Ranbir Kapoor is an Animal in his latest blockbuster

Clocking in at over 200 minutes, Animal is a film defined by excess. A multi-generational crime drama, it topped the global box office on its opening weekend. It is the highest-grossing opening of star Ranbir Kapoor’s career. Bigger, longer, bloodier: Animal is all that and more.

Kapoor plays Vijay Bilbar Singh, son of one of the wealthiest men in India. Bilbar Singh (played by Anil Kapoor) is a stern, unyielding, often-absent business magnate who has treated his wayward son with anger and disdain. Vijay fully earns that criticism. Arrogant, ill-mannered, impulsive, privileged, he’s the type of student who brings a machine gun to class when his sister is insulted.

Vijay falls for Gitanjali (an affecting performance by the lovely Rashmika Mandanna), from a lower-class family, and takes her to London to escape his father’s wrath. His sisters Reet (Saloni Batra) and Roop (Anshul Chauhan) remain close to home; in fact, Reet’s husband Varun (Siddhant Karnick) becomes a kind of surrogate son to Singh.

Everything changes when assassins attack Singh on a golf course. Vijay returns home to take over the company while his father recovers. He roots out traitors within the organization, including its security force. Vijay hires new bodyguards from the family’s home village, then a body double to portray his father in public.

It turns out another family has a grudge against Singh for apparently icing them out of its share of his fortune. The brothers behind the attacks include Asrar, Abrar, and Abid; Aziz, a fourth brother, will figure into the closing credits. Vijay and his men hole up in a luxury hotel, where they are attacked by scores of Asrar’s men.

That’s just the first half. The rest of the film includes a coma, a heart transplant, Vijay’s affair with and betrayal by Zoya (a very appealing Tripti Dimri), the mute Abrar’s marriage and subsequent wedding-night foursome with his previous two wives, and several attempted reconciliations between Vijay and his father.

Not that the plot matters. Animal is a star vehicle for Ranbir Kapoor, and he makes the most of his role. He’s a lover, an intellectual, a neglected son, but most of all an animal with no control over his feelings. It’s a part with a lot of physicality, a lot of hair changes, and a lot of weird digressions.

Vijay’s rants are the most unpredictable element of Animal, which is otherwise overheated versions of familiar gangster scenes. Vijay talks at length about underwear, and in fact forces an arms dealer to give up his pair. He talks about standards of beauty, a “self-reliant India,” food, cars, anything. He can be funny and surreal at times, but frequently overbearing.

Kapoor goes full-out in his performance. Take a scene where he addresses workers at his father’s steel foundry. It’s a rousing exhortation to work together for the common good — for “victory” — until he starts to go off the rails by promising to strangle his enemies. It’s a brilliant moment in a troubling scene, especially since he’s wearing a uniform embroidered with a swastika. He later raises his arm in a familiar salute.

Vijay actually tries to justify the swastika later in the movie (it’s not “slanted” so it can’t be Nazi). By that time he’s also predicted, “Someone will surely die for me and I will get a transplant.”

Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s action scenes are gigantic and chaotic but not especially well choreographed. The attack on Vijay’s hotel is the most complicated set piece in the film. After fighting off hatchet-wielding goons under three lighting schemes, Vijay is told that 200 more fighters are approaching. He mounts a sort of monster machine gun on a golf cart and shoots everyone into submission. It’s a fun but completely unbelievable scene that left me exhausted more than satisfied.

Insane on so many levels, Animal is also noteworthy for the bloodiest closing credits I have ever seen.

Credits: Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Producers: Bhushan Kumar, Pranay Reddy Vanga, Murad Khetani, Krishan Kumar. Writer: Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Director of Photography: Amit Roy. Editor: Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Production Designer: Suresh Selvarajan. Costume Designer: Sheetal Iqbal Sharma.Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna. Language: Distributors: Moksha Movies and Nirvana Cinemas. Hindi and Telugu with English subtitles.

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Life is a cage fight in Rumble Through the Dark

You don’t expect a dark, gritty boxing drama from Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, but that’s exactly what Rumble Through the Dark is. Set in a grim world of fight clubs, liquor stores, traveling carnivals, and orphanages, the film batters its characters and viewers with a story of brutal revenge couched as moral uplift.

Adapting his novel, screenwriter Michael Farris Smith starts Rumble with an infant abandoned by its mother, then skips to an illegal fight club where former champ boxer Jack Boucher (Aaron Eckhart) is trying to earn enough money to save his mother’s home.

