Movie Review ~ She Said

The Facts:

Synopsis: New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor break one of the most important stories in a generation — a story that helped launch the #MeToo movement and shattered decades of silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood.
Stars: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, Sean Cullen, Angela Yeoh, Ashley Judd
Director: Maria Schrader
Rated: R
Running Length: 129 minutes
TMMM Score: (9/10)
Review:  Will we ever know the full impact of the devastation caused by the actions of disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein? It’s not likely because the emotional trauma inflicted and multiple settlements over time have sent a ripple effect throughout Hollywood and beyond. The #MeToo movement may have reached its peak and plateaued (at least for a time), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more threads to unravel or details to unpack over those that remained complicit throughout the years. We’re living in that post-Weinstein world, and it can be hard to rewind to five years before the story came out. 

The new movie She Said asks audiences to step back and watch as two dedicated journalists used their skill and empathy to topple a titan many (including his victims) thought was untouchable. New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey wrote the book ‘She Said’ is based on in 2019. They then became characters in this movie adaptation written by British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Directed by German actress/director Maria Schrader, it’s got the air of All the President’s Men but is less interested in being a Hollywood version of what journalism looks like and focuses its energy on the stories of the women that were victimized and their truth which had been silenced for decades.

After a bruising experience reporting on the 2016 Presidential election, Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman) took time off to tend to her newborn when colleague Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan, What If) called her. The two knew each other from work, but it was limited to that. While Jodi, with her two daughters, could commiserate with Megan and her struggles with post-partum depression, she wanted to ask Megan how she handled asking women tough questions about abuse. This led to the women working together when Megan returned from maternity leave, investigating the long-standing rumors of sexual abuse between Miramax producer Harvey Weinstein and several women.

Some of these women have familiar names, and some aren’t. All were targets and, ultimately, survivors of Weinstein’s fixation and abuse of power. Through pure old-fashioned journalism (pounding the pavement, consulting historical records, protecting sources, using off-the-record conversations to assist them in finding paths forward when they hit a dead end), the two reporters constructed a well-researched case that painted the producer in precisely the kind of light everyone knew him to be. Until then, he had flexed his considerable reach to have these stories squashed by just picking up the phone. In 2017, after Trump was in the White House and the country was fed up with how the nation’s leader spoke about women, the public started to be unwilling to accept dismissals of lousy behavior between those in power and those who worked for them.

While Miramax was an international company with offices in places like London and Hong Kong, when you think of Weinstein, you think of Hollywood. In many ways, having a British screenwriter and German director helped She Said gain some objectivity in its subject, and that reflects in its perspective shifting. As the book writers, Kantor and Twohey couldn’t help but become characters, but they aren’t the showy roles like Robert Redford, and Dustin Hoffman took on in 1976”s All The President’s Men. That film is dynamite but revolves around a subject quite different than what is being exposed here. There’s no ‘gotcha’ journalism on display because it would betray privacy that was so pivotal. So, while we see the journalists at home, it’s for context rather than moving the story along. You can rest assured there are no scenes with Kantor’s husband complaining that she never is home to cook dinner or Twohey’s chastising her for missing out on a crucial newborn milestone.

The less-flash approach might give the impression She Said is a tad flat, and it does start to coast slightly around the halfway mark. It only becomes clearer later that this is a “just the facts” brand of entertainment, and it’s not that Schrader is purposely holding razzle-dazzle back; it’s that this is how it was, and no elaboration/embellishment is needed. Besides, how can you complain about anything when you have an entire cast full of marvelous performances? Mulligan and Kazan are excellent, as are Patricia Clarkson (The East) and Andre Braugher (The Gambler) as the NYT higher-ups that guide them with a steady hand to keep going.   The consistently excellent (seriously, always) Jennifer Ehle (Saint Maud) plays a pivotal role with grace but keep your eyes peeled for Samantha Morton’s ridiculously terrific work as one of the bolder Weinstein accusers. Morton’s (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) only got one scene, but it’s so ferociously good, she makes taking a sip of water so commanding. I swear I saw our entire audience clutching their sodas, all gulping at the same time she paused to have a drink. 

No amount of time could ever truly capture the details of this piece. I’ve read most of the books published on this scandal/movement and am still stunned by the number of influential people who looked the other way while this was happening. One of them is a producer on this film and while doing this feels like atonement, there is so much more that needs to be done to start to correct these errors in judgment. She Said is a small movie but a mighty one…and one of the year’s best. 

