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Finally, some good movies

Baby Driver, written and directed Edgar Wright, 1 h 52 min

The most spectacular parts of this movie are the car chases. But car chases have been franchised in The Fast and the Furious and its many sequels, so what makes Baby Driver special?

First is a plot that keeps you guessing from start to finish. The Baby Driver is a precocious wheelman for a band of bank robbers. He wants out, but the mastermind of the robberies won’t let him. And up until the very end, you won’t know whether he will get away.

Second are the great characters. Kevin Spacey as Doc, the leader of the robbers, is as evil as ever. John Hamm, stepping out of his typical roles, is Buddy (an incongruous name for the normally elegant actor), the most resourceful and dangerous of the thieves. Jamie Foxx is Bats, the most ruthless and sadistic. All the descriptive names are part of the fun.

But the film’s focus is Ansel Elgort as Baby – yes, that really is his name, and he is the driver. He is as silent and laconic as an early Eastwood but with lots more nuance. Since the car accident that killed his parents when he was young and left him partially deaf from tinnitus, he has avoided any emotional entanglements. After he falls for a guileless waitress, Darling (Eiza Gonzáles), all he wants is to run away with her and leave the criminal life behind, but Doc, Buddy and Bats are determined to stop him any way they can.

Last, but certainly not least, is the music. Many of the songs have “Baby” in the lyrics, a broad staple of sixties rock, particularly soul: B-A-B-Y, by Carla Thomas; Baby I’m Yours, Barbara Lewis; When Something is Wrong with My Baby, Sam & Dave; and, of course, the movie’s theme, Baby Driver by Simon & Garfunkel. And there are nearly 30 other songs that will make you want to download the soundtrack as soon as you leave the theater. With the music synched to the plot there is a distinct rhythm that propels the action.  

With echoes of Saturday Night Fever and Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Driver keeps you guessing until the very end, and you’re totally engaged, rooting for Baby to outwit the bad guys. I already want to see it again.

Grade: A

 

Beguiled, directed by Sofia Coppola, 1 hr 44 min

The beauty of the opening scene belies the violence and sexual tensions to come. Ancient oak trees, festooned with Spanish moss, arch the drive up to an elegant southern plantation, transformed into the Miss Farnsworth School for Young Ladies.

Miss Martha Farnsworth’s (Nicole Kidman) family home is now a school for girls who have been sent north from the ravages of Union armies in the Deep South. Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) is her assistant.

The school is a place of calm for them and the five girls in their charge, but the boom of distant cannon reminds them that the war is all around them. Amy (Oona Laurence), the most curious of the girls, finds McBurney (Colin Farrell), a wounded Yankee soldier, in the woods. As he fades in and out of consciousness, Martha, Edwina and the girls drag him back to the house and treat his wounds.

As he slowly recovers, the lonely women are drawn to him. The domineering Martha is barely able to keep her hands from straying as she bathes him. The subservient, but passionate Edwina brazenly kisses him on the mouth. The oldest of the girls is Alicia (Elle Fanning in yet another Lolita role), and she quickly lets McBurney know she is his for the taking. Even the little girls dress up for him. McBurney’s sly grin shows that he is ready to take advantage of all of them. But when he seduces one of them, his porn-plot world starts to crumble.

In this remake of the 1971 original with Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page, Sofia Coppola infuses the film with her trademark feminism. She skillfully depicts the loneliness of the woman and unapologetically allows them their natural desires. Even in their very vulnerable circumstances, Coppola let's them rely on each other, without any help from a man, to do whatever's necessary to survive.

Farrell excels as McBurney, making him charming, sly and violent. Kidman skillfully blends strength and weakness in Martha, while Dunst gives Edwina just the right amount of passivity mixed with recklessness. The only false note is Fanning as the young seductress. It's her looks, not her acting that gets her these roles. She even loses her southern accent halfway through the movie.

Grade: B

Streaming, Part 2

 

The Good Fight, CBS All Access, one season, renewed

For those exhibiting withdrawal symptoms from the last of The Good Wife, this may be for you. Of the main characters, only Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart is left. Swindled and thrown out of the firm she founded, she opens a small partnership that hopes to woo some of her old clients.

Sound familiar? That's pretty much what Alicia and Carey tried to do a few seasons back on the original. I do admire Baranski, but Julianna Margulies was much more appealing and complex in her title role: suffering wife, passionate lover, moral advocate, ambitious fighter. Baranski is more muted and faces fewer conflicts, making the spin-off less compelling.

The first season is available now, and the show has been renewed, although I’m not sure why. But I won’t discourage you from taking a look, particularly if you are a fan of Baranski.

Grade: B-

 

 

Chance, Hulu, one season, renewed

Hugh Laurie has had some ups and downs in a long career. He was great as the obnoxious, but talented surgeon in House. He was delightfully evil as the villain in The Night Manager, the acclaimed 2016 mini-series. Then there was the flaccid and dull Senator for two seasons of the otherwise hilarious Veep.

