The Movie Cricket

Movie reviews by Sean P. Means.

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Teacher Julie Meadows (Keri Russell, right) sees something terrifying alongside her student, Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas), in the horror drama “Antlers.” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.)

Teacher Julie Meadows (Keri Russell, right) sees something terrifying alongside her student, Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas), in the horror drama “Antlers.” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.)

Review: Backwoods horror drama 'Antlers' is deeply unsettling, but too serious to be scary

October 27, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Oppressively atmospheric and more unsettling than scary, director Scott Cooper’s horror thriller “Antlers” made this viewer wince for all the wrong reasons.

In an Oregon town whose mine has gone bust, Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) is a middle-school teacher who notices one of her students, Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas) is particularly troubled. He’s underfed, and skittish about talking about what’s going on at home. Julia suspects abuse, and talks about it to her brother, Paul (Jesse Plemons), who’s the sheriff. Paul has gone out to the Weaver place too many times, usually to revive Lucas’ dad, Frank (Scott Haze), from an opioid overdose.

What Cooper, working off a script he co-wrote with Henry Chaisson and Nick Antosca (based on Antosca’s short story), reveals to us is how bad things are at the Weaver house. Lucas is bringing food to his little brother, Aiden (Sawyer Jones), and trapped animals to his dad, who must be locked in a dark room and seems to be turning into some sort of beast. Eventually, we get an explanation from Paul’s predecessor, retired sheriff Warren Stokes — who’s played by Graham Greene, a reminder that all movies are improved with Graham Greene in them.

Julia is heavily laden with a tragic backstory — we get elbow-in-the-ribs hints of an alcohol problem, and arch dialogue and flashbacks of abuse dispensed on her and Paul by their father. Julia’s troubles are suggested as an impetus for her desire to help young Lucas, but Cooper’s execution is clunky and strained.

Julia’s sorrows also slow down the story just when Cooper needs to be building up tension. Eventually, the horror kicks in, though in such underlit settings — everything here is at night or in dimly lit rooms — that it’s difficult to make out who’s getting torn apart. In the end, “Antlers” is a grim drama whose serious themes get in the way of delivering an effective scare.

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‘Antlers’

★★

Opens Friday, October 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violence including gruesome images, and for language. Running time: 99 minutes.

October 27, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Julie (Amanda Seyfried, left) and Ethan (Finn Wittrock) hold their baby boy, Teddy, in a moment from the drama “A Mouthful of Air.” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.)

Julie (Amanda Seyfried, left) and Ethan (Finn Wittrock) hold their baby boy, Teddy, in a moment from the drama “A Mouthful of Air.” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.)

Review: 'A Mouthful of Air' is a well-intended but narratively muddled story of postpartum depression

October 27, 2021 by Sean P. Means

If good intentions were all it took to make a great movie, novelist-turned-filmmaker Amy Koppelman’s depression drama “A Mouthful of Air” would be a masterpiece, instead of the awkward, uneven film that it is.

Koppelman makes her directing debut and writes the adaptation of her own novel — as she did co-writing 2015’s “I Smile Back” (starring Sarah Silverman as a suburban drug addict) — that centers on Julie Davis, a young mom played by Amanda Seyfried. When we first see her, she’s struggling to keep her composure while caring for her baby boy in the New York City apartment she shares with her husband, Ethan (Finn Wittrock). At one point, while the baby watches “Sesame Street,” Julie takes an X-acto knife and slits her wrists. 

Koppelman doesn’t show the act, but keeps the camera trained on Julie’s face and the single tear that runs down her cheek as she does it. At first, the restraint is admirable, but soon it becomes something of an avoidance habit, keeping us from fully grasping the full measure of Julie’s postpartum depression.

