Movie Nation

This Warner Brothers concert documentary earns a limited release this month.

A rocker goes country? Hey, it worked for Kenny Rogers.

It helps if you’ve seen Alex Winter’s eye-opening/crime-explaining documentary, ” The Panama Papers.”

And even that isn’t enough, by itself, to dive into the horrors of this scandal.

The corruption runs so deep, the conspiracy is so widespread, that settling in to any understanding of this democracy-crushing, billionaire-enabling global criminal enterprise — with real murderers, drug lords and organ harvesters wrapped up in it — is enough to make one despair about whole nations and an entire planet that’s been “rigged.”

Director Steven Soderbergh doesn’t hand out pitch forks, or lay out long lists of names that’ll be, as the old joke goes, “the first against the wall when the revolution comes.” He delivers a sermon about this overwhelming scandal tucked into a cutesy, all-star/globe-trotting tragi-comedy “hosted” by movie stars — Oscar winner Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas — playing the two bankers who ran “The Laundromat,” Panamianian shell-company impressarios and money-laundering lawyers Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca.

It’s Soderbergh’s shot at “The Big Short,” and it falls somewhat short. It’s convoluted, basically because it has to be. The story is necessarily episodic as the cast of characters is international and hard to pin down and connect. If you’re lost, you’re not alone. The evidence suggests Soderbergh and his screenwriter were, too.

When you’re telling a tale that begins with a widow (Meryl Streep) trying to figure out why the insurance company that covered the tour boat that sank and killed her husband (James Cromwell) wasn’t being forced to pay out, how Russian oligarchs are able to steal a Vegas condo out from under her via her realtor (Sharon Stone), with African looter/robber barons (Nonso Anozie) and murderous Chinese oligarchs (Rosalind Chao) and powerful people of every stripe (the Trump and David Cameron families are implicated, of course) are mixed up in it, finding your way is a lot harder than navigating this long, run-on sentence.

And through it all, the clipped German accent of Mossack and the sultry purr of Fonseca give us the list of “Secrets” that enable this world to exist. “Secret 2: It’s just shells” let’s them pontificate on the tax havens and money-laundering qualities of banks, etc. set up in Cyprus or Panama, Nevis and Nevada, The Seychelles and Delaware.

“Credit is just the future tense of the language of money” sounds sexy and sinister, coming out of Banderas.

The scale of the scumbaggery Soderbergh tries to weave in is daunting to describe, much less to pull off. Jeffrey Wright plays a shell-company middleman, running thousands of them out of a post office box on Nevis in the Leeward Islands. That moral shortcoming spills over into his personal life. You get away with one crime, why not add a second, secret marriage and family?

Matthias Schoenaerts is a bribe-arranger, money-mover and would-be blackmailer who figures there’s an illicit fortune to be made off the slaveholder class in China.

David Schwimmer is a hapless Lake George, New York resort manager (with Robert Patrick as his tour boat captain) dismayed that “trying to save money” through a dubious Texas insurer has mixed them all up — including Streep’s widow, Ellen Martin — with the bogus business empire of The Laundromat, via its Nevis outpost.

And on and on it goes.

The guilty, most of them from the 2000 or so billionaires the world has allowed to gestate, are only looking for “white gloves” to keep their own hands from getting dirty, a shell company within a shell company with a shell corporation of shell companies — to give them deniability.

“You think we know everyone we create a company for?”

The film’s flippant style — all these shots of Oldman and Banderas in tuxes, in white linen suits, walking through caveman “barter” business transactions, drinking Blue Curacao on a beach in Curacao as they’re “explaining” all this — would go down easier if they really were EXPLAINING it.

In other words, take a bow for making the effort, but better luck next time.

MPAA Rating: R for language, some sexual content and disturbing images

Cast: Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Jeffrey Wright, Antonio Banderas, James Cromwell, David Schwimmer, Robert Patrick, Will Forte, Chris Parnell and Sharon Stone,

Credits: Directed by Steven Soderbergh, script by Scott Z. Burns, based on the Jake Bernstein book. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

“The Current War” is a flawed period piece that was caught up in the meltdown of The Weinstein Co. and the grotesqueries of its founder, Harvey Weinstein, who often did to movies what he allegedly did to many women within his reach.

An all-star cast, a splendid story and top drawer production values were doomed to disappear after a disappointing debut at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival.

But Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) orphaned film has been rescued (by Martin Scorsese) with a sparkling, at times dazzling re-edit, and its Gilded Age glories can be wholly appreciated in “The Current War: Director’s Cut.”

