BLACK BAG

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If ever there was a movie seemingly written by A.I. "Black Bag" is it.

Generation Jones screenwriter David Koepp ("Spider-Man" - 2002) is the culprit, but there are no clean hands on this cobbled together spy thriller.

Overly complicated and tinged with brief spurts of humor, "Black Bag" is a puzzle that falls apart like a sack of disconnected Lego pieces. This thing rattles and hurts.

Something awful has happened to Michael Fassbender. Not that Fassbender ever had much big-screen charm to begin with, but here he inhabits a negative space usually reserved for folks living in a senior care facility. Fassbender seems to be channeling the late Pier Paolo Pasolini, and it ain't pretty or even functional.

Fassbender's obnoxious British spy character George Woodhouse is married to Cate Blanchett's nearly-as-unattractive UK agent Kathryn St. Jean. I know what you're thinking, how clever to have married spies pit against each other.

Well, David Koepp was certainly in love with the idea.

Kathryn's covert activities raise hackles of suspicion for George, who has a habit of drugging co-worker dinner guests with truth serum in order to extract facts that would otherwise be left to the "Black Bag," a spy term for secrets-never-to-be-revealed.

Yawning all of the time now.

An utter lack of likable, empathetic, or even knowable characters, doom the movie to be little more than a 93-minute distraction from any other mean-spirited interaction you're likely to have on a New York City street.

As disappointing as it is to see Cate Blanchett in such a diminished role, it's some consolation to know that Pierce Brosnan got a payday out of it all.

Steven Soderbergh is no David Fincher, and David Koepp is no Tony Gilroy.

March is rarely a good month for the movies. Here's your proof.

Rated R. 93 mins.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

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An unrelenting parade of murder, greed, misery, and menace, "Killers of the Flower Moon"commits the unforgivable sin not giving its audience any ounce of relief.

There is no where to hide from its violence.

Alfred Hitchcock was a master at knowing where to draw the line for his audience so you always felt in capable, and caring hands.

Sadly, this is not the case with "Killers of the Flower Moon."

Regardless of how historically accurate the film might be in its depiction of an oil-rich community of Native Americans assassinated by greedy white men, the bloated movie leaves you cold.

The only character you root for is Lily Gladstone's Mollie, who seems at least for a moment to know that her betrothed husband Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an idiot criminal of the first water.

Lily Gladston's performance is the only reason to see this movie.

"Killers of the Flower Moon" is a grueling, punishing experience to sit through.

Anyone with a half a brain could edit an hour out of this movie, blindfolded.

This is not the film that should seal Martin Scorsese's storied career.

"Taxi Driver" is still best movie he ever made.

Rated R. 310 mins.

MAESTRO

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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It's rare for an actor/director/screenwriter to become so enthrall with his or her creation that they get their hand stuck in the cookie jar of their own movie.

Such is the sad case for Bradley Cooper, whose deep impersonation of Leonard Bernstein obliterates everything around it, including Carey Mulligan's exquisite portrayal of Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.

Bradley Cooper's insistence on giving his historic character the stuffed-up voice of man with a constant cold, wears out the viewer early on.

A lack of narrative focus exposes Bernstein's outrageous narcissism. The result leaves the viewer to wonder why we should give two cents about Leonard Bernstein as anything other than an abuser of everyone he came into contact with.

What a monster of a human being.

Perhaps there's room for a gay #MeToo movement.

Here is a film that needed a serious rewrite, much tighter editing, and direction by a filmmaker other than Bradley Cooper.

At least "Maestro" is an easy movie to forget.

Rated R. 129 mins.