Julie is a children’s book writer who draws and creates a character called Pinky Tinkerbink, who is able to unlock the fears that her creator, Julie, still struggles with, weeks after the attempt at suicide. Julie’s mother, Bobbi (Amy Irving), is a regular babysitter — of both the couple’s baby and of the fragile Julie. An attempt at a double date with Ethan’s sister, Lucy (Jennfer Carpenter), and her husband Kevin (Darren Goldstein) becomes an emotional struggle, because Lucy was the person who found Julie bleeding on the bathroom floor, and still can’t fathom why Julie would want to kill herself.

Lucy’s harsh tone feels off-the-charts nasty, until the movie eventually reveals that it’s set in 1995, a time when the medical knowledge of postpartum depression was thin. (One not-so-subtle hint of the timeframe is that in one of Julie’s Pinky Tinkerbink drawings — drawn by Koppelman — there’s an image of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.)

Julie is lucky to have a psychiatrist, Dr. Sylvester (Paul Giamatti), who seems sensitive to Julie’s postpartum issues — he even reads Sylvia Plath to her — and puts her on anti-depression meds. The complication of the film comes when Julie is pregnant again, and she wants to discontinue the meds, against Dr. Sylvester’s advice.

For a movie about a mental-health ordeal, as this one is, two elements have to be in sync: The main actor’s performance, and the emotional beats in the script. Seyfried, whose big eyes express a wealth of emotions, fulfills her end of the bargain, showing Julie as both broken and resilient, seeming to bounce back from her suicide attempt.

Koppelman’s script doesn’t give Seyfried enough of a foundation. It strings together too many “close call” vignettes, while laying in some screamingly obvious plot points about Julie’s long-absent and abusive father (Michael Gaston). Then comes a third-act plot complication that gives an overly simplified explanation for Julie’s mental state that feels forced and inadequate to the important issues about postpartum life that Koppelman wants to impart. By the time the ending finally hits, the viewer isn’t sad so much as worn out. 

——

‘A Mouthful of Air’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some language. Running time: 105 minutes.

October 27, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) runs to stay out of the maw of a sandworm, in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction epic “Dune.” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.)

Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) runs to stay out of the maw of a sandworm, in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction epic “Dune.” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.)

Review: 'Dune' is big, bold and beautiful — and it's only the first half of a sprawling space epic

October 21, 2021 by Sean P. Means

The first sign that Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” might have a shot at getting it right — at succeeding where avant-garde directors like David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky failed — comes at the very beginning, when two words appear under the title: “Part One.”

This is an instant signal that Villeneuve (“Arrival,” “Blade Runner 2049”) is going to take the time necessary to tell Frank Herbert’s sprawling science-fiction epic properly. No need to cram everything into one movie, as Lynch did in 1984. 

And, even though the plot revolves around a mind-altering spice, Villeneuve soon shows he’s taking a down-to-earth approach to the visuals. Gone are the hallucinatory wonders of Lynch’s pre-“”Blue Velvet” imagination, or the fevered phantasmagoria of Jodorowsky’s doomed ‘70s project (as described in the documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune”). 

Villeneuve, who shares screenplay credit with Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, starts with the basics: It’s the year 10,191, and two mighty clans are in conflict. On the bad guys’ side is House Harkonnen, led by the pustulant and corpulent Baron Harkonnen (Stellen Skarsgard), which has operated the spice harvesting on the desert planet Arrakis — collecting the drug that navigators need to “fold space.” The good guys are House Atreides, with Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) grooming his son, Paul (Timothee Chalamet), to one day succeed him, helped by the Duke’s loyal aides: Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Harrison).

Someone else has been training Paul: His mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit, the holy order that’s officially acting as peacemakers as House Atreides takes over Arrakis’ operations from House Harkonnen, under order of the emperor.

Then the Mother Superior (Charlotte Rampling) comes to test Paul’s abilities and his bravery. These skills will become important, when Duke Leto is betrayed, having walked into the trap set by the nasty Baron. Paul and Jessica must travel the deserts, careful not to attract the skyscraper-sized worms that roam the dunes outside the castle walls. so they can meet the Fremen, the desert-equipped natives. Paul has seen one Fremen, Chani (Zendaya), in his dreams. 

