from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/05/movies/film-she-s-having-a-baby-from-john-hughes.html
She’s Having A Baby (1988)
FOR John Hughes's Ferris Bueller, it was only a day off; for his Jefferson (Jake) Briggs, it may be an entire life. In the first scene of ''She's Having a Baby,'' which opens today at the Paramount and other theaters, Jake is seen marrying a woman he can barely stand, and this is only the beginning of his half-heartedness and disenchantment. He takes a dismal job in advertising. He moves to a sterile suburb. He winces at his wife's cooking. Jake seems bored with his entire existence, and as such he may be an even less sympathetic character than his teen-age antecedent.
''She's Having a Baby'' is supposed to be about how Jake changes, but there's nothing in the first 98 percent of the film to indicate he's even capable of that. This character is shallow, smug and lazy, which is not to say Mr. Hughes can't make such qualities amusing; in the past, he has. But in this film's case, misanthropy in general and misogyny in particular are greater problems. Even when Jake, imagining his wife at death's door, is finally prompted to have some nice thoughts about her, there's no changing the fact that he hates his house, neighbors, job, in-laws and everything else about his life.
Kevin Bacon is likable even when Jake is not, which is most of the time. But Elizabeth McGovern has a dreadful role that seems fatuous even by the standards of the 1950's, which is where this film's sense of social satire lies. (There is actually a fantasy sequence in which men with lawnmowers and women carrying trays of drinks do a little mock-suburban dance around the lawn sprinklers.) As Jake's wife, Kristy, Miss McGovern is made to seem a sexless, listless drone, an embodiment of domesticity at its most life-denying. However, while the film throws other women at Jake (most notably a fantasy creature with a European accent), it doesn't have the nerve to give him any more libido than his wife has.
Aiming at a target as easy as suburban sterility, ''She's Having a Baby'' might be expected to hit its mark every now and then. But the film's mood is simply too sour, despite the best efforts of a cast filled with appealing actors, a number of whom have had walk-ons in other Hughes efforts. Another modest plus is the pop-music soundtrack, which is as lighthearted as the comedy is leaden. When Jake and his wife have fertility problems and Kristy insists they take a more scientific approach to sex, Sam Cooke's ''Chain Gang'' is heard in the background.
''She's Having a Baby'' is rated PG-13 (''Special Parental Guidance Suggested for Those Younger Than 13''). It includes some sexual references and strong language. Mating Rituals SHE'S HAVING A BABY, directed, written and produced by John Hughes; director of photography, Don Peterman; music by Stewart Copeland; production designer, John Corso; released by Paramount Pictures. At Guild 50th Street, 33 West 50th Street; Paramount, 61st Street and Broadway; New York Twin, Second Avenue and 66th Street; 34th Street Showplace, between Second and Third Avenues. Running time: 106 minutes. This film is rated PG-13. Jake Briggs... Kevin Bacon Kristy Briggs... Elizabeth McGovern Russ Bainbridge... William Windom Jim Briggs... James Ray Sarah Briggs... Holland Taylor
from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/under-the-banner-of-heaven-fx-hulu-tv-review-2022
Under The Banner of Heaven
FX's Under the Banner of Heaven is a Shocking, Fascinating Investigation of Faith
Nick Allen April 28, 2022
Based on the novel by Jon Krakauer and created by Dustin Lance Black, the FX series “Under the Banner of Heaven” concerns a grisly murder in an unlikely place—a heavily Mormon community in Utah, where a cop like Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) says that everyone leaves their doors unlocked. Pyre is one of many devout followers to the visions and whims of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith, which has since fostered tight-knit, wholesome, peaceful, but silencing places like Pyre’s.
