Movie Nation

Wise are the filmmakers who look to Alfred Hitchcock, “the master of suspense,” for inspiration, twists and story structure in creating their screen thriller. But foolish are they who bollix things as thoroughly as the hapless folks who made “The Host.”

It’s “Psycho,” very roughly speaking, a “Psycho” had Hitchcock been into torture porn.

“The Host” hooks you in just long enough to make you wonder, “What the Hell is going on here?” But no sooner have you thought, “Ah, I get it,” when it proceeds to let you down in several annoying ways.

First off, get it out of your head that the great Derek Jacobi has anything to do with the story. He’s a whisky-swilling shrink in an opening and closing scene, “explaining,” setting up a framing device for the tale that follows. Jeroen Crabbé? Even less to do with it.

Explicit sex introduces our hero, young Robert (Mike Beckingham). He’s a bank clerk with little ambition to get ahead in the company, and lacking the common sense to be carrying on hotel assignations with a higher-up, who also happens to be his boss’s American-born wife (Margot Stilley).

She won’t be leaving her husband, but she lets him down with “I think you could be brilliant, if you put your mind to it,” followed by the kicker — “If your situation was different…”

He’s not rich enough to keep the likes of her. Funny that they’d make this mercenary woman American.

Robert later endures a “one bad decision after another” chewing out from his brother (Dougie Poynter) on the walk home. If only Dougie knew that Robert was toting a backpack full of a client’s safe deposit box cash.

He’s only borrowing it, to make a big score at the Chinese casino down the street. What this dope (“You could be brilliant,” right.) doesn’t see it all the side-eyes assorted Chinese gamblers, card dealers and mobsters give each other. He’s getting taken. But that’s how he makes “a friend.”

Lao Hoi Ho (Togo Igawa) will cover the kid’s losses IF he takes this briefcase to Amsterdam for a swap. No, the kid doesn’t have a choice. He is dying of curiosity to see what’s in the case.

But it turns out the chatty dude in the seat next to him (Nigel Barber) ISN’T with the Air Marshals service (Who would admit that to a fellow passenger?), but is with the DEA. And has he got a stay-out-of-prison deal for Robert.

Robert has just arrived in Amsterdam and he’s already in the hole to the Chinese Triads and the DEA. Topping it all, his hotel reservation is botched. He’s stuck staying in this AirBnB set-up, a swank townhouse where the sultry Vera (Maryam Hassouni, mysterious and beguiling) presides.

And Vera, too, has a lot of questions and unknown motives. This big house, with a wine cellar and ancient antiques, is quite the bargain. Or so it seems.

I like the way the film flirts with racism in its depiction of the “shifty” Chinese diaspora — all in league to trap and destroy the trusting Englishman. But the Dutch are no treat, either.

What follows is ineptly-plotted, hilariously illogical and often badly-acted. “The Host” grabs a couple of the dumber “explain it” elements from Hitchcock, as well as story structure.

The first half of the story is far more intriguing than the second, and “The Host” goes almost wholly wrong from that magic moment AFTER we wonder, “Just what the Hell is going on here?”

MPAA Rating:  R for some bloody violence, sexuality and language

Cast:  Maryam Hassouni, Mike Beckingham, Dougie Poynter Togo Igawa, Jeroen Krabbé and Derek Jacobi

Credits: Directed by Andy Newberry, script by Finola Geraghty, Brendan Bishop and Laurence Lamers. A Vertical Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:43

A VERY impressive Golden Globes bounce for Sam Mendes WWI epic, which may clear the $37 million mark after all the weekend’s receipts are finally tallied Monday. $36.5 is the official estimate Sunday.

“Rise of Skywalker” and “Jumanji” both finally fell off fairly steeply, to $15 and $13.

“Like a Boss” did about as well as a hacked up comedy with weak reviews could expect — a little over $11.

“Just Mercy” just trailer that in its first weekend of wide release, reaching the $10.8 mark.

As feared, the pricey sci-fi/horror/action pic “Underwater” sank without a trace –$7 million.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/1917-box-office-star-wars-golden-globes-1203463908/

It’s nigh on impossible to tell a gay coming-out/coming-of-age story on the screen these days without occasionally lapsing into melodrama. The decades of such films that precede every new entry can’t seem to find new characters or new waypoints to mark the path from “confused” or “closeted” to “out.”

Telling such a story in the world of dance has a hint of “Haven’t we seen this, many times?” about it. But there are always exceptions.

“And Then We Danced” embraces the archetypal characters and hits every waypoint anyone who’s been watching queer cinema might expect. But set such a story in the macho former former Soviet state of Georgia, in the testosterone-soaked folk dancing of a Georgian National Ensemble, and you have our attention.

The homophobia of Vladimir Putin’s reassembling Russian empire was long state policy in the former communist utopia. And in Georgia, birthplace of butch butcher Josef Stalin, it never went out of style.

