Michael is the newest musical biopic, showing the life (up until the mid-80s, and thus before all the controversy) of Michael Jackson. A very entertaining film, even if it is a bit of a puff piece. If you are a child of the 80s and grew up Michael’s music, you’ll find plenty to enjoy here.
After a short scene taking place in 1988 where Michael Jackson is getting ready to go on stage for a massive concert, we zip back to his humble beginnings in Gary Indiana. In 1966, the Jackson family lives under the tyrannical figure of their patriarch, Joseph Jackson. He grinds his kids into a musical group, demanding perfection, or face a whipping from his belt if they don’t. Joseph starts lining up bar gigs in the area, and the kids are a hit, especially young Michael in the vocal lead. A rep from Motown sees them one day and immediately sees Michael’s talent, asking Joseph to bring the group in for a meeting, and thus it begins. The Jackson 5 starts touring, and their albums become chart-toppers.
By 1978, Michael is ready to branch out on his own, and releases the first solo album with Quincy Jones at Epic Records, Off the Wall, Michael’s breakthrough as a solo artist. Joseph is still his manager though, and he insists that Michael put his family first, forcing Michael to record and tour with the Jackson 5 rather than doing a solo tour. Michael still lives in fear of his father, and kowtows to him whenever confronted. It isn’t until 1981, when Michael goes behind Joseph’s back to higher an attorney of his own, that he gets out from his father’s shadow. 1982’s Thriller followed, cementing Michael Jackson as one of the strongest acts in the world; it would go on to sell 34 million copies, the second best-selling album of all time. The film wraps up a couple years later, after Michael goes on a final tour with his brothers, and publicly ends his musical influence under his father’s thumb, culminating in that 1988 sold-out Wembley stadium concert during his Bad tour in 1988.
For a film about a man embroiled in controversy, the movie avoids all of it. Doesn’t hurt that it ends in 1988 before most of that came along, but even the infighting and jealousies between Michael and his brothers is completely ignored. In the movie, they all seem to be united for their hatred/fear of their father. Colman Domingo steals the show as Joseph Jackson and is easily the strongest actor in the film. It is pretty obvious that Jaafar Jackson was chosen for the role of Michael based solely on his familial looks (he is Michael’s nephew, brother Jermaine’s son). Jaafar obviously practiced the moves and has Michael’s classic dances down cold, but he’s not going to win any acting awards any time soon. But as I said at the open, it is an entertaining movie, even if the more complicated elements of Jackson’s early life are whitewashed. ★★★½
After years of doing movies together, we got to see what writer/director Benny Safdie had to offer on his solo effort (The Smashing Machine), and now we see what brother Josh can do on his own, with Marty Supreme. Called by everyone “the ping pong movie,” there’s a lot more to it than that. Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a star table tennis player in 1950s New York, with aspirations of growing the sport and making lots of money. The British Open is about to take place, and Marty thinks that if he can win, it can spur the imagination of his nation and lead to financial opportunities. Sounds like it would be easy to root for this go-getter, if only he were even the slightest bit likable. Marty is a despicable person, willing to do anything and hurt anyone (friends, family, the girl (someone else’s wife) he knocked up) to get to the top. Thus, it is impossible to root for him on his journey. That being said, it’s a very entertaining movie, with awesome performances by the talented Chalamet and a surprisingly strong showing from Shark Tank alum Kevin O’Leary (his own personal views notwithstanding) as a cutthroat businessman. ★★★★
Charliebird is about a woman, Al (short for Alyse I think?), who is a music therapist working in the children’s wing of a hospital. She uses her guitar to uplift hopes in the ward, and it seems to work for all of the kids except one: Charlie. Charlie is 17 years old, been in and out of hospitals most of her life, and strongly suspects she is worse off than her parents are admitting, and that she won’t be leaving the hospital this time. She has no patience for Al, but Al will not give up so easily. Al is carrying around a lot of baggage too, about a sister who died tragically many years ago when they were younger, and she sees something in Charlie that reminds her of her long-lost sibling. Despite the hospital’s warnings, Al gets too attached to Charlie and becomes more of a friend than just a caregiver. Very emotional ending, even if you do see it coming from damn near the beginning of the movie. Strong acting from a bunch of people I’ve never heard of. ★★★½
Readers of my blog know I am a musical junkie, so of course I was going to watch Merrily We Roll Along. It’s a recording from a live performance on Broadway with its Broadway cast, including Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez in the leads; Groff and Radcliffe both won Tony’s for their performances. The musical/movie starts at the end, with a party celebrating the new hit movie of Frank (Groff). We quickly see, though, that Frank is surrounded by sycophants, and his wife Gussie (Krystal Joy Brown) craves the attention they bring. Frank’s old friend Mary (Mendez) is at the party, but she is working hard to get drunk as fast as she can, and once she’s had enough, she tells Frank and all those gathered around how awful they all are, including Frank, who is no longer the person she knew. Then we start going back, each successive scene retreating a couple years at a time, to see how we got here. It takes awhile to get all the details; as in real life, there’s rarely one moment that changed everything. Rather, it’s a culmination of things. Frank used to write songs with his parter and former best friend Charlie (Radcliffe), but the two had a serious falling out over Frank’s ambition, while Charlie was unwilling to give up his ideals and love of the art form for a chase of fortune. Mary has a big part to play in it all too, as does Frank’s first wife, before Gussie came along. The movie (and musical) is just ok for me. The music isn’t all that catchy, and honestly I’m not sure how this musical won so many awards. A minor nitpick too: if you are going to present a live performance, then let it look like a live performance. Too many close-ups try to make this show look like a movie instead of a stage performance. I’d rather have the cameras take a step back to show the whole stage. There’s another movie coming one (far away) day too. Richard Linklater is doing a movie adaptation, and since the show takes place over 20 years, that’s how he’s filming it, as only Linklater does. Maybe the next version of the film, in 2045, will be better. ★★½
