Movie Nation

“The Farewell” tookbest feature and best supporting actress.

“Uncut Gems” took best directors for the Safdie Brothers and best actor –Adam Sandler.

“Booksmart” won best first feature for Olivia Wilde.

Renee Z won best actress for “Judy.”

“The Lighthouse” won cinematography.

Noah Baumbach won best original screenplay for “Marriage Story.”

Willem Dafoe got best supporting actor for “The Lighthouse.”

“Parasite” won best international feature.

“Uncut Gems” took best editing.

“American Factory” won best doc.

I’m a sucker for a good Cold War thriller. A middling one? Yeah, I’ll sit through one of those, too.

“The Coldest Game” falls in the latter category, a fictional Cuban Missile Crisis/”Bobby Fischer vs. The World” mash-up that hurls many a spy movie cliche and every paranoid terror the American chess champ Fischer had about the Russians — from poison and hypnosis to neck-snapping murder — into the middle of real history’s closest call with World War III.

Bill Pullman plays an alcoholic mathematics professor, sometimes card-counter at poker and former chess champ kidnapped from boozy Brooklyn just as the Cuban Missile Crisis begins in 1962.

Joshua Mansky is a bit of a wreck, but an American champ has died, suddenly, and they need somebody to play the Soviet champ (Evgeniy Sidikhin) in a goodwill match in Warsaw. Because the world could use a little good will.

American agents (Lotte Verbeek, James Bloor, Corey Johnson) pour the guy into the basement of the American embassy in Warsaw and size him up.

“THIS is the guy you want to win the Cold War for us?”

But a medico on duty finds that just giving the alcoholic a drink makes him functional. He’s a damned genius, after all. He needs something to tune out distractions.

The whole ploy here is setting up a handover of information from a Russian/Soviet double agent, microfilm that will reveal their state of preparations in Cuba and their intentions.

So, no losing the match quickly. No wiping the floor with the Bolshevik bastard, either.

Mansky blacks out, is manipulated by hypnotist tricks from Russian plants in the audience and is overwhelmed — at least at first.

“What happened with the game?”

“You WON professor!”

But there’s a Polish Palace of Culture manager (Robert Wieckiewicz) who recognizes a fellow dipsomaniac in Mansky, and hides bottles all over the hotel, in addition to sneaking him out for a boozy night on the town.

Meanwhile, the murderous Soviets cheat and kill to win at any costs, meeting in Russian (Not subtitled, you will have to turn on closed captioning.), and taking their marching orders from General Krutov (Aleksey Serebryakov).

Again, turn on closed captioning if you’re not able to understand the Russian. Because in this Polish co-production, the Russian has the best lines. Krutov is a true believer, and his explanation of the difference between capitalism and communism could convert a lot of folks to Bernie Sanders voters.

“We believe in the value of a man, while they only care about his price.”

Serebryakov’s Gen. Krutov makes the best threats, too. “From this moment you can be afraid for the rest of your short life.”

The whole affair — again, fictional — is a jumble of U-2 flights and intrigues, “quiet” rooms (bugs are everywhere) and booze. Pullman keeps up with it all, but it lost me here and there, and long before its “Here is the message of our movie” epilogue, about new dangers brought to the world by Trump and Putin and the collapse of treaties.

But the Mid-Century Soviet fashion, furniture and design is properly gloomy and crumbling. The performances are solid even when the story is at its most convoluted.

And there are third act twists that atone for some of what’s lacking in the first two.

But let’s give the Russian the last word on this “draw” of a drama — “Defeat is not defeat if you share it with your enemy.”

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, bloody violence, alcohol abuse

Cast: Bill Pullman, Lotte Verbeek, Aleksey Serebryakov, James Bloor, Corey Johnson and Nicholas Farrell

Credits: Directed by Lukasz Kosmicki, script by Lukasz Kosmicki, Marcel Sawicki. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:43

Had to look it up. Watch and listen for it in the movie when it opens Valentine’s Day.

Impress your friends with your Poppy Family knowledge.

Sure, all the “momentum” and most of the pre Oscar predictor awards have gone to Sam Mendes and “1917” as best director and best picture.

Well, almost all of them.