Self-medicating with alcohol and pills, Jack risks a heart attack with every fight. He’s also losing his memory after repeated blows to the head. Plus he hasn’t paid taxes on his mother’s house, and is deep in debt to fight club proprietress Big Momma Sweet (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). A big score at a local casino might help extricate Jack from his troubles.

But Skelly (Joe Hursley), a bounty hunter hijacks Jack and his truck from a gas station. Their subsequent fight on a highway leads to a stylishly shot crash through a corn field that leaves Jack unconscious and Skelly near death.

Make that dead after a passing carnival operator asphyxiates him in a mercy killing. Annette (Bella Thorne), a tattooed fortune teller in the carnival, finds Jack’s cash in an envelope and pockets it as Jack watches from nearby.

The film switches storylines to Annette, an orphan searching for her father. She’s unsure about keeping the money, especially after she’s threatened by tilt-a-whirl operator and ex-con Ricky Joe (Mike McCall). When Jack rescues her from Ricky Joe at a convenience store, Annette thinks he’s been sent as a sign.

Annette tails Jack, learning that his mother suffers from dementia in a nursing home. Clues convince her that Jack is her father. But first Jack has to fight one more cage match to appease Big Momma Sweet.

Directors and brothers Graham and Parker Phillips have a good feel for the film’s backwater bayou milieu. The cinematography by David J. Myrick is appropriately dark and moody, but the directors find ways to highlight the futile desperation in their characters.

That said, Michael Farris Smith’s plotting is too derivative. One or two twists and Rumble could be Nightmare Alley, a Gothic filled with con men and born losers. Take two steps the other way, and this is a Southern-fried Fight Club, complete with pointed messages and telegraphed symbolism. Rumble is compelling enough in a grungy way, but it is not offering anything new.

Aaron Eckhart has made a career out of over-performing in vehicles that don’t deserve him. He’s all sinew and bone here, spitting blood, tearing up motel rooms, hallucinating about his mom. He elevates Rumble considerably, but never quite rescues it.

What about Bella Thorne? Annette reminded me of her title role in Girl, an underrated thriller written and directed by Chad Faust that came out during Covid. There she played someone not especially well-educated, but fiercely committed to her goals. Here she’s equally determined to find some way to connect to Jack Boucher.

Thorne doesn’t have the same level of support in Rumble that she did in Girl, but she does what she’s asked to do the best she can. Like everything else in Rumble Through the Dark, it’s not quite enough.

Opening in theaters through Lionsgate on November 3, 2023.

Photos courtesy Crooked Letter Picture Company.

Credits: Produced and directed by Graham Phillips, Parker Phillips. Produced by Cassian Elwes, Cleta Ellington. Written by Michael Farris Smith. Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Bella Thorne, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Ritchie Coster, Amanda Saunders, Mike McColl, Christopher Winchester, Joe Hursley.

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Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan: Blockbuster is the latest stage in his comeback

Shah Rukh Khan is the whole show in Jawan, his second blockbuster adventure in less than a year. Despite a strong supporting cast, Khan dominates the film, performing the kind of over-the-top heroics that have made him a box-office favorite.

Absent from the screen since 2018, Khan made a riveting appearance in 2022’s otherwise so-so Brahmastra Part One: Shiva, then thrilled his fans in January with Pathaan. Jawan is more of what his base likes: a fearless, swaggering character; gross injustices to be avenged; melodramatic flashbacks; big production numbers.

It’s narrative is all over the place, rehashing scenes, subplots, and story lines from easily recognizable movies like The Matrix and Fast and Furious. If anything, Jawan has too much plot. A subway hijacking, a corrupt arms dealer, amnesia, girls with guns, farmer suicides, a single mom with a matchmaking daughter, another mom briefly saved from hanging because she is pregnant, military raids, highway chases, and more.

Jawan leaps backwards and forwards in time, often for no real purpose. The three screenwriters, including director Atlee, manage to pull everything together by the end, but the ride is a lot rockier than it has to be. The musical numbers feel more like interruptions than integral to the plot.  While the action scenes are fun, they, like Khan’s dancing, are indifferently executed.

None of this matters to Khan’s fans, who will buy any preposterous twist. Khan survives being shot five times and falling out of a helicopter, for example. He survives being repeatedly smashed in the face with a heavy chain. He survives two-story falls, truck crashes, and a scene-stealing ten-year-old who interrogates him about marrying her mother.