Being the first of a planned two-part adaptation, those dreams are about all you see of Zendaya, and Javier Bardem’s appearance as the Fremen leader, Stilgar, is scant in this chapter. On the other hand, there are characters in this first installment who won’t be around for Part Two. (Not saying who.)

The script includes some of the palace intrigue, without letting the narrative get sucked into it, as happened with Lynch (and, for that matter, Herbert). One clever touch is how Villeneuve tacitly compares Arrakis to Afghanistan, where desert dwellers watch as foreign superpowers, some with better intentions than others, come looking to impose order on a secretive native population. 

The look of Villeneuve’s Arrakis is breathtaking, combining the best of modern CGI images with the sweep of an epic like “Lawrence of Arabia.” Every detail, from the giant sandworms that explode from the sands to the desert “stillsuits” the Fremen wear to collect their sweat, is executed to movie perfection.

First and foremost, “Dune” is a coming-of-age story, with the young Paul growing into the role destiny has assigned — to lead his world into a giant cosmic battle to come. In that context, Chalamet is inspired casting. Chalamet’s Paul can be impetuous at times, like when he begs his pal Duncan to take him along on a reconnaissance flight. But this Paul also can be thoughtful, observant, and heroic. Some heroism won’t come until the second chapter, but there’s enough potential, in Paul and in this franchise, to suggest this “Dune” can go the distance.

——

‘Dune’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 22, in theaters everywhere and streaming on HBO Max. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material.

October 21, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Nat Love (Jonathan Majors, right) shares a tender moment with his ex, Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), in the Western drama “The Harder They Fall.” (Photo courtesy of Netflix.)

Nat Love (Jonathan Majors, right) shares a tender moment with his ex, Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), in the Western drama “The Harder They Fall.” (Photo courtesy of Netflix.)

Review: 'The Harder They Fall' is a slick, stylish Western that changes the genre's hero myths to reflect Black lives back then

October 21, 2021 by Sean P. Means

One might suspect musician-turned-filmmakaer Jeymes Samuel of cribbing from the Quentin Tarantino playbook in “The Harder They Fall,” and certainly this slick Western ticks many of the same boxes.

Dynamic camerawork? Check. Florid mile-a-minute dialogue? Check. Action set pieces as creative as they are violent? Check. Music drops that seem out of place, but end up fitting in perfectly? Check. Deploying historical figures in ways history never did? Check.

The first recognizable difference between Samuel’s approach and Tarantino’s turns out to be a critical one: With Samuels, when someone starts using the “N-word,” Regina King’s character shoots them dead before they finish the first syllable.

This turns out to be a crucial difference, though. Where Tarantino plays with ideas of racism to stir up trouble, Samuel is trying to create a new Western mythology — with Black heroes and villains, based on real figures of the Old West, leading the way.

First we meet the villain, Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), a cold-blooded killer who opens the movie by killing a preacher and his wife, and putting a cross-shaped scar on their son’s forehead.

That boy comes back in view as a grown man, Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), an outlaw who doesn’t rob banks, but instead robs the gangs that rob the banks. Love also has hunted down the men who assisted Buck when he killed Love’s parents — until Buck’s the only one left.

Getting to Buck will be difficult, though. He runs his own town, and has a gang of nasty killers on his side, including King’s character, saloon operator Trudy Smith, and the quick-shooting Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield). 

But Love has his own ride-or-die gang, including the fast-draw champ Jim Beckwourth (RJ Cyler), rifle-toting Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), the androgynous but hard-fighting Cuffee (Danielle Deadwyler), and the toughest one of all — saloon magnate Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), who’s also Love’s ex. And there’s someone else, the cagey marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo), who has designs on ending Buck’s reign.