The message of Joseph Smith has different meaning to the members of the Lafferty family, whose story turns Black’s series into much more than an in-depth murder investigation, but an American saga of faith, gender roles, and radicalism. Known locally as the Kennedys of Utah, the Laffertys are initially shown as a high-energy, eclectic bunch under the imposing patriarch Ammon (Christopher Heyerdahl), who leads his sons with a tight fist that sometimes has a whipping belt: Ron (Sam Worthington), Dan (Wyatt Russell), Jacob (Taylor St. Pierre), Allen (Billy Howle), Robin (Seth Numrich), and Samuel (Rory Culkin). That masculine intensity is only masked so much when we first meet them, through the eyes of Brenda (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who married into the family via Allen. She is not too ready for the submissive roles that the Lafferty women (played by the likes of Britt Irvin, Chloe Pirrie, Megan Leitch, Michele Wienecke, Denise Gough) have more or less accepted. It’s a calm, outdoor lunch, and the pleasant setting contrasts with how uncomfortable it becomes: the harmonious nature of the Laffertys turns disquieting, and that's before one brother tells Brenda’s future husband Allen to “mind [his] property.”
In a gripping pilot episode, the present part of the timeline in the early 1980s is chaos. After showing up with blood all over his clothes at the crime scene where his wife Brenda and their 15-month-old baby have been brutally murdered, Allen is quickly taken into police custody. Allen becomes one of many messengers who clues us into the progressively sinister ways of the Laffertys, which started with espousing rebellious anti-government ideals to later preaching about polygamy and embracing fundamentalism. The roads within “Under the Banner of Heaven” are windy and ominous, and learning about former Mormon traditions like a “blood atonement” is just a piece of its shocking true story.
As much as the series concerns the Lafferty family history, charting how their already conservative ways became even more toxic, much of it hinges on Garfield’s performance. He plays one of the most gentle, wholesome cops to have been in a true crime story—perhaps too soft, why is he in this business? But he’s able to talk the quiet talk, with Garfield’s soft voice given a great showcase as he learns more about other family men of his church. As more information comes to light, about the Laffertys but also the history of fundamental Mormonism, the story becomes all the more about him seeing the makings of his whole world perspective. It’s a personal case, with the show’s unique stakes being that of his belief in an institution he seems to have never questioned.
Garfield’s gentle nature brings us into this from the very beginning—the series’ handheld cinematography initially presents him playing with his two daughters on a sunny day. But then he’s called into work. With Jeff Ament’s building score prodding at the moment, we follow Pyre through a gruesome crime scene, noticing shot by shot the blood that has been scattered. Garfield's face and stillness give us a visceral sense of his dread, of having to approach a point of no return. He doesn’t want to know what horrifying sight is behind a bloodied door to a nursery, but he must confront it head on.
Using its nuanced emphasis on faith, “Under the Banner of Heaven” gradually depicts in extensive flashback how their ways became so monstrous. The performances, however, are sometimes too overzealous in their manic nature—like how Culkin transforms into complete mania and guttural scripture-spewing. (It doesn’t help that by design we don’t see until later the connective tissue of how these changes came to be until into later episodes.) And while Worthington is especially stiff in a role that also calls for him to be gradually monstrous, Wyatt Russell gives the standout performance here. He uses his salesman-ready warmth and sometimes cracking voice to illustrate the growth of thinking, from why he shouldn’t have to pay taxes, to why he should have multiple wives. Like his father, he can readily claim a challenge from Heavenly Father as just more fuel for his destructive fire.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” moves about its expansive story of toxic faith with the rhythm of a true-crime page-turner, thanks to its growing list of witnesses who provide more and more background, and its select moments of action. Courtney Hunt (“Frozen River”) has an assured touch for tense standoffs that end in revealing conversations, and David Mackenzie (“Hell or High Water”) adds fire to scenes that are largely built from police questioning, while creating a robust buddy cop chemistry between Garfield and Birmingham’s unamused, non-religious outsider Bill Taba. Meanwhile the plotting stays tight, motivated by a mystery about the possible suspects seen at Brenda and Allen’s home, along with the uncertainty of where certain Lafferty brothers have vanished to in the modern timeline.
