Author: Marc Sanders

THE LEOPARD (Italy, 1963)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Luchino Visconti
CAST: Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Paolo Stoppa
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 98% Certified Fresh

PLOT: The Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860s Sicily.


Visconti’s intimate epic The Leopard evokes the spirit of so many other films, in all the best ways, that it’s hard to know where to begin.

It’s epic in scope and intimacy, like Doctor Zhivago.  The opulent costumes reminded me of Amadeus, and the lush scenery reminded of Barry Lyndon.  The final ballroom sequences must have influenced the wedding party in The Deer Hunter.  The literate screenplay refining tons of background exposition resurfaces in movies like JFK and Nixon.  The theme of a grizzled older man facing his own obsolescence is echoed in scores of Westerns from The Wild Bunch to Unforgiven to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In short, The Leopard takes bits and pieces of many of my favorite films and consolidates them into an absorbing movie that held my interest from beginning to end, despite its esoteric setting: Italy during the tumultuous years of the “Risorgimento,” when the aristocratic ruling classes were faced with extinction as the middle classes rose up, rebelled, and created a democratic Italy.

We first meet Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) as he and his extended family are attending vespers in an upstairs room of their palatial mansion.  Their ritual is interrupted by sounds of commotion and argument coming from outside the room; turns out the dead body of a soldier has been found in the garden.  (In retrospect, this seemed to me an elegant metaphor for the entire rest of the film: a family’s stability and comfort in ceremony and formality being interrupted by outside forces intent on tearing down the old order in favor of the new.)

The dead body is forgotten very shortly amid the return home of a beloved nephew, Tancredi Falconeri (the dashing Alain Delon).  His return is short-lived as he intends to leave and join the middle-class army under General Garibaldi.  Meanwhile, Prince Salina comprehends the way the wind is blowing in his country and befriends a man, Don Calogero Sedara (Paolo Stoppa), who USED to be in a lower class, but who is now on the same social footing as the Prince himself.  As the newly instated supervisor of elections, Sedara wields considerable power in the imminent new society on the horizon, and the Prince knows what must be done, despite his misgivings.

From there, The Leopard evolves into a vivid tapestry of life in the rustic Italian countryside, set among some of the most beautiful Tuscan/Sicilian backdrops I’ve ever seen.  Some of the exteriors, showing seas of wheat or olive groves with peasant workers in the foreground, looked like museum-quality oil paintings.  Some soapy material is introduced, but it never panders, never descends into schmaltz.  For example, Tancredi falls in love with Don Sedara’s daughter, the luscious Angelica (Italian knockout Claudia Cardinale), at the expense of breaking the heart of Concetta, one of Prince Salina’s daughters.  We watch as the Prince boldly strides into a seedy quarter of town to visit the rundown apartment of his mistress.  When his priest rebukes him for this transgression against his wife, the Prince explodes: “What do you want from me?  I’m a vigorous man.  I can’t be content with a woman who crosses herself before hugging me!  …I had seven kids with her.  You know what?  I never saw her navel!”

While this dialogue is both funny and not, it highlights the way the Prince has always viewed himself: as a man of noble birth whose behavior is no one’s business but his own, regardless of morality or social niceties.  But this same man is intelligent enough to know which way the wind is blowing and how to modify his behavior accordingly.

Everything concludes with a magnificent ball held by a neighboring nobleman, attended by “anybody who’s anybody” including the Prince, his family, Tancredi and Angelica, and literally hundreds of others, decked out in some of the greatest costumes I’ve ever seen on film.  During this lavish party, some final decisions are made, and the Prince contemplates what will happen to him and his family, and his entire class, after his death.  The live orchestra plays several waltzes and dances by the one and only Nino Rota, the scorer for Coppola’s The Godfather and numerous Fellini films.  As a result, yet another great film is evoked: as the celebrants dance in a line and weave their way throughout the great house, I was reminded of the famous ending of Fellini’s 8½ [1963] and its conga line of circus performers.

Some time ago I read Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Goldfinch.  While it didn’t deliver breathless thrills like a Crichton technothriller, it was nevertheless engrossing.  The language of Tartt’s prose transported me into the world of her hero and his morally complex journey like few other books had before or since.  That’s exactly what happened with The Leopard.  I expected it to be a “spinach” movie [good for you, but yucky taste], so my expectations were a bit low, despite its massive reputation in film circles.  But, like the other Visconti film that I’ve seen [Rocco and His Brothers, 1960], it breaks free of the mold I had created for it and becomes something grand and operatic.  I have a slight issue with the very final scene (I was hoping for something a little less open-ended), but if you have the patience for it – and if you don’t mind watching Burt Lancaster overdubbed into Italian – The Leopard is a treasure worth digging for.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

By Marc S. Sanders

“You had thirty thousand dollars, and a way to Somalia. It wasn’t enough?”

– Captain Richard Phillips

Paul Greengrass is a director with a documentary style technique.  Look no further than his salute to the hero hostages of United flight 93 on 9/11.  United 93 depicted an ordinary Tuesday of people going about their business on commercial airlines and in working in radio towers. Eventually, it was nothing but ordinary.  Greengrass reminded us of the day the world permanently changed.  He applied the same technique to his film Captain Phillips when a commercial cargo ship was hijacked by Somali pirates looking for a large amount of American dollars to bring back to their tribes. 

Tom Hanks is Captain Rich Phillips, an Irish American Naval captain residing in Vermont.  When the film starts, the captain is packing up one last bag and signing off his computer.  The screen shows a trajectory course that he will command the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama around the horn of Africa and make do on his delivery of hundreds of corporate cargo containers.  Though he’s well aware, he is given official warnings to be mindful of Somali pirates in the area.  When he rides with his wife (Catherine Keener) to the airport though, it is not international threats that concern him.  Rather it is whether their son is going to start taking his life seriously with grades and aspirations.  Whatever Captain Phillips does faces professionally is simply routine.  No matter how dangerous, it’s his family back home that concerns him most.

Even in this opening throw away scene, Greengrass looks like he’s shooting reality TV with a cameraman placed in the back seat of the characters’ SUV, getting shaky side shots of the husband and wife taking a drive to the airport.  The handheld technique will carry over the course of the film and sometimes it will relax itself when caution is of utmost importance.  Other times, it will emote frenzied chaos when desperation and time have overloaded the senses.