“What is Georgian dance?” an old master hectors young Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani), interrupting rehearsals. “It is the Spirit of our Nation!”

It is “based on masculinity,” the company director (Kakha Gogidze) reminds him (in Georgian, with English subtitles).

The Western viewer may look the kid over — his delicate Chalamet features, and think “dancer” and leap to conclusions. But Merab has been in the company’s youth group since childhood. He has a duet-partner and girlfriend (Ana Javakishvili).

And his brawling, hard-drinking older brother David (Giorgi Tsereteli) is also in the company, just another one of the boys who brag about booze and brothels. So watch it with the insinuations, unless you want a fat lip!

It’s just that there’s a new dancer in the corps, Irakli (Bachi Valishvili). And even though they’re about to compete for an opening in the main company, they’re thrown together for the male duets that are a feature of Georgian dancing. Rehearsals, nights out drinking, a couples weekend out in the country where there’s more drinking and dancing to ABBA, and the next thing you know — WRESTLING.

This is no doubt a novelty in Georgia, or maybe even in gay cinema in Sweden (homeland of writer-director Levan Akin). In North America, it’s a gay romance cliche since the ’80s, a trope of such films since 1969’s “Women in Love.”

Fortunately, there’s more to “And Then We Danced” than the bare, over-used basics.

The impoverished home-life scenes have a cranky single-mom and grandmom, an estranged father and the timeworn “good brother/bad brother” dynamic. But Akin paints a vivid portrait of life in Georgia — gay life in particular — as Merab and Irakli keep their secret, but aren’t paranoid about their sexuality. They know that in the wider world, who they are is not stigmatized the way it still is in Georgia.

The reason there’s an opening in the main company? A dancer was caught, on tour, making out with a guy and beaten, only to come home and have his parents send him to a monastery “to make him normal.”

Irakli shows up for rehearsals with an earring.

“Where do you think you are! Take it out!”

But as Merab floats on the wings of new love, his gaydar kicks in and he sees his people all around him. Sure, some are funny, foul-mouthed transgender street hustlers. But if Georgia is 30 years behind Western Europe, their “acceptance” is a sign of progress, right?

The dance scenes don’t dominate the picture, but there’s enough here to show the performers have some chops. Gelbakhiani makes a compelling and sympathetic lead, Javakishvili a compassionate counterpoint even if Tsereteli, as brother David, is a more believable thug than dancer.

They and their movie may not serve up many surprises. But “And Then We Danced” still manages to tell an over-familiar coming out story with sensitivity, and a Georgian accent.

MPAA rating: unrated, sexuality, prostitution, alcohol abuse

Cast: Levan Gelbakhiani, Bachi Valishvili, Ana Javakishvili, Giorgi Tsereteli

Credits: Written and directed by Levan Akin. A Music Box release.

Running time: 1:48

The faintest hint of “The Notebook” pops up in “Live Twice, Love Once (Vivir dos veces),” a wistful if somewhat strained Alzheimer’s romance from Spain.

Emilio (Oscar Martínez) is an elderly mathematics professor who isn’t quite ready to accept that he’s losing the mind that discovered a new prime number, back in the day. He grouses at the quizzing his Valencia doctor pushes on him, gets shorter and shorter with his answers until he’s asked about his family.

“I have no one,” (in Spanish with English subtitles) he fumes.

And then his daughter Julia (Inma Cuesta) shows up. She’s a pharmaceutical rep. And it takes a lot of prodding from her to get him to admit he just forgot he has a daughter.

Emilio spends his days struggling to do Sudoku puzzles that used to give him so much pleasure, and reminiscing about the girl he met on the beach in the distant past. Margarita loved literature. He loved math. It was never going to work out.

Or was it?

Now, as his mind fades, he’s desperate to make that connection. And in comedies of this sort, he’s going to need a co-conspirator. That would be his foul-mouth, cell-phone obsessed granddaughter, Blanca (Mafalda Carbonell). She’s a tween with a pronounced limp, and isn’t above making the odd “lame” joke to make others uncomfortable or get her out of a jam. She knows what’s up with grandpa, but isn’t cutting him any slack over it.

“I’m surprised you don’t know you’re as smart as you are.”

And she might have the means of finding Margarita, either via the new Facebook profile she’s setting up for the old man, or Google search. It’s in her hand.

“A cell phone is God!”

Director Maria Ripol (“Tortilla Soup”) and screenwriter María Mínguez set us up for a standard issue road picture, a quixotic quest in Grandpa’s ancient Citroen in search of the missing “love of my life.”

Then they set out to upend those expectations and replace them with less predictable situations, peppered with the usual obstacles and under-developed supporting characters.

The Mexican love song “Perfidia” wafts through “Live Twice, Love Once,” a tune about faithless love — a bit of ironic commentary about the woman grandpa married instead, and buried. That would be Julia’s mother, Blanca’s grandmother.

