Golden Globe nominations are out there and while the group behind them doesn’t have much respect right now, not even a TV show for their awards, the options are good. Succession topped the list on the television and movie side, Belfast Y Dog power they are tops. The lost daughter is running for two grand prizes and is reviewed below, along with Nightmare alley, which didn’t garner a nomination there, but garnered several elsewhere. Winners will be announced on January 9th.
And this week’s new ones start off with a different kind of biggie …
Spider-Man: No Way Home: 3½ stars
The Lost Daughter: 4
Nightmare Alley: 3
France: 2½
Red rocket: 3
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Fear of the 61st: 2
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME: Almost 20 years of his adventures, three trilogies actually have a satisfying ending here, but don’t imagine that they will end. There will be more because this movie is set to be a big hit; the industry is hoping that the movie will actually come to life and fans are buying. They will be amply rewarded because it plays to their loyalty. It brings back memories, and characters, from all those movies (some I won’t mention and spoil) and it does so with the now familiar story device: the multiverse, basically parallel universes. We can review and reconsider much of what has been going on. The verdict I heard from a fan says it all. He declared that the movie was “great”.
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is suffering the setback of the last movie when a villain gave him away as Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons), now an internet braggart, rants again that he is a criminal, causing people to turn against him and MIT rejecting his application to college. He asks Dr. Strange (the very busy Benedict Cumberbatch) to make the world forget he’s Spider-Man, but he ruins the spell by trying to change it midway. That brings five villains that he’s defeated over the years (and two other characters) out of the multiverse and he has to deal with them again. Surprisingly, he doesn’t just fight them. Try to understand them: they are Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and The Lizard (Rhys Ifans). There is action and great special effects, but also reflection in this one, directed by Jon Watts. Stick with the ending credits for a bit more. (Playing everywhere, including 5th Avenue, Dunbar, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway, and suburban theaters.) 3½ of 5
THE LOST DAUGHTER: Women’s feelings about motherhood receive rigorous scrutiny in this case. It is not an easy consideration. There are conflicts, self-doubt and feelings of helplessness. Movies don’t usually dramatize these thoughts, but women will understand them. They are brilliantly highlighted by actress-turned-director Maggie Gyllenhaal and her star, Oscar and Emmy winner Olivia Colman. Everything is based on a novel by Elena Ferrante.
Colman plays a thorny academic who tries to spend a quiet beach vacation in Greece only to be bothered by a rowdy family showing up and breaking the moment of peace. She is especially in love with a mother (Dakota Johnson) and her young daughter because it turns her mind to her own younger years (in which Jessie Buckley plays her). Remember the conflicts you had and especially the sacrifices you had to make. And she wonders how good a mother she was as she watched this other trying to keep her daughter happy. And at one point, arguing loudly with her controlling husband. He gets close to them about what he wants when the daughter disappears. He finds her and for no apparent reason, he keeps her doll. The girl is heartbroken and we get another side of the character Colman is playing. Forget the rules; she yearns for freedom. It’s a rich portrait and earned him another Golden Globe nomination this week. (Vancity Theater now, Netflix coming soon.) 4 of 5
Nightmare alley: The film noir of 1947 is remade by Guillermo del Toro and, although it is more colorful and full of stars, it does not coincide entirely with him. It’s long for such a simple story of rises and falls and it creeps at times. Bradley Cooper is unusually subdued. While del Toro won an Oscar for his last, The shape of water, this one did not get a Golden Globe nomination this week. However, designers should get something. Visually it is a pleasure.
Cooper plays a young homeless man who gets a job at a carnival (from Willem Defoe) and gets involved in various shady lives there. Rooney Mara does an act with electricity sparking around her body. Ron Perlman is your protector, Bruno. Toni Collette is a mentalist. And there is a geek, a drunk who bites the heads of chickens to amuse people. Cooper has to overcome this and with the tricks learned from the mentalist he leaves, takes Mara with him and becomes a star entertainer of a nightclub in Buffalo, NY And there is a patient of a superficial psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who without realizing gives you more ideas on how to move forward. Doubling the rich is his method and it is not unexpected how it collapses on him and where it takes him. He’s a bit toothless. (Park, International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theaters). 3 of 5
FRANCE: Here is a French attack (via parody) on the media. Although that should be interesting every time he pops up, this one only hits very obvious targets with easy shots. It may be new to some to think of TV journalists asking questions to get another camera angle, of Afghan freedom fighters walking up to the camera and passing it and repeating scenes, but it is not particularly critical. Pretending to be standing on a raft of refugees is a hoax and the only real important in this Bruno Dumont film. Land some punches like this.
Léa Seydoux is France de Meurs (hence the double meaning of the title). He hosts a television news program and also reports. Through clever editing, we see her ask President Macron a question, and elsewhere see Angela Merkel (an actor’s version). She produces documentaries, is accused of “journalistic demagogy” by a guest, and hears speakers extolling capitalism or accusing “that nations have lost their authority forever.” On the other hand, this is a melodramatic personal story. After a couple of accidents, one in the studio (unrealistic), the other on the road, he leaves television and goes to rehab in Switzerland to discover his life. There is more and the film is full of plot, although the ideas that accompany it are scarce. (La Cinemateca) 2½ of 5
RED ROCKET: Here’s another Sean Baker study of people on the lower edges. He made a wonderful one four years ago called The Florida Project, which we loved with a precocious girl named Moonie. This new one also has a central character that we can’t take our eyes off of, but he’s a guy in his forties and a voracious conversationalist and self-promoter. He’s back in a small town in Texas, having been to Los Angeles, where he turned a physical attribute into porn movie stardom. He will tell you about all the awards he won and finally admit that he has been washed. That is why he has returned to his ex-wife (we are still married, she corrects him) and his grumpy mother-in-law. Just a day or two, he says. You will get a job and move. Of course he does not do it. Nobody will hire you. He hasn’t had a real job in 17 years and what he did would be a distraction in any workplace. But he talks about his worth with an old friend who takes him places: a marijuana saleswoman he begins to bargain for, though he usually breaks their rules, and a teenage girl at the donut shop nicknamed Strawberry.
Her old tendencies return, sexually and professionally, with her (redhead newcomer Suzanna Son). He imagines that she would be a sensation in the Los Angeles porn industry and he would be a name again. Simon Rex does the impossible by playing it. He gets our sympathy even though we know we hate him. With the oil refineries and Trump’s 2016 in the background, this is a portrait of a slice of America. Hopefully a small one. (International village). 3 of 5
THE FEAR OF THE SIXTY-FIRST: Good idea, not well done. Imagine a couple of young women delighted to find a cheap apartment to rent in New York only for another woman to come and tell them a horrible story. The place had been owned by Jeffrey Epstein and was probably a place where he abused some of his young victims. The bearer of that news is Dasha Nekrasova, who also wrote and directed the film. He became obsessed with Epstein and his crimes, which he covered extensively in a podcast he hosts. More specifically, it says don’t overshadow the vulgar elements when telling those stories.
The film, which aims to show how cases like that can affect other young women, turns into a horror movie. Roommates hear noises and feel like they are being watched. One starts having nightmares, the other acts like a victim. She makes a creepy demand during sex with her boyfriend, and during a crazy scene she masturbates on the steps of a church. Gets more and more hysterical, based on Italian horror movies, citing the movie Eyes wide Shut and throw pictures of Prince Andrew on. It gets gory, stops making sense, and falters, especially in the beginning, under amateur acting and staging. But it won the award for “best first film” at the Berlin International Film Festival. (Available digitally and in VOD.) 2 of 5
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com