With “Killer Heat”, director Philippe Lacôte takes crime novelist Jo Nesbø’s short story, “The Jealousy Man” and spins it into a old-fashioned film noir complete with a hard-boiled private investigator, a mysterious femme fatale, cynical voiceover, moral ambiguity, and of course a possible murder. This decent adaptation from screenwriters Roberto Bentivegna and Matt Charman doesn’t add anything new to the classic noir formula. But it does capture much of what makes these movies so appealing.
“Killer Heat” features Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing Nick Bali (a very film noir appropriate name). He’s our down-on-his-luck private eye with a curly mop of hair packed under a tan Panama hat. Nick is a bit unkept and you can imagine the smell of booze that enters every room before he does. But he has keen instincts, a photographic memory, and is a stickler for details. It’s what makes him a good detective in spite of his flaws.
Image Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video
Nick arrives on the island of Crete at the request of Penelope Vardakis (Shailene Woodley), a member of a wealthy and powerful family who run the island through violence and corruption. Just recently Penelope’s brother-in-law Leo (Richard Madden) was killed while free solo climbing an area cliff. The local police (who are on the Vardakis family payroll) were quick to rule it an accident. But Penelope isn’t convinced. So she secretly hires Nick to determine what really happened.
It doesn’t take long before we’re introduced to some of the key players in the mystery via Nick’s investigation. First is Elias (also Richard Madden), Penelope’s husband and the late Leo’s twin brother. There’s Audrey (Clare Holman), the Vardakis family matriarch. And there’s a local cop named Georges (Babou Ceesay) who may or may not be trustworthy. Of course there are several other pieces to the puzzle that I won’t spoil, but they’re nicely woven into Bentivegna and Charman’s script.
The mystery itself throws enough curveballs to keep things interesting while the pacing ensures that we never slow down enough to overthink things. Lacôte does a good job mixing in some clarifying flashbacks. They shed some much-needed light on the icky pasts of the Vardakis clan while also revealing Nick’s own rocky history. Put together, all of it gels into a fairly lively crime story but not a particularly inventive one. When the revelations eventually come, none really catch us by surprise.
Image Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video
“Killer Heat” certainly has the look with Lacôte and DP Andrew Dunn shooting on location around sun-soaked Crete. It also has the cast, with Gordon-Levitt managing to be a serviceable gumshoe and Woodley a suitable femme fatale. The people they play resemble types more than well-rounded characters which strips them of any nuance or intrigue. Nevertheless the performances are solid all around.
What this old-fashioned noir lacks most is old-fashioned tension. We gets hints of it here and there, especially as Nick begins to wear out his welcome. But the heat never gets above room temperature nor does the mystery grip us the way it needs to. And Nesbø’s underlying theme of jealousy gets lost in all the dot-connecting and box-checking. Still, the film holds our interest throughout its fleet-footed 90 minutes, and you could do a lot worse than hanging out in the Greek Isles with JGL. “Killer Heat” is now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.
George C. Scott stars and makes his big screen directorial debut in “Rage”, a film inspired by true events known as the Dugway Sheep Incident. In the real-life account which took place in 1968, over six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Dugway was a military facility established in 1942 to test chemical and biological weapons. Many believe a nerve agent escaped Dugway resulting in the sheep deaths. Clear culpability was never established but sweeping changes came in the aftermath.
“Rage” pulls from the true account and creates a gripping thriller built around the growing middle class distrust towards the United States government. It tells a smart, incisive, and cutting story that pulls no punches in its indictment of military and medical collusion and corruption. Meanwhile Scott’s direction is patient yet laser-focused, leaving no doubts about his convictions and keeping us honed in from the movie’s heartfelt start straight through to its violent finish where the film really earns its title.
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
By 1972 Scott had already established himself as a terrific actor. In fact he was just coming off of back-to-back Academy Award nominations for 1970’s “Patton” and 1971’s “The Hospital” (he won for “Patton” but infamously refused to accept it). “Rage” featured yet another of the grounded and organic performance the commanding Scott was known for. In it he plays Dan Logan, a widowed sheep rancher in rural Wyoming.
