In theaters on limited release November 7 (and November 14 on Netflix) is ‘In Your Dreams,’ a new animated adventure from first-time feature director Alex Woo.
You might be more used to hearing about the Sandman –– particularly on Netflix –– via the work of a certain controversial author. But the concept of the mythological figure who can weave dreams has been used in stories for centuries, which also presents something of a challenge when someone wants to use it.
Fortunately in the case of Netflix’s new animated charmer ‘In Your Dreams’, it’s a recipe for wild adventures, silly characters and a storyline that only occasionally dips into treacly sentiment.
While it runs on some fairly predictable lines –– tensions between siblings, potential family ruptures as successful mother and slacker musician father face a crossroads –– ‘In Your Dreams’ still manages to find new things to say on the subjects.
The highlights, though, are certainly the surrealistic worlds within dreams and the characters lurking within, including talking breakfast food, a nightmarish threat and one very talkative stuffed toy.
Woo and Benson shake off an initially odd-looking facial structure for the human characters in an introductory flashback, fashioning appealing leads and even tapping into anime for one effective moment of the kids realizing their powers within the dreamscape.
Hoang-Rappaport and Janssen do solid work as the leads, and you’re happy to follow them along this journey. While Liu and Milioti naturally have less to do (until later in the movie), they’re both good.
Robinson’s giraffe-like Baloney Tony (a toy from the real world who finds his voice in dreams) is the stand-out: a funny, sometimes cowardly type who comes through in the end.
Final Thoughts
A scene from ‘In Your Dreams’. Photo: Netflix.
‘In Your Dreams’ won’t be challenging the best family movies any time soon, but it’s cute and diverting, full of enjoyable imagery and worth checking out if the kids have watched ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ once too often.
Stevie and her brother Elliot journey into the absurd landscape of their own dreams, and if the siblings can withstand a snarky stuffed giraffe, zombie breakfast foods, and the queen of nightmares, the Sandman will grant them their ultimate dream come true… The perfect family.
Nia Vardalos stars as “Toula” in writer/director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
In theaters now, ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ is like the local Greek fast-food chain –– it offers up a similar menu of chaotic, squabbling family members, some emotional moments and jokes about culture clashes, which will appeal to fans of the first two.
Whether it’ll be able to replicate the huge success of the first (the sequel, while it made money, certainly wasn’t) is a bigger question. Will audiences feel a little overstuffed at the thought of more time spent with Toula (Nia Vardalos) and her clan?
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What’s the story of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’?
(L to R) Nia Vardalos stars as Toula and John Corbett stars as Ian in director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
The Portokalos family has been sent an invitation to participate in a reunion for all the families who have moved away from the village their father came from. It was sent to them by Victory (Melina Kotselou), the extremely passionate town mayor.
Before he passed away, Toula’s father, Gus, asked her to go to the reunion and meet his old friends to pass on a journal he had kept of his life story. To honor his memory, the Portokalos family wants to see where their dad grew up.
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Who else is in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’?
(L to R) Andrea Martin stars as “Aunt Voula” and Maria Vacratsis stars as “Aunt Frieda” in writer/director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features.
(L to R) Elena Kampouris as Paris, Elias Kacavas as Aristotle, Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula, Nia Vardalos as Toula, Louis Mandylor as Nick, and John Corbett as Ian in director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
Familiarity, as the old saying goes, breeds contempt. And after two movies we are pretty familiar with Nia Vardalos’ squabbling, velcro assortment of family stereotypes. While her first effort, 2002’s ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ scored big with audiences around the world, feelings had cooled by the time the first sequel danced down cinema aisles in 2016. On the evidence of the third, it’s fair to speculate that for many, those feelings will have congealed like day-old moussaka.
Vardalos was always at the core of the movies, starring and writing the script (the concept is, after all, based on her life, her family, her (now-ex) husband and the one-woman show she grew from it. Now she adds directing to the mix, and unfortunately the film suffers for it. Which is a shame, since she has helmed before with ‘ I hate Valentine’s Day’.
Here, though, the final cut feels like the film’s data was corrupted in one of the post-production computers, forcing Vardalos and her editors to piece together a rough assembly of scenes to tell the story. What remains is a more a collection of moments that hang loosely together, scenes sometimes just ending rather than coming to a natural conclusion, storylines that should wrap up with real emotion instead untidily shut down.