Atlee has helmed several huge Tamil blockbusters, often with Nayanthara, who plays Khan’s love interest Narmada here. A hostage negotiator with the police, she’s betrayed by bureaucracy and winds up in jail—like most of the characters who try to defeat oily villain Kalee Gaikwad (Vijay Sethupathi).

Superstar Deepika Padukone, who was a memorable foil in Pathaan, doesn’t show up until the second half of the film, where she plays Khan’s wife Aishwarya. She is as arresting and effective as always, so good she threatens to tilt the film out of balance.

It says something about the plot that Khan can marry Nayanthara as well as Padukone. In fact, he plays so many roles in Jawan that viewers might lose track. He’s a prison warden, a bald terrorist, a cigar-smoking soldier shooting machine guns like Schwarzenegger, a tech whiz, a father, son, husband, lover, and conscience of a nation. He is, in effect, the whole show.

Jawan is always entertaining, perhaps working best when it is at its most preposterous. Like a big production number in the women’s prison which lasts from day to night, Khan sporting a half-dozen outfits while sending out seriously mixed signals about criminal justice.

For me, the only honest emotions in Jawan came during a scene where Khan meets ten-year-old Suji (Seeza Saroj Mehta), daughter of his future wife. “I’m looking for a papa,” she tells him in forthright tones. It’s staged with admirable clarity and simplicity. “I need a papa to whack my teacher for me,” she adds, after forcing Khan to admit he dyes his hair. I’d watch a whole movie with those two.

Jawan is currently streaming on Netflix in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages.

Credits: Directed by Atlee. Screenplay by Atlee, S. Ramanagirivasan. Dialogues: Sumit Arora. Cinematography: G. K. Vishnu. Edited by Ruben. Music by Anirudh Ravichander. Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Deepika Padukone, Seeza Saroj Mehta.

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Back to school with The Re-Education of Molly Singer

Let’s go back and fix things. Movies have built on that premise for years. Countless sci-fi films. Comedies like Back to School and 21 Jump Street. (The Stephen Chow franchise Fight Back to School may be the funniest example.) Half of the road trip movies are journeys to the past to reconcile or avenge. In a way, even a comedy like No Hard Feelings forces it star to confront mistakes in her past.

And now there’s The Re-Education of Molly Singer, a Lionsgate comedy dumped onto digital and on-demand platforms September 29. Starring Britt Robertson as Molly, a self-destructive young lawyer working, or avoiding work, at a firm run by Brenda (Jaime Pressly), it’s the work of horror director Andy Palmer (Camp Cold Brook) and writers Todd Friedman and Kevin Haskins.

Bright, broad, and only intermittently witty, Re-Education is like a community college version of No Hard Feelings. After Molly loses an important case, Brenda fires her, then offers her a job coaching her socially maladjusted son Elliott (Ty Simpkins) through his freshman year at college.

Molly drags along her buddy Ollie (Nico Santos), gets a room in a converted firehouse, and reverts to the same drunken partying that got her fired. She also sort of fixes up Elliott with Lindsay (Good Trouble star Cierra Ramirez), gets him into a fraternity, does something or other with her life and dreams and goals, and successfully defends herself against charges of kidnapping.

This last plot twist hinges on a pervert who’s been taping everything at the firehouse, and a sort of slapstick chase to get the evidence to court on time. It’s the sort of writing you’d find on the old Nickelodeon series Victorious, which made me wonder: who wants to watch this?

Really, what is the audience for Re-Education? It’s shot like a TV sitcom or a Beach Blanket Bingo movie, it’s filled with worn-out stereotypes (dumb jock, horny cougar, gay buddy), it tackles issues of absolutely no interest to college students, and it’s almost never, ever funny.

Robertson puts in a committed performance, leaning on her character’s grating personality even as it makes her less sympathetic. So does, surprisingly, Pressly, who is quick and efficient. Everyone else seems to be playing a version of a role copied from some other teen-oriented comedy.

Slapdash, visually dull, with a nondescript soundtrack, The Re-Education of Molly Singer falls short on so many levels it doesn’t even qualify as fluff.

Credits

Director: Andy Palmer. Writers: Todd Friedman, Kevin Haskins. Cast: Britt Robertson, Ty Simpkins. Nico Santos, Cierra Ramirez, Holland Roden, Wendie Malick, Jaime Pressly. Photo: Britt Robertson, Ty Simpkins, Cierra Ramirez. Courtesy Lionsgate.

