Archive | November, 2021

House of Gucci

27 Nov

‘House of Gucci’: The styles clash in family drama

By Tom Meek Friday, November 26, 202

Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” unfurls like an epic crime saga – think “The Godfather” (1972) by way of the hit streaming series “Succession.” It’s got devious parlor games, backroom corporate jockeying, bloody agendas and plenty of unintentional camp, which is both good and bad. 

We’re talking the Italian fashion industry in the 1970s, when old-school Gucci lions Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) and Aldo (Pacino) prided themselves on the lineage of special cows used to make super soft, artisanal loafers and handbags that cost most people’s annual salary. Aldo wants to kick the business into the more modern world with innovations such as malls in Japan; Rodolfo resists. But the real focus of “Gucci” is the fatal relationship between Lady Gaga’s uncompromising Patrizia and Rodolfo’s bookish son, Maurizio (Adam Driver). By now, you’ve probably read about the steamy sex scene between Gaga and Driver, and while it is steamy, it’s more a physical, crash-bang-boom event than an erotic interlude, befitting Patrizia’s driven woman: She works in her family’s trucking business until she’s successfully stalking Maurizio in a bookstore and getting that big ring, then pushing Maurizio into the family business with a pinch of Lady Macbeth mania.

The narrative of “Gucci” may be driven by the above- and below-board dealings of the fashion empire, but what Scott’s assembled here is a potpourri of characters that pop off the screen with a capital P. As Aldo, Pacino serves up a Thanksgiving ham with a big, viscous side of pineapple sauce, somewhere between his over-the-top take on Jimmy Hoffa in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” (2019) and his “Hoo-ah!” hokum in “Scent of a Woman’’ (1992). Besides Gaga – more on that in a bit – the real scene-stealer is Jared Leto, unrecognizable under bad hair, potbelly and a prosthetic nose like Tom Cruise in “Tropic Thunder” as Aldo’s attention-seeking son Paolo, the Guccis’ own Fredo Corleone sad sack, full of ambition and always biting his tail. Iron’s ailing Rodolfo is gaunt and wan in the extreme, looking like the undernourished version of Gary Oldman’s Count Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 spin on Bram Stoker’s novel. (Irons is one of the only actors in the impressive ensemble who doesn’t attempt an Italian accent, which is both disconcerting and a blessing.) Driver’s his fine, likable self as Maurizio in a film in which not many of the characters are.

The film clearly belongs to Gaga, giving a big, bold performance that proves what we knew when she was Oscar-nominated in 2018 for her pop-star-in-the-making turn in “A Star is Born”: The woman can act and is a force onscreen. She carries the film through silly and serious, and even though it’s a big performance, it never spins into spectacle like some of her castmates’ do.

Scott, who recently lambasted superhero films, has had a long line of critical success – I’ll cite “Alien” (1979), “Blade Runner” (1982) and “Black Hawk Down” (2000) among the many– but takes a bit of a stumble here. It’s a whirlwind of concepts, stylization, allegories and an incredible cast all getting their big solos (did I mention that Salma Hayek plays Patrizia’s brassy tarot card reader?) without gelling at the core. At more than two and a half hours, “House of Gucci” is highly entertaining and the use of pop tunes from Donna Summer, Blondie and George Michael, to name a few, anchors the era with perfect aural nostalgia. But for all its build, bluster and pomp, in the end “Gucci” gets sewn up and sold like a cheap knockoff pump in the secondary market.

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Belfast

13 Nov

‘Belfast’: In Ireland for the violence of the 1960s with time for schoolboy crushes and matinees

By Tom Meek Thursday, November 11, 2021

Kenneth Branagh’s nostalgic, semi-autobiographical twist on growing up during the Protestant-Catholic conflict of the late ’60s and ’70s – yes, one of England’s best living actors is Irish – is an arty yet intimate affair that gets lost some in the wistfulness of youth and bigger thematic constructs that never fully come together. Shot primarily in black and white by Haris Zambarloukos (“Thor,” “Locke”), “Belfast’ is a gorgeous film to drink in, no question. We begin with a color travelogue of Belfast today, then cut to 1969 in black and white as 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), coming home from school, rounds a corner and ends up in the path of an anti-nationalist Protestant mob looking to torch the homes of Catholics who want to cut ties with England.