The film allows time for the Somali pirates led by an unknown, but eventual Oscar nominated actor named Barkhad Abdi to assemble a group of four to lead a charge into the deep waters seeking out a target to hijack and pillage.  They are armed with machine guns and foolish gusto, which will be hard to negotiate.  After one day’s failure, the pirates manage to overtake the ship and then Captain Phillips must subvert the pirates away from the majority of his crew hidden within the confines of the large engine room of the ship. 

As the second half of the film takes over, it becomes a claustrophobic encounter aboard a small lifeboat.  The pirates have taken Phillips as their hostage along with thirty thousand dollars in cash and their plan is to return to the shores of their country and negotiate with the United States for the Captain’s release.

With no navigation for the pirates to follow, the Navy intercepts the lifeboat with a battleship and an aircraft carrier in nearby waters. Now it becomes a strategic plan for Phillips to stay alive while the armed services try to peacefully end this conflict with no harm to the hostage.

The length of Captain Phillips is close to two and a half hours and you realize it because that is the point.  The main subject at the heart of this true story was held in this tiny boat with limited vision of what was occurring outside, fighting rough seas while constantly being berated in a foreign language by his captors.   It’s also never easy for any authority to negotiate with powers that are operating with dizzying confusion and helplessness.  The only advantage these pirates have is to hold on to their prized captive.  There is nowhere to run, or swim, or much less spread out in this tiny ocean vehicle that lacks any kind maritime direction or security.  Paul Greengrass makes sure you know this as he often points his camera upwards from tiny crevices on the floor, lining up at the pirate players along with Barkhad Abdi and Tom Hanks.  Sometimes a cameraman must have been standing and pointing a handheld down at Hanks watching his captors while he tries compute his next move.  Within these cramped quarters, you can smell the body odor and feel the desperate need for a shower, a drink of water or a morsel of food as these people remain contained within this floating box.

Elsewhere, I’m especially impressed with how Paul Greengrass observes the routines of the Navy and US Seals who are doing their best to end this situation.  The Seals, who are also sharpshooters, covertly parachute on to the nearby aircraft carrier, gear up and position themselves.  It’s so routine even though I know they are being especially careful.  Some tactics for easy movie narration are likely adopted here.  The commander makes clear that they need green targets, not red.  I’m sure it is more complex than that. How these military men speak and carry stoic expressions like it is another day at the office works in converse to the chaos occurring in the tiny boat that everyone has their eyes set upon.  Yet, Greengrass’ documentarian strategy remains consistent in both environments.  You are getting a “You Are There” experience to uphold the film’s authenticity.

Tom Hanks is great and easy to rely on as usual.  However, his performance does not seem so impressive until you finally witness his sensible and alert demeanor deteriorate and crumble to pieces.  You might know the ending to this heart pounding story, but I won’t spoil it here. A final scene bears the right side of an equal sign to all the hysteria you watched add up before. Tom Hanks’ penchant for improvisation is what strengthens the epilogue of the film, following a harrowing climax.  It might just be his best scene ever on film.  Knowing his celebrated career, I gave that declaration quite a bit of thought.

Captain Phillips is a taut, sensational thriller where common sense cannot easily win against irrational thinking. Still, that is exactly what took place. You involuntarily hold your breath until the film suddenly goes quiet, the director’s camera stops in place, and a sharp order is given.  Only then do you finally exhale and slowly sit back in your seat.  Paul Greengrass is a master at timing out the tension.

REBECCA

By Marc S. Sanders

“The suspense is killing me!  I hope it’ll last!”

                                      – Willy Wonka

Even if the outcome does not amount to much, the journey into mystery is often all that is needed for an effective film.  Mood and eeriness, plus unsettling foreboding are reliable tools for engaging storytelling.

The one film in Alfred Hitchcock’s career to win Best Picture is 1940’s Rebecca, and if you’re a fan of the director, you’ll quickly fall in love with his deliberate shots of shadow and the panning explorations his camera gravitates towards.  Close ups of his actors have an unsettling haunt, and large hand-crafted doors are intimidating to an aristocrat’s new wife who carefully enters one room after another.  Other than a few pertinent differences, Hitchcock, with David O Selznick as producer, remain faithful to the eerie themes of Daphne de Maurier’s novel.  

Joan Fontaine works as an attentive helper to a wealthy and brutish snob (Florence Bates) who is on holiday in Monte Carlo.  There, she encounters a dashing aristocrat by the name of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier).  The helper is shy and reserved but somehow Maxim allows her into his world even though she first encounters him as he seems to be stepping off into the rocky ocean depths below, looking like he’s about to end his own life.  Every day she sneaks away to be with Maxim and all too quickly, just as she is about to head off back to the States, he proposes allowing her to be relieved of her obligation to the haughty dowager she’s been serving.

Once married, Maxim brings the new Mrs. de Winter to his regal European estate famously known as Manderley.  It is here that Fontaine’s character will learn details about the mansion and Maxim’s enigmatic and deceased first wife, Rebecca, who drowned during a sailing accident a year earlier.  

Rebecca’s monogrammed R is embroidered in handkerchiefs and bed sheets throughout the house.  Her address book in her drawing room remains at the desk where she ritually wrote her letters. The cornered off west wing of the house is supposedly preserved with Rebecca’s furnishings.  Most disturbing is Manderley’s housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who is far from comforting or welcome to the new Mrs. de Winter.

Rebecca is quickly engaging because of Hitchcock’s haunting exposition that persists until the final act of the film.  Following the opening credits, he shoots his camera through a distant wooded drive that eventually arrives at the decrepit ruins of Manderley, with Fontaine’s voiceover guiding the viewers towards flashback.  Then we see Olivier, performing rather cold and isolated, apart from his sudden interest in Fontaine’s shyness. After the nuptials, the bulk of the film turns Manderley into a off putting locale, not ready for Maxim to have a new wife living within its confines.

Most effective is Mrs. Danvers.  Judith Anderson lends a spectral presence to a creepy individual dressed in black with a most evident paler complexion, even under the black and white photography.  Reading about the making of the film, Hitchcock wanted to make sure Mrs. Danvers hardly ever entered a scene walking into a room.  He’d cut away to a close up of Anderson simply being there, as if Mrs. di Winter or the viewer never knew she existed in the frame.  It lends to that haunted house kind of tension.  

