We know the movie industry has been hurt by those recent strikes, the streamers drawing away customers and even COVID. I wouldn't have expected Warner Brothers to suffer too much though. It's one of the grand old studios and one of the most successful.
But reports this week from insiders quoted in The Financial Times said the company is hurting under a huge debt load and a weak stock. And quietly talking about drastic measures. Worth watching and even ironic. They've got a sure and possibly very big hit starting in theaters today: Twisters, which they-co-produced with Universal. I start today's reviews with it.
Twisters: 3 ½ stars
Skywalkers a Love Story: 4
Young Woman and the Sea: 4
Wild Wild Space: 3
National Anthem: 3
TWISTERS: Climate change crisis or not, movies love to bring us extreme weather to entertain. Tornadoes are back in this one, a near-duplicate of the huge summer hit of 1996, which was called simply Twister. Once again we see people driving into the path of these storms, ostensibly for scientific reasons. Again we focus on a couple having to work together as havoc builds around them. Back then they were a husband and wife on the verge or divorce. This time it's a different duo and they're ideologically incompatible. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a woman heavily into the science. It started back in school and led her to try an experiment not long ago to “choke” a tornado by drawing the moisture out of it. That failed. She's trying again.
Glen Powell is simply a storm chaser collecting exploits for his U-Tube channel. As an actor he's making a serious bid to be a top matinee idol for our time and he and Daisy strike up some serious chemistry with eye glances and just a touch of flirting. The work takes precendence, though. They, and others including Anthony Ramos, are trying to drive three radar devices close enough to a tornado to triangulate an image that can be studied. Something like that was tried in the first film too. New this time is Daisy's experiment which involves driving a truckload of barrels full of chemicals right into the tornado. The visual effects are amazing and they help make this the thrill ride of the summer.
Filmed in the “tornado alley” of Oklahoma, it also gives a good idea of the destruction these storms cause by showing the scene after the fury. And we get a brief allusion to climate change. Good that it's not overdone because the connection isn't definitely known. The film is well-directed by Lee Isaac Chung, who previously made Minari, the gentle rural immigrant story from 2020. There's a lot more noise in this one. 3 ½ out of 5
SKYWALKERS A LOVE STORY: Get ready for some serious vertigo as you watch this. Standing at the very edge of a skyscraper rooftop will do that. Or sitting high up on a girder of a building still under construction. Or walking on the very tip of a roof that slants down on both sides below you. Those are only three of the many daredevil antics you see from Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, a couple from Russia who have become Instagram favorites for the videos they post. They're into a growing sport called “rooftopping,” which she prefers to call “skywalking” because while she's doing it she feels like she's part of something great up there. Her partner finds it easier to breathe up there.
The goal is to climb the highest buildings on earth, often still construction sites, video themselves up there and show the world what they've done. People have died. Trespassing arrests are common but she insists: “We're not terrorists or vandals. We're artists.”
We see many examples of that “art” from Paris to Shanghai to Bangkok and eventually to the ultimate target, a 118 super-skyscraper in Malaysia and a 160-meter spire on top of it. We get that climb in detail, part of it seemingly impossible. They have to avoid cameras and motion detectors, workers and guards. The suspense is terrific. The views, as in all their climbs, are spectacular.
And there's the love story, how they met, how they must trust each other (especially when he lifts her like in a ballet or a gymnastics stunt way up on one girder) and when trust breaks down into an argument over procedure during one climb. They're driven though. She doesn't want “a plain and boring life.” Their's is not that at all. (Netflix) 4 out of 5
YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA: This would be a good companion piece to the Oscar nominated Nyad from last year. The two are very similar. Both are true and about women trying a huge swimming feat: Cuba to Florida in Nyad, across the English Channel here. Gertrude Ederle, known as Trudy, swam it in 1926. She was the first woman to do it although as the film takes pains to point out women weren't thought to be capable and were even discouraged from taking up swimming as a sport. Trudy though, played by Daisy Ridley, is encouraged by her mother, persists, wins some tough races as a teen, gets to the Paris Olympics, where she won three medals, and picks another goal to prove herself. “I don't want to be like them,” she says referring to other girls and their unexceptional lives.
The film takes us through the basics, getting a coach, hearing from a man who did the swim (Stephen Graham)about the intricacies, including dealing with the currents, and getting the right person (Christopher Eccleston) to be her support from a boat that follows. Then the swim, over 14 hours of it, a physical trial for sure, causing her to go lightheaded and directionless at one point. She was lost for a while as Mom (Jeanette Hain) hovers in a New York radio studio for any news. It's old-style moviemaking but very effective, with a joyous release out of the tension to pay us off well. Directed by Joachim Rønning from a book by sports-specialist author Glenn Stout. (Netflix) 4 out of 5
WILD WILD SPACE: We all know about Elon Musk and his company Space X. His rockets can be contracted to put satellites into Earth orbit. He has plans to reach Mars and has just been hired by NASA to find a way to destroy the obsolete International Space Station. This documentary says there are others like him. Their companies are smaller but just as busy. The focus is on three firms that also put satellites into orbit (and incidentally are cluttering up the space up there to the point that a potential danger is looming). Their story is a testament to good old private enterprise and human ingenuity. As well as excess.
New Zealander Chris Kemp heads up Astra Space, Peter Beck heads up Rocket Lab (the two used to be partners) and Will Marshall is CEO of Planet Labs. We get their story, the friendly rivalry and/or ruthless competition between them, with a combination of admiration for what they've achieved as well as the opposite, dread for the power grab that's going on out there in space. Some of their work is altruistic. Satellites can now watch over the earth constantly and find resources, help agriculture, detect dangers and military moves. But taking a cue from the book by tech journalist Ashlee Vance, who also appears in the film, it also worries about the future of humanity as satellites watch over us constantly. It's money that drives this, much more than doing good. This is a sprightly and worrying essay by Oscar-winner filmmaker Ross Kaufman for HBO. (Streaming on CRAVE) 3 out of 5
NATIONAL ANTHEM: In the movies men of the west are virile and, well, manly. Photographer Luke Gilford came across a contrasting bunch called The International Gay Rodeo Association and it was an eye-opener for him. That's part of the west too. He passed on his realisation in a photo book and now in directing his debut film. He wants to get across a message to, as he put it, move past differences and turn to love each other. He does it without the usual tropes of many queer-themed films. No bullying or shunning, just discovery, as felt by a young man (Charlie Plummer) who takes a day job at a ranch in New Mexico called House of Splendor and finds it staffed by gay cowboys. He's wary at first but is told “You just haven't met your people yet.”
He's entering a whole different world he didn't even know existed. He enjoys the acceptance. He's attracted to a transwoman named Sky (Eve Lindley) and gets his eyelids painted by her, brought to a gay rodeo by her and even ends up in a threesome with her and the ranch boss. An idealistic story for sure but told well and warmly. The only conflict comes when he buys his young brother a dress and that infuriates his mother. Briefly. It could be more realistic but this benign version will do and it comes in sparkling cinematography. (In theaters in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Kingston) 3 out of 5
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