The Souvenir

First Hit: A languid slow-paced film that bordered on torturous to watch.

This is either a good film about how a bad relationship can screw up your life, or it’s a bad film about how long the audience can watch someone live with their poor choices.

After seeing this film, I decided to peek at what some other reviewers said about this film. I’m surprised at how many reviewers liked this film when, while watching it, I wanted to get up and leave at least three times.

I believe I understood the point of the film; when someone is in love, that love can seep into, and drastically affect, every part of their life. My issue is why did this supposedly smart woman stay with this drug-laden man.

Here we have Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), a budding young filmmaker, being allowed to become a student in a prestigious film school. The scenes during class sessions are mostly long and uninformative, unlike the underlying philosophy espoused by the instructors. This film wouldn’t have passed the instructor’s criteria.

At one point after Julie explains her film’s subject, the interviewers state that it is usually better to make a film about topics the director has some experience and knowledge about. It’s obvious Julie knew little or nothing about her subject of a boy losing a parent they love.

Julie’s family is wealthy. Her mom Rosalind (Tilda Swinton) and father live life well on a large English country estate. But the scenes where Julie asks for money are incredibly disheartening and remind me of someone entitled and never really having worked for a living.

Julie meets an older man, Anthony (Tom Burke), who is supposed to be a diplomat, but we never really know for whom or what. He doesn’t want to be questioned about anything. This set-up allows him far too much freedom to not share where he goes and what he’s doing. The reality is that he’s addicted to heroin and when he’s out he out scoring drugs.

Although he’s always dressed nicely, he never pays for anything, and watching Julie ever reaching for her purse made me ill. His arrogance and air of superiority were not attractive, and I don’t know what Julie saw in him. These scenes were often followed up by another plea, by Julie, for money from her mom. When he robs Julie’s apartment, the act was only believable from an addicts point of view. Her response was almost benign.

I never saw or felt much chemistry between Julie and Anthony and saw no reason for them being together, except he needed her money to pay for his habit. Just like when two of her film friends come over for dinner, and the man says to Julie when Anthony leaves the room; I don’t understand you two, how do you handle him being drugged all the time? Julie has no response and the shock on her face would make you believe she will pursue this with Anthony, but she doesn’t, she just goes along for the ride.

There are long scenes where nothing happens and no setup too long, languid scenes to gain insight into the characters, let alone the film. The multiple shots of the four trees with a voice-over worked once, but that’s it.

Byrne has an attractive and unusual look, like her mom, but her actions in this role seemed juxtaposed to what I sense to be an intelligent person. This is either poor acting or weak script and direction. Burke was an excellent addict, and his behavior of using his system of excuses was typical addict oriented. Swinton was superb as Julie’s mom. Being her real mom probably helped. Joanna Hogg wrote and directed this film.

Overall: Despite reviews saying that Joanna is in charge of her craft, I can only say this film was uninteresting and forgetful.

Doctor Strange (3-D)

First Hit:  I fully enjoyed the film and Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect as Dr. Stephen Strange.

What makes this film work and hold together is the acting of Cumberbatch. In fact, one could take out some of the special effects and this film still works.

Strange is a compulsive, arrogant, and a larger than life self-aggrandizing surgeon. His surety and cavalier way of performing surgery are displayed in opening scenes. He’s listening to music and then challenges one of his assistants to change up the music and give him a music quiz. The song his assistant hopes to trip him up on is Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” which the assistant says came out in 1978 while Strange argues correctly that it was released in 1977. This was a superb way to display who he is.

Then, to solidify the point, Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), rushes into the OR and asks Dr. Strange to look at a patient who they are about to harvest for organs. Her claim is that the patient can be saved and isn’t brain dead. Strange looks at the medical x-rays, scans and diagnosis documents, moves the patient to ER and pulls a bullet out of the patient’s head, thereby stopping the organ harvest, keeping the man alive. He only cares about his success at being right and competent and sort of rejects the patient's family's thanks. Lastly Dr. Palmer shows a deeper than friendship interest in him but he just sluffs it off putting his needs ahead of everything.

