“DOCTOR SLEEP”
Rated R.
Grade: C
Now that “It” and its sequel have been so successful at the box-office, it’s no surprise studios are eager once again to mine that vast magic cavern that is the Stephen King oeuvre. With its killer clowns, deranged writers, possessed Plymouths, telekinetic teenagers and beckoning twins, it has much to offer, which is why “Doctor Sleep,” the latest film based on a King work, is such a depressing misfire. The film, like the 2013 book, is a sequel to King’s “The Shining,” which was first published in 1977 and adapted to the screen in 1980 by the great Stanley Kubrick. The sequel is nowhere near as iconic, grandly operatic in scale or masterfully set or plotted as its predecessor. Written, directed and edited by Salem-born Mike Flanagan of “Oculus” fame, who honed his skills making the King-based “Gerald’s Game,” the grueling, two-and-half-hour “Doctor Sleep” begins with a little girl being attacked by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson, hamming it up with a very fluid American accent) and her band of traveling child serial killers, who “eat” (i.e., inhale) the “steam” of tortured children with special powers, similar to the “shining” of “The Shining.” For the finale, we return again to the ruined Overlook and hear Wendy Carlos’ unforgettable riff on a theme by Hector Berlioz and are reminded of all that “The Shining” was and all that “Doctor Sleep” is not.
“FORD V FERRARI”
Rated PG-13.
Grade: B+
Featuring two great lead actors — American Matt Damon and Welshman Christian Bale — and a compelling real-life story about American ingenuity vs. Italian automobile wizardry, “Ford v Ferrari” is a mostly exciting, two-and-half hour semi-race to the finish line. I honestly expected more from director James Mangold, who is less “Logan” and more “The Wolverine” mode here. But the film has many pleasures, even if a bloated, programmatic screenplay from Jez Butterworth (“Spectre”), brother John-Henry Butterworth (“Edge of Tomorrow”) and Jason Keller (Mirror, Mirror”) based on the 2010 book “Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans” is not one. Meet 1960s-era American race car driver and master engineer Carroll Shelby (Damon), who wins the legendary 24-hour Le Mans race at the start. Also meet Shelby’s more feral, secret self, the half-mad Englishman Ken Miles (Christian Bale). Ken is a mechanic and race car driver, who shares with Shelby a yen for making cars go faster. On one level, “Ford v Ferrari” is about Americans and Brits taking on the fascist Italians all over again. It’s World War II redux on a race track. Damon plays the Texas-born Shelby as a race-car cowboy, and it’s a fun performance for sure.
“THE IRISHMAN”
Rated R.
Grade: A
The third and final piece in a kind of trilogy, along with “Goodfellas” and “Casino,” “The Irishman” is yet another real-life American fable by the great Martin Scorsese about ordinary men, mostly of Italian immigrant roots, who soar above their humble origins through crime only to be dragged down by greed, violence and other deadly sins. Reassembling his screen alter ego Robert De Niro, a great Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale and Ray Romano of the Scorsese-produced “Vinyl” and new faces Anna Paquin and Jesse Plemons and legendary Al Pacino, “The Irishman” tells the fictionalized story of mob-connected Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino in full-throated glory), who went missing in 1975 and whose remains were never recovered, and what “really” happened to him. De Niro. Pesci and Pacino are like the Three Tenors. You can smell the clams at Umberto’s Clam House. Bathed in such period songs as “In the Still of the Night,” (Robbie Robertson once again supervised the music), “The Irishman” is an elegy to Kennedy and Nixon-era America and the generation that came-of-age with it. It is what it is, and it is all about to be over.
“LAST CHRISTMAS”
Rated PG-13.
Grade: C
Universal has spent a small fortune promoting “Last Christmas,” a romantic comedy with a twist from writers Emma Thompson and husband Greg Wise, American director Paul Feig (“Ghostbusters”) and stars Emilia Clarke of “Game of Thrones” and Henry Golding of “Crazy Rich Asians.” So what could go wrong? A lot. The film’s heroine Katarina aka Kate (Clarke) is a directionless hard-drinking trollop when we first meet her. She auditions unsuccessfully for parts in the West End and works in a green elf costume in a year-round London Christmas shop owned and run by the demanding, semi-evil scold named Santa (Michelle Yeoh also of “Crazy Rich Asians”). I know, it sounds like Dickens. But it isn’t, I assure you. Warning: As the title suggests, the soundtrack is replete with the music of the late North London-born George Michael of Wham! fame, including a new song released three years after his death. Clarke is a very talented person. The camera adores her. She can be funny, although you would not know it from this film’s boring relationship and life-counseling dialogue, platitudes and lame wisecracks.
“PARASITE”
Rated R.
Grade: A-
A comic-horrific depiction of the wealth gap in modern-day South Korea, Bong Joon-Ho’s Cannes Palme d’ Or winner “Parasite” begins with the family living at the low end of the spectrum in the almost literally bug-infested bowels of a city. It’s a basement apartment, where they have to steal their wi-fi, drunks urinate on the pavement outside their window and their single toilet is weirdly elevated. When a college student friend of his son Kim Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) quits his job as English language tutor of rich high school girl Park Da-hye (Ji-so Jung), poor family patriarch Kim Ki-taek (Joon regular Kang-ho Song) has the bright idea of slipping his clever, but non-college-student son in his place. “Parasite” borders on comic farce for its first half. But suddenly, what started out as a Korean version of “Trading Places” becomes an Asian “Us.” The Kims discover that as far as conning the rich Park family, someone got there ahead of them. There is an outbreak of grotesque violence in the garden during a birthday party. A madman runs amok among young families, and the film ends with a place-trade of Edgar Allan Poe-like proportions.
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