HE is about to watch Coming 2 America. Sorry for being the slow guy. I was going to watch it last night, and then…you don’t want to know. It’s streaming worldwide. I wasn’t a fan of the original 1988 film because I felt it was too wealth-porny, and I guess I’m not feeling today’s current … Read more
You’ve got your lean cuisine and fatty, high-calorie meals, some nutritional and some less so, and then your salads and fruits and fine desserts, and finally the icing and sugar fizz and whipped cream. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa‘s Focus, a superficially alluring but dismissable February programmer about a couple of con artist thieves (Will … Read more
Sam Taylor-Johnson and E.L James‘ Fifty Shades of Grey (Universal, 2.13), which I saw last night at the Arclight in a theatre that was attended by a few media types but mostly by people you wouldn’t want to have dinner with if given a choice, is a sterile experience, to put it mildly. It’s faintly … Read more
I really, really didn’t want to see Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein. And so I ducked it at the Venice Film Festival…I didn’t want that bruising, pulverizing visual burden. I knew it would be a struggle to sit through…19th Century atmospheric wealth porn…over-budgeted, over-produced, over-CG-ed…every frame intended to wow your ass off…so damp and cold, so … Read more
Early Thursday evening I caught Guy Ritchie‘s Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guuerre. Soon after I got into a tennis-match volley with a friend who likes it more than me. I’ve cut out some of our back-and-forth but here’s the gist: Nearly 40 years ago (in ’85) Robert Towne did an uncredited rewrite of 8 Million … Read more
I’m still deeply uncomfortable about Mike White‘s anal fixations (analingus, suitcase pooping), but last night I marched through episodes $2, #3, #4 and #5 of season #2 of The White Lotus, and I was impressed. I was vaguely irked by the wealth porn (alright already!), and Tanya McQuoid-Hunt (the wide-faced, buffalo-shaped Jennifer Coolidge, who looks … Read more
Apparently Kenneth Branagh‘s Death on the Nile (20th Century, 2.11) is (a) fairly mediocre but (b) not bad enough to be regarded as an albatross around Branagh’s neck. It won’t get in the way of his Best Picture and Best Director Oscar campaigns, I mean. As we speak Nile has a Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes … Read more
Jeff and Tatiana in a brief discussion about Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (11.24, UA Releasing). A presumably sophisticated (and possibly darkly satiric) nest of vipers melodrama + a serving of Northern Italian wealth porn. Based on Sara Gay Forden‘s “The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.” Lady Gaga, … Read more
“You are Goochee, you need to drehss the paht.” — Al Pacino‘s Aldo Gucci. Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (UA Releasing, 11.24) seems an appropriately chilly nest-of-vipers flick along with a healthy serving of Italian wealth porn. Set in 1995 (which is not indicated by Blondie‘s “Heart of Glass“) and based on Sara Gay Forden‘s … Read more
Craig Brewer‘s Coming 2 America (Amazon, 3.5.21) seems to have more on its mind than just a cash grab by way of Zamunda wealth porn. I have this idea — call it a conviction — that Brewer (Dolomite Is My Name, Hustle & Flow) is a lot more than just an Eddie Murphy “house” director, … Read more
In a chat yesterday with Late Night screenwriter and costar Mindy Kaling, director Nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated, Something’s Gotta Give, Father of the Bride) struck back at critics who have taken her to task for making superficial “copper pots and white sweater” movies — i.e., wish-fulfillment romcoms about well-off women who live in swanky homes … Read more