Pitch a tent, put on a show.
Formal, but cabaret loosey goosie.
Drinks? A gay men’s chorus, love fests for nominees, surprises, without all the time limits and Gravitas.
Aubrey Plaza hosting and covering a Judy Garland hit?
There’s more wit and warmth in this opening than the Oscars have managed in decades.
Look at the last post of video with Laura Dern being celebrated in song and tell me you wouldn’t rather be in the tent!
A little Laura Dern love at the Indie Spirit Awards
“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?
Movie Nation 