Movie Review ~ The Menu

The Facts:

Synopsis: Young couple Margot and Tyler travel to a remote island to eat at Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant run by celebrity chef Julian Slowik, who has prepared a lavish molecular gastronomy menu where food is treated as conceptual art, but his approach to cuisine has some shocking surprises for the wealthy guests.
Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Ralph Fiennes, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Judith Light, John Leguizamo, Reed Birney, Paul Adelstein
Director: Mark Mylod
Rated: R
Running Length: (9.5/10)
ReviewGood from the first bite. If I were the type of reviewer quoted in film ads, that would be the line I hope they ran attributed to me with the wicked new thriller, The Menu. And that’s the best way to start reviewing what will likely be one of my favorite films I’ve seen in 2022. I’m naturally attracted to movies with a black heart, but screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy have cooked up something unnaturally dark for a pre-Thanksgiving theatrical dining experience. It might not be to everyone’s palette, but it’s hard to consider anyone walking out of a seating feeling they hadn’t been well-served by all involved.

It starts with the opening credits, inviting you to “experience” The Menu, and then director Mark Mylod drops you right into the pot of chilly water he hasn’t started to warm up yet (but soon will bring to a blistering boil). This is when we meet our dining companions as they journey from an unnamed mainland (the film was shot in Savannah) and make their way to an exclusive restaurant on a private island. The restaurant is Hawthorne, and it’s presided over by mysterious but renowned celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel), who charges $1,250 per person for the evening. 

A brief tour of the island by Elsa (Hong Chau, Downsizing), Julian’s front-of-house manager, shows the guests the food they’ll be eating and the living quarters of the staff working on the island. Everyone works as a cohesive unit in service to Slowik to put out the best food – nothing less will do. This is how he can demand that high price and why an invitation to dine is highly coveted in foodie, celebrity, and influencer circles. Among those dining tonight is a food critic (Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs), a trio of obnoxious financial upstarts, a blowhard actor (John Leguizamo, Encanto) and his long-suffering assistant), and a stalwart married couple (Reed Birney, Mass, & Judith Light, tick, tick… BOOM!) who appear to be regulars.

An unexpected guest wasn’t on the original list, surprising both Elsa and Julian. Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy, Last Night in Soho) accompanies Tyler (Nicholas Hoult, Warm Bodies), but they are expecting another woman in her place. A break-up left one seat open, and rather than miss out on a dinner he’s looked forward to, the bullish millennial thought he could bring anyone he wanted instead. Margot isn’t just anyone, though. She hasn’t earned her seat like the others attending and doesn’t play into Julian’s overall plan for the night. Because he does have a plan, and as each course arrives, it gives a clearer picture that each patron has been carefully selected as an ingredient to a final dish no one could have predicted.

To say more about The Menu would show how the proverbial sausage is made, and I wouldn’t want to spoil that fun. Mylod and the screenwriters use their 106 minutes wisely, nudging your nerves tighter and tenser each time a new dish is announced with Slowik’s sharp clap to call everyone’s attention. This is a rare meal that gets tastier the more you find out what’s going into the pot, and yet you still can’t quite figure out what the end game is until it arrives. Through it all, there’s bountiful amounts of acerbic humor directed at everything from bad movies to infidelity. 

Each table features its own mini murders row of talent. You can imagine the restaurant serving as the jumping-off place (or ending up?) for an anthology series featuring these actors, and I’d be curious to see what they were doing 24 hours before they hopped on the boat to the island. Taylor-Joy is a rising star for a reason, and she proves it again here by easily sliding into an established leading lady mode. She’s comfortable going eye-to-eye with Fiennes, who should honestly be attempting an Oscar campaign for his work here. Best of all is Chau as your traditionally snobby front-of-house worker but taken to a far more sinister place – each scene she’s in and each line she coolly hisses out is pure gold.

I’ll be making multiple return visits to The Menu; I’m confident of that and can easily recommend it to anyone that likes a little show with their dinner. Please don’t go into it hungry, though, because you’ll wind up competing with a growling stomach by the time the film is half over. There are some gorgeous shots of the dishes Fiennes and his team whip up, and you may be tempted to reach out and try to touch them they are so tasty looking.  Be warned, there’s more to them than meets the eye.

