It is hard to describe how utterly joyless and devoid of imaginative ideas The Electric State is. Netflix’s latest feature codirected by Joe and Anthony Russo takes many visual cues from Simon Stålenhag’s much-lauded 2018 illustrated novel, but the film’s leaden performances and meandering story make it feel like a project borne out by a streamer that sees its subscribers as easily impressed dolts who hunger for slop.
Entertainment
Director Sean Baker doesn’t know he’s the front-runner with 'Anora'
Upstairs at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Sean Baker is talking shop with veteran projectionist Ivan Rothberg as he’s threading the fifth reel of “Anora,” Baker’s Oscar-nominated crowd-pleaser that won top honors from the directors and producers guilds over the weekend.
Looking out the booth’s window onto the sold-out theater’s screen, we see that Igor (Yura Borisov) has just handed a red scarf to Ani (Mikey Madison) to buffer the frigid night air, so we have some time before Ani’s journey ends. We head to a tiny office around the corner where Baker plops down next to his wife and producing partner, Samantha Quan, and fellow producer Alex Coco. We’re surrounded by shelves stacked with boxes of Red Vines, Kit Kats and sparkling water. Quan grabs a pack of Cheez-Its. You take sustenance where you find it.
It’s been more than 48 hours since “Anora” swept top prizes at the Directors Guild of America and Producers Guild of America awards, and they still can’t believe it happened.
“When we got to the producers, I was just shut down for the night,” Baker says, noting the stress that came with winning the DGA and having to make a speech he wasn’t at all prepared to deliver. He won the DGA prize at 9 p.m., posed for pictures and then hopped in a car for the mile-long trip from Beverly Hills to Century City for the final moments of the PGA ceremony. “It was extremely weird to hear them call out ‘Anora.’”
From left, moderator Jim Hemphill, writer-director Sean Baker, co-producer Samantha Quan and co-producer Alex Coco, speaking after Tuesday’s Aero screening of “Anora.”
(Kay Qiao / American Cinematheque at Aero Theatre)
“I thought we were going to blank the whole weekend,” producer Coco says. Referring to the Critics Choice Awards held Friday, he adds, “I figured it we didn’t win there, that’s our obituary.”
“I didn’t think of it that way,” Baker says, “because I don’t really know the game that well. People are telling me now that we’re actually in the conversation again because of these wins. See, I didn’t know these wins would get us back into the conversation.”
But then Baker, two weeks shy of his 54th birthday, never expected to be in the awards conversation in the first place. Adept at making movies illuminating the underrepresented, Baker broke through in 2015 with “Tangerine,” the micro-budgeted tale of two trans sex workers working at the seedy intersection of Santa Monica and Highland in Hollywood. Baker famously shot the movie on iPhone 5s.
He followed that two years later with “The Florida Project,” another look at people on the margins, in this case, the residents of a rundown motel in the shadow of Disney World. Willem Dafoe, playing the motel’s beleaguered manager, earned the movie’s only Oscar nomination.
“I thought, ‘OK, I don’t think I’m going to get any more higher-brow than ‘The Florida Project,’” Baker says. “Like, that’s the top of my brow there. So if they’re not into that, if I’m scaring people off with that, then I’m not meant for this world.”
Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn in the movie “Anora.”
(Neon)
Baker followed “The Florida Project” with “Red Rocket,” again mixing hilarity, honesty and heartbreak in its story of a middle-aged porn star fleeing Los Angeles for his small Texas hometown. And then came “Anora,” the fractured fairy tale about a Brooklyn sex worker’s heady and, ultimately, devastating relationship with the son of a Russian oligarch.
“There was not one moment when we were making ‘Anora’ that I was like, ‘I’m doing this for a mainstream audience,’” Baker says. “To tell you the truth, it was very like, ‘I’m making this for the people who like my crazy stuff. I’m making this for the people who like “Red Rocket.” I’m going to be giving it to them.’”
“Except for when we were leaving for Cannes and you said, ‘This is going to be a nice relaxing trip,’” Quan reminds him, teasing. “You thought it was too commercial, so it wasn’t going to win anything.”
“I also thought it was too funny,” Baker replies. “Historically, comedies haven’t won too many awards there.”
“Anora” ended up taking the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. And Baker finds himself nominated for four Oscars, as a producer, director, writer and editor.
Which raises the question: Why, out of all of Baker’s films, is “Anora” the one that’s connecting with moviegoers and awards voters?
