The Immortal Bard’s son Hamnet died at 11. His twin, Judith, lived to the ripe old age of 77.
Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about the bereaved parents has been adapted by Oscar winner Chloe Zao (“Nomadland”) with Buckley and Mescal as Agnes and William Shakespeare, and Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn as William’s parents.
This comes out Thanksgiving.
Here’s a thought.
Of the legions of Hollywood offspring who became “nepo baby” movie stars, Charlie Sheen may be the only one to question his status and how he got it, who developed guilt over his fame and even his gifts and feels he doesn’t “deserve it.”
That insight is from Sheen’s longest-serving co-star, Jon Cryer (“Two and a Half Men”), a smart cookie who has observed the wonder and the terror of Charlie Sheen — son of Martin, brother of Emilio — up close. He’s experienced the “regular guy” charm. He’s seen his own livelihood battered by Sheen’s addictions.
And, as he says in the new two-part documentarty “aka Charlie Sheen,” he’s noticed that “consequences” never keep cuddly, charming Charlie from making another comeback, which is why Cryer was a reluctant participant in this ups-and-downs/Charlie-in-his-Own-Words documentary.
He’s not sure the world, or Charlie, needs a “comeback” to happen.
Cryer, Sheen’s old pal and childhood neighbor Sean Penn, Sheen’s ex-wife Denise Richards and his former “boss,” “Two and a Half Men” creator Chuck Lorre are among the canniest observers and analyzers of this “icon of decadence,” as Cryer describes Sheen.
But Sheen himself, interviewed in a marathon session or two by filmmaker Andrew Renzi (“Ready for War,” Netflix’s “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?”) in a booth in closed-after-hours Chips Diner, is the star attraction, the spinner, rationalizer, deflecter and teller of hard unpleasant truths in the story of his star-studded, sexually adventurous, cocaine-and-everything-else addicted life.
“If you ask Charlie did he do this,” Penn avers, “he’s gonna tell you the truth.”
Penn’s the expert on fame and addiction and “public life” in this dirty laundry doc. Richards, the second of Sheen’s ex-wives — famous since “Wild Things,” his wife and sometime co-star during the “Two and a Half Men” meltdown — brings the pathos, all that the man kept throwing away. “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss is here to bring judgement, the woman he threw under the bus after getting caught hiring her prostitutes.
And Marco is here to talk about the drugs, drugs which Marco supplied Charlie with for years. “My pal” Charlie calls him. Marco’s got home videos and selfies to give him street cred and Charlie cred.
Who takes SELFIES with their drug dealer? Charlie effing Sheen, that’s who.
No, he’s not like us, and it’s not just him who says so. His Keith Richards tolerance for controlled or banned substances leaves people like third ex wife Brooke Mueller in awe and even gives Penn pause.
Sheen is here to speak his “truth,” own to a lot of it and blame some of it one this or that drug and his struggle with it at the time as he answers Renzi’s off-camera questions, queries that probe more than challenge, but that take him and us into the worst of the worst of Charlie Sheen.
Sheen also provides “structure” to his rise and fall, “comeback” and “come back again” story.
With fame, there was “Partying.” Then “Partying with Problems.” And finally that devolved into “Just Problems.” The fact that Shee’s still here tells us there might be a more upbeat ending after those three “chapters” than you’d expect.
Home movies with brothers Emilio Estevez (who declined to participate) and Ramon Estevez (interviewed) sister Renée Estevez (not interviewed) show a Super 8 movie-making obsessed childhood in pre-super wealth Malibu and parenting that had the family traipsing off to movie star dad Martin Sheen’s (not interviewed) film locations (the Philippines for “Apocalypse Now”).
The love and support of Dad (Mom is almost never mentioned) is a constant, from Martin giving Charlie the one bit of coaching he needed to launch his career with a one-scene turn in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to Martin urging the public to “pray for Charlie” after one near-fatal drug-induced collapse, prayers the elder Sheen had been asking journalists to provide for years any time he met the press.