(L to R) Actor/director Nia Vardalos and actor John Corbett on the set of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
The basic story, of the Portokalos family heading to Greece for the first time since late patriarch Gus (Michael Constantine, who appeared in the previous two outings but died before this one was shot) moved to America decades before, meanders like a donkey slowly climbing a hill. Both blandly empty and somehow overfilled, the narrative has subplots that rarely serve to hold the attention.
Worse, the wacky antics of the various family members feels more insufferable than charming this time around, unfunny bits of comic business repeated over and over, such as the gag about finding the Greek root of every word. “We know, we’re Greek” sighs one new character, and the audience, who will likely have heard many variants on it for two movies already, will nod their heads in pained empathy.
And the tone is all over the place, the comedy coming to a screeching halt as “emotional” music plays on the soundtrack whenever the story confronts either the loss of Gus or the fact that his wife, Toula’s mother Maria (Lainie Kazan) is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Even attempts to make light of the latter subject fall flat.
Are there reasons to celebrate?
(L to R) Nia Vardalos stars as “Toula” and John Corbett stars as “Ian” in writer/director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
If you’ve ever wanted to visit Greece or needed an excuse to look at some beautiful countryside, the movie at least has you covered on that front. Sprawling hillsides with small villages and sparkling blue seas make some shots look like the Greek Tourist Board coughed up some cash to help get the movie made.
On the acting front, it’s just another reason to say thank goodness for Andrea Martin, who as Aunt Voula never found a gag she couldn’t make work. She’s the sole reason for the movie containing any genuine chuckles at all, and while the character is used sparingly, it’s better whenever she’s around, bringing lines to life. Corbett, meanwhile, though he’s just as stuck in the repetitive plot patterns, at least has easygoing charm on his side.
(L to R) Gia Carides stars as “Nikki” and Joey Fatone stars as “Angelo” in writer/director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
Otherwise, the returning veterans and the new faces mostly just go through the motions, spouting lines that almost become catchphrases.
Vardalos has tried extending the ‘Greek Wedding’ format before, and the result was TV spin-off ‘My Big Fat Greek Life’, which aired for all of seven episodes. Perhaps that should have been a warning that there’s only so much “life” in these family stories.
One or two sweet moments and the few jokes that actually land are not enough for us to recommend saying “I do” to this one. Watch the first one again instead with a poster of Greece on the wall.
‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ receives 5 out of 10 stars.
(L to R) John Corbett as Ian, Maria Vacratsis as Aunt Frieda, Melina Kotselou as Victory, Nia Vardalos as Toula, Elena Kampouris as Paris, Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula, and Elias Kacavas as Aristotle in director Nia Vardalos’ ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,’ a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Yannis Drakoulidis / Focus Features.
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‘Loren & Rose’ revolves around Rose (Jacqueline Bisset), a legendary actress trying to revive her career. Loren (Kelly Blatz) is a promising filmmaker. Over the course of their many encounters, a deep friendship evolves as their love of art, understanding of grief, and faith in life’s potential guide them through personal and creative transformations.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with legendary actress Jacqueline Bisset about her work on ‘Loren & Rose,’ her first reaction to the screenplay, relating to her character, acting opposite Kelly Blatz, their characters unusual friendship, and working with filmmaker Russel Brown, as well as her memories of making ‘Bullitt’ with Steve McQueen and director Peter Yates, and the legacy of the film.
Jacqueline Bisset in director Russell Brown’s ‘Loren & Rose.’
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Bisset and Kelly Blatz.
Moviefone: To begin with, why did you feel that ‘Loren & Rose’ was an important movie for you to make?
Jacqueline Bisset: It was a special film for me, a very important one. Well, because it’s incredibly well-written, and it gave me an incredible opportunity to play this woman, and I really enjoyed it. It just reminds me, when I do these smaller, independent films with really caring filmmakers, how much I enjoy that aspect of the whole business, much more than I do the grandiosity sometimes around projects, which often doesn’t really touch me or make me feel welcome. I’m not particularly easy with it. I’ve done quite a few large films with big stars, and I enjoyed them, too. I’m not saying I didn’t. I’ve enjoyed almost everything I’ve done. But my personal choice and the reason I wanted to become an actor was to do individual auteur kind of material. It’s not part of a series, not that doing a series would necessarily be a bad thing, but I just tend to see things in a one-and-a-half or two-hour package. That’s sort of how I see things.
