Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s a Hypothetical Question Mark. He’s the…

Vidiot

Week of April 20, 2018

If the news is fake than what about sports and the weather? First up…

The Post

Online newspapers are great and all but having a tablet delivered every morning is expensive.

Thankfully, this drama is set when we only had to cut down a tree to get Dear Abby.

In the wake of her husband’s death, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) becomes sole owner of the Washington Post. She promptly takes the small-time paper public.

But if she hopes to compete against the NY Times, Graham’s editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) is going to have to look beyond his hack purview. Bradlee finds his golden goose in leaked top-secret documents detailing the futility of the Vietnam conflict.

Based on the alarming true story, director Steven Spielberg takes this timely tale of government corruption and breaks it into digestible data. Unfortunately, this education approach to storytelling doesn’t lend well to the script’s feminist subplot.    

Fortunately, nowadays any woman can own a newspaper because publishers are desperate to sell.  Yellow Light

 

Phantom Thread

Ironically, the one career that men will always outperform women at is designing women’s fashion.

Case in point, the virtuoso dressmaker observed in this drama.

Top designer to London’s post-WWII elite, confirmed bachelor Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is as renowned for his haute couture as he is for his fussy temperament. Even his new muse Alma (Vicky Krieps) falls prey to Woodcock’s aloofness when she moves into his fashion house and becomes his wife.

It is not until a walk in the woods does Alma discover a noxious way of keeping her mercurial man in check and under her thumb.

Beautifully shot and forcefully acted with a haunting score, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest offering is a successful - but long-winded - analysis of genius and the extreme measures it takes to live with one.

Moreover, living with a genius is easy; just keep their brain in a jar of formaldehyde.  Yellow Light

 

The Commuter

The best thing about public transportation is the complimentary freak-show you get with your fare.

Unfortunately, the commuter is this thriller has to interact with the on-board oddities.

On his way home after being downsized, family man Michael (Liam Neeson) wonders how he will pay for his son’s education when another passenger aboard the train (Vera Farmiga) offers him $25,000.

The only hitch is that Michael must find a traveller on the train named Prynne and tag them with a GPS.  However, the closer he gets to locating Prynne, the more Michael learns of the money and its mysterious owner.

While there are fisticuffs to accompany the bouts of intrigue, for the most part this is pretty standard Liam Neeson fare that finds him playing the same stock tough-guy he’s played for the last decade.

Incidentally, after losing their job most people get under the train instead of on it.  Yellow Light

***Tomcat Walk***

Valentino: The Last Emperor

The best way to design a dress for a woman is to never ask her what she wants.

In fact, the only person that the dressmaker in this documentary listens to is his business partner.

Filmed over the final years of his career in the fashion industry, enigmatic designer Valentino Garavani reluctantly opens up the doors of his illustrious fashion house to the public for the first time as he preps to hang up his shears for good.

Archival footage documenting his early beginnings in Italy to his rise in popularity amongst Hollywood starlets, like Elizabeth Taylor, is interwoven with scenes of his last show in 2008, as well as in-depth interviews with some of those aforementioned celebrities, fellow designers, critics and Valentino’s longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti to construct one compelling biography.

Moreover, Valentino is proof that a man can design a dress for a woman that isn’t see-through.

He’s a Duress Maker. He’s the….

Vidiot