Review: Documentary 'The Alpinist' is hemmed in by a subject who couldn't care less about being in a movie

It’s weird to watch a documentary whose subject so casually and obliviously undercuts the movie being made about him — which is what climber Marc-André Leclerc does throughout “The Alpinist.”

Leclerc is introduced as a free-spirited rock climber, someone who goes up the sides of seemingly unscalable rock faces for the sheer pleasure of doing it. It speaks volumes that the first voice you hear in the film is Alex Honnold — whose exploits up El Capitan were chronicled in “Free Solo” — admiringly describes Leclerc as “so crazy.”

The reason for Honnold’s admiration and astonishment is that Leclerc doesn’t just climb big rocks. He also likes to get up where it’s cold, and climb both ice formations and snowbanks. Such climbs, the experts in the film tell us, are even trickier than Honnold’s rope-free rock climbing, because rocks don’t go anywhere, and ice and snow often do.

When directors Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen (who are co-founders of the Reel Rock Film Tour, a traveling program beloved by adventure-sports fans) get Leclerc in front of a camera, it’s in Squamish, British Columbia, which has a boisterous climber community that Leclerc joined when he left high school. He’s happy to have the crew follow him as he climbs mountains he’s already climbed,  and hangs out with his girlfriend, climber Brette Harrington. But it’s clear he’s climbing for the adventure and exhilaration, not for fame or sponsorships or less-lofty reasons.

At one point, Leclerc tells the filmmakers his one rule for participating: No film crew allowed when he’s making his first attempt up a rock. He wants the experience of that solo climb to be pure and solitary, and having anybody along for the ride — whether they’re helping him or just watching — distracts from that perfect experience.

That’s great for Leclerc’s sense of adventure, but it’s a death sentence for an interesting, authentic documentary. How interested should we, the audience, be that Mortimer (who narrates the film) and Rosen are left with footage of Leclerc’s second climbs up the rocks, when he re-creates the original moment for the benefit of the cameras?

Mortimer and Rosen also take some liberties with the timeline. The most notable instance is when the filmmakers make Leclerc’s climb up Torre Egger — a spindly tower of rock and ice in Patagonia, at the southern tip of South America — the climax of the film, even though it happened before other climbs depicted earlier in the film.

Even with those faults, “The Alpinist” conveys the joy of undiluted adventure Leclerc would get from tackling an ascent for the first time, while also making quite real the dangers inherent in the sport — no matter what the GoPro-wearing thrill seekers will tell you as they make the videos they hope will go viral. Leclerc, it’s clear, never cared about that, which makes a movie about him more compelling and enigmatic.

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‘The Alpinist’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 10, in select theaters. Rated PG-13 for some strong language and brief drug content. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: New 'Cinderella,' with Camila Cabello, is a mash-up musical that has its moments and its mouse droppings

The question that writer-director Kay Cannon’s “Cinderella” asks often is “Does the world need another musical version of ‘Cinderella’?,” and the answer, far too often, is “not really, but let’s make the most of what we have.”

No, this musical adaptation of the fairy tale doesn’t have the bounce of the Rodgers and Hammerstein version or the memorable tunes of Disney’s classic. Cannon, who wrote the “Pitch Perfect” trilogy and directed the teen sex romp “Blockers,” combines the jukebox mash-up sensibilities of the first with the playful feminism of both of her previous works. Unfortunately, the parts don’t always combine into a satisfying whole.

Pop singer Camila Cabello makes her movie debut as Ella, the orphaned beauty who cooks and cleans for her imperious stepmother, Vivian (Idina Menzel), and two bratty stepsisters (Maddie Baillio and Charlotte Spencer). Ella, dubbed Cinderella because of the soot that sometimes lands on her pretty face, has a dream — and it’s not to land in the arms of Prince Charming. No, Ella is a dress designer, and wants to make and sell her creations in town.