Samuel — who, under the name The Bullitts, is a respected music producer who worked with Jay-Z as a music consultant on Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” — stages action scenes with the fast cadence and insistent beats of a good rap song. There’s never nothing happening in the movie, which can be exciting to watch, but also a little exhausting sometimes. Even at over two hours, there’s almost no room here to breathe.

Samuel and co-screenwriter Boaz Yakin (“Now You See Me”) also give the cast pages and pages of smart, sharp dialogue to chew up and spit out. My favorite line comes early, in the scene where King’s Trudy is leading a train heist and shoots the engineer who starts to call her the “N-word.” Cherokee Bill wryly suggests that Trudy was hasty. “He might have been calling you a nincompoop,” Bill says.

The cast is powerful, individually and as a group. Let’s single out just the ringleaders: Elba cements his badass image as the ruthless Buck, and Majors shows, as he did in HBO’s “Lovecraft Country,” that he has the heart and charisma to be a leading man.

There is symbolism, sometimes none too subtle. At one point, someone has to rob a bank in a nearby all-white town. When Samuel’s camera arrives, it certainly is white — every building is whitewashed as if Tom Sawyer tricked an entire town into painting it. It’s an in-your-face metaphor for the racism our heroes and anti-heroes face in the Old West, and Samuel proves in “The Harder They Fall” that being in one’s face is a faster way to get the message across than the Pony Express.

——

‘The Harder They Fall’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 22, in theaters everywhere; available for streaming starting November 3 on Netflix. Rated R for strong violence and language. Running time: 130 minutes.

October 21, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Barney, right (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer), makes friends with Ron (voiced by Zach Galifianakis), a robot personal assistant with a glitch, in the animated story “Ron’s Gone Wrong.” (Image courtesy of Twentieth Century Studios.)

Barney, right (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer), makes friends with Ron (voiced by Zach Galifianakis), a robot personal assistant with a glitch, in the animated story “Ron’s Gone Wrong.” (Image courtesy of Twentieth Century Studios.)

Review: 'Ron's Gone Wrong' is a bright, breezy story that also critiques the perils of social media

October 21, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Fast and not too furious — though sometimes a bit peeved — the animated “Ron’s Gone Wrong” is a briskly paced and slyly cautionary story about making the kind of friends you can’t unfriend with a click.

Barney (voiced by “Luca’s” Jack Dylan Grazer) is not like the other kids in Nonsuch Middle School. He’s shy, awkward, and has no friends to hang out with at recess. His dad, Graham (voiced by Ed Helms), spends his days trying to sell novelty items to stores, while his grandmother, Donka (voiced by Olivia Colman), raises chickens and a goat, and cooks undigestible food based on recipes she learned growing up in Bulgaria.

Worst of all, in Barney’s view, is that he’s the only kid who doesn’t have a B-Bot, a two-foot-tall electronic companion that will change color, take your selfies, record your TikTok videos and arrange your social media. When Graham and Donka go to the Bubble Store to buy a B-Bot, they learn there’s a three-month wait. They also see there’s a somewhat banged-up B-Bot on the loading dock, and a delivery man willing to look the other way for a little cash.

Barney quickly learns that his B-Bot (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) isn’t like the others, and can’t download the full software package off the Bubble network. So Barney has to turn his B-Bot, dubbed Ron, into a friend the old-fashioned way, by letting Ron get to know him.

Ron proceeds to produce havoc around the school, particularly when the obnoxious classmate Rich (voiced by Ricardo Hurtado) discovers Ron’s safety protocols are offline — and the ensuing glitch turns every other kids’ B-Bot into something sinister. The malfunctioning bots signal back to Bubble HQ, setting off a power struggle between the B-Bots’ idealist inventor Marc (voice of Justice Smith) and the company’s profit-conscious financial officer, Andrew (voiced by comic Rob Delaney).

