Susan Granger’s review of “The Crown: Season 6, Part 1” (Netflix)

The global soap-opera known as the British Royal Family continues with “The Crown:  Season 6, Part 1,” revolving around the final days of Diana, Princess of Wales (Elizabeth Debicki), and her ill-fated romance with Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) back in the summer of 1997.

What’s fascinating – and unexpected – is how series creator Peter Morgan focuses on the persistent photographers whom doe-eyed Diana, at first, courted, then despised, and how the austere Queen (Imelda Staunton) and Prince Charles (Dominic West) eventually participated in the social media frenzy.

Apparently, after the tabloids were filled with Diana canoodling with Dodi in St. Tropez, Prince Charles agreed to counterstrike with staged photographs of Prince William and Prince Harry at Balmoral Castle in Scotland – in addition to trying to gain public acceptance of his on-going affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles.

So how do viewers separate fact from fiction? Let’s examine some salient points:

FACT: When Mohamed al-Fayed summoned his eldest son Dodi to his Jonikal yacht, Dodi was engaged to model Kelly Fisher, who later sued him, alleging breach of contract.

FICTION: The manipulative father/son conversations, Dodi’s ambivalence and Diana’s articulate empathy are figments of Peter Morgan’s imagination. However, as shown in earlier seasons, Mohamed al-Fayed was obsessed with the Royals, hiring King Edward VIII’s former valet and then buying/restoring Edward & Wallis’s former Paris home, renaming it Villa Windsor.

FACT: Diana enjoyed psychic readings with Rita Rogers, a Derbyshire medium of Romany origin, and Dodi accompanied her to one on August 12, 1977. Ms. Rogers had told her she would meet a man of foreign descent with the initial ‘D’ and that man would be connected with the film industry. Dodi was impressed and intrigued.

FICTION: Peter Morgan deduced their conversation from various reports.

FACT: Dodi bought Diana a ring in Paris and proposed marriage; that ring inscribed with ‘Dis-Moi Oui’ (‘Tell Me Yes’) was later found in his flat.

FICTION:  When, how and why Dodi proposed was dramatized, along with Diana’s response. From “Elvis” to “Oppenheimer” to “Napoleon,” biopic writers fictionalize dialogue because no one knows exactly who said what to whom.

FACT: In his memoir “Spare,” Prince Harry wrote that when Prince Charles broke the tragic news, he didn’t hug his son: “He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis?…Pa didn’t hug me but his hand did fall once on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ That was quite a lot for him…And so very untrue.”

FICTION: Prince Charles is shown being openly affectionate in comforting Princes William and Harry after their mother’s death.

So what about to the appearance of Diana’s ‘ghost,’ a spirit haunting not only Prince Charles but also the Queen? Cheesy melodrama!

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Crown: Season 6, Part 1” is an irresistible 8 – with four episodes streaming on Netflix.

 

Susan Granger’s review of “Nyad” (Netflix)

Is the name Diana Nyad familiar to you? As embodied by Annette Bening in the new biopic “Nyad,” she’s the long-distance open-water swimmer who retired from her athletic career on her 30^th birthday only to decide – at age 60 – to swim 111 miles from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida.

The longest open-ocean swim in history, that murky marathon would take her through turbulent, shark-filled waters, battling swarms of venomous box jellyfish with three-foot tentacles whose stings have been compared with fiery, electric shocks.  Her perseverance is awesome.

Filmed by underwater photographer Pete Zuccarini over a period of about two months in 2022, Bening’s performance required her to spend three to eight hours a day in a 233’ x 233’ tank off the coast off the Dominican Republic. Previously, she’d devoted a year to training with former U.S. Olympic swimmer Rada Owen.

Adapted by screenwriter Julia Cox from Nyad’s memoir “Find a Way” and directed by Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the husband-and-wife team best known for their Oscar-winning rock-climbing documentary “Free Solo” (2018), the film also chronicles the relationship between feisty Nyad and her best-friend/reluctant coach Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster).

“I’m not done,” Nyad defiantly insists as they play a ferociously competitive game of ping-pong, “I have more in me.” Besides, her mythic namesakes/ancestors were the nymphs who swam in the lakes, rivers and oceans to protect them for the gods,

Short-tempered, self-centered and tactless, Diana Nyad demanded as much from Stoll and her crew as she did from herself, particularly her navigator (Rhys Ifans).