The series is so expansive that it even takes time to recount the history of Joseph Smith, his wife Emma, and the competing prophet Brigham Young, which is told in sizable snippets throughout. Used to complement what the Laffertys have come to believe, these reflections can feel more sinister and eyeopening than the regular History Channel-ready passages they resemble in production value. It’s more that the editing can be overzealous in flashing back between them, as if overemphasizing how these stories all overlap, but disorienting the viewer in the process. It’s easy to imagine “Under the Banner of Heaven” without these moments, or in so much detail. But they prove part of the show’s own wrestling with Mormonism, and its intricate albeit often horrific reckoning with messengers who use the message to serve themselves.
In the midst of this story is Edgar-Jones' Brenda, sometimes forgotten about in the story’s emotional scope, but a vital voice. Her story, told by Allen in jail, has a more welcome type of radicalism: she went to Brigham Young University with hopes of becoming a TV journalist, she outsmarted creepy professors who then told her only men could read the news, she became a voice of vital reason while the Lafferty men were starting to lose their minds to the gods in their head. Edgar-Jones creates a rich, spirited performance out of a tragedy for how fruitful a progressive mind can be, and similarly how conservative ideals can so readily eat people alive.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” is a mighty busy show, sometimes to the detriment of its many ideas, its many stories, and all those Laffertys. But it is held together by its fascinating, unique way of presenting faith—it’s not as reverential as stories so deep in these communities can be, and it’s also more empathetic to earnest believers like Brenda and Jeb. The show is a gripping investigation in many ways, especially as it preaches the clarity that comes in not being afraid to ask questions.
from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blazing-saddles-1974
Blazing Saddles
by
Roger Ebert
There are some people who can literally get away with anything -- say anything, do anything -- and people will let them. Other people attempt a mildly dirty joke and bring total silence down on a party. Mel Brooks is not only a member of the first group, he is its lifetime president. At its best, his comedy operates in areas so far removed from taste that (to coin his own expression) it rises below vulgarity.
"Blazing Saddles" is like that. It's a crazed grabbag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken. Mostly, it succeeds. It's an audience picture; it doesn't have a lot of classy polish and its structure is a total mess. But of course! What does that matter while Alex Karris is knocking a horse cold with a right cross to the jaw?
The movie is, among other things, a comedy Western. The story line, which is pretty shaky, involves some shady land speculators who need to run a railroad through Ridge Rock, and decide to drive the residents out. The last thing they want there is law and order, and so the crooks send in a black sheriff (Cleavon Little), figuring the townspeople will revolt.
Well, they almost do, but the sheriff (Black Bart is his name, of course) wins them over, and signs up a drunken sharpshooter (Gene Wilder) as his deputy. Meanwhile ... but what am I saying, meanwhile? Meanwhile, six dozen other things happen. The townspeople decide to stay and make a stand, even though, as the preacher intones, "Our women have been stampeded and our cattle raped." Bart rejects the advances of a man-killing woman who has been sicced on him (Madeline Kahn as Marlene Dietrich -- Lili von Shtupp), and the people build a dummy town and lure the bad guys into it.
One of the hallmarks of Brooks' movie humor has been his willingness to embrace excess. In his "The Producers," one of the funniest movies ever made, we got the immortal "Springtime for Hitler" production number, and Zero Mostel seducing little old ladies in the bushes, and Gene Wilder (again) choreographed with the Lincoln Center water fountain. Brooks' "The Twelve Chairs," not as funny, still had such great scenes as Brooks himself as an obsequious serf clinging to his master's leg.
And "Blazing Saddles" is like that from beginning to end, except for a couple of slow stretches. The baked bean scene alone qualifies the movie for some sort of Wretched Excess award. Then there's the whole business of Mongol (Alex Karris) who is a kind of dimwitted Paul Bunyan. He rides into town on an ox, sent to eliminate Bart, but is seduced by a black powder bomb in a Candygram. It would take too long to explain.
One of the criticisms of "The Producers" was that it took too long to end after "Springtime for Hitler." Determined that "Blazing Saddles" wouldn't end slowly, Brooks has provided for it a totally uninhibited Hollywood fantasy that includes a takeoff on "Top Hat," a scene at Graumann's Chinese Theater, a pie fight and, of course, a final fadeout into the sunset.