One afternoon Dan decides to take his 12-year-old son Chris (Nicolas Beauvy) camping near the edge of his property. While setting up their tents they notice a helicopter flying low to the ground. It’s a bit out of place – enough to grab Dan’s attention but not enough to worry him. After a great evening of father-son bonding the two call it a night. But the next morning, Dan wakes up to find Chris unconscious with a nose bleed. Understandably shaken, Dan picks up his boy and makes a mad run to his truck, passing several dead sheep on the way.
At the hospital Chris is put in quarantine while Dan is admitted for testing despite feeling fine. Their longtime family physician and friend, Dr. Caldwell (Richard Basehart) refers them to a young medical specialist named Dr. Holliford (Martin Sheen) who seems to recognize Chris’ symptoms but doesn’t offer many answers. Over time the doctors go from keeping news of Chris’ worsening condition from Dan to straight-up lying about it altogether.
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
The movie doesn’t make any effort to hide the truth behind what’s actually happening. In fact an early scene lays everything out. In it we see military leaders at a nearby base secretly discussing what went wrong during their recent test of a new nerve agent. They assess the potential damage done in the neighboring communities and immediately begin planning damage control. At the same time, they shamelessly see Dan and Chris as guinea pigs and their chance to study the nerve agent’s effects on humans.
The film’s third act sees the proverbial pot boil over as the deceit, misinformation, and posturing push Dan over the edge. It’s here that the movie takes a dramatic turn, but Scott (the director and actor) doesn’t overcook the ending. And he manages to retain our sympathies even as his character crosses one line after another. It’s a good punctuation mark for a movie that is essentially a lacerating critique wrapped inside a smart slow-burning thriller.
It looks as if the most polarizing movie of 2024 may be from one of the greatest American filmmakers of all-time. Five-time Academy Award winner and New Hollywood legend Frances Ford Coppola lets his cinematic imagination run wild in “Megalopolis”, a hard to categorize but altogether captivating experience that is sure to be unlike anything else you’ll encounter in a movie theater this year.
Coppola’s initial idea for “Megalopolis” had its genesis way back in 1977. Six years later he began putting together a script. By 1989 Coppola was scouting locations and planning shoots. But the film was eventually shelved. It was revived in 2001 with Coppola going as far as doing table reads with potential actors. But after the 9/11 terror attacks, the movie was once again put on hold. During the years that followed, Coppola determined to self-finance his movie. In 2019 he put up $120 million of his own money and after navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, production finally began in 2021.
“Megalopolis” is as demanding as it is rewarding. It’s a movie that doesn’t allow itself to be easily consumed like the usual big screen product. There is nothing routine about its style, structure, or story. Rather it’s made to be experienced, absorbed, considered, and reconsidered. It’s meant to sweep you away with its audacity and grandiosity while provoking you to wander outside of your ideological comfort zone. It means to impress you with its extravagance, perplex you with its incoherence, yet stimulate you with its artistic fervor and deep-rooted convictions.
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
It’s vital that you don’t venture into “Megalopolis” expecting conceptual precision or even narrative cohesion. Don’t look for an involving plot, well-defined stakes, or even one singular vision. It’s a movie that thrusts us into the mind of its creator where we witness a plethora of profoundly personal ideas that bounce off each other in fits of indulgent madness. Coppola knows all of this and apparently foreknew the responses. It’s probably why he later added the subtitle “A Fable” – to help shape expectations and curb misconceptions.
At the same time, “Megalopolis” is very much an imaginative tour de force that sees Coppola working free of anyone’s rules, including his own. It’s an operatic tale full of pseudo-Shakespearean prose designed to be Coppola’s direct voice to us. Through his characters (some avatars and some metaphors) he shares his fears, pleads his cases, issues dire warnings, and plants seeds of hope. Meanwhile his astounding visual language reveals someone who is just as concerned with saving cinema as he is with saving civilization.
