Movie Nation

It’s a Sino-Russian or Russo-Chinese action fantasy with a Russian director, two aged stars and a long, unweildy title — “The Mystery of he Dragon Seal: Journey to China.” Filmed and finished two years ago, so you know it’s fresh. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jackie-chan-arnold-schwarzenegger-film-gets-china-russia-release-1226561

It seems winded, right from the start.

An air of wistful melancholia hangs over “Astronaut,” and even when the scenes with potential silliness show up, you can’t help but feel the filmmakers left laughs on the table.

But, as they say, “It gets better.” The picture, about a nursing home resident trying to win a “trip to space” lottery in his dotage, changes directions, picks up speed and just a hint of urgency. Star Richard Dreyfuss gets his moments and finds a couple more of those signature, pugnacious Richard Dreyfuss lines to nail.

And the whole sentimental affair goes down easier than you might expect from that desultory opening act.

We meet Angus Stewart on a bad day, just his latest bad day since his wife died.

A doctor ticks off a list of his new meds, his various ailments (angina, etc.).

“No more driving.”

“I just moved in with my daughter,” he says.

“Keep up the good fight, Angus. Because what’s the alternative?”

They’re selling his old house, and a little-used telescope is one of the few things he fetches from it. He’ll stare at a comet, talk to his late wife and win the enthusiasm of grandson Barney (Richie Lawrence), waxing lyrical about why we look at the stars — “to see where we belong.”

When they see a tech billionaire (Colm Feore) pitch his Ventura Competition, “for someone who dares to dream big,” seeking 12 “astronaut” passengers for his new space plane, seats assigned by lottery, Barney needles Angus to take a shot.

“You could look 65.”

Angus’s daughter (Krista Bridges) and son-in-law (Lyriq Bent) bicker, but only briefly, about whether he’d do better in a nursing home. He has episodes and spells. Next thing we know, he’s checked in, with a nursing home drug regimen, PA announcements, bad food and quietly complaining “inmates.”

The only one Angus can relate to is the almost-mute stroke victim, Len, played by the great Graham Greene.

You can guess what happens. Angus enters the lottery, lies a lot to get into the finals, and…

That’s where “Astronaut” turns interesting, as “our most mature contestant” reminds the world that there’s a lot of expertise that we’re shrugging off when we stop listening to our elders.

Dreyfuss summons up a little of that old Oscar winning twinkle, and Canadian actress turned writer-director Shelaugh McLeod finds sweet things to do with Angus’s late-wife’s pet project, a donkey sanctuary, even if she rarely wrings the laughs she should out of “the home.”

None of this requires heavy lifting on the audience’s part. The obstacles are both commonplace and generally under-developed. “Astronaut” so lacks an edge it feels tailor made for The Hallmark Channel, Heart TV or their Canadian equivalents.

But every now and again, Dreyfuss makes his presence felt, and the picture, like the gimmick at its heart, achieves something like liftoff. Almost.

MPAA Rating: unrated, squeaky clean

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Richie Lawrence, Colm Feore, Krista Bridges, Lyriq Bent, Joan Gregson and Graham Greene

Credits: Written and directed by Shelagh McLeod. A Quiver Distribution release.

Running time: 1:37

Taika Waititi’s satire is like a Holocaust/Hitler Youth tale as envisioned by Wes Anderson?

That’s my “hot take.”

Mr. “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” puts the fun back in the Hun. Hitler. No, seriously.

“Anti-hate” satire, Taika says.

Oct. 18.

Janne is reserved, even on a good day.

She goes along to get along, and only seems OK with the idea of moving from the big city (Munich) to an old farmhouse in Bavaria.

Selling their flat, making arrangements with brokers, all of that seems more Piet’s thing.

He gets her an old piano to sweeten the idea of the move.

“Happy?” he asks (in German, with English subtitles) after she’s pounded the keys for a moment. Janne just smirks and shakes her head.

“All is well (Alles ist gut),” she’ll say, calming troubled waters, soothing over a heated argument. This is the default mode for Janne, given a soft brittleness by Aenne Schwarz in the German drama “All is Well.” 

How will this internalize-everything writer/editor handle being sexually assaulted?

The debut feature by writer-director Eva Trobish is a 90 minute essay in denial and suppressed pain, almost a study in German stoicism as we watch, with dread, what unfolds and see the deflating aftermath of a rape. And Schwarz plays Janne with tense reserve, a kind of defiant embarrassment, that anchors the film.

A chance encounter and job offer from a man she used to babysit for dings her moving plans with Piet (Andreas Döhler). At least in his eyes.  Robert (Tilo Nest) is in publishing, and Janne has the chance to ghostwrite and edit for the firm.

Robert’s married a highly-strung much younger second wife (Lisa Hagmeister). Her brother, Martin (Hans Löw) also has a job in the publishing house.

