Movie Nation

Good to see Linda Hamilton back in this series, which I lost interest in several “Terminators” ago.

But this has the right tone, at least. Maybe.

I always give myself a High Five if I spell his name right on the first try.

Ex-ballplayer turned ex-con returns to his old stomping grounds on getting out.

Pair up the married couple, throw in Burt Young and Michael Rispoli, see what explodes.
“Bottom of the 9th” one opens July 19.

Nolan’s good luck charm Michael Caine, heard but not seen in “Dunkirk” joins John David Washington & Co. in this global espionage thriller.

Https://deadline.com/2019/05/christopher-nolan-tenet-movie-cast-release-date-1202620596/

The trailer to this Nov. 1 release will post Thursday evening at this address.

The director of “Deadpool” is behind the camera, and Linda H and ancient Ah-nuld are in front of it.

Mackenzie Davis (“The Martian”) is in it, and Gabriel Luna is a new “Terminator.”

For now, all we’ve got are some stills floating around the Internet, and this poster.

It is very late in the gender identity game to be conjuring up an ethereal fever dream of what’s going on in the head of someone “transitioning,” or thinking about it.

But the British drama “Into the Mirror” manages it with style to burn, and just a smidgen of pathos.

The hallucinogenic visuals and spacey, romantic score by Johnny Jewel of Chromatics give Lois Stevenson’s drama the feel of a long form music video as autobiography, a young man’s journey to donning a wig, lipstick, makeup and a dress.

On London’s Tube, Daniel (co-writer Jamie Bacon, of “Rocketman”) watches a young woman apply lipstick with furtive envy. She’s blonde, so perhaps she reminds him of his late mother, whom we’ve seen in old home video in the film’s opening moments.

He’s new to the city, dodging plaintive phone calls from his Dad urging them to “sort” their relationship, trying to keep colleagues at arm’s length, and haunting the city’s Lost & Found club after hours.

Blu (Beatrice May) is sweet on him. His bullying, handsy boss (John Sackville) keeps emasculating him with the odd “pretty boy” compliment, testing him, touching him and insisting that he join the others for drinks and skirt-chasing.

“You need to get laid.”

Perhaps. Perhaps not in the way Harry the Boss thinks.

As Daniel, following his curiosity and temptation, makes his way into smokey, dimly lit Lost & Found, he is challenged by the striking transvestite Jennifer (co-writer Charles Streeter). He finds himself awakening in Jennifer’s care.

“I can’t remember last night,” he rallies, with the doesn’t-know-he’s-gay defense. “I was so drunk.”

Sure.

“Into the Mirror” concerns itself with Daniel’s state of mind, ducking under in the tub, hallucinating that he’s drowning, flashing back to childhood with every unanswered message from his dad, seeing gender confusion even in the street-lights at the crosswalk he has to traverse to get to the club each evening.

Director Lois Stevenson doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, incidents of consequence or script in general to work with. So she pours her energy into Bacon’s brooding confusion as Daniel, the soft-focus dreams and the dreamscape that is the club — fog machines and piercing jabs of lurid light cutting up the crowded dance floor.

For such a short (65 minute) and narrowly focused film, the co-writers/co-stars and director wrestle with something pretty ambitious, nothing less than a psychological undressing of transvestism.

Yes, the woman playing Daniel’s adoring mother (Nicole Evans) is blonde.

Perhaps even that view is out of date (if not in Britain), seen as simplistic, and I’ve not kept up with the literature so honestly, I do not know.

But “Into the Mirror” gets as close as any movie ever has to simulating the state of mind of someone conflicted, if no longer confused about his sexuality — the feelings, paranoia, decision making and resolve that takes one from the closet to the drag club.

MPAA Rating: unrated, adult subject matter, profanity

Cast: Jamie Bacon, Beatrice May, Charles Streeter, John Sackville, Nicole Evans

Credits: Directed by Lois Stevenson, script by Jamie Bacon and Charles Streeter. An Ammo Content release.

Running time: 1:05

Dave Bautista’s a gonzo cop whose Lasik doesn’t impede his need to kick ass and take prisoners, but it does mean he needs to take…Uber.

Kumail Nanjiani (“The Big Sick”) is the careful, considerate not-quite-a-stereotype hapless driver summoned to help the cop do his business.

A couple of near-laughs, or at least chuckles, in this better second “international” trailer. “Stuber” opens July 12.

The romantic leads are engaging and can sing, one of them a lot better than the other.

The production is eye-popping, visually, more India than Arabia — Guy Ritchie frenetic at times, and mildly amusing.

And Will Smith gets to strut his stuff in Hammer pants. Again.

So call “Aladdin” a win and call it a night, right? Disney’s latest remake of a classic cartoon is closer to its remake of “The Jungle Book” than “Dumbo,” which is a good thing.

