'At Eternity's Gate'

So many attempts have been made at probing the mind of Vincent van Gogh — most recently in the oil-painting animation of “Loving Vincent” or a little historical meddling on “Doctor Who” — that it’s tough to imagine anyone saying something new about him.

Julian Schnabel, himself a painter before he found a second calling as a filmmaker, gives it a good swing with “At Eternity’s Gate.” Schnabel’s elliptical approach ultimately doesn’t plumb the depths of the painter’s unsettled mind, but his casting of Willem Dafoe as van Gogh is a perfect brushstroke.

Schnabel, co-writing with Jean-Claude Carrier (a French legend who collaborated with Luis Buñuel on “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”) and Louise Kugelberg, follows van Gogh through the time he lived in southern France, in Arles, and in the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise.

He befriends fellow painter Paul Gauguin (Oscar isaac), who talks about starting a painting revolution, and can’t fathom van Gogh’s insistence that he must be in nature to capture it. He deals with locals in Arles who taunt him, or think him a dangerous lunatic roaming the countryside. He begs his brother Theo (Rupert Friend) for money, which Theo dutifully provides in exchange for paintings he can’t sell.

Mostly, Schnabel shows van Gogh wrestling with self-doubt, the worry that his work can’t do justice to the world he sees. Schnabel does this in part by watching Dafoe’s van Gogh feverishly apply paint to canvas, and in part by having cinematographer Benoît Delhomme’s camera jump about to approximate van Gogh’s agitated state.

Despite a steady stream of van Gogh’s words, either in voice-over or sparring with various characters — including Mads Mikkelsen as a priest and Mathieu Amalric as the homeopathic Dr. Gachet — Schnabel doesn’t do much to add to our understanding van Gogh or his groundbreaking art.

What makes “At Eternity’s Gate” absorbing, in spite of its occasional tedium, is Dafoe, who finds in the painter the role he was born to play. Dafoe — who, at 63, has lived 26 years longer than van Gogh did — processes van Gogh’s desire to paint the world and his frustration that he is misunderstood and penniless. Dafoe gets closer to van Gogh’s ragged heart than anyone ever has on film.

——

‘At Eternity’s Gate’

★★1/2

Opened November 16 in select cities; opens Friday, December 21, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for some thematic content. Running time: 111 minutes.

'Vice'

Contrary to the old saying, history isn’t written by the winners — if it were, nobody would be flying Confederate flags. Sometimes, as in the case of Adam McKay’s rapid-fire satirical biography “Vice,” it’s written by sharp and angry storytellers on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

In chronicling the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney, McKay aims to repeat the formula he deployed in his 2015 hit “The Big Short.” In that film, McKay depicted a horrendous failure of policy — the corruption of the U.S. mortgage market, and how when the housing bubble burst it took a lot of the American economy with it — through a comic presentation of facts and a dose of righteous fury.

Read the full review at sltrib.com.

'Mary Poppins Returns'

The mission seems impossible: To take a beloved movie that is, to borrow its own words, practically perfect in every way, and make a sequel 54 years later that’s bracingly fresh while staying true to the spirit of the original.

In the case of “Mary Poppins Returns,” the sprightly and charming follow-up to Disney’s 1964 classic “Mary Poppins,” it takes a lot of musical-theater savvy, a few well-placed cameos and a star, Emily Blunt, who inhabits the title role as confidently as Julie Andrews did back in the day.

Read the full review at sltrib.com.

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'

I really hope that Stan Lee, the genius behind Marvel Comics, got to see the animated “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” before he died on November 12. If he did, I’d be sure he died happy, knowing that the iconic character he famously co-created was being realized in his purest, sharpest form.

Or, rather, forms, because this isn’t just one “Spider-Man” story. It’s many stories, woven together like a spider’s web so that when one is plucked, the others vibrate in sympathy.

Firstly, it’s the story of Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), a teen in The Bronx with a loving mom, Rio (voiced by Luna Lauren Velez), and a devoted dad, Jefferson Davis (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry), a New York City cop who delights in driving a mortified Miles to school in his squad car. When not in school, Miles hangs out with his uncle, Aaron (voiced by Mahershala Ali), who’s estranged from his cop brother.

It’s when he’s with Aaron, creating graffiti artwork in underground New York, that Miles is bitten by a genetically engineered spider. Then things start happening, and Miles realizes he has super-strength and his hands and feet can stick to any surface, allowing him to crawl up walls. 

Yes, it’s Spider-Man’s origin story, but Brooklyn already has a Spider-Man, in the form of super-heroic Peter Parker (voiced by Chris Pine). That changes, though, because Miles witnesses a crime boss, known as The Kingpin (voiced by Liev Schreiber), murder Spider-Man. Miles also sees The Kingpin is developing a giant device that creates a portal between parallel universes.