Martin is the one Janne runs into at her class reunion, the one she dances with once and has a drink or two with.

Martin is the one she invites over to sleep it off. Martin is the man who assaults her.

Assaults in the movies are often over-the-top, and this one is violent, if not frantic or life-threatening. Trobisch parks this well within the realm of what we used to dismiss as “date rape,” which makes it more chilling than violent, if still upsetting in the extreme.

Janne is trying to get the very tall Martin to call it a night. And he just won’t.

She laughs him off  at first, then his persistence makes her dismissive.

“You talk to me as if I was 5.”

“Then don’t act like it.”

Her forced-smile and eye-rolling reveals her calculations. He’s too big. He’s not listening.

Screaming or raising her voice never enters her mind.

“I don’t think I want to…No…Are you SERIOUS?”

His grappling bruises her, which becomes the only thing she feels the need to explain to Robert or Piet — “A sharp edge happened out of the blue.”

She confides, halfway, to her mother (Lina Wendel) in a sauna. She lies, even as Mother asks more and more questions.

She accepts the job offer, but Robert doesn’t know. Piet, a bit of a hothead, doesn’t pick up on anything. Even when she orders vegetarian and the waiter brings her meat and she doesn’t send it back, he’s clueless.

And then there are the encounters, at the office, going with Robert to the theater, sitting tensely through a production of “Nora” while the rapist/brother-in-law sits right next to her.

Did she accept the job without considering this, or to torment her attacker? Löw lets us, and her, see Martin sweat. Will this be the extent of his “consequences?”

Trobisch and Schwarz, meanwhile, let us feel the tension rising within Janne, the disharmony that spills over into the rest of her life, the ripples of contained fury, hurt and hardship that spread out from this horrible thing that happened.

It’s not a vengeance tale, not a film with much in the line of dramatic explosions. But “All is Well/Alles ist gut” feels real, lived in and endured.

And that, in the end, is its message, the no-going-back horror of realizing that life has changed and justice may never come your way and nothing you say or don’t say will fix that.

MPAA rating: TV-MA, sexual violence

Cast: Aenne Schwarz, Andreas Döhler, Hans Löw

Credits: Written and directed by Eva Trobisch. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:33

The soccer isn’t bad in “See You Soon.” But then, it’s not really about soccer.

The Saint Petersburg locations are striking in all the most travelogue ways.

But the romance at the heart of this Russo-American “Affair to Remember” is tepid bathwater, blase and lacking sparks.

This slow-footed melodrama only truly comes to life with a nice twist ending, although even the “lovers together at last” bit has less life than the set-up and “stunt” it takes to make it happen.

There is polish here. Seeing veteran composer Mark Isham’s (“Invincible,” “The Mist” and TV’s “Once Upon a Time”) name in the opening credits suggests they had the money to make this something special, even with a first-time feature director on the payroll.

But co-writer and co-star Jenia Tenaeva didn’t have enough novel ideas, warm touches or wit for the mirthless, joyless script. And she’s model-dull on camera as the love interest of Aussie-playing-American Liam McIntyre‘s soccer star.

McIntyre plays ball-hogging, show-boating American soccer star Ryan Hawkes, an arrogant $50 million man with British soccer clubs salivating to nab him from America’s Major League Soccer.

We see him propose to his vapid, social-climber fiance (Poppy Drayton) in a public post-win celebration. That’s where his agent, played by Harvey Keitel, gets off one of the only three half-funny lines in the picture.

“There goes half your pension, mooooronnnn!” agent Billy sings to himself.

Over in Mother Russia, Lana (Tanaeva) is enduring a bad marriage to an abusive brute (Oleg Taktarov) who looks to be oh, twice her age. All she wants is to get their soccer-loving/English-learning boy Danny out of that life.

Bad karma is in the air before kismet arrives. We’ve seen Ryan blow off a Make-a-Wish-Foundation hospital visit. NOBODY blows off Make-a-Wish. Sure enough, drinking and checking their “blowing up social media” status with the fiance leads him to wreck his Audi R8 (EVERY movie has an Audi in it, these days).

His knee’s a mess, his English club overtures end, his own club is suing and the wedding is off as Ryan crawls into a bottle. And then another.

Maybe a Mediterranean cruise will help him get his head on straight. Maybe on the ship where Lana is the lone bartender.

He flirts, but she won’t flirt back, as that’s not allowed.

“You nidd to stop followink me. I vill get in trouble!”

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Maybe she can, you know, teach him the language?

“You? You want to learn Russian?

“Yeah, I hear they have a very cheery outlook on life.”

The standard screen romance ingredients don’t blend well here –walks on the beach, nights in a villa, that delightful “getting a makeover for the big date” montage that is anything but a delight.

McIntyre’s never really at ease in the charmer coming-on-strong department, and not to be brutal about it, but first-screen-role Tenaeva has all the warmth of a Bond villain.