Movie Review ~ Spirited

The Facts:

Synopsis: Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge.
Stars: Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer, Sunita Mani, Patrick Page, Tracy Morgan, Joe Tippett, Andrea Anders, Jen Tullock
Director: Sean Anders
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 127 minutes
TMMM Score: (9/10)
Review:  Before we journey through this Spirited review, I feel I must be transparent about a few things off the bat. That will help better frame how I came to this new musical re-telling of A Christmas Carol, one of the multitudes of versions of the Charles Dickens perennial classic. I love A Christmas Carol. I will watch a performance (or versions) of it every year and be struck by something new about the piece each time I see it. There’s a lesson to be learned from Dickens’s story of redemption, and my opinion is that the darker, the better. Let the story start from a deep, despairing place because the renewal of salvation Scrooge experiences at the end means much more; the takeaway is more impactful.

The next thing I’ll say is that I’m not generally a fan of either star of the film, Will Ferrell or Ryan Reynolds. Both actors trade in schtick, and while it has made them a boatload of money, it’s a schtick that’s beaten to death and quoted by those less talented on the delivery forever after. (“No really, I don’t need to hear that Anchorman bit again Kevin. Thank you.”) Each has occasionally struck out with work that has shown their acting chops, but to say they are comfortable with coasting along is putting it mildly. I also am not the biggest fan of Dear Evan Hansen, the multiple award-winning musical Spirited songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul composed for Broadway and helped adapt for the bomb-tastic 2021 musical. It even took me a second viewing to appreciate their Oscar-winning songwriting for 2017’s The Greatest Showman.

There was the dilemma I faced when Spirited was staring me down the other night. Dickens=good.  Ferrell/Reynolds=iffy.  Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water) being third billed tipped the scale in the right direction, and I committed to at least starting the movie but not finishing it at that late hour. It’s rare in our house not to pause for a bathroom break or other distraction, but after the two hours was up and Spirited’s charming closing credit sequence was complete, my only regret wasn’t staying up past my bedtime but that I wasn’t able to see this joyous holiday entertainment on the biggest screen possible. (It’s in limited release now but widely available on AppleTV+ on November 18.)

Written by John Morris and director Sean Anders (Daddy’s Home), Spirited takes the story we’re all familiar with (A Christmas Carol) and gives it a modern twist. Scrooge gets redeemed on his Christmas Eve night, but what about the next Christmas? And the one after that? And the one after that? The “haunt “business is a well-oiled machine and by the time we join the crew, Marley (Patrick Page, In the Heights) is running a tight ship. The Ghosts of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani, Evil Eye), Present (Ferrell, Holmes & Watson), and Yet-To-Come (voiced by Tracy Morgan, The Boxtrolls, and physicalized by Loren Woods) get in, do their job, and pass their torch to the next on the schedule.

They’ve just completed their latest mission (a Karen-esque suburbanite played by a recognizable star), and are planning their next when Present suddenly turns his focus to Clint Briggs (Reynolds, Deadpool), a smarmy public relations exec that can spin any story (illustrated by Reynolds in a go-for-broke 11 o’clock musical number that comes around the 9:00 am mark). The only problem is Clint is classified as ‘Unredeemable’ and automatically excluded from the yearly haunt – but Present sees a challenge and, facing retirement, pushes Marley to take on Clint despite the warnings that their efforts will fail. Of course, they can’t know that Clint truly is as nasty as he looks and isn’t as easily rattled as the centuries of souls that came before him.

The screenplay (and songs) takes some unexpected turns, sometimes following the Dickens text but diverging enough, so you’re never sure where you’ll find yourself at given beats. That’s nice to find, especially for the experienced fans of A Christmas Carol, but also for those willing to let Ferrell and Reynolds try on a new side of themselves. Both are nicely musical and dance well, culminating in several smashing full-out dance numbers set to Pasek/Paul’s lively tunes and performed with dazzling choreography by Chloe Arnold. Sure, they start to sound the same after a while, and you won’t be turning the TV off humming them, but they’re clever and fun while you’re in it, and the old time pub song ‘Good Afternoon’ is a showstopping riot.

If the film drags its feet a little, it’s when we go down the rabbit hole of Clint’s past. That’s where we find good actors like Joe Tippett (Mr. Harrigan’s Phone), Andrea Anders (The Stepford Wives), & Jen Tullock (TV’s Severance) struggling with some saccharine dialogue (or, in Anders’s case, several bizarrely ugly wigs). So much effort is spent on the production numbers looking great, I wish more time were spent on the dramatic scenes being as tight. At least Spencer’s scenes are razor-sharp, and if you had seeing Spencer in a musical on your Christmas wish list, you could check that off now because she’s lovely in her few moments of musicality. Spencer is the epitome of the heart that Spirited is going for, so anytime she’s on screen, she has a way of centering everyone in the film.