In theaters, on digital and on demand: September 29, 2023

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Barber: Private eye blues in Dublin

Slow-paced and dignified, Barber plays by genre rules. Set in Dublin, the story follows private eye Val Barber (Aiden Gillen) as he investigates the disappearance of a young co-ed. It’s a mystery more interested in character than plot, one that offers very little in the way of action or suspense.

Director Fintan Connolly, who co-wrote the script with producer Fiona Bergin, understands the detective formula. A former cop, Barber antagonizes crooks and police alike. Like most movie private eyes, he’s hard-bitten, heartbroken, the keeper of secrets, and last resort of the exploited.

Barber harbors a pretty big secret that is telegraphed early on, one that affects his private life as much as his work. Bergin and Connolly saddle the detective with additional problems: Kate (Aisling Kearns), a slightly brain-damaged and demanding daughter; Monica (Helen Behan), a needy ex-wife who’s in a disappointing relationship; and Tony Quinn (Liam Carney), Barber’s nemesis, an angry, abusive cop who’s on the take.

Other characters from the past haunt Barber, but in true hardboiled fashion he soldiers on. Clues lead to Eunan Brady (Nick Dunning), a high-profile politico under Quinn’s protection. Barber keeps asking the wrong kinds of questions, despite the target on his back.

Fans of the genre will find enough to enjoy in Barber. Connolly tries to take a realistic approach to the plot. The chases, stake-outs, interrogations, and clues are all reasonably convincing, if not especially fresh. Dark alleys, quiet pubs, the occasional mansion or high-end restaurant could have come straight out of an Irish Chandler novel.

Barber’s character is not especially compelling, at least the way Gillen portrays him. Even so, the plot forces him to confront issues in his life he’s tried to avoid. And by continuing his investigation despite risk to her personal and public life, Barber eventually takes on heroic characteristic.

Still, Barber is so low-key viewers will have plenty of time picking apart plot points or questioning characters’ choices. Covid leaves a pall over the production. Masks appear and disappear, you can spot social distancing posters on hospital walls, and the entire film has an emptiness recognizable from pandemic times.

Dublin looks beautiful in Owen McPolin’s cinematography, and several grace notes lift the film out of the ordinary. Like the map of Dublin behind Barber’s office desk, or the slightly askew help from his secretary Oxana (Irma Mali). What distinguishes Barber the most is the fact that its lead characters are believably troubled people who are just trying to do their best.

Credits

Directed by: Fintan Connolly. Written by: Fiona Bergin & Fintan Connolly. Produced by: Fiona Bergin. Starring: Aidan Gillen, Aisling Kearns, Gary Lydon, Helen Behan, Deirdre Donnelly, Liam Carney.

In theaters and on demand September 22.

Photos: Aiden Gillen as Val Barber. Courtesy Brainstorm Media.

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Asteroid City review: Aliens out West

Years and years and years ago Wes Anderson made Bottle Rocket, a clever comedy about hapless crooks who are outwitted by a smarter crook. It was modest, unassuming, and confident, with excellent production design and cinematography and smart performances by the Wilson brothers and James Caan.

Flash forward three decades to Asteroid City, a leaden, overstuffed piece of whimsy about UFOs or something in the American Southwest. Or, if you belong to a certain school of critics, a brilliant take on existential dread. Anderson, like his followers, has swallowed the hype.

People do fall for Anderson’s affectless shtick, some over and over. Maybe it’s the kitsch, the pastels, the airless compositions, the insect-like line deliveries, the swirl of cultural allusions crowding every scene. Maybe Anderson’s followers identify as outsiders, underappreciated influencers, so-square-they’re-hipsters.

Me? I’m tired of complicated camera movements that end up meaning nothing. Or giant sets designed to look like giant sets. Or the Tinkertoy editing. Or talented actors reduced to speeding through clotted dialogue while trying not to emote.

I’m especially tired of Anderson’s attitude towards all this. When he played a Kinks song in The Darjeeling Limited, it complemented the narrative. Although weirdly out of place, it made sense. It didn’t feel ironic or snarky or cruel.

The Western themes in Asteroid City, on the other hand, are treated in a manner I find downright malicious. The starchy, too-tight clothes; the campfire putdowns; the pathetic hoedown — Anderson seems to hate everything about the West, from the endless horizons to the grit-covered picnic tables. When he sticks a distorted Slim Whitman singing his big hit “Indian Love Call” in the background of people bickering, he’s condemning it the same way cultural insiders mocked it for decades. Slim’s “weird,” and aren’t you cool for noticing?