Benedict Cumberbatch is the mercurial pop culture icon-as-inventor Thomas Alva Edison, the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” the latest genius on his “Sherlock/Imitation Game” resume. Michael Shannon is the pragmatic but (in this version) principled industrialist George Westinghouse and Nicholas Hoult is the arrogant but brilliant immigrant-dreamer Nikola Tesla in this lively recounting of how the world became electrified.

It’s about the late 19th century struggle to illuminate America. Which current would light up Mr. Edison’s (or Mr. Westinghouse’s imitation) light bulbs, DC — championed by Edison — or AC, the horse Westinghouse backed?

Which company and its genius backer, once this rivalry had been wholly joined, would illuminate the Columbian Exposition, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair? And whose system would power the electric motors that would soon run the world, the appliances that would make “convenience” available to the masses?

A dazzling opening act of shadows, candlelit glows, sumptuous robber baron interiors and crackling dialogue sets all this up. Edison here is a flamboyant showman, stunning investors with his greatest invention, demonstrated on an open field on a snowy night near Menlo Park, New Jersey.

“I hope you brought your checkbooks.”

He boldly strong-arms mega-banker J.P. Morgan (Matthew McFadyen) after first warning his children about the infamous capitalist’s appearance. That…nose.

“It’s like someone took a hammer and smashed it into his face!”

Westinghouse is the one who sees things in terms of cost, practicality. The man whose fortune was made on the steam brakes that made rail travel safe claims to be guided by “legacy — leave the world a better place than you found it.”

He sees the ruinous infrastructure costs of Edisons Direct Current (DC) as limiting it to only cities, to only the wealthy. Alternating Current, which he presses his engineer, Frank Pope (Stanley Townsend), to perfect, will allow electricity to be transmitted over vast distances, slashing the number of power stations and cutting “copper” costs.

The man knew his nickels and dimes. Pope? He wasn’t so sure.

“I really don’t think it can be done,” Pope grouses.

“Why?”

“Because ‘He’ would have already done it.”

“Current War” perfectly captures Edison’s public persona. His credit-hogging and showmanship made him infallible in the public eye, and he expected that to scare off those who would copy him, rip off his ideas, steal the credit for his bulbs, motors, phonograph and later kinetograph (motion pictures).

His secretary (Tom Holland) is closest to him, and still dazzled. Tesla came from Europe to work for him, and is somewhat more sanguine and just as brilliant and opinionated. He knows AC is the way to go, and as Edison dogmatically doubles-down on the DC bet and refuses to even consider the Serb’s big ideas, Tesla walks out.

However close the film hews to the facts (close enough, although we called them “robber barons” for a reason), the period details here are spot-on, from the rail coaches to the first electric tram, yellowy oil-lit lamps to the white-light bulbs that replace them.

Edison, a former telegraph operator, swaps Morse Code insults and jokes with his sons, nicknamed “Dot” and “Dash,” tapping them out with spoons on bowls, etc.

Tuppence Middleton and Katherine Waterston bring spark to the roles of the ever-supportive wives, Mary Edison and Marguerite Westinghouse. In them, we sense how the feud that erupted between their husbands began with a personal affront. The Edisons were to have a formal introductory dinner, with a little shop talk, at the Westinghouse mansion. Edison brusquely stood them up.

The “War” escalated, with capital punishment becoming a furious bone of contention as Edison, whose vow was to “never make anything that hurts people,” pushes the idea that Westinghouse’s AC system “is lethal,” and only perfectly-used when it powers the world’s first electric chair.

The Current War (2019) Benedict Cumberbatch CR: 101 Studios

Humor and swagger, ego and pathos are tied up in “The Current War.” It’s a tight picture, never more than in that sprint of an opening act (the first 35 minutes). But the pictorial grace notes are glorious — Niagara Falls frames the story.

Yes, it feels old-fashioned, playing up the virtues of the contestants. Civil War veteran Westinghouse never wants to lay off workers, turns cutthroat only AFTER Edison, and the film skips over how he was able to mimic but not copy Edison’s patents. Edison? Righteous to the point of self-righteous.

The movie gives Tesla just enough of the story to remind us why he is remembered along with the fellows who brought General Electric and Westinghouse into homes the world over.

One bit of casting doesn’t quite work. McFadyen is rarely cast as oligarchs and villains for a reason. Think of what John Goodman or someone with genuine menace could have brought to Morgan, an ogre with Harvey Weinstein’s looks and greed that knew no bounds. Cumberbatch’s Edison walks all over McFadyen’s Morgan. That didn’t happen.