Coppola’s story is set in the collapsing metropolis of New Rome, a fascinating retro-futurist fusion of New York City with ancient Rome. It’s a sprawling place where poverty, crime, and corruption has crushed a once thriving city. Visionary architect Cesar Catilina (played by a spellbinding Adam Driver) is called upon to reimagine and transform a huge segment of New Rome. He calls his audacious city-within-the-city Megalopolis. It’s envisioned as a prosperous state-of-the-art utopia; a pure architectural and technological wonder, unmatched in its beauty and abundance.
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
To realize his vision, Cesar has discovered a powerful and imperishable material called Megalon. Its source is a mysterious story all its own, but it grants Cesar the ability to manipulate space and time. There are those who understandably fear its power. But Cesar has learned how to harness it in ways that allow him to bring to life the magnificent constructs from his mind.
But Cesar immediately gets pushback from New Rome’s mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) who is perfectly content with the status quo. Franklyn vehemently opposes what he perceives to be Cesar’s vanity project, preferring more practical means of renewal such as building a new casino (because that’s sure to put a spiraling city back on its feet). The power struggle between Cesar and Franklyn sets up a central conflict that drives much of the drama.
Things get even more complicated for the bitter rivals after Cesar falls in love with Julia (a luminous Nathalie Emmanuel), a pampered but well-centered socialite who happens to be the mayor’s daughter. She finds herself torn between the two men she loves and their competing visions. Emmanuel is both a radiant and grounding presence, often serving as our window into Coppola’s world.
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
Meanwhile a colorful cadre of supporting players help complete Coppola’s opus. Aubrey Plaza plays Wow Platinum, a television news personality whose lust for power trumps any desire for a good story. Soured by rejection from Cesar, she sets her sights on the rich and much older bank executive, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). Then you have Shia LaBeouf as the envious and depraved Clodio Pulche, a lewd deviant turned populist power-player driven by his disdain for his cousin, Cesar. Laurence Fishburne plays Cesar’s loyal assistant, driver, and personal historian while Dustin Hoffman plays Franklyn’s reliable fixer.
While most of the performances are top-notch, Plaza and LaBeouf prove to be problematic. They both veer wildly over-the-top, often seeming as if they’re working in an entirely different movie. Without question, their characters are inherently hedonistic and flamboyant, and Coppola lets his two stars off their leashes to leave no question about their debauchery. But they go too big, leaving them feeling out of place, even in a movie that’s big on theatrics.
The sheer range of techniques employed by DP Mihai Mălaimare Jr. give “Megalopolis” a dreamlike quality that’s fitting for a movie of such cosmic ambition. Detailed compositions melding long lens and digital backdrops, soul-baring closeups, classic iris shots, kaleidoscopic effects – they’re all used to immerse us but also to inform. For example, the visuals are sometimes noticeably gaudy – an intentional choice used to emphasize the gold-plated facades of the rich and pampered whose hollow lives are marked by privilege and excess.
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
As his central theme of crumbling empires takes form, Coppola surrounds it with stories of love of all kinds: love of family, love of self; love of art, love of power; love of advancement, love of decadence; love for creating, love for destroying. In the process he offers us a daring perspective on our modern world through an experience conceived from heartfelt concern, shaped by classical influences, and delivered with unflinching earnestness. It’s a broad and bulky endeavor, at times almost buckling under its own creative weight. But it never collapses due to Coppola’s belief in his message and his go-anywhere willingness when it comes to sharing it.
I’ve heard it said that art shouldn’t aim to satisfy the masses, but to express the heart of the artist. Obviously there’s a fine line when it comes to movies, and for my money Coppola walks it like a tightrope. His “Megalopolis” is as breathtaking as it is bewildering; as compelling as it is confounding. It doesn’t hold hands or pander. Nor does it submit to expectations. Yes, at times it’s erratic and untethered. It takes wild swings, some of which miss their marks. But it is undeniably the work of a man’s heart and soul, and you feel it in every trenchant soliloquy and every eye-catching image.
