BIRDS OF PREY

Margot Robbie     Rosie Perez     Mary Elizabeth Winstead    Ewan McGregor

Chris Messina     Ella Jay Basco     Jurnee Smollett-Bell

     Girl power.  This movie’s got it. Coming off a breakup with the Joker, Harley Quinn (Robbie) is having to face all the people she pissed off when she was with him.  Seems like she can’t go around a corner without bumping into one of them. She can’t even down a much coveted egg sandwich for breakfast.  But she’s still a badass even though she’s in a bit of a dilemma adjusting to newfound independence and deciding what she will do next.  Birds of Prey has an answer for that.

     I can’t enumerate all the enemies Harley has made, but one of them is a cop (Perez) who is resentful about always getting the short end of the stick.  Renee Montoya has an almost clairvoyant knack for figuring out crime scenes, which her chief (ex-partner who took credit for her work) fails to recognize.  (He’s not as smart as she is.)  She is soon to be separated from her badge and gun, when narrator Harley Quinn, who is inclined to make sage observations about what is going on, says, “No cop ever gets anything done until they’re suspended.”

     What will bring Montoya and Quinn together?  (Montoya as a cop is chasing Quinn during most of the story.) It will take a common enemy and some other allies for them all to get fed up and work together.  These allies include Black Canary (Smollett-Bell) and The Huntress (Winstead).  Mixed in is young Cass (Basco), a street pickpocket who unknowingly picks up a valuable package.

     The common enemy is Roman Siomis (Ewan) who owns a nightclub but has aspirations to run Gotham City on his own, especially since the Joker is gone.  Roman shows his true colors in his temper tantrums, sadistic bent, and vulgarity.  He has employed a singer with a “killer voice” (Smollett-Bell) who has a history with Montoya, and whom he has now made his driver.  At first, he is unaware of her martial arts skills. 

     The film does a good job in giving back stories of all the characters so that what they’re doing and how they developed their skills make sense.  We hear enough even about the bad guy to understand why he does what he does (quick, on-the-spot analysis by now Dr. Quinn psychiatrist) and his father issues.

     Although I’m not usually a fan of the genre, I was entertained by Birds of Prey, remained engaged throughout, and—I must confess—had my feminist heart quickened by the female characters savaging all the bigger, “stronger” men—at least the bad men; I was less pleased with downing policemen and prison guards.  

     Margot Robbie must be praised for the wide-ranging characters she has played so well (designing ice skater in I, Tonya, ingenue broadcaster in Bombshell, movie star in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and a queen in Mary Queen of Scots).  And here she is in a comic book action movie, which is a sequel to Suicide Squad.  It seems like she can tackle just about any role.  

     Supporting actors Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, and even young Ella Jay Basco all stand out as well.  Music by Daniel Pemberton and choreography by Matthew Libatique complete the assembly of talented professionals director Cathy Yam has brought together.

     The production extends a bit too long, especially the repeated fight scenes. Although they are well executed and filmed, it’s too much of a good thing.  Writer Christina Hodson can be praised for the dimensionality of the characters she has drawn, but the number and length of time spent in bashing one another could have been shortened.

A fanciful—but satisfying—comic book thriller where it’s the women who kick a---.

Grade:  B+                                                By Donna R. Copeland

T2 TRAINSPOTTING

Ewan McGregor   Ewen Bremner   Jonny Lee Miller   Robert Carlyle   Anjela Nedyalkova

Shirley Henderson   James Cosimo   Kelly Macdonald

      Nostalgia seems to get the better of four old friends from childhood who come together—some by accident—with old grudges still burning.  This is prompted by Mark Renton (McGregor) coming back into town and looking up Spud (Bremner) first, and then cocaine snorting Sick Boy (Miller) to settle a score.  He’s wanting to avoid crossing paths with Begbie (Carlyle), who feels most betrayed by Mark.  Those who saw the first Trainspotting (also directed and produced by Danny Boyle) know why.

     Coming across Spud in the midst of a tragic situation, Mark starts using what he learned in rehab to get Spud on a better, healthier track.  He gets enough nerve to pay a visit to Sick Boy, wanting to compensate him for what Mark had done to him.  And although Sick Boy—Simon now—puts up a good front, he plans to do his best to bring Mark down.  He confides in his friend/business partner Veronica (Nedyalkova) of his intentions, and pulls Mark into their business plan of establishing a “sauna”/bordello.  Mark has learned some things about marketing, and the three apply for a loan. 

