Tenzing is a great adventure film, based on the life of Tenzing Norgay. It opens on him as a boy, being raised on the Tibetan plateau under the shadow of Mount Everest, looking up at it and telling himself, “One day…” His little village is visited by George Mallory in 1924 before Mallory begins his ill-fated attempt to summit the mountain, and many years later, we meet Tenzing as a young man in 1953. Still no one has made it to the top, though Tenzing attempted in ’52 with a Swiss team and made it close. Now a year later, an English team wants to give it a go, and wants Tenzing and his experience with them. In order to do so, Tenzing demands that he go as a team climbing member and not just a sherpa, giving him more say in the planning and execution of the climb. The team ultimately agrees, and the group of men make their go. Tenzing is played by Genden Phuntsok, and Edmund Hillary is portrayed by Tom Hiddleston, with Willem Dafoe as a supporting climber as well. Ultimately it is Tenzing and Hillary who become the first to reach the top, and it is a photo of Tenzing at the summit that becomes legend. Excellent adventure and nail-biting tension, making you feel the very real danger the team faces in trying to make history. ★★★★
Olivia Wilde has had an uneven start to her directorial career but lands a huge winner with her latest, The Invite. With a good screenwriter (co-written by Rashida Jones) and just four actors, all accomplished (Wilde herself, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton), it’s a small set that could easily be converted to a one-stage play, and has that kind of feel too. Joe and Angela are long married and frankly come off as tired of each other, perhaps only staying together for their school-aged daughter’s sake. They argue about everything under the sun, sometimes snipes (“Why didn’t you stop and buy wine?”), sometimes vicious below-the-belt remarks (Joe’s failed career). Joe is blindsided when Angela suddenly invites their neighbors over for dinner. Joe has been complaining about the other couple, Pina and Hawk, for quite awhile, as he can hear them having sex rather loudly, constantly, at all hours of the day and night. Since Joe and Angela no longer have sex, this is a sore spot with him. The arriving couple set off more passive aggressive comments between Joe and Angela, until it starts to bubble up to the forefront. Their arguments are put on hold when they learn that Pina and Hawk are swingers, and in fact came over to see if Joe and Angela would be interested in group sex, or at least swapping partners. This seems to be something that each would be into, for their own reasons. But of course, nothing goes as planned. A very funny and daring movie, but also surprisingly heartfelt and emotional too before the end. I think we’ve all been in a relationship where you love/hate your partner at times, and if so this film may make you squirm at times at how people who love (or at least once loved) each other can say such hurtful things. ★★★★★
Affection is a dumb sci-fi horror film that just comes off as silly instead of scary. The opening scene is a woman who looks to be running from something or someone. She’s just been in a car wreck and is all messed up, but is still trying to flee before she has a seizure in the middle of the road. When she recovers and gets back up, she doesn’t make it much further down the road before someone comes flying down and hits her. Some time later, she wakes up in a comfy bed next to a sleeping man, but doesn’t know him. Later, the man, Bruce, tells her that her name is Ellie and they are married, and have a daughter, Alice. Alice confirms all this, but Ellie doesn’t remember any of it, and in fact remembers a different life entirely. Despite Bruce and Alice (a little girl who wouldn’t seem to lie) being adamant, Ellie doesn’t want to buy what they are selling. Ellie starts having seizers again, and eventually learns the truth: she and Alice died awhile back, and Bruce has been building clones of his deceased family to try to bring them back. Ellie, a clone, keeps fighting her implanted memories, so Bruce keeps trying again and again on new “models.” It’s a silly concept, and its delivery made worse by a wounded and seizing Ellie constantly making her best Walking Dead impersonation; if I had to hear her groan and mumble, shuffle and spasm/jerk along one more time in the film, I would have thrown something at the screen. And I hate when low budget films explain everything to you like you’re a two year old. Except for all the moaning and groaning, Jessica Rothe is pretty good as Ellie, but that’s to be expected (I liked her a lot in Happy Death Day too), but she can’t redeem this trash. ★
Kokuho (Japanese: “National Treasure”) is the kind of long (3 hours) epic drama that I almost always dig. In 1964 in Nagasaki, renowned kabuki actor Hanai Hanjiro II visits a restaurant and its yakuza owners. The yakuza boss entertains them with an amateur kabuki performance featuring his son Kikuo, and Hanjiro immediately sees a raw but natural talent in the boy. A rival yakuza gang interrupts the evening and kills Kikuo’s father, leading Hanjiro to adopt Kikuo as a new apprentice. This does not sit well with Hanjiro’s son and heir, Shunsuke, who is Kikuo’s age. However, as the two train in acting side-by-side, by 1972, they have become best friends. Kikuo has devoted his life to becoming a great actor, but Shunsuke mostly lives off his reputation as Hanjiro’s son, and parties when he’s not training. When Hanjiro is hurt in a car wreck, he names Kikuo as his replacement rather than Shunsuke, and Kikuo excels in front of the audience. Shunsuke realizes he has squandered his chance, and disappears for 8 years. By this time Kikuo is a star, and has been named Hanjiro’s new heir (even taking his family name), but a star cannot shine bright forever. When Shunsuke returns, having been making the circuits in performing kabuki in hotels and parties rather than the big stage, he is taken under the wing of another master in the industry and starts growing a following. The two former friends could become enemies, that’s what I expected, but the film surprises you and instead they become friends again, picking up where they left off. There’s still more coming before the end, as the same diabetes that eventually struck down Hanjiro will come for his son. Wonderful, emotional film about true friendship, taking place over decades (ending in 2014), and giving us westerners a very neat look into this long-standing art form. ★★★★
On a String may not be a film for everyone, but anyone with a music background will find plenty to relate to (and laugh at). Isabel (Isabel Hagen playing a fictional version of herself; she was also writer and director) has a degree from Juilliard in viola performance, but has struggled to do anything with it. Still living with her parents, she takes any gig that comes her way, from weddings to dinners to street performances. The film opens on a funny scene that sets the tone immediately: a man is proposing to his girlfriend with string music in the background, but when the “lucky” girl declines the proposal, the man is stuck having to ask Isabel to stop playing, and then negotiate her pay, while the still-single wife-not-to-be stands silently nearby. Isabel is a bit aimless in her life, both professionally and privately, where she has the hots for another musician who doesn’t return her affections, and she’s pretty sure that her private student’s father wants to have sex with her (he keeps showing up at her gigs). When the guy she likes mentions an opening in the New York Philharmonic, Isabel decides to audition, though we can’t tell if it’s because she wants the seat or to get closer to the guy. Lots of funny moments and inside jokes for musicians, such as the funny things non-musicians say to performers. Also a good look at the hardships working musicians face in balancing practice, life, recording sessions, gigs, and working dynamics with your fellow players. Since Hagen really did go to Juilliard and knows the lingo, there’s so much that comes off as authentic. This is her first film, and she shows great promise. ★★★½