It’s through this portal that another Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson) arrives. This one, though, isn’t as heroic as ours. He tells the sad story of how he lost his mojo for crime-fighting, as well as his wife, Mary Jane (voiced in both universes by Zoë Kravitz). But Miles needs a mentor, so he enlists the only Peter Parker he’s got.

Miles soon learns there is another: His new classmate Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailie Steinfeld), a k a Spider-Gwen. But, as the comic-savvy script by Phil Lord (“The Lego Movie”) and Rodney Rothman (who co-directed with Bill Persichetti and Peter Ramsey) explores, there are a lot of spider-beings out there.

The movie serves up endless invention, like the deadly encounter with an unexpected supervillain (voiced by Kathryn Hahn) or the interaction between the varied spider-characters (voiced by Nicolas Cage, Kimiko Glenn and John Mulaney) that personify such visual styles as film noir, Japanese anime and Saturday morning cartoons.

Most importantly, the animation comes closer than any Marvel movie has to emulating the hyper-stylized look of an actual comic book. Ang Lee’s 2003 “Hulk” tried this, with transitions done like story panels, but that pales next to the explosion of super-saturated color and line art deployed here.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” also revels in that staple of the comic-book art, the origin story. It becomes a running joke that every time the movie drops a new character, it also shows an accompanying comic book with that character’s origins. It’s a smart and timely reminder that every superhero’s story has to start somewhere, and Miles Morales’ fascinating story begins here. 

——

‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”

★★★★

Opens Friday, December 14, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for frenetic sequences of animated action violence, thematic elements, and mild language. Running time: 119 minutes.

'Anna and the Apocalypse'

Moviegoers and critics are always clamoring for something fresh on the menu, something they haven’t seen before. Well, a Christmas zombie horror high-school musical from Scotland is certainly fresh and new — and, in “Anna and the Apocalypse,” rather brilliant.

Yes, it’s a musical, so the main characters are pouring their hearts out in song. Yes, it’s in a high school, so teenage hormones are raging. Yes, it’s set around Christmas, so the Santa imagery is ever-present. Yes, there are zombies in the streets and, yes, much movie gore is expended in dispatching zombies and their victims. And it’s filmed near Glasgow, so they all have adorable accents like Merida in “Brave.” What’s not to love?

Anna, winningly played by Ella Hunt, is looking for a way out of her drab Scottish town, but her single father (Mark Benton) is not thrilled with her plans to skip college for a year and travel the world. John (Malcolm Cumming), Anna’s best friend since childhood, also wants Anna to stay — but his motive is a hope that Anna will finally see him as more than a friend. Anna has recently broken up with Nick (Ben Wiggins), a self-involved Army brat.

All around in Little Haven, people are preparing for the holiday. Anna’s gal pal Lisa (Marli Siu) is rehearsing for the school’s pre-Christmas talent show, and to spend quality snagging time with boyfriend Chris (Christopher Leveaux), a budding filmmaker. Misfit lesbian Steph (played by Sarah Swire, who also choreographed the dance numbers) has been abandoned by her vacationing parents. And the school’s priggish headmaster, Mr. Savage (Paul Kaye), is doing his bureaucratic best to make sure no one has any holiday fun on his watch.

These characters and their moods are introduced in musical numbers. The sharpest of the lot is “Hollywood Ending,” in which John and Anna separately lament how their romantic lives aren’t what pop culture set them up to believe. “Nobody tells you when you’re young / Love’s not like the books, the films or the songs / We’ve been living in a lie for far too long / and we’re tired of pretending /  There’s no such thing as a Hollywood ending,” the chorus goes — which ends up being the movie’s mantra.

One morning, Anna and John each wake up cheerily singing about the morning, little noticing that ravenous zombies are devouring the neighbors. When they do finally notice, after decapitating a zombie in a Frosty the Snowman costume, they rush to find refuge in the bowling alley where they work. Meanwhile, Anna’s dad, a janitor at the high school, is trying to keep the non-zombie students inside safe, a task made more difficult by the officious Mr. Savage.

Director John McPhail and screenwriters Alan Macdonald and Ryan McHenry set up a series of horror set pieces that are both incredibly bloody and scathingly funny. Every viewer will have a favorite zombie kill in the film, but mine is when the zombie is decapitated by the pin guard in the bowling alley — causing his head to pop up in the ball return. (McHenry, by the way, devised the entire movie, but died in 2015 at the age of 27 from cancer before seeing his idea become a reality.)

