The opening moments of “The Humbling” are a fever dream, an anxiety-ridden nightmare. As stage superstar Simon Axler (Al Pacino) prepares to perform “As You Like It” his mind wanders, and soon we see him locked out of the theatre, refused reentry by a series of ushers and stagehands.
In reality he’s safe in the womb of his dressing room, but unease and insecurity wins out and he imagines the worst; an actor barred from the theatre.
It’s a glimpse into the mind of a lion in winter, an actor whose abilities are diminished. His crisis crescendos when he tries to commit suicide on stage after fumbling lines in front of a sold out house.
“You get all the awards, the accolades, the special treatment and what do you do? You end up throwing yourself off the stage, trying to pull some Hemingwayesque suicide.”
His flip into the orchestra pit lands him in rehab where he befriends Sybil (Nina Arianda), a troubled woman who thinks Simon, because of some of the roles he played on film, might be the right man to kill her husband. Later, at home, things get even stranger when he begins an affair with his goddaughter Pegeen (Greta Gerwig), a free spirited lesbian who has had a crush on Simon since she was a little girl.
His emotional recuperation is complicated by Sybil’s unexpected visits, Simon’s bad back and a quickly depleting bank account.
“Why don’t you get me a deal writing my memoirs?” he asks his agent (Charles Grodin). “Isn’t that what washed up actors do?”
Instead he gets another shot at the stage, a Broadway adaptation of “King Lear.”
What is never completely clear is how much of the story is a dream, the product of Simon’s mind playing tricks on him, and how much is real. It’s a provocative setup for the story, a sex farce about a older man and much younger woman, fuelled by the insecurities of a man falling apart professionally and personally, but it doesn’t always work.
Pacino goes all in as Axler. He’s both majestically Shakespearean and pathetically pathological but the movie’s uneven rhythms don’t do him any favors. He’s in almost every scene, but director Barry Levinson (working from a novel by Phillip Roth, adapted by Buck Henry) can’t make up its mind whether he is making a comedy, a psychological drama, romance or portrait of a crumbling man, and Pacino feels cut adrift from scene to scene.
It’s an entertaining performance in a diverting movie but as a statement on aging or insecurity or the folly of infatuation, it never sheds much light on what King Lear called, “this great stage of fools.”
January 25th at 7:00 pm will feature a special screening of Gimme Shelter at the Revue Cinema. Due to the Revue’s inability to obtain the rights to Don’t Look Back, special guest Geoff Pevere will be interviewed by Richard Crouse as they discuss what many consider to be the most impactful music documentary ever produced. Geoff and Richard long-time friends and television co-hosts will discuss the history of rock music as a visual medium and Gimme Shelter’s role in that history.
Gimme Shelter
1970 91 mins
A harrowing documentary of the Stones’ 1969 tour, with much of the focus on the tragic concert at Altamont.
Called the greatest rock film ever made, this landmark documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their notorious 1969 U.S. tour. When three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway, Direct Cinema pioneers David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin were there to immortalize on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade’s dreams into disillusionment.
Geoff Pevere is one of Canada’s leading pop culture commentators and movie critics. Geoff was a former host of CBC Radio’s Prime Time program, a movie critic with the Toronto Star for ten years, a TV host and a lecturer on film and media and is currently a movie columnist with the Globe and Mail. He is the co-author of the national bestseller Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey, his books include Toronto on Film and Donald Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road, his latest book is Gods of the Hammer – The Teenage Head Story.
Geoff will be signing copies of Gods of the Hammer! If you don’t have your own copy you can pick one up at the Revue before and after the screening.
Alan Cumming’s new character was years in the making. In Strange Magic, a new musical fantasy from the mind of George Lucas, he plays the villainous leader of The Dark Forest, the Bog King.
“Some years you only do three days on it,” he said. “The gaps between when you perform it are so huge. You’re coming back to it with some familiarity but not that much because you might have recorded a song in a couple of hours that you’ve never known before and never hear again and six months go by and you have to go back and sing it again. It is a very interesting, drastic process doing a film like this.”