Magellan is an artsy telling of the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, portrayed by the always good Gael Garcia Bernal. It begins in 1511 in Malacca, where Magellan is fighting for Portugal against the local sultanate. He is gravely injured, which gives him a limp for the rest of his life, but survives. He returns to Portugal and begins planning his famous expedition around the world. There are lots of mutiny attempts and putting down insurrections along the way. After crossing past what later would be called the Straight of Magellan south of South America and heading out into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, many of the sailors lose hope, as weeks become months with no sight of land. When they finally hear seagulls, cheers go up. The ship makes land at Cebu, where they are welcomed by the indigenous people as the first white people they’ve ever seen. However, Magellan is reminded of Malacca, where they were also initially welcomed with open arms. On Cebu, he tries to convert them all to Christianity, but the people just nod and repeat the Sinner’s Prayer, not knowing what it means. When they continue to worship their gods, Magellan’s men round up the idols and burn them, angering and saddening the people. They try to scare Magellan away with their tales of a gruesome phantom that eats babies and whatnot, but the learned Magellan recognizes a ghost story when he hears one, and is unafraid. This will be his downfall, because when the Cebu people rise up against his crew, they are vastly outnumbered, leading to Magellan’s death. The movie goes in fits and starts, showing little scenes here and there both before and during the voyage, which can be hard to follow until you get into the flow of it. Some parts of the movie are amazing and breathtaking, other just don’t come together quite right. ★★★½
Afterburn is the kind of shlocky action flick that usually sees a straight-to-streaming release (though it did hit theaters first, where it bombed). But its a dystopian film, and I can’t resist the genre. It’s set 10 years after a huge solar flare took out all technology on our planet, and society has crumbled. Warlords have taken reign across Europe. Jake (Dave Bautista) has been fixing up a boat for years, in hopes of getting out of London to the safer open seas. Jake is great at finding things, and has been locating relics of the pre-destroyed world for a man (August, played by Samuel L Jackson) calling himself the new King of England. His latest assignment is the Mona Lisa, but Jake initially refuses, knowing how dangerous mainland Europe has become. He can’t pass up on the promise to finish his boat though, so he reluctantly agrees. What he finds in France may break him, as there are waring factions, and he’s not entirely sure he can trust the people he’s working for either. Sometimes you’re in the mood for these over-the-top bloody action movies; today I was not. ★½
Resurrection is marketed as an “epic science fiction drama.” Not sure it is that, but it is is a thought-provoking, leisurely presented Chinese drama, and those are some of my favorites. The premise is that it takes place in the future where mankind has learned to live forever by giving up dreaming, but some renegades would rather age than give up on their dreams. Thus, a special force is tasked with going inside the dreams of those people and find out why they don’t want immortality. We get 4 dreams of our protagonist, and so the movie is really 4 vignettes held together (loosely) by that overarching idea. But man oh man, those vignettes are so good. In the first dream, the dreamer plays Qiu, a man in a bombed-out city who is threatened and tortured to give up the code to unlock a suitcase of his friend. In the second, he is a former monk who has betrayed his old monastery to some looters, there looking for riches, but he has a chance to redeem himself with a spirit house in a Buddha statue. In the third, the dreamer becomes Jia, a con artist looking to pull one over (with the help of a little girl) on a wealthy patron seeking a psychic. In the final dream, he is Apollo, living life to the fullest on New Year’s Eve 1999, when the world thinks it might be ending, though his companion may be a vampire. Obviously the whole movie is very dream-like, much like the director’s last film (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), so much so that there are scenes that reminded me of dreams I’d had. Just the way the camera moves, or how events blend into each other, etc. Beautifully shot, beautifully told, just a gorgeous film in every way. The final scene of the last dream stuck with me. ★★★★
Miroirs No 3 is the latest from German director Christian Petzold and returns his frequent collaborator, Paula Beer. This one’s not one of my favorites from this team, but it is solid. Laura is riding down the road with her boyfriend after a bitter fight when he crashes the car and is killed. Laura is thrown from the car but survives with barely a scratch, and is taken in by a very friendly woman who lives nearby. The woman, Betty, obviously sees something in Laura, and tells her that she’s welcome to stay as long as she needs while she gets her bearings. This turns into several weeks, though something seems afoot here. Something’s not right, and you can feel it from the get-go. This leads to a lot of tension in the quiet moments, a feeling that something isn’t being said, sort of an “open secret” that Betty’s family is in on, but Laura and we viewers are not. Ending was a little uneven for me, but I’ll watch anything with Paula Beer in it. ★★★
The Voice of Hind Rajab is a gut punch of a film, based on a true story. In 2024 during the Israel incursion into Gaza, volunteers at the local Red Crescent (the Middle East branch of the Red Cross) receive a frantic call from a Palestinian woman trying to flee Gaza. Israel has told Palestine citizens to get out of the area, and that’s what the woman’s family was trying to do when they were fired upon by Israel’s army. The line goes dead and the Red Crescent folks think the worst, when they get a new call in. A small 6-year-old girl named Hind has survived the gunfight, though she says the rest of her family in the car “is sleeping.” Omar, the young man who initially took the call at Red Crescent, immediately wants to send in an ambulance to get the girl out, but the boss knows they have to go through the proper channels. Though the Red Crescent has certain protections as an international humanitarian group, and though Hind is just 8 minutes from the nearest Red Crescent ambulance facility, they need to notify the Israel Defense Force that they’ll be going into the zone, as well as the Palestine defenders on the other side, and a host of others. What should take just a few minutes ends up taking hours, as they keep getting hung up on red tape, all while Hind pleads for help. It is starting to get dark, and she is scared. Hearing a little girl begging for help, which should be easy to give, is heart wrenching, and the film drives it home by using actual audio recordings from that fateful day as Hind cries and Omar’s frustrations boil over. The inevitable end, which we all know is coming, just breaks you. I know Israel is supposed to be our buddies and a person can be ostracized for saying anything against them (and I also know that both sides commit atrocities in war), but damn. If this movie doesn’t boil your blood, I don’t know what can. ★★★★★
The Testament of Ann Lee comes from writer/director Mona Fastvoid, the “other half” of the writing team (with Brady Corbet) of The Brutalist, a film that was much hyped a couple years ago, but which didn’t blow me away. This film is like that one in a lot of ways, namely that (I think) it feels much more important than it really is. Which isn’t to say it’s a bad movie, but maybe a bit pretentious. (Probably loosely) based on the life of Ann Lee, it tells her story from childhood to death. Ann lived in the mid-18th century. Born in a poor family in Manchester, England, at a young age she witnesses her parents having sex, something that would shape her life. She grows to be very pious, and preaches celibacy as a way to grow close to God. This, of course, doesn’t sit well with her husband, and after her fourth child in a row dies young, she swears off sexually actively entirely. Ann starts growing followers, especially women (as she preaches them as equals in the eyes of God), and people are drawn to her version of “shaking Quakers,” or “Shakers” as they become known. After awhile, Ann feels like they can have more religious freedom in America, so she and her followers make the voyage in search of a new community. Amanda Seyfried is very good as Ann Lee, a woman who never learned to read or write but who stood by her convictions, even under persecution. However, the movie does come off as self-important and rubbed me the wrong way at times. A quasi-musical, it has some weird musical numbers thrown in, with music that often just repeats the chorus a thousand times. Still, worth watching for Seyfried’s performance, and maybe a bit of history, if you are so inclined. ★★★½
