Movie Nation

Cannot. Wait.

Great cast. Real ambition here. It looks soulful. And I see an unerring grasp of the man’s voice and walk and way of carrying himself.

“This Sporting Life” sets up as a formulaic hardscrabble “rise and fall of a sports hero” drama, the tale of a miner who gets his first taste of success and the “good life” of the English upper classes via stardom on the rugby pitch or “patch,” as ruggers say in Jolly Olde.

But Lindsay Anderson’s 1963 film, based on a David Storey novel, endures because it breaks that formula is ways never seen before and seldom seen since. A classic of the “Kitchen Sink Realism”corner of the cinematic British New Wave of the early ’60s, it embraces tropes and defies expectations at every turn.

The matches are brutish, muddy and bloody, filmed in close-ups and hand-held shots capturing the organized chaos and barely-contained violence of the sport in those days.

The world they’re played in just as brutal, hanging on the ingrained class divisions that dabbling in socialism and the coming “Swingin’ 60s'” would never quitely vanquish.

And the focus, the star of the story is another classic “angry young man” of the British cinema of the day, a brooding, broad-shouldered goon who wonders where “happiness” fits into all of this.

Richard Harris had perhaps his best role and gave his finest performance in this grinding downbeat drama about a bloke from the pits who doesn’t “enjoy being kicked about on a football field for other people’s amusement.” He only enjoys “being paid for it.”

Frank Machin takes it all too personally — the slights on the field, the snobbery off of it. Signing a fat contract and changing his life is meaningless without someone to share it with.

It’s a pity the person he’d love to drag along on this ride is his widowed landlady. Margaret Hammond (Rachel Roberts), mother of two young children, takes him in and lives off the rent he pays. She isn’t grateful for this or attracted to him. Her rebuffs should tell him that. The way she keeps her late husband’s boots polished next to the coal-burning heater in her dumpy flat tells him and us why.

“This Sporting Life” is about Frank’s rise, his stick-it-in-the-face-of-the-posh attitudes that keep him unspoiled, aka “loutish” and “gauche.” And it’s about his grim pursuit of “Mrs. Hammond,” an uncompromising man who has broken through a class barrier and who desperately wants to drag an unwilling woman through it with him.

It’s bracing to watch any “sporting” film of the era, or before, on either side of the pond, and then take in Anderson’s debut feature film. “This Sporting Life” is “the shock of the ‘new'” incarnate. Like the icons of the French New Wave who preceded him, he’d started his working life as a journalist and film critic, taking his shot by making short films, working his way into British TV before making a gigantic splash with this socially-conscious story set against a rugby backdrop.

The sets are working-class/lived-in — dumpy post-war flats, ancient pubs, the mansion and pricey restaurant where Machin encounters his “betters,” chief among them, the team’s vulpine “owner” (Qlan Badel). The games are in-your-face and yet sprawling and utterly credible, unlike Hollywood’s sports movies of the day.

Cinematographer Denys Coop’s black-and-white set-ups are unfussy and realistic, with the odd beautiful composition filled with contrasts and pictorial symmetry.

Harris brings the chip he kept on his shoulder for his best performances, and his very life makes the credibility of an arrogant, brooding, drunken brawler with a soulful streak and impulse control issues credible. The irony of this infamous boozer, nose-buster, lover and singer (he sings in the film, “Here in My Heart,” and late made “MacArthur Park” famous) living long enough to be the first Dumbledore at Hogwarts still boggles the mind.

Anyone not around at the beginning of her career might remember Roberts’ deliciously villainous turn in “Foul Play” or her standing-out the first big budget version of “Murder on the Orient Express” in the ’70s. In her Oscar-nominated turn in “This Sporting Life,” she is fiercely guarded and immovably unlikeable, a damaged woman pursued by a man who will never be the kind and “worried” husband she lost.

Margaret Hammond will rarely be grateful and never really warm to this younger man/suitor, and not just because of his temper, his table manners and his womanizing.

Roberts, who died at 53, has the distinction of appearing in a number of pictures now regarded as classics — “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” “O Lucky Man!,” “Our Man in Havana” and “Wild Rovers” among them.

