Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)

I loved this romantic story based on the memoir of Peter Turner, an English actor who dated American film star Gloria Grahame, almost 30 years his senior, in the late 1970s. Jamie Bell and Annette Bening are spectacular in the leading roles (last blogged for Snowpiercer and 20th Century Women, respectively) and Bell gets to show off some of those dancing chops he first displayed in Billy Elliot (2000) in an early scene completed in just two takes. Julie Walters (who played Billy Elliott's dancing teacher and was most recently in these pages for Brooklyn) is no slouch as Peter's Liverpudlian mum and Vanessa Redgrave has a terrific cameo as Grahame's mother. I just learned that Turner also has a cameo, as a character named Jack. I can't find any stills of him in the movie, but I suspect that he plays the stage manager in a very late scene.

Director Paul McGuigan (I don't think I've seen any of his features) works from a screenplay that Matt Greenhalgh (Nowhere Boy) adapted from Turner's 1986 memoir.

Cinematographer Urszula Pontikos provides beautiful images and the editor and director orchestrate seamless transitions between time periods.

J. Ralph (not mentioned for scoring the documentaries Man on Wire nor Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child) is the composer but I can't find clips and he hasn't updated his own website to include this project. However, you're much more likely to remember the pop songs (here's a spotify playlist), including Boogie Oogie Oogie by A Taste of Honey, California Dreamin' by Jose Feliciano, and Pump It Up and You Shouldn't Look at Me That Way by Elvis Costello, the latter composed specifically for this picture.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are unfairly tepid, averaging 79 and 70%. I recommend this highly and Jack would, too, had he been able to join me last week!

Marjorie Prime (2017)

Jack and I loved this trippy sci-fi story about the nature of memory featuring an 85 year old woman and her holographic artificial intelligence companion in the form of her late husband Walter in his 40s. Lois Smith is spectacular as the title character. She's now 87 and some of her best work includes Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), Hollywoodland (2006), Turn the River, Please Give, The Nice Guys, and one scene in Lady Bird as the nun. Who better than Jon Hamm (last blogged for Baby Driver) with his handsome chiseled face to portray the ideal husband, well, someone's creation of the ideal Walter. Also terrific are Geena Davis (she won an Oscar for The Accidental Tourist (1988), was nominated for Thelma & Louise (1991), and was great inThe Fly (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), A League of Their Own (1992), and Speechless (1994), to name just a few. I mentioned her cameo in In a World...) as Marjorie's daughter Tess and Tim Robbins (covered in Welcome to Me) as Tess's husband Jon.

Director Michael Almereyda (new to me) adapted the screenplay from the 2014 Pulitzer Prize-finalist play by Jordan Harrison (also story editor and/or writer on 28 episodes of Orange Is the New Black).

Shot in and around a wonderful beach home in Amagansett, Long Island, New York, it makes one quickly realize that AI holograms are for the wealthy in the universe of this creation. There's also one scene apparently in a room at the Metropolitan Museum of NY with a mural on all the round walls.

The haunting music is by Mica Levi (last scored Jackie) but I can't find it online to play it again or play it for you. While I write I've had the movie open in another window (it's available on Amazon Prime with your subscription or for a fee on the other outlets) and skipped around to panoramic shots to hear the music cues. There are a few songs, too, notably the 1968 version of I Shall Be Released by The Band.

I knew that this movie was on my yearly list of honors, Smith having been nominated for a Gotham Award (lost to Saoirse Ronan) and a Spirit Award (will be announced March 3). But my real impetus was hearing Smith read Yes We Do. Even at Our Age (about senior citizens' love and sex) on the Modern Love podcast.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 90%, are more with us than its audiences at 63. We recommend this for your winter viewing.

2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation

This was a good year for the animated shorts as Jack and I loved them all. If you can't get to a theatre, they'll be streaming on iTunes, Amazon, and Google on the 27th of February. We recommend the whole program but you can get two whole shorts and several previews if you follow the links below.

1. Dear Basketball (5:22 length). US. Kobe Bryant's farewell love letter to the sport, read by the author, is beautifully illustrated by Glen Keane (worked on Beauty and the Beast (1991), Pocahontas (1995), Tarzan (1999), Tangled (2010), and more) and scored by John Williams (last blogged for The Post). Jack and I and many others take issue with the celebration of accused rapist Bryant (the case was dropped) but we admit that the pencil drawing animation is wonderful. You can watch the whole thing on this link unless it's removed in the future for copyright reasons.

2. Negative Space (5:30). France (with voiceover dubbed in English). A man reminisces about his father teaching him how to pack a suitcase. It's in stop motion, directed by Americans Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata. Here's the trailer and an interview with the filmmakers.