But the filmmakers are no less attentive to the emotional moments that play out in songs by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly. “Human Voice” captures the main characters’ growing fear of being disconnected from their loved ones. “Give Them a Show” is Anna’s call-to-arms when she has to fight off zombies in the school auditorium. And we mustn’t forget Lisa’s entendre-filled talent-show number, “It’s That Time of Year,” which will give the sexy holiday favorite “Santa Baby” a run for its money.

The whole thing works, precisely because it shouldn’t. The songs have enough edge to fit in with the horror setting, and the gore is done with such comic timing that it never feels disturbing. With a talented young cast, headed by a strong yet vulnerable performance by the stardom-bound Hunt, “Anna and the Apocalypse” takes both the horror and the music seriously, creating a perfect chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter genre mix.

——

‘Anna and the Apocalypse’

★★★1/2

Opened in select cities on November 30; opens Friday, December 14 at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and the Megaplex at the District (South Jordan). Rated R for zombie violence and gore, language and some sexual material. Running time: 93 minutes.

'The Favourite'

For those who think historical costume dramas, particularly ones set among the English monarchy, are dry and tedious affairs, fasten your corsets and prepare for the exhilaratingly bumpy ride of “The Favourite.”

It’s 1708, England is embroiled in the War for Spanish Succession, an expensive affair that has strained the taxpaying subjects of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), the occasionally doddering monarch. The queen’s most trusted advisor is Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), a friend since girlhood, and wife of the commander of Her Majesty’s army, the Duke of Marlborough (Mark Gattis). Sarah supports the war, and prods Queen Anne to order Parliament to raise taxes to pay for it.

Enter Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a distant cousin of Sarah whose family has fallen upon hard times. Abigail comes to Sarah to seek some lowly employment in the Queen’s service, and she lands as a lowly maid. For a young woman whose father sold her to a German to pay off gambling debts, scrubbing floors is a fine job.

When she notices the Queen has gout, Abigail figures out a way to ingratiate herself to the Queen and Sarah. She picks local herbs to reduce Anne’s aching legs, making the Queen feel better. More importantly, Abigail slyly makes sure Anne knows who picked the herbs — and, at the Queen’s urging,  Sarah makes Abigail her lady-in-waiting.

As fast as you can say “All About Eve,” Abigail’s presence poses a threat to Sarah’s position as Queen Anne’s companion, confidante, and when necessary bed partner. Abigail also parlays the interest of Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult), leader of the loyal opposition in Parliament and a foe of the war tax. Harley wants Abigail to spy for him, to report back Sarah’s scheming with Queen Anne and with the Conservatives to keep the war going, and Abigail extracts a price for that service.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lobster,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”) doesn’t let the powdered wigs and tapestries overwhelm his sense of humor, as he channels both the opulence of 18th century court life and the absurdity of it all. His favorite maneuver is an exaggerated fisheye lens, all the better to put the castle’s ostentatiousness all in one frame. 

The script, by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, sets up a deliciously wicked game of wills between Sarah and Abigail, with Queen Anne as both tennis ball and the trophy. The game, and Lanthimos’ sure hand at satire, brings out the most devilish performances from Weisz, her machinations tempered by a dollop of pity for the ailing queen, and Stone, relishing her first real bad-girl performance as a schemer so intent on winning that she hasn’t realized the prize — the Queen’s favor — comes with some major downsides.

Best of all, in a category all by herself, is Colman, who takes the Queen from petulant brat to grieving widow to lonely soul with imperceptible shifts in her acting. It’s a performance truly fit for a queen, and makes “The Favourite” a movie deserving of favor.

——

‘The Favourite’

★★★1/2

Opened November 23 in select cities; opens Friday, December 14 at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and the Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity and language. Running time: 119 minutes.

'Mortal Engines'

The advertising for the dystopian action tale “Mortal Engines” boasts that it comes from the makers of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy — which one can detect by the high quality of visual effects bringing an intriguing world to life.

One can also detect that author Philip Reeve, on whose 2001 young-adult novel the movie is based, isn’t at J.R.R. Tolkien’s level as a creator of story or characters. There’s only so much Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens — the screenwriting team behind Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies — can do about that.

The story happens a thousand years after what’s called “The Sixty Minute War,” when major cities were destroyed by a geology-altering weapon. (Seeing this happen on the globe of the Universal Pictures logo is, admittedly, kind of cool.) Cities were rebuilt and put on wheels, and given the name “traction cities.” London is the biggest “traction city” around, and has recently crossed into Europe to chase down smaller mobile cities and consume their resources as fuel.