You S4
from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/09/you-season-four-part-two-review-utterly-terrible-and-yet-it-is-perfect
You season four part two review – utterly terrible … and yet it is perfect
The cast is inconsistent, the satire is shallow and the twists are laughable – but somehow this hottest of televisual messes is impossible to resist
Leila Latif
Thu 9 Mar 2023 04.57 EST
In a 2014 episode of the US sitcom Community, a character named Abed is driven round the bend by his quest to determine whether Nicolas Cage is “good or bad”. This is the same gibbering state that awaits those trying to assess the merits of season four of You. The cast is inconsistent, the satire is shallow, plot lines materialise out of nowhere and are unceremoniously dropped with jarring frequency, and its largest twist is laughable.
And yet, it is perfect.
While the first half of season four vacillated between bad, good and so-bad-it’s-good with aplomb, the second broadens the spectrum from astonishingly terrible to utterly brilliant. It picks up where we left off: Joe AKA Prof Jonathan Moore (played by Penn Badgley) is back in London having evaded being immolated by the “Eat the Rich” Killer, who was revealed to be Rhys Montrose (a delightful Ed Speleers), a working-class man repulsed by the elite circles he now mixes in. Rhys is passionately campaigning to become London’s mayor, and Joe is stalking his nemesis, convinced that he must best him before he pins a slew of murders on him – ignoring the lengthy monologue in which Rhys stated his intention to pin the murders on maniacal aristo Roald. Not that “pinning” the murders on anyone seems wholly necessary, given that the investigative forces behind a highly publicised serial killer haven’t noticed that a man with a fake identity, whose only disguise is a baseball cap, has been at every crime scene.
A certain breeziness seems to permeate virtually every character. Aside from Lady Phoebe, no one seems particularly perturbed by their recent murder-filled weekend away. The second half of the season spends less time with the group of snobs we’ve come to love to hate, but we still get plenty of Lukas Gage’s seriously appalling playboy, Adam. He joins Shay Mitchell’s socialite, Peach, from season one, James Scully’s trust fund baby, Forty Quinn, from season two and Shalita Grant’s swinging momfluencer, Sherry, from season three as this season’s MVP. His scenery-chewing helps to distract from the low stakes of his storyline about whether a private member’s club will secure sufficient financial backing.
To keep the wheels in motion, and to get around the liberties this show takes with plot structure and human behaviour, we get a lot of characters monologuing. But this “tell don’t show” approach somehow works in its favour. The camp joys are at their finest when characters stare into the middle distance and unveil diabolical schemes. Charlotte Ritchie proves particularly adept at this as Joe’s love interest Kate, looking haunted as she reveals some of the most dumbfounding motives imaginable.
You succeeds because its flaws are so enjoyable. Never mind Greg Kinnear and Ritchie being the worst father-daughter casting in living memory. Never mind that there are so many “you”s referred to in Joe’s narration that it’s impossible to follow who he’s talking about half the time. Never mind that the performances are pitched so differently that it could be an ungodly collage from a dozen disparate shows. You is having a riot unencumbered by the pursuit of nuance. Joe’s snarky Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde internal monologue, the ridiculous leaps in logic, and the sizzling homoeroticism between Rhys and Joe are all part of the fun.
A brief reappearance from Victoria Peretti as Joe’s wonderfully deranged ex-wife, Love, only serves to highlight the dusty void of chemistry between Ritchie and Badgley. But that also works to the show’s advantage, when even the most heavily signposted developments maintain an air of surprise because it’s never clear if Joe and Kate actually like each other.
The final episode proves to be the best/worst, with a series of plotlines concluding either off-screen, with unhinged twists or with actual magic. Whereas earlier seasons ended by trying to subvert our expectations of romcoms and white male privilege, the conclusions of seasons three and four both seem to have been freed from the need to mean anything at all. It’s just a chance for the writers to play whack-a-mole with a many-headed hydra of plot. But as with watching Joe scheme his way out of a murder, there’s a similar meta-textual joy in watching the writers figure their way out of chaos.skip past newsletter promotion
There are hints as to what the future could hold (season five has not been announced, but given the show’s popularity it seems assured) but at this point, every shark has been jumped. Despite having adored this hottest of messes, the show, like Joe, should probably quit while he’s ahead.
From Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/gen-v-the-boys-prime-video-tv-review-2023
Gen V
Superhero fatigue has finally hit mainstream audiences in the last couple of years. Abysmal box office numbers and critical work about the failings of many franchises have begun to strike. But, one IP remains in the good graces of of fans and critics alike. Since its inception in 2019, Prime Video’s “The Boys” has achieved something other superhero films or TV shows have not: engaging criticism about the genre it's bound to.
When it was announced that there would be a spinoff of "The Boys," fans and critics alike were wary. Not only is a spinoff something that other superhero IPs have often failed at, but this one would also focus on young adults at a university. The coming-of-age genre is not necessarily something superhero IPs have done well (remember Hulu’s “Runaways” adaptation?). Would the creators lose sight of what they’re attempting to critique? The answer, thankfully, is no.
“Gen V” begins with a young girl—later revealed to be the child version of the show's main character, Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair)—getting her period for the first time. She’s confused by the event and is even more so when her blood begins to float as if the substance has a mind of its own. Things get weirder (and more violent) from there, culminating in a brutal and shocking introduction to Marie and “Gen V” as a show.
Thankfully, the surprises don't stop there. We follow an older, traumatized Marie in a mundane life that she desperately longs to escape. A way out comes in the form of an acceptance to Godolkin University School of Crimefighting, a school that specifically houses students with super-powered abilities.
"Gen V" reveals the messiness of young adulthood, basking in displays of drunken mistakes and glimpses of bodily fluids. At its core, though, “Gen V” draws viewers in with a mystery at the center of its story. Late one night, Marie sees security personnel employed by the university take an erratic young man - later revealed to be named Sam (Asa Germann), who ends up becoming an essential character in the story - into their custody. Thinking nothing of it, she lets it go until other events cause her and her new friends to believe this isn't an isolated incident and perhaps these students aren’t the ones causing harm.
Later, after a public student death and a subsequent cover-up, Marie quickly becomes a hero in the public eye. She rises in the ranks at school and outside of it, becoming the first freshman on the school’s power ranking roster. Shining through the cameras and makeup, though, Marie must question her integrity as she knows that she's not the hero the school is making her out to be. Guided by the hand of Superintendent Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn), Marie must attempt to free herself from the clutches of those who wish to control her.
“Gen V” masterfully juggles its laugh-out-loud comedy and biting critiques with its more serious moments, becoming a show about young people rectifying or trying to recover from the mistakes of the adults in their lives. Each character is haunted by the shadow their parents have left them in, whether intentionally or not, and ultimately, the show attempts to allow them to escape it. Slowly but surely, each character wrenches themselves from the clutches of their past until they can become freer versions of themselves and build the new family they have longed for.
The chemistry between the group is fantastic, and as the season goes on, disdain for each other unravels into a bond that each of them desperately needs. Two standouts are Emma (Lizzie Broadway), Marie’s roommate, and Andre (Chance Perdomo), the wingman for Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the top-ranked student at Godolkin University. In the first episode, both Emma and Andre appear as if they will strictly remain sidekicks, but quickly, the two become essential to not only the story “Gen V” is trying to tell but the new family these characters find themselves in. With the power to get as small as a pinkie finger and the power of magnetism manipulation, respectively, these two don’t initially stand out amongst the other powers "Gen V" is showing off. However, the actors provide some of the series' best and most emotional work.
