‘House of Gucci’ uninspired and unsure of itself

Posted on December 16, 2021 by reelentropy
Images courtesy United Artists Releasing.

4/10 Director/producer Ridley Scott has released his second feature in as many months, and it’s decidedly the lesser of the two.

House of Gucci goes through the true story of Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), who married into the Gucci family in 1972 and was eventually convicted of arranging the assassination of her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), in 1995. The movie covers her fight for control of the company, first against her unambitious husband and then against the family’s elders, until the marriage deteriorates, freezing her out regardless. Reggiani served 18 years in prison from a 29-year sentence and is still alive today and still introduces herself as a Gucci, despite being legally barred from doing so.

In this year-end torrent of new work from big-name directors, some backlogged from the shutdown and some new, the question I constantly find myself asking is why a given director wants to tell the story they’re telling, and House of Gucci refuses to answer for itself. The 158-minute slog lacks energy, visual inspiration or even a particular angle for telling this story. It is tiring, slow and what little it has to say about its subject matter is obvious.

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Magical, musical ‘Encanto’ delights

Posted on December 16, 2021 by reelentropy
Images courtesy Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

8/10 In Encanto, off-brand Pixar does Colombian X-Men. This crazed Mad Lib is a real movie, and it’s pretty good.

Colombia- As Alma Madrigal (María Cecilia Botero, with Olga Merediz stepping in for singing parts) flees an unspecified conflict in Colombia, a miracle! Magic filigrees the candle she carries, which ceases to burn down. It saves her, conjures a mansion and blesses her triplets with magical powers.

Decades later, Alma, now a grandmother, has used her family’s blessing to embed it into and protect their new community, and the candle has continued to endow every newborn Madrigal with a wondrous magical gift – all except Mirabel Madrigal (Stephanie Beatriz), who was inexplicably passed over. The entire town sighs with relief when Antonio Madrigal (Ravi-Cabot Conyers), the youngest to come of age since Mirabel, receives his birthright as expected, but Mirabel witnesses the casita begin to crack. She determines to somehow stop her family’s light from going out.

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‘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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