Review: In 'Licorice Pizza,' rookie performers Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim give this '70s hangout movie its bite

I’m not usually a great fan of hangout movies — meandering stories of offbeat characters, with a plot that doesn’t particularly go anywhere — unless the characters, like those in “Licorice Pizza,” are really compelling and worth spending the time to know.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson introduces his two main characters in this story, set in the San Fernando Valley in 1973, in a charmingly prosaic way: Gary Valentine (played by Cooper Hoffman) is a high-schooler in line to get his school picture taken, and Alana Kane (played by rocker Alana Haim), in her mid-20s, is working as the photographer’s assistant. On little more than a brief meeting, Gary declares to a buddy, “I met the girl I’m going to marry one day.”

Gary, even though he’s only 15, is ridiculously self-confident, maybe because he got an early start as a child actor; there’s a hilarious early scene where Gary tries to upstage the diva star (Christine Ebersole) in a reunion performance of a musical they once did together. This attitude allows him to walk into his favorite restaurant, an old-school Hollywood haunt, and be treated like a regular. It also prompts him to start a business selling waterbeds — which is how he ends up meeting Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), a tightly wound celebrity hairdresser who never fails to mention that he’s dating Barbra Streisand.

Alana could use a little of Gary’s self-regard in her life. She’s a bit aimless, so becoming Gary’s top saleswoman and marketing consultant seems like a logical step. The question of whether Alana is letting Gary indulge in his fantasies of striking up a romance, or whether she’s secretly attracted to this kid, is one Anderson leaves open-ended for most of the movie’s run. 

Only in the last couple of minutes is the audience forced to consider the unconquerable 10-year age gap. (If the guy was 25 and the girl was 15, we wouldn’t find this nearly so charming, but in fact really creepy.) But Anderson allows us to ignore that disparity by diverting us with other moments — like when Alana becomes the arm candy for an aging action star (Sean Penn) or volunteers for a political campaign and develops a crush on the candidate (Benny Safdie).

Anderson grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and it’s also where he set his late-‘90s masterpieces “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia.” He has a clear nostalgic love for this maligned suburb of Los Angeles, and that rose-colored view permeates “Licorice Pizza,” thanks to Anderson’s precision with period detail and the lush cinematography, credited to Anderson and Michael Bauman. 

In this well-rendered re-creation of a ‘70s suburb, Anderson serves up two of the fiercest, funniest, and most heartbreaking debut roles, and his young stars nail their performances perfectly. Hoffman has the shlubby looks of his late father, and Anderson’s frequent collaborator, Philip Seymour Hoffman — Gary’s waterbed pitches made me, for a moment, flash back to his dad’s “mattress king” character from “Punch-Drunk Love” — but with a sunnier disposition. And Haim, in her first movie role, is a revelation, capturing with sharp intensity the sensation of being on the cusp of maturity but not quite ready to leave childhood behind. (Haim’s real-life sisters, her bandmates in the group Haim, play her sisters here, and their parents portray their parents.)

The narrative wanders frequently in “Licorice Pizza,” but Anderson lets it go to so many interesting places and meet so many interesting people that you don’t mind. “Licorice Pizza” becomes like a long-playing record that you want to listen to again, every track in order.

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‘Licorice Pizza’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 24, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and elsewhere. Rated R for language, sexual material and some drug use. Running time: 133 minutes.

Review: In 'The Lost Daughter,' rookie director Maggie Gyllenhaal and stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley conspire to depict an intriguingly flawed character

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes a shattering debut as a writer and director in “The Lost Daughter,” a quietly intense drama about a woman on vacation who learns the old lesson that no matter where you go, there you are.

Leda (Olivia Colman) is a professor of English from Cambridge, Mass., trying to have a nice, quiet vacation in a seaside town in Greece, reading her books and relaxing. Her calm is broken when a boisterous Italian family takes up residence around her on her favorite beach spot. Despite her annoyance, she makes conversation with a couple of the women, Callie (Dagmara Dominczyk) and her sister Nina (Dakota Johnson), who has a young daughter.