The toughest part, however, was not spilling the beans on what he was up to.
“You have to sign a confidentiality clause and it was very hush hush. I’d suddenly be going to LA and I’d see friends who’d ask, ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I’m working on a top secret George Lucas project.’ ‘What is it?’ “I can’t say. It’s top secret.’ Early on I didn’t even know the proper story so I couldn’t have told it. It was quite nice having a secret.”
Inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Strange Magic is an animated jukebox musical set in a fairy world where you can never judge a book by its cover. Cumming’s character, with his glowing eyes and a skeleton that is more exo than endo, certainly embodies the movie’s message that beauty is only skin deep.
“You have to scare people but ultimately show that he has a nicer side to him.”
The release of the movie caps a busy period for the Scottish born actor. He’s currently on Broadway starring in the revival of Cabaret and can be seen on television in the Golden Globe nominated role of crisis manager Eli Gold on The Good Wife. Off stage, his memoir, Not My Father’s Son, was a recent New York Times bestseller.
“I don’t have many moments right now,” he says. “It’s been a very hectic time but I’m really enjoying stuff. I still am able to have fun. I have Club Cumming in my dressing room. I actually relax and have fun with friends there. It’s not ideal. I would love to have more days to do nothing but I think it is really important when you are really busy in your day to put some hours aside for revelry and relaxation.”
Sometimes clichés are clichés because they are true. No news is good news. A penny saved is a penny earned. Any publicity is good publicity.
No news is usually good news — unless you’re the editor of a newspaper with blank pages to fill — and the math behind a penny saved is a penny earned isn’t so hard to figure out, but recently the veracity of any publicity being good publicity has been put to the test.
The Sony hack and ensuing commotion that swirled around the Seth Rogen movie The Interview garnered headlines around the world, moving the story off the entertainment pages and into the news sections.
Stories, some true some not, and reviews, some good, some not, lit up social media.
The brouhaha surrounding the film lived at the very heart of popular culture for several weeks and even President Obama weighed in. But notwithstanding the endorsement of the most powerful film critic in the world, the movie is unlikely to actually make money.
The Guardian suggests The Interview’s total cost sits somewhere near $80 million in production and marketing costs, and at the time of this writing has only earned $36 million in digital rentals, purchases and traditional theatrical receipts. The Guardian also says Sony could be facing “damage north of $1 billion by some estimates” as a result of the hack.
So, if this was all a massive publicity stunt, as asserted by certain outspoken twitterratti, it was a marketing failure of Titanic proportions and it could even hurt the box office of other films.
This weekend Blackhat stars Chris Hemsworth as the world’s best-looking computer hacker, now serving a 15-year sentence for internet crime.
Authorities give him a get-out-of-jail-free card because he’s the only computer whiz on earth geekified enough to stop a cyber terrorist from causing havoc.
You might think a hacking movie would be perfectly timed to take advantage of the hoopla surrounding the Sony situation and yet Universal made no attempt to connect the dots between real-life events and their movie.
Why? The New York Times, quoting unnamed sources, opined that “ticket buyers could be tired of hacking stories after weeks of media attention on Sony, and a film that is too topical might strike potential viewers as less entertaining.”
Perhaps Universal’s decision not to cash in on the publicity generated by real life events reveals there is no room for current events in a marketplace where two of the top 10 grossing movies of 2014 were based on toy lines (the rest were inspired by novels and comic books) or maybe that sound we hear is the swoosh of an old cliché swirling down the bowl.
Have you ever wondered what happens to old, unfunny Vince Vaughn scripts? They become new unfunny Kevin Hart movies.
“The Wedding Ringer,” the story of a well-to-do but socially awkward guy (“Frozen’s” Josh Gad) who hires a professional best man (Hart) to fool his bride-to-be, is a decade-and-a-half old idea originally intended for “The Wedding Crasher” star.
That script was mercifully abandoned around the time of Y2K only to be resurrected, “Walking Dead” style in 2015 with a new star, but no new laughs.