Baker shrugs his shoulders. “It’s very difficult to say. Maybe it’ll take a few years where you can look back at an era and have perspective on what was going on, culturally and politically.”
Coco thinks people are responding to the title character. Quan offers that it might be the “strange family” that forms between the film’s characters, all of whom are recognizable and human.
“And they’re all of a similar class,” Coco says, “all beholden to this family that has all the money. They’re trying to survive that.”
When Baker won the Palme d’Or, he shared a stage with George Lucas, one of his many heroes whom he has met the past few months, a list that includes Pedro Almodóvar and Christopher Nolan, the latter who presented him with the DGA award.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Baker says, noting how much he appreciates Nolan’s movies and work in film preservation. “So when I went up there, I was thinking I was definitely going to try to make him happy and talk about theatrical windows and shooting on film.” We all laugh. He turns to Quan. “Was he smiling back there?” She assures him he was.
Baker, left, speaks with fans after the screening.
(Kay Qiao / American Cinematheque at Aero Theatre)
Baker met another one of his idols a few days ago when he picked up the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Assn.‘s best picture award on the night that the group honored John Carpenter’s career. He didn’t know Carpenter would be there and Quan says her husband was “freaking out.”
“I’m never fully informing myself, so I didn’t know he was getting the career honor that night,” Baker says. “He’s such a hero. I still have the ‘Escape From New York’ poster on my wall. I had ‘Assault on Precinct 13’ above my bed in seventh and eighth grade. And, of course, ‘The Thing’ means so much to me.”
When the evening ended, Baker approached Carpenter and asked for a photo. The two posed together, giddily making metal signs with their fingers. If it’s not Baker’s most cherished moment from the past few months, it’s high on the list.
When I suggest that “Anora’s” ending, a perfect, ambiguous moment of release for its title character, might be another reason for its appeal, Baker circles back to Carpenter, saying he wished he had mentioned that aspect of the genre master’s filmmaking. Carpenter had a way with ambiguous endings.
“He taught me that,” Baker says. “All of my favorite movies have open endings. You’re putting the audience in an uncomfortable place where they’re asked to do the work. But too bad. It’s like, ‘I’m trying to respect you guys. I know you can do it.’”
The night they won the DGA and PGA honors, Coco headed to Akbar in Silver Lake with some friends. Baker and Quan went straight home to bed. The director had an early morning photo shoot he was leading the next day for W Magazine.
“I was buzzing,” Baker says. “It was hard to settle down.”
So how did you go to sleep?
Quan looks at me like I’m a child. She closes her eyes and mimes her head hitting a pillow. “I gotta go to sleep. If I don’t, I’m dead.”
“We’re trained to do that,” Baker says. “My brain is like, ‘If you don’t fall asleep, there’s going to be a domino effect.’”
This ability will come in handy over the weekend. Baker will be traveling to San Francisco on Thursday for an academy screening of “Anora,” then to New York on Saturday for the Writers Guild Awards and finally to London the next day for the British Academy Film Awards — though, apparently, much of this is news to Baker. (Remember that earlier comment about “never fully informing” himself?)
“Wait a minute,” he says, looking at Quan and Coco. “I’m doing WGA?”
“Yes, Saturday,” Coco tells him. “Then BAFTA Sunday.”
Baker slumps in his seat and starts laughing. Or is he weeping?
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” he says. He’s editing a movie he produced and co-wrote with Taiwanese filmmaker Tsou Shih-Ching titled “Left-Handed Girl,” and they’re trying to finish to make festival deadlines.
“I have like another 10 days,” he says, shaking his head.
“He’s had another 10 days for like 100 days,” Coco tells me.
“No, this is really pushing it,” Baker says. “It’s incredibly scary.”
This is scary? What about the Oscars?
“Well, one step at a time,” Baker says.
Rothberg doesn’t have any more reels to change. It’s time to head down to the theater for the Q&A. “Anora’s” journey is almost at an end.
Perusu Movie Synopsis: Two brothers discover their deceased father with a persistent erection and scramble to conduct his funeral while hiding this embarrassing condition from their gossipy small town.
Perusu Movie Review: When Biggus Dickus is less a character name and more a posthumous condition, you get Perusu, a comedy that proves not everything stays down when you kick the bucket. Director Ilango Ram’s Tamil remake of his own hit Tentigo turns funeral preparations into a farcical circus when two brothers discover their recently deceased father sporting an enthusiastic farewell salute that simply won’t quit. Cue the panic as Durai (a perfectly buzzed Vaibhav) and Swammy (Sunil) desperately try to keep dad’s final stand from becoming the talk of their nosy small town.
