn) still a slacker and a stoner--reunited for another whacked out adventure. When Kumar receives a holiday package intended for Harold, he obligingly delivers it to his old friend's residence , and this is where the fun begins. The pair is charged with nothing less than to save Christmas, after they open the package to discover a gigantic joint which, after being lit, ends up burning down the twelve foot fir that Harold's father-in-law (the menacing Danny Trejo) has lovingly raised from a sapling to become this year's holiday centerpiece.

Their Christmas eve quest to find a replacement tree before the family returns home from midnight Mass will lead to encounters with belligerent, foul-mouthed teenagers (are there any other kind?) who get even for losing a game of beer pong by spiking the eggnog and sending our heroes into a scary hallucinogenic trip--depicted in claymation, no less; a harrowing run-in with a Russian mobster who has ordered them killed in retaliation for a suspected attempt to deflower his hot-to-trot teenage daughter; and accidentally shooting Santa Claus out of the sky.

How Harold and Kumar end up in the chorus line of a Christmas stage production with Neil Patrick Harris playing himself as an outwardly gay, but secretly heterosexual perv, is one of the most inventive sequences in the film. And there are generous holiday helpings of T & A, with a side trip to heaven and some lovely topless angels and nuns. If your sense of humor is irreverent enough to survive all this, we have an adorable toddler who inadvertently gets high on pot fumes and cocaine dust.

ASSESSMENT:

• I'd classify A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas as a guilty pleasure--the kind of movie where characters give into their basest instincts in speech and behavior, like many would do if we didn't feel bound by social convention and political correctness. For that reason, this merry brand of madcap madness can serve as an exhilarating release...like the secret fantasies of Miss Manners--letting her hair down as she falls off the bar stool, muttering vague sexual innuendo. We're all a conflicting jumble of instinct and inhibition, otherwise movies like A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas this wouldn't get made.

• The first time I ever saw 3D--way back in the day--it seemed magical. Objects appeared to fly right off the screen and into your lap. I'd avoided the recent revival of this technology until now, because most of the films that employed it just weren't my cup of tea. For some reason, I'm not that impressed with it now. Was it the glasses? Did I have them on backwards? I'd go back and forth from looking with the naked eye, to employing the glasses, and, of course, there was some difference in depth perception, but maybe not enough for me to justify the extra three dollar surcharge. But don't let that stop you, especially if you're ready to get into the holiday mood. After all, you'll spend a lot more than that on a present for the jerky brother-in law you only see during holiday gatherings--the one whose name you can't quite recall.

Grade: B +