I’ve been seriously slacking on movie reviews lately. Kicking off our “30 movie reviews in 30 minutes” extravaganza (in part to lift spirits after the electoral college refused to do the right thing) is a pair of Natalie Portman vehicles…
Knight of Cups…What’s going on with Terrence Malick? One of the best directors of all time (“Tree of Life,” “Badlands,” “The New World”) is in a serious slump, by following up his worst film ever—“Into the Wonder”—with this minimalist dud his trademark style (whispered passages of voiceovers flowing over scattered images with a very loose plot structure and little dialogue) may now be almost a self-parody of itself. But this is the most openly sexual film Malick has ever made, and you can’t help but feel he’s trying to get at something within himself that just isn’t accessible yet. If he can find out how to make a sex scene be about something less than “time, death, regret,” yada yada he may soon make his most intimate work yet. Grade: C+
Jane Got Her Gun…Certainly a lot more traditional and features a much bigger role for Natalie (she’s one of many co-stars to Christian Bale in “Cups” while she’s the title character here). This was a labor of love for Portman as she always wanted to make a female-centric Western…yet a big chunk of the movie is about how her ex-love (Joel Edgerton) has to help save her and her current husband from a group of outlaws led by Ewan McGregor. When you research the movie, it’s clear it had a ton of production problems and it’s perhaps unfair to grade it too harshly. Grade: C+