Mrs. di Winter never feels like she belongs.  That signature letter R is a constant reminder of Rebecca occupying this home’s past.  Her wardrobe, personal bedroom and belongings remain behind too.  Maxim travels out of town often leaving his new wife alone with no family or companionship of her own.  A charming but odd cousin of Rebecca’s named Favel (George Sanders) appears outside the window of the reading room to remind the new Mrs. di Winter that Maxim is not especially fond of him.  Hitchcock left me wondering why Mr. Favel didn’t arrive by the front door.  It’s deliberately odd; certainly strange.  There’s a miser who roams around a small cottage near a beach path that Maxim insists his new wife stay away from.  These are elements to uphold Hitchcock’s penchant for unnerving his protagonist’s senses.  Delirium works to the director’s advantage time and again.

In addition to full sets tall staircases and vast, castle size rooms, a miniature model of Manderley was constructed for the film.  The background of this setting is so dense that every piece of artwork or window curtain or book seems to have a history for Mrs. di Winter to uncover in this cold and unwelcome house.  The gigantic doors to new rooms against Fontaine’s petite figure are disconcerting.  Maxim’s staff of servants may cater to his new wife’s needs, but it is Mrs. Danvers who appears to desaturate any joy or ease from this home’s new guest, and it is reasonable to consider that the housekeeper seeks to disrupt the wife’s adjustment at Manderley.

Joan Fontaine’s mousy, insecure performance works especially well next to the confident and cool tempered strength expected from Laurence Olivier.  Fontaine is also an exact opposite to Judith Anderson’s eerie persona.  How can she ask for anything of this housekeeper who maintains a fierce loyalty for Rebecca, the first Mrs. di Winter?  George Sanders also has a sense of self confidence but with his wide smile and that distinct English dialect, how can anyone feel like they can trust him? I guess it doesn’t help that he’s a car salesman, no less.

I actually thought back to Ari Aster’s Midsommer. In that film, Florence Pugh’s character no longer has a family and the only companionship she is left with is a boyfriend and two friends who she travels with to a mysterious, but intriguing destination.  Like Fontaine’s character, Pugh’s character is alone feeling helpless to turn to anyone for aid.  How can someone in a scenario like this ever feel secure or eventually rescued?  The loneliness for these women in these two broadly different films is what gives me shivers.  It leaves me shaken and terrified.  Is there anyone who would even notice they are missing or unaccounted for?  Just give them someone to trust and talk to!!!! PLEASE??????  ANYBODY????

Answers behind the puzzles found in Rebecca eventually arrive, and while the explanations add up, I did not believe they were especially sensational.  There are some twists.  The story veers off in different directions and Olivier and Fontaine drive the script quite well to a conclusion.  Though the ending is not the greatest strength of Rebecca, it is the journey that’s appealing, especially when you are seeing the film for the first time and have no knowledge of where the story is going.  Hitchcock’s trajectory is the real thrill.  

I pointed out to Thomas and Anthony, two of my Cinemaniac comrades, that in this whole expansive house we never once see a photograph of Rebecca, the first Mrs. di Winter, and then with their input I realize that’s the intended point.  Each viewer has their own design of what the mysterious Rebecca must have looked like based on what’s left behind with her husband, her devoted housekeeper, her cousin, her wardrobes and belongings, and her enormous, hidden dwelling known as Manderley.  Like Steven Spielberg committed to with concealing the driver of his terror truck in Duel or his great white shark in Jaws, Hitchcock applied to a phantom of a past, and her name was Rebecca.  

With a film like Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock didn’t really need a knife or a gun to rattle your senses.  It’s his approach with mood that will keep you alert and unsettled.  You want to know more and see more and uncover more and more and more.  

Yet, that housekeeper suddenly appears, and those giant double doors are most unwelcoming.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

By Marc S. Sanders

The genius was always easier than living with the monsters in his mind.  So was the dilemma that consistently plagued Nobel Prize winning Professor John Nash.

Ahead of seeing A Beautiful Mind for the first time, what you don’t know about Professor Nash is what will dazzle you the most when Ron Howard uncovers the mysteries he lived with during graduate school and on through his fellowship at MIT and with his enduring and loving marriage to his wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly in an Oscar winning role).  John Nash is masterfully portrayed by Russell Crowe in a celebrated, nominated performance.

Dr. Nash comes off like a genius savant when Howard’s film introduces him in 1947 at Princeton University.  The director adopts a technique of presenting much of Nash’s depths and highlighting patterns and numbers in magazines or on chalk boards or even within the reflections that appear before his eyes in bright sunlight.  On a clear night, see if you can find an umbrella within a starry sky. 

For many of us, I presume it’s hard to decipher what it means to live the life of a mathematical genius. Ron Howard with Akiva Goldsmith’s hailed adapted screenplay does not expect anyone to comprehend formulas or equations.  The filmmakers simply ask you to witness how discovery is processed.  Nash writes endlessly on his dorm room windows.  He fills up every inch of the chalk boards at his disposal.  He tears apart articles in magazines and wallpapers his room and office with them.  Even when he is not writing, he is computing how situations will end up best towards his and his peers’ advantage. There’s one curvaceous, blond woman standing in the center of a bar for one of the men to hopefully have a tryst with, but then who will be left to pair with the dark-haired ladies that surround her?  Nash finds the logic in all of the men abandoning the blond.  The genius realizes what none of us can see.  Go for what no one would ever expect to have occurred.

Despite the professor’s odd ticks, unwelcome vernacular and his lack of social skills, a well-established livelihood works out for him.  He falls in love with a former student that he marries, Alicia, and he obtains a fellowship for himself and two Princeton comrades to practice out their theories at MIT.  Personal companionship arrives with his former roommate, Charles (an energetic Paul Bettany), and his niece.  On the other hand, John has also been recruited to become a code decipherer for the government and he must answer to a mysterious gentleman named Parcher (Ed Harris) who is using John to stay a step ahead of the Soviets.   John’s work must remain top secret and as his clandestine activities become more threatening and intense, so does the paranoia get increasingly overwhelming.

I’ve only covered the first act of A Beautiful Mind because when the truth of John Nash’s purpose and how he is regarded is revealed, this biography becomes something much further from how it began.  Akiva Goldsmith’s trickery in his script is capable of surprising an audience when some veils are lifted for both the primary subject of this piece and those who come in and out of John Nash’s life.  This is a true story but it’s incredibly surprising that a mathematical wizard like John Nash could be living a whole other life that makes little sense at first.