However, he gets hurt in an accident and destroys his hands. Without having his surgical skills available he ends up with nothing and takes one last trip looking for Kamar-Taj, a place that may be able to provide him help in getting his hands back. While in Kathmandu he ends up meeting “The Ancient One” (Tilda Swinton). She calls him out on his arrogance and self-centeredness and demonstrates that there is more to life than the physical world. She demonstrates alternate realities and it shocks Strange into curiosity and then wanting to become a student. As The Ancient One points out, Strange still thinks of only himself but takes him on as a student because he’s got abilities and really wants to learn.

The film ultimately is about two things: First, the fight between good (light) and evil (darkness). And two, about how to live by putting others first. To this end, the film is interesting, however, I do believe that the number of spectacular visual scenes to represent the fragility of most peoples’ perception of reality were not needed. At first the spinning of the streets and buildings into different spatial realities were cool and interesting to watch. But after a while it took away from the story and acting which was very strong.

Cumberbatch was extraordinary good in this fantasy film. He brought a serious, adventurous and human context to the character regardless of the topsy-turvy visual convolutions. Swinton was much better than I thought she would be. I struggled thinking that it needed to be an Asian spiritual leader because the film felt like it was sharing ancient Asian wisdom. However, from the get go, Swinton owned the role. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo, The Ancient One’s right hand person, was excellent. He put an edge into the film that made it better. McAdams was wonderful as Strange’s co-surgeon. Her humanness towards a difficult Strange was perfect. Benedict Wong (as Wong) was delightful. His protective seriousness of the spiritual path and library worked well against Strange’s behavior. Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill wrote a wonderful screenplay, which was enhanced by the use of humor and interesting dialogue among the characters. Derrickson had a strong hand on the tiller of this film. I only thought that he used CGI more than needed.

Overall:  Although the film is not Oscar worthy, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and that is the point.

A Bigger Splash

First Hit:  This film lacked clarity of purpose partially because the actors and characters weren't well mixed in this uninteresting story.

The film starts with the illusion that Tilda Swinton (as Marianne Lane) is a middle age rock star still able to bring in stadium full audiences.

Attempting to convince the audience through brief clips of a stadium filled with rock fans, the band on the stage, and Lane, with a black wig, comes out to the microphone was inadequate. We don’t hear her sing nor do we hear her music.

This lacked credibility, and Swinton’s look and presence didn’t carry the energy of a stadium filling rock star. The audience is asked to take this at face value, what makes this worse is that we do not get to hear her speak because she’s just had throat surgery and isn’t supposed to speak so her character's story is limited.

Because she has these two strikes against her, it is like the old saying, "two wrongs to make a right". She’s vacationing with her husband Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) at some unknown rural (possibly Mediterranean) location where the village is small and population sparse.

Unbeknownst to Paul and Marianne, her old boyfriend and former music producer Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes) is coming to visit them. Harry talks all the time and he’s full of hyper energy, takes over every conversation, and makes a big scene everywhere he is.

Although Marianne is more interested in seeing Hawkes, Paul,  even though he and Harry are lifelong friends, doesn't. Overall, it appears they’d rather not have him as a guest, but no one stops the madness. The madness begins at one of the first scenes when they pick him up at the airport by surprising them by bringing his underage unknown daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson).

The rest of the film attempts to extrapolate each of their personalities given their restricted behavior. However, I never felt that their relationships with themselves were real or flushed out, nor were their connections with each other valid. One of the few good scenes was Harry’s lip-syncing and dancing to the Rolling Stones' classic song “Emotional Rescue”.

One of the more painful scenes was the horrible karaoke singing and dancing by Harry and Marianne in a local bar.

