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Movie review: A24’s latest film ‘We Live In Time’ plays it safe

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Movie review: A24’s latest film ‘We Live In Time’ plays it safe

Florence Pugh, left, and Andrew Garfield in the movie “We Live in Time.” Credit: A24 via TNS

When people think of A24, the production company behind films like “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “Moonlight,” “Midsommar” and more, against-the-grain films tend to come to mind — a breath of fresh air against cookie-cutter, mainstream studios. 

However, as A24 has begun pumping out more films, it seems to have become more mainstream; perhaps its focus is shifting to more easily accessible films. 

A24’s latest romance movie, starring Andrew Garfield (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) and Florence Pugh (“Midsommar”), is certainly much more by-the-books than what was previously expected of the typically quirky, arthouse studio.

“We Live In Time” is a broad examination of what it means to be committed to a loved one over a long period of time. Told mostly nonlinearly, it follows a couple, Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), as they grapple with the struggles life throws at their relationship, including complications around Almut’s pregnancy and her battle with cancer while trying to maintain her job as an esteemed chef. 

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Though the film begins from Tobias’ perspective, as he shifts to being a supportive partner, so too does the narrative switch to concentrating on Almut’s tribulations.

Like Tobias’ and Almut’s relationship, the film itself is full of ups and downs. On one hand, it has some really poignant moments, particularly during Almut’s treatment and in Tobias’ relationship with their daughter. The ending’s payoff is very well orchestrated, tying together this narrative that jumps back and forth throughout long swaths of time in a satisfactory, albeit heartbreaking manner.

The issue is that these heartfelt, heavy moments never quite hit as hard as they could because “We Live In Time” jumps right into them from the second the projector starts rolling and doesn’t let up until the credits roll. The movie leaves too little time to get to actually know and care about Tobias and Almut as real people, and not just vessels for suffering. 

The first half of the film mostly focuses on their budding relationship, which is the least compelling part of the film, feeling pretty airport romance novel-esque. Their romance is never given time to breathe because it’s constantly undercut by flashbacks and flashforwards to different times in their relationship.

The second half of the film is much more endearing, maybe because the nonlinear storytelling is ditched, allowing for the characters’ lives to play out sequentially. 

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Though the major emotional beats still sting in a way that will leave a lot of people in the theater shedding a tear, they feel awfully predictable. 

Maybe “We Live In Time” suffers from the success of a studio in A24 that’s taken the world by storm, winning multiple Academy Awards — including many Best Pictures — in the past decade. Regardless of its brand, “We Live In Time” constantly feels like it’s afraid to throw a curveball that would allow itself to stand out from the abundance of other films that tell a similar story. 

Rather, it relies on tried-and-true storytelling methods and the acting prowess of its two superstar leads to get a response, which might just be enough for “We Live In Time” to get viewers’ eyes misty as they exit the theater.

Rating: 3/5

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‘Lust in the Rain’ Review: A Surreal, Sexual Japanese Wartime Fantasy That’s Never Quite Believable Enough

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‘Lust in the Rain’ Review: A Surreal, Sexual Japanese Wartime Fantasy That’s Never Quite Believable Enough

You don’t necessarily have to be a fan of Japanese manga master Yoshiharu Tsuge to appreciate Lust in the Rain, a sprawling World War II-era fantasy adapted from an autobiographical collection first published in the early 1980s. But it certainly helps.

All over the map in terms of tone, content and genre, director Shinzo Katayama’s ambitious period piece strives to reproduce the surreal sexual ambiance of Tsuge’s wartime recollections, which shift from action to comedy to eroticism in a single swoop. Not for everyone’s taste, and perhaps best suited for local audiences, the film is more admirable for its swing-for-the-fences direction than for its exhausting plot twists.

Lust in the Rain

The Bottom Line

Well-made but hard to grasp.

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Venue: Tokyo International Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Ryo Narita, Eriko Nakamura, Go Morita, Naoto Takenaka, Xing Li
Director-screenwriter: Shinzo Katayama, based on the manga by Yoshiharu Tsuge

2 hours 12 minutes

Katayama cut his chops as an assistant director for Bong Joon-ho before making two features, including the well-received 2021 serial killer flick, Missing. But while he channels an energy and style similar to the Korean maestro, Katayama lacks Bong’s cutthroat precision and wicked sense of humor.

Clocking in at over two hours, Lust in the Rain overstays its welcome during an initial 80 minutes where nothing totally makes sense, before honing in on more substantial themes in a final hour that leaps between several alternative realities — to the point we never quite know what’s real or not.