But we get a hint that maybe distracted ’70s parenting was a part of this mix, too. Charlie, his siblings and neighbor kids, were into “weed” in their tweens. That came after his parents’ “naked” around the house years.
Sheen’s a fun storyteller, and he relates how fellow nepo-baby and childhood friend Jennifer Gray got him that one scene role in “Ferris,” and how he borrowed older brother Ramon’s leather jacket and stayed up all night to create the “look” of his police station delinquent in the film.
He loved sports, and revels in his basketball encounter with Michael Jordan and a close friend verifies his baseball skills, even “just after he got outta rehab.”
Sheen laments having to give up “The Karate Kid” big break for a C-movie he agreed to make in Eastern Europe. So he made his screen debut with George Clooney and Laura Dern and Louise Fletcher in “Grizzly II,” a bomb nobody saw.
“Platoon” came calling, then “Wall Street.” Penn astutely notes how Charlie’s screen career mirrored his dad’s — a punk in “Badlands,” a Vietnam soldier in Apocalpyse” and so on.
Sheen regales us with the heady fame that came, with little effort, in his peak years and his shift to comedy — “Hot Shots,” “Major League.” The world was his oyster. But competing with pal and running mate Nic Cage on partying binges sealed his fate. He’d get out of control. And time and again there’d be “no consequences” for it.
The entire part two of “aka Charlie Sheen” is about the reckoning that came and the public’s disturbing reaction to it when the wheels finally came off.
Continue readingColman plays an Aussie filmmaker in Sophie Hyde’s (“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande”) drama, drawn from Hyde’s own life.
It’s about reconnecting with an estranged parent living his best (gay) life in Amsterdam, and how that may impact her own nin-binary kid.
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My kinda Florida cop tale — drug money is too tempting for fellows who always have to ask themselves, “Are we the good guys?”
True story.
Jan. 16.
Lady Mary makes one more most-unladylike sexual mistake, “Mum-MAH” dishes up one more serving of proto-feminist American common sense and one last “season” in London town is experienced for “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” of the highbrow British/PBS soap opera that has also produced three movies.
It’s a starchy send-off filled with stiff dialogue and so much fan service that it fairly drowns in characters and new versions of events and scenes that we’ve watched played-out in other forms over the long history of this period piece franchise. All those episodes and movies, it can’t help but play as repetitive and recycled.
How many more affairs, dressing room confidences exchanged with the maids and strolls around the grounds can one endure?
But then a pretty fair proximation of the “Downton” era’s greatest wit — the playwright, actor and gay bon vivant Noël Coward –– shows up. And damned if Downton and those who made it don’t make a graceful, warm bon voyage into the cinematic sunset.
I’d always suspected that perfect bookend to this saga would be to end it as the house is taken over for the all-consuming struggle that was Britain facing Nazi Germany in World War II. The series began on the eve of WWI after all, and the estate and the poshes who live there and the plebes who served them did their bit as The Great War errupted around them. The fact that many “Great Houses” did not come out of the Second World War in the same shape or the same hands, something “Brideshead Revisited” touched on, seemed to suggest the perfect coda.
But creator Julian Fellowes, who used his script for Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” as a dry run for “Downton” — knows best. And he begins this outing in style, with a “season” at Grantham House, the family’s townhome in London, where the East End features a play by Coward (Arty Froushan, terrific) starring dashing old actor friend of the family Guy Dexter (Dominic West), whose backstage dresser and “pal” is Mr. Barrow (Robert James-Collier), once a closeted valet at Downton.
Lord Grantham’s beloved mother (Maggie Smith) died in the last film. And now American-born Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) has lost her mother (played by Shirley MacLaine, remember) and her affairs are in a mess.
Because Lady Grantham left her businessman/brother (Paul Giamatti) in charge. The Wall Street crash almost wiped them out, and he took on an advisor, Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola), who is tall, dark and sketchy.
The Lord may be putting the Abbey in the hands of their daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). But she’s not above being plied with the latest cocktails from America by the wily and beguiling Gus.