There’s so little to offend here; I’d encourage you to block out the early negative buzz from some ‘unredeemable’ Scrooge-y critics who can’t see what the film is going for and ultimately achieves. It shows us a new way of approaching a story while at the same time illustrating the flaws we all examine in ourselves. The flaws can define us and make us embittered against the world, or we can take ownership of them and use them toward doing good. The message is clear, and sometimes, in the case of Spirited, it’s sung. This will be added to the holiday rotation in my home, no question.

Movie Review ~ Christmas with You

The Facts:

Synopsis: Feeling career burnout, pop star Angelina escapes to grant a young fan’s wish in small-town New York, where she not only finds the inspiration to revitalize her career but also a shot at true love.
Stars: Freddie Prinze Jr., Aimee Garcia, Deja Monique Cruz, Zenzi Williams, Lawrence J. Hughes
Director:  Gabriela Tagliavini
Rated: NR
Running Length: 89 minutes
TMMM Score: (4/10)
Review:  Watching Christmas with You is a bit like opening your refrigerator after having the family over for a big dinner the night before and perusing the leftovers of the homemade meal sealed tight in Tupperware. The food has retained its flavor and warms up fine, but it doesn’t taste as good as it did in the first round. Ultimately you start to pick at it before soldiering through to clean your plate and not create waste. You wouldn’t go back for a second helping, but the meal served its purpose, and the indigestion isn’t too terrible. 

A week after Netflix released the Lindsay Lohan-led Falling for Christmas, the streaming service delivers Christmas with You, starring another celeb two decades removed from being the headliner of feature films. Freddie Prinze Jr. was never what you would call a ‘bankable’ star but was a unique kind of heartthrob that boasted bad boy looks but a cheerily non-threatening disposition. Married for over twenty years to fellow former teen star Sarah Michelle Gellar (who recently popped up in Do Revenge), Prinze has always excelled at playing a nice guy, and moving into ‘dad’ mode was an inevitable transition he would be a natural at.

In Christmas with You, Prinze is a widowed high school music teacher with a daughter (Deja Monique Cruz) preparing for her quinceañera during the busy holiday season. He’s also occasionally been plunking away at a Christmas song, an old habit from playing piano with a band. An active social media user, his daughter Cristina is a massive fan of pop star Angelina (Aimee Garcia, RoboCop) and posts a message to Instagram singing one of her idol’s songs and adding a personal note about wanting to meet her.

Luckily, Angelina, feeling the creep of time and newer talent nipping at her heels, is scrolling through at the right moment and is touched by this message. Especially hitting home is both Cristina and Angelina lost their mothers at a young age. When Angelina is asked to record a Christmas song for an upcoming gala instead of singing her old hits, she panics and hightails it out of town with her assistant Monique (Zenzi Williams, Black Panther) in tow. Remembering Cristina’s video and that she lives a few hours away, she impulsively directs Monique to drive them to the tiny town where she’ll make Cristina’s wish come true, find her song, and discover love when she least expected it.

If you’ve seen Marry Me, the Jennifer Lopez/Owen Wilson romance from earlier in 2022 (and, honestly, what are you waiting for?), you already know the central romantic entanglement that follows and even some of its resolution. While that film was a not-so-subtle riff on 1999’s Notting Hill, Christmas with You has some striking similarities with the Lopez vehicle, down to supporting players that get in the way of our leads making their love connection. Not that there is an extreme electric current between Garcia and Prinze; in all honesty, when they start making goo-goo eyes at one another, it feels like they are simply going with the script and not from emotion. If anything, both actors work better, displaying their emotions in scenes with Cruz. 

Anytime you have a plot centered around a “mega-talent,” you want that actor/actress to shine, and Garcia struggles with convincing us that she’s been an international star since she was a pre-teen. Acting-wise, she’s charismatic, but anytime music or dancing is involved, you can see the nervous energy sideline her. In several scenes, Prinze (I Know What You Did Last Summer) also looks a little uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because he towers over Garcia and has to turn his head almost at a 90-degree angle to talk to her when they sit next to one another. There’s also a strange scene where director Gabriela Tagliavini has her two leads adjourn from the warmth of indoors to have a serious conversation sitting outside…while it’s snowing.

As flimsy as it is, I find it tough to want to dismantle Christmas with You too much. The representation showcasing Latino talent in front of and behind the camera is essential and should be encouraged more than anything. You’ve seen worse Christmas movies on other networks, but one does wish this had slightly more going for it. It will do to have on as you decorate your tree or bake your first batch of cookies.