Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

‘ANOTHER ROUND’: ANOTHER GREAT ROLE FOR MADS MIKKELSEN

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews December 20, 2020

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Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen has great charisma—and great taste, as he turns up in one exceptional film after another. Another Round reunites him with writer-director Thomas Vinterberg and co-writer Tobias Lindholm, who collaborated so memorably on The Hunt. Once again their combined efforts give us a provocative film about a subject many people can relate to: drinking. Mikkelsen plays a high school teacher whose life has become dull: he no longer communicates with his wife and bores his history students in school. Then he and three colleagues read about a scientific theory that man is born with a blood-alcohol deficiency. It posits that if one can maintain a 0.5% alcohol level one will function more “normally” and successfully. Because they are schoolteachers they decide to chart their progress, to…

‘MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM’ IS FUELED BY GREAT PERFORMANCES

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews December 20, 2020

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Two searing performances—by Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman—make Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom more than just a faithful adaptation of a great theater piece. Davis captures the matter-of-fact fury of blues singer Ma Rainey, who is willing to perform two numbers for her white agent/producer—but not before expressing her anger at feeling exploited. All of this comes hurtling at us while her band members try to contend with a trumpeter named Levee, who has his own ideas about how to perform one of Ma’s signature pieces. He also has big dreams about his budding career, unaware of just how easy it is for a white record producer to make him feel like two cents. It’s not pleasant spending an hour and a half in the company…

LEONARD’S GIFT GUIDE

Leonard Maltin December 10, 2020

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We thought it might be fun to come up with a short gift-giving guide for your favorite cinephiles. Please remember to support small businesses today and every day. Hope you enjoy. GROUCHO MARX FACE MASK Amuse your friends and family—at a safe distance, or on Zoom—by donning this officially licensed Groucho face mask, for just $12. Or choose from a zillion other items made with love by a genuine fan, Mauricio Alvarado, creator of Rockin’ Pins. Whether it’s embroidered patches of the Popeye cast of characters (Wimpy, Olive Oyl, Bluto) or an elaborately designed Cab Calloway t-shirt, you’ll find all the coolest pop culture icons of the past and present at this site. Just a warning: Mauricio’s online catalog is positively addictive. OFFICIAL BUSTER…

WORKING MAN: A NOT-SO-SIMPLE SLICE OF AMERICANA

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews December 10, 2020

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Peter Gerety is a familiar character actor who’s appeared in Syriana, Public Enemies, Charlie Wilson’s War, and scores of other movies and TV shows, including Ray Donovan. Working Man offers him his first leading role (at age 80!), alongside Talia Shire and Billy Brown. It’s a modest indie film that starts out in a Frank Capra populist vein and then takes some surprising turns. I missed it when it opened this past spring and I’m glad I caught up with it now. The setting is an archetypal American town where Gerety follows a daily routine that never varies, walking to work at a nearby factory, carrying a lunch pail and thermos. When the facility abruptly shuts down without concern for its personnel, Gerety—who seldom speaks—refuses to change his…

TEAM MARCO: A SENTIMENTAL SLEEPER

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews November 20, 2020

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I am a relative latecomer to Team Marco, which has played at 54 film festivals around the globe and won the Audience Award as Favorite Family Film in Mill Valley. It becomes available on digital platforms this weekend. Julio Vincent Gambuto’s debut feature could be dismissed as formulaic and overly sentimental—but only by misanthropes. It’s a life-affirming feel-good movie about an 11-year-old boy who’s addicted to video games and his 76-year-old Italian-American grandfather, who introduces him to bocce and the rewards of fresh air and friendship. Owen Vaccaro plays the boy, who’s being raised by a single mother, and Anthony Patellis is his “nonno,” a bombastic sort of guy who doesn’t know (or care to know) about electronic devices. There isn’t much suspense as to where…

MANK: MOSTLY AUTHENTIC BUT EMPTY

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews November 20, 2020

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If you’ve read even a few volumes of Hollywood history you’ve probably encountered Herman J. Mankiewicz, whose well-earned reputation as a wit rests on a handful of oft-told anecdotes. All of them are dutifully included in David Fincher’s ambitious film, based on a screenplay written some time ago by his late father. The through-line of the movie is the now-legendary set of circumstances that surrounded the writing of Citizen Kane. Mankiewicz was “drying out,” as they used to say, in a shack near Victorville, California, dictating to a secretary. John Houseman was charged with keeping an eye on the alcoholic writer on behalf of the Mercury Theater troupe. Orson Welles was not present, and how large a role he played in the final version of that…

OVER THE MOON: A BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews November 10, 2020

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First, full disclosure: I wrote the text for this movie’s coffee-table tie-in volume, which comes out next week from Titan Books. I agreed to do it only after watching a rough cut of the film, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Over the Moon is, like any animated feature, the work of many people but everyone I interviewed took inspiration from its director, master animator Glen Keane. Glen spent 37 years at the Disney studio and brought to life some of the modern era’s most indelible characters: Ariel in The Little Mermaid, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, the young hero in Aladdin, the title characters in Pocahontas and Tarzan, and Rapunzel in Tangled, among others. Several years ago he won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject for Dear Basketball, a collaboration with the late…

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‘ANOTHER ROUND’: ANOTHER GREAT ROLE FOR MADS MIKKELSEN