Ron Howard is doing some fine work here reaching for material that might feel familiar with other cinematic geniuses in film ranging from the fictional Will Hunting to more recently real-life figures like Mark Zuckerberg. Characters like these stand out for their quirkiness and oddities.  With Russell Crowe’s brilliant characterization of awkwardness in his uneven walk and how he carries his papers and briefcase, it is not hard to adapt to the man on film.  What he says and how he speaks would leave any one of us to roll our eyes at his behavior.  You’d likely chortle at John just as his Princeton classmates do.  Later though, you understand how valuable his accomplishments are to a greater good, and at the same time you become alarmed at how Dr. Nash is being used both from his own perspective as well as by those figures who unexpectedly enter his life and will not just leave.

Jennifer Connelly’s role does not amount to much at first.  With her alluring looks that have graced other films in her earlier career, she initially comes off as a token spouse to the main character and you remind the person sitting next to you that is actress Jennifer Connelly who got her start in Labyrinth with David Bowie, and Once Upon A Time In America with Robert DeNiro.  Yet, as more dynamics are revealed about her husband does the character Alicia show through, and she has no choice but to survive with her spouse’s torment.  Connelly has a scene that will crush you when she must unleash her frustrations in the middle of the night as well as sporadically throughout the film. She has to be carefully observant of her husband’s behavior for the safety of their child and herself.  Ron Howard sets up scenes that haunt Alicia only, and his wide camera work is absolutely eye opening as it lends to her personal performance.

It’s fascinating to observe John Nash’s willpower as he persists to live with personal demons while upholding the demands of his genius.  This film works on so many levels of enhanced editing and perspective, but without unforgettable work from Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and a supporting cast of character actors like Christopher Plummer, Josh Charles, Judd Hirsh, Ed Harris and Paul Bettany it could not sustain its staying power. 

A Beautiful Mind is a thoroughly effective biography.

ON THE WATERFRONT

By Marc S. Sanders

Terry Malloy innocently calls up to his friend Joe’s window and tells him to go to the roof of his apartment building to check on the pigeons.  Only what happens to Joe when he gets there is not what Terry expected setting off a complex dilemma of morality and preservation of life.

In one of Marlon Brando’s most famous roles, Terry Malloy is an ex-prize fighter who now carries out menial tasks for the New Jersey mob bosses that have a foothold over the longshoremen and their union contracts.  Terry listens to what his mobster brother Charley (Rod Steiger) tells him to do.  As long as he keeps his mouth shut, he’ll be selected each day on the dock for work and he’ll never have to lift a finger.  Just let things be and keep quiet.

Charley’s boss is Johnny Friendly (Lee J Cobb), who is ruthless with his control over the area. The guys have to surrender to the demands of Johnny and his toughies because it is no secret what really happened to Joe and who was responsible.  The cops can investigate and ask questions, but they’ll get nowhere.  It’s up to Father Barry (Karl Malden) to talk some sense into the fellas, and considering Terry was one of the last guys to see Joe alive, he’s the best option to overthrow Johnny’s reign.  If Terry shows up for a subpoena, it could put Johnny and his goons out of business.

Another conflict of interest for Terry is that he has taken to Joe’s sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) who also knows of Johnny’s corruption.  She just has not realized that Terry might have been indirectly responsible.

Marlon Brando looks everything like a movie star should.  His slicked back hair and dark eyes shadowed by his thin eyebrows and the way he carries himself in a plaid winter coat is held in a permanent memory just as James Dean and later pop culture figures like Fonzie, or Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt evolved.  It sounds silly but there’s a reason Madonna lends recognition to the classic actor in her club song Vogue, and this is one of many films in his early career to reference for the honor. 

Eva Marie Saint is wonderful as the young woman in pain and confusion following the death of her brother.  Edie is as least as conflicted as Terry due to her immediate attraction to the tough guy’s charms while still bent on discovering who had her kind brother killed and why.  Brando and Saint have a magnificent scene together when the truth comes out and Leonard Bernstein’s music comes to a halt of silence.

On The Waterfront has an irony of life imitating art.  Mind you, I’m not here to provide a history lesson and wallow in political divisions.  I find it interesting that Terry Malloy’s dilemma is whistle blowing the corruption that occurs, while also being intimidated to keep quiet.  Patterned similarly is what director Elia Kazan infamously became known for when he testified during the Joseph McCarthy hearings against people in Hollywood suspected of having communist ties.  A Union community is designed to protect its members, but sometimes the dynamics lead to just one who is singled out to expose what is not cooperating legally and accordingly.  (Some of the actors were against working on this film because of what Kazan committed but they were bound by studio contracts.)

I am aware of how much On The Waterfront is hailed as a perennial classic.  The cast is an outstanding collection of actors beginning of course with Brando, Malden, Steiger and Cobb.  Following television appearances, this was Eva Marie Saint’s first film, and there are other uncredited actors who had not made their mark yet including Martin Balsam, Michael V Gazzo, and Fred Gwynne.  The film boasts Oscar nominations for five actors (two wins, for Brando and Saint respectively) as well as wins for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay.  All that being said and yet I cannot say I felt invested in the film. 

The characters’ plights and pains simply did not connect with me.  Actually, while I believe I’m expected to yearn for Terry Malloy’s pain and regret where he declares he “…coulda been a contender…,” I felt sorrier for his brother Charley. 

In that well-known scene between the two brothers in the back of the cab, it is Charley who is really torn.  Charley is tied to his mob boss, Johnny Friendly, but he has to convince his brother to do what is best to protect the mob he’s committed to, or it could get both of them killed.  That famous scene is owned more by Steiger than Brando.  An interesting fact is that Rod Steiger had to perform most of that scene without Marlon Brando there.  The lead actor would leave the set at 4pm sharp each day, leaving Steiger to do his half of the scene with a stand in reading Brando’s lines.  It caused a bitter rift between the two actors.  Yet, the next time you catch the film, have a look at who is really doing the heavy lifting.

I might have gotten trapped trying to understand the way the union operates and how the mob manipulates everything to their advantage.  I’m lost in some of the early dialogue and how people go about doing what they do.  Maybe what I should have done is relax my train of thought and take in how the protagonist is pulled in many different ways, none of which seem like a winning solution. 

Out of context there is a selection of great scenes on display.  Karl Malden is magnificent when he urges the longshoremen to stand up to the brutality and intimidation they are under.  His concentration is amazing as he is pelted with trash while holding his composure.  This scene won him his Oscar nomination.

Lee J Cobb is a memorable antagonist. The concluding scene between his Johnny Friendly and Terry stands as a final battle between hero and villain and the residual effects of what was shot of that bout have been honorably repeated in many films thereafter. 