It’s a bold opener, with the threat of sudden violence smoldering in the corner of every frame, be it the increased presence of barbed-wire barriers lining the streets or a local ruffian who viciously cold-cocks a fellow Protestant for refusing to fall in with his thuggish operations. That said, “Belfast” is more about bridging divides than holding the line, and how a family holds itself together under such outside duress. Told through Buddy’s eyes, “Belfast” is a coming-of-age tale that leverages the lens of innocence much the same way – but not as effectively – as John Boorman’s heartfelt 1987 classic “Hope and Glory” (1987) chronicled a British lad growing up in World War II England. Many of the setups in “Belfast” ride the edge of the conflict, such as the shy, demurring Buddy, whose family is Protestant, getting a crush on Catherine, a pretty Catholic classmate (Olive Tennant), or the local organizer instigating those incursive acts of terror (Colin Morgan) putting pressure on Pa (Jamie Dornan) to sign up or else. It doesn’t help that Pa works in England and is hardly around, and when he is, Morgan’s brute is always lurking nearby. Not all is bleak and despair; some of the more touching moments come as Buddy seeks advice from his grandfather (Ciarán Hinds, “Munich”), who lives under the same cramped row-house roof and is forever applying saddle soap to equestrian gear he never puts to use. (Granny is played by Dame Judy Dench.)

Pa works in England and is hardly around; when he is, there’s a local organizer instigating those incursive acts of terror (Colin Morgan) who puts pressure on Pa (Jamie Dornan) to sign up or else. Given the chaos in the street and Pa’s work constraints, much of the pressure, domestic and otherwise, falls on Ma (Caitríona Balfe) who, like Pa, holds onto her morals and ethics regardless of what comes; in the wake of one riot,  a store gets looted and Buddy, encouraged by other kids, takes a few bars of candy – which has Ma dragging him through the throng and back to the store to return what he did not pay for.

If you’re wondering where Branagh’s passion for film originated, there are several scenes with the family at the local theater taking in such era classics as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “One Million Years B.C.” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “High Noon.” That Gary Cooper classic foreshadows the mounting tensions between Pa and Morgan’s stalker, which culminate in a “Noon”-like showdown in the street. Dornan’s portrait of square-jawed resolve, however charismatic and admirable, becomes too much of a cape of righteousness without nuance or flaw. Similarly, Balfe casts a winning screen presence but her Ma feels too put-together and fashionable for the rough-and-tumble streets. Hill, who bears a heavy yoke for such a young thespian, is the film’s discovery. It’s amazing just how much vulnerability, confusion and desire Hill conveys in his saucer eyes and furrowed brow. I bet too Branagh’s a big Van Morrison fan; no fewer than seven of the Irish rocker’s ballads get cued up over the course of the film. “Belfast” is an adoring love letter that churns chaotic brutality into a fairytale. 

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Eternals

5 Nov

Marvel squeezes into a mythology suit

By Tom Meek Wednesday, November 3, 2021

And so the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands in a way it hasn’t since 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” when joyous, self-deprecating humor propelled a merry band of misfits across the stars on their mission to save a star system. That goal has been a thing in any MCU chapter. It’s how it gets dressed up that’s key to the film’s success. In “Eternals,” directed by recent Academy Award-winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) we get a whole new slate of superheroes, notably diverse (it’s a multiracial lot, with one gay hero, one who is deaf and another battling metal illness) but suited up in unis that have to be some of the most generic, least-inspired Lycra designs in decades. The depth of character too is slight, and the CGI effects don’t really break any ground – and occasionally look “Sharknado” cheesy.

The Eternals of the title are a race of immortal superhumans created eons ago by the Celestials to protect planets such as Earth against ravenous entities known as Deviants. What the what? Yeah, there’s a lot in those big bland tags, barely a notch above Decepticons and Autobots, but Celestials are universe-forming gargantuans akin to the Titans in Greek mythology (Thanos and Ego from earlier MCU chapters are similar in powers and scope), while Deviants are hellish beasties that look a lot like the Taotie from the 2016 Zhang Yimou miscue “The Great Wall,” a hybrid of wolf and dinosaur stripped down to sinew and bone and equipped with flowing tentacles that allow them to sap the energy of their target. Eternals wiped out all the Deviants in the early days of civilization and now hang among us, awaiting their next call to duty. 

Keeping with that lazy borrowing of classic mythos, we catch up with the Eternal Sersi (Gemma Chan) posing as a London museum curator and involved with a mortal named Dane (Kit Harington). She used to be married to Eternal alpha stud Ikaris (Richard Madden), but they drifted apart and haven’t seen each other in centuries – until one day, or one date night with Dane, a deviant crawls out of the Thames and Ikaris drops in out of the blue to help Sersi thwart the malevolent with his laser-beam eyes and square-jawed bravado. One might imagine there’d be some kind of intimate pause here, a “Dane, meet my ex” and perhaps some edgy love triangle dynamics (“Is he super good in bed too?”), but no, bigger MCU matters abound: Why are these things back, and what is Sersi to do? 

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