An obvious Best Actress Oscar-contender, Annette Bening delivers a bravura performance as the cranky, complex competitor. A four-time Academy Award honoree, Bening was previously nominated for “The Grifters,” “American Beauty,” “Being Julia,” and “The Kids Are All Right,”

In the Supporting category, Jodie Foster captures the not only the ambivalence but also the physicality of Nyad’s former lover-now-trainer; it’s also Foster’s first role as an openly gay woman.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Nyad” is an agonizing, inspirational, exhausting 8, streaming on Netflix.

Susan Granger’s review of “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” (Lionsgate)

When the original “Hunger Games” devoured the silver screen in 2012, I vividly remember the savage power of its pop culture message about formidable female empowerment, particularly in contrast with its banal, dull, boring prequel “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

Adapted by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt from Suzanne Collins’ YA bestsellers and directed by Francis Lawrence, this epic, tri-part dystopian dirge is set 64 years before the original trilogy. Although he doesn’t appear on-screen, it’s the origin story of Panem’s tyrannical President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland).

Instead, we’re introduced to a teenage, orphaned Cadet Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who is determined to rescue his cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) and grandma (Fionnula Flanagan) from genteel poverty.

To that end, he’s assigned as Mentor to Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), chosen as a Tribute at the Reaping ceremony to represent District 12 at the barbarous televised survival contest, hosted at the Capitol by smarmy weather-forecaster Lucretious ‘Lucky’ Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman).

Part of a travelling band of musicians called the Covey, Lucy warbles rebellious Appalachian-based folksongs, a gimmick designed to endear her to the viewing public and, thus, gain sponsors to benefit not only herself – by acquiring survival provisions – but also sneaky, ambitious Coriolanus.

The grisly, brutal Games are devised by snake-obsessed Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) and administered by creepy, morphine-addicted Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage).

In a pivotal scene in which poisonous snakes are slithering all over her, she bursts into song, making me want to stuff a sock in her mouth!

Eventually, devious Lucy and disgraced Coriolanus wind up in a remote cabin in the woods of District 12, where she may or may not have survived her search for an edible Katniss plant.

Which brings us to the essence of what’s lacking in this franchise film: Katniss Everdeen, the resourceful, heroic character embodied by charismatic Jennifer Lawrence.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” slinks in with a frightful 3, playing in theaters.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Holdovers”  (Focus Features)

When I evaluate movies on a Gauge of 1 to 10, my primary criteria revolves around: How well did the filmmakers accomplish what they set out to do?

So when I give a total 10 that usually indicates one of the Best Films of the Year. Alexander Payne’s new comedic drama “The Holdovers” qualifies.

Best known for his Oscar-winning “Sideways” (2004), Payne’s other films include “Citizen Ruth,” “About Schmidt,” “Election,” “The Descendants,” “Nebraska” and “Downsizing.”

Set at Christmastime in 1970 at prestigious Barton Academy, a rural Massachusetts prep school, “The Holdovers” revolves around Paul ’Walleye’ Hunham (Paul Giamatti), the cynical, curmudgeonly classics instructor forced to supervise the unfortunate boys unable to return home for the two-week holiday break.

When a rich kid’s dad arrives in his helicopter, he offers to take them all skiing – if their parents give permission. That leaves only arrogant, angry Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa) whose honeymooning mother and stepfather have abandoned him and cannot be reached.

So Paul and Angus are left on the abandoned campus with the school’s grieving cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph); her only son Curtis, one of Barton’s few Black graduates, was recently killed in Vietnam.

Screenwriter David Hemingson devises such distinctive, compelling backstories for each of these three lonely, sad souls that their traumatic misadventures turn out to be therapeutic, yet director Alexander Payne never succumbs to sentimentality.

The subtle, character-driven performances are superb. For Paul Giamatti (“Billions”), academia is familiar territory since his mother was a teacher, as were his grandparents, and his father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was President of Yale. He perfectly embodies the irascible, misanthropic professor of Ancient Civilizations.

When Dominc Sessa was ‘discovered’ by casting director Susan Shopmaker, he was a drama student at Deerfield Academy, where some of the location filming took place – along with Groton, Northfield Mount Herman and St. Mark’s.

And Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“Only Murders in the Building”) adroitly utilizes humor and humanity to hide her heartbreak.  

Plus there’s outstanding craftsmanship: Eigil Bryld’s snowy cinematography and Ryan Warren Smith’s nostalgic ‘70s production design are outstanding.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Holdovers” is a bittersweet, touching 10, playing in theaters.