There’s an obvious influence that stemmed from On The Waterfront.  Clearly, much of the material had an enormous influence on future filmmakers like Lumet, Scorsese and Coppola.  Perhaps that’s the reason it did not grab me.  Those future directors turned the motifs that Kazan provided into flashier segments of color and trick camera work.  Even the inclusion of harsh language in those grittier, later films left me with a more convincing authenticity.  Then again, I was shocked to see Terry Malloy tell Father Barry to go to hell.  Pretty bold for 1954, and still somewhat shocking within the context of the piece.

On The Waterfront is actually based on fact from happenings at the docks off of Hoboken, NJ where most of the film was shot.  To watch it today is to look back at what high stakes dramatization and dilemmas of ethics surrounded by death and crime must have looked like.  It does feel outdated to me, showing a period that is long past, but it paints its truth very, very well. 

THE WILD ROBOT (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Chris Sanders
CAST: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Certified Fresh

PLOT: An intelligent helper robot winds up stranded on an island populated only by wild animals.  To survive its new environment, it adjusts its programming, with unexpected results.


Just days after watching Flow [2024], a dialogue- and human-free animated film about animals struggling to survive after a cataclysmic flood, I watched The Wild Robot, also human-free, also starring mostly animals, and also about the struggle for survival, but it adds conventional dialogue and an intelligent robot in search of its purpose.  In broad, REALLY broad strokes, they are similar, but don’t bother asking me which one is better.  I give them both a ten-out-of-ten, each for different reasons from the other.  Flow may be literally unique, at least in my experience, but The Wild Robot tames its genre and bends it to its will, creating one of the most heart-tugging movie experiences since Wall*E [2008].  If you’re prone to crying during a movie, this is a three-hanky film, at least.  (Penni went through five, herself.)

On a dark and stormy night, a mysterious container washes up on the shores of an uninhabited island.  Inside is Rozzum 7134, an intelligent helper robot with exceptional physical capabilities and the speaking voice of Lupita Nyong’o.  Hope she gets her royalty checks.  Upon escaping her would-be watery coffin, Rozzum searches the island for the one thing that will give her existence meaning: a task to complete.  The opening scenes get us off to a hilarious start as she tries to complete tasks for various animals, to no avail.  In an intelligent bit of screenwriting, she powers down for a couple of days and, through passive listening, effectively learns the language of the animals around her.  In a lesser movie, this feat might have been handled with the push of a button.  I liked the fact the writers went for something a little easier to swallow, science-fiction-wise.

Through circumstances which I will not reveal, Rozzum winds up as the guardian for a newly-hatched gosling, and as the unlikely friend of a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal, whose voice was utterly unrecognizable; I thought it was Matthew Broderick).  The gosling imprints on Rozzum, which she finds bothersome.  A helpful mom opossum, Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), warns Rozzum that the gosling must learn to feed itself, swim, and fly by the next fall so he can migrate with the other goose; otherwise, it will starve during the harsh winter.  Presto…a task!

Eventually, Rozzum is shortened to Roz and she names the gosling Brightbill (Kit Connor).  As she undertakes her task of raising the gosling, Roz’s programming…evolves.  She starts to actually care for the little guy.  She starts asking questions that robots aren’t supposed to ask.  She exhibits all the early warning signs of helicopter-momism.  And all the while, she debates whether to activate the internal beacon that will let her makers know where she is…

Because the plot is so dependent on tugging those heartstrings, that’s all I’ll say about it.  Let me talk instead about Wild Robot’s visual style.  The backgrounds and characters are gorgeous, sumptuous, evocative of oil or acrylic paintings.  I could mention two or three specific shots right now that contain some of the most beautiful animated imagery I’ve seen since Pinocchio [1940], but I don’t want to give anything away.  (Hint: butterflies and geese.)  In this way, among others, it shares a lot of DNA with Flow, whose backgrounds and characters also resembled hand-painted objects.  I don’t even want to think about how long it took to create such a painterly style and make it look so effortless and organic.

I also liked the way Wild Robot used its story to make a pointed commentary, but not in the direction I thought it would go.  From the trailers, I assumed it would be yet another paint-by-numbers story about preserving nature or life, which was already covered as well as it possibly could be covered by Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant [1999].  Instead, Wild Robot makes some eloquent statements about the terrifying task of parenthood.  At one point, Roz, who is programmed to solve problems, discovers the task she’s undertaken – raising a gosling, i.e., being a parent – is a task that could potentially never end.  She experiences the fear of almost losing a child.  The joy of watching Brightbill learn to fly, while at the same time realizing that means he will one day migrate.  As I list the plot points here, it sounds like the movie is composed of cliches, but I can assure you, it’s not.  All of these nuances, and many more, are allowed to occur organically without the slightest hint of being nudged along by the screenplay.

DreamWorks has created possibly their best animated film since…gosh, I’ll go all the way back to The Prince of Egypt [1998].  It’s a crowd-pleasing adventure with a point, which is a hallmark of only the best science-fiction movies/stories.  There are real stakes on the line.  There are some actual deaths in the story, which surprised me for some reason, but there you are.  It looks sensational.  It’s smart.  I can’t say enough about it.  The Wild Robot was one of my most favorite films of 2024.

THE LAST SHOWGIRL

By Marc S. Sanders

I dunno.  Maybe we grow up twice in our lifetime.  

Growing up is hard to do.  As a kid I loved playing with all my Star Wars, He-Man and GI Joe toys.  Now that I’m in my 50s, I see pictures of those toys online that are long gone, and I tell my wife how I wish I could escape back into that comfortable universe of limitless imagination.  Often, I miss being a child.

Beyond a boring desk job, as an adult I’ve moved on to acting to maintain my sanity, now going on close to 35 years.  Only, I do not memorize lines as well as I used to and there are fewer roles for an over middle-aged guy.  I miss many of my favorite parts that I portrayed on stage in my earlier decades.  I direct more often now, staying off the stage, and I guide actors to a point where I imagine how I would have portrayed the role.

Leaving these periods of my past behind is hard to accept and as I watched Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, I could deeply relate to the anguish felt by Shelly (Pamela Anderson, in a gut-wrenching performance).  I believe anything we are good at, or that we have complete self confidence in is hardest when we are stripped of our talents.  Arthritis can mar a concert pianist, a unreliable memory can weaken an actor, bad knees can curse an athlete, and for Shelly who has been a Las Vegas showgirl for over thirty years, aging is working against her preservation.  Even worse is knowing that your performance niche carries no interest with audiences any longer.  Shelly’s show is being closed down in two weeks and an updated high-flying circus will occupy the venue.  

