DENIAL (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson
DIRECTOR: Mick Jackson
GENRE: Docudrama


In 1996, American academic/historian Deborah Lipstadt was sued for libel by British historian David Irving for characterizing him in her book as being a holocaust denier. Among other "Nazi friendly" assertions, Irving had maintained that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Despite the damning nature of his stated positions, Irving sued for damage to his reputation, essentially denying that he was a denier.  Denial is the docudrama of the ensuing trial, which took place in Britain in 2000.

Given the subject matter, I was expecting fireworks, but for the most part, Denial is as staid as the British courtroom where most of the "action" takes place. He-said-she-said. The fascination that does exist revolves around the larger issue: By having to defend her statements about Mr. Irving, Lipstadt essentially has to call the holocaust as a witness to prove its own existence.

In preparation for the trial, Lipstadt and her team visit the real Auschwitz--a desolate looking place that time has softened into a haunt for ghosts. You must use your imagination now--not hard to do--to conjure up the unspeakable depravity of what took place there. It's a sobering moment.

It's a pedestrian turn for previous Oscar winner Rachel Weisz, as Lipstadt. When she's pleased, she's bubbly. When she's perturbed, she's frowny. But there's no nuance or subtlety of emotion. And an inordinate amount of time is spent drinking wine with her chief defense strategist, Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson). Maybe it was real wine. Wilkinson gives a more fleshed-out performance as he calls the shots for Lipstadt's defense strategy. Timothy Spall, as David Irving, is pompous and jowly, and comes off as being more obnoxious and annoying than villainous.

Conspiracy theories abound. Social media is crawling with them. 9-11 was an inside job. The moon landing was fake. The Sandy Hook massacre was staged. On and on. Few of them ring of credibility to the logical mind--the JFK assassination notwithstanding. It appears obvious that there was more to that than just a lone malcontent named Lee Harvey Oswald. But compelling evidence is in play there. The holocaust denier is a breed apart. He tries to tell us that we didn't see what we saw in all of the ghastly newsreel, documentary, and photographic evidence that exists. Not only does he insult our intelligence, he aligns himself with a dark energy that needs to fall back into the cesspool of history from whence it came.

I was expecting more HEAT in Denial...something on the order of what I just felt in penning the preceding sentences. But for the most part, it left me cold.

Grade:  C +

JILL'S TAKE

Finally, Tim and I disagree! (But not by much.) I went to this film, curious to know how holocaust deniers rationalize their beliefs. And right at the beginning, Rachel Weisz as Professor Lipstadt points out the four explanations deniers give. The one that really made my eyes pop? It was a publicity stunt promoted by the Jews to promote Israel. (Are your eyes popping now, too?)

I knew going in that Denial would be a courtroom drama but I found the subject matter so preposterously fascinating that I never got bored. I also learned a lot, not just about holocaust deniers but how different the English legal system is from ours. There, you're basically guilty until proven innocent. All of the actors involved did admirable performances but I especially admired how fanatic Timothy Spall was David Irving -- whose rabid intensity out-Hitlered Hitler's.

On a personal note, a few nights later I was having dinner with some friends and mentioned Denial in passing. One of them then told me about an interview she'd read in Hadassah Magazine where Rachel Weisz talked about the fact that all her own relatives perished in concentration camps.

Talk about art imitating life!

Grade: B+

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (2016)

Rated:  R

STARS: Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Rebecca Ferguson, Luke Evans, Haley Bennett, Edgar Ramirez
DIRECTOR: Tate Taylor
GENRE: Thriller

Watching a film adaptation of a book you've read is different than if you were totally unfamiliar with the story. Since you know all the plot elements, you pretty much are just looking to see how true the film is to the source material. We can say that The Girl On The Train, starring Emily Blunt, is a lot more faithful to the best-selling book by Paula Hawkins than any of the married characters in the story are to each other, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Rachel  is a lush of the first magnitude. A furtive alcoholic who blacks out and can't remember a thing about what she did the night before. In the book she's overweight and no longer terribly attractive. In the movie she's Emily Blunt. So there's the first change. They do a pretty good job of making her look haggard and stressed out, but she's still Emily Blunt. So who was going to put more butts in the seats--Melissa McCarthy or Ms. Blunt? The bottom line is still king.