And hey, how about all those call-outs to Warner Bros. animation? Not just the Road Runner landscapes. There’s that madcap chase, police speeding after a car, guns blazing, sirens howling, bisecting the frame and going nowhere. If you miss the joke the first time, you’ll get a few more chances to savor it because it’s an allusion! It’s punctuation! Maybe the West in that period just didn’t seem real. Maybe it was like a cartoon.

And all that mania about aliens! With the military and everything. Maybe that affected adults trying to have relationships, you know, people like movie stars and scientists and single dads who take photographs. Maybe that all means something.

In his best work Anderson seems attuned to adolescence, the push-and-pull of romance, the short but focused attention spans, the bewilderment over the larger world. Here the kids are snotty brats testing each other over pointless trivia.

Not that the parents are any better. Like their kids they’re terrified of sex, they resent authority, they have no answers. Wrap that up in cotton-candy colors and splash some mean-spirited music over it and you’ve got Asteroid City, a black hole of a movie that sucks pleasure right out of you.

Directed by Wes Anderson. Screenplay by Wes Anderson. Story by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. Produced by Wes Anderson, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson. Director of Photography: Robert Yeoman, A.S.C. Production Designer: Adam Stockhausen. Film Editor: Barney Pilling, A.C.E. Additional Editor: Andrew Weisblum, A.C.E. Costume Designer:  Milena Canonero. Music by Alexandre Desplat.

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton.

Photo Courtesy of Roger Do Minh/Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features. ©2022 Pop. 87 Productions LLC

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The lost dreams of Past Lives

Quietly devastating, Past Lives follows two childhood friends as they face the paths their choices have left them. Made with remarkable skill and precision, it is a wrenching account of how dreams die.

Childhood friends in Seoul, Nora and Hae Sung separate when Nora’s parents emigrate to Canada. Twelve years later they reconnect over the internet, Nora pursuing a career as a playwright, Hae Sung studying engineering after compulsory military service.

It takes another twelve years for the two to meet in person, when Hae Sung (now played by Teo Yoo) visits Nora (Greta Lee) in New York City. By now Nora has married Arthur (John Magaro), who is understandably anxious about his wife seeing her childhood sweetheart.

Writer and director Celine Song’s screenplay strips the film’s plot down to narrative basics. Romance in movies is built around delay, the inability of its leads to find happiness together. Song mines this element expertly (24 years is a long time to wait), building plausible reasons for Nora and Hae Sung to separate and reunite.

But Past Lives is more than a romance, it is a clear-eyed examination of how two characters (and by extension, a third) turn into people they never expected. Headstrong, impetuous, Nora finds her way changing as the world constricts around her. Stalwart, patient, Hae Sung must accept how his choices have shaped him. And Arthur learns that he can never truly know his wife, no matter how long they are together.

Song’s background in theater is clear in her  elisions. The script glides from moment to moment, condensing and expanding time. Nora’s affair with Arthur unfolds in a few, brief scenes that stretch across years. Song isolates key moments between young Nora and Hae Sung, holding on situations that will reverberate throughout their lives.

Nora and Hae Sung are searching for a past that may never have existed, at least not the way they understand it. “This is where I ended up,” Nora admits to herself as one point.

Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner singles out these two characters in a teeming world. He frames Nora so that her memories become our memories. A tilt down from the Seoul skyline finds two young children climbing stairs. Years later, a similar tilt from the Manhattan Bridge finds two old friends walking along an East River path. Precise but unassuming, Kirchner continues a string of excellent work that includes Bull and Small Axe.

Keith Fraase’s editing is key to the movie’s success, never more so than during the final scenes. And the music by Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen maintains Song’s elemental style.

In a story about choices, Song has made all the right ones. No movie this year shows the hurt of lost dreams like Past Lives.

Written & Directed by Celine Song. Produced by David Hinojosa, p.g.a., Christine Vachon, p.g.a., Pamela Koffler, p.g.a. Executive Producers: Miky Lee, Hosung Kang, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko, Celine Song, Taylor Shung, Christine D’Souza Gelb. Director of photography: Shabier Kirchner. Production designer: Grace Yun. Edited by Keith Fraase. Music by Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen.

Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, Seung Ah Moon, Seung Min Yim.

Photo courtesy A24.