He’s smart not to allow himself to get stuck with the same types of roles. In Chance he is a forensic psychiatrist, consulting for the San Francisco police. He reluctantly treats a patient (the alluring Gretchen Mol) who says she has a split personality. Is she the dutiful wife or her evil twin, trying to seduce Chance into thinking she’s not responsible for her crimes.

Laurie allows himself to be passive and baffled in this role, which feels foreign because of our familiarity with his more aggressive characters. His befuddlement does allow you to identify with him, as he is sucked into a world so unfamiliar to the cloistered Chance.

Laurie is actually upstaged by the talented Ethan Suplee. He plays the brutish “D,” who has an unlimited arsenal of weapons and becomes the muscle the timid Chance needs to take on the corrupt world of criminals and cops he uncovers.

Grade: B+

 

 

Better Call Saul, AMC, three seasons

Remember Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad? He was the shady attorney who could get Walter White out of any jam, and "Better Call Saul" was his promotional slogan. Recognizing the potential in a spin-off series, the producers created a prequel that shows how Irish Jimmy McGill became Jewish Saul Goodman.

At this start of this new series Jimmy has morphed into a lawyer after an earlier career as “Slippin’ Jimmy,” a con artist who extorted money by faking injuries on the icy sidewalks of Cicero, IL. He hustles around the courthouse picking up public defender jobs and works out of his car and a backroom at a nail salon. Jimmy has always been in the shadow of his older brother Chuck, a named partner at a prestigious law firm. Now Jimmy has to take care of Chuck, who refuses to leave his house because he thinks radiation is being emitted by the all the new technology.

Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy/Saul is the main reason this spin-off was created. With pitch perfect comedic timing, as befits a Saturday Night Live alum, and a perpetually embattled look, Odenkirk becomes the kind of anti-hero you’d love to hangout with.

If Odenkirk wasn’t so good, he would be eclipsed by Michael McKean as Chuck and Jonathan Banks, the enforcer in Breaking Bad, here just out of jail and trying to go straight as a cynical, but still dangerous parking lot attendant. It’s this trio and the taut scripts that have garnered so many award nominations.

Grade: A-

 

 

Versailles, Amazon Prime, two seasons

If you like costume drama and can ignore its dubious historical veracity, Versailles is good escapist TV. A young, attractive Louis XIV (George Blagden) has decided to outflank the jealous, threatening nobility by moving the official court from Paris to his father’s hunting lodge outside the city that he is transforming into the grand palace we know today. What results is constant intrigue as the king and his homosexual brother Phillipe (Alexander Vlahos) battle the nobles and each other.

You won’t find a better looking cast anywhere. Given the existing portraits of Louis and his retinue, that is a stretch, but who cares? You’re not watching this to understand the causes of the French Revolution. As with any royal family, like the Ewings and the Windsors, you delight in seeing how nasty they can be to each other while toting up, who’s winning and who’s losing.

All the bed hopping and backstabbing makes Versailles sexy and fun.

Grade: B

 

 

Bloodline, Netflix, three seasons

Set in the Florida Keys, this tense, unsettling series is a family drama with death, murder and guilt at its core. You immediately feel the relentless wind and sun that threatens to expose all the deep, ugly secrets of the Rayburn family, proprietors of an upscale resort.

Besides an intriguing plot and the evocative setting, Bloodline boasts an unrivalled cast, starting with Sissy Spacek and Sam Shepard as Sally and Robert Rayburn, the heads of rapidly disintegrating family.

Their oldest son Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) has returned to the resort after a jail term for selling cocaine. Middle son John (Kyle Chandler), a local detective, is torn between his professional responsibilities and family loyalty. Youngest son Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz) is drinking to forget that both his marriage and his boatyard are failing. Last is sister Meg (Linda Cardenelli), an attorney discomfited by the unethical choices she has to make. These are four fine actors that have the skill to make their complex, conflicted characters believable.

Haunting the family is the drowning death of younger sister, Sarah (Angela Winiewicz). Robert blamed Danny for her death and beat him mercilessly. The family covered it all up, starting a pattern of deception that continues to ensnare them all.

Grade: A-

 

 

The Collection, Amazon Prime, one season, renewed

One of the great things about streaming services is that they will take chances on ideas that are too narrow for broadcast TV. Can you imagine a network TV show about a fashion house in post-World War II Paris?

The upstart couturier is nominally run by Paul Sabine (Richard Coyle). His mother Yvette (Frances de la Tour) is constantly interfering, while his brother Claude (Tom Riley) is the creative talent. Paul promotes the house through his many connections with the Parisian elite, but there are whispers that he may have been a Nazi collaborator. This talented cast also features Mamie Gummer as Paul’s anxious wife and Jenna Thiam as Nina, resented by the other models for her modern, gamin look.

Since the plot wanders, a lot of the appeal is about ambience: glamour sprouting amid the war’s devastation; an unstable society turning on itself to expunge the guilt of complicity. The characters are memorable, and the situation illuminates a lost era.

Grade: B