mother!

First Hit:  It was not very interesting, was poorly scripted and had little to offer.

Director Darren Aronofsky probably had something to say by making this film, but I can only come up with snide thoughts like:  The battle between control and chaos is difficult. One needs to ask their partner before inviting people into the house. People like Him (Javier Bardem), need to have their ego stroked. Well-known artists, Him, would sacrifice his family for outside admiration. People will give the artists they admire leeway to act poorly. Life is a never-ending sequence of the same stuff over and over again. I could go on.

One troubling aspect about this film was that Darren had some great actors, but Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) seemed like she was saying lines and occasionally her actions were more engaging. Him seemed to take on the poor struggling artist role rather mediocrely. Together they were a shipwreck ready to happen throughout the entire film.

The story is that Mother has rebuilt a very large house because it burned down in a fire. It was Him’s family home. She’s doing this because she loves Him and the poems that he’s written in the past. However, he’s had writer's block since the fire burned down his family’s home.

One day, Man (Ed Harris), a chain smoking doctor, shows up at their home thinking it is a place where he can rent a room while doing research. Without asking Mother, Him tells Man that he can stay there as long as he wants. Feeling pushed aside, Mother reluctantly goes along with this.

Then the rest of Man’s family shows up. Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) is pushy and is very passive aggressive while Mother waits on her. All the while Him likes their company. Woman tells Mother that she needs to have a baby to really know what life is about.

During an argument, Him and Mother have make-up sex and she gets pregnant. Also, Woman and Man’s boys come to the house and start a big fight and one of the boys gets killed.

With Mother being pregnant and the killing of the boy, Him writes another poem that causes a national stir and now thousands of people come to the house to both grieve the dead boy and the celebration of this new poem. This makes Mother angry as she tries to kick everyone out because they are wrecking the house she built.

Then the film heads into over weird with rituals and demons and other stuff. Why? I cannot tell you why even if I knew. It is beyond my understanding of the point and purpose of this story and film.

Lawrence gives a uneven performance. It was both difficult and easy to understand her love and devotion based on whatever scene she was in. Bardem had an easier role of being egocentric and caring about himself more than the people for which he professed his love. Harris was OK as the initial interloper. Pfeiffer was interesting because her sarcasm and disdain towards Mother was well done. Aronofsky wrote a confusing and unclear script that came off as being overindulgent towards bizarre behavior. If the audience doesn’t get the point, why do a film like this? As director, the point was lost in the script, and therefore the acting wasn’t reflective of a cohesive story leaving the audience lost.

Overall:  This was self-indulgence at its finest and a waste of my time.

Brad's Status

First Hit:  What I loved about this film was Brad’s (Ben Stiller) authentic realistic internal dialogue about comparing.

Although there were comedic moments, they are mostly situationally driven, this film is a strong film about learning to not compare yourself with others.

Brad is living with his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) and their son Troy (Austin Abrams) in Sacramento. Brad created a non-profit and has made a decent living from this and Melanie works for the government. Troy is a musician and has done well in school and is now ready to tour and interview colleges. Brad and Troy head back to Boston to visit Harvard and Tuffs Universities. Tuffs happens to be Brad’s alma mater.

However, this trip brings up Brad’s college friendships and how all of them have become wealthy. He lays awake at night thinking about his friend’s success and how he and Melanie will be able to afford Troy’s education. Brad becomes obsessed with his financial lot in life. Melanie tells him everything will be alright as they will figure it out as they’ve always have done. However, Brad’s obsession won’t stop.

All of this is shared with the audience with voice over as we watch Brad on a trip with Troy to visit these schools.

At Harvard, Troy mistakenly misses his interview day and Brad, after trying to brag to other waiting parents, is now upset at Troy. Being a protective and caring father, he loudly argues with the admissions staff, trying to find a way to make the interview happen and embarrasses Troy and himself.

He and Melanie remember that one of Brad’s famous rich college friends Craig Fisher (Michael Sheen) [as a visiting professor] teaches a government communications course at Harvard, and has some pull, being a well known author and former White House insider. Reluctantly, Brad calls him and discovers that their other two college friends all have been in communication with each other but have left him out. He thinks it is because he lives in Sacramento, has a non-profit, and makes very little money.

This is the theme of the film, looking at the past and comparing oneself with others. Meeting some of Troy’s musician friends, he gets re-reminded of his past idealistic view of the world and starts pushing his position on Troy’s friends. They show him how his comparing mind is his struggle, not the money he makes. The point is driven home when Ananya (Shazi Raja) tells him where she grew up, just having some food and water was a very rewarding thing and that his current lifestyle is the envy of millions in the world. She tries to put it into perspective for him.