Christy was supposed to be Sydney Sweeney’s coming out party, a serious Oscar contender to show the world that she is more than just a pretty face and can carry a dramatic role. That didn’t happen, as it failed to wow the critics, but I think it is still OK. Sweeney is Christy Salters, one of the first stars in female boxing and someone who helped put the sport on the map. The film starts with her in college in the late 1980s, where she’s a good player but prone to getting in fights. A local coach and promoter, James Martin, sees her beating on someone and recruits her for boxing. It isn’t long before Christy is fighting for money, and marrying James to boot, this despite Christy being a lesbian; she is trying to please her homophobic mother by going straight. James shows his true colors soon though, becoming controlling and verbally abusive, which will soon become physical abuse too. Christy sticks with him, as he introduces her to Don King, after which her career really takes off. Things go sideways in 2003 after King books a fight for Christy to fight up-and-comer Laila Ali, who outweighs Christy by 30 pounds. Christy loses obviously, leading to a cocaine addiction and further abuse from James. When Christy attempts to finally leave him, James stabs and shoots her, leaving her for dead, though she miraculously crawls outside and flags down a car for help. Based on a true story, the film is moving in all the right spots but fails to really flesh out the characters. Christy always seems to do no wrong, and James is evil from the beginning, and every other character sticks to their little path with no deviation either. Sweeney is solid as Christy Martin, but the direction and writing doesn’t help her out. ★★½
TV series recently watched: Dark Winds (season 4), Paradise (season 2), Stargate SG1 (season 3), Company Retreat (series), Jessica Jones (season 3), The Pitt (season 2), X-Files (season 2)
Book currently reading: House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
Been nearly a decade since the first Zootopia film, a movie that didn’t blow me away, but which has grown on me with time. I liked the sequel much more upon first viewing. It picks up right where the first ended: Judy Hopps (a rabbit) and Nick Wilde (a fox) have just taken down the corrupt mayor in the city of zoo animals and are public darlings, though the police force isn’t exactly ready to give them good cases yet. Thus, Judy and Nick team up to find their own, and in doing so, uncover a scheme 100 years in the making. At first, they think a snake is trying to steal an ancient journal chronicling the creation of the weather walls (which allows animals from various habitants to live near each other). Others scoff because snakes, and reptiles in general, haven’t been spotted in society in years, but Judy is undeterred. Her investigation ends up going deep into Zootopia’s past, and an entirely new bad guy hiding in plain sight. Unlike my initial thoughts on the first film, this movie has tons of “inside” jokes that kids won’t get but which are aimed squarely and Gen X and older, so this is one for kids, parents, and grandparents alike. The message is much the same as the first movie (being accepting of “animals” of all shapes and sizes) but delivered in a new way. Very funny and very endearing. ★★★★½
Frontier Crucible is a neowestern made on a super low budget, but does have a couple recognizable faces (Thomas Jane as the cruel leader of some thugs, and Armie Hammer as one of his henchmen, though not sure Hammer counts as he’ll take any gig at this point in his career; there’s also a 5 minute cameo by William H Macy which was probably filmed in 20 minutes). The film takes place in the Arizona territory of the late 19th century and follows a man of few words but strong actions named Merrick, who’s been tasked with getting medical supplies through Apache lands to the city of San Carlos. Soon into his trip, he stumbles upon a wagon that was recently attacked by the Apache, leaving the wagon’s owner, Jeff, suffering from a gunshot to the stomach and his wife, Valerie, distraught. The wagon was also being “protected” by three thugs who came out of the wilderness and latched on: Mule, his adult son Billy, and evil-looking Edmund. The five of them beg Merrick to help them get north to Tucson, the closest city, but Merrick is adamant about getting his supplies to San Carlos. Thus, they all team up to head south through the worst of the Apache areas. Merrick will have to keep an eye out for the natives, but also his own ne’er-do-well “friends,” whom Merrick starts to suspect played a part in torturing and killing his own brother in the area 2 years ago. Not very well acted and some truly rough dialogue, but there’s some nice surprises, and the bloody ending is as exciting as you could hope for. If I’m just rating the whole of the film, probably 2 stars, but that ending got to me. ★★★
No Other Choice is kind of a weird film. A South Korea black comedy, it is about a man, Man-su, who is fired from his job at a paper-making company when he refuses to lay off some people under him. His wife Mi-ri is forced to start working again, and their kids Si-one and Ri-one are left wondering if they’ll be able to keep their house. After taking a menial low-paying job that doesn’t really help pay the bills, Man-su gets an idea: he can get a good job at a paper company again, if he can “take out” the other qualified candidates that may get hired before him. Thus, he makes a list of 2 or 3 people in the industry who may see more attention than himself, and sets out to accomplish the grisly task. For my tastes, the humor was really out there, with some quirky laughs at Man-su’s expense, but I can see how others may be laughing their asses off, as he is just about the worst kind of assassin. I want to rate this one higher, but it’s just not my cup of tea. ★★★
Is This This On? Is a comedy drama starring Will Arnett and Laura Dern as married couple Alex and Tess, with small roles for Amy Sedaris, Sean Hayes, Peyton Manning (who is an awful actor) and Bradley Cooper (who also directed). Married for 20 years, they’ve made the decision, jointly it seems, to end their marriage, as neither are really happy. They set out to do a good job coparenting their sons and Alex gets a small apartment. Over the ensuing months, they each try to restart lives on their own, figuring out what it means to be single for the first time in a quarter of a century (and times have certainly changed!). Alex stumbles into a bar one night, but doesn’t have the cash to pay the $15 cover, so instead signs himself up to do stand-up comedy at the bar’s open mic night in order to get in for free. Unprepared, he goes up on stage and actually gets some laughs, nervously talking about his failing marriage. He enjoys it, and continues going to open mic nights around the city and making friends amongst the other comics in the area. Tess also starts fresh. She was once an esteemed volleyball player, playing for USA in the Olympics, but gave it all up to be a wife and mother. She puts out feelers about getting back into the sport as a coach. The movie mostly follows Alex though, as he continues performing on stage, using material gleaned from his evolving personal life. When Tess, on a date no less, stumbles upon Alex’s routine one night, shit might hit the fan. There’s some good laughs, but honestly for my tastes it was a bit cringy at times, as Alex’s act is really just that of a sad man who can’t come to grips with his derailed life. I’m not one to laugh at someone else’s misfortune, even if he’s the one making the jokes (as a defense mechanism). ★★½