Whether it's the handful of charismatic characters or an abrupt cut-to-black followed by a Hole needle-drop, it's clear from the first episode that fans of "The Boys" are in good hands. What could have been a catastrophic spin-off instead establishes that this may be the sole superhero franchise that still understands what its viewers want. Nor is “Gen V” completely bound to its predecessor; it can exist separate from “The Boys” and its characters. Sure, there may be a glimpse of Homelander and a slightly jarring cameo from another hero later in the season, but what makes this show great is that anyone can enjoy it. “Gen V” is a fun and biting coming-of-age drama—it just happens to be full of superheroes.
from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/movies/the-imitation-game-stars-benedict-cumberbatch.html
The Imitation Game
By A.O. Scott
“The Imitation Game” is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Alan Turing’s tragically shortened life — he was 41 when he died in 1954 — is a complex and fascinating story, bristling with ideas and present-day implications, and it benefits from the streamlined structure and accessible presentation of modern prestige cinema. The science is not too difficult, the emotions are clear and emphatic, and the truth of history is respected just enough to make room for tidy and engrossing drama.
An Alan Turing biopic is, all in all, a very welcome thing. Chances are that you are reading this, as I am writing it, on a device that came into being partly as a result of papers Turing published in the 1930s exploring the possibility of what he called a “universal machine.” His decisive contribution to the breaking of the Nazi Enigma code gave the Allied forces an intelligence advantage that helped defeat Germany, though the extent of his wartime role was kept secret for many years. The secret of his homosexuality was revealed when he was arrested on indecency charges in 1952, caught up in a Cold War climate of homophobia and political paranoia and subjected to the pseudoscientific cruelty of the British judicial system.
“The battle of the British geniuses” is one of the themes that has emerged from this years Oscar race, for this year there are two biopics about two ingenious English men. One is the “Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which tells the story about Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who cracked a seemingly impenetrable Nazi code, known as enigma, only to be persecuted for being gay. The other is “Theory of Everything,” starring Eddie Redmayne as the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, in a film that focuses largely on his 30-year marriage to his indomitable wife Jane, played by Felicity Jones. Both films are in the running for best picture nods, and both leads - Mr. Redmayne and Mr. Cumberbatch - are projected to be nominated for best actor. This has raised the specter that, for Academy voters, the films might in effect cancel each other out, by dint of their roughly similar themes. Adding a further twist, Mr. Cumberbatch played Stephen Hawking, in a BBC television production in 2004. Both of their characters also find indefatigable support in exceptionally bright women - in the “Imitation Game,” it is the character played by Keira Knightley, and in Theory of Everything, Ms. Jones. OF course there are differences between the two. “Imitation Game” is more of an ensemble piece, and “Theory of Everything” a story of a couple whose relationship ultimately runs its course. Mr. Cumberbatch’s Turing is cut off from others by both his homosexuality - which was illegal at the time - and his inability to read social cues. As Hawking, Mr. Redmayne undergoes an astonishing physical transformation as he bodies is increasingly paralyzed by ALS. And, for both actors, the challenge was to reach beyond these impediments to reveal the inner emotional life of each man.
All of this is a lot for a single movie to take in, and “The Imitation Game,” directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Graham Moore, prunes and compresses a narrative laid out most comprehensively in Andrew Hodges’s scrupulous and enthralling 1983 biography. The film interweaves three decisive periods in Turing’s life, using his interrogation by a Manchester detective (Rory Kinnear) as a framing device. Turing tells the investigator — who thinks he is after a Soviet spy rather than a gay man — about what he did during the war. Later, there are flashbacks to Turing’s school days, where he discovered the joys of cryptography and fell in love with a slightly older boy named Christopher Morcom.
The adult Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch (his younger self is Alex Lawther), expanding his repertoire of socially awkward intellectual prodigies, real and fictional. What has made Mr. Cumberbatch so effective as Sherlock Holmes and Julian Assange — and what makes his Alan Turing one of the year’s finest pieces of screen acting — is his curious ability to suggest cold detachment and acute sensitivity at the same time. If he did not exist, 21st-century popular culture would have to invent him: a sentient robot, an empathetic space alien, a warm-blooded salamander with crazy sex appeal.
His Turing, whom the film seems to place somewhere on the autism spectrum, is as socially awkward as he is intellectually agile. He can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal. Jokes fly over his head, sarcasm does not register, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation.