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At first, Katayama tosses us into a bizarre love triangle between an aspiring manga artist, Yoshio (Ryo Narita, Your Name); an older novelist, Imori (Go Morita); and a local femme fatale, Fukuko (Eriko Nakamura, August in Tokyo), who may or not have murdered her own husband. The time setting is unclear, as is the setting itself: The three live in a remote village called North Town, which is separated by border guards from another place called South Town.

The timid Yoshio, who serves as a rather unreliable narrator, is beset by sexual fantasies he transforms into panels for his comic books. These include a scene at the very start — and from which the film takes its title — where he slyly coerces a young woman into undressing during a torrential downpour, then proceeds to rape her in the mud. (A rape, it should be added, that transforms into passionate sex.)

In real life, Yoshio is infatuated with Fukuko, who moves into his cramped apartment along with the equally shady Imori. The two make loud love while Yoshio lies in the next room, creating even more sexual tension between the trio. It feels like one of the men may wind up killing the other. Or else like they may all agree to form a happy throuple. It’s hard to tell.

Things get weirder from there, although they slightly fall into place as well. Without spoiling too much (the better parts are in the second half) we realize that all we’ve been seeing actually involves Japan’s occupation of northern China during WWII, including massacres inflicted on the civilian population. Suddenly, Yoshio’s fantasies take on an altogether different sheen — they seem less the ravings of lustful artist than of a soldier traumatized by nonstop bloodshed.

It’s too much and perhaps too late. Katayama never quite sustains our interest while oscillating between coming-of-age desires, gory atrocities, and erotic surrealism. A prime example of this is a sequence that has Yoshio following the mystery girl from his dreams down several dark alleyways, until he witnesses her getting violently struck by a car. He finds her body lying lifeless in a rice paddy, then prepares to defile it with his finger.

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Again, this is an acquired taste — one that’s probably best suited to lovers of Tsuge’s watakushi manga (a form of literary autobiography specific to Japan), where the author gives free reign to memory, imagination and his all-powerful libido. Katayama works overtime to translate Tsuge’s obsessions to the screen, employing a grandiose style for the war scenes and a sleek intimacy to all the sex, whether real or fantasized.  

The would-be romance at the heart of Lust in the Rain is carried by Narita and Nakamura, who are convincing as two lost souls that never quite connect. The problem is that so much of the film rests on shaky ground, we never believe in what we’re seeing. And if you don’t believe, then why should you care? In its closing sections, Katayama’s intimate epic plays out like a twisted take on The English Patient, where love and war collide in crazy ways. And yet the stakes never seem high enough.

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Movie Review: An unmoving camera and de-aging technology make 'Here' with Tom Hanks painful to watch

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Movie Review: An unmoving camera and de-aging technology make 'Here' with Tom Hanks painful to watch

Robert Zemeckis’ latest movie is insanely ambitious, starting with the dinosaurs and ending in present day with the Roomba. But it’s fixed on just one spot.

“Here” reunites Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth and actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, who collaborated on “Forrest Gump.” This time, they’re not telling the larger-than-life story of a man moving through time — they’re telling the centuries-old story of a living room and all the different people who lived there.

In this living room, we see a wedding, a death, a birth, a marriage tested, a funeral, lots of vacuuming, many birthdays, Christmases and Thanksgivings, some sex, adults getting drunk and Jazzercise.

Zemeckis puts the camera at a fixed angle for the movie’s entire 105-minute duration without moving. It’s not so strange after a while — so bursting with life is each shot and vignette — but there’s a gnawing feeling that we’re in some sort of film experiment, like testing an audience on how long they’ll watch old security camera footage.

This image released by Sony Pictures Entertainment shows Tom Hanks, left, and Robin Wright in a scene from “Here.” (Sony Pictures via AP)
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Hanks and Wright on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

The camera may not move but the eras do, melting back and forth in time from pre-history, to the 1700s, to the 1940s, back to hunter-gatherer times and then the ’60s and ’70s, before hitting the early 1900s. It begins and ends in 2022.

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Hanks and Wright form the movie’s spine, as Richard and Margaret. Over dozens of little scenes, we watch him as a boy grow up in the house and fall in love with Margaret, marry, move her in, have a baby and inherit it all. Whether they survive as a couple isn’t guaranteed.