It’s more sensitive in its casting, with any politically incorrect edges rubbed off or at least erased from its tunes.

But it’s villain is a bust, a Jafar who won’t scare anybody.

And with Smith forced to replicate, top or at least hold his own against Robin Williams’ antic animated turn as the Genie, we’re hurled into manic, loud and over-stuffed production numbers sung by a singer whose go-to move is to rap in tune and in time, not “American Idol” his way to Broadway.

Smith’s “Friend Like Me” is kind of lost in the editing, choreography and digitally-augmented and cluttered set decor.

Mena Massoud makes for a parkour-friendly thief of Baghdad, or “Agraba” as it’s called here. He’s boyishly winning if not perhaps as charismatic and cocksure as you remember other versions of Aladdin to be.

But Brit singer/actress Naomi Scott’s Jasmine is the real deal, a good singer and a spitfire in the role. When her Jasmine is denied the right of succession to her father the sultan (Navid Negahban), her fuming “I was born to more than marry some useless prince” tells us she’s going to be a lot more pro-active in this tale than age-old Arabic patriarchy would have her be.

Scott shines in a new number written for this musical, “Speechless,” a bit of female empowerment that should play wonderfully to the dress-like-our-favorite-princess demo.

The story is cleverly reframed as a tale told by a sailor/trader (Smith) to his little kids as they sail the Arabian Sea. Aladdin and his (digital) monkey Abu are introduced, stealing their way through a stunningl- realized fantasy port city of “Arabian Nights” vintage.

He meets the princess, in disguise so she can see how her people really live (struggling, unlike those in the palace). Aladdin’s way of coping with that charms her.

“When you don’t have anything, you still have to act like you own everything!”

But he is seized by the cruel courtier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari of “Murder on the Orient Express” and “What Happened to Monday?”), sent into the Cave of Wonders to fetch a lamp, and that’s how he meets the Bigmouth in Blue (Smith) with his “wishes three.”

Smith’s best song is his rendition of “Prince Ali,” the song in which the Genie croons the virtues of the thief he’s transformed into a prince suitable to be a suitor for Jasmine. It’s performed in more of Smith’s “Fresh Prince” rap style than as a Broadway-ready ditty (in the Alan Menken/Howard Ashman/Tim Rice composition) and he puts it over with panache.

The best effect is the playful pet flying carpet that becomes Aladdin’s edge in his duel with Jafar.

Will any of it make you forget the 1992 cartoon? No. Is this the best application of Guy Ritchie’s special gifts as a filmmaker? Not in the least.

But the jokes still land, albeit not as many as Robin Williams & Co. managed 27 years ago. “A Whole New World” still has a romantic tug to it.

Which is why “Aladdin” still works, just not as well as the live action remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” because the acting in that film was better and it was based on a better original animated classic, with more heart to the story and better songs to illustrate it.

Keep your expectations in check and you won’t be disappointed.

MPAA Rating: PG for some action/peril

Cast: Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Will Smith, Marwan Kenzari, Nasim Pedrad and Navid Negahban

Credits: Directed by Guy Ritchie, script John August and Guy Ritchie, based on the Disney animated film. A Walt Disney release.

Running time: 2:08

I had higher hopes for the adaptation of “Good Omens” than this.

Neil Gaiman co-wrote it, and they had the good sense to cast the cherubic, grinning Michael Sheen as “good” angel Aziraphale and the vulpine David Tennant as the demon Crowley.

The production design by Michael Ralph and cinematography by Gavin Finney (lots of use of fisheye lenses, minimal light) has a “Blade Runner” meets “Dark Shadows” feel — gloomy and foggy Britainnia, with the quasi-villain Crowley tooling about in a vintage Rolls “updated” with a Blaupunkt cassette player (’70s settings.

Very Sherlock Holmes’ Moriarty, with cats-eye contact lenses.

The “Damien: Omen 2” story about mixed up spawn of Satan being raised by “the wrong” families is a non-starter, with all its internecine angel fighting and scheming. But a lot of the dialogue is as witty as you’d hope, demons cooing at how cute Baby AntiChrist/warlock is, right down to his “little toesy woesies!”

Contending with the inept Satanic nuns from “The Chatting Order of Saint Beryl,” bickering about who good and evil — “You’re an angel. I don’t think you CAN do the wrong thing.” — and who might have to spend eternity watching “The Sound of Music” over and over again.

Jon Hamm is the Archangel Gabriel, selling the “Miracles are what we do!” pitch with sinister undertones. The supporting cast, varying from episode to episode, has some heft to it.

The series hangs on the great chemistry between Tennant and Sheen, bickering over the relative merits of “The Divine Plan” vs. “the wiles of the Evil One.” They’re a lot of fun.

