Movie Review: "Don't Worry Darling" and more

Darling, don’t worry: 3 stars

There’s more to ‘Spitgate’ than ‘Don’t Worry Darling’, the new sci-fi mystery currently hitting theaters starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. It’s the unfortunate viral video in which Styles appeared to drop Roogy into co-star Chris Pine’s lap at the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere.

Never mind that, or at least don’t watch it over and over again on TikTok until you visit the company town of Victory in suburban Southern California, where the movie is set. Perfect place as pictured. It’s a manicured paradise, it’s always sunny, there’s a classic car in every driveway, and everyone has a pool in their backyard.

But something seems a little off. It’s like Rob and Laura Petrie in the mirror.

All the men in town, like Alice Chambers’ (Pew) husband Jack (Stiles), know that Frank (Chris Pine), a visionary in the field of “progressive material development” without turmoil I work for Victory Project, which I run. world.

“Frank has created something really special,” says Frank’s wife Sherry (Gemma Chan). Better way. He’s a mid-20th-century modern-day Tony Robbins, a clever talker who says he finds greatness in all his “intrepid explorers,” the inhabitants of Victory.

His “Better Way” is also a top secret method. The business conducted at the Victory Project headquarters is known only to men. A deal that seems to suit most women, but Margaret (Kiki Layne) challenges the status quo and claims that something sinister is happening in their town. , Alice stares around her with her eyes open. “Listen to me,” she says. “They lie about everything.”

Do they live in the Victory or Twilight Zone?

“Don’t Worry Darling” has a fiery style and is Pugh’s compelling performance. Pugh’s flexible face creates a wide arc of emotions with simple, subtle movements. The first half has a perfectly believable turn from pop star Styles, some really cool cars, and impressive world-building.

Director Olivia Wilde also produces and has a meaty supporting role, creating an uncomfortable utopia.

That’s good.

Once the movie becomes what feels like a very long episode of “black box,” that wear and tear begins to show. Twist (no spoilers) is clumsy in handling. Who would have thought that Rod Serling could have handled this in a more elegant and concise way.

Unfortunately, “Don’t Worry Darling” is likely to spur more gossip (such as “Spitgate”) than conversation about its subject. It raises interesting questions about what constitutes the perfect life and the importance of having an agency over one’s own existence, but the subtextual depths that may be buried in Katie Silverman’s screenplay. Whatever it is, I suck at the awkward ending.

Blonde: 2 Stars

Marilyn Monroe is one of the most documented movie stars of all time. Her time on Earth has inspired hundreds of thousands of her inches of posthumous columns, hundreds of books, and numerous biopics and documentaries. There are even Broadway musicals and video games of her modeled after her.

What should we learn about this Hollywood icon in 2022?

If it’s any indication that the new movie, Blonde, with Ana de Armas as the star of Some Like It Hot, is hitting theaters now before making its way to Netflix, it’s not so much. Not many.

The film begins with a 166-minute journey in which Gladys (Julian Nicholson), the unstable single mother of Norma Jean Mortenson (Lily Fisher), surprises her child with a ragged photo of a wealthy looking man in a fedora. increase. It’s your dad, the girl said. He is a very important person.

According to director Andrew Dominic, a Freudian who has spent a lifetime exploring the father figure, her cycle around famous husbands such as Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody) you will see. baby doll voice.

In Hollywood, now known as Marilyn Monroe, she worked as a model, had couch casts, emotional auditions, and sold unsuccessful movie tickets before being sucked into the studio system. It made headlines for creating bomb-like images. I agree with Norma Jean. “I think she’s pretty, but that’s not me,” she says.At one point, she exclaimed, “Marilyn isn’t here,” during a dispute with her studio boss. .

Her life has taken a turn for the worse, accelerated by alcohol and drugs, no one can overlook her blonde dye job to find out who she is, depression caused by career dissatisfaction, her Life and career begin to fall apart. “She’s not a feisty girl,” says her make-up artist, Toby Huss. “If she can, she will.”

“Blonde” is an arthouse biography. Fragmentary and often impressionistic, it attempts to take you inside Marilyn’s life, as well as her mind and body. It offers views of Monroe like never before.

But what effect? An insight into Monroe’s life and career that she was essentially two sides of the same coin, Norma Jeane on one side and Marilyn on the other, is an insight, even with their bold presentation. The film’s blurb, “Seen by No One, Saw by All,” summarizes most of the film’s message in a much more forceful, benevolent and concise way. .

