WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY

(2017) Also known as Seven Sisters, Netflix's What Happened to Monday is - at its best - a stylish, edge-of-your-seat thriller starring an exceptional Noomi Rapace as the Settman sisters ... seven identical siblings living in hiding since birth because of a dystopian world where - in the very near future - overpopulation has gotten so bad, a One-Child law is enacted, with any additional children being frozen and held on ice for a future when enough space and resources can be found to allow them to live freely again.  For the Settman girls, whose mother died giving birth to them, it was their grandfather Terrence (Willem Dafoe) who couldn't bear to turn six of them in, so he raised them in a large upper-floor apartment with several hidden rooms, giving each girl the name of a day of the week because that was the one day she could go out into society and publicly be the one and only "Karen Settman" - the identity all seven girls would end up taking on, on their one day a week out.  After a quick set-up of the siblings and society, we flash-forward thirty-plus years to a Monday morning, and sister Monday leaving for work to give an important presentation as her other siblings look on (grandpa has since passed).  Each sister, once home at the end of the workday, details everything that happened to her siblings, so that none of them have trouble keeping up the Karen facade even at work ... but on this workday Monday never comes home after work, and her sisters don't know what the heck to do.  Because in this world everyone walking around outside is constantly scanned and accounted for, Grandpa brought the girls up terrified of going outdoors, unless she was the girl playing Karen that day, but now as Monday remains missing ... and then Tuesday, heading to work the next day as Karen to try and find out what's going on, also disappears ... the rest of the septuplets realize the Child Allocation Bureau - headed by the cold-as-ice Nicolette Cayman (Glenn Close) - might be onto them, so they have no choice but to act.  Noomi Rapace is kind of incredible as all seven Settman girls, Close true to form as the icy politico with her own agenda, and as the plot unravels and the sisters seem to be doomed, true motives and betrayals come to light with enough surprises to give this twisty, original film the equally WTF? ending it deserves. A heck of an entertaining, very believable and suspenseful film, even with its over-the-top plot, thanks to the smart casting of its seven leads in Rapace. (not rated)  9/10 stars

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

(1957) Just finished a re-watch of one of the best courtroom dramas ever committed to film.  Witness for the Prosecution, directed to perfection by maestro Billy Wilder, features a stellar cast that brings to dramatic, vivid life the short story by the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie; a story that has such a startling, unexpected ending, a voiceover at the end of the film asks the viewer to please never divulge the ending they just saw to another, in the event of spoiling the film for them.  Tyrone Power stars as Leonard Vole, an American living in the UK trying to find his place in the world more than a dozen years after serving in World War II.  He's an inventor - more of a milquetoast, really - married to a German woman named Christine (the one and only Marlene Dietrich), the two of them having fallen in love during wartime, and seems a man simply wandering through life when a chance passing by of a hat store introduces Vole to the rich widow Emily French (Norma Varden).  The two become friends over the next several weeks, incurring the adoration of Mrs. French and ire of her housekeeper Janet (Una O'Connor) ... until, sure enough, Janet comes home one night to find her employer bashed over the head and killed - Leonard Vole summarily arrested for the crime when it's learned the smitten widow left him eighty-thousand pounds in her will.  Enter Sir Wilfrid Roberts (Charles Laughton), London's most infamous barrister and recent sufferer of a massive heart attack, who is literally sent home with a live-in nurse (Laughton's real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester) - and forbidden to try any more cases in open court - on the very day Leonard Vole arrives to hire him for his defense.  Roberts brushes off the case, passing it onto a more-than-capable colleague ... until Christine Vole, cold as ice and twice as hard, shows up in his offices and implies, in more ways than one, that perhaps she doesn't have her beloved husband's best interests at heart for his murder trial, after all.  Everything about this film shines like a raw diamond - the performances, direction, cinematography, writing, everything - and considering much of the movie takes place in a courtroom, there is not a boring moment or single frame of wasted time in the film's entire 116-minute runtime.  The hilarious, often cutting banter between Lanchester and Laughton is priceless - the screen literally lights up whenever they are on it together - and perfectly off-sets the more dramatic tension of the story itself.  And then there's that ending; one which, if you've never seen this or don't know the story, will knock you on your proverbial ass as the story flips - flips - and flips again, all within the last ten minutes of the film.  One of the last truly great classics from Hollywood's Golden Age, they simply didn't make films better than Witness for the Prosecution - and, sadly, never will again. (unrated)  9.5/10 stars