Coppola’s present day film appears to be shot on an 80’s camcorder.  The colors and sparkles of Vegas entertainment are glitzy only from the costume wear of Shelly and her fellow performers.  Otherwise, the cinematography is as colorless and burned out as an old home movie.  

Jamie Lee Curtis is unrecognizable at first. She plays Annette who is casino cocktail waitress and out of the showgirl business for a number of years now.  He complexion is craggily and overly tan.  Her hair is damaged, likely from years of hairspray treatments.  Her makeup is overdone in deep blue mascara and rouge.  She’s probably thirty pounds heavier and this has aged her out of her dancing career.  This is hard.  She’s a friend to Shelly, but she’s deeply mad at her newfound reality that will never match what she once was.  Total Eclipse Of The Heart could not be a more appropriate needle drop during a crushing scene among the slot machines of a busy casino.

Pamela Anderson plays Shelly as innocently naive and sweet to the younger performers (Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka) who still have the youthful looks that will grant them opportunities after their show closes.  Shelly is affectionate and attendant to the younger girls’ insecurities.  She’s a maternal hen the young ladies pay attention to.  On the other hand, Shelly no longer looks like a blond babe who came out of the TV show Baywatch.  That is why casting Pamela Anderson in this role is so smart.  The actor ran the beaches in bathing suits while being an 80s rocker tag along with the drummer from Motley Crue.  Now she’s in her 60s and must adjust her talents and physical assets of wrinkles and crow’s feet to portray a lost soul like Shelly, a girl thrust into an immediate future of no purpose, no need and a lot less hope.  Who can Shelly turn to when her insecurity attacks?

Anderson is definitely up to the task of this role.  Her squeaky voice with a detectable girly lisp fights to uphold an optimistic extrovert.  This girl must have been a Marilyn Monroe of this industry at one point. Inside though, Shelly is in terrifying pain and Coppola’s script allows for several different scenes where her fear explodes organically.  One time it’s on a date with her stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista, looking like a muscle head that you’d find in Vegas, but not in a showy superhero movie).  Later, Shelly has to pour her regrets out to her estranged college age daughter (Billie Lourd) who resents being placed below a risqué cheesy showgirl act while she was growing up.  

The most heartbreaking moment occurs when Shelly auditions with an unnatural and unsure toothy smile to become club dancer.  The director is unsubtle and apathetic at deteriorating whatever Shelly has left to grasp. Finally, Shelly the former, lovable showgirl must release the pain of her new reality that she’s been stabbed with.  Within a career mostly highlighted with buxom beach running and bathing suit footage, Pamela Anderson delivers her best dramatic scene anyone will ever encounter from her.  This is not just some cheapo dancer draped in stiletto heels, feathers and plastic bling with gigantic headdresses to balance.  This is a real person who has become extinct of her normalcy.  She could’ve performed elsewhere, but she’s three decades older now and on the surface, to the superficial folk of the nightlife scene, she’s not the T & A that people desire anymore.

The Last Showgirl explores the challenges of transition.  Change confronts all of us eventually.  We get older and maybe less healthier.  We are not as flexible and we move slower.  We become less intuitive and analytical too.  We also become displaced and replaced.  

Gia Coppola’s film, written with touching sensitivity by Kate Gersten, opted to follow a career that hinges primarily on aesthetics, but also on a culture that has outlived its shelf life.  Glitz and blingy glamour are not what’s sought after anymore.  Las Vegas has partly become a tourist attraction on a level of amusement park scale with nifty rides, concerts and family fare like circuses.  Shelly and Annette no longer fit in this newer design.  Yet they are not cars or buildings you demolish and replace.  These women have lives that were never prepared to be spit out and discarded.

The Last Showgirl shows a harsh reality.  The performances from its cast of current younger generations to the older material carried by Bautista, Curtis and especially Pamela Anderson are grounded in a range of reactionary authenticity.  Change arrives for each of these people.  Yet, the effects run a spectrum of differing perspectives, and the most hopeless and complex circumstance is delivered affectionately by a surprising Pamela Anderson in a heartbreaking performance.  Her work is so well done in this film. 

FLOW (Latvia, 2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Gints Zilbalodis
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Somewhere deep in a forest wilderness, a solitary Cat barely survives a cataclysmic flood by clambering into a boat with an assortment of other animals; their survival will depend on their ability to help each other.


Nearly twenty-five years ago, Disney released an animated film called Dinosaur [2000] that was touted as being an industry game-changer.  The premise was revealed in a stunning, epic-length teaser trailer that fired my imagination.  Some of you may remember it.  Using state-of-the-art CG animation, and with no spoken dialogue, we watched as a dinosaur egg on prehistoric Earth was flipped out of its nest, carried away by scavengers, dropped into a river, swallowed and regurgitated by a fish, then plucked out of the water by a pterodactyl that soared over magnificent real-world vistas and plains before being dropped accidentally into a jungle canopy where the egg was discovered by a family of, I think, prehistoric lemurs.  A reminder: all with no spoken dialogue.

I remember thinking, wow, Disney is going to attempt the impossible: create a feature-length animated movie with no spoken words.  I was stoked.  What an experiment!  Hasn’t been done since Fantasia [1940]! And if anyone can pull it off, it’ll be Disney, right?  Imagine my disappointment when I went to see the movie, the opening scene plays out exactly as shown in the teaser, the lemurs peek through the foliage at the fallen egg, and one of the lemurs opens its mouth…and talks.  Not just human speech, but with a New York-Brooklyn-esque accent that almost sounded like Bugs Bunny.  Dreams shattered.

I mention that story because Flow, the recent winner of the Golden Globe for Best Animated Motion Picture, promised the same thing in its trailer: an animated film without words, starring only animals on a perilous journey.  I was skeptical.

Until I watched the movie today.  Not only does it deliver on its promise (making Dinosaur look shallow and childish by comparison), it sets some kind of crazy bar for mystical, awe-inspiring visuals that I would put on the same level as Avatar [2009] or Dune [2021].  Yes.  They’re that good.  And, according to IMDb, it was all created using only Blender, a free, open-source animation software tool.  Flow is a remarkable accomplishment.

The story opens with Cat wandering a forest.  None of the animals are named, of course, nor were they named by the animators.  They were all referred to simply by their species or breed: Cat, Whale, Bird, etc.  After being chased by some dogs, including a friendly Retriever, Cat curls up in the top floor of an abandoned, expensive-looking forest cabin with nary a human in sight.  Where are all the people?  No answer is given.