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Palmanova and Aquileia: touring two UNESCO sites in Friuli

This year the Far East Film Festival celebrated its twenty-fifth year in Udine, Italy. A medieval town about an hour northeast of Venice, Udine offers theaters, shops, and an array of restaurants and cafés. It is the largest town in Friuli, part of an autonomous region known as Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Famous for its white wines and cured hams, Friuli borders Austria, Slovenia, and the Adriatic. From Alpine mountains to Adriatic lagoons, it is an area of distinctive beauty and history.

Most visitors to FEFF find their day filled with screenings, master classes, talks, concerts, and networking parties. But for those with extra time, Friuli offers a wide variety of touring possibilities.

Excellent roads, buses, and trains connect Udine with the rest of Friuli. You can visit vineyards, take a prosciutto tour, or wander through estates in nearby towns like Cividale.

This year I was fortunate enough to visit Palmanova and Aquileia, two UNESCO sites close by Udine. Either or both would be excellent destinations for tourists. The tour was arranged by OpusLoci, a project of the Chamber of Commerce of Pordenone-Udine that connects artisans, restaurateurs, hoteliers and local producers along UNESCO Heritage sites in Friuli Venezia Giulia.

About a half-hour away from Udine is Palmanova, a striking fortress town that dates back to the 16th century. Because of its strategic importance, straddling the mountains to the north and the Adriatic to the east, Friuli was occupied again and again over the years. Romans, Huns, Lombards, Franks, Venetians, Hapsburgs, and Napoleon Bonaparte all took part in ruling the area.

Designed in the shape of a nine-pointed star, Palmanova was built to defend against attacks on the Venetian Republic. Construction continued over many decades, with Bonaparte adding exterior lunettes in the early nineteenth century.

Palmanova’s unusual shape made it difficult for armies to attack. The city was additionally guarded by three double-gates (the only entryways) and a surrounding moat. The waters are largely gone, although some streams have been reintroduced. The massive gates, with their two sets of doors operated by wheels, are intact. They remain impressive, especially contrasted with the fields surrounding them.

The star shape makes driving through Palmanova a real challenge, as you often have to take a direction opposite to what you want in order to navigate the one-way streets and sharp corners.

On the other hand, it’s a wonderful town for walking. Stores and cafés are scattered along many of the streets, which lead pedestrians to a remarkable square in the center of town. Palmanova originally garrisoned as many as 5,000 soldiers at a time, but leaders built the square large enough to hold 20,000.

If you stand in the center of the square, you can see all three of the ancient gates leading to Cividale, Aquileia, and Udine. Stores and restaurants line the square, which is dominated by Duomo, completed in 1636. (Its bell tower is conspicuously low so it couldn’t be spotted by enemies outside the city walls.) Tucked away next to the Duomo is Hotel Ai Dogi, a cunningly renovated collection of buildings holding some 33 rooms. Compact but comfortable, some rooms look out onto the sun-drenched square.

The owner met us with coffee and aqua frizzante. Warm and friendly, she told us of her plans to renovate a building across the street and add another café to the hotel.

The hotel sits next to the award-winning Caffetteria Torinese, a restaurant listed in the prestigious Gambero Rosso Bar d’Italia. A glance at the menu convinced me I had to return when it was open.

Our tour guide told us that some guests stop in Palmanova while completing the Alpe Adria Cycle Route, a bike path that runs from Salzburg in Austria to Grado on the Adriatic. (The Friulian portion starts at Taraviso near the Austrian border.) If you start from the north, your route is mostly downhill. When you are done, you can take your bike on a train back to your starting point.

The Italians have worked out a superb infrastructure for bikers, with well-marked routes, staged resting areas, and restaurants and hotels geared towards bikers. Just like the rifugios that dot mountain trails, the bike paths were designed for comfort as well as exercise.

History buffs have a lot to explore in Palmanova. Museums, barracks, and tunnels show how the city evolved. On weekends it’s possible to walk through the Rivellino tunnels underneath the city’s walls. You can purchase tickets at the entrance to the gallery or at an Infopoint off the central square. Audioguides are also available.

QR codes can be found at key spots throughout the town to aid visitors. Scan the codes at the ramparts, and you can experience a 360-degree VR video through time. A different QR code will take you on a tour of the entire fortress, including the Duomo cathedral, the three city gates, a Napoleonic lunette outside the walls, and a Venetian aqueduct restored in 2015.

If you plan to visit, be aware that Palmanova hosts a UNESCO Cities Marathon in March, a comics and movie festival in June, historical reenactments in September, and Christmas events throughout December.