It’s a rather harmless confection, hanging on a likable turn by Martínez and a few amusing moments from young Miss Carbonell.

But the comic and romantic payoffs are limp, and the picture wanders on past its climax. And for all the efforts at tripping up expectations, it takes you precisely where you expect it to. Eventually.

MPAA Rating: unrated, some profanity

Cast: Oscar Martínez, Inma Cuesta, Mafalda Carbonell, Nacho López

Credits: Directed by Maria Ripoll, script by María Mínguez. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:41

Sam Mendes’ single-take, melodramatic stunt of a Great War movie is blowing up on its first weekend of wide release. It is on track after Friday, and with weekend presales, to clear $32 million, with $35 million a distinct possibility.

Not bad for a movie with “name” supporting players and no-name leads. Canny marketing held it back until after the Golden Globes. Monday, it could get more of a boost when the Oscar nominations come out.

“Rise of Skywalker” is in second with $17 million still projected, “Jumanji” is fading as well — maybe $13 million for that blockbuster.

But third place may go to the recut comedy “Like a Boss.” Tiffany Haddish vs. Salma Hayek is bringing in $14 million, based on a big Friday. That may fall off Sat. and Sunday, but we will see.

“Just Mercy” is opening at a healthy $10 million+, which is surprising for a serious picture that hasn’t figured I awards season. Perhaps that will change Monday when the Academy weighs in.

I was sure “Underwater” would bring in the popcorn pic fans forba little dumb action fun. Either Disney turned its nose up at properly marketing a Fox holdover title, or Kristen Stewart is no draw at all any more. $6 million plus.

https://deadline.com/2020/01/box-office-1917-star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-like-a-boss-1202826743/

A Feb. 21 sequel to the creepy doll movie, this one with Katie Holmes as the mom menaced.

This trailer to the new Dr. “Dolittle” plays up the whispery “magic” of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, and warns us of the many many famous voices playing the animals.

I am trying not to cast a jaundiced eye on this enterprise, but there is an embargo on reviews of it, so nobody will get an earful about it, yay or nay, until Wed.

Fingers crossed. It opens Friday.

It’s been 25 years since the action comedy misfire “Bulletproof” came out, the last time we’ll probably see Damon Wayans and Adam Sandler, as a cop and a lowlife “buddy” team.

And yet here’s “Bulletproof 2,” starring Faison Love and Kirk Fox. How DO we write around that recasting?

“You ever see that s—-y movie they made about us?”

“Yeah, made ME a Wayans!”

Yes, some poor screenwriter — usually it’s a failed-actor-turned screenwriter — had to try and finesse that. Setting your bust-a-Mexican-drug-cartel tale in South Africa? Yeah, explain that away, too. The uh, criminal SCHMIDT family is the world’s biggest supplier of whatever-name-they’re-calling Molly these days. Let’s set them and the Mexicans up!

The result of all those write-arounds? Another “s—-y movie,” this one starring people not in same time zone of funny as Wayans and Sandler were (allegedly) at their peak.

They rename the cop played by Faison, now a DEA agent still carrying around a bullet in his skull. “All I think about is tacos and p—y!”

Yes, we believe “Jack” likes him some tacos. And the movie would have us believe that he’s catnip to every stripper and gang moll in“The Rainbow Nation.” Sure.

The Mexican gang shows up, even in South Africa, in a collection of restored American muscle cars.

The shootouts are abrupt and graphic. So many squibs!  At least we learn what a “Soweto blindfold” is. Is the “Are you a home-owner?” gay wisecrack unique to South Africa?

We have strip club scenes, where Pinkie (Cassie Clare) is the stand-out stand-up punk with pasties. A poolside scene. Lots of skin in this thing.

Too much of that skin belongs to Faison Love (“Elf,” “Couples Retreat,” “Black-ish”).

Fox, typically a bit player for pretty much his entire career, can’t bring much spark or charisma to his interpretation of Moses, the guy Sandler played 25 years ago. The “reunion” moment for these two — for some reason, Moses has moved to Capetown.

“Only came back (to the States) for my mother’s funeral!”

“Yeah? How IS she?”

“She’s still f—–g DEAD!”

Hilarious. And hilariously played, I would confess if indeed that was true. Neither of these guys sells their profane tough-guy banter any better than they do the film’s shootouts and action beats.

Seriously, if you can’t talk Sandler, who has a deal with Netflix, into dragging Wayans back from the dead for this, why bother?

Not that I’m anybody’s idea of an Adam Sandler fan.

Netflix is having itself a little director Don Michael Paul film festival, between this and the other unnecessary sequel shot in a country where all the financing came from — “Jarhead: Law of Return.”

We’re going to keep an eye out for his credits — as films to avoid.

