‘Belfast’ full of heart, doesn’t dazzle

Posted on December 6, 2021 by reelentropy
Images courtesy Focus Features.

4/10 Writer/director/producer Kenneth Branagh has a long track record of trying to let his stories tell themselves, and you just can’t do that with narrative fiction movies, a medium in which everything onscreen must be actively created, everything is a choice. His new autobiography, Belfast, seems more ambitious than his usual work on paper, but falls prey to the same tendencies and preferences.

96 Mountcollyer St., Belfast, Aug. 15, 1969- The Troubles explode across Northern Ireland, and in Belfast, protestant loyalists attack historic Catholic neighborhoods, such as the one where Buddy (Jude Hill) lives with his mother and grandparents (Caitríona Balfe, Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench). Over the next year of violence, his father (Jamie Dornan), who works weeks in mainland U.K., tries to convince them all to leave Belfast.

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Larrín’s mopey ‘Spencer’ still a step up from usual Oscar faire

Posted on December 6, 2021 by reelentropy
One of Diana’s main points of rebellion is against her prescribed wardrobe, drawing constant focus to her clothing. Costume designer Jacqueline Durran condenses the looks of one of history’s most photographed women into a few dresses while under specific instruction to not repeat any of her real-life outfits as Larraín wanted to avoid putting a specific date on Spencer, despite dialogue and subtitles that specify it runs Dec. 24-26 1991. Images courtesy Neon.

4/10 Spencer’s advertisements always have a moment to designate it as an “official selection” in the Venice, Toronto and Telluride film festivals, which is quite literally a show of participation trophies. “Official selection” means it got on the schedule, which is not a small feat, but highlighting how many tastemakers saw this and decided not to give it a real award isn’t a smooth marketing move.

Sandringham House, Christmas 1991- Diana, Princess of Wales (Kristen Stewart), sleepwalks through the British royal family’s holiday celebration. Her marriage to Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) is already disintegrating, and though she is unable to hold a conversation or even stand alone in a room without distress at this point, she will remain married into the family for another five years. Diana navigates her isolation, her exhaustion with the specific traditions of the House of Windsor, the suppressive gossip of the staff that makes her every breath into tabloid fodder and the rigid wardrobe, menu and future that have been laid out for her.

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‘Dispatches’ from a perfectly romantic memory

Posted on December 6, 2021 by reelentropy
For all The French Dispatch has to offer visually, it’s Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet) and his psychotic hair that carries the movie’s iconography. Images courtesy Searchlight Pictures.

10/10 In an Oscar season that’s quickly turned into an onslaught of big-name directors’ newest works, seemingly both backlogged 2020 releases and lockdown productions, writer/director/producer Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun is the giant, perfectly symmetrical jewel dead at the center of the crown wreath of anticipated films capping 2021.

Ennui-sur-Blasé, France, 1975- Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), editor and founder of The French Dispatch, has died of a heart attack, and as his was the beating heart of the Dispatch, so the magazine must die. The film relates the final publication of The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. Cycling reporter Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) updates on daily life in Ennui; J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) lectures on the masterpieces of incarcerated painter Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro); Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) delivers a whistful, gonzo report on tensions at the local university, as male students’ attempts to get into the girls’ dorm have boiled over into The Chessboard Revolution; and Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright, no relation) gives an interview on a thrilling dinner with the Ennui police commissaire (Mathieu Amalric) and his private chef, Lt. Nescaffier (Stephen Park), during which the commissaire’s son is kidnapped.

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Refined ‘Passing’ rips open awards season with unique look, complex story

Posted on December 6, 2021 by reelentropy
Greyscale was so important to telling Passing that Hall reportedly refused to even look at the footage in color. Images courtesy Netflix.

9/10 Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut is here in Passing, and it’s a doozy.

Harlem, 1920s- Reenie Redfield (Tessa Thompson), a black woman nervously passing in a white part of town, runs into her childhood friend, Clare Bellew (Ruth Negga). Bellew, who is also black, passes in her private life, effectively living as a white woman and even taking a virulently racist husband in John (Alexander Skarsgård). Clare Bellew misses her Harlem roots and develops an immediate attraction to both Redfield and her husband, Brian (André Holland), and progressively begins to invade their lives as one of many white tourists in the historically black neighborhood.

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‘Last Night in Soho’ easy to watch despite rough third act, subject matter

Posted on December 6, 2021 by reelentropy
This type of mirror shot, with body language beautifully expressing character even in stills, is at the heart of Last Night in Soho. Images courtesy Universal Pictures.

7/10 Last Night in Soho is a delightful, great-looking, easy-watching horror movie about sex slavery and the inability to escape the hidden sins of the past. It’s a strange watch.

Soho, London- Bright-eyed freshman Ellie Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) relocates from a small town near Redruth, Cornwall to study at the London College of Fashion. Turner, who is inspired by the youth culture and aesthetics of 1960s London, dreams vividly that she is Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a socialite who relocates to London in the ‘60s to become a star in the city’s nightclubs. Turner eagerly blurs Sandie’s identity into her own, living a double life in which she sleeps as much as she can and uses Sandie to build her personal style, but their dreams become nightmares as Sandie’s manager/boyfriend, Jack (Matt Smith), enslaves her to sell her for sex. As she experiences his crimes first-hand, Turner becomes aware that a much older Jack (Terrence Stamp) still haunts the Soho bars.

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