Weiner

First Hit:  After seeing two films that were dogs, seeing such a full, interesting, insightful, and dynamic film like this one supports my faith in the ability of film to tell a great story.

This film is so real and dynamically interesting that I walked out of the theater thinking; WOW, how amazing to see something this genuine and how brave of them to share their life so fully and intimately. I was in awe.

A good documentary can and will hold the audience’s attention as good or better than any other type of film because it is factual. This film does it in spades. Witnessing Anthony Weiner give amazing speeches as a U.S. Congressmen from New York for the support of 9-11 responders was powerful.

You see that he's a fighter and takes no prisoners in his beliefs. He's got guts and commitment. His weakness is technology and using that technology to send text message pictures of his hardened (covered and uncovered) penis to women. This obsession forces him to quit congress.

After he supposedly went to rehab and got this behavior under control, the film follows him as he runs for mayor of New York City. He takes a lot of heat for his past behavior and he’s harassed at every stop he makes on the campaign trail.

The documentary shoots him, at home, with his wife Huma Abedin (top aide to Hillary Clinton), and their child. Watching Huma go through her feelings and emotions about what her husband did was so difficult and real.

What also made this film work is that Weiner continued to let them film as he was once again he's rightfully accused on continuing his bad-boy behavior of sending explicit text messages and having phone sex (up to 5 times a day) with Sydney Leathers. Allowing the filmmakers to continue to film him as these second accusations became public was astounding.

Just prior to the latest set of admitted transgressions, he was ahead in the polls, but then slid badly to the bottom of the list. All this time the camera continues to roll and we see the dynamic difficulty in his life, Huma’s life, and the lives of all the people who worked for and supported him.

Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg co-directed this documentary and I have to applaud them for being able to keep the film flowing, while we watch Weiner and Abedin deal with his ego, political drive and transgressions. The editing of this film was fantastic.

Overall:  This was an amazing story to watch and very revealing about how human character can be amazingly varied and different.

A Bigger Splash

First Hit:  This film lacked clarity of purpose partially because the actors and characters weren't well mixed in this uninteresting story.

The film starts with the illusion that Tilda Swinton (as Marianne Lane) is a middle age rock star still able to bring in stadium full audiences.

Attempting to convince the audience through brief clips of a stadium filled with rock fans, the band on the stage, and Lane, with a black wig, comes out to the microphone was inadequate. We don’t hear her sing nor do we hear her music.

This lacked credibility, and Swinton’s look and presence didn’t carry the energy of a stadium filling rock star. The audience is asked to take this at face value, what makes this worse is that we do not get to hear her speak because she’s just had throat surgery and isn’t supposed to speak so her character's story is limited.

Because she has these two strikes against her, it is like the old saying, "two wrongs to make a right". She’s vacationing with her husband Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) at some unknown rural (possibly Mediterranean) location where the village is small and population sparse.

Unbeknownst to Paul and Marianne, her old boyfriend and former music producer Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes) is coming to visit them. Harry talks all the time and he’s full of hyper energy, takes over every conversation, and makes a big scene everywhere he is.

Although Marianne is more interested in seeing Hawkes, Paul,  even though he and Harry are lifelong friends, doesn't. Overall, it appears they’d rather not have him as a guest, but no one stops the madness. The madness begins at one of the first scenes when they pick him up at the airport by surprising them by bringing his underage unknown daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson).

The rest of the film attempts to extrapolate each of their personalities given their restricted behavior. However, I never felt that their relationships with themselves were real or flushed out, nor were their connections with each other valid. One of the few good scenes was Harry’s lip-syncing and dancing to the Rolling Stones' classic song “Emotional Rescue”.

One of the more painful scenes was the horrible karaoke singing and dancing by Harry and Marianne in a local bar.

Swinton was miscast in this role because there is just no way she resembled or acted as a stadium rock and roll star. Adding to this that she wasn’t supposed to speak, which added to the difficulty in making her believable. Fiennes was also miscast as there is no way he could pull off being this obnoxious, unthinking, arrogant, producer. He carries too much integrity and therefore it didn’t work. Schoenaerts was good and the best part of the film. His character was believable as a brooding, somewhat depressive, friend and mate of Harry and Marianne respectively. Johnson was mediocre as the young girl who was manipulative and questioning of her father and his friends. She didn’t make me believe her as a seductress – it was way to obvious. David Kajganich wrote a very mediocre screenplay that didn’t really dive into the characters and their history. Every setup of the character's history seemed too overt and lacking curiosity. A film audience needs to be curious about the characters. Luca Guadagnino directed this and probably made the most of the story as written. The casting was, for the most part, poor.

Overall:  I was bored by the story, actors, and the way this film unfolded.

High Rise

First Hit:  One of the worst spools of celluloid ever put together.

With two rather talented actors headlining this move, how did it become such a hot mess.

Tom Hiddleston (as Laing) and Jeremy Irons (as Royal) are living in a building that Royal has designed. The building is all inclusive meaning that is a gym, grocery store and other amenities allowing the residents to not leave the grounds if they choose not to.