Unfortunately, the town is in a tradition-laden kingdom, where women aren’t allowed to own businesses or do much of anything other than marry well and be silent. That’s why King Rowan (Pierce Brosnan) ignores the advice of his wife, Queen Beatrice (Minnie Driver), in his zeal to see his playboy son, Prince Robert (Nicholas Galitzine), marry — preferably a princess in a neighboring kingdom, so Rowan can acquire more land. By focusing on Robert, though, the king ignores his daughter, Princess Gwen (Tallulah Greive), who’s actually much smarter and more prepared to rule than Robert is on his best day.

So there’s the set-up, and it’s only a matter of time before Ella and Robert are dancing at the royal ball. That, however, turns out to be the least interesting part of the story — because Ella figures out that being royalty is as much of a cage, gilded though it may be, as Vivian’s basement is.

Except for two original numbers — Ella’s wish song, “Million to One,” which Cabello nails with authority; and Vivian’s sympathy-for-the-villain number “Dream Girl” — the songs are taken from well-known pop tunes. Some of the mash-ups are clever; the opener of the townsfolk performing Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” as Ella sings Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” is a good start, but the best is at the prince’s ball, when the prowling women sing Salt-n-Pepa’s “Whatta Man” and a nervous Robert counters with the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”

In the numbers that aren’t medleys, the results are erratic. Galitzine does an impressive job on Queen’s “Somebody to Love,” for example. But having Menzel’s Vivian explain the importance of marrying rich by singing Madonna’s “Material Girl” is a misfire — in large part because the song is unworthy of Menzel’s vocal brilliance. (Also, doesn’t Cannon know not to let Pierce Brosnan sing? Didn’t “Mamma Mia!” teach us anything?)

Billy Porter gives a perfectly hilarious take on the fairy godmother character — dubbed Fab G — in a too-brief performance that includes the movie’s funniest line: When Ella asks if Fab G can use magic to make the glass slippers more comfortable, Fab G replies, haughtily, “Women’s shoes are what they are. Even magic has its limits.”

On the opposite end of the humor spectrum is James Corden, dreadfully hammy in comic relief as one of the three mice who are turned into Cinderella’s footmen. The other two are played by comedians James Acaster and Romesh Anganathan, though the odds that you’ll remember them over Corden’s overwrought scenery chewing are highly unlikely.

Even with those flaws, and what seems to be a production budget taken from the change in couch cushions, there are some charms to “Cinderella.” Most of them are provided by Cabello, who has strong pipes and a bubbly personality. She makes you believe this princess has more on her mind than what time she’s going to leave the ball.

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‘Cinderella’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 3, in some theaters, and streaming on Prime video. Rated PG for suggestive material and language. Running time: 115 minutes.

Review: Horror drama 'We Need to Do Something' holds our attention before a disappointing finish

In his feature directing debut, Sean King O’Grady makes a lot out of a little in the horror thriller “We Need to Do Something” — though one wishes he and screenwriter Max Booth III would have done a little more with the ending.

The action takes place, mostly, in the large, expensively appointed bathroom in a Midwestern suburban family. Parents Diane (Vinessa Shaw) and Robert (Pat Healy) and their kids, moody pink-haired teen Melissa (Sierra McCormick) and stereotypically nerdy kid brother Bobby (John James Cronin) are holing up here because of predictions of a big storm.

Even in the first minutes, the relationship dynamics are clear. Diane has barely contained contempt for the blustering Robert, who swigs booze not-so-secretly from his Thermos. Bobby clings to his mom and is afraid of his dad. And Melissa is predictably mortified of all of them — and, besides that, too busy trying to get her Goth girlfriend, Amy (Lisette Alexis), to answer her texts.

The storm hits with tornado force, plunging a tree from the backyard into the house’s hallway, blocking the bathroom door and trapping the family inside. Tensions fray even further, as Robert runs out of booze and an errant rattlesnake enters the bathroom.

