Month: October 2019

You can read the 2018 IPCC report or you can watch Leonardo DiCaprio’s dry, portentous narration of “Ice on Fire,” superbly scripted and unfolded by Leila Conners. Or you should do both. The formal report encapsulates the most formidable, global scientific enterprise the world has ever known, iterated over thirty years. The documentary puts flesh onto the horrifying downsides and the obstacles ahead, while offering encouragement through stories of technologies and ventures that can, right now, reduce carbon emissions or mitigate consequences of climate change. Cycling round dozens of persuasive scientists and commentators, focusing (per the title) on ice melt and water rise, and including brilliant cinematography, “Ice on Fire” treads a fine line between frightening and reassuring, and it does it so well. Go see this.

If a more boring and tawdry movie than “Hustlers” has come out in the last half decade, I’m unaware of it. After a passably dramatic opening scene in which super-lithe Ramona (played with a body-built physical presence by Jennifer Lopez that never offers any nuance or empathy) wows customers at a strip club and entrances rookie stripper Destiny (a clueless performance from Constance Wu), the movie devolves into a tension-free half-doco about sex workers scamming Wall Street morons. No central villain emerges as antagonist, so if you think the trailer presages a thriller, you are dead wrong. As for emancipating American sex workers by portraying them as swearing, materialistic “winners,” I can’t see any vestige of realism or sympathy in the heavy directorial hand. To sum: barely a plot; veneer-thin acting; semi-exploitative subject matter while pretending to honor; clunky transitions; excruciating dialogue . . . nada.

“Barry” smacked of Dexter-lite from the outset but it has carved out a following because in this case, Barry, the hitman with a life, is idiosyncratically portrayed by Bill Hader with such verve that you overlook the fundamental plot clichés. And other core characters, such as Noho Hank (a glowing performance by Anthony Carrigan), glow just as brightly. In Episode 1 of the series’ second season, the chaos of Barry’s fledgling acting career spirals out of control when he is forced to direct a show, just as gangster machinations spur Noho to reel Barry into further wet work. The script unravels tightly. I did not watch Season 1 but there was plenty enough in this Season 2 opener to seduce me onwards.

“Money Heist Season 3” represents a bet on plotting imagination, for who could possibly match the sheer exuberance of the underlying plot of the first two seasons, the takeover of the Spanish mint? Episode 1, then, is a test: can it make the cut or will it straightaway fizzle? Well, the news is good. We kick off the action with snippets of the triumphant band at their various celebratory hideaways in nooks and crannies of the world, then bang: Rio (still played superbly by Miguel Herran), after a lapse of judgment, falls into the hands of the thuggish cops, and Tokio (another wow from Ursula Corbero) tracks down the Professor, played with incandescent cool by Alvaro Morte, for help. Soon enough, the band of thieves is reunited, with some new, interesting-looking thieves, and assembled for another grand coup attempt back in Spain. The first episode is all setup but it’s done with great verve, narrative flair (dodging back in time as needs be) and humor. There’s no reason to suppose the next seven episodes won’t be any less spectacular and intelligent than the earlier seasons.