Yes, she winds up in bed with him, which considering word of her divorce has just scandalized her and put her on the “shunning” list of London and Yorkshire society, isn’t a smart move. And yes, that’s exactly how this saga began, 16 years ago, with Lady Mary bedding a houseguest and trying to keep that a secret when he winds up dead the morning after.
Gus, being American, doesn’t have the good manners to die and be less of a problem.
The Lord may or may not relinquish control of the Abbey and its now-turning-over staff. Mr. Carson (the regal Jim Carter) is retiring, as is the earthy, old school cook, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol). The increasingly confident and self-assured Daisy (Sophie McShera) is taking over for her, and her refusal to be overly impressed by her “betters” makes egalitarian in-law Lady Merton (Penelope Wilton) appoint her and the retiring Carson to the committee that runs the local fair.
They’ll do battle with the formidably snobby, Lady Mary-shunning Sir Hector (Simon Russell Beale).
With dicey finances, “improvements” needed for the cottages on the property and more “changes” than one old Lord and Lady can handle on their own, it’s nice that help is never more than one kindhearted relative away.
The widowed Tom (Allen Leech), once a servant, now a socialist rolling in just-sold-my-business cash, will pitch in. The staff will spread the right rumors and “scandal,” “cash poor” or not, all will be made right by this nice world of nice people, not all of whom were “nice” on the series.
Continue reading
“Getting the band back together” nostalgia is fine. Realizing that they can still play well into their ’70s is something of a “good for them” triumph.
And maybe coming to the conclusion that for a parody of a bombastic, pretentious British heavy metal band of the ’60s through the ’80s, tunes like “Big Bottom,” “Hell Hole,” “Flower People” and “Stonehenge” pretty much hold up.
But as amusing as it’s been over the years for “the lads” of Spinal Tap to turn up on late night chat-variety shows to prove they’re as musical and as clueless as ever, a sequel to “This is Spinal Tap,” the mockumentary that really invented that label, can’t help but play as winded, gassed, joked-out and pointless.
“Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” comes off like what used to be called “a contractual obligation album,” or a chance to re-record and grab the rights back to their music and the movie that made them. They might finally profit from a fake band, their fake band back catalog of tunes and that fake documentary that Nigel Tufnel, Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins and director Marty DiBergi barely made a dime from.
That goes for their creators, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Rob Reiner as well. It’s ironically hilarious that the guys who made the movie about the clueless fake band were clueless enough to sign the worst deal possible with distributors, just to get the original film made.
But the bottom line is, that’s why “Spinal Tap II: Finally Cashing In” exists.
Guest’s mockumentary career went its course, and he tried a filmmaking comeback with Netflix (“Mascots”) that didn’t work out a few years back. McKean has worked steadily in supporting roles (“Better Call Saul,” “The Diplomat”) and voice-over work in the intervening years — nothing to make one rich. And Reiner’s acted a bit, even as his directing career fell off dramatically after the charming “Flipped” flopped fifteen years ago.
Shearer? He’s had his lucrative “Simpsons” gig since the ’80s. He’s fine. Which is perhaps the reason he’s not credited as a writer here, and that he has little to say or contribute that’s funny. He’s just the bass player, man. He just has to show up.
Derek’s running The New Museum of Glue these days. Nigel runs a Cheese & Guitars Shop. St. Hubbins is making music for podcasts.
Reasons more contrived than logical broke them up, and now they’re reuniting for a big New Orleans comeback/farewell concert. They audition or approach famous drummers (Lars Uhlrich, Questlove, Chad Smith) and little knowns (including a Blue Man Group alumnus) to replace the “eleven” they’ve killed off.
Riot Grrrrl Didi (Valerie Franco) gets the gig. They add Caucasian Jeff (CJ Vanston) on keyboards, cope with a new manager, Simon (Chris Addison) and the fangirlish daughter (Kerry Goldiman) of their original manager and settle into the rehearsal studio where the parade of famous cameos continue, none of them to hilarious effect.
Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks to Paul McCartney and Elton John join the deadpan parade, and some manage to drag out a smile or two as they’re insulted, or turn insulting.
But in the 41 years since Spinal Tap sent-up the supposedly then-just-passed “classic rock” era, communities from coast to coast have opened outdoor concert venues that only yacht rock and classic rock and other nostalgia acts can fill. Promoters call these ampitheatres “Jurassic Parks.”
“Classic rock” hung around. Bad Company just got into the Rock Hall of Fame.
Comical documentaries about real bands of the genre that never quite made it (“Anvil!”) have come out. And Guest made a whole career out of mockumentaries, even tapping into old folk musician nostalgia (“A Mighty Wind”) for one film.
Clips and outtakes from the original film take us back. But the music they sent up never went away, even if they did. For a while.
The joke is played, the conceit is worn out and seeing granddad-bod Guest in a kilt isn’t nearly the hoot one might have hoped.
So if you want to support this crew getting control of their amusing and enduring intellectual property, I’d suggest you give the documentary a pass and just buy the concert LP. “Hell Hole” still rocks, “Big Bottom” still rolls, and you know “Stonehenge” will finish with a crash, with or without dwarf druids dancing in the ruins.
Rating: R, profanity
Cast: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Valerie Franco, CJ Vantston, Kerry Godliman, Chris Addison, with Trisha Yearwood, Lars Ulhrich, Garth Brooks, Paul McCartney and Elton John.
Credits: Directed by Rob Reiner, scripted by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Rob Reiner. A Bleecker Street release.
Running time: 1:23
It doesn’t do “The Long Walk” any favors slapping the previews to the remake of “The Running Man” on before the opening credits. “Walk” is “Running” without the running or the amped-up game show “entertainment” elements.
The title and the trailers give away the whole derivative story — a dog-eat-dog “Hunger Game/Maze Runner” on foot, contestants walking until they falter and are summarily executed by The State, fifty young men marching hundreds of miles until all but one drop.
The subtexts to all this, the real nature of “a draft,” which is how the contestants are chosen (young men selected for “sacrifice”), a nation splintered after a second civil war, in need of healing, the violence and hatred that must be overcome to unite us against a common enemy, are opaque. The character arcs are dull.
It’s a chatty film, where a group of the lads bond, share and do everything but sing “Kumbaya” on their death mark, and director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner do little save for bursts of violence and a flashback to animate it.
“Boy, I would KILL for a foot massage right now.”
The performances aren’t generally bad. They’re limited by the story and working conditions.
Young actors walking and talking, even if they typically turn fatigued or injured enough to merit execution rather abruptly — as opposed to steadily weakening and collapsing — isn’t the best way to deliver pages and pages and pages of dialogue. Endless words and even whole sentences are lost in the effort to briskly walk and thoughtfully talk.
But kudos to Mark Hamill for managing his best Michael Ironside as the heartless “Major” who reiterates the rules and barks out motivational pitches behind black aviator sunglasses from his open top armored vehicle.
“There is only one ‘winner’ and no ‘finish line.” It’ll take “courage, determination and ambition” to win it all, with the sole survivor earning a big cash prize and an all-encompassing “wish” granted to boot.
Judy Greer gets across the stakes in an opening scene where she drops off her only son, Raymond (Cooper Hoffman, son of Philip Seymour H.) at the Louisiana starting line. Fifty young men, one representing each state, have been “chosen,” and Raymond chose not to opt out.
He’s not in great shape, but he has his reasons for participating in this “patriotic” bloodsport. And Mom collapses in tears when the weight of the moment overcomes her.
Raymond is the “home state” boy in the field, theoretically knowing the terrain (it was actually shot in Canada) and used to the climate. His Mom can stop by the “race” to check on his progress, or if he’s survived the first hour, first night or first three days.
Philospher Raymond bonds with smart and sensible Peter (David Jonsson), and they connect with nerdy Hank (Ben Wang) and tall and thin Baker (Tyt Nyout). They’re the (four) “Three Musketeers,” urging each other on, propping each other up as ankles, legs, will and bowels give way and The Major and his escorting, guarding, executing and televising troopers “thin the herd.”
Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer) is a sadist, an emotional wreck into taunting others thanks to his own issues. Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) is the tall, thin and fit blond who seems like everybody’s safest best to win this thing. There’s a “sissy boy,” a kid who must have lied about his age to get in, a young guy (Jordan Gonzalez) who’d like to “write a book” about event “from the inside” and a Native American from Iowa (Joshua Odjick) who endures as a loner’s loner.
The characters are a veritable checklist of “types” given the color-blinding casting tratment. And the conversations flirt with the idea of being “about” something — a generational cry of “Nobody signed UP for this!” — but never quite amount to making a statement.
It’s about pliable, conformist young men at that heedless age when armies all over the world draft them into service. It’s about a future “Gen Z” trapped in a world of older generations’ making, and sacrificed for that. “Helpless” describes their resigned-to-their-fate state in a single word.
Horrific? Only in the eyes-averting gore and graphic death mark diarrhrea sense.
I couldn’t decide if the generic backdrops and endless conversations made this more suited to a podcast series, as Stephen King had good luck with some of his more dialogue-heavy books on radio in the ’80s, or whether “Long Walk” is just another 65 minute movie in a 105 minute package.
The resolution’s both predictable and perfunctory. “Unsatisfying” comes with the package, and that goes for the movie itself — lazy pop psychology, underdeveloped sociology and psychology and an allegory that never comes close to sticking the landing.
Rating: R, graphic violence, bodily functions and profanity
Cast: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Mark Hamill, Garrett Waering, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Tut Nyout, Joshua Odjick and Judy Greer.
Credits: Directed by Francis Lawrence, scripted by JT Mollner, based on a novel by Stephen King. A Lionsgate release.
Running time: 1:48
Where my cummerbund cosplayers at?
One last happy ending?
Because inherited wealth never ends and National Trust estates never turn to rubble in the Land of the Posh.
I do love being the youngest patron in the multiplex.
Moviegoing as an experience has had its rough periods of adjustment over the decades.
Audiences returning to the cinema in the ’70s and ’80s thanks to the Blockbuster era had to learn they weren’t in their den, where chattering about what was on TV was the rule. I spent most of the ’80s lecturing senior citizens and pissant teens about talking talking talking during movies.
Later, I took to tossing the caps from my cheap pens at yakkers, to the point where it got so I didn’t have a single note-taking pen with a clip on it.
And then the cell phone arrived and any semblence of courtesy for those around you went right out the door. Tossing pen caps or popcorn seemed futile. I distinctly remember a showing of “Boogie Nights” at the Beverly Center that was disrupted when a patron took a call, mid-movie, got screamed at and then sat slack-jawed as an enraged fellow moviegoer grabbed their cell and hurled it against the wall.
Any regular moviegoer knows that there are differences between audiences, even if sweeping generalizations can seem harder to back up when you actually crunch the numbers and measure them against your own experience.
Octane Seating is a movie seat seller-distributor that commissioned a poll for “most obnoxous moviegoers,” and other behavioral quirks of the broader cinema audience. Here’s what they found.
Not really my experience of the horror audience. They are typically younger, but I can’t say that’s necessarily a guarantee for “obnoxious” behavior. I’m hard-pressed to recall a really bad horror moviegoing experience.
Sex in the cinema? “Fargo,” NYC, the row behind me at one of the big stadium multiplexes in midtown for a midnight show.
Yelling? Been there, done that. Top tip, start with a polite “Shhhh.” Escalate it to a nuclear “SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” before the shouting.
I once did that to a couple who turned out to be colleagues from the newspaper where I was working. They were…chastened.
Sneaking food and drinks? It’s a must, with AMC charging $9 for a drink or a popcorn or a candy box.
“Drunk or high?” Yeah, GenZ owns that. For now.
But for all that can go wrong, the movies are still, by and large, a positive experience, despite the ever-increasing number of ads parked in front of the previews, the prices and the “hell is other people” potential.
