Vox Lux
A Star Is Mourn
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 110 min

Brady Corbet (yes, that guy!) aims for the (pop) stars in his second feature Vox Lux, which is part masterful, and part questionable.  All in all, there’s a lot to take in, and a majority of the praiseworthy work belongs to Raffey Cassidy (and to Brady and cinematography by Lol Crawley for all those beautiful New York City building shots!!), who plays our fragile heroine Celeste in younger times, and then later on, when Natalie Portman portrays the older, crustier, unhinged version of Celeste, Raffey plays her daughter.  Confusing, a bit, and especially so when Portman enters the movie and acts like she’s doing one of those ‘silly’ an SNL raps, and a lot of the built up luster turns to bluster, but when the finale concert is staged, and the Sia songs blare, and the Mr Portman Benjamin Millepied dance move groove, they turn the beat around, and everything feels perfectly in sync

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Vox is currently sounding off in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

In the 1977 [Star Wars] film, I was working very hard to create something different that wasn’t fashion, so I went with a kind of Southwestern Pancho Villa woman [soldaderas] revolutionary look, which is what that is. The buns are basically from turn-of-the-century Mexico. Then it took such hits and became such a thing.

–George Lucas

Isabelle Huppert

Ruth Negga

Natalie Portman

Emma Stone

Meryl Streep

Jackie
To Live and Die With Dignity
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
R | 100 min

I’ve missed Natalie Portman, and I feel like she hasn’t really done anything post-Black Swan, which somehow was 6/7 years ago.  Yes, I know she was in Thor and in that dumb Ashcan Kruncher flick, and other stuff, but those were juss movies, not films.  Natalie can obviously pick and choose whatever she wants to do – she’s earned that right – but being such an incredible actress means she has a responsibility to take on incredible roles

I’d like to say that Natalie Portman’s proper follow-up to Black Swan is Pablo Larraín & Noah Oppenheim‘s Jackie Kennedy film, where she somehow is even more graceful, tortured and emotionally wounded than when she was as a ballerina bent on finding perfection.  Jackie is not perfect (it’s close, but there’s not enough grassy knoll for me :), but it is what it needs to be, and Portman as Jackie IS perfection

Throughout the course of the film, Jackie goes from white swan, to white swan covered in blood, to even whiter swan, and by the end of it all, I somehow I felt more compassion for Portman (as Jackie), then I actually do for Jackie Kennedy, for enduring and rising above the horrific death of her husband, and the leader of the free world

What the country went through is incomparable to what Jackie went though, but in a time of much awfulness, she had the right mind to plan a sendoff for JFK worthy of royalty, and cement his legacy and place in history for eons to come.  What Jack Kennedy accomplished in office wasn’t much (he didn’t get a chance to put man on Uranus), but what Jackie Kennedy accomplished in giving dignified life to his death was more than a lot, it was Camelot!

Portman also accomplishes something that wasn’t important or needed – reminding me how much I love Love LOVE seeing her on the big screen

Bonus points to the film for somehow turning Greta Gerwig into a real human being.  Never seen her so un-loopy and restrained.  And props to Peter Sarsgaard for giving new life to RFK, without going haaaard on the look or accent that most others usual do in Bobby’s shoes.  Also, Billy Crudup and John Hurt are quiet great as listeners for Jackie

Also, we finally have a definitive Jackie movie.  before Portman, all we had was this…

YES!

Verdictgo: Portman is Breast In Show, but the film is Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Jackie is way JF O-Kay at a theater near jews AND white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…