Anderson would make his mark in the ’60s (“If…”) and early ’70s (“O Lucky Man!”) and deliver a final grace note in the late ’80s (“Whales of August”), spending his post-“Lucky Man” career acting, narrating documentaries and making lesser known films for British TV and theatrical release.

Coop, who did yeoman’s work on many a film (“Guns of Navarone”) would go on to light and shoot the gorgeous Christopher Reeve “Superman” movies.

But once upon a time, long before, these future legends joined hands and lent their talents to a watershed film, one that still packs a punch and makes you think over 60 years later.

Rating: unrated, violence, sexual assault

Cast: Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, Alan Badel, William Hartnell, Colin Blakely, Vanda Godsell and Jack Watson

Credits: Directed by Lindsay Anderson, scripted by David Storey, adapted from his novel. An Independent Artists film on Tubi, Amazon, Youtube et al

Running time: 2:14

At this point in Dreamworks’ “Trolls” enterprise, the adult thing to say is “Just give the kids what they want.”

“Trolls Band Together” has a few chuckles, an inane plot and an NSYNC reunion to top off another sing-along-with-the-living-toys comedy starring the always-committed Anna Kendrick, a somewhat less enthusiastic-sounding Justin Timberlake (who did a lot of work on the soundtrack), with Daveed Diggs, Amy Schumer, Kid Cudi and Rupaul joining the candy-colored festivities for the third film in a trilogy.

The story concerns a former boy band of brothers that Branch (Timberlake) was in who need to reunite because one of their number has been kidnapped by villain singers Velvet (Andrew Rannells) and Veneer (Schumer).

That entails Queen Poppy (Kendrick) and Branch joining BroZone leader John Dory (Eric André) as they set out on a quest to “get the band back together” and take one last shot at “perfect family harmony” so that they can hit a note that shatters diamonds.

Because that’s where their bandmate is imprisoned.

The former bandmates have led far different lives post-stardom, making each visit its own challenge.

The animation gets progressively more ornate and detailed with each passing film, and can be lovely to look at here, despite the risk of early onset diabetes from subjecting yourself to this.

Lots of kid-favorites are back — glittery Tiny Diamond is played by America’s most reliable laugh, Kenan Thompson. Watch out for those “wet willies,” there, chief.

“Wet WILLIAM.”

David Mamet’s daughter Zosia Mamet plays the put-upon servant of the pop star villains of the piece, Velvet and Veneer, and is so buried under their needs that she covers Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” and does it justice.

The juvenile jokes are often of a boy band pun variety — with One Direction, Backstreet Boys, etc. referenced.

And Orlando’s most famous boy band shows up as well.

None of which moved the needle for me, but I’m not the target audience here. Heck, parents have been forced to take their kids to a “Paw Patrol” movie and re-releases of “Nightmare Before Christmas” just to introduce a new generation to the movie-going habit.

The Orlando underage audience I saw this with hooted and applauded and sang along when knew to the tune. Not many knew “9 to 5” or “The Hustle.” But they will.

Rating: PG, a bleeped profanity

Cast: The voices of Anna Kendrick, Amy Schumer, Daveed Diggs, Zooey Deschanel, Andrew Rannells, Kenan Thompson, Eric Andre, Kid Cudi, Zosia Mamet, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Rupaul and Justin Timberlake.

Credits: Directed by Walt Dohrn and Tim Heitz, scripted by Elizabeth Tippet and Thomas Dam. A Dreamworks/Universal release.

Running time: 1:32

It’s a Medieval fantasy with Robin Wright, Angela Bassett, Shohreh Agdashloo, Nick Robinson and Ray Winstone.

Netflix is looking to keep itself in the Millie BB biz with this one.

When it’s good, “Journey to Bethlehem,” the latest faith-based film to take a shot at The Nativity Story, is playful and fun with actors who figure their characters are a bit campy, and vamp accordingly.

It’s a musical with plenty of “dramatic license” taken with Biblican accounts of the birth of Jesus. But we aren’t talking Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” blasphemous.