Watching Nina with her little girl sets Leda to thinking about her two now-adult daughters, and soon we’re seeing flashbacks of young Leda (Jessie Buckley) raising those girls, Bianca (Robyn Elwell) and Martha (Ellie Blake). Leda, we see, was uncomfortable in motherhood, sometimes losing her temper at her girls for interrupting her literature studies. The flashbacks also show Leda’s tempestuous relationship with the girls’ father, Joe (Jack Farthing), and an affair with an academic (Peter Sarsgaard) who complimented her work.

While befriending Nina, Leda makes a rash decision — not her first, as the flashbacks show — that has dire consequences.

In adapting Laura Ferrente’s novel, Gyllenhaal creates an emotionally raw portrait of a woman haunted by her past deeds, and facing a choice of running from them or defiantly standing up to what she’s done with her life.

(It’s worth noting that Gyllenhaal’s dad, Stephen, is a movie director, and her mother, Naomi Foner, is a screenwriter with one Oscar nomination.)

It’s difficult to think of anyone other than Colman to tackle such a tricky character, which she does with equal measures of irritation and remorse. If anyone else could, it’s Buckley, whose prickly intelligence sets up the young Leda that Colman’s older Leda must confront. Together, Colman, Buckley and Gyllenhaal create an emotionally raw but tightly contained portrait of a complicated, contradictory woman.

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‘The Lost Daughter’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 24, in theaters; available to stream December 31 on Netflix. Rated R for sexual content/nudity and language. Running time: 121 minutes.

Review: 'American Underdog' is a hokey, yet involving, biography of NFL star Kurt Warner, and the love story behind his improbably rise

Like the NFL Hall of Famer whose unlikely career it chronicles, “American Underdog” on paper shouldn’t work — too hokey, too earnest, too corny, too old-school. Then it starts putting points on the board, and it’s hard to deny the overall effect.

The film introduces us to Kurt Warner as a headstrong college quarterback at the University of Northern Iowa. He’s got a cannon for an arm, but his coach (Adam Baldwin) has to drill him to be more patient and stay in the pocket.

One night at a country bar in Cedar Rapids, he meets Brenda (Anna Paquin), and works up the nerve to ask her out — even learning to like country music, her favorite, so he can line-dance with her. Brenda warns Kurt that she’s a divorced mother of two, whose older son, Zack (Hayden Zaller), is legally blind (the result of the boy’s father dropping him on his head when Zack was 4 months old). Kurt shows hesitation in the face of Brenda’s struggles, and isn’t sure how to pursue the relationship.

Hesitation becomes a pattern in Kurt’s early life. After going undrafted by the NFL, Kurt gets a tryout with the Packers, but a moment of indecision on the field dooms his chances. He returns to Iowa, continues to court Brenda, and tries to figure out a life without football. He even (and this has become part of Warner’s legend) stocks shelves at a supermarket.

Then Kurt gets a visit from Jim Foster (Bruce McGill), a showman and owner of the Iowa Barnstormers, an Arena Football League team. Foster wants Kurt to play for him — but first, Foster must drill Kurt to unlearn what he knows about football, and adopt the fast run-and-gun style of Arena ball. Foster also sweetens the deal, by handing Kurt a $100 bill on the sidelines every time he scores a touchdown. Soon, Kurt has amassed a nice pile of C-notes, which he saves as a nest egg for a home with Brenda and her kids.

An important part of Kurt’s story is that Brenda is a devout Christian and, through his love for her, Kurt becomes one as well. The movie’s directors, brothers Andrew and Jon Erwin (billed collectively as The Erwin Brothers), have made their reputation on Christian-centered dramas — like “I Can Only Imagine” and “I Still Believe” — so the most surprising thing about “American Underdog” is how the Erwins somewhat underplay the Christian message in Kurt and Brenda’s love story.

The last third of the movie retells the part of Kurt’s story that most people already know: His second chance with the NFL, when coach Dick Vermeil (played here by Dennis Quaid) signs him as a backup quarterback for the St. Louis Rams in 1999. When the Rams’ starting QB is injured in a preseason game, Warner takes over — and his impressive rookie season that culminates with a trip to Super Bowl XXXIV.