The cute conceit here is that neither is absolutely sold and wholly committed to their side in this eternal war.

The obnoxious, cloying crutch of the whole is that everything — what we’ve OBVIOUSLY seen, what we expect to see, what has happened before and whose agenda is being pursued is unnecessarily and insufferably over-narrated by The Almighty, voiced by Frances McDormand.

The Oscar winner is a great actress, and in a series overwhelmed by testosterone, she’s almost certainly a needed female face. Which is why not showing that face is such a bad idea, almost as bad as that lazy storyteller’s go-to shortcut, “voice over.”

It’s not as long as some limited series, even if its dollops of plot are doled out in that cable TV way (tiny drops of exposition, slowly advancing story, attempts at cliffhangers). So maybe it’s worth your time.

It wasn’t really worth mine.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA

Cast: David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Brian Cox, Jill Winternitz, Benedict Cumberbatch, Nick Offerman, Jon Hamm and the voice of Frances McDormand.

Credits: Directed by Douglas MacKinnon, script by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. An Amazon Prime release.

Running time: 6 episodes of one hour each

You come for the dogs, you stay for the tears?
That’s the way these “Dog’s Purpose/Dog’s Way Home/Dog’s Journey” movies are supposed to work.

You watch some perfectly youtubeable clips of puppies, a few utterly generic canine stunts, listen to some seriously lachrymose narration by Josh Gad, as “The Dog of a Thousand Names” and endure the deaths of assorted beloved pets, secure in the knowledge that “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” that Bailey the dog will be reincarnated and that Dennis Quaid will be the only one who knows Bailey’s secret.

What works in “A Dog’s Journey,” in which Bailey goes through several breeds/genders/lives on his mission of “purpose,” to look after the neglected grandchild of Ethan (Quaid) and Hannah (Marg Helgenberger, replacing the late Peggy Lipton).

“I would never stop looking until I found her!”

The tiny tyke CJ needs looking after because her widowed mom (Betty Gilpin of TV’s “Glow” and “Elementary”) is self-absorbed, determined to make it as a “singer” and always dragging home strays — men who will never replace her dead husband, Hannah and Ethan’s son.

Bailey, a Great Pyrnees/Bernese mix in the opening scenes, becomes Molly, an adorable Beaglier (Beagle, King Charles Spaniel mix), and later a Biewer Yorkshire Terrier lapdog named Max and an African Boerboel  named “Big Dog.

No, I didn’t recognize all the breeds, I looked them up. And no, I didn’t give you “spoilers” because I listed them out of order, so there.

As CJ grows up to pursue her dreams of a music career in the big city, she is played by Kathryn Prescott and must endure an abusive teen romance and a lot of lingering bitterness over the mother that kept her from her beloved grandparents.

But of course, we know that Bailey, in whatever guise, will make all these wrongs right. Even if it takes him/her a few lives to do it.

Kathryn Prescott and Henry Lau in "A Dog's Journey." (Universal Pictures)

I found the whole more than a tad insipid, but I love dogs almost beyond measure, so here’s what I loved seeing.

Most of the canines are mixed breeds, not inbred purebreds.

There’s a moment one dog is fetched from a rescue group, and the lady running the adoptions (Cherissa Richards), gets the movie’s best line.

“Rescue’s like a river. It has to keep flowing, or it backs up.”

Don’t buy your pals-for-life from a pet shop. Adopt from a shelter.

And Dennis Quaid, who replaces Jeff Bridges as the Best Actor to Never Win an Oscar, throws himself into this part, selling this relationship like someone born with dogs, raised with dogs and never quite at home unless he’s with a dog. He may actually be a cat person, but I totally bought him and his “Boss Dog” moments. And if he is a cat person, that’s another argument for giving this guy an Oscar.

Not for these tear-jerkers. The further they get from “A Dog’s Purpose,” the weaker they get.

MPAA Rating: PG for thematic content, some peril and rude humor

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Kathryn Prescott, Betty Gilpin, Marg Helgenberger, Henry Lau, Johnny Galecki.

Credits: Directed by Gail Mancuso, script by Maya Forbes, Cathryn Michon, Wallace Wolodarsky and W. Bruce Cameron, based on his novel.  A Universal release.

Running time: 1:49

In Hollywood, there is nothing they hate more than “runaway production,” film and TV work that is done in states far from the mother guilds, unions and working folks who make that the industry’s home base. All these states offering giveaways to lure studio’s into filming in Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico and Florida? A nuisance, especially to legislators seeking to keep all that payroll, infrastructure and tax money at home.

So go ahead, take your state in the last century with anti civil rights legislation. You just gave them an excuse to offer production companies a way back in the door at home.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/444800-california-bill-would-give-tax-breaks-to-production-studios-that-leave