     Several themes are woven into the action, one being the relationship between Mark and Simon, with Veronica making it a triangle.  Another is Spud’s taking to heart any advice given to him, and trying boxing, but really ends up writing stories with Veronica’s encouragement.  Interestingly, the stories are based on the four friends’ growing-up years.  Then, there is the pursuit of Begbie, who has managed to squirm his way out of prison, and is intent on bringing Mark down.

     The story ends up being rather clever and humorous (if one can ignore the sordid parts), and illustrates so well the ultimate outcome of the characters.  It’s also a sad story, with losers and cheaters (if you want to call them that) getting their due, and clever, hard-working souls coming out on top. 

     McGregor is still at the top of his game, and his interactions with his old friends (expertly played by Bremner, Miller, and Carlyle) will be of special interest to those who saw and loved the earlier film.  I enjoyed this updated rendition showing the astuteness, sensitivity, and practicality of the Veronica character (superbly played by Nedyalkova), and the reemergence of Diane (Macdonald) as a successful lawyer, reminiscent of the Irish girl-made-good in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.  In contrast, it’s rather sad to see the lives of three of the old friends have not developed much beyond the sordid existence witnessed in the original story. 

     The cinematic effects and period music in T2 Trainspotting—along with the acting—make this an interesting film to see.  It’s not the best that Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, Steve Jobs) has done, but I did hear applause at the end of the screening I attended.

How do drug addicts fare twenty years later?

Grade:  C                     By Donna C. Copeland

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR

Ewan McGregor   Damian Lewis   Stellan Skarsgärd   Anomie Harris   Mark Gatiss   Jeremy Northam

          This is a thriller with all the assets of a John le Carré novel—complexity, ambiguity, sharp sleuthing, and heroism—Our Kind of Traitor will keep you on the edge of your seat and make you want to take breaks to relieve the gripping tension.  It begins mysteriously in Moscow at the Bolshoi Ballet (featuring former Houston Ballet dancer, Carlos Acosta), cutting away from time to time to elsewhere where a sober man is seen signing papers under the watchful eyes of a team of sinister men, then he and his friend rejoin their wives and head home.  However, they will never make it.

           The setting then switches to Marrakesh in Morocco where Perry (McGregor) and his wife Gail (Harris) are on holiday, when by chance Perry meets a gregarious Russian named Dima (Skarsgärd) who takes him to a wild party with fellow Russians.  Dima seems to be taken with Perry, and invites him to play tennis the next day at his club where they meet each other’s wives, and Perry meets Dima’s children, an older girl and younger twins.  Unbeknownst to him, Perry is in deeper than he would ever imagine.  He is a fairly typical young English professor of poetics, far removed from Dima’s circles in the Russian mafia.

        The plot involves the British intelligence service when Dima’s underlying motive for friendship with Perry emerges:  Fearing for his life, knowing he is the target of the Russian boss’s threat, Dima wants to defect with his family to London in exchange for giving MI6 incriminating information about high level officials in the British government.  Hector (Lewis), an MI6 agent, is willing to run with it, but his superior sees it as “You have no proof”, and more as a personal vendetta on Hector’s part to go after his rival Aubrey (Northam), another agent, so advises against it.

          The director of the film, Susanna White, keeps the action of the story at a pace similar to one’s sense in reading a le Carré novel—fast and steady with spikes of intrigue and fear.  The fine casting of McGregor, Lewis, Skarsgärd, and Northam in the principal roles contribute much to its quality, complemented by the engaging music of Marcelo Zarvos and intelligent and beautiful cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle.  I like the way the Perry character is shown at first to be kind of wimpy and easily led on, but as the story proceeds and he gets more and more attached to the fatherly Dima, he transitions into something resembling heroic.  Despite his being a mafia figure, we’re made to admire Dima’s hutzpa, likeableness, devotion to family, and strength in combat, beautifully evinced by the talented Skarsgärd.  Lewis is at home playing a shrewd agent with a moral compass that compels him to seek justice for corrupt individuals.  Naomie Harris as Perry’s girlfriend/wife and a lawyer is valuable as a support and advisor.