Levi (“Shazam!”) captures Warner’s on-the-field strengths and his old-fashioned charm, and he’s well-matched with Paquin’s Brenda, a single mom who has learned to guard her heart after having it broken before. Their charm nearly compensates for the narrative imbalance that shortchanges the human story for football action that anybody could look up on YouTube.  

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‘American Underdog’

★★★

Opens Saturday, December 25, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some language and thematic elements. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: In 'A Journal for Jordan,' an earnest look at a military family's sacrifice gets swallowed up by bland storytelling

Bouncing from romance to parental drama, “A Journal for Jordan” is an earnestly told but sometimes wooden story about the sacrifices that come with a life in the military.

The movie is based on a memoir by former New York Times reporter Dana Canedy, played here by Chanté Adams. Canedy is trying to write down, for her son Jordan, her memories of his father, Army 1st Sgt. Charles Monroe King (Michael B. Jordan).

Thus starts the flashbacks through Dana and Charles’ romance in the 1990s into the 2000s, starting with her meeting him in the living room of her father (Robert Wisdom), an Army veteran who served in the same unit to which Charles is currently assigned. A romance ensues, hampered by distance — she’s in New York, he’s stationed in North Carolina — and by her memories of her father’s infidelity, which she blames in part on his Army influence. Charles assures Dana that he’s not like that, and will be true to her through everything.

Charles is too good to be true, and one of the weaknesses of Virgil Williams’ screenplay is that it depicts Charles as a plaster saint rather than a complex human being. Another weakness is letting Dana regularly whine about the demands of Charles’ military career, as if she didn’t remember that from her father’s Army experience.

When Dana becomes pregnant, and Charles is deployed in Iraq, Dana gives Charles a journal — so he can write to his unborn son, and start planning all the things he will say to the boy later.

Michael B. Jordan is as all-American as an actor can be, and he nearly manages to flesh out the saintly Charles into a fully realized human being. Jordan’s chemistry with Adams is palpable, and it’s too bad they don’t have more time together onscreen to let the sparks fly.

Not that sparks are abundant in director Denzel Washington’s handling of this story. Washington intercuts between different points on Dana and Charles’ timeline, usually to weak effect. It’s a bit of a shock, considering Washington’s track record of directing strong, dynamic stories (“Antwone Fisher,” “The Great Debaters” and, most importantly, “Fences”), that he would make a movie this bland and lifeless.

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‘A Journal for Jordan’

★★

Opens Saturday, December 25, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some sexual content, partial nudity, drug use and language. Running time: 131 minutes.

Review: Documentary 'Try Harder!' takes viewers inside a high school for overachievers, and suggests that college admissions isn't the only thing in life

Director Debbie Lum strikes a careful balance in her documentary “Try Harder!” — to celebrate the high-achieving students in one of America’s competitive high schools, while raising thorny questions about the competing that happens there.

Lowell High School in San Francisco is one of the most selective schools in the country, designed to teach STEM to the city’s best students and getting them into the best colleges. Importantly, the majority of students there are Asian Americans, often children of first-generation immigrants who, as the movie shows, fulfill the stereotype of the “tiger mom.”

Lum concentrates mostly on five teens, achieving a cross-section of the student body. Three of them are Asian American, one is white, and one is the daughter of a Black woman and a long-absent white father. Through them, the movie talks about the issues of race in the college-admission game — how some schools view Asian students as robotic test-taking machines, or how the biracial girl, Rachael, hears casually racist comments from her rival classmates.

Lum’s film also makes a strong argument that a school like Lowell, by being so laser-focused on college admissions, denies their kids the thing some colleges want most: A well-rounded life. There are a lot of extracurricular activities shown in the film — one boy, Alvan, discovers he enjoys dance class, while Rachael edits the school newspaper — but it’s forcefully implied that those are second-string behind the STEM work.

“Try Harder!” delves into these issues, but keeps the focus on the students, who are far more than the sum total of their application essays or the number of Ivy League schools that rejected them. Leaving the film, you can’t help but hope they learn more at college than the coursework.