The Housemaid is a thriller from a unlikely source, director Paul Feig (more known for his comedies like Bridesmaids and the latest Ghostbusters reboot, not to mention the show Freaks and Geeks). Sydney Sweeney stars as a down-on-her-luck woman named Millie, who is homeless and desperately in need of a job, in order to meet the requirements of her parole. She lands a seemingly plush gig as a live-in housemaid to a wealthy family: husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar; Spencer Dutton from the show 1923), wife Nina (Amanda Seyfried), and their daughter Cece. Things only look perfect for a day though, because very soon Millie realizes Nina is a few screws short. Nina is demanding and self-contradicting, asking Millie to do tasks and then reprimanding her for doing them wrong, or arguing that she never gave Millie those tasks to begin with. Millie even overhears their peers talking about how Nina spent time in a psychiatric ward after trying to drown Cece. Things come to a head when Nina asks Millie to set up a romantic weekend for Nina and Andrew, only to berate her for “choosing the wrong day” and buying non-refundable musical tickets and hotel accommodations in the city. When Andrew defends Millie, and Nina retreats to a ballet camp with Cece, Andrew tries to make it up to Millie by taking her to the city instead. Of course this leads to sex, which leads to Nina blowing up at them both. But when Andrew kicks Nina out of the house, why is it that Nina seems excited rather than depressed? Turns out there may be more to Andrew than what appears… This is one of those movies that maybe isn’t great cinema, but it is definitely entertaining (as shown by better reviews from average moviegoers over the “true” critics) with plenty of nice twists and turns. Seyfried is spectacular as the troubled Nina. ★★★★
TV series recently watched: ST Voyager (season 5), The Punisher (season 2)
Book currently reading: Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alexander Freed
Hamnet is a dramatization of a part of the life of William Shakespeare, beginning with him as a young man in Stratford. A smart man, he is tutoring a local family to help pay his father’s debts when he becomes smitten by a woman, Agnes. Agnes is rumored to be a witch, as she spends a lot of time in the forest and was taught herbal medicines and whatnot by her mother. William gets Agnes pregnant, forcing a marriage, and while he loves her, he is depressed. Agnes knows William needs the hustle and bustle of a big city to get his creative juices flowing, so she tells him to go to London while she remains in Stratford to raise their daughter Susanna. Over the ensuing years, Williams spends much of his time in London, returning home between theater seasons to see Agnes and their kids, with twins Judith and Hamnet soon following Susanna. Unfortunately, William is in London when Judith contracts the bubonic plague, and though she recovers, Hamnet catches it from her and does not. William arrives to see their dead son lying in wake and is distraught, further so when Agnes blames him for not being home. Until now in the film, I was wondering what all the fuss about this movie was about. It has a high critic’s score, which is expected based on the subject matter (and it is beautifully shot and well acted, especially by Jessie Buckley as Agnes), but the 92%+ audience score had me baffled. And then the finale came, as William returned to London to perform his newest play, Hamlet, in a break from his previous output of comedies and now into tragedies. Agnes and her brother secretly go to the opening performance, and see the effect her son’s death had on William. Not ashamed to admit I was ugly sobbing by the end. ★★★★★
The Secret Agent is, in my opinion, a misleading title, because while it is billed as a political thriller, we’re not talking about spies or anything. Taking place in the late 70s during a military dictatorship in Brazil, it follows a man, Armando, trying to get out of the country with his young son. Armando has a history of speaking out against some politically powerful men. Those men have hired a couple contract killers to take Armando out, so he is in hiding, under a new name, while some sympathizers are working on getting him fake papers to get clear of the country. That’s the movie in a nutshell, and while it has some highlights and some tense moments in the final act, it’s pretty ho-hum in general. It was a dark time in Brazil’s history, but doesn’t translate to a tremendous picture. Did have an Udo Kier sighting as a German Jew trying to quietly live out his final years after surviving World War II; it was Kier’s final role before his death. ★★½
Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. Even if you’ve never seen a single musical, you’ve probably heard of those four towering successes from the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Blue Moon isn’t about them, but it is about Lorenz Hart, the lyricist who worked with Richard Rodgers before Oscar Hammerstein II. The team of Rodgers and Hart wrote some popular musicals in their day, including some lasting songs that have stuck around (like the eponymous movie title), but their output hasn’t stood the test of time like the musicals Rodgers did with his second partner. The film takes place on opening night of Oklahoma!, as Hart (portrayed incredibly by Ethan Hawke) drowns his sorrows at a local bar. He’s just seen his former partner’s new show, and while he recognizes it will be a tremendous success, he bemoans Hammerstein’s too-family-friendly lyrics and the musical’s overall lack of artistry and subtlety (“Did you hear the line about the corn as high as an elephant’s eye? Have you ever seen an elephant in Oklahoma? That may be the dumbest lyric ever written in a musical.”) Hart regales the bar with stories of the past, and it is evident that his boisterous flare is popular amongst the regulars and non-regulars (he befriends author E.B. White who was sitting by himself at a table in the corner), but becomes sullen when Rodgers and Hammerstein arrive to great applause. Hart nearly begs Rodgers to work with him again, but Rodgers is hesitant due to past arguments and Hart’s often debilitating alcoholism. Supremely entertaining, very funny in a mature way (no visual gags here, all laughs come from wordplay), and with lots of heart too. Director Richard Linklater released two films in 2025. Nouvelle Vague is tremendous, and so is Blue Moon. ★★★★½
A Little Prayer is a quiet, subtle indie film starring David Strathaim as Bill, owner of a metal factory with a full house at home, despite being up there in years. His son and successor David and his wife Tammy live in a second house on Bill’s property, so they often share meals all together, and Bill’s and his wife Venida’s daughter Patti is recently returned to home (with her young daughter too) after leaving her husband. Just when Bill and Venida are probably eyeing things winding down, the house is bustling. Bill learns that David is cheating on his wife with a woman from work, and does not approve, but when he approaches David about it, David tells him to mind his own business. It’s a tricky situation, since Bill sees Tammy every day, and knows that Tammy is struggling with not having children, a forefront thought now that Patti’s daughter is now around the house too. Things get worse before they get better, as Bill learns that Patti left her husband because he’s addicted to drugs (though she might return to him anyway), and David has more evils in his closet too. Bill, a genuinely good person who wants the best for his loved ones, doesn’t know what to do. Not a complex movie, but full of complex emotions. ★★★½