         In the past I have not been a Le Carré fan—I find his plots very dense, tedious, and sometimes hard to follow (except for the TV adaptation of The Night Manager, which I loved), but Hossein Amini’s screenplay maps the plot very clearly while maintaining ambiguity and excitement.  I liked it as much as I did The Night Manager.

Another John Le Carré thriller.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

MILES AHEAD

Don Cheadle     Ewan McGregor     Emayatzy Corinealdi     Michael Stuhlbarg     Keith Stanfield

          Miles Ahead is an impressionistic picture of the life of Miles Davis during troubled times when he is trying to make a comeback after a five-year hiatus from music.  It hits the high points without being constrained by chronological order, which perhaps is meant to reflect his personality and his ever-evolving work—temperamental, controlling, short of temper, yet at times, very sweet and smooth.  This is also the time in the 1970s when he is madly in love with his second wife, Frances Taylor (Corinealdi), who ends up leaving him.  (Most report that she is his first wife, but he was previously married at 18 to Irene Cawthon, and they had three children.) 

          Don Cheadle, the co-writer with Steven Baigelman and director and producer of Miles Ahead, has an uncanny resemblance to Davis, and is at the top of his game in acting out the role.  McGregor plays a good newspaper reporter, but unless Davis was actually friends/accomplices with someone like that, he seems nonessential to the story, and inserted as a technique to link events together..  Corinealdi is beautiful and appealing as Frances, and the film is probably accurate that Davis kept yearning for her long after she was gone. 

          I very much liked Robert Glasper’s treatment of the music; enough was included to get a real sample of Miles Davis’ playing and work with other musicians.  (Davis’ own playing was dubbed into the film.) 

       The film does a good job in showing how much a famous artist has to fend off interlopers who use every kind of ruse they can think of to get their hands on his work.  Much of the film is about that—different people trying to get to and manipulate Davis into “coming back” and getting their hands on one of his beloved unreleased reel tapes.

         What I could have taken much less of is the jerkiness in telling the story—flashing back and forth among many, many incidents across decades, although mostly in the ‘70s, apparently a fad these days with writers, directors, and editors. In this case, with all the important events and hordes of people running through the film, it gets tiresome trying to keep everything straight in one’s head.  The constant fisticuffs got tiresome as well.  Even if they did really happen with that rapidity, I don’t see the point of including them. 

Cheadle shines as Miles, but the film is undone by its scattered approach.

Grade:  C-                                    By Donna R. Copeland

LAST DAYS IN THE DESERT

Ewan McGregor     Ciaran Hinds     Tye Sheridan     Aylet Zurer

          Writer/Director Rodrigo Garcia’s intention in Last Days in the Desert is to be true to the sparse New Testament account and flesh it out with his own fantasies.  He wanted to present a picture that is different from the one in the Bible which results in a surreal, highly symbolic work.  He explained this in a Q&A after the screening of the film at the Austin Film Festival.  To depict Jesus as the human who has gone into the desert to fast, meditate, and pray, he shows him in double images, one to represent Jesus and the other the devil tempting him, which could also be seen as the ego and the id (conscious and unconscious). These two argue with each other (just as we do when we’re ambivalent about what to do), demonstrating the human Jesus’ doubts, his anger, and his own ambivalence.  Garcia does make the two images slightly different in appearance—for instance, the devil image has an earring dangling off his left ear.

          A strong father-son theme runs throughout the story, beginning with Jesus praying, “Father, where are you?”  “Speak to me.”  As he wanders in the desert, he comes across a family residing there, a father (Hinds), his ill wife, and their son (McGregor), and gets drawn into their conflict, which is one primarily of father vs. son, with the mother taking the side of the son who wants to leave the desert and make his way in the city of Jerusalem, a place the father regards as evil.  The father wants him to finish the house, which has already been started, and remain in the desert.  Jesus spends the night and intends to be on his way, but turns back to help in building the house.  This gives the father and the son—and to some extent, the mother—a chance to tell the holy man their sides of the conflict. 