Perusu Movie Review: When Biggus Dickus is less a character name and more a posthumous condition, you get Perusu, a comedy that proves not everything stays down when you kick the bucket. Director Ilango Ram’s Tamil remake of his own hit Tentigo turns funeral preparations into a farcical circus when two brothers discover their recently deceased father sporting an enthusiastic farewell salute that simply won’t quit. Cue the panic as Durai (a perfectly buzzed Vaibhav) and Swammy (Sunil) desperately try to keep dad’s final stand from becoming the talk of their nosy small town.
The film barrels forward like a runaway hearse, rarely pausing between its rapid-fire dialogue and increasingly absurd attempts at concealment. Each new person drawn into the conspiracy — wives, mother, the loyal but exasperated Ameen (Bala Saravanan), and one very confused auto driver — adds another layer to the comedy of errors until the situation becomes as stiff as… well, you know. What makes this mechanism work is that the joke itself becomes secondary to the characters’ increasingly desperate machinations, allowing the film to tap into universal anxieties about family reputation and small-town gossip without resorting to heavy-handed social commentary.
Eventually, even the most enthusiastic anatomical jokes wear thin (there are only so many euphemisms one can deploy), and the pacing occasionally sags under the weight of too many characters juggling the same secret.
Vaibhav handles his sloshed character with credible restraint, while Sunil holds his own as the more composed brother. The seasoned supporting cast, including Bala Saravanan, Redin Kingsley, Dhanalaskhmi, Niharika, Chandini, and Munishkanth act as good set pieces.
Perusu never pretends to reach beyond its raunchy premise or offer profound insights into the human condition. It’s a two-hour exercise in committed absurdity that delivers what it promises — a consistent stream of chuckles punctuated by a few genuine laughs. Comedy’s rigor mortis hasn’t quite set in, but neither has true comic immortality.
Written By: Abhinav Subramanian
Entertainment
Review: How the storied Vienna Philharmonic returned to SoCal for the first time in a decade
It had been a decade and a year since the Vienna Philharmonic came our way to remind us how, for this storied ensemble of like-minded musicians, the medium can be magically both the message and the massage. The orchestra produces a ravishment of sound both immaterial and downright tactile.
The orchestra’s pair of concerts this week at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa were, as always, tradition-bound. The ensemble’s membership may have become slightly more international since last here. A few more women have been welcomed into its formerly misogynistic ranks. Old-timers’ fears of diversity diluting the unique Vienna affect — the blend of instruments being a wonder of the orchestral world — proved unsurprisingly unfounded.
The standard repertory, moreover, barely budges. Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorák and Richard Strauss were on the tour’s docket — nothing written in the last 125 years.
One way to maintain its hold on a glorious past is for the musicians to run the show. The orchestra has no music director to push it in this or that direction. Every conductor is, in effect, a guest of the manor invited by the musicians. No breaking the china. Every piece by Mozart or Beethoven, every Viennese waltz, remains a venerated relic.
Yet to be Viennese is to be inherently open to an occasional fling or three. And the orchestra has had notable affairs with the unlikely likes of Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez. These days it shows fondness and respect for Esa-Pekka Salonen and downright love for Gustavo Dudamel. The Vienna Philharmonic sound is so sumptuous it takes a rare conductor to resist its advances. A Salonen or Dudamel is just as likely to get the Viennese to try something new.
Yannick Nézet-Séquin, who led the concerts at Segerstrom, is another who enjoys a long-term relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic. The French Canadian conductor, just turned 50, is a mainstay on the East Coast as music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is prominent throughout Europe and much-recorded.
But he has had little exposure on the West Coast. Nézet-Séquin conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic once, 16 years ago. That is not, though, to say that he doesn’t care about L.A. He did drop everything (namely a chamber music concert with musicians from his Met Opera orchestra at Carnegie Hall) to show up at the Hollywood premiere of “Maestro,” having contributed to the bland soundtrack of the Leonard Bernstein biopic.
Nézet-Séquin’s popularity, however, hardly derives from blandness. The Viennese fondness for him may well be that, in his exuberance, he lets them live it up, even when that might mean chipping the china a little in his lust for splashy spectacle. Then again, lust in music, art and literature is one of Vienna’s great gifts to the world.
At Segerstrom, Nézet-Séquin had an interesting advantage. The hall opened shortly after Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson (formerly Verizon) Hall with a similar, but improved, acoustic design by Russell Johnson. Now in his 14th season with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séquin knows how to exploit Johnson’s variable sound-enhancing devices.
