Movie Review: Anatomy of a Fall

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , • Leave a comment

The new movie “Anatomy of a Fall” is a foreign language film from France that based on its very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes might just win this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. As a screenwriter, one of the very first things you learn about screenwriting is to “show not tell”. This is a movie, not a book, and in a movie, it is always better to show action and subtext rather than have a great deal of dialogue. Regardless of anyone’s opinion about this movie, it is mostly about a great deal of dialogue, violating this fundamental rule of screenwriting. One problem with this much dialogue is that trying to support a “too long” of 2 1/2 hours with this much talking and less showing is much harder for the audience to sit through.

This entire story is about an impressive log cabin, somewhere in France, and a man who falls from the attic and is found dead by his son. The rest of this story is all about the French police, lawyers and the eventual murder trial, trying to piece together what happened to this man who fell do his death. The story becomes more and more complex as new information about the relationship between a wife Sandra Voyter played by Sandra Hüller and a husband Samuel played by Samuel Theis is brought out in court, during the murder trial. Seeing how a French court works is one of the most interesting parts about this film.

In one scene there is a huge argument between Sandra and Samuel that has acting that is as good as the scene in “Marriage Story”, 2019, between Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. This is one of those films that tries to force the audience to figure out what really happened and as a result, there is too much uncovering of new information and not enough final resolution.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is too high 96%, with my rating at 85%, mainly for the acting, subtracting from the story which was boring in too many areas and a 2 1/2 run time that was way too long.

Movie Review: The Holdovers

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , • Leave a comment

Considering all the movie ideas that have been tried and produced over many years, seeing a brand new story is more rare than it has ever been. One thing about the very good new movie “The Holdovers”, about a teacher and students held over the holidays at a wealthy private boys’ school is that this one is definitely something new.

The Holdovers stars Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, who is an unhappy history teacher at an all boys private school in the year 1970. Paul is disliked by just about all of his students and colleagues and is carrying around baggage from his personal and professional life that is bleeding into his relationship with just about everybody he works with.

Due to several unusual circumstances, 6 boys have to stay at the school for a few days after the holiday break and as Christmas approaches all the boys leave except for one, Angus Tully played by Dominic Sessa. It turns out that Tully’s parents are unreachable and he will have to remain at the school with Paul Hunham over Christmas and into the new year. The other person who stays at the school over the holidays is Mary Lamb played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph who is the head chef at the school.

What is most impressive about this film is not only the acting but the way, due to the growing friendships and relationships of these 3 very different people, what might be at first mundane or boring becomes interesting. As the story grows there is a great deal of transition as these 3 people learn about the pain of their personal lives, show empathy to each other, and change from 3 people who are mostly at odds and at the end of this story become friends.

As far as Paul Giamatti there is a high probability that he will receive his second Oscar nomination for this performance (his last was for his great performance in “Cinderella Man”, released in 2006).

I agree with the very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for this great film about relationships, personal pain, holding down a job, and life. I give this movie my highest recommendation.

Movie Review: The Marvels

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , • Leave a comment

When actress Brie Larson was chosen some years ago to play “Captain Marvel”, the original movie released in 2019, she signed a contract, obligating her to play this Marvel character x number of times. With the release of the latest Marvel movie, “The Marvels”, it is now obvious that Larson did not have the legal right to refuse to play this role if the script was bad. In this case, not only is the screenplay for The Marvels bad, but it could be one of the worst ever developed in the history of the movie industry. There is no story, no continuity, no explanation of what is going on, no logic. This film is nothing more than a haphazard collection of garbage action scenes, and an ongoing series of events and dialogue that makes zero sense.

The new movie The Marvels is so unbelievably bad, that there is danger that this film has caused serious damage to the Marvel franchise. It is impossible to understand, considering the millions of dollars involved with both the Captain Marvel and Marvel franchises, that a screenplay this horrendous, could ever be greenlighted to be made into an actual movie.

This film starts with three women, two of them Marvel super heroes and an ordinary person Kamala Khan, played by Iman Vellani and Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers played by Brie Larson and Monica Rambeau played by Teyonah Parris transporting from space, to a spaceship to an ordinary house, over and over again – totalling around 20 times – with no reason or explanation. There is some sort of a problem with two wrist bracelets that are causing a wormhole, in space. Around the time the 15th transport occurred, I was actually hoping I would be transported to a different movie, knowing that I was once again going to be tortured for another 2 hours..

There are other scenes that involve visiting other planets, one planet where the inhabitance communicate only through singing. There is an evil female antagonist Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton, whose existence and why she is fighting are never defined or explained, degrading into another reason for ridiculous hand to hand combat and explosions.

While sitting through this horrendous mess, I was amazed that so many people, meetings, discussions, and millions of dollars could result in a movie so bad. This is another example where the wrong people in charge believe that costs can be cut and time can be saved, by forgoing a good story in favor of action scenes and relying on the Marvel name to bring people to the theater. This time around, this film will bomb at the box office, hopefully changing this throw anything at a wall laziness and something this bad will never be produced again.

I was amazed at the only 61% low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes for this disaster, with my rating of 10% and a run for your life never see this film in your life final opinion.