Rachel drinks because of her divorce from Tom (Justin Theroux), who is now happily married to Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). She got fired from her job due to her drinking, but rides the train everyday from the suburbs to Manhattan to keep up the appearance of still being gainfully employed. (In the book it's London--that's the second notable change.) Along the route Rachel passes a house where a happy looking couple are frequently observed getting frisky on their back balcony. She entertains fantasies about who they are and what they are like. One day while riding by she sees the woman in the arms of another man. Rachel is shocked and disillusioned. Then the woman, whose name is Megan (Haley Bennett), disappears. There is a police investigation. Megan's husband, Scott (Luke Evans), becomes a suspect. But who was the other man Rachel saw Megan with on the balcony? She's going to get to the bottom of it (before she bottoms out herself). It's the stuff that taut thrillers are made of. 

Emily Blunt, surrounded by a cast of relative unknowns, turns in a gritty performance--one of her best. But as The Girl On The Train speeds toward its gotcha conclusion, much of the nuance of the characters in the novel is left at the station. 

Grade:  B 

JILL'S TAKE

From my perspective, the best thing about The Girl On The Train is Tim's review. Well done, Timoteo! There's always a danger of turning off an audience when the main character is so unlikable. And Emily Blunt's character is definitely not someone you'd want to befriend. Until the very end when the wife of her ex husband's boss, played by Lisa Kudrow of "Friends" fame, reveals a shocking truth.

Quite honestly, I went to this film with the wrong attitude, convinced that it would never be as good as the book. And I was right. That's the second danger with making a movie from a hit novel. Author Paula Hawkins' best seller was such a literary blockbuster that expectations about the movie version were unrealistically high. Even though screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson, wrote one of my all-time spooky film favorites (Secretary with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal), many of the scenes in this thriller dragged on endlessly.

As I watched the final credits roll, I at least felt a frisson of recognition when I realized that the actor who played Emily Blunt's ex, Justin Theroux, is the current husband of Jennifer Aniston. My advice? Read the book and forget the movie...

Grade: C -

EIGHT DAYS A WEEK--THE TOURING YEARS

RATED: NR

STARS: The Beatles, Brian Epstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Elvis Costello
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
GENRE: Documentary


There's not much you can criticize about a Beatles documentary (Eight Days A Week--The Touring Years) that showcases the music above everything else--directed by Ron Howard, no less! Howard and company worked some auditory magic with archival footage of live performances at clubs, concerts, and on television. The result is that you're immersed in the exhilarating feeling of being right there, live, in the front row.

And THERE THEY ARE--John and George--up there big as life...just as if they had never left us. The incongruity, of course, is that they are their forever younger selves, while present day Paul and Ringo drop by to fill us in on some of the intimate details of those touring years--1964 through 1966. 

The real eye-opener--for anyone who wasn't around at the time and has only heard about the craziness second hand--is that we get the full brunt of Beatlemania. Hordes of young girls going bananas, screaming their heads off and passing out and being lugged off like sacks of potatoes by dutiful cops to the recovery station. And everywhere the Fab Four went, the crowds mobbing them as they made a mad dash for the limousine. And then there is the concert in Shea Stadium where 56,000 people were so loud that the lads couldn't hear themselves, and yet they rocked out and delivered those songs without a hitch. They were that good.

Brian Epstein, the architect and engineer of the group's rise to musical immortality, is prominently featured. Whoopi Goldberg and Elvis Costello provide some personal anecdotes. Whoopi, for one, was a huge fan. And who wasn't? 

The documentary only briefly touches on the Beatles' psychedelically induced period that followed, which was beyond the scope of the film. But this was where the real "Revolution"started. Suddenly, music became a medium with a message, not just a beat. And so many of us grew up making personal transformations that paralleled the transformation in the Beatles' music. In a very real sense, they were the soundtrack to our lives.  