Still, if you’ve heard and seen cell phones at funeral services, endured earbud “conversations” by clueless cretins in most any public space you can imagine — museums, concerts, etc. — singling out movies as the one place where that happens is fair.
And speaking as someone who still sees 125+ films a year in cinemas, I know it’s easiest to lump the horror crowd into a “not like the rest of us” generalization. Anime cultists, superhero movie lemmings, every audience has its uncouth outliers.
At least Adam Sandler’s been segregated to Netflix. That crowd might have been the least civilized of all, if memory serves.
Gather round, ladies and gents, “boys and gourds,” for a Scots-flavored tale of a little girl who communes with plants.
“Grow” is a cute-aiming-for-cutesie comedy about Halloween, a pumpkin growing contest and learning to “go organic” because that’s what the plants tell you they prefer.
High stakes competitive pumpkining can lead to all sorts of chicanery, and since director John McPhail gave us “Anna and the Apocalypse,” keep an eye peeled for a pumpkin “Psycho” murder and a “Godfather” touch in where one dead gourd winds up.
But most of the giggles here are from a Brit Comic Who’s Who supporting cast of Jane Horrocks, Tim McInnerny, Jeremy Swift and Alan Carr. And there’s Nick Frost, nipping at your nose for good measure.
Priya Rose-Brookwell is Charlie, an impish orphan determined to get to L.A. because she’s sure that’s where her Mum ran off to, “to be the new Wonder Woman.” The System has just about given up on her when they finally turn up her one blood relative.
Aunt Dina (Golda Rosheuvel of “Bridgerton”) is a struggling farmer up Mugford way, where her Little Farm is the only holdout not growing cucurbitaceae in “The Pumpkin Capital of the World.”
No, it’s not the “real” pumpkin capital. But it’s quaint and Scottish and the locals say “Oy!” a lot, especially to anybody who wants to know their personal jumbo-growth pumpkin growing secrets.
Charlie has this special connection to plants, and she figures the £100,000 prize could get her to LA to search for the mother who ran out on her. So why not swipe some seeds, ask around for “tips,” memorize the English measuring system from pounds to stone to tonnes, and have a go?
Aunt Dina is no help, and her lazy hired hand (Joe Wilkinson) would rather teach her his dangerous chores (herbiciding the weeds) than answer her questions about pumpkins.
A classmate’s (Dominic McLaughlin) ag-chemical dad (Jeremy Swift) figures pumpkin growing in the lab is best for weight if one wants to break the “one tonne” barrier.
But the idle rich neighbors, the Smythe-Gerkins (Horrocks and McInnerny) have their own methods, and have been winning the contest for generations.
There’s nothing for it but for Dina to introduce Charlie to organic woodlands weirdo Arlo (Frost) who lives in an ancient caravan (camper) in the forest. The kid who communes with and finesses the flora convinces him to pitch in.
A “descended from greatness” seed is selected and planted, a vine sprouts and “Peter” the pumpkin is named and nurtured towards annual Big Contest at the Mugford’s fall fair.
The script isn’t a laugh a minute, but it has its charms. The messaging about how pumpkins are like people, “It’s not how they look that matters, it’s what’s inside” is obvious but soft-sold.
The kid has a great grasp of the acting craft and holds her own with her esteemed co-stars.
And the pumpkin sabotage scenes are funny, punny and worthy of “Wallace & Gromit.”
Live-action kid-friendly fare like “Grow” is a rare thing, these days, especially at the height of Horror Season. Better grab the tykes and dash off to this before the last “pumpkin spice” lattes are served.
Rating: PG
Cast: Priya Rose-Brookwell, Golda Rosheuvel, Jane Horrocks, Tim McInnerney, Jeremy Swift, Dominic McLaughlin, Alan Carr and Nick Frost.
Credits: Directed by John McPhail, scripted by Nick Guthe, Ruth Fletcher and Christos N. Gage. A Sky production, a Fathom release.
Running time: 1:47
Movie Nation 