But as I said last summer, Hollywood loves nothing as much as movies that celebrate the movies. “The Artist ” “Argo.”

So when Hollywood itself votes for best picture, “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” will win.

That would amount to a surprise, and the Academy Awards have been short on those of late.

Tarantino has a shot at best director, too. His best ever. But Mendes will probably still collect that prize.

And the acting honors seem chiseled in stone at this point. Maybe Laura Dern loses, arguably Renee Zellweger SHOULD lose. Good performance, mediocre movie.

But seeing the Hollywood Reporter’s “brutally honest” anonymous voter Oscar ballots this week reflected what I have been thinking all along.

Hollywood will honor “Hollywood.”

Transgender girl just cannot get and keep a job. Not that she really wants one.

Allison Janney and Margot Martindale costar in this bitchy farce.

French Boy Scouts save children. The most famous scout among them? Marcel Marceau.

Did you know the most famous mime in history was with the”Resistance” during WWII?

Did you realize that I am posting this on National Boy Scout Day?

Clemence Poesy, Ed Harris (as General Patton) and Edgar Ramirez also star in this March 27 release.

Ok, maybe that’s not a “Dolittle” level disaster. But when the studio was expecting a $45 million opening weekend and Hollywood box office gurus were saying as high as $60, this weekend “Birds of Prey” are proving to be dead ducks.

“Suicide Squad” aftertaste in play here? That sold hundreds of millions in tickets, and just sucked. Margot Robbie starred in it and film fans do not forget.

Blame the R rating, the violence, chasing away families and fangirls, who needed to turn out.

Blame sexist fanboys for not warming to a sexy, sadistic distaff “Deadpool.”

Or blame Warners, for not hiring funnier writers to punch up the script. I don’t fault the relatively inexperienced director, but Cathy Yan is no Jon Favreau, who is funny and always knew how to lighten the tone of his comic book movies. Having the clout to insist on rewrites is a must. Green directors do not have this clout, which is often why they land the job.

Being “woke” enough to hire women behind the camera and in front of it doesn’t do them any favors if they aren’t the right women.

I’d blame Yan for one big casting blunder, the amateurish Asian kid playing the pickpocket.

Christina Hodson has “Bumblebee” writing on her resume. Did somebody else write the jokes?

Casting Ewan McGregor’s girlfriend should have been a safer bet. Rosie Perez was funnier in the ’90s.

But that all could have been fixed with a better screenplay, more jokes, less graphic violence.

“Bad Boys” added another $10 million, “1917” another $8-9, “Dolittle” and “Jumanji” another $5-6 each.

https://deadline.com/2020/02/birds-of-prey-weekend-box-office-margot-robbie-1202853768/

The embargo for reviews of this video game turned into a movie is midnight Wednesday.

They’re Screening it for critics Saturday.

Vote of confidence? Do James Marsden and Jim Carrey save it?

Animation and re animation, a studio trying to fix the look and sound of the digital hedgehog.

A February sleeper? Or is it how it looks?

The idea behind “Kevin Hart’s Guide to Black History” is to take a “Drunk History” run through the lives of Great African Americans — some famous, many unjustly obscure.

They left out the “drunk” part, but the format is the same as “Drunk History” — light sketch comedy takes on Joe Lewis, Robert Johnson, Mae Jemison, Robert Smalls, Josephine Baker, Henry “Box” Brown and others.

Hart recites these tales to his daughter (played by Saniyya Sidney) and her nerdy white friend (Eoghan Thomas Murphy ).

You think you know Black History, from everything you learned in Black History Month? Ever heard of Underground Railroad hero Henry “Box” Brown, who packed escaped slaves, including himself, in shipping crates and mailed them from Richmond to Philly?

How about Robert Smalls, the slave who hijacked a Confederate gunboat in Charleston and took it and other slaves to freedom on it?

Mae Jemison, played by Tiffany Haddish, was the first African American woman astronaut, but who’s heard of Bessie Coleman, a barnstorming pilot in the ’30s who was the first Black woman to obtain a pilot’s license?

Well-known figures like Frederick Douglas, boxer Joe Lewis and bluesman Robert Johnson are addressed as well.