King Herod, for instance. He’s given that smoldering intensity that we’ve come to expect from the great Antonio Banderas. But he’s a vain tippler here, who loves his wine. And when former “Evita” star Banderas vamps through his villainous “Its great to be King” number, a longtime fan can’t help but be tickled.

The angel Gabriel (Grammy-winning Christian singer and rapper Lecrae) manifests himself in virginal Mary’s bedroom and nervously rehearses his lines about her (Fiona Palomo) being “chosen” for this very special assignment from On High.

That’s going to be a hard sell, he figures.

Mary has met the man she is to be married off to — pre-pregnancy. But she and he don’t know who each other are, and fruit shopping in the marketplace he flirts like an ancient Palestinian playa.

“I’m just friendly,” Joseph (Milo Manheim) insists.

And the Magi? They’re the stars of their own show, perhaps the best one-act play Tom Stoppard (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”) never wrote — “Magi Shmagi.” These “wise men” (Omid Djalili, Rizwan Manji, Geno Segers) from the East study, debate, kvetch and joke their way westward, following this mysterious star they figure portends the birth of the Son of God.

Director and co-writer Adam Anders, a veteran composer who wrote songs for Ace of Base and the score for the musical “Rock of Ages,” has made a lightweight faith-based film that’s Biblically loose and historically laughable.

But he serves up a diverse cast — Lecrae wears cornrows, gold lipstick and bright blue contact lenses to play Gabriel — some decent singers, actors who can handle comedy and El Jefe Banderas in a musical that borrows production number ideas from “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Evita” and that bit of Stoppard-esque business with the hilarious magi to give us a movie that even when it panders and stumbles and descends into self-seriousness, remains an adorably lighthearted take on Jesus: The Origin Story.

The leads have pleasant light pop singing voices, with Banderas and Joel Smallbone — playing Herod’s soldier-son — showing off Broadway-appropriate pipes.

The tunes are generally forgettable, with “Mary you’re so contrary…marry Mary marry Mary marry, it’s good for you” representative of the lyrics.

But when Herod and the visiting wise men warily size each other up, and bribes/gifts are offered to grease the wheels of their access to this unknown “pregnant” virgin, Omid Djalili as Melchior’s haughty milking of his, the best of ALL the gifts, “myrrrrrrrrrrrrh,” it’s a genuine spit-take. The laughs here work simply because they’re so unexpected.

The Spanish locations are passable, the costumes entirely too polished and laundered and the cast is never less than competent, if not wholly charismatic, top to bottom. It’s not “The Nativity Story” or “Risen,” the best of the Biblical epics of recent vintage. But whatever one’s expectations, the execution isn’t half-bad.

And as they used to say on the Bethlehem Borscht Belt, “It plays.”

More faith-based films like this and fewer with Kevin Sorbo, please and thank-you.

Rating: PG, threats of violence, “virgin birth” discussions, alcohol abuse

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Fiona Palomo, Milo Maheim, Omid Djalili, Rizwan Manji, Geno Segers, Joel Smallbone and Lecrae.

Credits: Directed by Adam Anders, scripted by Adam Anders and Peter Barsocchini, music and lyrics by Adam Anders, Nikki Anders and Peer Astrom. A Sony/Affirm release.

Running time: 1:38

Yeah, it’s a glamorous gig, isn’t it?

No, the title has nothing to do with social media practices on ExTwitter.

This singing silliness for the very young opens next week. Review to come shortly.

The trailers were underwhelming enough to lower expectations, not just for critics heading in to review “The Marvels,” but for audiences wondering how to start their weekend with a movie.

If I was guessing, and I am, that alone — and a general lack of star power in the cast — was enough to dampen enthusiasm for this latest post “Avengers” Marvel release that isn’t a “Spider-Man” variation.

Projections for the $200 million+ production were for it to open over $80, but those went by the board a couple of weeks back.

Based on the pre-sales ($5 million), Thursday night/Friday numbers reported ($6.5/$21 all in), “The Marvels,” rolling out at the end of the Screen Actor’s Guild strike and thus under promoted by the cast, may barely clear $47 million, a record low for the Marvel Movie Money Machine, according to Deadline.com.

