Review: 'The Burnt Orange Heresy' is a slow-burn heist movie that doesn't use star Elizabeth Debicki at all well

Though “The Burnt Orange Heresy” is a thriller about stealing art, don’t expect some fast-paced thriller like “The Thomas Crown Affair” or one of the “Ocean’s” trilogy. 

The fuse burns slowly here in this adaptation of a novel by the late Charles Willeford (“Miami Blues”), with enough time for an examination of what’s art and what’s fakery.

Claes Bang, the Danish actor who starred in the art-gallery drama “The Square,” here plays James Figueras, an American art critic in Italy who makes his meager living through lectures to art tourists. He used to be a big wheel, as art critics go, and the billionaire Joseph Cassidy (played by Mick Jagger), knows it.

Cassidy, a man of wealth and taste (to borrow one of Jagger’s lyrics), invites James to his mansion on Lake Como with a proposition. Cassidy has a reclusive artist, Jerome Debney, living on his property. Debney hasn’t exhibited a new work in decades — ever since the fire that destroyed his Paris studio, after which Debney left behind an empty frame on a wall, an enigmatic promise of what was or might have been there. Cassidy’s offer to James is a chance to interview Debney, if James can snatch one of Debney’s current paintings for Cassidy’s collection.

James, by the way, has been accompanied to Lake Como by Berenice Hollis (Elizabeth Debicki), a schoolteacher from Duluth who came to Italy for a little adventure — and finding it by jumping into bed with the charming art critic. When James meets Debney, the artist has no interest in subjecting himself to the writer’s interrogation, but he does invite both James and Berenice to dinner and a visit to his studio to see what he’s working on these days.

Director Giuseppe Capotondi and screenwriter Scott B. Smith have taken us pretty far down the road by this point, and one more step would be spoiler territory. Suffice it to say that some things aren’t what they seem, while some people turn out to be exactly who they appear to be — and the sneaky delights in this movie are in discovering which is which.

Bang is good as the scheming critic, desperate to use Debney’s mystique to restart his career. Jagger and Sutherland exude charm in their small roles. The disappointment here is how poorly the movie handles Debicki, who is so ferociously good in “Widows” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” but is squandered in a role that teases us with more than she ultimately gets to do. Wasting a talent like Debicki may be the biggest heresy of all.

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‘The Burnt Orange Heresy’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 7, at Megaplex Theatres across Utah. Rated R for some sexual content/nudity, language, drug use and violence. Running time: 100 minutes.

Review: The raunchy, raucous history of Creem magazine is captured in a fast and fun documentary

The documentary “Creem: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine” is a fast and frisky jog through the archives of the legendarily outsider music publication — with an impressive roster of rock stars who were the mag’s fans and subjects.

Born on the wrong side of the tracks in Detroit, Creem was the brainchild of entrepreneur Barry Kramer, who owned several head shops in the Motor City, and its founding editor, Tony Reay. Kramer, the publisher, gave the magazine its downtown vibe; Reay gave it the name, a corruption of the band Cream — and an F.U. to the more upscale, hoity-toity attitude of its rival, Rolling Stone. One photo, of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner sitting next to Jackie Kennedy, says everything about what Creem was not. 

If Creem wasn’t highbrow, what was it? Under Kramer and Reay — and, shortly after, Reay’s successor, Dave Marsh — it aimed to be irreverent, in-your-face and a little bit dangerous, like the music they liked. As one Michigander interviewed here, the actor Jeff Daniels, puts it, Creem was a little like Playboy, in that “you didn’t want your parents to find either of them.”

One example of the magazine’s humor: The Boy Howdy profile, a spoof of the Dewar’s Scotch ads, where they lampooned the bands they covered, and got the bands to pose with a fake beer brand, Boy Howdy. (The logo was drawn by underground comic artist R. Crumb, in exchange for paying for Crumb to see a doctor.)

Marsh brought a slashing writing style, and an enthusiasm for every kind of music Detroit could produce — from Wayne Kramer’s punk band MC5 to the outrageous sounds of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic, and everything in between. Marsh also brought in the prolific, and abrasive, rock critic Lester Bangs as a senior editor. 