It may not be the Oscar bait it was once pitched as. But “The Current War” is still a fine picture, sharper in focus, quick to identify all the many players in this epochal struggle, all improvements made since it left the hands of The Weinstein Co.

With this “Director’s Cut,” Gomez-Rejon and his editors have saved a witty, well-acted and gorgeous-looking movie and given it the heart, history and intellectual heft it needed to come off.

(The REAL Edison vs. the one in the film? Read more here.)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some disturbing/violent images, and thematic elements

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Tom Holland, Tuppence Middleton, Nicholas Hoult, Katherine Waterston, Matthew McFadyen, Stanley Townsend

Credits: Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, script by Michael Mitnik. A 101 Studio release.

Running time: 1:42

So The Weinstein Co. rounded up an all-star cast for “The Current War,” a piece of history about the DC vs. AC battles of Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the Tesla-Westinghouse (Nicholas Hoult, Michael Shannon) of the late 19th century.

Bragging rights and future billions were at stake in this struggle by titans over how America and the world would electrify.

Matthew McFadyen is J,P. Morgan, Tom Holland is an Edison acolyte, Tuppence Middleton and Katherine Waterston are the female leads.

And yet Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film was a bust at film festivals (Toronto, 2017 among them). And Harvey Weinstein, well, you know what happened there.

Weinstein scrapped this Oscar bait picture’s release. Two distributors later, 101 now has it. And Gomez-Rejon have recut it.

“The Current War: Director’s Cut” opens Friday.

Disney’s “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” genocidal war movie masquerading as a kids’ fairytale had been predicted to clear $42 million on its opening weekend. That ain’t happening. A $35.5 million first weekend will be enough for it to claim a win, but it won’t sit at the top long.

Another sequel — “Terminator: Dark Fate” — is coming. Soon.

And “Joker” is still making $30 million a weekend. Or it will this weekend.

A big Thursday night and solid Friday gave “Zombieland: Double Tap” a boost towards a $26-27 million opening weekend. Not bad for a middling movie that’s a sequel ten years removed from its original October Surprise.

Pre-weekend projections suggested the aged, no longer up and coming cast and long dormant title meant a $20-23 million opening was the upper end of what Sony could expect from the zombie killing comedy. I still say it’ll do all its business opening weekend. Not strong enough for word of mouth to keep it around.

“The Addams Family” is losing audience to the “Maleficent” steamroller, and won’t clear $14 million on its second week.

“Gemini Man” has fallen off a table.

“Hustlers” has been the break-out of the fall for STX, a $100 million (and counting) strippers rob Wall Street winner.

That’s being given as the reason why the summer blockbuster was pulled from China’s release slate for next weekend.

Can’t understand why the Maoist Kingdom would be bothered by depicting an early Hollywood Chinese hero as a poseur of the Summer’s Eve variety.

Apparently, the undemocratic, high-handed totalitarian state wanted Quentin Tarrantino to cut the Bruce Lee abuse from his movie.

He said no. Lebron James probably has an opinion on that. 

Like any longtime Hollywood film fan, I’ve noticed the American film industry’s eagerness to pander to the Chinese market in everything from “Great Wall” projects starring Matt Damon, “Meg” shark films with a big Chinese presence, to Obligatory Chinese Casting add-ons in virtually every franchise or action film (“Gemini Man” to “Rogue One”) coming out.

Sometimes, it pays off. Other times, it’s like “Who is Hollywood kidding with this tokenism?”

But this? This is just funny all the way around. I wrote last summer that I thought QT was out of line, or at least out of left field, in making the Real Bruce a short douche.

Interesting time to be taking “A Few Good Men” tack on the big screen about police work, that it’s a rough, dirty job “but somebody’s gotta do it.”

You know, with the rash of “I shot because I was scared” police killings.

“Crown Vic” has Thomas Jane as the grizzled veteran of the force, the unfortunately-named Luke Kleintank as his “new partner,” and opens in November

Everything about “Street Flow,” a coming-of-age parable about two brothers wrestling over the future of a third sibling, is familiar.

It’s in the “projects,” called “suburbs” here.

The young men are black. One brother is a gangster, the other in law school. The “kid” they’re trying to help raise is their youngest sibling.

And their long-suffering mother is caught, like the kid, in the middle of this. Hollywood has pounded this theme since the beginning of cinema, in urban dramas, Westerns, the works.