Gad is Doug Harris. He’s a loner who never had any luck with women until he met Gretchen (“Big Bang Theory’s” Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting), a beautiful woman who loves his bank account as much as she loves him. They plan a big wedding, but as his parents are dead and he has no siblings, his side of the wedding party is nonexistent. With just a week before the big day he hires Jimmy Callahan (Hart) to pretend to be his best man and supply seven groomsmen.
“This is strictly a business relationship,” says Jimmy, “you’re not buying a best friend, you’re buying a best man.”
Of course, this is a bromance, so Doug is actually buying a best friend. As the odd couple careens toward learning the value of real friendship they have many adventures, including lighting Gretchen’s grandmother on fire and indulging in a little bestiality at an out-of-control bachelor party.
“The Wedding Ringer” is an R-rated comedy so lowbrow it makes Adam Sandler’s oeuvre look like Noel Coward. Gad, who became a star on Broadway in “The Book of Mormon” and a hero to kids as Olaf in “Frozen,” and Hart, who’s a gifted stand-up and comic actor, are better than this. In fact, everybody is better than this.
Gad pulls faces, does funny voices and falls through the furniture while Hart does double-speak and slapstick, but “The Wedding Ringer” is a Laugh Free Zone.
I know it’s meant to be a screwball comedy but in order for it to be truly funny as it works its way to the inevitable sentimental climax, it has to have at least one foot planted in reality. A dollop of real human behavior or a tangential link to some earthbound experience would have made these characters human, and relatable, and not simply cardboard cutouts with loud voices and bad judgment.
“The Wedding Ringer” leaves the jokes at the altar.
There are eight million stories in the naked city, and the story of Paddington the cuddly, orphaned Peruvian bear is one of them.
Based on the much-loved children’s books by Michael Bond, “Paddington” begins in “darkest Peru” as jaunty English explorer Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie) discovers Lucy and Pastuzo (voices of Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon), a family of super intelligent, anglophile bears. Before heading back to old Blighty Clyde teaches them the Queen’s English, introduces them to marmalade, gifts them a floppy bright red hat and an invitation to stop by should they ever find themselves in London.
Cut to decades later. In the grand tradition of kid’s stories, an orphaned child (voice of Ben Whishaw)—in this case the marmalade-obsessed grandson of Lucy and Pastuzo—is forced to take a great journey to safety. The cub, armed only with a “worrying marmalade problem” and the distinctive red hat, lands at Paddington Station in London. Instead of the warm welcome he expected, he’s met with indifference.
“Keep your eyes down, there’s some sort of bear over there.”
After a long wait, Mr. and Mrs. Brown (“Downton Abbey’s” Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins) and kids Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin) take pity on the polite little bear and bring him home, but only for one night. Of course, one night turns into a longer stay as the Browns learn to love the little bear, even though chaos follows his every step. Adding drama to the story is an ursophobic neighbor (“Doctor Who’s” Peter Capaldi) and a crazed taxidermist (Nicole Kidman).
Warm, funny and as eccentric as a movie about a talking bear should be, “Paddington” is great family entertainment. Director Paul King keeps up the pace—this is not a teddy bore!—but never allows the film to become frenetic. The action scenes are fun, yet gentle, amusing and inventive. Paddington’s unintentional takedown of a pickpocket is a wonderful, silly gag that captures and updates the spirit of the old “Paddington” books with an up-to-date look and feel for a new generation.
Laugh out loud funny—for kids and parents—“Paddington” also offers up a message of tolerance. “In London everyone is different,” says Paddington, “so everyone can fit in.” It’s a big idea, washed down with a giant melting-pot of marmalade, but also a timely one.
Early on in “American Sniper,” the latest film from director Clint Eastwood, it is explained that the world is made up of three types, sheep, wolves and sheepdogs. Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is a sheepdog, a man predisposed to protecting those around him, whether it is with his fists or with his preferred method weapon of choice, a McMillan TAC-338 Sniper Rifle.