Dominique certainly creates memorable moments. For example, the nightmarish Red girlfriend’s carpet walk at the premiere of “Some Like It Hot” visually evokes the dread Marilyn must have felt as a superstar reluctant to ride. Less successful is the missile launch footage to emulate the progression during the sex scenes (mostly not love scenes) between Marilyn and her JFK (Casper Phillipson).

Dominic adapted the script for Joyce Carol Oates’ fictionalized and controversial novel, The Blonde, and created interesting dialogue that focused on Marilyn’s mental state. ‘, she says, but he’s also unintentionally hilarious, saying, ‘I like looking at myself in the mirror. Junior (Evan Williams) said. That’s “mommy darling” level writing.

As Marilyn, de Armas is fearless, inhabiting Monroe’s vulnerability and intelligence, and looking like her enough to complete the illusion. Sometimes it sounds like Marilyn, other times it sounds like Marilyn doing an impression of de Armas.

I don’t think “Blonde” will be the last Marilyn Monroe biopic, but it will be the last I spend three hours watching. Not because it’s definitive, but because I think everything that needs to be said about later movie stars has already been said.

Sydney: 4 stars

Sidney Poitier, who passed away in January 2022, lived a remarkable life. Oprah’s Winfrey-produced documentary “Sidney” is now streaming on Apple TV+. “He doesn’t make movies, he makes milestones,” said US President Barack Obama in the film. “A Milestone in American Progress.”

In an interview with Winfrey filmed in 2012, the “To Sir with Love” actor stares into the camera and talks about his childhood in Nassau. A master storyteller, he remembers nearly dying when he was a baby, shares wonderful stories about his loving parents, remembers the first time he saw a car, and the first time he saw a mirror. I remember the surprise of

His move from a predominantly black community in the Bahamas to the United States has been fraught with racism and threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan, but using newspapers as textbooks he learns to read. It is tempered by the kindness of the waiters who help us.

Landing in Harlem introduced him to the world of acting, and he was lucky enough to get a stand-in in a New York City stage production the same night a big-name Broadway producer was at home. That stepping stone set the civil rights activist and diplomat on his path to becoming the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor (1963’s “Lilies of the Field”).

It is a comprehensive and linear account of Poitier’s life, one that brings Winfrey to tears, a retelling of a pivotal scene in “In the Heat of the Night”, a retelling of Poitier’s life. reacts to detective Virgil Tibbs being slapped by a white man. Slapping him brings the redneck a fun reaction from Morgan Freeman.

Director Reginald Hudlin combines archival footage, new interviews with Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Winfrey, and many more film clips to create a well-lived and influential tale of life. The result is a fun and informative document about an extraordinary life. “When I die, I am not afraid to live,” said Poitier.

Bandit: 3 Stars

Based on Robert Knuckle’s novel The Flying Bandit, ‘Bandit’ tells the story of a charming thief who says he robbed 50 banks in Canada because ‘there’s money in there’.

Gilbert Galvan Jr. (Josh Duhamel) escapes from a Michigan prison in 1985, changes his name to Robert Whiteman, and heads across the border to Ontario. “Sometimes when things go south, they have to go north,” he says.

When Whiteman isn’t in a relationship with social worker Andrea (Elisha Cuthbert), he’s looking for a bank for quick cash. “No one is born bad,” he says. “Like anything, it takes practice.”

Posing as a security analyst, he identifies security weaknesses in several local agencies and makes a bold plan. Wearing a series of outlandish disguises, he flies across Canada and robs banks. “In the state, every bank across the country has armed security guards,” he says. “But in Canada, it’s like stealing candy with a mace.”

With the money coming in, he enlists the help of gangster Tommy Kay (Mel Gibson as Ottawa villain) to look for bigger opportunities.

Whiteman’s flying antics draw media attention, he’s dubbed the Flying Bandit, and hard-headed cop Detective Snydes (Nester Carbonell) vows to bring traveling thieves to justice.

The first half was a bright and breezy “Bandit”, but in the second half “Bandit” takes a dramatic turn as Whiteman begins to feel the consequences of his life choices.

Like CanCon’s “Catch Me If You Can,” “Bandit” is the story of a charismatic criminal whose non-violent antics are meant to entertain, not anger. To that end, Duhamel delivers a likable and witty performance as a man who does wrong things for the right reasons. He wants a family and a normal life, but circumstances and his penchant for breaking the law always seem to get the best of him. he talks about bank robbery.

Duhamel’s good-natured personality shaves off any rough edges the film may have developed with its more realistic depiction of life of crime.

With just under two hours to go and “Bandit” slacking halfway through. appears as a crime story.