Tetris (2023)

Score: 2 / 5

It's not exactly the kind of film anybody expects or wants. The supposedly real-life story of how one of the first digital games became a worldwide phenomenon sounds interesting enough, but ultimately we're just talking about Tetris. Blocks slowly falling as you attempt to create full rows and stop the buildup. A time-waster of the highest order, the game now lends itself to a film that could have leaned into that mentality. Instead, the film, an AppleTV+ exclusive, tries desperately to spin a yarn of international intrigue framed by big business, government oversight, and fraud, as if the whole escapade was a spy flick. I don't think the premise or concept is inherently wrong or misguided, but I can tell you it certainly did not interest, engage, or enlighten me.

Directed by Jon S. Baird (Stan & Ollie, Filth), Tetris tries desperately to be the exciting story of Henk Rogers, founder of an American software company who "discovers" a new video game and wants in on its big rollout to the world. As narrator, Rogers plays a strange game like a cheap magician, carrying us along a wildly complex ride of patents and copyrights and laws between major software firms and agencies in the Soviet Union, Japan, and the U.S. He notices the oddball game at a convention in Tokyo, learns it was quietly developed by a Russian programmer and distributed privately, and decides that with details about its popularity and potential beyond the Iron Curtain, he wants to make it big by licensing and distributing it worldwide.

The problem is that Rogers is in way over his head. He's a low-level entrepreneur suddenly thrust into the world of big business in the quickly blooming computer age, yes, but also in Cold War politics and legalities. As such, Baird's approach to storytelling goes from a dynamic, kinetic enthusiasm in the early part of the film to a color-leeched and more somber tone once Rogers gets to Russia. Fittingly, his family welfare suffers as a result of his single-minded determination to own the game, and their financial future is as much at stake as his relationship with his wife and daughter. Thankfully, Taron Egerton proves himself yet again as a compelling and deeply nuanced leading man -- something his flashy big action and fantasy roles thus far haven't quite showcased -- and his Rogers is the kind of intriguing almost-antihero that plays off both his charming likability and his dubious integrity. Maybe that's unfair, as the film doesn't really question his business practices, but his somewhat innocent incompetence in understanding the politics of "keep out of Russia" and "other suits don't play fair" feels more convenient than believable for most of the film. Especially given his tireless perseverance.

A great ensemble fills out the large cast of characters, including a shrewish Toby Jones as negotiator Robert Stein and especially Roger Allam as Robert Maxwell, the infamous business villain of the 1980s, who together with his son Kevin (Anthony Boyle) attempts to profit from Tetris by meeting directly with Gorbachev. It's all kind of interesting, but mired and muddled with lots of talk about market value and copyrights and frankly I didn't understand most of what was happening. Things become a bit more clear as Rogers attempts to avoid and also work with the Soviet authorities, but they're so hammily caricatured that these scenes feel like a different movie altogether. Case in point: a Russian thug literally threatens to throw a child out a window several floors up to demonstrate that everything -- like in Tetris -- falls at the same rate, thanks to gravity. It's the kind of zinger that could provoke chills if it wasn't cartoonishly funny.

I don't know entirely if the breezy, cheeky tone is all Baird's doing, or writer Noah Pink's (who really should be applauded anyway for turning such a drab, drawn out story into something at least concise and dramatic), or simply because Matthew Vaughn produced it. Regardless, the ambivalent and somewhat condescending tone is thoroughly not entertaining; vilifying Russians as "crazy" in this day and age feels more than a little tone-deaf, as does championing the victories of capitalism over communism. In fact, apart from Rogers, ultimately made into an underdog against the USSR, no other character in the film is much more than a caricature of various archetypes. The film itself feels like it wants to lean into the intricacies of politics and finance, but it undercuts its own efforts with breakneck editing, insider jargon you can barely follow, and truly bizarre special effects littered throughout to remind us that in Rogers's head, apparently, colorful blocks are always falling. Trouble is, he's not a savant, and this isn't The Queen's Gambit (which I also generally dislike, for different reasons but on similar premises).

Mr. Holmes (2015)

Score: 4.5 / 5

When the lights first came up during the ending credits, I confess myself to have been disappointed. I've been spoiled by the several incarnations of our favorite sleuth in recent film and television, and frankly I enjoy those versions' speed, wit, and energy. I knew this film would have little, if any, of that, but I was still a little fidgety in the auditorium as I watched the old man slowly crossing the screen before me.

But the film has not left my mind since I saw it, and I realize now that it might be the most fascinating movie I've seen all summer. Screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher (and original author Mitch Cullin) and director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls, The Fifth Estate) have done something remarkable with the character of Sherlock Holmes and his world. They have made it understated. In fact, everything in the film is so marvelously nuanced and calm that it's quite easy to miss the calculated beauty and intrigue. And, as I continue to reflect on the work, that is precisely what makes the film so memorable.

And, of course, Ian McKellan is astonishing as an old man fighting to regain his memory and solve his last case. But for all of us who love Holmes will attest, "the case" isn't really his only intellectual pursuit. This film weaves together three completely different cases, all centering on Holmes: These are not cases that he is simply solving, but rather cases in which he himself is complicit. One concerns his last professional case, involving a mysterious woman who has lost her children. One involves a Japanese man who harbors a secret animosity toward the man he believes stole his father away. And one involves Holmes's housekeeper, who is displeased with her situation, and her son, who develops an intimate friendship with the old man.