3. LOU (6:45). US. This wordless Disney/Pixar production, about an elementary school's lost and found bin anthropomorphically educating a bully, was originally shown before screenings of Cars 3 and is in the same animation style. Here's a clip of the short directed by Dave Mullins (worked on Finding Nemo (2003), Ratatouille, Up, Brave, Inside Out, and Coco, to name a few) in his directing debut.

4. Revolting Rhymes (29:09). UK. The book by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake has been adapted by directors/co-writers Jan Lachauer (nominated for Room on the Broom) and Jakob Schuh (nominated for The Gruffalo) and co-directed by Bin-Han To. It tells the intersecting stories of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood. The animation style is cartoony but not Disney. Here's the trailer. Many top notch actors perform voice work, including Rob Brydon (last blogged for The Trip to Spain) as King, Rolf, and Banker Pig; Tamsin Grieg (most recently in these pages for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) as Babysitter, Miss Maclahose, and Grandma; and Dominic West (briefly mentioned in The Square) as Wolf.

5. Garden Party (7:22). France. Very realistic frogs romp in the dialogue-free aftermath of a wild party at a tropical mansion. Directors Florian Babikian, Vincent Bayoux, Victor Caire, Théophile Defresne, Gabriel Grapperon, and Lucas Navarro mostly make their debuts. The whole thing is now available at this link but, again, it may not be permanent.

Because the total running time of the nominated shorts is under an hour, the production company SHORTSTV has again included "highly commended" shorts.

6. Weeds (3:00). US. A dandelion on a parched tree lawn tries to jump to the other side of the driveway where the sprinklers are. It's wordless, directed by Kevin Hudson, and a production of the Filmmakers Co-op at Disney Feature Animation, and animated in traditional Disney style.

7. Lost Property Office (10:00). Australia. Also wordless, this stop-motion short follows a man who works in the lost and found of a train station and is directed by Daniel Agdag.

8. Achoo (7:00). France. Dubbed into English, this follows three flying dragons as they audition for a great honor. No surprise that one of them sneezes a lot. It's directed by Lucas Boutrot, Élise Carret, Maoris Creantor, Pierre Hubert, Camille Lacroix, and Charlotte Perroux, all making their debuts.

In between each short is a "petite interlude" with silly romping creatures.

Also no surprise that this has a 100% critics' average on Rotten Tomatoes.

On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl - 2017)

This languid and well-crafted foreign Oscar nominee about two lonely people working at a Hungarian slaughterhouse builds very slowly to a shocking scene that caused a stir at screenings. Handicapped Andre meets Aspergers-spectrum Mária (played by Géza Morcsányi and Alexandra Borbély, both new to me) and discover they have been having the same dream, that they are deer in the woods. The movie has other nominations and wins around the world.

Director/writer Ildikó Enyedi has been working since 1979 but this is her first feature since 1999.

Not for vegetarians, this includes footage from a real slaughterhouse. The end credits include a disclaimer, "Some animals were harmed during filming, but none of them for the sake of this film..."

Cinematographer Máté Herbai combines the above with gorgeous dream sequences (shot in Bükki National Park, northeast of Budapest) and that of everyday life in the workplaces and apartments of Budapest.

I think I found one track by composer Adam Balazs. Plus there are a few songs by Laura Marling. But since the movie is on Netflix--we watched it last week--you can watch and listen to the whole thing anytime.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 91%, are in agreement with us and its audiences come in at 80. If you're caught up on the overall Best Picture nominees and can handle the slaughterhouse, check this one out in the comfort of your own home.

Middle of Nowhere (2012)

I liked this story of a nurse who gives up medical school to be available to her jailed husband two hours away. Director/writer Ava DuVernay, whose next picture was Selma, has a talented lead in Emayatzy Corinealdi (last blogged for Miles Ahead), as intelligent and cultured Ruby. She's ably supported by Lorraine Toussaint (dozens of credits, notably the evil Yvonne "Vee" in 12 episodes of Orange Is the New Black) as her mother, Omari Hardwick (looks familiar but I can't place him) as her husband, and David Oyelowo (most recently in these pages for A United Kingdom) as her bus driver.

After this movie got several nominations and wins from the Spirit and Gotham awards as well as Best Director at Sundance, I spent some time looking for it online and forgot about it. It popped up on my Netflix feed and I watched it over a couple of days last week.

Bradford Young's (last shot Ain't Them Bodies Saints) cinematography is noteworthy and I liked the music, too. Here's a playlist of the songs plus a link to other work by composer Kathryn Bostic (scored Dear White People).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics average 88% and its audiences 65. Worth your time after you get caught up on the Oscar nominations.