 Grade:  A

JILL'S TAKE

The night I went to see Eight Days A Week at La Paloma, a funky little theater (built in 1929) in Encinitas, California, it was packed with diehard Beatle fans. Mostly baby boomers, eager to relive their youth. But even if you weren't born back then, this documentary is more than just a musical tribute to the Fab Four. It's about a cultural phenomenon.

I don't usually share personal anecdotes when adding my two cents to these movie reviews. But this story deserves re-telling: I was living in New York City when the Beatles came to town and I had a good friend, a classy lady named Jackie Rutherfurd, whose 12-year-old daughter "Moo" was dying to go see the Beatles perform at Radio City Music Hall. Jackie begged me to accompany Moo, fearing for her daughter's life. I agreed to go, thinking Jackie was being a bit over dramatic. Believe me, she wasn't. The screaming and hysteria in that auditorium was truly terrifying. I couldn't wait to get out of there. (Moo, of course, was crying like all the other little girls, totally in love with Paul.)

Which brings me to my one criticism of the film. The Beatle I had a secret crush on was George Harrison. And I felt his musical talent was not featured enough in Eight Days A Week. Granted, his songs emerged later but still – he was a lot cuter to me than the other Beatles. (Sigh.)

When the film ended, people clapped long and loud; and when they left the theater, I swear they looked a good twenty to forty years younger.

Grade: A -

HELL OR HIGH WATER (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham
DIRECTOR: David MacKenzie
GENRE: Drama/Action/Thriller

Your bank deposits are guaranteed by the FDIC. But other than Jeff Bridges, who is always on the money, I can't give you that same ironclad guarantee that you'll go crazy for the new bank heist film, Hell Or High Water. 

For me, it's always worth the price of a ticket to watch "The Dude" in action, and here Bridges is a down-home boy Texas ranger on the verge of retirement--but as fate would have it, he's got one more messy situation to mop up.

That messy situation being the two brothers who are hitting up branches of the Texas Midland Bank--the same institution that happens to hold the mortgage on the family farm, and is threatening to foreclose and kick their mother out on her butt.  The brothers have a certain figure in mind, and when they reach their goal from the cash grabs they will pay off the debt and save the day. It's Robin Hood with a different twist; steal from the rich and give back to the rich.  

But here is Reason No.1 for the non-guarantee: These brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) are not exactly Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid--the hapless and affable bank robbing duo immortalized by Robert Redford and Paul Newman. It kept nagging me that Pine, as Toby, was too pretty for the role. Really, anybody as pretty as that could have easily had a career as a model, or a movie star (heh heh), and wouldn't have to resort to such desperate measures. Ben Foster, as his adrenaline junkie sibling, Tanner, is perfectly cast though. Tanner is the loose cannon, and Toby, it seems, is rather reluctantly along for the ride. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, even if it is incredibly stupid. I guess we're supposed to have some empathy for these guys, as they stick it to the greedy bankers, making a statement that will resonate with a lot of folks these days. But it's too great of an end-justifies-the-means stretch. 

Reason No. 2: There is no chemistry--zilch--between Jeff Bridges' Marcus, Texas Ranger, and his half-Indian partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham). I place that on Birmingham, who could have smiled a little more...or something. Yes, there is playful banter between the two, but it falls flat.

Reason No. 3: Certain elements of the plot are telegraphed, not only verbally, but musically as well (in the soundtrack song choices). You can see it coming from a Texas mile away. It gives me no joy when I I have to sit there and grimace, waiting for what I know is going to happen to happen.

What Hell Or High Water has going for it is that there's plenty of dramatic tension--never a dull moment--as Marcus and sidekick Alberto try to outwit the brothers by anticipating where they will strike next. Hardcore action/thriller fans will probably dig it. 

Grade:  B -

JILL'S TAKE

For someone who wasn't overly taken with this film, you were certainly generous with your rating, Tim. To begin with, I found the musical score completely in tune (pardon the pun) with the overall darkness of Hell Or High Water. At first, due to the ineptness of the bank robbing brothers, I didn't know if I was watching a comedy, dramedy, or a thriller-in-the-making. And it didn't really matter because the chemistry between these two bunglers kept me both laughing and on the edge of my seat.