         Garcia places wonderful symbolic images throughout the film, which heightens interest in a relatively slow-moving drama.  For instance, once, Jesus is pulling twigs out of his hair and suddenly breaks into helpless laughter.  (Irony:  it foretells the crown of thorns that will be placed on his head.)  Another time, when Jesus is around a campfire with the family, and they offer him something to eat, he declines in order to maintain his fast.  The son observes, “She (his mother) wants to eat but can’t; he can eat, but won’t.”  Another time, they have a disagreement about the meaning of a shooting star. 

        The picture is well cast, with McGregor giving one of the best performances in a very active career sprinkled with numerous nominations and awards.  Here, he transitions back and forth between Jesus and the devil, shows wise counsel with the father and son, and conveys the burden he faces in being the Son of God.  Ciaran Hinds can be depended upon to give solid performances in whatever role he plays and to receive awards for the TV series, “Game of Thrones” and “Rome”, and the films, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Eclipse.   Young Tye Sheridan started his career and received good marks in major films—The Tree of Life, Mud, and Joe—and lives up to those in Last Days in the Desert as a somewhat sullen, resentful teenager who obeys his parents but seethes underneath the whole time.  He vacillates between feelings of anger and doubt and strong pronouncements that he has been a good son. 

        The supreme cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki filmed Last Days in the Desert in the unusual, gorgeous Anza Borreo Desert outside of San Diego, which has an interesting pleated appearance in its rocky, reddish hills barren of vegetation except small shrubs.   He brings out the troubled features of the players, captures the light and color variations of the desert, and follows the, sometimes, frightful occurrences artfully.  The music of Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans is modern to reflect the surreal quality of the film in its isolated setting and the characters’ turmoil, which blends well with the dramatic and visual elements.

A meditative film worthy of multiple viewings to reflect on its teachings.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

Meryl Streep     Julia Roberts     Chris Cooper     Margo Martindale     Ewan McGregor     Sam Shepard 

Julianne Nicholson     Benedict Cumberbatch     Juliette Lewis     Abigail Breslin

       August:  Osage County is a rip roarin’ study of a family in Oklahoma that is perpetually on a tinderbox.  The slightest disagreement can erupt into a major battle, and the only way they see to keep the lid on is to hide all their secrets.  Of course, this is a strategy that always fails, but like the good neurotics they are, they keep using it, thinking it will work.  As the story proceeds, we learn that the cruel parenting we witness stems from troubled childhoods, and we see it spread like an infection from parent to child across generations.  As each secret is uncovered, it has an explosive effect on all involved.

     On a more elegant note, the ensemble cast is a study in streamlined acting that continually hums along as if they had worked together for years and filled out every detail.  At the center of the story—and the cast—is the consummate award-winning actress Meryl Streep, who plays the damaged matriarch in a family with three grown daughters who have come home to “comfort” their mother after a crisis.  Her sister is present as well, with her husband and son in tow.  Present as well is the recently hired cook/housekeeper who is a beacon of sanity in the dysfunctional, turbulent group.

     The screenwriter Tracy Letts (Killer Joe) has based the script on his play with the same title, which premiered on Broadway in 2008.  The transition from stage to screen is not always smooth, but Letts has achieved it without a hitch.  Most of the action takes place in the family home, a beautifully landscaped colonial mansion in the countryside near a lake, or in the cars of the arriving family members.  Clues about the underlying conflicts are seen from the beginning in the interactions between Violet (Streep) and her husband Beverly (Sam Shepard), followed by the arriving sister Mattie (Margo Martindale) and husband Charles (Chris Cooper) and each of the daughters’ families.  In the process of the unfolding drama, the viewer experiences the trapped feeling that each of the characters suffers from; at one point, a character says to another who is running away, “Where are you going?  There is no place to go!”  And we feel trapped as well because the action is so powerful.  Also because, in a larger sense, we identify with the fact that we are always a part of the family to which we belong; there is not ever, really, any escape. 

     John Wells, the director, has performed his function of creating a work of art from all the components of the film, with the actors and other crew, such as the cinematographer Adriano Goldman and musician Gustavo Santaolalla, whose work illuminates the ongoing drama. 

Clearly August:  Osage Country will be prominent in the upcoming award circuit soon to take place.

Grade:  A                                   By Donna R. Copeland