A HIT .. AND RUNS

MOVIE
Licorice Pizza
Director Paul Thomas Anderson
Review Ray Chan


Graphic slang for a vinyl record, the term 'licorice pizza' is also the name of a long-gone chain of LA record shops founded by James Greenwood in 1969 … the era and place of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest foray into teenage angst and navigation of first love.
    The running time of the movie is two hours and 13 minutes, and indeed it seems that running is what most of the cast do. Protagonist Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is seen racing toward a gas station, past a line of idling vehicles, against a backdrop of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”. For her part, the heroine, Alana Kane (Alana Haim), sprints to a police station, after Gary has been wrongly arrested. Later on, Gary spurts away from his pinball arcade in anger. And, at the climax, they both scamper again — Alana from one direction and Gary in the other, to meet in the middle.
    Is there a reason? Perhaps it’s to symbolise the pursuit of happiness, which is essentially what the film is about.
    It’s set in the San Fernando Valley, in the early 70s, when cars are queueing for gas because of a global oil emergency, and Richard Nixon is beseeching Americans to trim their fuel consumption.
    The pair first meet up at high school where 15-year-old Gary is attracted to Alana, who is 10 years older and works for a photographer taking head shots for the yearbook.
    Displaying a maturity beyond his years, Gary chats up Alana and seeks a date, his well-meaning confidence borne out of a short career as a child star. His penchant for showmanship and eye for money-making ventures soon lead him to opening up a water bed store, and later the pinball business, with Alana lending moral support.
    There isn’t much of a plot to this movie. It’s more like a Seinfeld episode, where things just happen but nothing really happens.
    We get weird one-off episodes such as Bradley Cooper portraying Jon Peters, Barbra Streisand’s paramour, who dresses in angelic white and behaves like a dirty devil. Then Sean Penn appears as Jack Holden, a former Hollywood idol who flirts with Alana, and is friends with an aging director played superbly by the wonderful Tom Waits.
    Most humorous of all is Harriet Sansom Harris, who steals the show as a patronising casting agent, most of it spent on the phone (“love to Tatum”) and framed in so extreme a close-up by Anderson’s trademark roving camera that even her dentist will be impressed.
    Cooper, the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who himself was so long a stalwart of Anderson’s work, is never less than endearing, and allows us to soak in Gary’s belief in himself. Shining equally bright is Haim, whose Alana demonstrates a spiky self-doubt and sense of arrested development that dovetails perfectly with Gary’s own accelerated adulthood and restless urge to reinvent. Not bad going for two actors making their professional debuts.
    Busy and thronging, rammed with cameos and comic turns, and sewn together with a soundtrack of the times, Licorice Pizza works best when it’s focused on the pair. The movie basically hangs on the rapport between Gary and Alana — more than a friendship, less than a love story, and sometimes a power struggle.
    An entire Golden Age of on-screen romance teased viewers with “Will they or won’t they”; here, that question is bracketed not just by Alana and Gary’s age difference but by entrepenurial ambitions that converge and diverge with hit-and-miss unpredictability.

#licoricepizza  #universal

THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

 

MOVIE
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director  Jon Watts
Review Ray Chan

This blog has reviewed the first two movies in the Tom Holland Spider-Man franchise, so of course we have to wrap it up with a look at the conclusion of the story arc.
    And what a triumphant denouement it is. This discussion comes with a warning that some spoilers may lurk within, but then readers of such critiques will know that’s somewhat of an occupational hazard. In any case, many of the “surprises” had already been leaked on-line.
    There have been nine solo live action productions featuring the wondrous webslinger: three starring Tobey Maguire, two with Andrew Garfield, and then this current set of three. And an even 10 in total, if you include the TV series fronted by Nicholas Hammond.
    The magic of No Way Home is that it uses all of those previous episodes and experiences  ─ adversaries, allies, triumphs and tragedies ─ to its advantage, enriching the recipe and increasing its emotional depth and range. It even enhances the earlier chapters retroactively, adding new facets to characters we thought we'd seen the last of, and giving them the momentous send-offs they might not have had the last time around.
    It all starts with the unmasking of Spider-Man as nerdy teen Peter Parker, the cliffhanger thread that the last instalment teased viewers with.
    Faced with serious legal ramifications of the revelation, Peter,  sardonic girlfriend MJ and buddy Ned Leeds seek out “very good” lawyer Matt Murdock, played by Charlie Cox in a reprise of his TV Daredevil role, and raising the first squeals of delight from the Spidey-fans.
    Sadly, it is a blink of a cameo, and one can’t help but wonder how more interesting the movie would have been if the blind barrister had donned his red costume and teamed up with the main protagonist. But it’s just the first of many presents dropped in the audience’s laps and a harbinger of the stream of notable cameos to come.
    The criminal repercussions are given short shrift however, and before long, Peter is begging Marvel's resident wizard, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), to cast a spell that will erase his dual identity from the memories of everyone in the universe. But when Peter changes his mind at a crucial moment, the spell goes awry, and the Doctor accidentally summons various inhabitants of other universes instead.
    Anyone who has glimpsed the trailers or publicity interviews will know that those visitors include the crazed Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), the haughty Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), plus Electro (Jamie Foxx), all from the previous instalments.
    Strange immediately chooses to send the interlopers back to the alternate realities where they belong, but Peter finds out that in those timelines, the villains will be killed in fights with their versions of Spider-Man. Rather than sending them to their deaths in another dimension, he insists on attempting to reform them.
    Indeed, the youthful lens we first meet Peter through does not dissolve into darkness. Even when drowning in grief and worry, he finds the light, and this time, he selflessly shares that experience with the sordid characters who have suffered too long in the stifling shadows.
    And therein lies the premise on which No Way Home is based, and on which the original comics were defined: Peter’s noble naivete and the sacrifices, painful consequences and great responsibilities that come with great power. Holland embodies the best of this character even in his dimmest hour, and success here stems from his phenomenal portrayal of growing pains.
    The action sequences are fast and frenetic yet always fabulous, and the digital effects are spectacular. But the film's real superpowers are its endearing performances, not just by the principal cast, but also from the two previous Spideys pulled in by Strange’s conjurations.
    There’s Andrew Garfield in his super-suit with the witty dialogue and over-the-top movements that characterised his Spider-Man. Maguire, on the other hand, was always an exceptional Peter Parker, so he is portrayed as the kind and courageous man behind the mask.
    The standout emotional undertone of the union between the arachnid ensemble comes when MJ loses her footing and falls from the Statue of Liberty, provoking a powerful countenance of peril between Holland’s Peter and his girlfriend.
    The picture’s most significant parallel quickly follows as Garfield’s Spidey comes to the rescue. The power this moment of redemption holds for him in the wake of his girlfriend Gwen’s death in the first movie is defined by the tears welling in Garfield’s eyes as he lets us feel every inch of grief.
   Superhero sceptics probably won't be fully converted, nor presumably those who did not watch any of the previous chronicles. But for fans who have love for the genre, the constant shift between humour and pathos in No Way Home will not just put a joyful smile on their faces for two hours, but surely more than a few sobs and chokes in the throats as well. It is a perfect conclusion to the trilogy.

#nowayhome #spider-man #sonypictures