As for the racial slurs Jeff Bridges kept peppering his half Indian, half Mexican partner with? I felt it worked very well, giving them a special bond – albeit a dicey one in this day and age of political correctness.

But for my money, the star of this film was Giles Nuttgens' cinematography. Those expansive shots of flat nothingness, winding roads without a tree in sight, or even a tumbleweed, set the stage perfectly. Isolation and desperation make men do terrible things. Not unlike Fargo or No Country For Old Men, this film was relentlessly tense – with just enough humor to make it watchable. Having said that, I must admit there were times—not many—when British director David Mackenzie could have picked up the pace a bit. And the ending—I won't give it away—was not very believable. Still, when Jeff Bridges is on screen, who cares!

Grade: B

FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg
DIRECTOR: Stephen Frears
GENRE: Comedy/Drama

Florence Foster Jenkins was an heiress and New York socialite whose life-long love of music spurred her to become an opera singer. Only trouble was, her "singing" would make alley cats plug their ears.

In Florence Foster Jenkins, Meryl Streep takes on an enormous challenge to come off as tone deaf as the real deal. (Check out the clip of the real Ms. Jenkins at the end of this review!) I'll give Streep a B+ on that score. It's DIFFICULT to sing badly...no, it's difficult to sing badly and sincerely--with a straight face. Streep, who is actually a good singer,  gives a yeoman's effort.

Hugh Grant plays her mate, the opportunistic St. Clair Bayfield, a failed Shakespearean actor who must have seen her as his meal ticket initially--they live in a posh New York hotel--but nonetheless possesses a sincere platonic devotion to the lady. So much so that he orchestrates her singing engagements and packs the house with friends and acquaintances he knows will lend a sympathetic ear. Everyone is expected to play along with the colossal delusion, as Florence is in ill health, and he wants her to spend her remaining days pursuing her dream.(What she's suffering from I will not reveal, because it's an audience "ooh" moment, and most reviewers today GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY--one of my recurring pet peeves.)

As good as Streep and Grant are in their roles--and they are superb--Simon Helberg, as Florence's fidgety and high-strung piano accompanist, Cosme McMoon, steals the show with his comically expressive mug and mannerisms. McMoon--reluctantly at first--backs Jenkins from her initial appearances before The Verdi Club (an organization she herself founded), to her crowning achievement--a 1944 engagement to a packed house at Carnegie Hall.

Florence Foster Jenkins is also a (probably unintentional) commentary on the ability of the rich to buy their way to the immortality of lasting fame, while the masses of  mere "mortals"--many with astounding  talents and abilities--quietly labor through lives of anonymity, their brilliance ultimately recognized by no more than family and friends. But that comes as an afterthought for me, as during the movie I was rooting for Florence all the way.

And while the film is a hoot on many levels, there are moments of unexpected poignancy that may leave you misty-eyed here and there. Because what glimmers through every pore of Florence Foster Jenkins is one person's lifelong love affair with music...and as we all know, love is blind.

Not to be missed!

Grade:  A

JILL'S TAKE

Damn! You stole my thunder, Tim. About the brilliance of Simon Helberg's Oscar-worthy performance? To set the record straight regarding how we write these reviews, Tim writes his impressions first and then I add my two cents afterwards. (Usually five!) I'm not in Tucson right now so we see these reviewable flicks separately. This time, my west coast film companion was quick to whisper in my ear that Simon Helberg has been wowing TV audiences for 10 Seasons in "The Big Bang Theory." What an expressive face!

Knowing the premise of Florence Foster Jenkins beforehand, I didn't think I'd enjoy being treated to an afternoon of off-pitch singing. How wrong I was! Meryl was magnificent as the barrel-sized would-be opera singer. I found myself feeling guilty for belly laughing at Ms. Jenkins' painful vocals, knowing how badly she wanted to be another Lily Pons. And I wasn't the only one in the audience laughing, either.

