“High-Flying Bird”
If there’s a throughline that runs through much of Steven Soderbergh’s filmography, it’s that of hardworking professionals taking a stance against a corrupt organization. This is true of Julia Roberts as brassy single mother and legal clerk Erin Brockovich taking on PG&E in Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning drama of the same name, it’s true of Danny Ocean and his pals sticking it to the proverbial man in the ‘Ocean’s‘ trilogy, and it’s true of delusional corporate whistleblower Mark Whitacre raging against the machine in the director’s underrated “The Informant!” “High-Flying Bird” is another stellar entry in Soderbergh’s Outsiders-vs.-the-World subgenre, and it’s also one of his strongest, most socially relevant efforts since the days of “Traffic” and “Out of Sight.” This is Soderbergh’s second film to be shot on an iPhone, after last year’s tawdry psycho-thriller “Unsane.” That film was an enjoyable experiment that was less satisfying as a fully fleshed-out narrative. “High-Flying Bird,” on the other hand, seems to come from a more inward-looking place. Starring the terrific Andre Holland of “The Knick,” “Bird” is an insider-sports drama in the vein of Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” (a project Soderbergh was once attached to), filled with lots of fast talk, strategic power plays, and no shortage of the director’s familiar, detached style. Most of the film unfolds as an invigorating and undeniably angry indictment of a morally compromised American industry: professional sports. As always, Soderbergh retains a cool, impartial perspective on his subject. His camera is a perpetual fly on the wall, never intruding too much save for a few very carefully chosen visual curlicues. At its heart, “High-Flying Bird” is very much about the fraught relationship of white spectators to African-American competitors. In that regard, the film is an intoxicatingly smart grown-up morality play, and one of the director’s most enjoyable movies in years. – NL [Our Review]
“Leaving Neverland”
What does it take to make you believe? That was the question many hardcore fans of Michael Jackson faced after the revelations in Dan Reed‘s explosive documentary. A world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, “Leaving Neverland” chronicles the systematic sexual abuse endured by James Safechuck and Wade Robson as children at the hands of the pop music legend. And it is chronicled in chilling detail. With audio tapes, family testimony, and, most importantly, the accounts from the two, now, adult men. At 236 minutes, it is almost exhausting, but it’s also a meticulously edited piece of filmmaking. You want to turn away. You want to hope the subjects are just exaggerating. And yet, as it continues on there is little to debate. That’s what made the reaction to the film almost as powerful as the movie itself. Even Jackson devotees who watched ‘Neverland’ refused to believe Safechuck and Robson testimony. It was as if their allegiance to Jackson was so blinding you could tell them the world was on fire and they would refuse to believe it. It’s rare that any sort of filmed media can end up shining such a dramatic light not just on its subject, but on the dangers of fandom as well simply by existing. – Gregory Ellwood [Our Review]
“Climax”
With “Climax,” enfant terrible Gaspar Noe is playing like he has nothing left to lose. Maybe, he doesn’t. Sonically, visually, and thematically, the filmmaker’s laid it all on the table with this one. While “Climax” is not Noe’s most scandalous movie – how could it be, after the likes of “Irreversible” and his 3D sex-fest “Love” – it is perhaps the director’s most liberated work, free from the constraints once imposed on him by his critics and his many detractors. What’s most surprising about “Climax” is that Noe has finally made the movie we’ve always wanted to see him make: a glorious assault, a full-tilt, unapologetic leap into mayhem that’s choreographed like a possessed Pina Bausch number set in the ninth circle of hell. In a welcome change of pace, “Climax” is the first Gaspar Noe movie – perhaps ever – that doesn’t feel exclusively constructed with the intention of traumatizing his audience into a state of numbness. Obviously, don’t take your kids to see this: “Climax” is still, after all, a Gaspar Noe movie. That means there are plenty of hellacious, drug-induced freakouts, highfalutin cinephile name-drops, jarring title-card interludes (“DEATH IS AN EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE”), and even an extended, ghastly sequence where a child is placed in mortal peril. However, this is also the first of Noe’s films to acknowledge that entertaining one’s audience can be more edifying than offending their sensibilities. What’s more is that “Climax” proves, in case there were any doubts, that Noe is a consummate showman: not since Andrzej Żuławski’s “Possession” (a key point of reference here) has a movie forced its audience to feel its mania so deeply. Although “Climax” threatens to teeter overboard in its go-for-broke, turn-the-camera-upside-down final stretch, it left us convinced – more than any of Noe’s previous work – of his incontestable directorial gifts. – NL [Our Review]
