Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018): directed by Susan Lacy: Fascinating HBO documentary about the life and times of Jane Fonda, clearly made with her full cooperation. It's not hagiographic, and Fonda is often the one to take the stuffing out of herself. Her troubled childhood, complete with a mentally ill, suicidal mother and the distant, philandering Henry Fonda as father, is perhaps the most closely observed part of the documentary.
And I didn't know that all proceeds from the Jane Fonda Workout franchise went to charity -- that, indeed, the series was created for just that purpose. And the floating striptease in Barbarella was shot with Fonda lying on a glass floor. And here I thought she was on wires all these years. Recommended.
All Of Me (1984): adapted by Henry Olek and Phil Alden Robinson from the Ed Davis novel; directed by Carl Reiner; starring Steve Martin (Cobb), Lily Tomlin (Edwina Cutwater), Victoria Tennat (Terry), Richard Libertini (Prahka Lasa), Jason Bernard (Tyrone), and Dana Elcar (Schuyler):
Brilliant, one-of-a-kind acting performance by Steve Martin with able support from Lily Tomlin. Martin plays a frustrated, unfulfilled lawyer who ends up with Tomlin's soul trapped in his body after a botched attempt at soul transference. Things progress from there, especially as Tomlin and Martin each controls one side of his body.
This makes for inspired slapstick as they attempt to navigate walking, driving, using a urinal, and a variety of other tasks. A mostly sweet-natured movie, competently directed by veteran Carl Reiner with no visual flair whatsoever -- indeed, the opening titles make All of Me look like a TV movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Martin should at least have been nominated for a Best Acting Oscar for this one, but as we all know, the Academy hates comedy. Highly recommended.
Game Night (2018): written by Mark Perez; directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein; starring Jason Bateman (Max), Rachel McAdams (Annie), Kyle Chandler (Brooks), and Jesse Plemons (Gary): Adequate time-filler takes forever to set up its premise. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams make an appealing couple, though the 10-year age gap makes it difficult to believe they met in college. Maybe Bateman was going back to school after 10 years in the work force. Oh, Hollywood!
Kyle Chandler is weirdly miscast as Bateman's swashbuckling, risk-taking older brother. Cameos from Danny Huston, Jeffrey Wright, and Michael C. Hall are so perfunctory that they seem more like accidental walk-throughs. Sort of genial, anyway, and Jesse Plemons exudes comic menace as a sad, creepy cop neighbour. Lightly recommended.
Dr. Strange (2016): based on the character created by Steve Ditko; written by Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill; directed by Scott Derrickson; starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Stephen Strange), Rachel McAdams (Rachel Palmer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Mordo), Benedict Wong (Wong), Tilda Swinton (The Ancient One), and Mads Mikkelsen (Kaecilius): A bit of a boiler-plate Marvel Movie (think Iron Man with magic instead of technology and you've pretty much got it) enlivened by some ambitiously loopy visuals, albeit some of them riffing on Inception and not anything in the Dr. Strange comic books themselves.
The changes to Dr. Strange's character make him a twin for Robert Downey Jr.'s snarky Tony Stark. That's faithful for pre-magic Dr. Strange, not so much for post-magical-training Dr. Strange, possibly early Marvel's least quippy hero -- even Reed Richards (or Sue Storm, for that matter) got off more zingers than Dr. Strange in the 1960's. Created by writer-artist Steve 'Spider-man' Ditko, Dr. Strange's non-quippy gravitas probably makes him the Marvel character who would most benefit from a trade to DC Comics for, say, the Legion of Super-heroes.
Benedict Cumberbatch is fine as Dr. Strange, and Chiwetel Ejiofor does nice work as a seriously reworked Mordo. Mads Mikkelsen plays the least interesting Marvel Movie villain since Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2. Rachel McAdams is stuck playing Natalie Portman in the Thor movies, only moreso.
The movie's visuals fail spectacularly at the end even as they also succeed admirably in translating Ditko's surreal comic-book visuals of the Dark Dimension into the movie world. To say that the visual redesign of Dr. Strange's greatest foe is regrettable is about the most praise I can offer. The poor bugger has been biggie-sized into a giant floating head that looks an awful lot like what would happen if you painted the Tron visuals for the Master Control Program onto an accordion.
As to the white-washing in regards to Asians... yep, one of Marvel's first prominent, 'good' Asian characters is no more. Doc's mentor, the ancient Asian known only as the Ancient One, is now the surprisingly spry Tilda Swinton, a.k.a. The Whitest Actress Ever. And the other tweaks made to the Ancient One's character don't help much either.
In other areas, the magic training Strange endures now has all the length and rigor of selecting icons off a computer screen. Really, it makes the Harry Potterverse seem like a world teeming with educational rigor by comparison. Doctor Strange just has to make funky Kung Fu moves -- no pronouncement of spells required. And the mystical doodad Strange and friends need to travel through space-time? It's there to be dropped at a crucial moment, as these things always are. Lightly recommended.