Susan Granger’s review of “Fingernails” (Apple TV+)

 

As a critic, I’ve seen wretched sci-fi romantic dramedies – but few as ludicrous and repugnant as Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails.”

The premise is simple: What if technology could determine whether you and your partner are perfectly matched and in love? Would it matter to you if that simple test involved ripping out one of your fingernails – without anesthesia?

Unemployed teacher Anna (Jesse Buckley) is in a long-term relationship with Ryan (Jeremy Allen White). While their nightly routine of cuddling on the couch and watching nature documentaries has grown a bit tedious, Anna still thinks they’re happy. After all, they tested ‘positive’ for compatibility three years ago.

Nevertheless when Anna tells Ryan she’s starting a new job, she indicates that it’s at a local elementary school when, actually, she’s started training at the Love Institute, the company that administers the love-certification tests. Why does she lie? Good question.

Anna’s idealistic boss Duncan (Luke Wilson) assigns her to work with instructor Amir (Riz Ahmed) who shows her the way to counsel couples, encourage their intimacy and, inevitably, how to remove one of their fingernails with pliers.

The bloody severed nails are then placed in a microwave-like computer that whirrs and beeps, determining whether the couple gets a 100% score (meaning they’re really in love), 50% (meaning that one of them is but the other isn’t) or 0%. When couples get a negative result, they inevitably split up – even if they’re married.

The emotional and physical attraction between Anna and Amir is immediately obvious, along with the tortuous dilemma they’ll eventually face.

Best known for “The Lost Daughter” and “Women Talking,”Jesse Buckley is a lovely actress, so it’s startling to see how writer/director Christos Nikou (“Apples”) – making his English-language debut – saddles her with a garish hairstyle/fright wig. Perhaps it’s because Nikou apprenticed with director Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lobster”), also known for his grotesquely bizarre visuals.

Too bad Jeremy Allen White’s (“The Bear”) and Riz Ahmed’s (“Sound of Metal”) roles are so superficial.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Fingernails” is a futile 4, streaming on Apple TV+.

 

Susan Granger’s review of “All the Light We Cannot See” (Netflix)

 

Adapting a beloved best-seller isn’t easy, but screenwriter Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”) and director Shawn Levy (“Stranger Things”) tackle Anthony Doerr’s 544-page, 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel with timely relevance since antisemitism is – once again – rampant.

Set in occupied France during W.W.II, the epic story – often told in flashbacks – revolves around blind Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti) who lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her devoted father, Daniel LeBlanc (Mark Ruffalo), is a master locksmith.

Daniel is also a gifted craftsman who constructs intricately detailed models of their neighborhood so Marie-Laure can memorize the placement of stores and surrounding streets, giving her the ability to navigate and develop a sense of independence.

When Nazis invade, father and teenage daughter take refuge in the walled seaside town of Saint-Malo, moving in with reclusive great-uncle Etienne (Hugh Laurie), an agoraphobic W.W.I veteran who – as ‘the Professor’ – secretly broadcasts from his attic, delivering coded messages to aid the French Resistance.

Fearful that it will wind up in Hitler’s possession, Daniel carries a priceless-but-cursed diamond, a treasured Museum artifact. Known as the Sea of Flames, the fabled gem promises eternal life along with great misfortune.

Meanwhile in Germany, orphaned Werner Pfennig (Louis Hofmann) listens to a forbidden radio broadcast that brings him not only news but also hope for the future. Recognized for his radio-tech skills, Werner is recruited into the Army, where he dares to disobey orders. Inevitably, his path crosses with Marie-Laure’s.

Since Shawn Levy was adamant about ‘authenticity’ and ‘representation, radiant newcomer Aria Mia Loberti was a Ph.D. student at Penn State when she was discovered through a worldwide casting call for actors who are blind or visually impaired; seven year-old Marie-Laure is played by Nell Sutton, who is also blind.

Filming for 80 days in Budapest, Villefranche-de-Rouergue and Saint-Malo, the scene in which hordes of refugees flee from Paris includes real-life Ukrainians who had come west to Hungary to escape invading Russian troops.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “All the Light We Cannot See” is an intriguing 8 – the four-part mini-series is streaming on Netflix.

Susan Granger’s review of “Priscilla” (A24)

 

What would you call a 24 year old pop singer who pursues a 14 year-old girl, a naïve ninth grader who is dazzled by his fame and fortune?

I’d call him a manipulative predator, even if his name was Elvis Presley, but the gullible parents of Priscilla Beaulieu allowed him to groom her to be his ‘living doll,’ a pampered, privileged captive in Graceland’s gilded cage.