The other aspect of the film I really liked is how parents can feel when their child does well in life by making good choices. The sweet and difficult conversations between Troy and Brad are very well done.

Stiller is strong as the self-critical, obsessive, and comparing father who wants to be seen as some of his friends are seen, rich and famous. Abrams was good as the son. He was appropriately embarrassed and concerned by his father’s behavior. I loved the scene of he and his father wrestling on the bed. Sheen was very good as the arrogant old college mate of Brad. Raja was great as the idealist and realistic Harvard College friend of Troy. Fischer was very good as Brad’s wife. Mike White both wrote and directed this film and I thought many of the insights about how the comparing mind can take one away from actually living life as it shows up to you based on your decisions.

Overall:  I think this film presented a fairly realistic view how comparing success in the business world with my one’s longtime friends can hamper accepting life as it is.

Polina

First Hit:  Wonderful dynamic film of a Russian girl coming into her own through dance.

I love the ballet and I like expressive modern dance, so I was looking forward to seeing this film.

That this film begins in Russia with a young girl, supported by her parents, learning to become classical ballerina and segues to her finding her muse as a modern choreographer and dancer in Antwerp was icing on the cake.

One of the early scenes that stayed with me until the end was, after going to a dance class and struggling to do everything perfect, she freeform dances in the snow in a way that only a child can do. And because she has had formal training, there is an exquisite beauty in her movements.

We follow Polina (Veronika Zhovnyska at 8 years old and Anastasia Shevtsova as an adult) from childhood into her early twenties. Through this path, we see her parents Anton (Miglen Mirtchev) and Natalia (Kseniya Kutepova) struggle to keep up the payments for the dance lessons. Her father’s dream is to have Polina dance with the Bolshoi Ballet. It is so much his dream, that he does illegal things to find money to pay for these lessons.

Polina struggles in her dance lessons to be a perfect dancer but we can see that when she dances there is something missing, her soul and spirit. And although she gets into the Bolshoi dance school, she sees a modern dance by a visiting French troupe and it touches her deeply and choses to leave Russia going to France to learn more about this modern dance.

Her teacher at this French school Liria Elsaj (Juliette Binoche) sees the abilities in Polina along with a lack of soul, spirit, and fire from within. She gets hurt, and ends of leaving the company because her boyfriend is being lured away by the person replacing her in a dance.

Going off alone she wanders western Europe trying to find dance work. She continues to discover that the dance company directors want to see what is inside Polina. Only after being hungry and having to live on the street, that she finds a street dancing group that dances through personal expression. Finding a job as a waitress in a bar, she spends more time with the leader of this street group and begins to learn what is inside her, by watching the actions and movement of others.

Eventually, she and leader of this group create their own choreography where her spirit and soul are revealed through the dance they create.

Zhovnyska was fantastic as the young Polina. I loved how her strict dance lessons also allowed her to dance through the snow joyously, one of my favorite scenes in the film. Shevtsova as the older Polina carried on the young Polina perfectly. I loved how she kept the stern outside look of her life on her mostly expressionless face, while her eyes were searching, always signaling that there was more inside. Her last dance brought the whole story together. Mirtchev was wonderful as her loving father who would do anything for his daughter and his dream for her. Kutepova was excellent as Polina’s mother. The scene when she empties Polina’s suit case was perfectly poignant. Binoche was sublime as the French dance instructor that pushed Polina to search within herself. When Polina spies Liria dancing alone in the studio, she begins to see what was meant by dancing from within. Valerie Muller wrote a great screenplay and her direction with Angelin Preljocaj was spot on. The music they used throughout the film enhanced the story while I think the choreography by Preljocaj was spot on exciting.

Overall:  I loved how this film comes together through dance.

It

First Hit:  Although the characters were engaging and well defined, this film was uninteresting, long and lacked suspense.

It is sad when a film bills itself as horror and it doesn’t create any such feeling. Although the character “It” (AKA Pennywise) was appropriately evil looking, the jerky back and forth movement when it tried to be scary came off as pressed and silly.

As a set-up, the town of Derry, where the film takes place, has a history of young kids going missing and the town doesn't seem to concerned about this.

The kids in this film were distinctly defined. The tough bully kids, led by a policeman’s son named Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton), was sufficiently mean. His angst and bully ways came from the way his father treated him.

The group of nerds were perfectly developed with their own backgrounds and reasons for being part of the nerd group.

The story begins with a young boy Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) folding a piece of paper to make a boat for his younger brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) so that Georgie can float the boat down a rain filled street gutter. The boat gets sucked down the storm drain and this is when the audience gets introduced to ‘It’ aka: 'Pennywise' (Bill Skarsgard). Luring the boy to reach down and get his boat, the boy disappears down the drain.