Then other noises — not thunder, or anything usually associated with weather — start happening outside, and the family starts suspecting something more sinister and otherworldly is attacking.

Melissa, for her part, is also feeling guilty, because she suspects what she and Amy were doing with ancient spells may have been responsible.

O’Grady stirs out maximum tension out of Booth’s tight script, concentrating the action (except for some flashbacks between Melissa and Amy) in that claustrophobic bathroom. At least an hour of the movie happens in that room, and O’Grady and cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bernier seem to never shoot the same angle twice.

Healy and Shaw are electrifying as the squabbling parents, with Healy particularly good as the insecure little man who shouts to make himself appear big. But the star here is McCormick, last seen in the indie gem “The Vast of Night,” again drawing the viewer in with her ability to listen intently and show both fear and resourcefulness.

It nearly all falls apart in the final 10 minutes, with a frenzied resolution to the family drama — followed by a deeply unsatisfying handling of the movie’s external mystery. Considering all the talent displayed up to that point, what was needed in “We Need to Do Something” was an attempt at a rewrite.

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‘We Need to Do Something’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 3, in select theaters. Not rated, but probably R for abundant gore, language and some sexuality. Running time: 97 minutes.

Review: The return of 'Candyman' — a sequel? a reboot? — is a brutal and brilliantly executed horror thriller with a lot on its mind

Brilliance and beauty sometimes come from the most unexpected places — and certainly a reboot of a ‘90s horror franchise, “Candyman,” is an unexpected place to find such an artful, shocking and relevant movie as what director Nia DaCosta serves.

The new film is being marketed as a “spiritual sequel” to the 1992 horror thriller, which starred Virginia Madsen as Helen Lyle, researcher delving into the poor Chicago neighborhood of Cabrini-Green to explore the urban legend of a hook-handed serial killer. The killer, played then by the iconic Tony Todd, is summoned when a character looks into a mirror and says his name five times.

The movie turns out, for reasons that should be experienced, to have a more direct lineage to its predecessor. 

After a prologue set in 1977 in the Cabrini-Green projects, which establishes one version of the Candyman legend, DaCosta (co-writing with “Get Out” auteur Jordon Peele and his producing partner, Win Rosenfeld) brings the story to the present day. Now, Cabrini-Green has been gentrified, and artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his girlfriend, Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parr’s) — who’s a curator in an art gallery — have moved into a loft there.

Fishing around for an eye-catching subject, Anthony hears about the Candyman legend, first online — learning Helen’s tragic story — and eventually into the unreconstructed parts of Cabrini-Green. 

His first creation, “Say His Name” — a title that plays on the movie’s tag line and the chant heard in Black Lives Matter protests to memorialize George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others — opens in a show at Brianna’s gallery, incorporating a mirror and grisly images. Soon, life imitates art, and Brianna’s boss (Brian King) and his girlfriend (Miriam Moss) are slashed to death after the girlfriend says the unspeakable name into the mirror.

Anthony’s exploration of the legend, listening to old cassettes of Helen’s notes (giving Madsen a vocal cameo), takes its toll on his body — a bee sting on his hand starts to fester — and his mind. It also leads Anthony to William (Colman Domingo), a laundromat owner who reveals the depth of the legend, and how it reflects (no pun intended) the long history of Black men dying because of white men’s fear. 

“Candyman is how we deal with the fact that these things happened — that they’re still happening,” William tells Anthony. “Candyman isn’t a ‘he.’ He’s the whole damn hive.”

DaCosta — who explored race and poverty in her intense small-town drama “Little Woods” — delivers stunning visual moments throughout the film. She creates a dread-filled tension with her composed images of Chicago’s skyline and the Cabrini-Green landscape, and the horror set pieces are as perfectly rendered as they are chilling. (The mirror motif gets a workout, even in the studio logos, but never feels old.) For the flashbacks, as the Candyman legend is laid out, she employs a series of shadow-puppet images (created by the Chicago-based group Manual Cinema) that are among the most harrowing and beautiful images you will see onscreen this year.