Directors Sarah Smith (“Arthur Christmas”) and Jean-Philippe Vine (whose credits include the “Shaun the Sheep” TV series) create a lot of impressive sight gags. The best jokes involve Ron’s clumsy attempts to apply Barney’s friendship lessons as his circuits are still adapting to being turned on. 

The script, by Smith and Peter Baynham, also serves up some sharp commentary about the harmful effects of social media and the less-than-noble intentions of globe-covering computer conglomerates. It helps that the message is cloaked within an effortlessly humorous and well-paced package.

——

‘Ron’s Gone Wrong’

★★★

Opens Friday, October 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some rude material, thematic elements and language. Running time: 106 minutes.

October 21, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Benedict Cumberbatch plays Louis Wain, a Victorian era illustrator with a unique perspective on the world, in the biographical drama “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.” (Photo courtesy Amazon Studios.)

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Louis Wain, a Victorian era illustrator with a unique perspective on the world, in the biographical drama “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.” (Photo courtesy Amazon Studios.)

Review: 'The Electrical Life of Louis Wain' is a biopic that wallows too much in its subject's quirks

October 21, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Movies ask us to believe we are watching epic space battles, wizards performing magic and superheroes flying and fighting — and we readily accept them all as real, or at least plausible. But Benedict Cumberbatch, a man in his 40s, playing an overly energized 20-something, as he does in the first half of “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” is a bridge too far to suspend disbelief.

Casting Cumberbatch in the title role is the central problem of this biographical drama, but not the only one.

Wain, as we meet him, is a many of many talents — composer and inventor among them — but earning a steady income is not one of them. That’s the main concern of his dour oldest sister, Caroline (Andrea Riseborough), who oversees the household that includes herself, Louis, their dotty mother (Phoebe Nicholls) and their four younger sisters, three of them still of school age. The Wain family has some level of prestige, but not the money to maintain it. They’re barely able to scrape buy to hire a governess to teach the younger girls.

When a governess arrives, in the form of Emily Richardson (played by Claire Foy), she’s a bit unsure of herself, awkward and rather eccentric. In short, a woman that the oddball Louis falls in love with almost immediately — and, in spite of the social scandal, he marries her in short order.

To provide for his wife, and his sisters and mother, Wain reluctantly takes a job as illustrator for the Illustrated London News. The editor, Sir Wiiliam Ingram (Toby Jones), likes how fast Wain draws his pictures — and figures he can get twice as many images out of him as another artist.

Years later, when Wain’s drawings are supplanted by a new technology — photography — it seems the artist is headed for unemployment. Making matters worse is news that Emily has breast cancer, a terminal diagnosis in the 1890s.

Wain attempts to lift Emily’s spirits by getting her a kitten. This was something of a novelty in Victorian England, where cats were not considered fit pets, and were seen either as mouse control or feral strays. Wain starts drawing whimsical portraits of Peter and other cats, and Sir William is so taken with the drawings that he gives Wain two pages in his Christmas edition — and setting into orbit Wain’s career of drawing cats as objects of silly delight.

Director Will Sharpe and his co-screenwriter, Scott Stephenson, aim to tell Wain’s story from youth to old age, which means they have to set a blistering pace to cram it all in. Because of that speed, the movie loses a lot of nuance; for example, one would be hard pressed to differentiate Wain’s sisters besides Riseborough’s Caroline and Hayley Squires’ Marie, the center of a tragic subplot. 

It feels as if Sharpe is trying to bring to his observations of Wain’s life the same level of charming humor and ridiculousness as Wain brought to his cat paintings. That’s a hard assignment in a life story that touches on a terminal disease, mental illness and the buildup to World War I, and Sharpe’s kaleidoscope-colored images aren’t up to the moment. The oppressively bubbly narration, by Olivia Colman, is not much help.

Cumberbatch works mightily to overcome the incongruity of his physical age with the character’s youthfulness, and the effort backfires when he continues to play into Wain’s more childish tendencies when he’s an older man. Foy is quite charming in an underdeveloped role, though she and Cumberbatch never really spark — something that’s unfortunate in the attempt to chronicle an “electrical life.”