"7 Random Questions": Conversations with Actors

Years ago, when I lived in Los Angeles, I had an old review blog on which I decided to include interviews with actors (though other writing, eventually, got in the way, time-wise).  If I learned one thing from living in the bizarre circus of La La Land, it was to nurture my love of actors; whether a seasoned, award-winning vet or someone who's just landed his/her first speaking role on a primetime series, my deepest respect for what actors (especially the "struggling actor") go through, having seen it first hand - giving up decent food and clothing and even living out of a car to pursue "the dream" - is unmatched.  I often think I should have been an agent; truly think I'd fight for my actors like a mama bear fighting for her children, with 150% conviction of their talent and the daily act of imparting that conviction into the heart of any casting directors who would listen (think Beverly Goldberg sharing her schmoopies with the world).

I MISS doing those phone interviews, and seek to start them up again, here, with a slightly different format called "7 Random Questions" that, basically, works like this:

For an approximate ten-minute phone interview, there would be a total of nine questions.  The first of which will be a version of "Why acting?" (or writing, or directing, or music - depending on the subject) - establishing what turned the person to the industry or that profession in the first place. And in the end question 9, to wind things up, would be a variation on the age-old "Where would you like to be in five years?" theme, to establish the subject matter's hopes or plans for the future; where they'd like to be then, especially in their professional lives.

It's the seven questions in between the actor won't know, going in.  I have a list (so far) of nearly thirty questions (could be anything from "Dogs or cats?" to "Who are your heroes?"), seven of which I would pull from to ask the interview subject.  Nothing controversial, by any means - the point of the interview is to spotlight the actor to the public, particularly for those who might not yet know their work (see "ARCHIVED INTERVIEWS" on the right column of this blog, where you can read a couple of the old sample interviews I've done to get an idea) ... but should know their work, at least in my opinion because each professional interviewed here will be a personal favorite of mine.  Granted, I have lofty ambitions - you can see, here, images of some of the actors I'd give anything to interview/include on this page (and even all this is just a small sampling) - but either way, please do bookmark this page, and keep checking back for interviews of some genuinely talented individuals here; actors and artists you should be paying some HUGE attention to, if you aren't already!

And if you are an actor open to a lively, fun 9-question interview - 7 of those questions random, just to get you thinking - please, by all means, I am hoping to talk with YOU!

LIFE

(2017) Half a dozen astronauts/scientists, aboard an international space station on a mission to retrieve samples from Mars that may denote life on the planet, luck out by finding a tiny single-cell organism that eventually does - indeed - prove irrevocably that life beyond Earth exists, in director Daniel Espinosa's visually stunning but ultimately soulless take on an updated Alien.  Needless to say, the tiny organism - named "Calvin" - doesn't stay tiny for long, and soon the quality cast (including Ryan Reynolds, basically playing Ryan Reynolds, along with Jake Gyllenhaal, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Rebecca Ferguson, to name a few) find themselves peeping around every corner, into every air duct, and doing a lot of running for doors that will hermetically seal them off from the ever-growing, increasingly pissed off (and intelligent) Calvin.  Unable to not compare this film to Ridley Scott's masterpiece, the one glaringly obvious thing Alien had going for it that's lacking in Life is a sense of caring for the characters and what happens to them.  In Alien we cared the snot about Dallas and Ripley and company, and what happened to them; here, you don't really get a sense of who these people are outside of the space station, and any emotional attachment to the film's characters suffers a bit from it.  Life has its moments, and is worth seeing if you're into the whole alien-vs-man/woman genre.  Also, Calvin is kind of cool.  And then there's that ending - which I actually liked, although I fear many seeing the film might not. (rated R)  7/10 stars

October 27th!

Season 2.  'Bout damn time, Netflix.