With ominous abruptness, a cataclysmic flood sweeps through the forest, leaving Cat and Retriever stranded at the cabin as the waters steadily rise.  Retriever hops into a passing rowboat occupied by the other dogs from an earlier scene, but Cat understandably passes on this opportunity and eventually finds itself sharing a second boat occupied by a grunting, monosyllabic Capybara.

…but this simple plot summary doesn’t begin to do justice to the experience of simply watching this film.  I am super glad I saw it on the big screen first, 3rd row back, so the screen filled my field of view.  The whole movie reminded me of the best oceanic scenes in Finding Nemo [2003], crammed with detail, lavishly rendered, so that you sort of fall into the world.  There are hints to indicate that the forest and the lands beyond, now flooded, were once populated by humans, but they have all disappeared.  Statues of animals.  Top floors of houses still untouched by water, but not for long.  And, on a distant hilltop, a massive statue of a cat, on which Cat must find refuge at one point.

The look of the film is something I’m not going to be able to describe very well.  Partnered with the smooth CG animation itself, the main animal characters nevertheless have a hand-painted quality to their coats and fur.  The virtual camera moves as if being held by a real cameraman, reminiscent of the best scenes in the first Avatar.  There is a magical, spiritual sequence towards the end of the film (you’ll know the one I mean) that took my breath away and rivals anything from Pixar or Studio Ghibli.  I may not know precisely what it means, but to be honest, I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.  I just know that it is a spectacular scene.  There are subtle hints that this world may not even be Earth as we know it, or when we know it.  Mystery abounds!  I love it.

I must give special mention to the animation of the lead character.  Cat has moments of cat behavior so specific and real that, even if you’re not a cat person or watched umpteen cat videos on YouTube, you will recognize it as being 100% authentic.  For that matter, the same could be said of all the animals in the film.  I must be honest and report that there are times when, viewed through a lens of “is-this-realistic”, the animals behave in a way that does not compute with reality.  I highly doubt a capybara would be able to figure out how to work the rudder of a sailboat…and yet, in this movie, it does, and it’s fine.

Which brings me to the one problem I can imagine some folks might have with the film: the ending.  I can’t tell if the right descriptor is “elliptical” or “open-ended” or “inconclusive.”  Perhaps it’s a plea from the filmmakers for cooperation and teamwork in an age where uncontrollable outside forces are doing their best to prevent it; like these animals, we’re all in the same boat.  Or maybe that’s not the message.  The beauty of Flow is that the ending is subject to interpretation, thanks to the lack of dialogue simply telling us what it means.

Frankly, I’m not too fussed about extracting the message from Flow.  I am too grateful that a film like this even exists to lose sleep over its Deeper Meaning.  It is a film constructed out of wondrous sights that harken back to the days of Pinocchio and Fantasia [both 1940], when animators and filmmakers gave equal weight to story and visuals, and it’s one of the best animated films I’ve ever seen.

MAXXXINE (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Ti West
CAST: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 72% Certified Fresh

PLOT: In 1985 Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.


When I started posting my blissful reviews of X and Pearl [both 2022], I got one response more than any other: “Wait till you get to MaXXXine; it’s the weakest of the trilogy.”  Having just watched it, I would say that calling MaXXXine the weakest film in this trilogy is like calling Return of the Jedi [1983] the weakest film in the original Star Wars trilogy.  You may be technically correct, but it’s still a great ride and a better film than many others in this genre.

Six years after the bloody events of X, we pick up the story of Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) as she auditions for a film role in Los Angeles.  She’s been signed by a devoted but semi-skeevy agent, Teddy (Giancarlo Esposito in a fabulously bad hairpiece), and she has experienced modest success as a porn star.  But she longs to spread her wings in “legitimate” films, because as we all remember, Maxine craves fame more than anything in the world.  As she never tires of repeating: “I will not accept a life I do not deserve.”

Just as things start looking up for Maxine’s career, a package is left on her doorstep…a VHS tape labeled ominously, “For Maxine.”  When she pops it into her VCR, she’s treated to a shot from her filmed but unfinished porn movie from six years ago…evidence which would link her to those horrific murders and endanger her newfound success.  Meanwhile, the infamous real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka “The Night Stalker”, terrorizes Los Angeles at night, not to mention a copycat killer who is branding his victims with pentagrams.  How these murders are linked to Maxine, and when and where John Labat (Kevin Bacon) comes into play, is not for me to divulge.  And one by one, Maxine’s friends and co-workers are turning up dead…

The plot of MaXXXine is nothing new, let’s face it.  What makes it sparkle is the wit and TLC provided by director Ti West and his collaborators.  For anyone who was alive in 1985, this film is like a stroll down memory lane.  I found myself thinking about Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood [2019], with its loving recreation of late-1960s Los Angeles and serial-killer-related plotline.  That’s not to say MaXXXine is ripping off Q.T.’s film, not at all.  Both films have an immense affection for their respective timeframes and have gone to great lengths to immerse us in that culture.

Another filmmaker that came to mind during MaXXXine was Jordan Peele, director of his own trio of horror neo-classics: Get Out [2017], Us [2019], and Nope [2022].  Ti West’s films share a lot of characteristics with Peele’s films.  The Maxine trilogy looks like a million bucks on screen, despite what must have been very limited budgets.  The plots and screenplays are airtight with one or two minor exceptions.  (Peele’s plots are more Twilight Zone than reality, so they get a bit of a pass on plausibility.)  And the characters are intelligent, sharply drawn, and rarely fall into cliched behavior.

If MaXXXine is not quite as terrifying as its predecessors, I’m prepared to forgive it.  Whatever it lacks, it makes up for in its besottedness with Hollywood.  There is a scene where one character chases another through a Universal backlot (oddly deserted, but whatever); they run through various movie sets, including the town square featured in Gremlins [1984] and Back to the Future [1985], winding up at – and I almost could not believe this – the Bates Motel and even inside the Bates house behind it.  Only a director/screenwriter deeply in love with the movies, and horror films specifically, would dare to write a scene like that into their script, and I loved it.  (Trivia note: they had to get permission from the Hitchcock estate first…awesome.)