In casting “Priscilla,” filmmaker Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation,” “Marie Antoinette”) chose diminutive 5’1” Cailee Spaeny to play the titular role; she’s visibly dwarfed by 6’5” Jacob Elordi as towering Elvis.

Coppola deftly depicts exactly how US Army Pvt. Presley persuaded his superior officer to influence Paul & Ann Beaulieu that they should allow their adolescent daughter to date the lonely King of Rock ‘n’ Roll while he was stationed in West Germany in 1959; Paul Beaulieu was in the US Air Force at the time.

When Elvis returned home, he called Priscilla frequently to reassure her that he was planning to bring her to Memphis to complete her education.  Once enrolled in a local Catholic school there, she was such a poor student that she is shown cheating on a final exam in order to graduate from high-school.

Admitting her delusional romantic fantasy in her memoir “Elvis and Me” (1985), Priscilla poignantly notes: “You lived his life. You saw the movies he wanted you to see. You listened to the music he wanted to listen to. You’d go to places that he would go…I honestly didn’t have my own life…so I really kind of lost myself.”

Although Priscilla and Elvis slept in the same bed – where he plied her with ‘uppers’ and sleeping pills – she insists that they did not have sex until they were married on May 1, 1967, when she was 21.

(Lisa-Marie Presley was conceived shortly afterwards; she died earlier this year from a small bowel obstruction caused by adhesions from weight-loss surgery.)

Filmed for $20 million in 30 days in Toronto, the film hints that moody, controlling Elvis may have been sexually dysfunctional with a Madonna complex, although rumors were rampant that he had affairs with Ann-Margret, Nancy Sinatra, Connie Stevens, Rita Moreno and Linda Thompson – among others.

Significantly, the Presley Estate refused Coppola permission to use his music and – unlike Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” (2022) – Presley’s influential mentor/manager, Col. Tom Parker, never appears but Elvis obviously listens to his counsel.

After the Venice Film Festival premiere, now 78 year-old Priscilla Presley acknowledged, “Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework.”

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Priscilla” is a bleak, depressing 5, playing in theaters.

 

 

Susan Granger’s review of “The Retirement Plan” (Productivity Media)

 

After a brief release in theaters, Nicolas Cage’s newest action-comedy “The Retirement Plan” is now streaming.

The story begins in Miami with a heist that goes terribly wrong. As a result, Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) and his wife Ashley (Ashley Greene) are in possession of an incriminating flash-drive that mobster, Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) promised to give Hector (Grace Byrne), who heads an organized crime syndicate.

Desperate, Ashley hides it in the backpack belonging to her 11 year-old daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell) and puts her on a plane to the Cayman Islands with instructions to find a man named Matt (Nic Cage), who turns out to be her grumpy grandfather.

Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and reeking of liquor, scraggly-haired Matt resembles a derelict. Long estranged from Ashley, he doesn’t even know he has a granddaughter. He used to be in Special Forces, working as an assassin for the government, but he has no intention of giving up his peaceful beach-bum lifestyle,

Holding Jimmy hostage, Donnie then dispatches his Shakespeare-loving henchman Bobo (Ron Perlman) and General (Ronnie James Hughes) to accompany Sarah to retrieve the flash-drive.

So what happens? Imagine a ruthless ‘John Wick’-like hitman drowning himself in drink on an island for 30 years and then coming out of retirement

So how did Canadian writer/director Tim Brown (“The Cradle”) get Cage to star in this obviously low-budget crime-thriller? Apparently, Cage was intrigued with playing an older character like the granddad and Brown continuously urged him to improvise on the family theme.

Living on a sunny ‘Covid-free’ tropical island for several months in 2021 was also an inducement since there was a 16-day quarantine. Plus, Cage became friends with Ron Perlman while filming “Season of the Witch” (2011) and they enjoyed hanging out together.

FYI: Busy Nic Cage has appeared in six (6) other 2023 movies: “The Old Way,” “The Flash,” “Renfield,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Dream Scenario,” and“Butcher’s Crossing.”

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Retirement Plan” is an escapist 6, available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and/or Vudu.

Susan Granger’s review of “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Paramount/Apple TV+)

 

Master storyteller Martin Scorsese’s harrowing epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” relates an American true-crime drama, set in the 1920s.

