Reviews for September 20th, 2024
      Pat (Maggie Li Lin Lin) and Angie (Patra Au), now in their 60s, have lived together as a couple for three decades in All Shall Be Well. When Pat suddenly dies, she leaves Angie with both financial and emotional burdens to deal with. Writer/director Ray Yeung has woven a bittersweet, gently moving and lyrical meditation on love and grief. With a less sensitive screenplay, All Shall Be Well could've become a maudlin and melodramatic drama or a suspense thriller about Angie's legal battles after Pat dies. Yeung doesn't spend too much time on showing Pat and Angie's relationship, but he includes enough scenes where you can sense that they're in love and distinguish between their different personalities. Instead, he focuses more on Angie's emotional journey as she copes with a wide variety of emotions during her grieving process. There are a few hauntingly breathtaking shots that add visual poetry. Yeung also includes just the right amount of comic relief and grasps the power of quiet moments. Maggie Li Lin Lin anchors the film with her nuanced and genuinely heartfelt performance. Moreover, the film doesn't overstay its welcome because Yeung understands the concept of restraint and that less is more. If it were over 2 hours, it would've dragged and become exhausting and/or tedious. At an ideal running time of 1 hour and 33 minutes, All Shall Be Well opens at Film Forum via Strand Releasing.
Number of times I checked my watch: 2
      Edward (Sebastian Stan), a disfigured young man, an aspiring actor, live along in a dilapidated apartment and aspires to become an actor in a A Different Man. A new neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), moves in and acts friendly toward him, but isn't attracted to him when he tries to kiss her. He agrees to have surgery that reconstructs his face to make it return to normal. However, his new good looks turns out to be a Faustian bargain because it comes with unexpected side effects as he now tries to convince everyone that his name is Guy and manages to secure a job in real estate. The screenplay by Aaron Schimberg has an intriguing premise that sounds like it turns into a fascinating character study, a dark comedy, a profound metaphor or both. Unfortunately, after a strong beginning, it loses steam once Edward becomes the more handsome Guy. There are no surprises, which is fine, but Schimberg ultimately fails to design enough of a window into Edward/Guy's heart, mind and soul which is a shame because there's a lot going on inside of him. It's as though A Different Man were afraid to be unflinching and to take more risks, especially during the unimaginative third act. Schimberg knows where to take ideas from, but not where to take its ideas to. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve try their best to breathe life into their roles, through their moving performances. They deserve better material, though. At a running time of 1 hour and 52 minutes, A Different Man is a shallow, unimaginative and dull Faustian tale. It opens at Angelika Film Center and AMC Lincoln Square via A24 Films. In a double feature with The Substance, it would be the inferior B-movie.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
      Willie Pep (Madio), a retired featherweight boxing champion, makes a daring comeback to the boxing ring in The Featherweight. Based on a true story, the screenplay by Steve Loff is overstuffed, heavy-handed and vapid, but occasionally gritty. A documentary crew follows Pep from the beginning. That framing device proves to be unnecessary and just makes the film feel more padded. Pep comes from a dysfunctional family. His domineering father, Salvatore (Gordon Silva) was physically and emotionally abusive toward him. Unsurprisingly, Pep has three failed marriages., a marriage to Linda (Ruby Wolf), that's already failing, and a toxic relationship with his son, Billy (Keir Gilchrist). He's up to his neck in gambling debts, so he hopes that he can make some money by returning to the boxing ring despite the disapproval of his manager, Bob (Ron Livingston). Stephen Lang plays his boxing trainer, Bill. The Featherweight is ultimately less than the sum of its parts and fails to breathe life into its subject who remains at a cold emotional distance from the audience. The performances range from mediocre to wooden, so they don't rise above the shallow screenplay. Moreover, the cinematography often looks ugly with excessive style over substance. At a running time of 1 hour and 38 minutes, which feels more like 2 hours, The Featherweight opens at Quad Cinema via mtuckman media. In a double feature with Rocky, Raging Bull or Creed, it would be the inferior B-movie.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
      Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field is lucky to have Patricia Field as a documentary subject because her charisma, panache and wit keep help to make the film mildly entertaining. As a documentary biopic, it barely scratches the surface of an iconic costume designer. Director Michael Selditch interviews Patricia Field and famous people she's worked with to design the costumes for their film or show. You'll learn how the costumes of Michael Urie from the show "Ugly Betty" were much better when Field was the costume designer on the show before the production moved to Los Angeles. Field refused to relocate to Los Angeles. Why? The director doesn't allow her to explain the reason which is too bad because it might've resulted in an interesting answer. Happy Clothes follows a conventional approach with many talking-head interviews that have interesting anecdotes about Field or a light conversation between Field and actress Kim Cattrall from "Sex and the City." There's not much depth to this hagiographic, over-edited and underwhelming doc that suffers from style over substance. By the end of the doc, you learn alot about Patricia Field as a costume designer, but not nearly enough as a human being---"behind the curtain." At a running time of 1 hours and 41 minutes, Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field opens at IFC Center via Greenwich Entertainment.