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2

(2017) How I loved John Wick.  It was insane, violent, over-the-top, mindless fun, and fit perfectly Keanu Reeves block-of-wood acting style.  Looked forward with anticipation to the sequel even as I knew they'd mess it up; happily, John Wick: Chapter 2 meets somewhere in the middle between hope and reality.  After killing about a bazillion people in the first film, Wick (Reeves) comes home to a new dog, just wanting to get back to his life, until old frenemy Santino (Riccardo Scamarcio) crawls out from under his rock to remind John of an old debt.  A debt that, in fact, will not only thrust John Wick back into the old life of a killer he's so desperate to leave behind ... but also a debt that, if he refuses to pay it, means his certain death.  Naturally, Wick refuses so Santino blows up his house, at which time Wick "gets it" - he has no choice - so after putting his new dog in a safe place he fulfills the contract ... only to find a bit of a double-cross when, to cover his tracks, Santino puts out a high-paying hit out on John's ass to every assassin in his Rolodex.  Thus the carnage begins anew, Wick mostly on the defensive this time as the bodies stack up again and the soulless killer cuts a bloody swath toward Santino ... in a sequel that never quite comes up to par to the original.  The mindless fun isn't quite there, the addition of Common as a bodyguard/assassin is nothing more than an annoying distraction - and unfortunately, instead of being a brooding monosyllabic killing machine here, the film actually tries to give Wick some viable dialogue that allows Reeves a chance to ... "act" instead of just be.  A serviceable sequel, but overall unnecessary and without the visceral glee of number one. (rated R)  6/10 stars 

HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE

(1935) One heck of a reminder, again, of why I fell in love with classic films in the first place, Hands Across the Table stars Carole Lombard (along with Bette Davis, my favorite actress of all time) as Regie Allen, a manicurist for a swanky New York hotel who has long ago given up on love in favor of marrying for money and a stable life.  Regie's found a best buddy in millionaire Allen Macklyn (Ralph Bellamy), a disabled long-term resident of the hotel who gets regular manicures just to visit with her, and to him sometimes the romantic dreamer in Regie still shines through ... but it's the rich, engaged-to-be-married Theodore Drew III (Fred MacMurray), staying temporarily at the hotel prior to his upcoming marriage, that shows an interest in a very nervous Regie, who in turn has her eyes on his bank account.  After a whirlwind night on the town together, however, Regie learns that Drew no longer has his fortune - and is, in fact, the male version of her, his upcoming marriage for money only.  The two form an unlikely alliance/friendship, but through all those dollar signs can't necessarily deny their attraction to each other, broke as each may be.  I loved this film; not nearly as melodramatic as the poster would have you believe, Hands Across the Table is a instead a very funny, even more charming romantic comedy, Carole Lombard at her most captivating and beautiful as she literally makes the screen glow with her presence ... while Fred MacMurray proves, hands-down, that comedy was indeed his true forte.  Lovely film, not to be missed. (unrated)  9/10 stars

**Sorry, no trailer available online!**

LITTLE EVIL

(2017) Original Netflix productions can be hit or miss, but when I saw the trailer for what appeared to be a parody of sorts of The Omen - well, as big a fan as I am of the original trilogy there was no way I could miss that.  Adam Scott stars in the horror comedy Little Evil as Gary, a real estate agent who's finally found the woman of his dreams in Samantha (Evangeline Lilly), the two marrying after a whirlwind courtship. The only fly in the ointment seems to be Sam's five-year-old son Lucas, whom Gary didn't get to spend much bonding time with prior to the wedding - and sure enough, early in the film as Gary is trying to settle into being a stepdad and husband, viewers slowly learn that something fairly sinister and unnamed happened at the wedding ... something somehow related to Lucas, who hasn't exactly taken a shine to Gary. In fact, it would appear Lucas might be downright evil - a sentiment echoed by Gary's group of stepdad friends (led by the hilarious Bridget Everett as Al, who steals every scene shes's in and, in fact, nearly the entire film), who've all felt the same about their stepkid(s) at one time or another. But no, creepy little Lucas really IS evil, complete with a demonic goat puppet (LOVE Reeroy!) and the ability to make people harm themselves, and soon it becomes necessary for Gary and Al to find a way to stop both Lucas and the oncoming Apocalypse - all with, somehow, not killing Lucas and ruining Gary's marriage.  For the first hour of Little Evil I thought the film was good/okay; I laughed out loud in spots, yes, and the performances are fine even if the film itself sometimes didn't seem sure of when it was a comedy and when it was going for scary.  But then a flip in the plot happens, something I didn't see coming, and the last thirty minutes of the film made me kind of fall in love with the whole thing (look for Sally Field in a terrific supporting role that's worth seeing the movie for alone). Having not seen many films about step-parenting the anti-Christ to compare it to, I can still say - without hesitation - that Little Evil is a very strange, very funny indie comedy that for-sure puts a check-mark in the "plus" column of Netflix original productions. (rated TV-MA)  7/10 stars