Videoheaven is a documentary for film lovers who lived in the 80s and 90s, so early Millennials and older, and thus right up my alley. That’s because it is all about the rise and fall of the video store, and is great nostalgia for anyone with fond memories of renting VHS tapes from your local store. Narrated by Maya Hawke, it dives deep into how video stores came to be, how they thrived for a couple decades, going from small independent havens to sprawling chains, to their decline and complete disappearance. I’ve seen a lot of movies, more than most people, I think, but there are tons of clips in this film from movies and shows that I’ve never seen (or even heard of), showcasing actors together that you never knew did a movie together, or others in very early roles “before they were famous,” all taking place in the confines of a video store. Also goes into how those video stores themselves were depicted on screen, from famous scenes in Seinfeld and Clerks to subtle clips of video stores in the background of big blockbuster action flicks. Sometimes it gets a little too deep, focusing on certain movies longer than it should, but there’s lots of good stuff here. It does bring back the nostalgia, making me remember running into classmates at the local video chain, renting a movie from the grocery store (remember when that was a thing?!), and interactions with clerks asking for recommendations. A time that is gone, never to return, but which holds plenty of memories for those of us in the 40+ age group. ★★★½
TV series recently watched: Stumble (season 1), Starfleet Academy (season 1), ST Deep Space 9 (season 7)
Book currently reading: Paul of Dune by Herbert & Anderson
If anyone is cheering the regime change in Iran, it is Jafar Panahi. It Was Just an Accident is his newest film, and the most directly outspoken against the evils going on in his country. It begins simple enough: a man, his pregnant wife, and their daughter are driving home when they run over and kill a dog, resulting in car damage. The man, who has a prosthetic leg, takes it to a repair shop where one of the workers freezes up, visibly shaken, when he hears the man’s squeaky steps on his fake leg. The shop worker, Vahid, follows the man, and the next day, kidnaps him in broad daylight and drives him out to the desert. He digs a shallow grave and begins to bury the man alive, despite the man’s protestations. Turns out Vahid recognized that squeaky noise from the man’s prosthetic from his days of being tortured in Iran’s prisons. The lead torturer was a man named Eghbal, and the sound of his squeaky leg has haunted Vahid’s nightmares ever since. The man being buried, though, says he is not Eghbal, vehemently enough that Vahid starts to doubt himself. Vahid was always blindfolded, so he never saw Eghbal. Vahid knocks Eghbal out and puts him in the back of the truck, and spends the rest of the movie finding others who were tortured by him. All of them were always blindfolded, but a photographer, Shiva, recognizes Eghbal’s sweat scent, and a bride-to-be, Goli, Eghbal’s voice, while another man, Hamid, is convinced from when Eghbal forced Hamid to feel the scars on his leg stump. Still, Vahid is unsure, as he doesn’t want to murder an innocent man, and even if it is Eghbal, do they want to resort to the same methods that were forced on them by Iran’s government? So much to delve into here. There’s a great video online where Jafar Panahi visits the Criterion Closet and talks about the film Bicycle Thieves, and how in Iran, society is similar to that movie in that it is impossible to escape from your circumstances, that it repeats in a circular fashion. This film is about breaking out of that circle. With the current ending of the regime in Iran, hopefully a brighter future is on the horizon. ★★★★★
Nuremberg is based on the Nuremberg trials, when the surviving high profile Nazi commanders were tried for their crimes against humanity after World War II. The four superpowers after the war, USA, UK, France, and USSR, each want to deal with the criminals in different ways, whether it be summary execution or show trial and execution, but the USA is determined to give the men a true trial by tribunal, not so much because they want to make sure the men are truly guilty, but to show the world (and in particular the citizens of Germany) what really happened, so that it never happens again (and not to make martyrs out of them). However, when you have a real (and not show/fake) trial, there’s always the possibility that someone is found innocent, so the governments want to build their case and get this right. They bring in experts from all fields, including a young hotshot psychologist to get to know the criminals and see what makes them tick. There’s an all-star cast including Michael Shannon as lead prosecutor Robert Jackson, Rami Malek as psychologist Douglas Kelley, and Russell Crowe as the head bad guy, Hermann Göring, who was second-in-command to Hitler. Stellar performances across the board, and obviously the subject matter is emotionally charged, especially when the world is shown what really was going on in the labor and death camps, but it didn’t all come together for me. Worth watching for the acting (especially Crowe, who makes a great bad guy), and maybe for the younger generation who might not be as up on the evils of World War II, but I didn’t glean anything new and it came off as pretty matter-of-fact. ★★★
When Sisu surprised everyone and made a lot of money, you knew a sequel would be coming. I enjoyed the first one despite it being kind of silly, and the sequel, Sisu: Road to Revenge, is more of the same. Aatami Korpi returns home after the war, but with his wife and child killed, and his home now behind the moved border between USSR and Finland, Aatami is forced to move. However, he wants to take his house with him, as the only reminder of his family, so he tears down the house board by board, loads it onto a huge truck, and heads for the new border to his native Finland. USSR isn’t ready let him go so easily. The powers-at-be pull Draganov out of prison, the man who killed Aatami’s family, and task him with finishing the job in exchange for his freedom. Draganov has all the resources of the red army at his beck and call. What follows is even more ridiculous than the first movie, with tanks, trains, and planes all trying to kill “the man who refuses to die.” In typical sequel fashion, it turns up the gore level, and bad guys fall in increasingly absurd ways. Should have stopped at one film, but if you go in knowing what you are getting, it is entertaining enough. Not sure I want to see a third though… ★★½
War Machine is your typical straight-to-streaming (the “new” straight-to-DVD) war movie, and basically a new take on Predator. I only watched it because I like Alan Ritchson from his Reacher show, but I should have passed. After a (very long, like half the movie) introduction when we see an unnamed army sergeant lose his brother to a Taliban strike in Afghanistan, and then the survivor’s attempt to join the Rangers (his dead brother’s last wish), we finally get into the action. The sergeant makes it through training with a handful of others, and they are given one last exercise out in the field. However, they stumble upon an alien killing machine, something from outer space, which kills with ruthless precision. Sergeant and the new ranger team, those that survive the initial strike, run for the hills, while the alien machine pursues. Lots of explosions, lots of frightened looks, lots of hiding in the trees (only to be found seconds later), all as you’d expect from this kind of movie. And of course, the machine is taken out in the end, but with the ominous “more machines spotted” tag to set up a sequel. God, I hope it isn’t made. ★½