Not too many miles further towards the Adriatic you find Aquileia, another UNESCO site. It’s a small town of about 2,000, but it packs a powerful historical punch. Established by the Romans by 181 B.C. as a garrison for some 3000 foot soldiers, it was intended to be a storage and transportation hub with easy access to the nearby Adriatic. Local farmers supplied wine and grain. (An indigenous settlement predates the city.)

Estates, workshops, cemeteries, and a forum are scattered throughout the area, some still in the process of restoration. Our focus on this trip was one of the most important churches in early Christianity, the Basilica of Aquileia.

Built over the remains of a fourth-century church, the Basilica was enlarged in the 11th and 13th centuries. Its central floor is covered in mosaics, an art form perfected over the centuries by Aquileia artisans. At over 8000 square feet, it is the largest mosaic floor in western Christianity.

Biblical scenes like Jonah in the whale are depicted, as are a wealth of fish and fowl.  Geometric patterns symbolize fundamental Christian beliefs. It is a remarkable achievement that becomes even more astonishing as you make your way further into the church.

Ninth-century frescoes in a crypt under the main altar of the basilica detail the story of St. Mark the Evangelist, including the beheading of his followers Fortunatus and Hermagoras. After this we entered a crypt where even earlier mosaics are being excavated. And it turns out that more mosaics are being discovered throughout the town.

After our tour we emerged from ancient Roman times into a blindingly bright present. A block or two away from the church we found Vini Donda, a comfortable restaurant spread over several rooms. Local wines and liqueurs line the walls. The attentive staff makes you feel as if you are the only guests.

We had what was called a “light lunch,” starting with a plate of fresh, herbed croccante, thinly sliced and fried. Asparagus with a creamy egg sauce was followed by ravioli stuffed with local bruscandoli and served with a butter sage sauce. Strawberry tiramisu with a golden custard topped off the meal.

On the ride back to Udine, we passed small hamlets surrounded by fields and vineyards, snowcapped mountains in the distance. The sense of traveling through time, of experiencing so many cultures, was both dizzying and rewarding.

What remain with me are startlingly blue skies, endless horizons, the comfortable cafes with their smiling customers, and a sense of serenity that is hard to find in modern times. You not only feel connected to the past, you begin to understand what life was like for those who came before.

Photos: 1) Aquileia Gate entering Palmanova; 2) the Duomo, or cathedral, off the Parade Ground; 3) Basilica at Aquileia; 4) interior of the Basilica; 5) fresco in Basilica crypt of Fortunatus and Hermagoras; 6) mosaic depicting a basket of snails; 7) fresh croccante at Vini Donda. All rights reserved.

Linkshttps://www.opusloci.it/en/ : a wealth of information on history, artisinal goods, cuisine, and hospitality for Palmanova, Aquileia, and other Friulian sites. https://www.turismofvg.it/en : How to plan your visit to Friuli Venezia Giulia, with guides for biking, boating, mountaineering, culture, and cuisine. https://www.visitpalmanova.it/en/home-english/ : maps, guides, and photos for visiting Palmanova. https://www.fondazioneaquileia.it/en : The official website for Aquileia.

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You Hurt My Feelings: frustration for laughs

The title is as generic as the humor in You Hurt My Feelings, the latest feature from writer and director Nicole Holofcener. Once again a set of privileged folks teetering between middle and upper class deal with minor slights and aggravations that more or less work out as they (and you) think. It screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival prior to a theatrical release on May 26.

Holofcener has an unerring eye for foibles of the aggrieved privileged: their sense that they are not receiving the respect they deserve, that rivals are somehow gettting better treatment, that the obstacles they face are unfair. “I grew up with this strange feeling that I’m better than anyone else” is a characteristic admission.

So don’t expect narrative or thematic surprises. Instead, you get expertly drawn sketches about the travails of modern life. No one likes where they are, what they’re doing, who they are. A client complains that her interior designer is pushing the wrong sconce, for example. People end up with the wrong earrings, wrong V-neck sweater, wrong coffee. We see a creative writing class from hell, a husband and wife in couples’ therapy from hell.

Holofcener’s characters put up with things until they snap. In Friends with Money, a sexy maid outfit is the turning point for Olivia, Jennifer Anniston’s character. Here, Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) overhears her husband Don (Tobias Menzies) saying that he doesn’t like the novel she wrote.

Beth harbors her little secret until she blurts it out in a moment of pique. That unleashes a flood of other revelations. Her son is still angry about swimming lessons years earlier. Her husband resents his clients, her sister is angry about her job, her students haven’t bothered to read her work. Louis-Dreyfus been perfecting her tone deaf shtick for decades, and nothing here is a stretch for her. It’s like watching a vastly overqualified classical or jazz pianist play “Heart and Soul.”