He got remarkable results. Rather than the warm acoustical refinement of the famed Musikverein, the Vienna Philharmonic’s home, every orchestral utterance jumped out at the audience like a 3D special effect. That could be full orchestra climaxes louder than you ever thought possible without amplification. The very, very quiet violas, cellos and basses opening Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony had a soul-filling robustness that even the best headphones couldn’t match. At either extreme, it could be hard, as a listener, to catch your breath.
Each of the two programs contained an early 19th century classical period work and concluded with a late 19th century romantic period one. Sunday afternoon the opener was Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Yefim Bronfman as the bold-toned, rhythmically precise, eloquent soloist. Where permitted, Nézet-Séquin added sharp orchestral punctuations but otherwise let the orchestra support without fuss a commanding pianist.
That was followed, in the second half, by Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” as sonic spectacular. There is nothing new to that. Decades ago, a young Zubin Mehta blew Angelenos’ minds with “Heldenleben,” and his Los Angeles Philharmonic recording of it still can. Daniel Barenboim led a grandiloquent “Heldenleben” at Segerstrom Center’s older, acoustically troubled hall on an earlier visit of the Vienna Philharmonic.
In Nézet-Séquin’s performance, Strauss’ hero proved still larger than life. Brass blared, winds squawked, timpani thundered as though this hero who conquers music critics and makes love to his wife were Captain Marvel. The real marvel, in this instance, being the avoidance of vulgarity. No matter how hard the orchestra was pushed, it never sounded strained.
Much of the same could be said for the second program, Tuesday night, with Schubert’s early Fourth Symphony and the ubiquitous “New World.” In the Schubert, Nézet-Séquin went for bold Beethovenian effects that strained Schubert’s score. In the Dvorak, Nézet-Séquin appeared to want to outdo everyone else, making this “New World” a louder, softer, slower, faster place. He had the means. He had the acoustics. He had the persuasive power to get the orchestra to give its incomparable all.
The audience jumped to its feet, thrilled by the bravura of it. But it was just that, an hour of bravura, not a new world.
While you can kind of see where some of the money went, it’s exceedingly hard to understand why Netflix reportedly spent upward of $300 million to produce what often reads like an idealized, feature-length version of the AI-generated “movies” littering social media. With a budget that large and a cast so stacked, you would think that The Electric State might, at the very least, be able to deliver a handful of inspired set pieces and characters capable of leaving an impression. But all this clunker of a movie really has to offer is nostalgic vibes and groan-inducing product placement.
Set in an alternate history where Walt Disney’s invention of simple automatons eventually leads to a devastating war, The Electric State centers Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a rebellious teen orphan desperate to escape her abusive home. Like most kids around her age, Michelle’s world was turned upside down during the brutal human / robot conflict that began with thinking machines demanding equal rights as sentient beings. But whereas most of her peers lost loved ones specifically because of the war, an ordinary car crash is what tears Michelle’s family apart and leads to her being adopted by loutish layabout Ted (Jason Alexander).
With her parents and brilliant younger brother Christopher (Woody Norman) seemingly dead, Michelle doesn’t feel like there’s all that much to live for. Much like her chaotic adoptive home life, school feels like a prison to Michelle because of the way children are expected to learn everything using Neurocasters, bulky headsets that transport wearers into virtual realities. Though many people like Ted gleefully strap their Neurocasters on, the technology disgusts Michelle, in part because of how they were first created as tools to give humans an edge in the machine war.
Given how people still live in fear of being attacked by the few surviving robots sequestered in the Exclusion Zone, Michelle can’t fathom why other people are so game to tune the real world out. Michelle herself is constantly looking over her shoulder in case a bloodthirsty machine finds its way into her room. But when one of them actually does, she’s charmed by the fact that it looks like one of her favorite cartoon characters. And she’s shocked when it tells her (through canned catchphrases from the cartoon) that Christopher is actually alive.
Though Michelle’s new robot friend looks very much like one of Stålenhag’s illustrations, its vocal impairment makes it read as a cutesy spin on the live-action Transformers’ take on Bumblebee. As it urges Michelle to follow it on a mission to find Christopher, you can almost hear the Russos and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely patting themselves on the back for creating a character who encapsulates everything about The Electric State’s war-torn world. It’s a damaged thing that just wants to be seen as a person and given the chance to live its life in peace. Those details could have made for an interesting narrative if there were any more depth to them or if Brown could muster up even an ounce of chemistry with her CGI companion. But The Electric State is much more concerned with simply showing you as many of its broken machines as it possibly can.