MF: What was your first reaction to the screenplay and what spoke to you personally about this story?
JB: Well, I liked that she was a flawed character. I was a little anxious that I would not have enough of the flawed part to be able to run her through because that’s given to another actress, a younger actress, to play me when I’m young, when most of this troublesome stuff that was in her reputation came from. I wanted to have some of that, I didn’t want my part to be too clean. So that was a worry, but I liked the fact that the character was flawed and untidy in a way, and a bit off the wall. She was always human, and had a relationship with the daughter that was not great, and I could understand why when I saw her singing in the restaurant. I just thought that, to have a mother like that must be quite tough. Imperfection is always good and it’s just a wonderful role that goes around corners, goes up walls, down the back, round the back stairs, up and then around, and it just had wonderful journeys to take within a character. But ultimately her focus was on him and her, what her personal certainties are, and that she saw that he was an artist. She wants him to stand up and be in that light, and for the right reasons and to believe in himself. She gives him a lot. He gives her a lot, too, mutual mentoring.
Jacqueline Bisset in director Russell Brown’s ‘Loren & Rose.’
MF: Did you relate to the character and what was your approach to playing her?
JB: I relate to all of it. Well, basically learning the lines is the most important thing. Getting that under my belt and then hoping that Kelly would be as good a listener as he was, an unbelievable listener, and he really helped me to loosen my character up because he didn’t make me feel rushed. He really listened and that’s such a rare thing. It’s rare in life and with actors, too. Sometimes people are sort of waiting for their line. You can sense them waiting for their line and I understand that it can happen. I’ve done films in different languages and I did a movie (‘The Sunday Woman’) with Marcello Mastroianni once in Italy, and I didn’t speak Italian. The director had asked me to do it in French, which looked more like Italian because it was all going to be looped afterwards. But I remember I would wait for Mastroianni to come to the end of a sentence, and I would start my line. So sometimes, he’d say in Italian, “I haven’t finished.” Oh my God, it was so embarrassing. Anyway, we got through it, so how you get there, it can change. You just have to get there.
MF: Can you talk about Rose and Loren’s unusual friendship, what she’s trying to teach him, and what she learns from him?
JB: Well, it is two different questions. She learns from him that she needs to give him, and she gives him her life, her confidence that she’s built, the imperfections of her life, and the disagreeable aspects of her life. She warns him about life. She warns him about the pitfall of just going for the money for the wrong reasons, just to be getting involved with projects just because of the status or not for the real things that really matters. He doesn’t believe her, really. He wants that attention. She says, “You’ve done one project that was well accepted and now you are addicted to that thing that you wanted. You’ll end up doing rubbish if you don’t pay attention. Get out of that rubbish. Be an artist. You aspire to that. Go through with it. Get rid of the fear. Stand tall. Be an individual.” I think she says, “Own your existence.” That just gives me such a thrill to say those words.
Jacqueline Bisset in director Russell Brown’s ‘Loren & Rose.’
MF: The movie is really a two-hander, mostly focusing on just Loren and Rose, and their relationship. What was it like for you acting opposite Kelly Blatz?
JB: For the most part, yeah. That’s what it is. So we defined the rhythm of it, and just to see him so focused at times. Sometimes it’s me who’s focused, sometimes it’s him, but his presence was enormous, and he gave me a great deal of help. Well, just the act of listening, it’s a very fertile ground when you feel free to explore and be in your body and somebody’s actually absorbing it, listening and reacting. He doesn’t necessarily agree with me about some things. There’s quite a degree of conflict, backwards and forwards, but just his presence, to be present in life. When we see somebody who has great presence, it’s about them being present. It’s what it is. It’s being in the moment and being there, and you feel it as an energy, I think.
MF: Is it challenging making a movie where you are really on screen for most of the film?