Reviews were indifferent, generally. Critics can’t kill a comic book movie, but they aren’t helping.

As I said In my review, oversaturation of the brand — the movie is both a sequel and tied into the storylines and characters of a couple of TV series — is a burden every piece of Marvel content must overcome from here on out. The effects are next level, but star power is a must. Spend money on ACTORS.

There’s also the whole sexism thing that gets Brie Larson bashed, as fanboys far outnumber fangirls in this genre. They go easier on Gal Gadot and Margot Robbie, but not their comic book movies

The video game adaptation horror for kids take “Five Nights at Freddy’s” will be in second, experiencing yet another steep fall off from its big opening and clearing $9 million.

The rest of the top five and top ten?

Taylor Swift’s “Eras” $5.9

“Killers of the Flower Moon” $5 ($60 million by Monday night, $140 million worldwide by Friday)

“Priscilla” $4.8

“The Holdovers” $3 million

“Journey to Bethlehem” $2.43

“Paw Patrol” $1.57

“Radical” $1.5

“Exorcist Believer” $1.1

As always, I’ll update these figures as fresh data comes in over the rest of the weekend.

So this is Netflix’s much ballyhoo’d David Fincher thriller, a film reuniting the acclaimed director with the screenwriter who wrote his breakout film, “Se7en?”

It’s a hitman tale, beginning with a stalk and a job that finally happens and goes wrong when it does, putting the hitman on the lam until the he decides to seek revenge on those who don’t let mistakes slide.

I was…underwhelmed.

At least nobody kills his dog or steals his muscle car. Yeah, my first impulse is to label “The Killer” “John Wick Lite.”

Two-time Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender plays the callous, calculated and not-that-cool title character in an adaptation of a French comic book series. That explains why he monotonously narrates a running interior monologue for almost the entire two hour running time here.

“I serve no god or country,” he pontificates. “I fly no flag.”

Very comic book.

He recites his on the job rules, his mantra to us and himself every so often, as if he or we have had a chance to forget.

“Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight. Fight empathy.” And remember that one question that will keep him hale, hearty and wealthy.

“What’s in it for me?”

Our hired killer narrates how he settled on his disguise and invents jargon for this “profession” so popular with filmmakers. “Annie Oakley jobs” are sniping, which calls for patient, elaborate prep, long waits in which he monitors his heart rate to prevent over-anxious misses. “Proximity work” is more…personal.

The “blowback” from the blown job sends our killer home to a Dominican Republic estate, where his house has been violated and his girlfriend hospitalized. He decides to take care of this in the cliched hitman movie way — to hunt down the malefactors, middle men and the money men.

Almost everybody on that list has a speech when he gets to them. At least they’re talking out loud, and not in their heads.

That narration, the lazy screenwriter’s favorite crutch, can’t distract from a film that’s simply an extensive collection of genre cliches. There must be gloves, always gloves. The bolt-action rifle must always be assembled, and hastily taken apart after the shot has been fired. Wardrobe must be colorless and nondescript (“German tourist” here). Backup firearms are stashed in a buried safe at home (John Wick needed a sledgehammer to retrieve his). Silencers are screwed onto barrels, rounds are chambered, headshots fired.

The guy never misses. Except he did.

Our killer is comic-book movie-cute in his many aliases written on passports and credit cards as he scampers hither and yon. “Felix Unger, Archibald Bunker, Sam Malone, George Jefferson,” etc.

And oh yeah, likes to listen to music to pace himself, steady his aim. He’s got a thing for The Smiths. “Shoplifters of the World Unite” seems appropriate. “Girlfriend in a Coma?” Too on the nose.

It’s like a comic book version of a cinematically glamorized, seriously unglamorous profession practiced by insensate sociopaths, because it is. Skip the comics and watch “The Iceman” with Michael Shannon if you want a serious, fact-based take on who these psychopaths are and what makes them tick. It’s chilling. This? It’s not much of anything, and certainly not as “cool” as its focus-grouped character “accessories” were supposed to make it.

Tilda Swinton and Arliss Howard are in the supporting cast, and their scenes have a little snap (OK, hers does). But even they can’t make the big speeches memorable.