Number of times I checked my watch: 2
      In the Summers is an engrossing and tender portrait of relationship between a divorced father, Vincente (Residente) and his two daughters, Eva (Luciana Elisa Quinonez) and Violeta (Dreya Castillo), over the course of two decades. Allison Salinas and Kimaya play Eva and Violeta in their teenage years while Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel play them in their young adulthood. The screenplay by writer/director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio remains light on exposition and dramatic tension. Instead, it offers the audience an immersive slice-of-life similar to Boyhood in how it shows kids growing up in a dysfunctional family. Samudio separates the film in four chapters, each designating a summer where Vincente spends time with his two daughters. A tragic event occurs during one of the summers which won't be spoiled here, but it briefly takes the film into darker territory without being emotionally devastating. In the Summers often feels like a documentary because it seems so real. The natural performances help to enhance that quality. Samudio doesn't include voice-over narration or flashbacks nor does hit the audience over the head with anything that's heavy-handed, so she trusts the audience's intelligence, imagination and emotions. A lot happens that's not actually shown in the film which, again, makes it kindred spirits with Boyhood. She also trusts their patience because the film moves at a slow pace. Patient audiences will be rewarded the most. At a running time of 1 hour and 38 minutes, In the Summers opens at IFC Center via Music Box Films.
Number of times I checked my watch: 2
      Elizabeth (Elizabeth Banks), a surgeon, operates on a patient, Lisa (Acacia O’Connor), who dies after a mistake occurs during the operation in A Mistake. Her younger, inexperienced colleague, Richard (Richard Crouchley), is the one who made the error, but it was under Elizabeth's supervision, so she's held responsible. The screenplay by writer/director Christine Jeffs, based on the novel by Carl Shuker, is a taut, provocative and engrossing psychological character study of a woman faced with a moral dilemma. She doesn't want to ruin her career or Richard's career either, but she also knows that it's not 100% certain that the patient died as a result of the mistake. A Mistake goes into the nitty gritty details of the operation and unflinchingly shows it from Elizabeth's perspective. Elizabeth Banks gives the best performance of her career in the role of a woman who has to project strength and confidence, but who's also fragile and has a conscience weighing down on her. Bravo to her for agreeing to playing a fully-fleshed human being who's flawed and complex which makes her all the morereal. Writer/director Christine Jeffs designs the window into the surgeon's heart, mind and soul; it's ultimately Elizabeth Banks who opens that window very widely with her raw and emotionally generous performance. At a running time of 1 hour and 41 minutes, A Mistake opens at Quad Cinema via Quiver Distribution.
Number of times I checked my watch: 1
      In Never Let Go, a mother (Halle Berry) lives in an isolated cabin deep in the woods with her twin sons, Sam (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV), and protects them from a mysterious evil presence lurking outside. Whenever they go outdoors, she requires them to be tethered to the cabin with a long rope. Screenwriters Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby have made a suspenseful, intriguing and chilling psychological horror film. They keep exposition to a bare minimum which means that the audience will have a lot of questions from the get-go about how the mother and her sons ended up in the woods and what kind of evil presence she's protecting them from. Is she paranoid and over-reacting or are her fears credible? Never Let Go effectively blurs the line between reality and fantasy while keeping the audience on their toes until the third act which won't be revealed here. Until then, there are more than a few surprises and twists that might change the way you view some of the characters. It also gets somewhat clunky during a scene where someone from the mother's past shows up out of the blue. The film works best when director Alexandre Aja trusts the power of the audience's imagination and intelligence before the big reveal. It's also worth mentioning the terrific cinematography, the music score and the landscape that becomes a character in itself. Halle Berry gives a raw, heartfelt performance while the child actors, Anthony B. Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV, are also superb. At a running time of 1 hour and 41 minutes, Never Let Go opens nationwide via Lionsgate.
Number of times I checked my watch: 1
      At 2 hours and 7 minutes, The Shade, written/directed
Tyler Chipman and co-writer David Purdy, is an atmospheric and creepy, but tedious, overlong, poorly-acted and shallow exploration of grief. It opens in select theaters via Level 33 Entertainment.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
      Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), an aging Hollywood actress whose stardom has faded, gets fired from hosting an aerobics show in The Substance. She decides to secretly take a mysterious substance that creates a younger version of herself named Sue (Margaret Qualley) which ejects from her back. There are a few rules that she has to abide by, such as going back to her older body every 7 days, feeding the older body intravenously, and to remember that her younger and older self are one and the same. Meanwhile, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), the smarmy producer of Elizabeth's show, wants to replace her with Sue. Little does Elizabeth know that the substance is a Faustian bargain. Writer/director Coralie Fargeat has created a wickedly funny, audacious, razor-sharp and poetic blend of horror, dark comedy and satire. The Substance manages to be a thoroughly entertaining, refreshingly unpredictable and electrifying ride. It's blunt, grotesque, shocking, disturbing, unflinchingly honest and scathing in its commentary on beauty, aging and fame. Poetry is often a form of protest which makes The Substance a loud, indignant and powerful protest against shallowness, and a protest for recognizing the intrinsic value of one's inner beauty and self worth in a world's that's dehumanizing, materialistic and misogynistic.