Outside of a multitude of cultural references meant to remind you that it’s set in the ’90s, and shots of Neurocaster users lying passed out on the street like junkies, The Electric State never feels very interested in doing the kind of worldbuilding necessary to make movies like it work. Instead, it simply spells out that the inventor of the Neurocaster, Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), is a villain who wants Colonel Marshall Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito) to capture Michelle’s robot. And Bradbury’s chasing after the pair gives the film a way to show how littered The Electric State’s world is with the rusted frames of machines destroyed during the war.
The movie becomes that much more of a slog once Michelle crosses paths with boring smuggler Keats (a profoundly charmless Chris Pratt) and his wisecracking robo-friend Herman (Anthony Mackie), who make a living selling things they scavenge from the Exclusion Zone. Unlike Brown’s Michelle, Pratt and Mackie actually do manage to come across as people who have lived through a sort of apocalypse and become much weirder due to their general isolation from the outside world. Their knowledge of the Exclusion Zone and access to vehicles makes them perfect to get Michelle and her robot to their destination. But the sheer number of jokes about Twinkies and Big Mouth Billy Bass (again, this is the ’90s) that The Electric State has Keats spit out is enough to make you root for Bradbury.
Image: Netflix
Part of the problem is that The Electric State is never all that funny, though the movie certainly thinks it is as it starts to introduce some of its more unusual robot characters like mail-bot Penny Pal (Jenny Slate), spider-like fortune telling machine Perplexo (Hank Azaria), and their leader, Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson). You can almost imagine The Electric State working if it were more focused on the lives of the pariah machines — all of whom are somewhat evocative of Sid’s horrific creations in Toy Story.
But rather than tapping into those characters’ potential, the movie spends its last third rushing headlong into tiresome action sequences that fall far short of what you would expect from such an expensive project. Ultimately, The Electric State leaves you with the distinct sense that Netflix greenlit it assuming that the Russo bros. + IP + a bunch of well-known actors would = a movie people would reflexively want to watch. But that math simply doesn’t add up, and this feels like an instance where you’d be much better off just reading the book.
The Electric State also stars Colman Domingo, Ke Huy Quan, Martin Klebba, Alan Tudyk, Susan Leslie, and Rob Gronkowski. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.
Indiana2 minutes ago
2 killed in crash near Indiana border
Iowa6 minutes ago
Iowa Basketball: Owen Freeman enters NCAA Transfer Portal
Kansas11 minutes ago
Kansas Highway Patrol says person walking on I-635 hit, killed
Kentucky17 minutes ago
Crimson Tide Takes Down Kentucky, Again
Louisiana24 minutes ago
After earlier doubts, Louisiana teachers union backs constitution change that will raise pay
Videos2 years ago
Why Marjorie Taylor Greene was ‘kicked out’ of the Freedom Caucus according to Rep. Buck
Colorado3 years ago
Colorado Rockies game no. 116 thread: Zac Gallen vs José Ureña
Midwest3 years ago
See it: Tesla crashes into Columbus convention center at 70 mph
South2 years ago
Fox News Politics: Georgia the whole day through
South3 years ago
Death of missing Oregon girl found in stream ruled homicide
News4 hours ago
For Canadians Visiting Myrtle Beach, Trump Policies Make the Vibe Chillier
Politics5 hours ago
House Democrats to hold 'Day of Action' to push back against GOP-backed spending bill
World6 hours ago
UN chief calls for global action against rising ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’
News6 hours ago
Arlington National Cemetery stops highlighting some historical figures on its website
News15 hours ago
D.C. Appears Likely to Avoid a $1.1 Billion Budget Cut
-
News7 days agoGene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone
-
Politics7 days agoRepublicans demand Trump cut American legal association out of nominee process
-
Politics1 week agoAgriculture secretary cancels $600K grant for study on menstrual cycles in transgender men
-
News7 days agoStates sue Trump administration over mass firings of federal employees
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago‘Black Bag’ Review: Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender Cozy Up in Steven Soderbergh’s Snazzy Spy Thriller
-
News1 week agoWho Paid for Trump’s Transition to Power? The Donors Are Still Unknown.
-
News1 week agoTrump Seeks to Bar Student Loan Relief to Workers Aiding Migrants and Trans Kids
-
Politics1 week agoKristi Noem says 2 leakers accused of disclosing ICE operations ID'd: 'Put law enforcement lives in jeopardy'