——

‘The Electrical Life of Louis Wain’

★★

Opens Friday, October 22, at the Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), Megaplex Legacy Crossing (Centerville), Megaplex at The District (South Jordan), Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi) and Megaplex Geneva (Vineyard). Rated PG-13 for some thematic material and strong language. Running time: 111 minutes.

October 21, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau, seen here in 1970 filming an episode of “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” is the subject of the documentary “Becoming Cousteau.” (Photo courtesy of the Cousteau Society, provided by National Geographic Documentary Films.)

Oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau, seen here in 1970 filming an episode of “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” is the subject of the documentary “Becoming Cousteau.” (Photo courtesy of the Cousteau Society, provided by National Geographic Documentary Films.)

Review: 'Becoming Cousteau' brings back the legendary ocean explorer, whose environmental message is more needed than ever

October 21, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Considering Jacques-Yves Cousteau left for that great diving bell in the sky 25 years ago next June, there are many who don’t know his importance in the worlds of oceanography, filmmaking and environmental advocacy.

Director Liz Garbus’ energetic documentary, “Becoming Cousteau,” does a good job of bringing his adventurous spirit back into view.

The sea was not Cousteau’s first love, it turns out. Cousteau, as a young French naval cadet, aimed to become a pilot. But a car accident, in which Cousteau broke several bones, derailed his aviation career. While recuperating, he met two men, Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas, on the shore of Toulon, France, and learned the thrill of skin diving.

During World War II, the three men did underwater reconnaissance for the Allies. Cousteau and Émile Magnan, an engineer, developed a way to dive deeper than a man could with a snorkel — by carrying modified oxygen tanks on one’s back. It was the prototype for what became known as the Aqua-Lung, the first form of scuba gear.

After the war, Cousteau, Tailliez and Dumas formed the French Navy’s Underwater Research Group, performing diving missions and testing the Aqua-Lung’s capabilities. (One such test cost the life of their friend, Maurice Fargues, the first diver to die using scuba gear.) By 1950, Cousteau had left the French Navy, and had established his research boat, a decommissioned American minesweeper that he renamed Calypso.

If this was a puff piece — a thought bolstered by the fact that The Cousteau Society, the nonprofit Cousteau founded to support his research, provided support and a copious amount of footage — the rest of the story might be one triumph after another, as Cousteau established his international reputation as a filmmaker, explorer and champion of the environment. But Garbus, whose career has included “The Farm: Angola U.S.A.,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and the miniseries “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” has too much integrity to soft-pedal Cousteau’s life.

One of the revelations is that Cousteau raised money by renting himself out to petroleum companies, to find underwater drilling locations. (It’s suggested that Cousteau is partly responsible for making Abu Dhabi the center of oil wealth it is today.) There are also scenes from “The Silent World,” his 1956 film that was the first documentary to win the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, of his Calypso crew brutally beating a shark on the deck. In his later years, Cousteau expressed regret for both actions.

Garbus also profiles Cousteau’s first wife, Simone, who managed the finances and Calypso so Cousteau and his crew could mount their expeditions. Simone’s role as business partner came with a cost, though: Emotionally neglecting their sons, Jean-Michel and Philippe. Both boys, when old enough, worked on Calypso’s crew — and Philippe was poised to succeed his father, until he was killed in a plane crash.

The movie draws upon miles of footage from Cousteau’s films, including his long series of specials for ABC, and his many appearances on talk shows. There are few talking-head interviews, as Garbus instead uses audio interviews overlaid on the fascinating views of Cousteau’s explorations and public appearances. 

What emerges is a full portrait of Cousteau’s evolution, from merely an explorer of the oceans to a champion for them, trying to show the world the damage humankind has done to the planet. His remarkable story also acts as reminder that his work isn’t done, and the danger is as great as ever.