      Demi Moore shines in a bravura, Oscar-worthy performance, the best performance of her entire career. She sinks her teeth into Elizabeth's strengths and her vulnerabilities lurking beneath the surface. Margaret Qualley is also superb while Dennis Quaid hams it up with his somewhat campy, over-the-top performance. The cinematography adds plenty of visual style which becomes parts of the film's substance starting with the foreboding opening shot of an egg being injected by the titular substance before a smaller yolk ejects from the yolk. The pacing, use of music, editing, costume and set designs are also exceptional. If you can imagine the sardonic humor and wit of Triangle of Sadness with the creepiness of The Fly, the brilliance and craziness of Being John Malkovich, and the depth of Sunset Boulevard, you'll get a sense of what it's like to watch The Substance. At a running time of 2 hours and 20 minutes, The Substance opens nationwide via MUBI.
Number of times I checked my watch: 1
      Summerlight...and Then Comes the Night is a mildly engaging, but lackluster, overlong and undercooked array of stories set in the same Icelandic village. Based on the novel by Jon Kalman Stefansson, the screenplay by writer/director Elfar Adalsteins struggles to balance many different tones from melancholy to darkly comedic to tender to surreal. A factory manager dreams in Latin and suddenly develops a thirst for knowledge. A married man has an affair with a woman, but his wife catches onto the affair. A policeman wants his son to follow in his footsteps, but, instead he's more passionate about drawing and bird-watching. In another story, a man and a woman interact before a tragic event occurs. There's some narration between the stories that feels distracting, annoying and unnecessary, so it's as though Adalsteins were afraid to trust the audience's intelligence to interpret everything themselves. Why spoon-feed the audience? Each story could've easily been expanded into a separate feature film which might've fleshed out the characters more. Unfortunately, none of the characters come to life here despite the moving performances, and there's not nearly enough comic relief or wit. That said, Summerlight....and Then Comes the Night at least serves as a picturesque travelogue of a quaint village in Iceland. At a lengthy running time of 1 hour and 52 minutes, Summerlight...and Then Comes the Night opens at IFC Center via Juno Films.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
     
In Transformers One, Orion Pax (voice of Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (voice of Brian Tyree Henry) team up with other robots, B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key) and Elita (Scarlett Johansson), to learn the truth about how they ended up as miners working for Sentinel Prime (voice of Jon Hamm) and to seek justice for themselves and the other miners. The screenplay by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, Steve Desmond and Gabriel Ferrari is an origin story for the Transformers known as Optimus Prime and Megatron. The plot itself has many shades of Fritz Land's Metropolis, but it's not even remotely as imaginative, brilliant, moving or profound nor does it try to be. Of course, there's a MacGuffin, in this case, the Matrix of Leadership, an artifact that gives immense power to whomever has it, so Orion Pax, D-16 and their other team members desperately search for it. What ensues is a dull, tedious and ultimately exhausting animated action adventure with dazzling CGI. The exposition is clunky and the film sorely lacks comic relief and wit with the exception of a few mildly amusing lines. Clearly, a lot of work and attention went into the character designs and everything to make it look photo-realistic, so you might occasionally forget that you're watching an animated film occasionally. At a running time of 1 hour and 44 minutes, Transformers One, directed by Josh Cooley, opens nationwide via Paramount Pictures. Fortunately, there's a much more moving, wise and entertaining animated film with robots opening the following week called The Wild Robot. In a double feature with The Wild Robot, it would be the shallow and inferior B-movie.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
      Who's Afraid of Nathan Law? is an illuminating and well-edited, but conventional and undercooked documentary about how Nathan Law went from being part of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong to a lawmaker to getting arrested under National Security Law. The film's title actually is a misnomer because it's also about Nathan's colleague, Agnes Chow, who was also arrested for the same reason. Director Joe Piscatella does a decent job of incorporating talk-head interviews and archival footage to shed light on Nathan and Agnes's experiences starting linearly with their participation in the Umbrella Movement. The documentary gets darker and darker, though, because Nathan got arrested before he even started his job at the Legislative Council. Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of film that humanizes its subjects because there's not enough of their backstory which would have allowed the audience to get to know them beyond their involvement in activism and politics. So, although Who's Afraid of Nathan Law? manages to be often engaging, it doesn't transcend above mediocrity nor does it dig deeper into the fight for democracy nor does it enrage the audience enough either. At a running time of 1 hour and 26 minutes, Who's Afraid of Nathan Law? opens at DCTV's Firehouse Cinema.
Number of times I checked my watch: 2