Abdul-Mateen — familiar as Bobby Seale in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” or as Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s “Watchmen” — makes Anthony’s descent into madness compelling, and he’s well paired with Parris (Monica Rambeau in “WandaVision” and future Marvel titles), whose ferocity and intelligence pays off in a gut-wrenching climax.

What’s most gripping about “Candyman” is the way DaCosta, Peele and company take the frame of Bernard Rose’s atmospheric 1992 film — remember the Philip Glass score? — and build a modern thriller that explores the horror baked into America’s cycles of racial violence, economic exploitation and burying the evidence. Whether a viewer comes away feeling righteous revenge or stomach-churning guilt depends on what they brought into the theater with them.

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‘Candyman’

★★★★

Opens Friday, August 27, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for bloody horror violence, and language including some sexual references. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'Together' is an artful effort to dramatize life in the COVID-19 lockdown — but probably out too soon to appreciate

The two-hander drama “Together,” about life in the COVID-19 lockdown, is thoughtful, smart and exceedingly well-acted — and I can’t think of a single human being on Earth who would want to watch it right now.

Written by playwright Dennis Kelly (who won a Tony for the book for the musical “Matilda”), the movie has only three characters: Two unnamed adults — played by James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan — who have been in a long and now contentious relationship, and their 9-year-old son, Arthur (Samuel Logan), who barely speaks for the entire 92 minutes.

The adults do a lot of talking, often to the camera, about how much they loathe each other — but are stuck together, because all of the United Kingdom is on lockdown because of COVID-19. He talks about his consulting business, delivering a string of techno-jargon that makes it unclear exactly what he does. She talks about her work as a charity coordinator for refugees, which is important work to her but “virtue signaling” to him.

They keep talking, to each other and to us — sometimes in monologues, sometimes in dialogue. And they go through the many things everybody in an industrialized country endured in the first months of the pandemic. They stock up on toilet paper, they talk about shortages of aubergines and other groceries, they rail against Boris Johnson’s government for its ineptitude. Mostly, they fret over what to do about her mum, who they have convinced to go into a “care center” (what we’d call a retirement home), which they’re told will be the safest place to ride out the pandemic — until, it turns out, it isn’t.

McAvoy and Horgan (from Amazon’s series “Catastrophe”) give powerful performances, especially considering they’re given nothing to work against but each other and Kelly’s overlapping dialogue. Director Stephen Daldry (“The Hours,” “Billy Elliot”) recognizes the limitations of Kelly’s script — more of a two-character stage play, really — and works within them to channel the claustrophobia and helplessness that the pandemic made all of us feel deeply.

And therein lies the problem with “Together”: Nothing McAvoy nor Horgan expresses, to each other or looking at us, is markedly different than what each of us has endured over the last 18 months. It feels like watching “Titanic” while you’re in the middle of drowning. Maybe, a few years from now, we’ll be ready for introspection about what we’ve lost in the lockdown — but, for now, we’re all just trying to get through it, together or not.

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‘Together’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 27, at the Century 16 (South Salt Lake), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Rated R for language throughout. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: Documentary 'Not Going Quietly' shows how activist Ady Barkan builds a movement while his body gives out from ALS.

Political activism gets up close and personal in the documentary “Not Going Quietly,” a personal and intense profile of Ady Barkan, who is gaining and losing his voice at the same time.

Barkan had been known as a liberal activist and founder of the Fed Up campaign, lobbying for the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy more fair to low-income people. In 2016, shortly after he and his wife — Rachael King, an English professor at UC-Santa Barbara — welcomed their son, Carl, Barkan was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That’s the degenerative neurological disease that’s best known because of two famous people who had it: Baseball legend Lou Gehrig and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

Barkan feels a literal deadline — his doctor gives him three or four years to live — and doesn’t want to waste time. He starts campaigning to save Medicare, particularly threatened by the Trump administration’s tax cuts for the rich. On a flight back from D.C., Barkan sees Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., sitting in first class — and when Flake comes back to coach to talk to him, Barkan urges the waffling senator to “be a hero” and vote against the Medicare cuts. The video of their encounter goes viral, with the hashtag #FlakesOnAPlane.

