Female Film Critics 24/375
In 2019, when Brie Larson first assumed the title role in Captain Marvel, the sci-fi fantasy racked up a $153.4 million opening, yet – back in November – when its sequel The Marvels opened, it garnered only $46.1 million, making it the most disappointing opening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history. So what went wrong with this new female-powered action saga? It’s simply silly.
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Big-budgeted Napoleon is an epic bore. Working from David Scarpa’s history-heavy script, director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) spends 2 hours, 38 minutes alternating between brutality on the battlefield and violence in the bedroom, succeeding more in the former than the latter – since he used 11 cameras, filming simultaneously for the frontline carnage. In the titular role, Joaquin Phoenix is almost as quirky and creepy as he was as Arthur Fleck in Joker. He whines, sneers and – almost comically – habitually covers his ears after ordering the canons to fire. What he lacks is charisma.
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Looking for something different? Try Lessons in Chemistry, based on Bonnie Garmus’s 2022 novel about Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson), a brilliant but solitary scientist who becomes the host of a cooking show, a precursor to Julia Child. Elizabeth’s mantra is: “Cooking is chemistry and chemistry is life. Your ability to change everything, including yourself starts here.”
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In casting Priscilla, filmmaker Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette) chose diminutive 5’1” Cailee Spaeny to play the titular role; she’s visibly dwarfed by 6’5” Jacob Elordi as towering Elvis. Filmed for $20 million in 30 days in Toronto, the film hints that moody, controlling Elvis may have been sexually dysfunctional with a Madonna complex, although rumors were rampant that he had affairs with Ann-Margret, Nancy Sinatra, Connie Stevens, Rita Moreno and Linda Thompson – among others.
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Set at Christmastime in 1970 at prestigious Barton Academy, a rural Massachusetts prep school, The Holdovers revolves around Paul ’Walleye’ Hunham (Paul Giamatti), the cynical, curmudgeonly classics instructor forced to supervise the unfortunate boys unable to return home for the two-week holiday break. When a rich kid’s dad arrives in his helicopter, he offers to take them all skiing – if their parents give permission. That leaves only arrogant, angry Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa) whose honeymooning mother and stepfather have abandoned him and cannot be reached. Screenwriter David Hemingson devises such distinctive, compelling backstories for each of these three lonely, sad souls that their traumatic misadventures turn out to be therapeutic, yet director Alexander Payne never succumbs to sentimentality.
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Adapting a beloved best-seller isn’t easy, but screenwriter Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and director Shawn Levy (“Stranger Things”) tackle Anthony Doerr’s 544-page, 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel – All the Light We Cannot See – with timely relevance since antisemitism is – once again – rampant. Set in occupied France during W.W.II, the epic story – often told in flashbacks – revolves around blind Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti) who lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her devoted father, Daniel LeBlanc (Mark Ruffalo), is a master locksmith.
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When the original Hunger Games devoured the silver screen in 2012, I vividly remember the savage power of its pop culture message about formidable female empowerment, particularly in contrast with its banal, dull, boring prequel Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Directed by Francis Lawrence, this epic, tri-part dystopian dirge is set 64 years before the original trilogy. The essence of what’s lacking in this franchise film: Katniss Everdeen, the resourceful, heroic character embodied by charismatic Jennifer Lawrence.
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After a brief release in theaters, Nicolas Cage’s newest action-comedy The Retirement Plan is now streaming. The story begins in Miami with a heist that goes terribly wrong. As a result, Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) and his wife Ashley (Ashley Greene) are in possession of an incriminating flash-drive that mobster, Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) promised to give Hector (Grace Byrne), who heads an organized crime syndicate.
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As a critic, I’ve seen wretched sci-fi romantic dramedies – but few as ludicrous and repugnant as Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s Fingernails. The premise is simple: What if technology could determine whether you and your partner are perfectly matched and in love? Would it matter to you if that simple test involved ripping out one of your fingernails – without anesthesia?
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Netflix has quietly launched Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar and three additional Raoul Dahl short stories. This whimsical cinematic anthology is the creation of Wes Anderson, who became intrigued by the emotional truths in Roald Dahl’s work after adapting his novel into the Oscar-nominated, stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Each is a fanciful fable drawn from the extensive ‘idea’ files that eccentric, cardigan-clad, curmudgeonly storyteller Dahl (Ralph Fiennes) kept in Gipsy House, his isolated ‘writing hut’ adjacent to his home in Buckinghamshire, England. Stumped on how to translate Dahl’s jottings to the screen, Anderson decided to have the four principal actors (Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade), playing various characters, narrate the author’s adroit descriptions and their actions directly into the camera at a rapid pace with deadpan directness.
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