JB: Well, it is. It’s not something I sought out to be. In fact, I’ve actually rather avoided big roles. I did a film many years ago in the beginning called ‘The Grasshopper,’ in which I played a showgirl. I got very good reviews from it, but it wasn’t well distributed. It was with Jim Brown, and I thought, “Okay, this was all great, but did I enjoy it?” It was too much. I was in everything too much, running down corridors, changing to get to the next line, seeing the pressure of it. I thought, “This is not me. This is not what I want.” I want to be part of a several characters in a film and not be in everything. I didn’t want to be in everything, and I haven’t done that many enormous roles. So I need to think about things, I need to feel them. I was under such pressure, and I didn’t know how to preserve my energy. I was young, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I found it very exhausting. I was fine in the film, and I thought it was an okay movie for the time. The character was a good character. But is that what I want? No, I’d rather be more elusive in more interesting characters.
Jacqueline Bisset in director Russell Brown’s ‘Loren & Rose.’
MF: What was it like collaborating with writer and director Russell Brown on set?
JB: Well, he’d already given me everything by writing the role and being there, so I wanted to get a take on what he wanted. Occasionally he gave me a line reading. He gave me a line reading on the bit when I’m talking about there being a moon. He got up, and he did this sort of intricate strange little moment. I thought, “Oh Christ, am I going to have to do that?” I thought, “Oh, I’m not sure about that. How do I find that? I’ve got to find it.” I said, “Okay, just go do it.” That was a moment when he had given me a rather precise direction, but generally he let me pretty much wander around in my own thing. He didn’t give us particular directions. He had to move the camera a lot. He tried to create a certain energy by moving the camera, and by the size of the shots. There were mirrors behind that he felt were important because he could get angles on us that we couldn’t see, that were behind us. I paid no attention to the mirrors at all, but he was watching the mirrors, apparently. He wore very funny outfits because he was cold. I couldn’t believe how he turned up some sometimes in outfits. I said, “What are you doing dressed like that?” He said, “I’m just cold.” I said, “Okay, fine.” It just cracked me up. I have an image of directors. Usually they got the sort of jacket with the pockets, a jungle jacket type thing, with pockets to put things in, and he had absolutely nothing like that. He was hilarious. I found him very funny, but very cool, pleasant, and he couldn’t control himself. All those details are fun.
MF: Finally, ‘Bullitt’ is my absolute favorite movie of all time. What are your memories of making that film with Steve McQueen and director Peter Yates?
JB: Well, I worked with Peter Yates twice. I did that film, and also he directed ‘The Deep,’ so that was a good experience too. Both experiences were good. I was still fairly green in terms of the business. Steve was a little bit hyper. He was involved with his first production. It was his own company, Solar Productions, so he would rush up to me and say a few words, and it was all new American jargon. I mean, I didn’t know what “soul chicks’ or “dudes” were. I was like, “Yes, Steve. Yes, Steve, yes.” I couldn’t say, “What is this? What is a soul chick? What is it really to be a soul chick?” This was the ’60s, the end of the ’60s in America. He was patient with me. He was nice. He was cool, very cool. He rushed around on his bike. He came to the set. He left the set, leaning forward, like a sort of cat animal on the bike. He’d be gone, and he obviously did not want to get caught by the public. He was a very big star at that time. He would never show himself. He was very discreet. We’d all go to restaurants together. It was like a group of us, the director, the producer, Steve, myself, and one or two other people occasionally, but usually we’re like four or five. He would always go in a corner, turn his back, and need private room. He never wanted to be seen anywhere, and I thought it was curious. He wasn’t like, “I’m a star” at all. Very much kind of private and quiet, and didn’t make a lot of noise, and didn’t show off. He was cool. He was very cool.
Steve McQueen in 1968’s ‘Bullitt.’
MF: ‘Bullitt’ seems more popular and relevant today than it was when it was originally released. Are you surprised by the legacy of the movie?
JB: I’m stunned by it. I get asked to go to car things, and they’re still talking about ‘Bullitt’. I say, “What is this thing with men, and a car?” I just don’t get it. I have to admit. I didn’t particularly enjoy the working of it because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was always a bit self-conscious., but I was very happy to work with Peter Yates, who later used me in ‘The Deep.’ I got to like him very much. He was a very civilized man. He treated me very well, he was very patient with me in the early days of my career, but I have good memories of all that. It’s all good memories.
Jacqueline Bisset in director Russell Brown’s ‘Loren & Rose.’
