Three New Films. One Is A Must See.

05 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

Tags

" Daniel Day-Lewis, "A Fantastic Woman", "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool", "Lady Macbeth", "Phantom Thread", "The Shape of Water", Academy Award Nominations, Best Foreign Film, Best Movies, Daniela Vega, DC Cinema Club, Doug Jones, Films, Franciso Reyes, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Shannon, Movies, Octavia Spence, Sally Hawkins, Vicky Krieps

Film reviews by Ellen Miller.

The Shape of Water – Ellen ***** (Richard Didn’t See it)

Wonderful. Engrossing. Clever. Satisfying.

Take a deep sigh, hold your breath, and submerge yourself into a theater playing this film. Just sink into the world created by the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. This fantasy — which I had been putting off seeing because those sorts of movies are just not my thing — is thoroughly moving and enjoyable. It’s also very creative and clever with superb acting. It well-deserves its Best Picture (and 12 other Oscar nominations) for which it is nominated.

When summarized, the story seems odd and off-putting, but as it unfolds on the screen, it’s not: a young, mute lonely woman, Elisa (Sally Hawkins), is a building cleaner at a super secretive government laboratory when she discovers a captive Amazonian human-like sea creature that is being held for unknown, but presumably experimental purposes. She extends herself to it, and it responds to her. The time is 1962 and the Russians want to steal it from the US who has it locked in a top secret laboratory. She needs to save the creature from both of them. She has two friends who will help. One small warning: there are a few gruesome scenes, but they only add to the surrealism of the film. Don’t be turned off by the plot.

The film is filled with fascinating characters and wonderful acting, from Hawkins herself to Octavia Spence, Doug Jones, and Michael Shannon. The staging is so richly detailed you want to disappear into it. My advice is just to given into it and cheer for our heroine. Let the film wash over you. You won’t regret it.

(Sorry about the play on words but I couldn’t resist…)

A Fantastic Woman – Ellen **** Richard ****

What I love about the DC Cinema Club is that we see films we might not otherwise left to our own choosing. That’s definitely the case with A Fantastic Woman. What you see is not what you get in this film.

It is a very sympathetic and sometimes heart-wrenching portrayal of a trans woman and the struggles she faces to become the woman she is as well as how she moves forward after losing her lover. There are wonderful cinematic moments to illustrate her struggles and terrific acting throughout. Daniela Vega (Marina) has been nominated for an academy award for her performance and the film has been nominated in the Best Foreign Film Category.

Marina is a singer and a waitress in a coffee shop and she is in a relationship with Orlando (Francisco Reyes), a man two decades her senior. One evening he falls ill and dies and the drama begins, unfolding slowly with considerable melodrama. His family forbids her from attending his funeral. But she insists on paying tribute to her lover.

The film is a tender love story and a story about the struggle to be true to who you are. It is a tense, well-filmed and emotional drama. It’s worth a see.

Phantom Thread – Ellen **** Richard ****

Another non-mainstream film and even though nominated for a Best Picture Award, I recommend it somewhat cautiously.

But….

If you like/love looking at Daniel Day Lewis (count me in) it’s a must-see. If you like a story where two unlikable characters clash and the woman “wins” (my view), then this is the picture for you. If you love a film where the actions of the women characters are more manipulative than those of the men, go see this movie. (In this latter style, it reminded me of the 2017 film Lady Macbeth. See my review of that film).

But not a lot happens in this taut psychological drama. Lewis plays a perfection-obsessed famous London-based courtier — Reynolds Woodcock — in the 1950’s. His latest muse is Alma (well-played by Vicky Krieps), a former waitress in a country inn where he had dinner one evening. He dresses her gloriously (though the costuming was less inspiring than I expected). They marry, and his self-centered life is disrupted. When he appears to begin to tire of her, she sets about to prove just how much he needs her.

The film is lit throughout in undertones of beige, rose, and violet, which is very appealing and adds to the overall somber tone of the film and to the relationship between the two protagonists.