Barkan then teams with Liz Jaff, an activist who shot the video, to try to create more viral moments. They organize the “Be a Hero” tour, taking an RV — with modifications to accommodate Barkan’s motorized wheelchair — to 30 congressional districts in 18 states, to either lobby or shame congresspeople, or flip their seats to the Democrats in 2018. (One of the districts he visited was Utah’s 3rd District, held then and now by Republican Chris Stewart.)

The irony that director Nicholas Bruckman and his crew capture on the tour is how Barkan’s influence as a liberal champion is growing at the same time his physical strength and speaking voice are diminishing. Barkan narrates much of his film, and we hear his voice fading — to the point where he has to use a computer voice generator.

Bruckman and his team take full advantage of the crew’s access in Barkan’s home, the RV on tour, hotel and motel rooms, and eventually the halls of Congress — where Barkan delivered impassioned testimony at the first House committee hearing to discuss “Medicare for All.” The film deftly toggles between the public politicking and the private moments of Barkan with Rachael and Carl, trying to be a good husband and dad as his body is failing him.

“Not Going Quietly” is, in the end, a celebration of Barkan’s indomitable spirit, and the power of determination and righteous activism. If you’re looking for a hero, here’s a good place to start.

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‘Not Going Quietly’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 27, at the Megaplex at The Gateway (Salt Lake City); available to stream starting September 3, on the Salt Lake Film Society virtual cinema, SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language. Running time: 95 minutes.

Review: 'Ailey' documentary chronicles the life of the dance legend, and shows how his company is keeping the flame burning

In the documentary “Ailey,” director Jamila Wignot melds biography, history, social commentary and performance into a rich accounting of the life of dance pioneer Alvin Ailey.

His life is a remarkable one. Born in Texas in 1931, in the height of the Great Depression, to a single mother, Ailey endured the poverty of the South, before he and his mother moved to Los Angeles in 1943, during World War II. There, he first discovered dance, seeing the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo. He also saw the legendary dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham, and realized for the first time that a Black person could become a great dancer.

Moving to New York in 1954, Ailey’s founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1958. Many of his works were inspired by aspects of Black life he witnessed — including “Blues Suite” (1958), based on honky-tonk bars he frequented, and Ailey’s signature work, “Revelations” (1960), which uses the imagery and music of Black churches. The troupe toured constantly, breaking down barriers for having a multi-ethnic corps of dancers, and becoming global ambassadors.

Wignot interviews a host of Ailey’s former dancers, choreographers and colleagues, and relies on a wealth of archival interviews with Ailey — essentially allowing the man himself to narrate his story.

Not only did Wignot get access to the company’s archives, she also brings her camera into its rehearsal space, following the troupe in the act of creation. What’s being created is a 60-minute piece to Ailey, being developed by choreographer Rennie Harris, to celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary.

These rehearsal scenes serve as the backbone for Wignot’s telling of Ailey’s remarkable story — and are a reminder that Ailey’s work, like that of any artist worth discussing, is living a full life after the artist is gone.

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‘Ailey’

★★★1/2

Available to stream starting August 27, on the Salt Lake Film Society virtual cinema, SLFS@Home. Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Running time: 95 minutes.

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This review originally posted on this site on January 30, 2021, when the film premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' shows the smart way to introduce a new character, and his gorgeously rendered world, into the Marvel universe.