“The Imitation Game” derives some easy amusement from the friction between this “odd duck” and the prevailing culture of his native pond. The film’s notion of Britain — not inaccurate, but also not hugely insightful — is as a land of understatement, indirection and steadfast obedience to norms of behavior that seem, to a fiercely logical mind like Turing’s, arbitrary and incomprehensible. At Bletchley Park, the country estate where teams of linguists and mathematicians are working under military supervision to break Enigma, he is seen as stubborn and arrogant. The head of Bletchley, Commander Denniston (Charles Dance), finds him insufferable, as does Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), the suave, clever playboy who runs the Enigma project until Turing, with an off-screen assist from Winston Churchill, displaces him.
The Bletchley section, enlivened by the indispensably charming Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, the only woman on the Enigma team, is the heart of the film, though it is also the most familiar and in some ways the least challenging part. (Earlier dramatizations include Hugh Whitemore’s play “Breaking the Code” and Michael Apted’s silly, Turing-free 2002 movie “Enigma.”) Mr. Tyldum, a Norwegian filmmaker perhaps best known for the slick thriller “Headhunters” (2012), orchestrates a swift and suspenseful race against the clock with a few touches of intrigue and ethical uncertainty. Mark Strong pops out of the shadows now and then as a silky, cynical MI6 spymaster, perhaps the only person in the British political establishment who fully appreciates Turing’s oddity and his genius.
“The Imitation Game,” meanwhile, settles for a partial appreciation. Turing’s sexuality is mystified and marginalized, treated as an abstraction and a plot point. There is no sense that, between his chaste, intense and brief passion for Christopher and the anonymous encounter that led indirectly to his arrest, love, sex or romance played any significant part in Turing’s life at all. Mr. Hodges’s biography, threaded with quotations from Walt Whitman, gives eloquent and sensitive testimony to the contrary. For their part, the filmmakers, though willing to treat Turing as a victim of bigotry and repression, also nudge him back toward the closet, imposing a discretion that is at once self-protective and self-congratulatory. It’s not that we need to see him having sex — the PG-13 rating must be protected, I guess — but that a vital aspect of his identity and experience deserves more than a whisper and a wink.
The film’s sexual politics may be musty and retrograde, but in other respects, it is very much a document of the present. There are lines of dialogue that sound either anachronistic or — it may amount to the same thing — prophetic. It is thrilling and strange to hear the words “digital computer” uttered a half-century before any such thing existed, and when Turing says “think differently,” it is impossible not to hear a grammatically fastidious premonition of the once-ubiquitous Apple advertising slogan. Another sentence — a slightly clumsy invocation of the power of imagination — is repeated three times and sounds each time as if it had been plagiarized from a TED talk.
More fundamentally, “The Imitation Game” is a parable of disruption. It not only provides an origin myth for the digital age, but it also projects the ideology of the present back into the past. Turing, an eccentric visionary stuck in an organization that is bureaucratic, hierarchical and wedded to tradition, is an apostle of innovation. Commander Denniston lectures him about the importance of “order, discipline and chain of command” for the war effort, but the solving of Enigma decisively rebuts this old-fashioned notion. The strategic acumen of generals and the tactical valor of soldiers is incidental. What won the war was data, and the heroes were the tech guys (and the one woman) who worked late, snacked freely, fiddled with crossword puzzles and geeked out over a piece of hardware that looked like a giant toy. Hut 8 at Bletchley Park serves as a prototype for the corporate campuses of Apple, Google and Facebook.
Just a few years ago, this film might have felt radical and counterintuitive, like a daring, inspired leap from one era to another, or an excavation of the hidden history of the present. Instead, it has the shiny, hollow ring of conventional wisdom. It’s kind of perfect, and also kind of stale.
from Roger Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pain-hustlers-movie-review-2023
Pain Hustlers (2023)
by Robert Daniels October 20, 2023
It would be significantly easier to write about “Pain Hustlers” if it bordered some extreme of either great or terrible, good or disappointing. Instead, director David Yates’ star-powered opioid exposé is simply a boring chronicling of Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), a determined single mother whose marketing tactics sparked an epidemic. By playing with formalism, using faux documentary, and cranking out hedonistic scenes of excessive drug taking and partying, Yates aims to blend “Erin Brockovich” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” But the director’s filmic language never offers quite enough sex, quite enough excess, quite enough of capitalism’s depravity. “Pain Hustlers” just doesn’t know how to commit.