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, nudity, profanity

Cast: Faison Love, Kirk Fox, Tony Todd, Cassie Clare

Credits: Directed by Don Michael Paul, script by Rich Wilkes. A Universal/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:37

The Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder/Shower to Shower lawsuits are the jumping off point of the documentary “Toxic Beauty,” the highly-publicized “personal care” products disaster from which all the other reporting, science and first-person accounts in this film are given attention and urgency.

When a giant cosmetics and personal care firm covers up decades and decades of knowledge that what they’re giving people to powder their babies and use as part of a personal hygiene causes cancer, you can guess that they’re not alone, and that an entire industry might be similarly culpable as they shove under-tested products on the market and let their customers be the ultimate guinea pigs.

This Phyllis Ellis film attempts a thorough survey of the science of cosmetics, deodorants, shampoos and other such products, lays out risks and fills the screen with women dealing with the consequences of an industry whose lax regulations haven’t “changed since the 1930s.”

A few witnesses to this disaster stand out. One was South Dakotan Deane Berg, whose lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson over the talc that caused her ovarian cancer was the first legal precedent verifying what scientists had been saying since the 1980s — “Baby Powder is a delivery device for known carcinogens, just like cigarettes.”

Mymy Nguyen was 24 when the film was shot, a “bottle-blonde” medical student driven toward research on the toxins in her daily hygiene and beauty regimen. Her motivation? That first breast tumor that turned up.

She decided to take action, that this “It just happened…I’m unlucky” way of looking at cancer wasn’t helpful.

“Toxic Beauty” shows the vast array of products she has been using, and her scientifically monitored “experiment on myself” — a detox, going soap, shampoo, makeup and deodorant-free, followed by a return to using such products and measuring the rise in parabens and phthalates in her system, thanks to those products.

There’s just enough chemistry to the film to be daunting, and it would be easy to get lost in the “endocrine disruptors” and “estrogen mimics” in the wares of almost every company that wants us to not smell, lighten our skin or clean our hair.

Suffice it to say that there’s mercury in skin lighteners and almost every anti-aging or skin-care cream on the market. Most toothpastes have arsenic in them. Lipstick has coal tar, shampoo has formaldehyde — even though more slippery companies have tinkered with the chemistry just enough to allow them to rename it.

You don’t have to be a chemist to know “Mercury? Formaldehyde? ARSENIC? BAD.”

With so many voices, so many locations, so many researchers and patients — case histories — and so many chemicals, “Toxic Beauty” can’t help but bog down in details, here and there. A brief mention of “Euro-centric beauty standards” warrants an entire other film.

Seeing archival Senate committee hearings and debates, books that started warning about this stuff in 1936, can be disheartening. Daily assaults on “regulation” and a well-financed “product defense industry” of scientists paid to deny science and sew doubt to keep companies from being regulated and scare off lawsuits means that like so many calamities facing us, money is blocking government from correcting these wrongs.

But as Mymy sits, looking at her test results with a researcher from the Silent Spring Institute, we’re shown a glimmer of hope. Seeking out “clean” and “organic” makeup and personal care products made a huge difference.

Yes, government needs to regulate, enforce rigorous testing and set better-safe-than-sorry standards for anything you put on or in your body. But rather than holding your breath waiting for the sea change in Washington, taking a few first steps yourself can make the pursuit of “beauty” a little less “toxic.”

MPAA Rating: unrated

Cast: Mymy Nguyen, Deane Berg, Mel Lika. Dr. Daniel Cramer, Dr.. Roberta Ness

Credits: Directed by Phyllis Ellis. A 1091/Documentary Channel release.

Running time: 1:30

“Yes,” in answer to that headline. Yes “1917” will open wide — the last major Oscar contender to reach a wife audience — with a lot of award momentum begin it. That should lead to a $25-35 million opening weekend, various box office watchers say.

That bit of platforming the release and campaigning for awards has paid off. It earned over $3 million Thursday night. A best picture-drama at the Globes and a best director win for Sam Mendes puts the wind in the sails of this drama about a war that ended a century ago.

It will almost certainly dethrone the steadily-eroding but very profitable “Rise of Skywalker.”

“Skywalker” may have one last weekend where it finishes ahead of “Jumanji: Next Level,” but I think that race will be a dead heat –both at $17 or so, with “Jumanji” holding onto more audience and finishing second.

“Like a Boss” is a bit of a hot mess, but should do at least $13 million, not bad for an R-rated comedy starring Tiffany, Rose and Salma.

Box Office Mojo is under the impression that “Just Mercy” will do double the business of the horror adventure “Underwater.” I think they got that backward, with Kristen Stewart and her popcorn pic pulling in $10 million and the serious picture “Just Mercy” managing about $5, maybe $6-7.

But Thursday night’s weak numbers for that one suggest it won’t clear $7-8.