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‘Try Harder!’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 24, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language. Running time: 85 minutes.

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This review ran previously on this site on January 30, 2021, when the movie premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'The Matrix Resurrections' proves that Lana Wachowski's ideas — like stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss — haven't aged a day

It’s been 22 years since the Wachowskis first took viewers through “The Matrix,” and 18 years since we went in last, with “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” — which turns out to be exactly enough time away to appreciate a return visit, in “The Matrix Resurrections,” which puts the “trip” in “nostalgia trip.”

The new film starts with what looks like a familiar situation: A fast-moving woman with short hair is evading mean-looking agents in matching suits, and when she can’t run she fights using gravity-defying moves. But it’s not the Trinity we remember from the first films. This woman, we’re told, is named Bugs, and played by Jessica Henwick (“Love & Monsters”) — but she’s a believer in Neo, “the one” who can free the humans enslaved by robot invaders to fill the computer-program world of The Matrix.

Where is Neo, the savior of the earlier trilogy? He’s living under his old name, Thomas Anderson, a video game designer in a prosperous San Francisco software firm — and, yes, still played by Keanu Reeves. His most popular game, called “Binary,” has elements from Anderson’s imagination, such as a leather-clad heroine named Trinity.

Anderson’s business partner (Jonathan Groff) informs him that the parent company — he actually refers to Warner Bros., the company that released all the “Matrix” films (and put the franchise in the new “Space Jam” movie) — wants a sequel. This prompts a brainstorming session with the younger game designers and marketers to rant about how game-changing the first game was, in a clever bit of meta-analysis that shows director Lana Wachowski has more of a sense of humor than we realized.

Anderson tells his analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) that he sometimes sees flashes that suggest his world isn’t real — to which the analyst prescribes more blue pills. But then, in the coffee shop, Anderson sees a woman who looks oddly familiar, who goes by the name Tiffany (played by Carrie-Anne Moss). 

That’s about as close to the land of spoilers as I’m willing to go, except for one thing: There’s a character with a familiar name — Morpheus — but with a different face (the one he shares with actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). This Morpheus, like the last one, has a mission to bring Anderson back out of The Matrix, though things outside aren’t exactly what we might remember.

Wachowski, working with co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, clearly is enjoying playing in this particular sandbox again. She deploys all the iconography, and sometimes actual footage, from the previous films, usually with a fond wink — but also repurposing the familiar into fresh new storytelling.

Some things can’t be duplicated, though. The absence of Hugo Weaving, the originator of the ruthless Agent Smith, is keenly felt. But what this movie does for a new antagonist is fascinating.

While some things change, it’s uncanny how much Reeves and Moss — ages 57 and 54, respectively — have stayed the same. They still have the kick-ass charisma and unflappable allure that was as important to the cool factor of the original “Matrix” as the trench coats and bullet-time effects. They are also the embodiment of a new truth to this franchise: That it’s not about The One, but The Two.

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‘The Matrix Resurrections’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 22, in theaters everywhere, and streaming on HBO Max. Rated R for violence and some language. Running time: 148 minutes.

Review: In 'Sing 2,' Bono proves that, even as a lion, he classes up even the most ridiculous movie

The animated “Sing 2” is an improvement on its 2016 predecessor “Sing,” but that’s not saying a lot. It’s still a jukebox musical with a half-dozen characters each playing through their underdeveloped subplots — only some of the songs are worth the build-up.

Buster Moon, the koala theater impresario voiced by Matthew McConaughey, has everything going his way. He’s producing a show in his town’s biggest theater, a take on “Alice in Wonderland” that opens with Alice — played by the teen elephant Meena (voiced by Tori Kelly) — and the cast singing a passable cover of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Buster’s hoping a talent scout from Redshore City, this universe’s version of Las Vegas, will be wowed enough to book them for an extended run.

But when the scout, Suki (voiced by Chelsea Peretti), tells Buster the act isn’t good enough for the big city, Buster is not phased. He still loads up his cast into a bus and heads to Redshore City, to audition for the ruthless mogul, a wolf named Mr. Crystal (voiced by Bobby Cannavale).