Swinton was miscast in this role because there is just no way she resembled or acted as a stadium rock and roll star. Adding to this that she wasn’t supposed to speak, which added to the difficulty in making her believable. Fiennes was also miscast as there is no way he could pull off being this obnoxious, unthinking, arrogant, producer. He carries too much integrity and therefore it didn’t work. Schoenaerts was good and the best part of the film. His character was believable as a brooding, somewhat depressive, friend and mate of Harry and Marianne respectively. Johnson was mediocre as the young girl who was manipulative and questioning of her father and his friends. She didn’t make me believe her as a seductress – it was way to obvious. David Kajganich wrote a very mediocre screenplay that didn’t really dive into the characters and their history. Every setup of the character's history seemed too overt and lacking curiosity. A film audience needs to be curious about the characters. Luca Guadagnino directed this and probably made the most of the story as written. The casting was, for the most part, poor.

Overall:  I was bored by the story, actors, and the way this film unfolded.

Hail, Ceasar!

First Hit:  An odd film and despite the star power, lacks being interesting let alone good.

You’ve got Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum, and Jonah Hill, yet the only part that stood out for me was Jonah Hill as Joseph Silverman, the finance guy.

Brolin as Eddie Mannix runs a Hollywood studio and is in the middle of a career crisis. Clooney is the bankable star who gets kidnapped for money. Fiennes plays a highly respected and temperamental film director. Johansson plays a single pregnant star who does swimming films (think Esther Williams). Tilda Swinton plays two roles, twin opposing gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker. Frances McDormand as film editor extraordinary. Tatum was a dancing (think Astaire or Kelly) actor. The story is about the trials of running a studio, the communist edge of the 50’s, the behind the scenes stories about actors. There were some funny parts (Hill and Johansson).

Brolin was OK as the studio head, who had no time for his family. Clooney was fair as the kidnapped star who was highly influenced by his kidnappers. Fiennes was very good and the director stuck with an actor who couldn’t act. Johansson was mediocre as the swimming star. Swinton was good in her two roles. Tatum was OK as the dancing communist. Hill, in his minor role, was for me, the best part of the film. Joel and Ethan Coen both wrote and directed this film and I’m sure it sounded better as a discussion than written or filmed.

Overall:  Mediocre film through and through.

Snowpiercer

First Hit:  Odd story, interesting scenes, and generally unsatisfying.

Global warming has us (humans) attempting to fix the problem with a pill (sort of speak). We spray stuff into the atmosphere to cool down the planet and we send ourselves into a deep freeze. All but a few hundred people remain, alive, on a perpetual motion train on an endless loop. Odd story – yes.

The train is divided into different sections, by classes, whereas the first class people get real food, alcohol, and have a good life as this train drives around this year long circle. However, the people in the back of the train get blocks of protein to eat, live in squalor and lose their limbs with infractions against the other classes. Wilford (Ed Harris), who is the person in charge of the train, believes that everyone has their place and their duty/job. Cutis (Chris Evans), who lives in the rear of the train wants to get control of the train and create a more equal environment among its passengers.

The film is about a social revolution. Some of the scenes where Mason, (Tilda Swinton) Wilford’s speaker and emissary, speaks to the trains’ passengers are priceless. 

Although many of the characters are interestingly unique like, Namgoong (Kang-ho Song), Tanya (Octavia Spencer) Yona (Ah-sung Ko), and Gilliam (John Hurt) and a number of the battle scenes to overtake the train are of interest, it was generally unsatisfying story and execution of the story.

Harris does a good job of being arrogantly omnipotent yet there was a lack of depth in his performance that took away from the film. Evans did a very good job of carrying his character through this odd story and making it work. Swinton was unique, flamboyant and engaging when on the screen. Song was enigmatically interesting in his role as the one who thinks he knows what is going on outside the train. Spencer was wonderful as the mother and lover of the movement to change the status quo. Ko was incredibly engaging in her role. Hurt was excellent as the knowing old man who was once the partner of Wilford’s. Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson wrote this imaginative and unfathomable story. Bong also directed the film.

Overall:  Although it was an interesting film, I left the theater not thinking much about the experience of watching it.