I feel it goes without saying, but “Megalopolis” won’t be for everyone. While the movie has its champions, it has just as many vocal detractors who have wasted no time tearing it apart. Interestingly, people said similar things about Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” when it first released. But since then, time has spoken much differently. I’m not calling “Megalopolis” the new “Apocalypse Now”, but could it have the same fate? Call me crazy, but I wouldn’t be surprised. “Megalopolis” is in theaters now.
Information has been sparse concerning the John Wick movies but news came a while ago about a new film that will expand the John Wick universe. That movie is “Ballerina”, or more properly, “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina”. It’s a film that was immediately met with a lot of hesitation. But the long-awaited first trailer alleviates many of the concerns. It very much looks like a John Wick movie. And seeing the beloved faces of Ian McShane, Lance Reddick (in his final screen role), Anjelica Huston, and Keanu Reeves himself only strengthens that sentiment.
Franchise director Chad Stahelski hands the reins to Len Wiseman (the Underworld films). The story is set between John Wick Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 with Ana de Armas playing Eve Macarro, a ballerina turned assassin who sets out to pay back the people who killed her father. Her thirst for vengeance leads her down an action-fueled path that looks to follow the John Wick formula. And that’s a good thing!
“From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” is currently set to release June 6, 2025. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
If you ever needed evidence that the movie industry has changed, look no further than “Wolfs”. This new action comedy comes with a $200 million budget and is illuminated by the sheer star wattage of its two A-list leads, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Those used to be the ideal ingredients for a robust big screen release. But not so with “Wolfs”. Instead (minus a very brief and limited theatrical run), “Wolfs” is releasing on AppleTV+. As I said, the industry has changed.
Much of the early conversations surrounding “Wolfs” have centered on its hefty budget, namely the salaries paid to the two stars (several outlets have reported $35 million each while Clooney has denied the figures). Either way, the movie will need to earn its money back without the aid of a theater release. It’s certainly possible, although for people like me, figuring up revenue generated on streaming services is akin to advanced calculus.
Image Courtesy of Apple Original Films
“Wolfs” is directed by Jon Watts whose most notable big screen credits are his three Spider-Man movies for Marvel Studios. Here he crafts a story that sees Clooney and Pitt playing two competing New York City fixers who are forced to work together over the course of one long winter night. There’s not much in terms of inspiration and the movie has its fair share of lulls. But the two stars pack enough individual charisma and comic chemistry to keep the movie afloat.
The movie opens in a $10,000 a night luxury penthouse where a prominent district attorney (Amy Ryan) finds herself in a pickle. In the middle of a rowdy fling, her much younger lover (Austin Abrams) winds up dead. Desperate to have her mess “cleaned” in order to avoid a reputation-killing scandal, the DA calls a number she was given in case she ever found herself in need. On the other end is a fixer played by Clooney (we never get his name) who specializes in handling such things. He immediately heads to the hotel.
Once he arrives he goes straight to work but is interrupted by another fixer played by Pitt (we never get his name either) who has been called to “clean up” the same mess. Against their wishes, the two are forced to work together. But what should be a simple job turns into a nightmare after they discover a backpack hidden behind a dresser containing $250,000 worth of heroin. Even worse, the dead body they’re supposed to dispose isn’t dead at all.
Image Courtesy of Apple Original Films
The majority of the movie follows our two fixers as they sort out who the drugs belong to and how they need to handle their college-aged tag-along. As they do, Watts offers up plenty of banter, much of which revolves around their mutual distrust and lone-wolf mentalities. Clooney and Pitt spit out several decent zingers but spend a lot of time lazily cursing on cue. Yet they remain effortlessly compatible on screen – a muscle they have previously flexed in their three Ocean’s films and other collaborations.