New Orleans, Chicago and Paris are among the cities visited, but the movie’s stand-out scene is a to-the-death brawl with a Florida Man. Of course.

Nothing else really resonates. The tech is too easily obtained, the targets too readily tracked down, the chases banal, most of the deaths perfunctory.

As the narration droned on, I was reminded of the cliches packed into “Se7en,” way back when. Then I thought of “Zodiac” and remembered how great Fincher can be. Without working from a Kevin Walker script.

And then I glanced at the budget for “The Killer” and wondered, as Netflix might, where the hell $175 million went? Aside from buying music rights?

As Fincher and Fassbender have earned the benefit of the doubt in terms of ambition, “The Killer” leaves one with a dilemma. Is this hit-man mocking satire, a Fincheresque essay on “the banality of evil,” seen via one really dull hitman? Or is it yet more proof of the gullibility of Netflix, signing a blank check to yet another famous filmmaker who indulged himself at their and our expense?

Rating: R, bloody violence, profanity

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley and Arliss Howard.

Credits: Directed by David Fincher, scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker, based on the French comic books by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon.

Running time: 1:59

The great Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba takes an unusual route to investigating, remembering and immortalizing a Brazilian “samba jaza” and boss nova pianist in “They Shot the Piano Player.”

He turned his search for answers about the talent, life and disappearance of Francisco Tenório Júnior into an animated docu-drama.

Rather than make a straight documentary out of all the interviews he’d been doing or archiving about this seminal ’60s “Bossa Nova Craze” Brazilian, who disappeared after a Buenos Aires gig in the dictatorship that was 1970s Argentina, the director of “Belle Epoque” and “Memories of My Father” reunited with his collaborator on the animated music history romance “Chico & Rita,” Javier Mascal.

They’d animate these interviews and bring Tenório Júnior, as he was known, back to life by playing g his jazz performances on classic Brazilian records, bathing this colorful film to live with his music and animating a version of Tenório Júnior who’d perform with various ensembles in clubs all over 1960s and ’70s South America. And the filmmakers would contrive a framing story and cast actor and jazz pianist of some repute Jeff Goldblum to “star” in “They Shot the Piano Player” as a writer researching the bossa nova craze for a book.

A few films have taken this novel approach to filling in the narrative gaps in their feature film or documentary by animating the entire movie, with the Armenian genocide docu-drama “Aurora’s Sunrise” being one of the best examples.

The result here doesn’t always work. Almost all of the interviews were conducted in Brazilian Portugeuse, and it’s hard to appreciate the beauty and the wit of the (under-animated) animation and virtuoisty of the music when you’re reading subtitles for long passages as we hear from this famous musician, that widow, friend or mistress of the brilliant pianist, who played on many of the great Brazilian records of his day and fronted a band for one marquee album under his own name.

Trueba, who scripted this, probably needed to make more of a case that this music took over the world at the same moment the French New Wave exploded in cinema. The two art revolutions can be linked and appear to have inspired one another. But that case isn’t wholly nailed-down here.

But the film that resulted is a solid music history lesson and a sad and intriguing mystery with animation, a movie that uses black and white sequences and brisk and colorful “carnivale” flashbacks for visual variety, a way of further jump-starting the energy of the piece.

Goldblum plays Jeff Harris, a New Yorker writer who appears at a reading and “an evening with” at New York’s Strand Bookstore. He regales the audience with how he “discovered” this missing icon, became infatuated with finding those who knew him and could tell his story and got a book out of this deep dive into Brazilian culture and the ugly and murderous history of American-backed coups that turned many South American and Central American states into dictatorships where citizens weren’t just arrested and jailed. They disappeared.

Harris learns only a little about Tenório Júnior’s early life, just that Chet Baker was a big influence and pianist Bill Evans was his idol. What our reporter is looking for isn’t just people who loved him and played with him and thus appreciated his genius, but those acquaintances and friends, the widow and the still-living mistress weighing in on what he was like and how that might have led to his late night arrest in a foreign country he’d just arrived in to begin a tour.