Icarus (2017)

We loved this documentary about an amateur bicycle racer, taking steroids with medical supervision to see if he can beat the drug tests, who happens to meet and collaborate with one of the principals of the Russian doping scandal. The subject is fascinating, the editing and storytelling terrific, and the two main characters, director/co-writer Bryan Fogel and Grigory Rodchenkov, are fun to watch. Fogel is intensely competitive and driven, while Rodchenkov is cuddly, laid back, talkative in perfect English (albeit with a thick accent--I use closed captions whenever possible), and likes to Skype with his shirt off. It must be a Russian thing.

In the documentary Super Size Me (2004), director Morgan Spurlock subsisted on a 100% McDonald's diet for a month with medical supervision, and his body suffered. This is worse, maybe because there are needles. On a side note, the 2017 sequel Super Size Me 2, about the chicken farming industry, was scrapped after Spurlock admitted to sexual misconduct. And another one bites the dust.

Anyway, Icarus is Oscar-nominated and won a special jury award at Sundance, among other honors, so we streamed it on Netflix a few days ago.

The music is great, too, but I can't find it online. Composer Adam Peters (formerly of Echo & the Bunnymen) is co-credited for Snowden and that soundtrack is readily available.

Here's an interesting article going deeper into the subject. No need to read it. Just watch the movie. Don't sit too close to your screen, though, if you get MPMS, or Motion Picture Motion Sickness. Here's my running list.

Jack and I are in complete agreement with Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, averaging 92 and 95%, respectively.

The Boss Baby (2017)

Jack and I laughed a lot at this silly story of a 7 year old boy whose baby brother is actually an adult in baby guise sent to ensure the popularity of babies in the world. Like Calvin and Hobbes, the baby talks when the kids are alone and gurgles or cries when adults are present. Oscar- (and other) nominated, the movie has too many culture references to list. Okay, here's one: there's some Pink Panther-style animation. It can be streamed for a small fee on iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube.

We've seen the trailer many times so it's easy to get used to the voice of Alec Baldwin (last blogged for Paris Can Wait) as the Boss Baby. His brother Timothy is ably voiced by Miles Bakshi, grandson of Ralph Bakshi (cartoonist and animator known for Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, and the Fritz the Cat (1972) movie). Adult Timothy narrates with the voice of Tobey Maguire (most recently in these pages for The Great Gatsby). Timothy's parents are voiced by Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow, and Steve Buscemi (last blogged for Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer) appears in the second act as a villain.

Tom McGrath (we didn't see any of the three Madagascar movies he directed) helms from a script by Michael McCullers (co-writer with Mike Myers of two Austin Powers sequels, director/writer of Baby Mama (2008), "additional screenplay material" for Mr. Peabody & Sherman, more) adapted from the 2010 picture book by Marla Frazee. Here is the entire book, read aloud with the pages displayed.

Composer Hans Zimmer (most recently scored Blade Runner 2049) and Steve Mazzaro (apparently a frequent collaborator) give us a soundtrack (here's one track and another) that goes from childlike to thriller-style, supplemented by many songs listed here, including many covers of the Beatles' Blackbird.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences aren't enthralled, averaging 52% for both. It's certainly not great art but we had fun and suspect that it could be entertaining for little kids (as long as the initial concept of using up all your parents' love isn't too distressing). It's rated PG.

The Square (2017)

Baffling. And long. The curator of a Swedish contemporary art museum is the protagonist but this award-winning and -nominated movie veers wildly into contemplations of class and prestige, with one crazy performance art piece near the end. We rented it last week on iTunes for its Best Foreign Film Oscar nod and Palme d'Or win at Cannes last year.

Claes Bang, who is Danish, plays the curator, named Christian. In the beginning he seems a pleasant enough, and quite handsome, fellow, though by the end I, for one, was questioning his actions. Elisabeth Moss' (after Truth I enjoyed her intense performances in The Handmaid's Tale and Top of the Lake season two) reporter Anne is perplexing, swinging from professional to needy to just plain dumb. Dominic West (profiled in Pride) doesn't deserve the billing he gets, as he's in two scenes. Terry Notary is also top billed (and prominently pictured) on the poster with the other three, and, although he appears rarely, his one big scene is a big deal, where he plays an ape-man, appropriate for his other credits, which include stunts, motion capture, and movement choreography on several of the Planet of the Apes reboots. That said, the ape-man's big scene doesn't advance the plot as far as we could tell.

This is the fifth feature for Swedish director/writer Ruben Östland.

The locations are gorgeous: the museum, Christian's opulent apartment, several aerial shots of square stairwells.

Notably featured are Bobby McFerrin's  Improvisació n°1 and his duet with Yo Yo Ma on Ave Maria, along with other songs, listed here.

Jack and I aren't in agreement with Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 82%, nor its audiences at 72. We'd give it about a 50 for the cinematography. He says, "It's too much work!" We were grateful to have watched it home so we could jeer and take breaks.