It reminded me of another film,The Producers – where Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder wanted to produce a bad musical, hoping it would be a flop so they could rake in the investors' money. Instead, it turned into a Broadway blockbuster. Same basic idea applies to Florence Foster Jenkins. For me, though, her popularity (albeit camp rather than coloratura) seemed to seriously stretch credibility. As did many of the other moments in this distinctly delightful film.

Kudos go out to British director Stephen Arthur Frears whose film credits include some of my all-time favorites: My Beautiful Launderette and Philomena. He was able to make an incredibly hard-to-believe situation mostly believable.

Grade: B+

CAFE SOCIETY (2016)

STARS: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively
DIRECTOR: Woody Allen
GENRE: Drama

When we buy a ticket to a Woody Allen film we know that he will be dispensing his philosophy on life, love, sex and mortality through his characters. As I've mentioned in previous reviews, we can often close our eyes when a character is speaking and see him standing right there--the voice of the master coming through loud and clear. (Allen narrates the story as we go along as well.) 

It's an acquired taste. But for true aficionados, Cafe Society will provide some very pleasant rewards--offering up a sumptuous feast of fine acting performances, gorgeous milieu, and a nostalgic soundtrack of classics from the 1930s.

Young New Yorker Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) heads to Hollywood seeking gainful employment, hitting on his big shot talent agent uncle Phil (Steve Carell), who eventually takes him under his wing. Phil's assistant, Vonnie, (Kristen Stewart) gives Bobby the nickel tour of the Hollywood scene, and before you know it he's smitten by her. After some initial coyness, she takes a shine to him as well. But Vonnie has divided loyalties, and I won't spoil what that is all about for you. 

The scene will shift to New York, where Bobby's gangster brother, Ben, runs a posh nightclub. Bobby hires on there, and matures into a suave and debonair thirties kinda guy. He marries the alluring Veronica (Blake Lively), and all seems well until his past shows up one day at the club, and divided loyalties once again becomes the watchword of Cafe Society.

Jessie Eisenberg is the Peter Pan of Hollywood. Now 33 years old, he continues to play characters in their early twenties and gets away with it.  He is totally believable here as the callow kid who heads out west, and again as the smooth talking nightclub denizen--looking more like his chronological years. (I wonder if they had to "age" him cosmetically to make him look like what he really is. Bizarre.) 

Kristen Stewart imbues her character with a sweetness and a vulnerability I haven't seen from her before ( recalling her sizzling turn in On The Road from 2012.)  

And it's Steve Carell in another understated role, proving himself an actor with depth, as I'm sure he must still feel the urge sometimes to break out into the comic persona that established his greatness for a long while, but he seems more fond of the straight face nowadays.

Cafe Society drew me into its world of elegance and style, and a pre-war kind of innocence that, if you're like me, you may never want to leave. 

GRADE:  B +

JILL'S TAKE

Phooey! Tim made all the points I was going to make. I absolutely loved this film and I'm not necessarily a Woody Allen fan. (Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Deconstructing Harry, to name a few of my thumbs downers.) But this film was romantic to the max with what I like to call 'Jewish realism.' Yes, the actors were brilliant. And yes, the sets and the costumes--especially the jazz singer wearing a huge peacock-feathered beret were spot on! But in my view the best character of all was -- the score.

Allen chose wisely, using sentimental tunes like "Tea For Two" while showing a freshly murdered corpse being dumped into a cement-mixing grave. If ever there was a film where the music manipulated the audience's emotions, Café Society takes the cake. Of course, as an excellent clarinet player himself, Allen's musical knowledge knows no bounds.

Although this has nothing to do with the movie, I want to make a point. When I told a friend I was looking forward to seeing Woody Allen's latest, he bristled. "Not me, I refuse to see any of that creep's movies, considering how he's conducted his personal life!" I said nothing. But I think it's worth mentioning. For me, talent trumps dysfunction. I know other movie-goers who won't see a movie if the actor's political views don't jibe with their own. How sad. They often don't know what they're missing.