Tenório Júnior was “apolitical” and “a radical,” “an intellectual” and “kind of childish” as he struggled through a fallow period that coincided with a Brazilian dictatorship, frustrated and “trapped” in many ways, and jumping into an affair with a wife, four children and a baby on the way back home.

We see the animated Harris take plane, car and boat trips all over Brazil and into Argentina to find answers, meet former Argentinian functionaries who might know something and human rights officials who want to help him find enough answers to finish his book.

It’s a fun and always fascinating approach. And even though we don’t hear “the piano player” talk, he speaks through his mastery of the piano, pulling off virtuoso runs and showing chemistry with every artist and ensemble he teamed up with.

Catch this movie in a theater and you may find youself dusting off your bossa nova LPs, or haunting the vintage vinyl stores to get your hands on the good stuff, which is all Tenório Júnior ever promised and delivered in a performance — a flawed, complicated man whose escape from his real world problems, some of them self-inflicted, was always his music.

Rating: PG-13 for smoking and some violence.

Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Tony Ramos, Malena Barretto, João Gilberto, Gilberto Gil, João Donato, Judith Said, Bud Shank and many others.

Credits: Javier Mascal and Fernando Trueba, scripted by Fernando Trueba. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Running time: 1:42

“Resident Evil: Death Island” continues the migration of this long-running video-game adaptation/series to the CGI universe. It’s a continuation of the storyline of the bio-weapon zombie series “Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness,” and judging from the clips of that 2020-2021 CGI production, it’s another step up in creating photo-real characters and action in computer generated (animated) imagery.

The story, the “characters” and the dialogue? They’ve devolved into one big king-sized can of Costco corn. It’s a movie rife with tired zombie movie tropes and cliches uttered by actors “playing” somewhat less-plastic-looking “realistic” characters.

“Sometimes the nightmare sticks with you, and if you’re not careful, it’ll swallow you up!”

“I will make you pay for killing my father!”

“The infected must be shot on sight! Terminate with extreme prejudice!”

The “talking villain” (voiced by Daman Mills) walks with a cane and has a mania for Russian Roulette, and soliloquies.

“Is there even such a thing as ‘evil’ in the food chain?'”

The story follows a couple of timelines — one in the past where we see that first Raccoon City (those Japanese and their idea of what North Americans name their metropolises) outbreak test a couple of commandoes sent to evacuate Umbrella execs — and a “present” where a new “bio weapon” outbreak, delivered by bio-drones and including actual monsters, is traced to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

“Death Island” it is.

The combat tac gear always dresses female fighters tops and pants/shorts from the Tomb Raider collection. And the characters are just computer-generated archetypes — the burly soldier, the mop-topped “agent,” the pinup scientists, lady soldiers and villainous henchwoman.

Very video game and seriously dumbed-down as a movie.

As for the animation, most action beats in big screen blockbusters are CGI-dependent, and this movie’s versions of those — complete with Bugs Bunny physics in their unsurvivable (and helmetless) motorcycle crashes — are pretty convincing. The most photo-real moment is a brief snippet of the bad guy loading a revolver for another round of Russian Roulette. The pistol and the hand fumbling bullets into it are as close to the real thing as any CGI human-and-human-activity I’ve ever viewed.

In the rural North Carolina town where my mother retired, there’s one fan of this series who catches my attention each time he drives by. A decade ago, he painted up his black ’90s Ford Taurus in Umbrella Corp. logos and slogans. I see this car most every time I visit — parked at this Subway or McDonald’s where he’s working, in a trailer park I bicycle by where he seems to live.

At this point in the Milla Jovovich-born “Resident Evil” as filmed entertainment enterprise, these movies are for that guy. Probably not that guy alone, but definitely a smaller and more devoted audience.

The rest of us moved on when Milla finally did. CGI leaps forward in “realism” be damned, this beast was beaten to death years ago.

Rating: R, bloody violence and a little profanity

Cast: The voices of Nicole Tompkins, Matthew Mercer, Stephanie Panisello, Kevin Dornan, Erin Cahill, Cristina Valenzuela and Daman Mills

Credits: Directed by Eiichiro Hasumi, scripted by Makoto Fukami. A Sony film released on Netflix.

Running time: 1:30