Although this film received six various Academy Award Nominations, I’d see this film for Daniel Day Lewis’ performance alone.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool was rated Excellent or Good by 90+ per cent of our Sunday Cinema Club. We both saw it, but didn’t have time to review it. We both would have rated it four stars.

Three to See: “A Late Quartet,” “Lincoln,” & “Argo”

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

" "Lincoln, " "Silver linings Playbook, " Daniel Day-Lewis, " Films to See, "A Late Wuartet, Argo, Ben Affleck, Stephen Spielberg, The Sessions

A Late Quartet ****

I suspect this movie will not be easy to find nor will it be around long, which is a shame. It’s a good one.

A Late Quartet is the fictional story of the four members of the “Fugue Quartet,” a string quartet that has been together for 25 years. Now, as the one older member finds he is facing a medical problem that will require him to withdraw from the group, all hell breaks loose for the other three musicians.

Some of the ensuing problems are more realistic than others, but I found the film involving and thought provoking. Plus, the portrayal of what it is like for four artists to work together, and how that differs from life for solo artists, is a side story that is fascinating too.

Good performances from all four actors, starting with Philip Seymour Hoffman and including Christopher Walken, Imogen Poots and Wallace Shawn.

Lincoln *****

Despite the title, this film is not a biography (‘bio-pic’).

It is something quite different.

It’s about a short, very specific time in Lincoln’s presidency, the time leading up to and the passing in the House of Representatives of the 13^th Amendment, the outlawing of slavery. In the process of telling that story, director Spielberg gives us an absorbing and captivating portrait of the man who already has had more books written (16,000) and more movies made (300) about him than any other single individual.

The film is not perfect. I suspect Lincoln scholars will have some bones to pick with it. Also, so too will movie critics, no doubt.

But don’t let that prevent you from seeing Lincoln.

What we see is an appealing and steely acting performance by Daniel Day-Lewis who ‘inhabits’ the body of the president in such a way that you feel you are ‘there’ at a specific time in our history.

We see not only the principled Lincoln but also the crafty, political Lincoln who will do whatever he must to accomplish his goal of getting slavery outlawed before the end of the Civil War. Lincoln uses all his personal power(s) and all the power(s) of his office to accomplish this goal.

Actress Sally Fields also gives a strong performance in her portrayal of Molly, as the president refers to his wife Mary Todd. So too do other members of the cast, particularly Tommy Lee Jones as Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, and David Strathaurn as Secretary of State William Seward, to name just the very best of a very strong cast.

Lincoln is a wordy (I mean that positively), suspenseful, and engrossing film about one slice of A. Lincoln’s presidency — his choice to end slavery before ending the Civil War. In deciding to focus on this aspect of Lincoln’s presidency, Spielberg does what good artists, photographers, and others do when they show us just a small portion of a bigger picture.

(Note: Perhaps the best of the reviews and comments on Lincoln that I’ve seen is this column , Six Footnotes, in the current The New Yorker magazine.

Argo ****1/2

If you’re old enough to remember the American hostage crisis of 1979 when Iran held 52 of our Embassy employees captive for 444 days, you may have missed another aspect of that story that occurred at the same time.

I know I did.

Six American Embassy employees escaped just before the Iranians broke into our embassy. They hid in the Canadian Embassy, and the CIA was tasked to get them out of the country.

Argo is a film that tells the ‘story’ of what happened to that attempt to smuggle the six out of Iran before the Iranians realized they were there.

It’s an engrossing, captivating story, directed Ben Affleck, who is also the lead actor in the film.

* * * * * *

(Note: Our Sunday morning Cinema Club gave the film The Sessions a positive rating {Excellent or Good} of 97.5, an extremely high rating for this group of Sunday morning film lovers. For Silver Linings Playbook, the group’s positive rating was 89.4%.

I too thought The Sessions was outstanding – reviewed on MillersTime 10/23/12 and ‘revisted’ on 10/29/12.

My mini-reviews of The Silver Linings Playbook and a new documentary, West Memphis, will be coming soon.)