The building they live in is one of five in the series Royal has designed. From a general design point of view, the buildings are supposed to look like a 4 bent fingers and a thumb lifting up from a palm which is the center courtyard. The status of a person is based on the floor they live on as demonstrated when there is a power shortage, the lower floors have more blackouts than the higher floors.

The theme, if there really was one, was lost on me and the actors, storyline, and lack of cohesion made it impossible to watch, although I will watch anything once.

Hiddleston’s character was not fleshed out enough to know why he acted and reacted the way he did. More than likely this was a story/screenplay issue as I do think Hiddleston is a good actor. Irons is a superb actor but his role as the high and mighty architect was flimsy at best. It was neither tolerable nor believable. I won’t bother with the rest of the cast as it isn’t worth it. Amy Jump wrote the screenplay and if this is her best work, she might think of another line of work. Ben Wheatley directed this with little thought about presenting a cohesive interesting story. It was more about bad behavior getting worse.

Overall:  Please don’t watch this film, as it will be a waste of time and money.

The Nice Guys

First Hit:  A dark comedy with some very funny bits and a fair amount of violence.

There are definitely some laugh-out-loud moments in this film. The juxtaposition between the personalities of the main characters made it work.

Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) a guy who uses his fists to set things right. He's hired by all sorts of people who want someone to leave them alone. He’s ruff, gruff and no-nonsense in his approach. He hits people and asks questions later.

On the other side of the coin we have Holland March (Ryan Gosling), a former police officer and currently a private detective who tries to take the easy way out most of the time. He gets is PI fees up-front and is not always fair to, or honest with, his clients.

He feels guilty because he lost his wife and house to a fire that he might have prevented had he been able to smell. March has taken to drinking most of the time and, although he has a great relationship with his young daughter Holly (Angourie Rice), he's not being a great example as a father.

Holly has become the strength of their home and most of the time she’s really taking care of him. Some of the funny bits are slapstick falls that March takes along with the physical and conversational interaction between Healy and March.

There are also fond remembrances of comics past, including Gosling’s version of Lou Costello’s attempts at calling for help with nothing coming out of his mouth because he’s in state of paralysis/shock because he finds himself lying next to a dead man. There are laugh out loud scenes (many at the big party) as well as a convoluted crime story they are attempting to resolve.

Crowe is perfect as the no-nonsense physical enforcer of right and wrong, according to him. Gosling was very strong as the confused, in mourning, and trying to find how to get of of his funk father. His ability to be both smart and not-smart in this character and make it work is wonderful. Rice was the star of the film. Her maturity while being able to be a young teenager with a conscious was stunning. We will see much more of her as she develops as an actress. There a number of other character actors in this film that were very strong including: Margaret Qualley (as Amelia), Beau Knapp (as Blueface) and Lance Valentine Butler (as Kid on Bike). Shane Black and Anthony Bagarozzi wrote an dynamically funny and engaging script. While Black’s direction was strong in bringing out the dynamics of the main three’s relationship.

Overall:  I enjoyed the story and the dark humor.

The Huntsman: Winter's War

First Hit:  A misguided film with a weak story and little relevancy.

As actors go, I like Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain. I’m not a huge fan of Chris Hemsworth as he’s shown little range in his acting.

Here, Theron (as Ravenna) plays the ruler of a huge kingdom that gets bigger all the time. She has a powerful magic mirror that tells her that she’s the fairest of them all, although Snow White in another kingdom ranks right up there - really?

Ravenna’s sister Queen Freya (Blunt) is subservient to her sister but when she falls in love and gets pregnant, the mirror tells Ravenna that the baby, when born, will be the fairest in the land. Ravenna is not going to let this happen and sets up so that the baby is killed.

Freya doesn't know her sister killed her baby and is so hurt she finds her inner anger and power (turning things into ice) and heads off to find her own kingdom where love is not allowed. She is so cold she steals children from families that her army’s defeat while turning those orphaned children into more soldiers to conquer more lands.

Two of her earliest child recruits Sara (Chastain) and Erin/Huntsman (Hemsworth) turn into her premier soldiers who continue to bring back new children soldier recruits along with new conquered lands. However they find love and .... the story becomes muddled mess while Sara and Eric end up with midgets as their supporters and the scenes fill with fairies and other odd beings become part of the storyline. Somehow they all want the missing and ever powerful mirror. The best thing about the film was some of the background scenery but little else.

Theron was appropriately evil as the person who needed to be driven by her beauty and ego. Likewise, Blunt was appropriately cold as the Ice Queen but the story let her down as well. Chastain had the most interesting role as a warrior who also wanted love. Hemsworth was his typical warrior self with tongue-in-cheek comments there to make him interesting. Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin wrote this script trying to find a story. It was almost as if there were great actors wanting to fulfill their commitments, so a script was thrown together for them to fulfill their contracts. Cedric Nicolas-Troyan directed this aimless script. He attempted to make a film of it by putting the scenes in order with some nice pictures. In the end the story and film didn't work.

Overall:  This was a waste of time and the story doesn’t deserve the actors in the film.