As the fuel is running out, though, London’s charismatic lead engineer Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving) tells the people he has a renewable energy source he is building within St. Paul’s Cathedral. Meanwhile, Valentine’s daughter Kate (Leila George) is exploring the old tech in the London Museum, with the help of budding historian and scrounger Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan).

While in the lower levels, Tom witnesses a mystery woman attack Valentine with a knife. Tom stops the woman from killing Valentine, and gives chase through the “ingestor” tearing apart the city London just devoured. (The sequence is a masterful one, an energetic live-action approximation of figures in a side-scrolling video game.) The chase ends with two revelations: That the woman, Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), accuses Valentine of killing her mother, and that Hester bears a facial scar she says Valentine made trying to kill her.

Hester and Tom wind up on the ground as London rolls away, and they must fend for themselves in the wilderness. After some close scrapes — including a cyborg assassin (performed by Stephen Lang) that vows to kill Hester — the two are rescued by Anna Fang (played by one-named South Korean singer/artist Jihae), who’s leading the rebellion Valentine wants to quash.

Director Christian Rivers, an Oscar winner for visual effects (for Jackson’s “King Kong”) who has been Jackson’s storyboard artist since his first movie, makes a bombastic directorial debut. Rivers’ special-effects background is evident here, in the richly layered world-building of Reeve’s steampunk-inspired cities. Rivers is less assured with plot and pacing, and there are times with the movie bogs down in all the hardware.

The cast, mostly young unknowns or little-knowns, is lively and charismatic. Their greatest talent is knowing when to move back when Weaving starts chewing the scenery, because he does it like no other. “Mortal Engines” rises and falls — mostly rises — on Weaving’s cunning.

——

‘Mortal Engines’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 14, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of futuristic violence and action. Running time: 128 minutes.

'Vox Lux'

There’s a strong performance rattling around in “Vox Lux,” a slice of European-influenced misanthropy about the unsteady rise of a rock star — and that performance doesn’t belong to the marquee name, Natalie Portman.

Instead, it’s the actor who plays Portman’s pop-diva character Celeste as a teen, Raffey Cassidy, who’s most impressive in actor-turned-director Brady Corbet’s brooding, self-satisfied drama.

The story starts in 1999, with 14-year-old Celeste and her older sister Ellie (Stacy Martin) sitting in their high school orchestra class. Then a troubled student walks in, shoots the teacher dead, and threatens the students with the same fate.

The aftermath of this Columbine-esque school shooting turns out to be the launchpad of Celeste and Ellie’s music career. They write and perform a melancholy tribute song for the memorial service, which becomes a viral sensation even before “going viral” was really a thing. The public is especially taken with Celeste, who was shot in the neck during the massacre, and wears a metallic neck brace to keep the bullet still lodged inside from moving.

Soon, the sisters have a savvy manager (Jude Law), and are on the road to becoming famous. At least Celeste is becoming famous; Ellie is content to back up her sister and write more songs.

In the second act, Corbet — who wrote and directed, sharing story credit with girlfriend Mona Fastvold — shifts to 2017, as Portman’s now-adult Celeste prepares for the start of her world tour and the inevitable press gauntlet that goes with it.

Celeste has a lot going on before the first show. She’s trying to connect with her teen daughter Albertine (also played by Cassidy), whom Ellie has raised. She’s trying to score a high with her manager. And her publicist (Jennifer Ehle) tells her that gunmen in Croatia shot a crowd of beachgoers, and the shooters were wearing masks from Celeste’s last music video.

Corbet has worked with a lot of iconoclastic European directors, including Michael Haneke (“Funny Games,” 2007), Lars Von Trier (“Melancholia,” 2011) and Olivier Assayas (“Clouds of Sils Maria,” 2014) among them. A lot of their influence seems to have rubbed off on Corbet, and some of his tricks — like his combination of static long shots and one-take conversations — feel like something in a pretentious European film. 

Corbet can’t do much to contain Portman, who depicts Celeste as all sneering attitude and the most overwrought Brooklyn accent since Viggo Mortensen wrapped on “Green Book.” He has better luck with Cassidy, drawing not one but two soulful, wrenching performances — first as the shell-shocked young Celeste, then as the exasperated daughter of the pampered rock star.

The saddest thing about “Vox Lux” is that Corbet shows potential for greatness, only it’s too little, too late. The movie ends with Celeste’s concert performance, where all of the rock singer’s neuroses and demons are crystalized and vanquished through the power of music and stage theatrics. If more of the movie were like the last 10 minutes, “Vox Lux” would be a masterpiece.

——

‘Vox Lux’

★★

Opened December 7 in select cities; opens Friday, December 14, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some strong violence, and drug content. Running time: 110 minutes.