Photo © DreamWorks Animation
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Babylon
(In Theaters, December 23)
Auteur Damien Chazelle dives into the transition from silent to talking films during the late ’20s. He invents characters mirroring those of the era. Brad Pitt’s Jack Conrad recalls John Gilbert and Douglas Fairbanks. Jack’s an aging, boozy charmer whose fake Italian accent does no favors to his dialogue.
Hoping to become a movie star, Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) is modeled after Clara Bow. Her unbridled free spirit attracts admirers, especially Manny (Diego Calva). He works for Tinseltown mogul Don Wallach (Jeff Garlin), whose legendary parties are known for excess and luminous guests. Jean Smart appears as Hollywood columnist Elinor St. John, a blend of novelist-screenwriter Elinor Glyn, with the cutting wit of gossip mavens Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Inspired by bandleader Curtis Mosby, Jovan Adepo portrays jazz trumpeter Sidney Palmer, admonished he isn’t “black enough” to play a Black man.
Chazelle imagines this world in lurid detail. While some critics complain there’s no character to like, others believe the film to be Oscar-worthy. At three-and-a-half hours, everyone agrees it’s quite the spectacle. (Lisa Miller)
Miracle
(Film Movement DVD)
Suspense hovers over each moment of the opening scene. Cristina, 19, a novice intent on becoming an Eastern Orthodox nun, slips unobserved from the convent to a car waiting outside the wall. The taxi driver is a gruff man whose sister is a nun. He picks up another passenger, a doctor, on the way to a hospital. Cristina is thinking—one suspects—of having an abortion. And then she is found, beaten and raped, nearly dead in the woods outside town.
Miracle (2021) becomes a police drama as a no-nonsense inspector begins to go rogue in his investigation of the crime. Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri includes characters from his 2020 film Unidentified in this intensely realized puzzle—not a who dunnit but an exploration of psychology and character. Apetri’s watchful cinematography, astute compositions and deeply felt characters make him one of Europe’s most interesting younger directors. (David Luhrssen)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(In Theaters, December 21)
In The Last Wish, Puss in Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas) has a problem ... He’s used up eight of his nine lives. A montage of demises to date clarifies that Puss lost too many lives while showing off.
Taking his vet’s advise, Puss retires from swashbuckling to the home of Mama Luna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a cat fancier and feline rescuer. In short order Puss realizes that the wearing blue kitty mittens (to protect her furniture) isn’t for him. Worse, Puss learns he’s targeted for assassination by Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and her crime gang: Momma Bear (Olivia Colman), Papa Bear (Ray Winstone) and oversized Baby Bear (Samson Kayo).
To gain a fighting chance of surviving an onslaught, Puss sets out to find the mythical Wishing Star that will grant a wish to whomever reaches it first. Puss’ race to the star is joined by his former partner and who wants the wish for herself: the captivating Kitty Soft Paws (Salma Hayek). Accompanying them on their quest is Perrito (Harvey Guillen), a mangy, aspiring therapy dog. Director Joel Crawford opts for a painterly approach to this DreamWorks Animation. The style elevates the Shrek universe’s strange beauty. Banderas gives Puss a silken voice that makes the feline’s schemes and dreams something to purr about. (Lisa Miller)
The Roundup
(Capelight DVD)
The Roundup opens in Saigon—Ho Chi Minh City as it’s now called—a bustling metropolis of outdoor stalls and motorbikes. There are more cars on the streets since the U.S. pulled out, a taller skyline and lots of foreign investors. One of them is a Korean entrepreneur with plans to build a resort on the city’s outskirts—until he’s kidnapped by a vicious Korean criminal. The kidnapping is the plot spring for director Lee Sang Yong’s incongruously lighthearted romp through mayhem with a tough cop (an Asian Dirty Harry?) working an unfamiliar beat. (David Luhrssen)
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
(In Theaters, December 23)
Along with depicting her life in broad strokes, this biography showcases chart-topping hits by singer Whitney Houston. Played by Naomi Ackie (who sings well, but here mostly lip syncs to Whitney’s recordings), the film chronicles Houston’s “discovery” in the ’80s, by renowned producer Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci). Davis said, “You wait a lifetime for someone like Houston.” Along with her remarkable voice, he was captivated by her stage presence and charisma.
Another life-changing relationship occurs when teenage Houston meets Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). Despite Houston’s concern that their youthful sexual dalliance might be exposed to (at the time) an extremely judgmental media, Crawford became Whitney’s longtime personal assistant and closest friend. The film examines Whitney’s troubled marriage to Bobby Brown, though, at two-hours-20-minutes in length, it avoids the couple’s popular reality show.
Houston’s battle with drug addiction presents ongoing problems. Ultimately, she lost her life to cocaine in 2012, at age 48. Written by Anthony McCarten, according to director Kasi Lemmons, Whitney’s life could easily fill a mini-series. Hopefully Netflix is listening. (Lisa Miller)