Bangs, recalls Cameron Crowe (who cast Philip Seymour Hoffman as Bangs in “Almost Famous”), warned that writers should never make friends with rock stars – but then Bangs did just that. Singer Peter Wolf recalls the time his group, the J. Geils Band, invited Bangs onstage to write his review, and Bangs ended up smashing his typewriter to bits.

Marsh and Crowe, along with Barry Kramer’s widow, Connie, and their son, J.J. (who’s the film’s producer), are among the Creem staffers who talk about the magazine’s rise and fall. Director Scott Crawford, who wrote the film with Creem alumna Jaan Uhelszki, also collects a slew of rock stars — some who were written about in the magazine, others grew up reading it — that includes Suzi Quatro, Michael Stipe, Chad Smith (of Red Hot Chili Peppers), Thurston Moore, Kirk Hammett (of Metallica) and Joan Jett, who wrote the magazine’s most infamous letter to the editor.

The documentary moves briskly, never settling on one thought or groove too long. As the images of low-resolution pages and fond rock-star remembrances wash over one’s psyche, what sticks in the mind is a perfect rock ’n’ roll paradox — that Creem must have been the most fun place to work, and the most aggravating.

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‘Creem: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine’

★★★

Available Friday, August 7, in the Salt Lake Film Society’s SLFS@Home virtual cinema. Not rated, but probably R for language, sexual content and drug references. Running time: 76 minutes.

Review: 'Made in Italy' is a gorgeous tour of Tuscany, with father and son Liam Neeson and Micheál Richardson as salty companions

For a nation that can’t go anywhere for vacation, the comedy-drama “Made in Italy” arrives just in time — allowing viewers to see the beautiful sights of Tuscany with two charming travel companions: Liam Neeson and his real-life son, Micheál Richardson.

Richardson plays Jack, who manages a fancy London gallery — and who is gutted when his soon-to-be ex-wife, whose parents own the gallery, tells Jack that they’re selling it. Jack begs them to give him a month to raise the money to buy the gallery, by selling the Tuscan house that he co-owns with his dad, Robert (Neeson).

Robert, a painter whose recent output hasn’t matched the greatness of his early career, goes with Jack to Tuscany to see what to make of the place, which neither have visited in decades. They, and a transplanted English estate agent, Kate (Lindsay Duncan), discover branches growing into the windows, a hole in the ceiling, and a hideously dark mural on the living room wall — painted by Robert in his younger days.

But the issues with the house are minor, compared to what else is there: Memories of Raffaella, Robert’s wife and Jack’s mother, who died when Jack was just 7 years old. This part of D’Arcy’s script cuts close to home for the actors, considering Neeson’s wife and Richardson’s mom, Natasha Richardson, died in 2009 — when Micheál, who changed his last name in her honor, was 13 years old.

D’Arcy — who’s probably best known for playing Jarvis, loyal butler to Howard Stark, in “Avengers: Endgame” and TV’s “Agent Carter” — makes a respectable debut as writer and director. The script is solid, if a bit formulaic with its romantic subplot between Jack and a beautiful chef (Valeria Bilello), but leaving plenty of room for Neeson and Richardson to establish their characters’ fractured relationship. And as a director, D’Arcy knows to use his talented cast and the bounteous views of Tuscany to full advantage. The results make “Made in Italy” a diverting trip without leaving the house.

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‘Made in Italy’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 7, at Megaplex Theatres in Utah, and available as a video-on-demand rental on most streaming platforms. Rated R for language. Running time: 94 minutes.

Review: Anti-romantic comedy 'Spinster,' a showcase for Chelsea Peretti, takes a while to find its groove

Chelsea Peretti is an abundantly charming person on screen — as fans of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” can attest — so it’s doubly annoying that the anti-romantic comedy “Spinster” doesn’t allow that charm to kick in for way too long.

Much of the issue stems from the character Peretti plays in Jennifer Deyell’s script. Gaby is a Halifax caterer who refuses to sell the fantasy of the perfect wedding that her customers want — because, at 39, she doesn’t think such romance exists. It certainly doesn’t for her and Nathan (Eugene Sampang), her boyfriend, who breaks up with her for a woman he met on Facebook.

Gaby’s post-breakup support network includes her married-with-kids best friend, Amanda (Susan Kent), her perpetually worried dad (Bill Carr), and her divorced brother, Alex (David Rossetti), who asks Gaby to babysit his 10-year-old daughter, Adele (Nadia Tonen) — because the one night his ex-wife allows Alex to have custody of Adele is also when he has open-mic nights to pursue his dreams to be a stand-up comic.