“Gloria Bell”
It’s been a long time since Julianne Moore enjoyed a role this substantial. That’s what we found ourselves thinking a mere ten minutes into “Gloria Bell,” Sebastien Lelio’s lustrous American re-imagining of his 2013 character piece “Gloria.” Lelio’s film is a warm, funny portrait of middle-aged desire that sometimes feels like an indirect, but nevertheless personal-feeling, love letter written to its star. Moore has found an ideal match in her director, who has proven with his last few films to be an intuitive visual storyteller specializing in stories about women who live with the burden of their secrets. The Gloria of this film isn’t living with the burden of anything: she may be single in middle age, estranged from her two kids, and in the midst of a relationship with an extremely flawed man (played by a wizened John Turturro), but baby, she is free. Although “Gloria Bell” lifts compositions, dialogue, and entire scenes from its foreign progenitor, this new film feels more relaxed and less self-conscious in its construction than any of Lelio’s other work, including the bombastic “A Fantastic Woman” and the downbeat “Disobedience.” Granted, not a lot happens over the course of “Gloria Bell”– Gloria takes a chance on love, Gloria encounters a creepy hairless cat, Gloria embarks on a trip to Las Vegas, etc. And yet, like so many rewarding cinematic character portraits, “Gloria Bell” isn’t about what happens but how it all happens. Cinematographer Natasha Braier (who lensed Nicolas Winding Refn’s “The Neon Demon”) floods the screen with a seductive mélange of colors, while the electronic score by Matthew Herbert is as effervescent as a champagne buzz – it sends you out of the theater on a euphoric high. All that said, this is unquestionably Moore’s movie: the whole thing is a tribute to her once-in-a-generation talent. Long may she reign. – NL [Our Review]
“Non-Fiction”
The characters in the films of Olivier Assayas never seem comfortable in the era they occupy. Many of them – the rock n’ roll-obsessed teens of “Cold Water,” the charismatic terrorist of “Carlos,” the American woman tormented by spirits of the past in “Personal Shopper” – seem willfully directionless, as if they should have been born in the midst of some other epoch. This same authorial fixation informs “Non-Fiction,” Assayas’ relaxed, witty, and very French comedy of literature and infidelity. Subtitled as “Double Lives,” this deceptively straightforward miniaturist gem sees a procession of philandering authors, frustrated T.V. actors, and beleaguered publishing agents searching for their place in a world they no longer recognize. Theirs is a rarefied ecosystem where a perfectly worded tweet has more staying power than a good book, and life exists as mere fodder for fictional exploits. “Non-Fiction” has been compared to the high-society comedies of Woody Allen (we thought of “Husbands and Wives” more than once during our initial viewing), though we ultimately found it more reminiscent of Eric Rohmer’s series of Moral Tales, particularly “My Night at Maud’s” and “La Collectioneusse.” For one, Assayas unspools a litany of cultural reference points here – Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – that would have eluded Mr. Allen even on his best day. “Non-Fiction” is a gâterie légère: a lighthearted wisp of a film that’s transcendent in its modesty. There are, of course, those who will grow weary of watching a series of high-minded philosophical conversations unfold in tastefully decorated boho lofts. In that regard, “Non-Fiction” might be one of the most purely French movies ever made. And yet, there’s a lack of pretense in “Non-Fiction” that makes it one of the director’s most purely enjoyable movies in some time. What’s more is that the film poses prescient inquiries about the ongoing democratization of our digital culture, turning what might otherwise be another jaunty comedy of manners into a sharp examination of the currency of language in the 21st century. – NL [Our Review]