McKellan is carried back and forth in time and place by our filmmakers, and he carries the weight (and makeup) of it admirably. His eyes, often staring into space to search for something beyond our comprehension, show the sadness, the perception, the love, and, as he himself declares, the regret in his life. He seems to effortlessly play the part of a dying old man, and yet his vigor and passion shines brightest when he shares scenes with the young boy (Milo Parker) who lives with him. The two are matches for each other in curiosity and excitement, and seeing the care with which they treat each other pulls at your heartstrings like you won't believe.

There are certainly other jewels in the cast -- notably with Laura Linney and Frances de la Tour -- but none have enough screen time to capture our attention. Rather, we follow Holmes as he navigates his own foggy memories and see how they hamper his daily activities. We see flashbacks in the way he himself might, with images that fly across the screen that don't make sense until much later in the picture. When, about three-quarters of the way through the film, Holmes remembers/solves one of his cases, I thought for sure the rest of the film would be a melodramatic descent into tragedy as we saw the now "successful" detective lose his mind entirely.

Instead, the last quarter of the film digs still deeper into his character. He shares his regrets and his frustrations, and he articulately reveals the one problem that forever eluded him. We also see how he has been attempting to solve that problem with his housekeeper and her son, and we ultimately see him grapple with it until he gains victory. I could have never seen this movie's climax coming. More important, I don't think Mr. Holmes could have. But Condon puts together all the pieces of this immense puzzle into such an elaborate pattern that it will take me several viewings to appreciate all the subtleties in this picture.

And, happily, this movie ends with an uplifting sensation that reduced me to a blubbering mess. I mean, how many films about old people -- especially old heroes -- end with anything but death or, maybe worse, loss of self (I'm thinking of The Iron Lady, and how it ends with a haunting look at isolation and a retrograde situation)? But this is a celebration of sorts of life, curiosity, caring for others, and coping with a haunted past.

If you like mindless blockbuster entertainment, you may want to pass this one up. Mr. Holmes is anything but elementary.

IMDb: Mr. Holmes

The Book Thief (2013)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I finally saw this war drama, which I don't think had a wide theatrical release, and fell madly in love. It's not what I expected, and it's not really an original landmark, but it's really, truly lovely. Especially notable is John Williams's score, which skillfully heightens the drama without drawing much attention to itself (a feat John Williams has not been able to do in his frequent Spielberg collaborations).

We follow young Liesel (Sophie Nelisse), adopted into a German family as the Nazis rise to power. Over the course of four years, she learns fear, bravery, and love through her experiences, and, perhaps most importantly, she learns to read. Taught by her foster father (Geoffrey Rush), she actively learns to read and write on her basement walls before creatively spinning tales of her own to comfort the shaken community during air raids. Though integrated into the Hitler Youth, Liesel remains curious and open-minded: She deliberately reads books after seeing the Nazis burn them, and she quickly befriends and protects Max, a Jewish refugee hiding in her home.

I have several reasons for liking this film, and most of them are purely reactionary. By that, I mean I don't have a lot of high-brow Thoughts about The Book Thief, because it is almost shockingly simple and sweet in its delivery. It seems to have no grand delusions of its own importance (which makes it profoundly important, I might add), and indeed it often feels like a child's fantasy. Gentle and even whimsical, the film runs to a slow pace and a palpable heartbeat. That's not to say it is trivial or unsentimental; it is certainly weighted with its thematic content and the contexts of racial, gendered, political, social, and intellectual oppression of Nazi Germany. One of the main discussion points for me is the voice-over narrator (Roger Allam), who represents Death. This is a fantastic concept, a relatively original cinematic device, and a complicated rhetorical move in an otherwise optimistic film, all wrapped up into one.

Though danger and death threaten our protagonists at every turn, nothing seems to quench Liesel's hope, which sometimes makes this film feel a bit like a re-imagining of Anne Frank's famous narrative. Indeed, Liesel's ultimate penning of a diary makes the film more of a comedy in the traditional sense of the word (in which the plot is generally hopeful, or "upward", rather than "downward", as in a tragedy). The greatest warmth and charm of the film are provided by Geoffrey Rush in his typical brilliance, though his character's wife (played perfectly by Emily Watson) brings her own big-hearted presence to the tale.

Director Roger Allam, though, deserves the most credit for this venture. His undeterred efforts to make the film hopeful and warm pay off magnificently in just about every scene. He smartly shows us an awful possibility -- hints at the worst of what we could imagine -- and then allows his characters to persevere, which makes the results of each scene almost as shocking as the horrors we might otherwise expect, but in a positive way. Make no mistake, this is a wartime drama. But there is very little violence, no battle sequence, and even the deaths of main characters (I'm really not spoiling anything, I promise) aren't really devastating. All in all, The Book Thief is one of the most unpredictable dramas I've ever seen, and its sentimental heart never succumbs to melodrama. It's just beautiful.

IMDb: The Book Thief