The reenactments aren’t hilarious, or even funny. But they are flippant and kid-friendly.

Hart’s narration? Strictly of the “quick-and-dirty” variety. No, there’s no profanity (well, a Fokker aircraft crack). But his line readings sound like what they are — recitations read from a page. He mispronounces words and nobody on the set had the nerve to ask for another take.

Still, it’s a breezy if not that funny “Sober History” riff through the lives of Great African Americans, such as the inventor of the potato chip, the true “first man to reach the North Pole” (or, um, get close) and others beyond the tiny ranks of “Black History Month’s Greatest Hits,” which is all many of us were taught in school each February.

MPAA Rating: TV-PG.

Cast: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Lil Rel Howery, Nika King, Alphonso McAuley , Greg Germann, Christopher Mychael Watson

Credits: Directed by Tom Stern, scripted by Brian Volk-Weiss, Evan White. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:17

“Horse Girl” is a candy-colored descent into madness, a lightweight drama that maintains something like suspense as we cringe through a woman’s struggle to just maintain the appearance of “normality” and “sanity.”

Alison Brie of dark comedies such as “The Disaster Artist” and “The Little Hours” co-wrote and stars in this character study in loneliness, sadness and a growing disconnection with reality.

The innocuous title doesn’t give away what a sugar-coated but downbeat movie this is. In the words of the late Vic Ferrari, “Whoa. Hard to get happy after THAT one.”

Brie plays Sarah, a gawky, awkward but cute clerk at the fabric and hobby store, smiling and chatting away her days with her colleagues and her boss (Molly Shannon).

When we see her later at the stables, instructing a wealthy teen in horseback riding, we figure that’s just her side hustle. It’s her birthday, so maybe some other folks from her Zumba class will join her for drinks.

She’s got a roommate, Nikki (Debby Ryan) who has a boyfriend who has a roommate Nikki would like to hook Sarah up with. Nikki even gives her a makeover when the guy (John Reynolds) comes off for drinks — “Show off your body. You never do that!”

All is normal, right down to the conservative late model Volvo Sarah drives around town.

But at home, she sleepwalks. She has nosebleeds. She zones out at traffic lights.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember!”

She’s absorbed with this supernatural crime drama, “Purgatory,” which features diabolical alien cloning and an intrepid cop (Robin Tunney) out to foil their evil plans.

And she has disturbing dreams, of lying on a white floor alongside strangers, portals of piercing light. Searching the Internet for answers to what ails her serves up plausible solutions, and “alien abduction.”

That’s when she sees a stranger (John Ortiz) from her dreams, a plumbing contractor. That’s when we start to fear for Sarah, worrying that her grip on reality is — like her car — something she will misplace or forget.

That’s when we notice how the other folks at the stables (Toby Huss) regard her warily. There’s a sense of indulgence in the roomie, whose patience is wearing thin, in her kindly boss and in Gary (Paul Reiser), who turns out to be her one-time step-dad.

There’s backstory and “history” coming, and it won’t be happy go lucky.

Brie lays it all out there for this film, struggling to take us inside Sarah’s madness. She has pleasant, sentient moments and manages to clumsily flirt and carry on normal conversations –embellished with tiny fibs and white lies.

Sarah is carrying some heavy secrets.

The tension Brie builds into this character — that Kristen Wiig vulnerability teetering on the edge of pathos thing — and into the story isn’t something easily achieved. “Horse Girl” takes on a dread that grows more disquieting as the movie meanders on.

But that meandering is a problem, the bubbly surface to the character stands out more than the alarm, panic at what she doesn’t understand and more importantly doesn’t remember.

“Horse Girl” makes a nice showcase for a writer/actress with range and fearlessness. It’s just that — dread aside — the film feels lightweight and frothy, first scene to last. She’s put her all into a character that keeps us at arm’s length and a movie that’s not serious enough for its subject — mental illness.

MPAA Rating: R (for language and some sexuality, graphic nudity and drug use)

Cast: Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Debby Ryan, John Reynolds, John Ortiz and Paul Reiser

Credits: Directed by Jeff Baena, script by Jeff Baena and Alison Brie. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:44