It takes awhile for Deyell’s script to set the table, and one wishes the writer, or director Andrea Dorfman, had taken one more pass through the screenplay to punch up the jokes. But eventually the story settles into a nice groove, as Gaby’s hapless romantic experiences — and her new friendships with her niece, Adele, and new neighbor, a 60-something professor, Callie (Kate Lynch) — help her realize that being alone may not be the worst thing to be.

Dorfman employs a light touch, where even Deyell’s more strident dialogue passages play nicely. She also gives Peretti space to explore the character, as Gaby discovers her own passion for life and her self-worth. 

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‘Spinster’

★★1/2

Available Friday, August 7, as a video-on-demand rental on most streaming platforms. Not rated, but probably R for language and some sexual material. Running time: 90 minutes

Review: 'The Fight' captures the excitement, and importance, of the ACLU's legal battles against the Trump administration's cruel policies

Watching “The Fight” gave me a brainstorm that any TV producer can have for free: How about a weekly drama series taken from the files of the American Civil Liberties Union. the way Jack Webb cribbed Los Angeles Police reports for “Dragnet”? The drama that comes from saving the Constitution would be spectacular.

The directing team of Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres — the folks who made the 2016 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Weiner” — get into the New York headquarters of the ACLU, and follow four of the 147 (and counting) lawsuits the group has filed against the Trump administration since 2017.

In one case, a pregnant teen migrant girl in a federal detention center seeks an abortion, which is being denied by the federal government. In another case, lawyers are trying to stop the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border, and get those that have been separated reunited. In a third, lawyers fight a ban on transgender people serving in the military. And in the fourth, a battle against putting a citizenship question into the 2020 census goes all the way to the Supreme Court.

As these attorneys meet the people who are plaintiffs in these cases, the movie provides a look at the real lives being destroyed by policies that are not just constitutionally questionable but cruel and capricious. By following the lawyers arguing these cases, from the hotel rooms where they practice their arguments to trains on which they commute, the filmmakers turn the dusty legal briefs into compelling human drama.

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‘The Fight’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, July 31, in the Utah Film Center and Salt Lake Film Society “virtual cinemas,” and at the Megaplex Gateway (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated PG-13 for strong language, thematic material and brief violence. Running time: 96 minutes.

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This review was published originally on this site on January 29, 2020, when the movie screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: Documentary captures the music and craftsmanship of Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian folk legend

A review on the main page of the Internet Movie Database entry for the documentary ‘Gordon Lightfood: If You Could Read My Mind’ bears the headline “Not as good as it could have been but still pretty good” — which might be the most Canadian thing ever, next to Lightfoot himself.

Filmmakers Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni establish Lightfoot’s Canadian bona fides early and often in this profile of the legendary folk musician — making the case that if Lightfoot were any more Canadian, you could stick a tap in his leg and maple syrup would flow out.

Lightfoot, who was approaching 80 when he was interviewed for this film, is depicted as the consummate musical craftsman, toiling with his guitar and pen to hone each song until it gleams. He would then record those songs, his silky baritone a perfect instrument for the yearning and heartache contained in each track.

Kehoe and Tosoni go through Lightfoot’s history in chapters, attaching a song to each one like a mighty playlist. Starting with “For Lovin’ Me” (a song Lightfoot admits now is chauvinist), through “In the Early Morning Rain” and “Ribbon of Darkness,” among others, we see Lightfoot’s rise in the folk music scene in Toronto and later New York. Getting into his ‘70s ballads, like “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown,” the movie looks at his stardom, the women he left behind and the booze that came close to killing him. 

The capper, the one that gets the fans on their feet, is his 1976 epic “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” — which made a relatively recent Lake Superior disaster sound like an ancient mariner’s folk legend. (True story: Lightfoot wrote the song just two weeks after the ship sank, taking a Newsweek article for his inspiration.)

The admirers interviewed here are a roll call of Canadian musicians: Anne Murray, Sarah MacLachlan, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush, Tom Cochrane, Ian & Sylvia, Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive, and Burton Cummings of The Guess Who among them. Alec Baldwin is also interviewed, for reasons known only to him, aside from being a big fan.

