ROUND UP OF NEW AND RECENT FILMS PART SEVEN

The Joker meets Boy Batman

ROUND UP OF NEW AND RECENT FILMS PART SEVEN.

Joker (2019). Not a "super-hero" film as such, Joker looks at the life of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) and shows how he transformed into Batman's arch-enemy, the clown-faced, maniacal Joker. Essentially this is a slow if absorbing study of a lonely and mentally-unstable outsider with show biz aspirations, a horrible mother, and a childhood full of abuse. Batman is still a child at the time this takes place, and Arthur wrongly imagines that he is Bruce Wayne's half-brother. Made fun of by talk show host and comic Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), he winds up a guest on the show with predictable results. Arthur is presented as an angry victim with some legitimate grievances, but his being turned into a champion of the poor and downtrodden is utterly ludicrous and just doesn't work. Very well-acted by Phoenix and De Niro, Joker is by no means a bad movie -- although it's not always well-paced -- but Best Picture ...? No. Directed by Todd Phillips, this has an interesting score by Hildur Guanodottir. Unless you're a total geek, you'll probably forget about the movie five minutes after you see it. **3/4.

Downton Abbey (2019) revisits the Crawley family from the very popular TV series and works effectively as an especially long episode. The King and Queen are going to spend the night at the estate, and everyone is thrown into a tizzy, especially the servants, who are told that the King's staff will take over and that even the cook, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol), will have to temporarily turn in her apron. They aren't going to take that lying down! Meanwhile handsome butler Barrow (Robert James-Collier) is also temporarily shunted aside by retired Carson (Jim Carter), but Barrow finds a like-soul after he's caught in a raid on a gay bar. (Barrow is a much more sympathetic character in this than when he was first introduced.) Violet (Maggie Smith) is appalled that a relative is going to leave her fortune to a maid -- goodness! -- instead of Violet's son, but discovers the reason why. And a sneak thief is stealing various items from the household. One could quibble about certain aspects of the story, but for the most part Downton Abbey is delightful and beautifully acted, with equal parts charm, class and sentiment. Directed by Michael Engler. ***1/4. 

TO DIE FOR

Nicole Kidman

TO DIE FOR (1995). Director: Gus Van Sant.

"You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV." -- Suzanne Stone.

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman of Eyes Wide Shut) is determined to have a career in broadcasting, and using her perch as weather girl for a local channel, works with some young people on a documentary that she hopes will get attention. Suzanne is beginning to believe that her loving husband, Larry (Matt Dillon), will only hold her back from her ambitions. Beginning an affair with the boy Jimmy Emmett (Joaquin Phoenix of The Village), Suzanne tells Jimmy that the only way they can be together permanently is if Larry is out of the picture ...

Joaquin Phoenix

To Die For was inspired by the real-life Pamela Smart case as seen in the earlier telefilm Murder in New Hampshire. It may seem in bad taste that this story -- although the names have been changed along with certain incidents, and Suzanne is much more over-the-top than the real Smart -- is played as a very dark comedy, but the film has a serious undertone throughout, and "Larry's" death is in no way made fun of. The one person who comes in for drubbing is Pamela/Suzanne, who is depicted as a self-absorbed and narcissistic monster. The audience laughs at her and her outrageousness, not with her. Based on Joyce Maynard's novel, Buck Henry's screenplay delves into celebrity, sociopathology and other trenchant topics in very entertaining fashion. 

David Cronenberg

Nicole Kidman is perfect as Suzanne, and there is also good work from Phoenix as her young lover; Dan Hedaya as Larry's father; Holland Taylor as Suzanne's mother; Illeana Douglas as Larry's sister; Casey Affleck as one of Jimmy's murdering buddies; Alison Folland as Lydia, a friend of Jimmy's; and an uncredited George Segal as a slimy newsman who gives Suzanne some sexist tips. David Cronenberg, who directed many of his own movies, shows up at the end as a hit man pretending to be a Hollywood producer. Suzanne's final fate in this movie is perhaps more satisfying than what happened to Pamela Smart, who is still in the penitentiary as of this writing!

Verdict: Absorbing, very darkly amusing film with a strong lead performance. ***. 

THE VILLAGE

THE VILLAGE (2004). Director: M. Night Shyamalan.

This tedious film should have been entitled Hoaxes, for the massive hoax that alleged thriller director Shyamalan keeps playing on his audiences. The Sixth Sense was a fairly credible, if derivative, horror film, and Unbreakable, despite its obvious flaws, was at least unusual. Signs was a big shaggy dog story with some tense moments and a really dumb ending. But The Village takes an interesting premise and gets too clever – or rather not clever enough – for its own good. Never has Shyamalan appeared more over-rated than with this picture.

SPOILER ALERT: We're led to believe that this is a period film and that the action takes place in an early American village. The people in the village are afraid to ever leave because they must walk through a wooded area where monsters (”those we don't speak of”) supposedly dwell. Halfway through the film we learn that the monsters were sort of cooked up just to keep people from leaving. At the end of the film – although to most viewers this will come as no surprise – we learn that the story actually takes place in the 21st century (big whoop – hasn't Shyamalan ever heard of the Amish, for instance?) Apparently a group of people who lost loved ones to big city crime were so disheartened that they decided to “drop out” and go back into the “past” and a simpler era. [The fact that there is not a single Black, Hispanic, or Asian person in the village makes us wonder if this is a satire on white flight or merely inherently racist?] At the end there's some dialogue which tells us that the government prevents planes from flying overhead – but why? None of the original “settlers” seem that rich or influential. If some people want to drop out, fine, but why would the government aid or give a damn about them? Even more peculiar is the fact that the character played by William Hurt lets his – get this – blind daughter go off into the woods to get medicine, never giving the poor girl even a hint of what she's going to find when she gets to the other side. The one person chosen to go through the woods is blind? Supposedly compassionate, Hurt's character must be the worst father in the world. There are some eerie, well-directed, if derivative, scenes in the movie, and many others that are simply awkward. Some of the acting is quite stilted, but heroine Bryce Dallas Howard (the blind Ivy) makes a good impression. She and Joaquin Phoenix have a splendid scene wherein they confess their mutual love on a porch. William Hurt has one big moment succumbing to passion and anger in which he is quite good, but otherwise his acting is unimpressive. Sigourney Weaver is miscast but she, too, has her moments. Adrian Brody is excellent as the mentally deficient Noah. A lot of people found this film to be charming and romantic – it does play like a fairy tale – but there just isn't that much to it. Shyamalan had better come up with something better than bad feature-length Twilight Zone episodes if he wants to keep getting financing from the studios. Even if he had simply made a real period piece with settlers fighting off “those we don't speak of,” it would have made a better film than this.

Verdict: The movie is being hyped as being “like the best of Hitchcock.” Don't you believe it! *1/2.