Crystal is a hard sell, and in desperation Buster drops the name of Redshore City’s most famous rock star, Clay Calloway. Buster promises Crystal he can get Calloway to perform — something the reclusive rocker hasn’t done in 15 years, since the death of his wife. 

I should mention that the reason for the awestruck tone these folks hit when talking about Clay Calloway is that the character, literally a lion, is voiced by Bono. Yes, the Bono, the frontman for U2. And all of Calloway’s songs are U2 songs — and it’s hard not to feel the emotional pull of “Where the Streets Have No Name” or “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” even when coming out of the mouths of animated animals.

So Buster prepares a show to showcase Calloway’s gifts, a musical science-fiction extravaganza devised by the flamboyant pig, Gunter (voiced by Nick Kroll). During rehearsal, Buster must handle: his star, the mama pig Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) overcoming a fear of heights; Johnny (voiced by Taron Egerton), the gorilla, learning to dance from a hip-hop street artist, Nooshy (voiced by Letitia Wright); Meena having to the stage with an egomaniacal bull actor (voiced by Eric Andre); and finding a place in the show for Crystal’s daughter, Porsha (voiced by Halsey). Meanwhile, Buster assigns Ash (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), the punk-rock porcupine, to talk to Calloway, musician to musician, to convince him to come out of hiding.

So, as with the first movie, director-writer Garth Jennings stuffs too many plot threads and song cues into the mix, creating a frenetic, chaotic mess. Sometimes that energy works in the movie’s favor, but not often enough — until Bono finally shows up, in a stirring duet with Johansson that is the emotional high point. 

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‘Sing 2’

★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some rude material and mild peril/violence. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: 'The Tender Bar' serves a heavy pour of nostalgia, but Ben Affleck's performance as a favorite uncle is delightful

The nostalgic drama “The Tender Bar” follows the familiar pattern of memoir: Of someone remembering their childhood, and the most interesting person in it. Thankfully, director George Clooney and screenwriter William Monahan (an Oscar winner for “The Departed”) know how to deploy that person quite well.

The movie is based on the memoir of J.R. Moehringer, who recalls growing up on Long Island in the 1970s and 1980s. Jr., played as a kid by a charming newcomer named Daniel Ranieri, and his mom (Lily Rabe) relocate there to move back in with Mom’s parents (Christopher Lloyd and Sondra James) — because Jr.’s deadbeat dad (Max Martini), known as The Voice because of his work as a radio DJ, has flaked on them once again. (There’s an explanation of how Jr., for “Junior,” as he’s named for his dad, becomes “J.R.”)

The memorable character who becomes Jr.’s father figure is his mom’s brother, Uncle Charlie — played by Ben Affleck. Charlie tends bar at The Dickens, a neighborhood dive with an unusual number of books, all of which Charlie has read, though he never went to college. Charlie gives Jr. his education through those books, and the life lessons he picks up from the bar’s regulars.

In the movie’s second half, Jr. (played by Tye Sheridan) is heading to college, and applying what he’s learned at The Dickens. He knows he wants to be a writer, a novelist — though he’ll resort to journalism if necessary. The other area where Charlie’s advice comes into play is in romance, particularly in an on-again, off-again relationship with a classmate, Sidney (Briana Middleton). 

Monahan’s script overloads on the sentimentality, and Clooney’s direction follows down the same path of vintage cars and classic tunes. Neither is helped by the fact that Moehringer’s reminiscences are more interesting in his younger days, recalling Charlie and the bar, than in his college period.

Affleck, giving the second strong supporting performance of the year (the earlier one was in “The Last Duel”), creates the uncle and the bartender we all wish we had: Good-natured, supportive, street-smart and free of judgment. Affleck brings a toughness to “The Tender Bar,” but also a warmth that comes with being part of the family.

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‘The Tender Bar’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 17, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City); available for streaming January 7 on Prime. Rated R for language throughout and some sexual content. Running time: 106 minutes.