I haven’t even mentioned the movie’s subtext.  The movie Maxine has gotten a part for is being directed by a woman, Elizabeth Bender (the pleasingly towering Elizabeth Debicki), who believes The Puritan II is her chance to prove that her voice is worth listening to in an industry dominated by male voices, especially in 1985.  If the only way to get people to listen is to make a B-list horror movie with A-list concepts/ideas, so be it.  Two of the best horror movies I’ve seen in recent years were directed by women: The Babadook [2014] and Saint Maud [2019].  And yet, out of over 1,850 movies in my personal collection, only 70 were directed by women.  I guess things haven’t changed that much in the movie industry in forty years.  Discuss.

MaXXXine begins with a quote from Bette Davis.  I won’t recite the quote here, but it implies that an actor isn’t a star until they’re considered a monster.  I hope that’s not true.  But for Maxine Minx…if that’s what it takes, well, then…that’s what it takes.

NIGHTBITCH (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Marielle Heller
CAST: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Jessica Harper
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 59%

PLOT: A woman pauses her career as an artist to be a stay-at-home mom, but her domesticity takes a surreal turn.


[SPOILER ALERT…if you plan on seeing Nightbitch, avoid this review.  This movie, like most movies, works best on the viewer if they have no idea what’s happening or what’s about to happen.  Consider yourself Spoiler-warned.]

Nightbitch shoots out of the starting gate like a thoroughbred – or a greyhound, if you will – but about halfway through, it runs out of narrative steam.  I felt like a gambler watching a horse race, watching my horse lead the pack around the first turn, already spending the winnings in my head, and then my horse fades a bit, then a bit more, and by the time we get to the finish line, I’m tearing up my ticket in frustration.  I needed a WIN, not a PLACE.  There goes my trifecta.

Amy Adams plays an unnamed Mother who has put her promising career as an artist on pause to be a stay-at-home mom while her also-unnamed Husband (Scoot McNairy) pursues his career as a…um…well, whatever it is, he has to travel a lot, leaving Mother at home with, you guessed it, Son (played by adorable twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden).  Referred to throughout the movie as “my guy” and “sport” and “little buddy,” Son is a typical toddler in the throes of the terrible twos: cute for long stretches, maddeningly frustrating for longer stretches.  [Ed. Note: the author is not a father, has no plans on becoming a father, and will never possess the immense dedication it takes to rear a child, so don’t expect him to embrace the chaos of toddler-hood because it ain’t gonna happen.]

Mother is going through an identity crisis, set up in a brilliant opening scene where Sally, the woman who assumed Mother’s job at an art gallery, asks her, “Do you just love getting to be home with him [Son] all the time?”  Mother answers the question with a little more honesty than Sally or anyone had a right to expect, including this tidbit: “I am deeply afraid that I am never going to be smart, or happy, or thin ever again.”  I am a straight Hispanic cisgender male, so I’m here to tell you, I will never understand that mindset, but I am reasonably certain there are untold millions of moms out there who, if they listened to Mother’s opening statement, would say, “AMEN, sister.”

A little later, Mother delivers an internal monologue where she reflects that, as a mother, you can squeeze someone into the world “who will one day pee in your face without blinking.”  Again, I’m not a parent, but I know that’s truth in cinema right there.

After a few more establishing scenes of Mother interacting with Son, who absolutely REFUSES to go to sleep at night or eat anything for breakfast except, apparently, hash brown patties fried in butter, some odd things start to happen.  At the playground, some stray (?) dogs approach her as if she’s their best friend.  Mother notices her sense of smell has become much more acute.  Son helpfully points out that her back is hairy.  And, in a creepy Cronenberg-y moment, she notices a lump growing at the base of her spine just above her rump.  Curiosity gets the best of her.  She heats a needle, lances the lump, and…well, if you remember the title of the film, you have an idea of what pops out of that lump.

This was all wonderfully thrilling stuff as a movie lover.  I’m thinking, “My god, this is a Spike Jonze movie told from a woman’s perspective!  I’ve never seen anything like this!  This is gonna be GREAT!”  Mother starts to enjoy eating a lot of meat.  She starts to play “doggie” with Son, growling and barking at each other like two puppies.  The two of them eat their lunch at a deli with no silverware…or hands, to the consternation of other diners.  Son doesn’t sleep at night, so Mother, in a genius parenting move, buys a dog bed and gets Son to play “doggie” and sleep in the dog bed at night.  Presto, problem solved!

And more and more dogs start showing up at her door, at night, sometimes bringing gifts: small dead animals.  One night she walks outside, starts digging around, and an astonishing transformation takes place…

I know, I know, SPOILERS, I get it.  But it’s important to get across just how brilliantly original the first act of the film is, because the second act is, alas, all downhill.  I am not saying that the film’s message is unimportant, not at all.  I admire the film because of its message, and because it was being delivered in such an original way.  But then we get into conflict with Husband, who is desperately trying to understand why their 2-year-old is now sleeping in a dog bed on the floor, or why their cat suddenly turned up dead on the front porch, or why his wife suddenly wants a separation.  It must be said, Nightbitch is remarkably even-handed with the Husband’s dialogue.  He is not reduced to a 2-dimensional sitcom husband.  When she lays into him for not supporting her career, he fires back with a well-reasoned argument.  Their dialogue could be turned into a first-rate play.

But instead of exploring the surreal nature of Mother’s new condition, the movie settles into soap-opera territory, with only the occasional nod to the mystical incidents in the first act.  I distinctly remember, in the middle of the second act, feeling as if a balloon had deflated in the plot.  I imagine defenders of the film might say, “Well, the second act is where the weird stuff has to take a back seat to deal with the real issues at hand.”  Okay, maybe that’s true from a real-world perspective, but to me, it felt as if the filmmakers were on the verge of showing us something mindboggling, then backed away from the precipice at the last minute.

Does that make me guilty of critiquing a movie for what I wanted as opposed to what I got?  I guess it does, as much as I dislike that tendency in myself.  I feel there are so many different ways the movie could have gone in act two, could have leapt gleefully over the edge of convention and truly broken the mold with this movie.  When it became clear what they were doing instead, my elation evaporated.

I give Nightbitch a generally favorable score, though, based on the mad inventiveness of the first act and the plot in broad strokes, and also on the incredibly brave performance from Amy Adams, who maybe has two scenes in the entire film where she seems to be wearing any makeup.  She also appears to have to put on some weight for the role, which is not something I can ever recall seeing a female actor do.  Male actors have turned that kind of thing into a cottage industry, but when was the last time you saw a woman do it?  That took guts.  Watch Nightbitch for Amy Adams’ performance and for the story, even if the movie doesn’t follow its own plot to a satisfying conclusion.