Contrast Louis-Dreyfus here with her performance in the middling Netflix comedy You People. She had funnier lines there, but her performances was broader, more frantic. Here she’s tamped down, repressed, perfectly in keeping with Holofcener’s tone.

Holfencencer is working well-plowed but still fertile ground. Her script is at its best when it spins off on tangents. In her few moments, the wonderful Jeannie Berlin is brilliant as an elderly mother with possible memory problems. (Berlin has a small but telling bit in The Fablemans.) David Cross and Amber Tamblyn nail their passive-aggressive couple, and the cringes are delightful in Beth’s writing class.

The director knows where her characters shop, what they wear, what kinds of dispiriting jobs they endure. Is that enough? Does You Hurt My Feelings move beyond observation to reach genuine insights? Can a well-crafted, pleasant, undemanding find a receptive audience outside the Sundance universe?

Written & Directed by Nicole Holofcener. Produced by Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman, Nicole Holofcener, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Executive Producers: Johnny Holland, Gregory Zuk. Director of Photography: Jeffrey Waldron. Production Designer: Sally Levi. Edited by Alisa Lepselter.

Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Owen Teague, Arian Moayed, Jeannie Berlin.

Photo of Julia Louis-Dreyfus courtesy A24.

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Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant: a war story with consequences

It makes sense to approach Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant cautiously. The execrable Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is a glaring example of how lazy and listless the director’s output can be. Don’t worry. GRTC is worth your time.

It’s another in a long-running cycle of war movies about US guilt, aiming for something along the lines of American Sniper but slipping closer to the Rambo franchise. Here US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) is rescued from certain death at the hands of the Taliban by his Afghan interpretor Ahmed (Dar Salim). When Ahmed’s visa to the US is ensnared in bureaucracy, Kinley returns to Afghanistan to retrieve Ahmed and his family.

Gung ho in the extreme, GRTC is more than a genre exercise thanks to committed acting, a stripped-down screenplay (by Ritchie and his usual cohorts Ivan Atkinson & Marn Davies), and Ritchie’s outstanding filmmaking. He’s rarely this energized, or this careful.

Gyllenhaal gives a wonderful performance, fleshing out Kinley’s character even if it means showing the sergeant’s failings. You can see the soldier’s response to the violence he encounters in the actor’s face. Kinley is reluctant to give Ahmed any credit, in part because he’s suspicious of all Afghans. A former heroin dealer, Ahmed has a much deeper understanding of Afghanistan than Kinley will ever achieve. He’s also far more brutal.

Ritchie depicts their relationship efficiently, without forcing an emotional connection between the two and minimizing details about their private lives. Then the director stages a superb firefight between American troops and Taliban bombmakers in an abandoned mine. Tense, precise, convincing, the battle makes clear everything that’s at stake for Kinley and Ahmed.

The two go on the run across some seventy miles of hostile terrain, pursued by replenished Taliban fighters. When Kinley is wounded, it’s up to Ahmed to drag him across mountain passes to safety.

Shipped back to the States, Kinley spends weeks trying to secure visas for Ahmed, now on the Taliban’s most wanted list. It’s the weakest section of the film because it shifts the focus to military bungling rather that concentrating on Ahmed’s efforts to survive.

Kinley mortgages his business to return to Afghanistan and find Ahmed. Here Ritchie regains his footing, building first-rate sequences that unfold from three separate points-of-view. The ending is especially satisfying, even with a title reminding us that too many interpreters remained trapped and in hiding from the Taliban.

Ed Wild’s cinematography brings out the scope of Ritchie’s movie. He builds excellent extended takes while helping the director keep a firm grasp on the geography of the action. James Herbert’s editing is also very good, although the score by Christopher Benstead can be too on-the-nose.

Do we need another fictional account of a real-life incident from the Afghan war? Maybe not, but Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is so well executed that it rises above most of its competition.

An MGM release opening theatrically April 21, 2023. Photo: Dar Salim (left) as Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal (right) as Sgt. John Kinley. Credit: Christopher Raphael / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures© 2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Starring | Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Antony Starr, Alexander Ludwig, Bobby Schofield with Emily Beecham and Jonny Lee Miller
Directed by | Guy Ritchie
Written by | Guy Ritchie and Ivan Atkinson & Marn Davies

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