Zemeckis is a filmmaker known for incorporating the latest in technology and this time it’s de-aging as a visual effect, basically turning 68-year-old Hanks into what he looked like while filming “Splash.” It’s a lot of work, clumsy often, and Zemeckis has gotten lost in the uncanny valley, trying to tell a very human story about what unites us but by altering the actors so much that the human connection is lost. Look closely and you’ll see cigarette smoke go into one character, but never come out.

Other roles include Richard’s parents — played brilliantly by Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly — and some unconnected people: a fun-loving couple living in the home from 1925 to 1944, and a less fun couple in the early 1900s. There’s an Indigenous couple in the 1600s who frolic in the space the living room will take over in 300 years and another family who rides out 2020 in the house amid the pandemic.

If that isn’t enough, we have an appearance by Benjamin Franklin. Why Benjamin Franklin? He’s connected to the house across the street. What he adds is not entirely clear. The movie could do with fewer Founding Fathers and cutesy touches like hummingbirds.

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Hanks and Wright in a scene from “Here.” (Sony Pictures via AP)

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We watch the living room as a TV is added — the Beatles’ performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” leads to “CHiPs” — and the vehicles outside go from horse to Model Ts to sedans. The home goes from $3,400 just after World War II to $1 million today and the fashions go from Victorian heeled boots to teased hair and American flag shirts.

“Here” — based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire — is best when events at different times are linked — like when a roof starts leaking in one era only to dissolve into a pregnant woman’s water breaking in another. Or when there’s mention of influenza in 1918 and we later see the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

One theme that is touched on but could have been strengthened is the impact of downsizing and economic disruptions on psyches, with Richard’s father in full Willy Loman mode one day, sobbing after being laid off: “They shrunk me.” Deferred dreams are another, but there’s not enough time for that if you’ve got silly visits by Benjamin Franklin. And while it’s inclusive to embrace Native Americans, the scenes add little to the narrative.

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Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, left, with Hanks and Wright on the set of “Here.” (Sony Pictures via AP)

“Here” fails to connect all these centuries of human experiences, other than to celebrate the human experience in all its messiness, triumph and sadness. In fact, if these walls could talk, most of the characters are happiest away from this living room. Maybe the strongest theme is uttered by one character lamenting: “Time just went.”

Zemeckis nicely apes the graphic novel’s use of squares within the frame that show a peek at what’s going on in different eras — like little time travel devices — and kudos to Jesse Goldsmith for fantastic editing work.

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But one visual trick sums up the movie: It’s supposed to be the story of a real wood-and-brick house, but it was filmed at Sony’s studio complex in Culver City, California. The main character is fake. “Here” is nowhere.

“Here,” a Sony Pictures release that premieres Friday in theaters, is rated PG-13 for “thematic material, some suggestive material, brief strong language and smoking.” Running time: 105 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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Film Review: Venom: The Last Dance – SM Mirror

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Film Review: Venom: The Last Dance – SM Mirror

By Dolores Quintana

Venom: The Last Dance was very enjoyable and kind of sweet for a movie where a monster eats people’s heads. Don’t worry, it’s a PG-13 movie, so even those head crunches aren’t that gory or graphic. Basically, the movie is grounded in human emotion and characterization rather than spectacle which is why it is successful for me. Also, the thread of oddball humor, that blends well with the character of Venom, is very much appreciated. 

All of the actors were terrific, but Tom Hardy was especially great in the dual role. It’s almost like Eddie has been turned into Job if Job was constantly robbed of his shoes by Fate. Hardy was so good as Venom and Eddie that the thought of it being The Last Dance was somewhat sad. 

Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clark Backo, and Peggy Lu stood out but everyone did fine work.

It’s funny and full of wonder but the main theme is about personal identity and people (or symbiotes) doing things for the greater good. It’s timely, for sure. For a Marvel / Superhero film, it’s got a nice horror edge and the actors’ belief in what they are doing sells the CGI, which is admittedly good and cool-looking. It’s a fantastic multi-dimensional comedy of errors with an especially endearing monster and his mostly grumpy human self. 

When you put the right actors who are committed to the film in a superhero movie, it works. The film is ably directed by Kelly Marcel, who has co-written the previous entries in the Venom franchise and penned Let There Be Carnage and Last Dance in collaboration with Hardy. The two founded a theater company in London, with writer Brett C. Leonard, called The Bad Dog Theater Company. 

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Some people have called it a bromance, but I see it more as a buddy comedy where the buddies are in the same body. It is the best Marvel movie that I’ve seen in a while for sheer entertainment value, weirdness, and emphasis on human (and symbiote) interaction.

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