Drama

Battle of the Sexes

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Battle of the Sexes
  • IMDb: link

Battle of the Sexes Blu-ray reviewBattle of the Sexes works as a kind of CliffsNotes version of events leading up to the inter-gender 1973 tennis match between women’s champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and aging men’s star Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell). The script by Simon Beaufoy offers glimpses at both players’ home lives, marital and emotional issues, and eventually the match itself. While Battle of the Sexes touches on the creation of the WTA and the rivalry with the men’s tour, I’d have preferred more insight here and overall better framing of the historical importance of the match.

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Molly’s Game

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Molly’s Game
  • IMDb: link

Molly's Game movie reviewIn choosing to adapt Molly Bloom‘s true story, writer/director Aaron Sorkin begins with an already intriguing subject matter which is only helped by his trademark pacing and smart dialogue. Jessica Chastain is terrific as the failed amateur skier whose life took a dramatic twist after washing out of Olympic qualifying to become the what tabloids dubbed the “poker princess.” Filled with celebrities and high rollers, Molly Brown ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for almost a decade before being arrested by the FBI. Sorkin rounds out the cast with Idris Elba as Molly’s lawyer, Kevin Costner as Molly’s father, and Michael Cera as one of the regulars at Molly’s games.

Sorkin’s script takes us through Molly’s journey from the ski slopes to underground poker clubs, while offering insight on how Molly rose to fame and the struggles she faced long before the FBI started knocking on her door. Although she has a court case looming, and much of the film is spent with her talking about her past with her lawyer, Molly Bloom stays out of the courtroom in favor of flashbacks to her glory days and mistakes made along the way.

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Stronger

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Stronger
  • IMDb: link

Stronger Blu-ray reviewJake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff Bauman whose life changes in an instant when he loses his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing. Based on Bauman’s real experiences, the screenplay by John Pollono follows the man’s struggle to deal with his loss while an entire city embraces him as the symbol for “Boston Strong.”

Stronger spends a little more time on Bauman the screw-up and less on the man’s finding the strength to work through his accident (mostly shrunken down into a couple of montages) than expected. Post-accident, when the film focuses on Bauman’s struggle and that of his girlfriend (Tatiana Maslany) the film’s focus is clear, although the amount of side characters, including Miranda Richardson as Bauman’s mother and a host of friends and family (none of whom seem to understand what the man is going through, but are happy to cash in on his celebrity), aren’t nearly as strong or compelling.

[Lionsgate, Blu-ray $24.99 / DVD $19.98]

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Beauty and the Creature from the Black Lagoon

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Shape of Water
  • IMDb: link

The Shape of Water movie reviewGuillermo del Toro puts his own spin on the Beauty and the Beast tale in The Shape of Water which stars Sally Hawkins as a mute janitor at the the Occam Aerospace Research Center who discovers just what the scientists and military men are studying. Doug Jones, who worked with del Toro before in the Hellboy films and Pan’s Labyrinth, is transformed by practical and CGI effects into a creature who is part Abe Sapien and part the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Never given a name, nor able to speak (just like the woman who falls for him), the design of “the asset” is terrific.

The story is pretty standard. Girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, they fall in love, and all hell breaks loose. The talent both in front and behind the camera elevates the words on the printed page into a magical fairy tale which is joyful to watch. The setting of the 1960s, Elisa’s (Hawkins) inability to speak, Richard Jenkins as her confidant, and Michael Shannon as the brutal colonel in control of the experiment, all add interesting pieces to the puzzle making The Shape of Water more than the sum of its parts. Supporting performances from Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Lauren Lee Smith all bring something to add and help flesh out the world.

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Wonder Wheel

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Wonder Wheel
  • IMDb: link

Wonder Wheel movie reviewFalling neither at the top nor bottom of the Woody Allen scale, the writer/director’s latest fits somewhere in the middle. Set in Coney Island during the 1950s, Wonder Wheel tells the story of a distraught waitress (Kate Winslet) cheating on her husband (Jim Belushi) with a lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) with delusions of becoming a great writer. Matters are complicated by the arrival of her husband’s daughter (Juno Temple) from a previous marriage, on-the-run from her gangster husband, who also catches the lifeguard’s eye, and our waitress’ arson-loving preteen son (Jack Gore) setting fire to everything he can find.

Winslet is the ensemble stand-out of the piece as a middle-aged woman determined that her affair lead her out of the mess her life has become. Other than the fact that he’s the outsider to the family, Timberlake turns out to be an odd choice for narrator. Winslet, Temple, or even Belushi (who is almost too convincing as the prototypical bad drunk with a temper) would seem to offer a better insight into the story. In the end, Winslet’s perfomance and the setting of a 50s Coney Island help make up for some of the film’s shortcomings (including an opening act better suited to a stage performance).

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