Yates teases: He opens his film on a staged black and white documentary as a brash Pete Brenner (Chris Evans) explains his shock and disappointment that Liza would betray him. She begins as a mystery woman, an unlikely mother with a GED education who brought down an empire. When Yates switches away from the in-film documentary to the semi-fictional (“Pain Hustlers” is an inspired adaptation of Evan Hughes' non-fiction work The Hard Sell), world of the picture, Liza is living in her sister’s basement with her mother (Catherine O’Hara). During the day, she takes her rebellious daughter Phoebe (Chloe Coleman) to school; at night, she works as an exotic dancer at a strip club.
Wells Tower’s congested screenplay, a work of saucy punchlines left to sour, concerns the desperation Liza feels: Not only have Liza and Phoebe been evicted from her sister’s garage, but Phoebe is battling seizures stemming from a lethal medical condition. The pair move to a motel whose noisy environment and loud environment also carries the potential of future episodes. Liza needs a break, quick. It arrives when Pete appears at her strip club. They begin to talk. He likes her tenacity; she sees an easy customer. An impressed Pete offers her a job, promising her six figures in her bank account before the end of the year. If that sounds too good to be true, it is. Pete works for a floundering pharmaceutical startup founded by Jack Neel (Andy Garcia). They sell fentanyl, a drug they promise isn’t addictive and works better and quicker than the usual pain relief provided to cancer patients. A competitive market of other pharmaceutical companies, who keep doctors from prescribing the company’s medication, is the only reason they haven’t gotten off the ground. Still, for Liza, working on commission is better than nothing.
Blunt is really the only reason to watch “Pain Hustlers.” She gives a game performance, but poor creative decisions undermine her, like ill-considered freeze frames and unnecessary uses of voiceover. As a character, Liza is also too simplistic. Through her grit, she gets a doctor to sign a prescription for fentanyl (the doctor gets a kickback; the startup gets the upfront money; she receives a percentage). Once she gets one doctor hooked, Liza and Peter go about paying other doctors to switch over to prescribing their drug. The company quickly grows, and Liza rises from the motel to a swank condo within six months, with Phoebe attending an expensive prep school. Business is so good that not only does Liza buy her mom a new car, but she gives her a job at the startup, too. Liza succeeds because of her dedication: She truly believes she’s helping people in pain, and in some way, she connects their suffering with her daughter’s seizures. Blunt understands that throughline, pulling it out but never explicitly showing that undercurrent.
Outside of Blunt, no one else exceeds the daft material. When Evans first turned skeevy in “Knives Out,” the subversion of his Captain America image worked. But after “The Gray Man,” dipping back in the well here is overkill—especially because Pete is the weakest iteration of that character type. Evans is wasted in “Pain Hustlers,” with few memorable emotions and even fewer admirable quips. Garcia is mostly an afterthought; O’Hara appears stuck in quicksand. Snap, chemistry, verve, whatever you want to call it, is lacking with this ensemble.
Likewise, the visual and sonic language flops. Yates tries to pull off several dizzying montages of unrestrained partying, greed, and opulence without the panache to make them stick. We’ve seen Martin Scorsese do this so much better, with greater precision, with an alluring flair for the intoxicating elements of a frenzied and craven environment. In Yates’ hands, the same techniques and scenes of zealot capitalists cheering for cash at any cost feel desperately composed rather than uniquely edgy.
“Pain Hustlers” is better at understanding sincerity. Scenes where Liza sees former friends become addicts off her drug when the living speak about the loved ones they’ve lost to overdose, allow the film to find sure, empathetic footing. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of those scenes. Yates is caught between critiquing the inhumanity of this startup and luxuriating in its gaudiness.
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