Still, great hair and million-dollar smiles from two former Sexiest Man Alive honorees can only carry a movie so far. A cluttered story, a few dull patches, and some comic misfires keep “Wolfs” from being the satisfying crowd-pleaser it could’ve been. But it’s still George Clooney and Brad Pitt – two actors who emanate charm and charisma. And when you put them on screen together, you have the kind of chemistry that makes overlooking shortcomings a little bit easier. “Wolfs” premieres today on AppleTV+.
Renowned American photographer, photojournalist, and war correspondent Lee Miller has left an impression on the 2024 movie year. First she was an inspiration for Kirsten Dunst’s character in Alex Garland’s “Civil War”. Now she’s the centerpiece of director Ellen Kuras’ “Lee”, a biographical drama based on the book “The Lives of Lee Miller” which was written by her son, Antony Penrose.
Kate Winslet offers a riveting portrayal of the film’s titular lead. Her passion for Lee Miller’s story is evident throughout her performance and led her to also serve as producer. Winslet and Kuras previously worked together on 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. With “Lee”, the two set out to tackle a much different project – one that has been eight years in the making. Their labors were not in vain. “Lee” is an absorbing, well acted, and handsomely shot feature that captures the essence of this captivating figure.
Image Courtesy of Vertical
The story, penned by the screenwriting trio of Liz Hannah, John Collee, and Marion Hume, includes a broad range of characters, most of whom are based on real people from Miller’s life. In addition to Winslet, the film features a sparkling cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, Alexander Skarsgård, Josh O’Connor, Andy Samberg, and Noémie Merlant. All help to invigorate different areas of Miller’s remarkable life.
The movie is framed through a 1977 interview an older Lee Miller (Winslet) has with an idealistic journalist (O’Connor). It’s a storytelling device the movie doesn’t need yet it has its poignant moments. Through the interview we’re introduced to younger Lee, a former model turned pugnacious party girl who enjoys hanging out with her rowdy friends in 1938 France. That’s where she meets and falls in love with Roland Penrose (Skarsgård), a British artist and curator.
Roland convinces Lee to follow him to London where the two settle down. Lee gets a job as a photographer with British Vogue magazine working under editor Audrey Withers (Riseborough). But as with so many others, Lee’s life changes as the Second World War intensifies. She gets word that her friends back in France are forced to flee underground as the Nazi’s occupy Paris. And soon after, the German’s begin bombing London. That leads Roland, a conscientious objector, to enlist as an air raid warden and camoufleur.
While the men went off to war, the women were expected to stay behind. But not Lee. She was inspired to be a war photographer but was immediately met with resistance from her magazine and even the British government. But she pushed back, eventually finding her way to the war zone. There she befriends and partners with Life magazine correspondent David Scherman (Samberg, giving a career-best performance). Together they travel across war-torn Europe, shooting field hospitals, combat in Saint-Malo, the liberation of Paris, suicide pacts in Leipzig, and the horrors of the Dachau concentration camp.
Image Courtesy of Vertical
Winslet and Kuras paint a fascinating portrait of Lee Miller. They reveal her to be ambitious and determined but also abrasive and impulsive. She’s seen as a straight-shooter to a fault, often dismissing any opinion or suggestion that doesn’t line up with her own. At the same time, it’s that very grit that strengthened her to push through countless barriers placed in front of her. Most importantly, Winslet accentuates Lee’s humanity by injecting humor, vulnerability, and pathos into her performance.
Among the many compelling aspects of “Lee” is watching Kuras build entire scenes around some of Miller’s most iconic images, from lounging with her friends in Mougins, France to bathing in Hitler’s bathtub. Other scenes are so affecting that we can only watch in unsettled silence. But all of them help to give us a well-rounded grasp of who Lee Miller was. And Winslet’s awards-worthy performance is icing on the proverbial cake. “Lee” opens in theaters on September 27th.