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is now the second sequel (and a fourth film already announced!) in the magician/heist series, though it has been nearly a decade since the last. I really liked the first, didn’t think much of the second, but this newest brings in the director from the Zombieland and Venom movies, so I was hoping for a good one. It opens (we think) on the original Four Horsemen: Daniel Atlas, Merritt, Jack, and Henley (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, and Isla Fisher, returning after being absent from Part 2 during a real-life pregnancy). They put on an underground show and steal a bunch of money from a rich asshole, before Robin Hood-ing it to the average Joes in the audience. Turns out it wasn’t the horsemen though, it was 3 new, younger magicians named Charlie, Bosco, and June, masquerading as the famed Horsemen team. They are soon after visited by the real Daniel Atlas, who says he’s been told to recruit them all for a super-secret, super-big heist by the mysterious mystical society known as The Eye. Their goal, it seems, is to steal the large and valuable Heart Diamond from Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), whose mining company launders money from some of the world’s worst people. Atlas and his new proteges meet up with the rest of the Horsemen, also recruited by The Eye, and set out to fool Veronika and the world at large, with more guest appearances from the first two movies (including Morgan Freeman and Lizzy Caplan, who filled in during Fisher’s absence). Lots of magical hijinks. The movie starts off rocky, and I had the same general complaints as I did from the last film, but it ends much better, with a grander “tada!” moment in the finale. However, with another film coming, I think it’s time I get off this roller coaster. ★★½
Been awhile since I saw a Jim Jarmusch film; Father Mother Sister Brother is his newest. In a throwback to earlier Jarmusch films, it is set up as 3 separate vignettes. Father is about two adult children (played by Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik) visiting their father (Tom Waits). No one seems to want to be there, and while the kids are wondering how Dad is doing financially, he is hiding his Rolex and expensive car in the garage. Kids don’t want to be there in Mother either, where sisters (Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps) are doing their yearly afternoon tea visit with their mother (Charlotte Rampling). Both girls are trying to measure up to their mom, a successful author. The final act, Sister Brother, has siblings (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) going through their parents’ belongings after their sudden death in a plane crash. Not sure what to make of this movie. It has some very touching moments, some very sad ones too, but is short on the deadpan humor you’d expect from a Jarmush film. Almost seems like the director had a couple ideas for the makings of a couple movies, but then said, “Shit, we’ll just make 1 movie with an all-star cast, and just do this.” And of course, if you are an actor and Jim Jarmusch says, “Wanna be in my movie?” you of course say yes. ★★
Rental Family is a fun, family-type, old school comedy drama starring Brendan Fraser, the latest in his comeback to the movie industry. He plays Phillip, an American who came to Tokyo years ago for an acting job, but who stayed and hasn’t exactly been the most successful. Struggling to make ends meet, he takes a job at a “family rental” company. Need an American at your funeral? Check. Need someone to play as your boyfriend so you can tell your family you are moving to America? Check. What he doesn’t plan for is growing to really care for the people who hire him. A single mother is hoping her bright daughter can test into a really good school, but knows a solid home life is part of what the school will look for. The mom hires Phillip to be the little girl’s “dad,” but to keep it authentic, she tells her daughter that Phillip really is her long-lost father, who’s been living in America all these years. The girl believes it, and while obviously hesitant at first, the likable Phillip wins her over and the two grow a close bond over the coming weeks. However, Phillip is wracked with guilt, because he knows he’s going to break this girl’s heart when she learns the truth. Not a complex movie, but does elicit complex emotions. I wish it had ended 5 or 6 minutes earlier than it did, because they couldn’t help but Hollywood the shit out of the ending. Still, a nice film. ★★★
Happyend takes place in the near-future, again in Tokyo. It follows a group of 5 high school friends, and particularly focuses on best friends Yuta and Kou. Yuta is completely carefree and goes with the flow, but Kou always has a small chip on his shoulder, partly from his upbringing. Though his family has lived in Japan for four generations, he’s of Korean descent, which as you know has a complicated historical relationship with Japan. Many of the students at school are middle or upper-middle class, but Kou alone among his friends has to work to help his family. When the group of friends pull a fantastic practical joke on the school’s principal, the man flips out and installs a state-of-the-art surveillance system in the school, which identifies students based on AI and docks them points for transgressions like smoking, flipping the bird, or inappropriate attire. This, against the backdrop of an increasingly nationalist government (like in many nations across the globe these days), with the new head of state of railing against immigrants. Kou’s family starts facing racism, and Kou becomes active in protests, while Yuta continues his laissez faire attitude. It’s a great film, a microcosm of right vs left in today’s society, and would maybe open some eyes (though doubtfully would change minds). ★★★★
Tornado is just the second movie from writer/director John Maclean; his first, Slow West, was a decade ago, and I thought at the time that this was a great up-and-comer. That hasn’t panned out yet, but my thoughts haven’t changed after this movie. It begins with action immediately: a young Japanese woman, whose name we later learn is Tornado, is running from a gang of thugs through 18th century Scotland. We don’t even know why she is being chased, only that the men mean business. When she hides in a large house, the group rough-houses the owners while searching for her. We then get a flashback to what started the chase. The men have just stolen a couple sacs of gold, before coming across Tornado with her father, a former Samurai warrior, performing a puppet show. Somehow Tornado ends up with the gold, and in protecting her, her father is killed. She runs, and thus the chase. Back to the present, she is able to elude them, even as the group performs more atrocities in the area, until she is able to start exacting her revenge. The film is a bit uneven, with some really great, startling moments, but others that feel rushed, and not given enough time to breathe (which is an odd thing to say about a film that moves at a languid pace at times). There are swaths of gentle, slow drama intermittent with quick bursts of extreme violence. However, it’s a good homage to the classic samurai genre, and told in a unique and startling way, even if the film itself isn’t all that unique. ★★★½
Peter Hujar’s Day is a two-actor show, starring Ben Winshaw and Rebecca Hall as Peter Hujar and Linda Rosenkrantz. It’s based on a true event, when in the 1970s, Linda had an idea for a new book in which she’d interview people about what they did the day before. Peter Hujar, a popular photographer at the time, was this day’s subject. Based on the description, I was thinking along the lines of My Dinner With André, which I absolutely adored, but it’s more akin to watching paint dry. They literally just talk about what Peter did that day. If you want to hear every inane event, sure, knock yourself out, but I could not get through this movie. 30-ish minutes in, it came down to turning it off or falling asleep. ½