——

‘Becoming Cousteau’

★★★

Opens Friday, October 22, at the Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Cinemark 24 Jordan Landing (West Jordan). Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some disturbing images and smoking. Running time: 93 minutes.

October 21, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, vengeance-seeking grandma, in David Gordon Green’s “Halloween Kills,” a sequel to his 2018 “Halloween” revival. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, vengeance-seeking grandma, in David Gordon Green’s “Halloween Kills,” a sequel to his 2018 “Halloween” revival. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Review: 'Halloween Kills' is a bloody cash grab that massacres the goodwill David Gordon Green's 2018 version built with horror fans

October 15, 2021 by Sean P. Means

David Gordon Green’s “Halloween Kills” explores the way a voracious evil destroys everything in its path — and, no, I’m not talking about the masked killer Michael Myers slashing his way through Haddonville, Ill., as he did in Green’s 2018 sequel/reboot “Halloween.”

No, the evil this time is Green himself, laying waste to everything that was good and scary and entertaining about his earlier film — and the franchise that John Carpenter started back in 1978 — in this tediously gory slasher flick.

The “action,” for want of a better word, starts up the night the 2018 film ended, with Laurie Strode — the target of Michael’s killing in the 1978 original, now a vengeance-seeking badass grandma — riding away from her house with her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). They have just left Michael in the basement of Laurie’s house, which set ablaze in an effort to kill Michael once and for all.

While Laurie is taken to the hospital for the stab wound in her gut, the firefighters are headed the other way toward her burning house, not hearing Laurie’s desperate plea to “let it burn.” Sure enough — and because the franchise can’t carry on without him — Michael emerges from the flames and messily butchers a bunch of first responders. Then he sets his sights on Haddonfield.

In town, some of the survivors of the ’78 killing spree hear the news of Michael’s mayhem, and decide they’re going to take him out themselves. It will matter to horror fans that some of the actors from Carpenter’s original, including Kyle Richards and Nancy Stephens, are reprising their roles — and that Anthony Michael Hall, who wasn’t in the first movie, portrays Tommy, the kid Laurie babysat back in ’78. It scarcely matters to the story, but those are Easter eggs the truly obsessed “Halloween” fans can seek out.

Green’s first miscalculation here is trying to establish a mythology for Michael’s blood-dripped story, with a little retcon work to put Will Patton’s lawman, Frank Hawkins, on the scene of the killing in ’78 (with Thomas Man as a young Hawkins). Green and co-writers Scott Teems and Danny McBride are “Halloween” obsessives, so they should know such backstory work has been attempted without success through countless sequels and reboots, and they always come off as idiotic and desperate.

As the body count hits double digits in short order, we see Green’s second calculation: Sidelining Laurie, the one character we care about the most, for almost the entire movie. Curtis, her movie-icon radiance still intact, delivers some arch monologues about Michael as a force of evil, which she does with appropriate gravity. But it’s a performance she could have done in a day on set, so removed is Laurie from the story.

Green also tries, and this is miscalculation No. 3, to make some sort of statement — as Tommy riles up the good folks of Haddonfield, their fear turning the citizens into a mob as monstrous as Michael ever was. It’s accidental, no doubt, that some of the mob scenes evoke memories of the Jan. 6 mob violence at the U.S. Capitol (this movie was filmed well before then, and held a year because of the pandemic), but it’s hard to shake the visual comparisons.

The fourth and final miscalculation — the one that turned my feelings about the movie from annoyance to hostility — is at the very end of the film, a final onscreen death that is a crass reminder that Green has one more of these movies, “Halloween Ends,” coming next year to complete the boxed set. Unless the third movie is Green’s filmed apology for 106 minutes, I don’t care what comes next in this grotesque cash grab.

——

‘Halloween Kills’

★

Opens Friday, October 15, in theaters everywhere, and streaming on Peacock. Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, grisly images, language and some drug use. Running time: 106 minutes.

October 15, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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