The twist in “Street Flow” is the setting — Champigny-sur-Marne, outside of Paris — the language (French) and the framework and overt politics of the struggle. That makes this tried and true formula work reading a few subtitles and watching.

Co-writer/director Kery James is Demba, the eldest, the brother who “made good.” He drives an Audi SUV, impresses the teens when he drops baby brother Noumouké (Bakary Diombera) off at school.

But there’s a reason their mama (Kani Diarra) wants nothing to do with Demba, and wants her youngest to stay away from him. Demba runs a drug gang and is always mixed up in something violent. The middle brother, studious law student Souleymaan (Jammeh Diangana) is the one who has to keep reminding Demba to stop stuffing cash into the kid’s mitts. The last thing they want is for the kid to act tough, act-out and get in trouble, like Demba.

“Act like me?” he protests (in French, with English subtitles). “You and Mom are always saying that…Life is about making choices. He does what he wants!”

That gets Noumouké suspended from school for fighting, trying to impress a girl. And that’s the last thing Souleymaan needs as he’s prepping for a big law school debate with the “blonde bourgeouis” Lisa (Chloé Jouannet).

I’m not kidding when I emphasize how worn and over-familiar the storybeats of this “struggle for the kid’s soul” are. There’s the hothead in Demba’s gang who is sure to start something, betrayals in the offing, a kidnapping, the tit for tat war that escalates around their housing projects, Moma crying over the uncertain fate of her Malian immigrant children.

The tentative romance between Lisa and Souleymaan is just as predictable.

But what’s novel here is how the debate, which we see them practicing for (speaking their arguments into their phones, etc) interspersed with examples of what the subject they’re debating is.

Resolve — that the problems of French colonial citizens, crime and lack of opportunity, racism and poverty, are the fault of The State. Or The State isn’t to blame. The latter is the side Souleymaan must argue, even as he sees and experiences the exact opposite every day.

He wears a white shirt and tie every day, and damned if the thuggish cops don’t roust him, call him “Sambo” and bait him.

The path to wealth Dembo took is the one that most readily presented itself to him, crime — a criminal serving drugs to his neighbors, who crave them.

The film’s climactic debate is the best thing in it — witty, with sharp edges that cut as the two might-be-lovers get personal in their attacks.

The rest of “Street Flow” — the French title is “Banlieusards (Commuters)” is as generic as its title. Good acting or not, the scenes are tropes that the cinema wore down to the stump before any of these players were born, much less old enough to “commute.”

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence

Cast: Jammeh Diangana, Bakary Diombera, Kery James, Chloé Jouannet, Kani Diarra

Credits: Written and directed by Kery James and Leïla Sy  A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:36

Michael Moore (@MMFlint) Tweeted:
Here’s a clip from the opening scene of my film, “Bowling for Columbine”, which will have a special nationwide screening tomorrow night (Saturday) at 9pm ET on MSNBC…

“You Open a Bank Account, You Get a Free Gun!”
https://t.co/SxjrawMqwU https://twitter.com/MMFlint/status/1185259761262120961?s=17

Apparently, PBS fans just can’t quit “Downton Abbey.”

The pre-Depression soap opera, a costume-and-wealth-bedecked period piece that opened over a month ago, just became the biggest hit in the history of Focus Features. It passed the cowboy romance “Brokeback Mountain” when it cleared the $84 million mark.

I still figure it has a shot at $100 million, maybe falling just shy of it as the picture loses screens the next two weekends.

The big picture this weekend will be Disney’s violent fairytale “Maleficent,” pitting Angelina Jolie against Michelle Pfeiffer in a tale of war, fairy genocide, chemical weapons attacks — fun for the whole family!

Mixed reviews from critics and whoever Team Rotten Tomatoes watered down their ranks with won’t hurt it (I hated it), won’t dampen the turnout. Box Office Mojo figures $42 million or so for the sequel.

“Joker” will pile on another $32 or so.

“Zombieland: Double Tap” looks to earn $23 million or so out of nostalgia. I caught a late show last night, less than half full (A lot more people were walking out of “Hustlers” at closing time, and it opened a month ago), so that guess about its take might be a little high.

Reviews for this one were on the so-so side as well. Me? Meh.

“Judy” is showing some legs, re-entering the top ten.
“The Lighthouse” isn’t opening wide enough to become a contender. Yet.

“Addams Family” continues to outpace “Abominable,” adding another $18 million this weekend. That’s an interesting sprint to watch. Dreamworks’ China panderer is over $50 million, MGM’s Canadian-animated “Addams” reboot is over $39 already and closing the gap fast.