TV series recently watched: Tehran (season 3), The Studio (season 1)
Book currently reading: Paul of Dune by Herbert & Anderson
Song Sung Blue, based on a true story, tells of a Neil Diamond tribute band named Lightning and Thunder, which played together for a couple decades starting in the 80s. Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman) is on the impersonator circuit as Don Ho with the “Elvis’s” and “James Browns” of the world when he meets his future wife, Claire (Kate Hudson), who’s been performing as “Patsy Cline.” With his look, it is her idea to do a Neil Diamond band. They put together a decent band and hit the local bars in the Wisconsin area. Mike is initially reluctant to start every show with Sweet Caroline, even though that’s the tune everyone wants, since Neil Diamond has so many other good songs, but once he gives in, the band starts growing in local popularity. When a “new” band is touring through the area and lead singer Eddie Vedder reaches out to Mike to have Lightning and Thunder open for them on a Friday night, Mike accepts only when his daughter goes nuts that the band is Pearl Jam. Doing so brings Lightning and Thunder new fans, and the sky looks to be the limit, until a car goes off the road in front of their house and hits Claire. She loses a leg in the accident, derailing their career and maybe their life together. The movie is awfully predictable, and I guessed how it was going to play out within the first 20 minutes or so. However, the music is full of bangers, and Hugh Jackman is the kind of throwback entertainer who can do it all. Very average, but I’ll bump it up a half star for the great musical performances. ★★★
There’s a few actors that I will see in any movie they do, and Tim Blake Nelson is one of them. The dude has the rough-and-tumble, down-on-his-luck routine down cold, which is exactly what the character Bernard “Bang Bang” Rozyski is. Once a promising boxer in the Detroit area, Bernard is still loved in the area and is living off his one-time fame, but his past reputation as a heavy hitter is pretty much all he has left. One day his ex-wife asks Bernard to look after his grandson Justin for a short time, as Justin’s mom has recently left the family and the father is in jail. Justin is nearly an adult, and no one wants to see him go down a bad path, but Bernard may not be the best role model. He starts training Justin up on boxing, even though Justin’s heart really isn’t in it, and seems to only be doing it to please his grandpa. For much of the film, we think the villain of the movie is Darnell, the boxer who took down Bernard and, we learn later, Bernard’s brother, changing the trajectory of an entire family. However, the final revealed bad guy ends up not even a character in the movie, though his ghost hangs over the entirety of it. Is that obtuse enough for you? Fantastic acting from Nelson, in a movie about the flaws of humanity, even when everyone is trying to do the right thing. Very raw and “real” feeling. ★★★½
Eternity is a delightful romantic comedy for the more “mature” (older) crowd, which somehow I’ve found myself in (when did that happen?). It opens innocuously enough: an older couple, Larry and Joan, married for 65 years, are going to a gender reveal in the family, bickering in the car the whole way there (anyone with older parents can relate). At the party, someone picks up an old picture of a young Joan with another (very good looking) young man, and someone remarks that he, Luke, was Joan’s first short-lived marriage, because Luke died in the Korean War. Joan looks at the picture longingly, just before Larry chokes to death on a pretzel. He awakens on a train, as a much younger self (Miles Teller), and is told that he has died and is now at Junction, where souls get to pick which Eternity they would like to live from now on. They get 1 week to decide, or they must take a job there at Junction, because once they pick an Eternity, there’s no changing. Larry takes the full week, and finally picks Beach World, leaving a note with his case worker to tell Joan when she finally dies, so that she can join him there. On his way out though, he sees a much younger Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), as she only lasted another week on Earth without him. Unfortunately for Larry, he’s not the only person waiting for her. Luke (Callum Turner), dead now 67 years, took a job as a bartender on Junction, and has been patiently waiting for the love of his life. Now Joan has a decision to make, because, again, she can only pick one Eternity, and she has a week to decide: her first love, which she never really had a chance to explore, or the man (who may have been her “second” choice) that she shared a lifetime with. Cute, funny, and heartwarming, it’s a great date movie for middle-agers and older, especially if you’ve shared a life with a partner who can relate to all of the things couples go through together. ★★★½
Urchin is the directorial debut from Harris Dickinson, who seems to have been around a long time but whose first acting role, Beach Rats, was less than a decade ago. Urchin stars Frank Dillane (recognizable as Nick from Fear the Walking Dead) as Mike, a homeless young man addicted to drugs. He seems like a good kid, but hints at a hard childhood and addiction have veered his life off course. When a man tries to do well for him by offering a meal, Mike punches him and steals his watch. He is arrested shortly after and spends 8 months in jail. It might be a blessing in disguise, as Mike reenters the world clean and sober, and social services helps him land a job as a chef’s assistant at a hotel and a place to stay. However, Mike’s past experiences haven’t taught him to handle discord well, and when a customer complains about a meal, Mike loses it. His work suffers, and he ends up losing the job. At his new job as a trash collector, he starts hanging around the sorts of people from his former life, including some that do drugs, and it isn’t long before Mike is back on the street and looking for a fix. It’s a powerful film about the baggage we can carry around if we don’t learn how to deal with it. Lots of promise from the first-time writer/director, who has obviously learned a lot on the sets of all the indie movies he’s acted in over the last decade. Solid first effort. ★★★½
La Grazia is the latest from Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, whose unhurried films can test some patiences, but I really dig him. It follows the waining term of a fictional Italian president, Mariano, who has to make some tough decisions in his final weeks as President. A lifelong and fervent catholic, who counts the Pope as a close friend, Mariano has a bill on his desk to legalize euthanasia for the extremely ill. It’s a popular bill amongst the people, but obviously he is struggling with its religious significance. There are also 2 pardons for him to consider: a wife who stabbed her husband to death after 15 years of abuse, and a husband who strangled his wife who was suffering from Alzheimers. Through all this, Mariano’s private thoughts often turn to his recently deceased wife, and an affair she had 40 years ago. Mariano is determined to find out who that man was. The film is beautifully shot, delicately written and delivered, and is about as touching a film as you’ll find today. The kind of movie that gives you plenty to think about after the credits roll. ★★★★
TV series recently watched: Daredevil (season 3)
Book currently reading: Paul of Dune by Herbert & Anderson