The Marvel universe makes a strong step into the world of martial arts movies with “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” introducing a new character and an ancient culture with beautiful visuals and smart storytelling.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton starts with the legend — a set of magical rings that bestow immense power on the person who wields them. For centuries, that person has been Wenwu (played by the Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung), a warlord who over the centuries has built up an army of assassins, called the Ten Rings. (Sharp-eyed Marvel movie fans, and people who read the comic books, will have noticed their logo before.)

Wenwu, we’re told in the prologue, gave up that power when he fell in love with Jiang Li (Fala Chen), guardian of a secret village deep within China. As we learn, Wenwu and Jiang Li had two children — a son, Shang-Chi, and a daughter, Xialing — whose lives changed radically when their mother was killed, and their father went back to his violent ways.

Fast-forward to today, and Shang-Chi (played by Simu Liu) is apart from his father and sister, living in San Francisco. He works as a parking valet at a fancy hotel, alongside his best friend Katy (played by the comedian and actress Awkwafina). But his old world intrudes when members of the Ten Rings attack Shang-Chi on a city bus — prompting a ferocious action sequence that’s 20% “Speed” and 80% Jackie Chan-style martial arts. (Half of Twitter has remarked on how Liu’s use of his jacket as a weapon emulates Chan in “Rumble in the Bronx.”)

Shang-Chi heads to Macau, with Katy along for the ride, for an uncomfortable reunion with Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), who’s running an underground fighting arena. (There are some nice MCU surprises on the undercard, by the way.) This leads to another Chan-esque action sequence, a free-swinging fight utilizing the bamboo scaffolding on the side of a skyscraper.

Eventually, Shang-Chi and Xialing are reunited with Wenwu, who wants his children to take part in his plans to conquer their late mother’s village, and harness the power it’s keeping from the world. This is as much synopsis as I’m going to give, because there are some surprises revealed at about this point in the story that add to the movie’s fun.

And this is a fun movie. Cretton — best known for his low-budget collaborations with “Captain Marvel” star Brie Larson, such as “Short Term 12,” “The Glass Castle” and “Just Mercy” — absorbs the world-building lessons Ryan Coogler imparted in “Black Panther,” and captures a variety of settings of Asian life. Credit production designer Sue Chan (“Shirley,” “Colossal”), costume designer Kym Barrett, and a host of other artisans for capturing San Francisco’s Chinatown, the neon glow of Macau and the splendor of Jiang Li’s timeless Chinese village.

Cretton also deftly handles the tone shift, as the movie’s action moves from the kinetic modern fighting style (embodied by Jackie Chan) to the graceful choreography of the wuxia genre of martial arts. (Ang Lee’s 2000 hit “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is the best known example of wuxia films that Western audiences would recognize.) Cretton isn’t trying to be all things to all martial-arts fans, but he’s creating an entertaining sampler that should prompt movie fans to go search for more in the genre.

If they take on such a search, digging up Tony Leung’s back catalog is a good place to start. Leung is a superstar in Hong Kong and China, having worked with such directors as Ang Lee (“Lust, Caution”) and Wong Kar-Wai (“Chungking Express,” “In the Mood for Love,” “2046”), and starring in the “Infernal Affairs” series (the movie that inspired Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed”). “Shang-Chi” is Leung’s biggest Hollywood movie, and he gives it a darker edge than most Marvel villains.

Liu, who starred in the popular Canadian sitcom “Kim’s Convenience,” is a real find, with an unassuming charm that makes Shang-Chi a relatable hero. Pairing Liu with Awkwafina, who brings some street-smart wit to the serious-minded script (credited to Cretton, Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham), is an added benefit.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” isn’t quite as groundbreaking as “Black Panther” — what movie could be? — but it gets a lot right. It’s a solidly constructed superhero origin story, steeped in a beautifully rendered view of the hero’s cultural ties, with some strong performers (some I haven’t mentioned), and a connection back to the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. Best of all, it makes you want to see Shang-Chi’s next adventure.

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‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 3, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and for language. Running time: 132 minutes.