Still, it finishes with traces of the charm that probably got this financed in the first place. If it had shown up in the first act instead of the third, “See You Soon” (insipid title) might not have been “Not if I see you first.”

MPAA Rating: R for some sexual content

Cast: Liam McIntyre, Jenia Tenaeva, Poppy Drayton and Harvey Keitel

Credits: Directed by David Mahmoudieh, script by Jenia Tanaeva, Mike Cestari, . A Vertical release.

Running time: 1:47

Focus Features has this Cynthia Erivo/ Janelle Monae star vehicle/biography.

Not a dazzling cast, at least in terms of name recognition, and the production values scream “Period piece for a low, low price. ” But it shows promise and is a story overdue for big screen honors.

Fingers crossed, then, for “Harriet.”

Was wondering if anybody would bring this up. Again. From The Hollywood Reporter…
“Disney still has some explaining to do in regards to that #TheLionKing vs. ‘Kimba the White Lion’ controversy” https://t.co/EtS38QjjRh https://twitter.com/THR/status/1153549327773683714?s=17

The venerable British action directing institution has cast Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as Medieval knights fighting “The Last Duel.”

Who remembers Ridley’s debut feature? Sounds like a coda to me.
https://t.co/C9O6Kbz5EE https://twitter.com/EW/status/1153463602541735936?s=17

“Staged Killer” — stupid title, for starters.

It’s a thriller about stalking, murderous obsession and yes TV RATINGS in the live streaming era.

But don’t go looking for a dark, daft reboot of “To Die For,” the movie that made Nicole Kidman’s awards-contender reputation. The writing, acting and directing aren’t up to that, not that anybody concerned had the good sense to take things in that direction, anyway.

For a movie set in the cutthroat world of daytime TV, this is “Murder, She Wrote” mild-mannered. Ask Grandma about that show, kids. Ancient TV history. Hell, ask her about “To Die For,” too. That came out in 1995.

Naomi and Jake (Chrishell Hartley, Jason Dolley) were college CCTV show co-hosts, back in the day. That ended when Naomi’s new jock boyfriend died a horrible death.

Think Jake might’ve done it? Think he’s obsessed? Think he’s gotten over that obsession “10 Years Later?”

Naomi is now a morning chat show co-hostess with an older, dorkier co-host (Charlie O’Connell) holding her back. Jake? He just was let go from a job in Florida.

And even though she’s in Buffalo and happily married (Darrin Dewitt Henson), Jake figures this is the perfect time to reconnect, renew the obsession. Maybe leave her a resume, which he’s gilded and redacted to get the attention of Naomi’s “bestie” and producer-boss, Scarlett (Nicole Bilderback).

A cute touch — Scarlett openly flirts with Naomi’s old college “chum.” #HerToo. A cuter touch, when her hubby gets that big promotion at the architecture firm and drops BIG hints about it’s time for her to take a few years off and start their family, Naomi’s first words are “I just can’t picture my life without the show” and her second are that wait a minute, pregnancy might be good to “help me connect with my audience” and the network’s “new target demos.”

“Mornings with Naomi & Robert” might improve in the ratings if she can play the pregnancy card.

But that’s as cynical as Naomi gets. And even though she lost her boyfriend in college and suspicious Jake was around when that happened, she thinks NOTHING of her co-host’s sudden heart attack.

Naomi is just “La di dah” clueless and “nice” as we see Jake scheming and poisoning his way to this loopy, live “Get out there” moment when Scarlett puts him on TV as Naomi’s smooth, social media-savvy co-host.

Just like that.

Lines like Naomi’s plea to husband Trent to “Promise me, nothing is ever going to take you away from me!” can only be played for laughs, these days.

And the sudden shift in the chemistry and ratings of “Mornings with…” begs for a cynical, satiric spin on conventional stalker-thriller tropes. Maybe they’re riding a ratings wave with a murderer, but they don’t want to know would have been more engrossing than “Staged.”

Naomi would have been more interesting, more fun, with a little of that Nicole Kidman shallow/mercenary “anything to be on a hit show” edge.

Everybody here is bland, with Dolley dull in playing the on-task-not-subtle Jake, Googling “date rape drugs” and “blood thinners,” getting everybody out of the way to secure his dream — Naomi and NETWORK!

An awful lot of what Netflix is acquiring in the thriller vein these days either was on Lifetime or has the feel of a woman-in-jeopardy “Lifetime Original Movie.”

“Staged Killer” isn’t even up to those standards.

MPAA Rating: TV-14

Cast: Chrishell Hartley, Nicole Bilderback, Jason Dolley, Naaji Kenn Darrin Dewitt Henson

Credits: Directed by Christopher Ray, script by Lindsay Hartley, Jason-Shane Scott.  A Netflix Original.

Running time: 1:28