Adapted from David Grann’s nonfiction 2017 best seller, the ambitious, solidly structured screenplay by Eric Roth and Scorsese focuses on the ruthless murders of members of the Osage Nation whom the U.S. government forced out of Kansas to relocate on 2,300 acres if barren land in what is now Oklahoma.

Until the 1890s, no one realized that the ‘barren land’ was teeming with oil, making the Indigenous people wildly wealthy. According to records, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent of more than $400 million today. They had more money per capita than any other populace in the United States.

When Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a W.W.I Army veteran, disembarks from a train in the Osage boomtown of Fairfax, he sees oil derricks everywhere, pumping ‘black gold.’ Local men are driving Pierce Arrows and riches abound.

Gullible Ernest – with his admitted weakness for women – has come to live with his conniving, cattle rancher uncle, William ‘King’ Hale (Robert DeNiro), who has ingratiated himself with the Osage and fluently speaks their language.

Lizzie Kyle (Tantoo Cardinal) is an elderly Osage widow with four daughters: Mollie (Lily Gladstone), Minnie (Jillian Dion), Rita (Janae Collins) and Anna (Cara Jade Myers). Soon, susceptible Ernest woos and weds wary, dignified Mollie (who is diabetic, requiring insulin injections) and he sires her children.

Each Osage woman has ‘headrights,’ meaning a share in the tribe’s Mineral Trust; when she dies, her rights pass to her next of kin – like her grieving white husband.

By 1925, a stealthy, systematic “culture of killing” has developed, attracting the attention of President Calvin Coolidge and the F.B.I.’s J. Edgar Hoover, who dispatches former Texas Ranger Tom White (Jesse Plemons) from Washington, D.C. to investigate the ugly, unsavory exploitation and sordid, sinister genocide.

Then in the early 1930s, Hoover gave a radio show permission to do a dramatic broadcast about how his fledgling crime fighter solved the tragic Osage murders, making Tom White the first G-man to garner nationwide publicity.

When DiCaprio optioned Grann’s book, he was set to play White. But after an early ‘table read’ and resolution to rewrite the script from a different perspective, he decided to play deluded Ernest Burkhart instead.

Credit Martin Scorsese, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Jack Fisk, and costumer Jacqueline West for immersing audiences in authentic Osage traditions, vivid pageantry and spiritual tribal customs. The $200 million budget is up there on the screen, culminating with Ilonshka dances and drumming.

As an inevitable 2024 Oscar contender, look for nominations for Scorsese, DiCaprio, De Niro and transcendent newcomer Lily Gladstone, who is of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage.

My primary reservation centers on the sprawling film’s three-hour-26-minute length. Granted – Scorsese has a compelling, multi-faceted tale to tell – but there should have been an intermission.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a nefarious 9, now playing in theaters; it will eventually stream on Apple TV+.

Susan Granger’s review of Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar” and three additional Raoul Dahl short stories (Netflix)

 

In the past few weeks, Netflix has quietly launched Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar” and three additional Raoul Dahl short stories.

Each is a fanciful fable drawn from the extensive ‘idea’ files that eccentric, cardigan-clad, curmudgeonly storyteller Dahl (Ralph Fiennes) kept in Gipsy House, his isolated ‘writing hut’ adjacent to his home in Buckinghamshire, England – where he wrote “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda.”

Set in the 1930s, “The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar” introduces a self-absorbed, scheming gambler (Benedict Cumberbatch) who learns a method of meditation that gives him X-ray vision to see through playing cards, launching him on a casino-hopping career that causes him to question his very existence. It’s 40 minutes long.

Next there’s “The Swan” recalling a macabre bullying incident that becomes lethal; then “The Rat Catcher” about a bizarrely feral exterminator; and finally “Poison,” set in India, where an inscrutable British officer believes that a highly poisonous krait snake is sleeping on his stomach – each running 17 minutes.

This whimsical cinematic anthology is the creation of Wes Anderson, who became intrigued by the emotional truths in Raoul Dahl’s work after adapting his novel into the Oscar-nominated, stop-motion animated “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009).

Stumped on how to translate Dahl’s jottings to the screen, Anderson decided to have the four principal actors (Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade), playing various characters, narrate the author’s adroit descriptions and their actions directly into the camera at a rapid pace with deadpan directness.

Anderson’s inventive, precisely calibrated contrivance works, along with analog & antiquarian visual touches supplied by fastidious production designer Adam Stockhausen, mischievous cinematographer Robert Yeoman and precise composer Alexander Desplat,.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar” and other tales score an enchanting, enigmatic 8, streaming – one after another – on Netflix.