Lightfoot is a cagey interview subject. He’s willing to talk about the work of writing a good song, and reminisce a bit about the old days, though there are some subjects he deflects. One of those subjects is his affair in the ‘70s with Cathy Smith, the backup singer and groupie who inspired the vengeful lyrics of “Sundown” — and the woman who, in 1982, gave John Belushi the injection of heroin and cocaine that killed him.

The film culminates in three nights of concerts at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 2018 — the last on July 1, Canada Day, of course. In that recent concert footage, we see a frail, careworn Lightfoot, still playing the guitar with precision and force, that voice weathered with age but still evocative. That image, of Lightfoot as a professional artist devoted to creating great music, is what remains when the nostalgia and tabloid moments of this documentary fade away.

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‘Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, July 31, in the Salt Lake Film Society “virtual cinema,” Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language, references to alcohol and drug use, and sexual references. Running time: 90 minutes.

Review: 'Summerland' tells a tender story of love during wartime, but the director's timing is off

The wartime melodrama “Summerland” works better in theory than in practice, as first-time feature director Jessica Swale’s script suffers from a smarmy delivery.

It’s 1940, or thereabouts, and Alice (Gemma Arterton) lives alone in a small house in a seaside town near the white cliffs of Dover. She spends much of her time typing furiously on an old manual typewriter, or out doing research on the origins of folklore and mythology — particularly “floating islands,” the shoreline version of mirages, and the myths of Summerland, the pagan version of heaven.

One day, one of the town ladies — none of whom care much for Alice — arrives at her door, with a boy, Frank (Lucas Bond), an evacuee from London who’s been assigned to live with Alice. The solitary writer objects to the placement, but is coerced into caring for Frank for a week, at least, until other arrangements are made. Frank finds Alice to be gruff and unsmiling, though not the witch that his new school friend Edie (Dixie Egerickx) claims she is.

Alice, we learn, wasn’t always so dour. In flashbacks, we see a younger Alice meeting the free-spirited Vera (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). A passionate romance ensues, quietly ignored by their Jazz Age contemporaries — until Vera’s desire to become a mother drives a wedge between them.

Swale, a playwright with whom Arterton worked on the West End production of her comedy “Nell Gwynn,” lays in all the right land mines in her script, timed to go off for maximum emotional impact. Then Swale loses the detonator, with choppy pacing and some rookie moves that telegraph the plot’s punchline long before it arrives.

It’s too bad, because the raw materials are there for a loving, if overly nostalgic, look at a small piece of the English home front and the community effort to protect London’s children. There are moments when Swale seems about to deliver a heartfelt, emotionally charged drama — but, like the mirages Alice chases along the coast, the moments evaporate into thin air.

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‘Summerland’

★★

Available starting Friday, July 31, as a video-on-demand on various streaming platforms, and at most Megaplex Theaters locations. Rated PG for thematic content, some suggestive comments, language, and smoking. Running time: 99 minutes.

Review: Documentary 'Marley' returns, after 8 years, as a fitting 75th birthday remembrance of the reggae legend

Director Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland," "Touching the Void") aims to make the definitive documentary about Jamaican music legend Bob Marley in “Marley,” and it would be difficult (from this non-fan's perspective) to think of any part of the reggae musician’s life that Macdonald leaves untouched in nearly two-and-a-half hours. 

From Marley's childhood as a mixed-race child in the poor Trench Town neighborhood of Kingston to his death from cancer in 1981, Macdonald covers it all: His discovery of the guitar, the formation of the Wailers, his work with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, his conversion to Rastafarianism, and his skyrocketing fame.

The movie sometimes gets a bit professorial (like when explaining the development of the offbeat guitar sound that is the basis of reggae), but the thorough interviews with many of Marley's colleagues, friends and family (including wife Rita, children Ziggy and Cedella, and his former mistress, Miss World 1976 Cindy Breakspeare) paint a rounded portrait of the artist and the man. Alas, for a movie this long, it's too bad there isn't more footage of Marley in performance, joyously bringing music to the world.

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‘Marley’

★★★

Available starting Friday, July 31, on the Salt Lake Film Society’s ‘virtual cinema,” and the Megaplex Gateway (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for drug content, thematic elements and some violent images. Running time: 144 minutes.

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This review was published originally in The Salt Lake Tribune on May 4, 2012.