Rodeo rider Kyle is prompted join the Navy SEALS after watching scenes of terror on the news. His natural ability with a gun makes him a deadly sniper and soon he racks up a kill record that earns him the nickname The Legend. Protecting his brothers-in-arms comes with a heavy price, and soon his two realities—his family life stateside with his wife Taya (Sienna Miller) and the world of war—become confused. After four tours of duty and over one hundred confirmed kills, he must adapt to being a father, husband and Navy SEAL.
The first twenty minutes of “American Sniper” are captivating. Eastwood builds tension in the opening minutes and maintains it through a flashback that sets the stage for the action that is to come. It’s crackling, riveting moviemaking that suggests greatness to come.
Unfortunately Eastwood lets it go slack. Like the old saying goes, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” and Eastwood dutifully does so, staging sniper scene after sniper scene, broken up by the more personal story of Kyle’s PTSD.
Some of the war scenes have impact. A firefight during a sand storm is harrowing, but too often the marksman scenes are repetitive and without any real dramatic heft.
On the human side of things Cooper does a good job at subtly playing out Kyle’s inner life. When his wife says, rightly, “If you think this war isn’t changing you, you’re wrong,” Cooper internalizes his feelings and the result is an effectively played and smart representation of how war affects soldiers without any unnecessary histrionics but without this central performance, there wouldn’t be much left here.
“American Sniper” is based on the true story of an American hero but feels like it only tells half the story. War and heroes are complicated things and the ever-growing understanding of PTSD isn’t deepened by soap opera dialogue like, “Even when you’re here, you’re not here.” Despite Cooper’s efforts to humanize Kyle, Eastwood has made a movie about an emblem, not a man.
Overall the movie feels like a well intentioned but shallow salute to the men and women who go to war.
In computer hacker lingo the term “blackhat” refers to someone who violates computer or Internet security for illegal personal gain. It’s a riff on the old school nickname for a bad guy and it’s also the name of a new moody Michael Mann film about cyber terrorism.
I’ll add that if Mann keeps making movies this lazy, he’s the one who should be wearing the black hat.
When we first meet Nicholas Hathaway (People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Chris Hemsworth), he’s the world’s best-looking hacker, serving a thirteen-year sentence for launching a cyber attack on a bank and making off with forty six million dollars.
When a Chinese nuclear plant is sabotaged and world financial markets are tampered with authorities give Hathaway a get-out-of-jail-free card because he’s the only computer whiz on earth geekified enough to stop a cyber terrorist from causing havoc.
The terrorist is an enigma who doesn’t ask for ransom or make a political statement. “What does this guy want?” asks Hathaway.
To find out he leads FBI agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis), Chinese government General Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) and Chen’s beautiful hacker sister Lien (Wei Tang) on a journey from America to Hong Kong and Jakarta in an effort to bring the terrorist to justice.
Cyber crime is a hot button topic these days, but it doesn’t make for great storytelling. Scenes of Hathaway hunched over a laptop, tapping away on a keyboard, while delivering crucial story points aren’t terribly interesting. Mann tries to jazz things up with the hacker genre cliché of having the camera pierce the computer screen and race along a series of wires and onto the information highway like Bruce Springsteen speeding down Thunder Road in a stolen ’57 Cadillac. It’s a hack move in a hacking movie and he does it repeatedly.
The movie fares better when it moves away from the computer, but even then there are plot twists that require a suspension of disbelief that no amount of jiggling the cord can fix. Hathaway pieces together the villain’s elaborate scheme in one fell swoop and tops it off with the film’s only (and unintentionally) funny line. It is ridiculous but not nearly as silly as the MacGyverish finale that is as old school as the idea of cyber terrorism is new school.
Mann can stage a heart pounding action scene, and pulls off a couple of them here that spice things up when the movie starts to run a bit slow, but at 133 minutes the whole movie feels in need of a reboot.
The opening moments of “The Humbling” are a fever dream, an anxiety-ridden nightmare. As stage superstar Simon Axler (Al Pacino) prepares to perform “As You Like It” his mind wanders, and soon we see him locked out of the theatre, refused reentry by a series of ushers and stagehands.