At school Bill is consoled by his nerd friends Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff). They soon join forces with other nerds and outcasts Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Beverly (Sophia Lillis), and Mike (Chosen Jacobs) as they band together after having separate experiences with what scares each of them.

What ‘It’ does is that it finds out what scares each kid and presents it to them to lure them into the lair below the city streets in the sewers and old water system of Derry.

As expected, the kids band together and solve the issue of the missing children.

The wonderful interaction within the nerdy group of kids was excellent. They had their differences with each other but their deep friendship prevailed over everything.

The interaction between Henry and his father were appropriately intense and gave a solid base for Henry's bullying. Then there was Beverly’s relationship with her father, which was creepily perfect.

The bikes, the drugstore, library and town’s main street were well sourced and perfect for the era. The darkness of the haunted house and sewer system were good in their representation, however, I never felt any fear feeling during the film. I didn’t get afraid for the kids, nor did I sense enough suspense to make it a horror film.

Lieberher was excellent as the stuttering young boy who loved his brother and fell with great affection for Beverly. Hamilton was excellent as the bully who wanted to show his father that he was unafraid and tough. Scott was very good as the young boy who fell under It's spell. Skarsgard was good as Pennywise ‘It’. Taylor was fantastic as the overweight nerd who was enchanted by Beverly. Lillis was sublime as the only girl in the group. Her fearlessness was perfect. Wolfhard, Jacobs, Grazer and Oleff were very good. Chase Palmer and Cary Fukunaga wrote a mediocre screenplay in that the story lacked real engagement and was too long. Andy Muschietti was the director. Although the children’s performances were excellent, he didn’t create any real suspense and horror based fear. The film dragged on way too long.

Overall:  This was a disappointment because the characters were good but the story and interaction between the vehicle of fear and the kids was done mediocrely.

Tulip Fever

First Hit:  This film personifies the idea that having wonderful actors doesn’t mean the film will be good; this one isn’t.

How can a film with Judi Dench, Alicia Vikander, Christoph Waltz, Zach Galifianakis, Jack O’Connell, and Tom Hollander be so unentertaining? Easy have a lousy script and screenplay and a director that didn't see the problems and fix them.

An Abbess (Dench) takes in lost children and raises them to be taken into homes, be married or become an apprentice nun. One of her grown children is Sophia (Vikander) who is solicited for marriage by a wealthy Amsterdam spice trader named Cornelis Sandvoort (Waltz).

This story takes place when the Dutch in Netherlands become infatuated with Tulips. The bulbs of particular flowering types are auctioned for enormous sums of money. They are bought and sold, as commodities in a riotous bar and brothel near the canals.

Sandvoort is much older and is looking for a wife to bear him a child, preferably a boy. He’s proud of his new young wife, Sophia, and commissions a young painter, Jan Van Loos (Dane DeHaan), to paint a portrait of them.

The film shows their live as very routine and their nightly unenthusiastic sexual attempts to conceive. as time goes by, they become disheartened.

Meanwhile their maid Maria (Holliday Grainger), is having an affair with Willem Brok (O’Connell) and she becomes pregnant. By buying and selling a particular tulip, Willem makes enough money to marry Maria, however he thinks he sees Maria having an affair with the painter, Jan, and in shock and being distraught, leaves Amsterdam without saying goodbye.

The mistake was made because Sophia took Maria’s coat to hide herself while going to see her new lover the artist, Van Loos. Sophia is in love and wants to leave Sandvoort and escape with the artist. To make enough money he gets involved in the tulip options market which is regulated and controlled, in part, by the Abbess. However, the blossom is falling from the tulip market and bidding becomes stagnant. He's panicked that he cannot make enough money.

I won’t bore you with more of this plot but the intense part of the film has to do with fooling Sandvoort about pregnancies and Sophia’s very life.

Vikander did the best she could do with the part. Waltz was strong as the wealthy merchant and his “first to flower, first to fall” line was quintessential Waltz. Dench was good in her limited role as Abbess and tulip controller. Galifianakis was very good as Gerrit, the drunk who lets Jan down. DeHann was okay as the young idealist painter. Hollander was very good as well as Dr. Sorgh, the guy who helps the deception of childbirth. O’Connell was great as the man who loves and eventually comes back to his love. Grainger was fantastic in her role as maid and friend to Sophia. Deborah Moggach and Tom Stoppard wrote a poorly conceived screenplay. Justin Chadwick directed this mess. The overly dark scenes of Amsterdam, Netherlands canal districts with constant fighting, drinking and debauchery didn’t add to this film whatsoever.

Overall:  This film was uninteresting and lagged from beginning to end.