Anyhoo, back to Café Society. I'd like to give it an "A" grade but, to be honest, I'd probably give any well-written dramedy an "A" right now due to the dearth of any decent summer films....

GRADE: B+ 
(sorry to be such a copycat, Tim)

FREE STATE OF JONES (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw,
Keri Russell, Mahershala Ali
DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
GENRE: Action-adventure, Drama, Biopic

Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) is the first film I remember seeing where the bloody special effects were so real, I thought...well, we've entered a new era. Then Tarantino came along, and now it seems it's just standard practice to go for the most grisly, visceral realism in any action flick worthy of the designation.

But there's a tipping point, I think, where you ask yourself: Was this really necessary? Could the story have been told just as effectively if all the gore and the gross-out had been toned down a bit? My answer to the question, as regards the Civil War drama, Free State of Jones, is that yes, I think it could have been told effectively minus some of the close-ups of heads being blown off,  a dog roasting on a spit, a black man hanged with blood dripping down from his crotch...need I go on?

That aside, Free State of Jones scores major points for the acting--Matthew McConaughey is at his smoldering best here in the lead role as Newt Knight, a deserter from the Confederate army who was plum fed up with "fighting for cotton"--the poor man fighting a rich man's war, which casts a not so subtle and obviously intended reflection upon all the conflicts Uncle Sam has been embroiled in since Vietnam to the present day. (Nobody--with the exception of Antonio Banderas--does the slow smolder the way McConaughey can.) 

Major points also for the authenticity of the milieu. I totally bought into the sense of time and place, thanks to the appearance and demeanor of a fine supporting cast, and the costumes...man, I felt like THIS is the way it surely was! (Maybe it also had something to do with the soldiers having really dirty hair.)

Knight begins with a ragtag group of farmers and escaped slaves, and grows it into a formidable force that occupies Jones County, Mississippi--rebelling against the punitive actions of the men in grey (rebels rebelling against rebels) who dealt harshly with any dissension among their ranks, and callously confiscated livestock and crops from the local farmers, making it difficult for them to survive the winter.

Free State of Jones is really two movies, with very different tones. The first is set during the fighting of the war--lots of action and dramatic tension--the second takes place during the aftermath and is a more cerebral and thought provoking tale that carries well into the reconstruction period. The second section has an anticlimactic feel to it, but director Gary Ross wanted to tell the WHOLE story of Newt Knight, and in doing so he has you glancing at your watch once you get past the two hour mark, wondering whether you can hang in there and delay that trip to the restroom until the closing credits roll by.

A dedicated critic will always take the risk of  such possible embarrassment for the sake of his art.

Grade: B -

JILL'S TAKE

Free State of Jones is a definite epic that covers years and years of southern strife, racism, brutality and that elusive quest for 'freedom.' I was riveted by the film's authenticity and who wouldn't root for Matthew McConaughey as rebel-with-a-cause. But I was also seriously put off by the flash-forwards (did I just coin a new cinematic term?). That's the problem with telling two stories in the same movie, i.e. one story usually overrides the other one. For me, that was definitely the case with the 85-years-later courtroom scenes.

That being said, I felt Free State of Jones was right up there with Roots, The Color Purple and 12 Years A Slave. Let's hope its summer release doesn't prevent it from garnering some Oscar nods.

Because the opening logo was unfamiliar to me, with its Chinese or Japanese lettering (I'm no expert), and the end producers' credits featured a lot of gentlemen named Wang, I decided to look up who produced this puppy. Take a guess how many producers, co-producers, executive producers and assistant producers were listed: 27! That must be some sort of record. I'm pretty sure their investments will pay off although there weren't many people in the audience the day I saw it.

The cast was stellar. But I want to single out one actress with a name that by all accounts should have hampered her acting career by a country mile. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Rachel, the love interest and later wife of our hero Newt Knight. Some of her lines in this film—and the way she delivers them—are absolutely unforgettable. And though today's Black Americans have it a whole lot easier than they did back then, they're still fighting an uphill battle. That, to me, is the underlying message I walked out of the theater thinking about.

Grade: B