I usually don’t review the shows I watch, but I think Hal & Harper (an 8 episode miniseries) is worth saying a few things about. Written and directed by (and starring) Indie film darling Cooper Raiff, it follows the lives of the eponymous siblings (Raiff is Hal, Lili Reinhart is his 2-year-older sister Harper). Their story unfolds in an unhurried, sublimely emotional way. We know early on that they lost their mother (for a long time, we don’t know how or why) at an early age, when Hal was going into first grade and Harper into 3rd. They are thus raised by their newly single father, an unnamed “Dad,” played by Mark Ruffalo. We initially don’t think much of Dad’s fatherly skills, as he is curt with the kids and doesn’t exhibit much in the way of parenting knowledge (in present day, he apologizes to his adult kids for making them grow up too fast, and his comment leads to the adult actors playing their younger selves in a very Indie way), however, you do learn as subsequent episodes continue that Dad did the best with what he had, as he was fighting his own depression and the loss of his loving wife. In the present day, Dad is having a baby with his (much younger) girlfriend and has told Hal and Harper that he is selling their childhood home, so that brings up all kinds of emotions to the twenty-something adults. These two, with their lifetime baggage of fearing the loss of loved ones, have never been able to find lasting relationships with others and have become very codependent on each other, with Hal often sleeping on Harper’s couch and each turning to each other whenever they dump their newest partner (often in fear that the relationship was getting “too real”). Wonderfully heartfelt series, you’ll laugh and cry (I did both within seconds of each other in the last episode), and told so extremely well. Highly recommended, and probably one of those series you’ll return to again and again for its emotional depth. ★★★★★
The Wrecking Crew is one of your typical straight-to-streaming action films, albeit with a couple bonafide stars in the leads (Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista). Name recognition notwithstanding, there’s a reason this one was straight-to-streaming. James and Jonny are two estranged brothers and their father, Walter, was recently killed via a hit-and-run in their home state of Hawaii. James (Bautista) lives there still, but Jonny (Momoa) left years ago and has had little contact with either his brother or father in years. He initially isn’t even going back for the funeral, but when he is attacked in his home in Oklahoma by some Japanese Yakuza thugs, seeking a package he may have purportedly received from Walter before his death, Jonny suspects there’s more to this than meets the eye. He heads to Hawaii and starts digging into his dad’s death, while James does the same. Lots of action ensues, which is the best part of the movie (including a pretty dynamic, if completely implausible, bridge scene where they are shot at by a flying-over helicopter). The mystery behind Walter’s death isn’t all that intriguing, and outside of the action scenes, the movie is pretty boring, though there are some good one-liners between the fighting brothers. ★★½
Predator: Badlands is the newest in the franchise, though can be watched as a stand-alone film too. Dek is a runt in his Yautja (the predator species) clan, and in a society that favors strength, he should have been killed as a child. Still, his older brother has trained him to become a decent fighter, to the point that Dek wants to earn his right to carry the predator’s cloaking device. When he declares his intentions though, the brothers’ father kills the eldest for insolence, while Dek gets away before he too can be murdered. Dek finds himself on the planet Genna, a hostile world where every living creature, including the plant life, is out to kill you. Dek is on the hunt for the monstrous Kalisk, a beast so deadly that even Dek’s clan is afraid of it, since that trophy will finally earn him some respect. On his hunt, Dek picks up to would-be friends: an android synth named Thia (cue the Alien franchise crossovers, as she’s on the planet on a mission from Weyland-Yutani), and a local monkey-like creature that Thia names Bud. Together, the trio hunt the Kalisk, even as Thea’s former team of deadly synths also seek the same prize. Writer/director Dan Trachtenberg, who also helmed Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers, has this franchise on solid footing again, can’t wait to see where they take it next. ★★★★
Sentimental Value is the latest from Norwegian director Joachim Trier, and it’s been getting plenty of acclaim in the last year. It stars Stellan Skarsgård (showing no signs of slowing down) as Gustav, a one-time acclaimed director whose drinking has derailed his career, and he’s having a hard time getting movies financed these days. He’s written a new one though, that he thinks has potential to be great, if he can get it made. Semi-biographical, it is about a woman who commits suicide, as Gustav’s mother herself did when he was a child of 7. Gustav wants his daughter Nora, herself an acclaimed stage actress, to play the lead role, but she is not interested. Nora and her sister Agnes are estranged from their father after he walked out on them and their mother when they were little girls, and he always seemed to put his career before being a father. It is their mother’s recent death that brought the family back together, and stirred up all kinds of feelings. As luck would have it, a film restrospective about Gustav’s films has intrigued American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning, proving that she can do it all; she was in the above Predator film as Thia). Rachel is an up-and-coming star, and she is chomping at the bit for a serious dramatic role, and thinks Gustav’s new film is just the ticket. She signs on, which gets Netflix interested in financially backing the picture, and so they begin. But there is still family healing to be done, and the result is movie magic. Be patient with this movie. Absorb every word, every nuanced movement by the actors. It builds without you realizing it, until a powerful conclusion. One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. ★★★★★
From wiki: As-Sirāt is, according to Islam, the bridge over which every person must pass on the Yawm al-Qiyamah (“Day of Resurrection”) in order to enter Jannah (“Paradise”). Whether you want to take the film Sirāt as narrative or allegory, it is definitely Luis’s journey to make. At the beginning of the movie, he and his son Esteban are searching the deserts of Morocco for news of missing daughter Mar. A large group of Bohemian-esques are throwing a rave in the middle of the desert, and Luis is there looking for Mar. After a couple days, soldiers arrive to break up the party, telling Europeans that they must go home, as war is breaking out in the area. A group of free-thinkers break off from the others and head back into the desert, and Luis gives chase, hoping they’ll lead him to his daughter. They tell Luis that there’s to be another rave soon, and let Luis and Esteban tag along. Islam says As-Sirāt is thinner than a strand of hair and as sharp as the sharpest knife, and danger lies everywhere for Luis on his path. He will face hardship and anguish, with no guarantee of paradise in the end. While I was watching the movie, and even as it neared its end, I was thinking, “What the hell even is this?” But there’s no denying its emotional punch, whether you want to take it as allegory or fact, of a man going through hell to reach (maybe?) something new on the other side. Awesome soundtrack too, that keeps the tension ratcheted up throughout. ★★★½
TV series recently watched: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (season 1), Breaking Bad (season 5)
Book currently reading: Paul of Dune by Herbert & Anderson
After recently watching her newest, The Mastermind, and enjoying 2 others I’d previously seen (First Cow and Certain Women) I decided to dive into more. A running theme in her films tends to be a slower pace, leading critics to call her masterful and viewers (on RT) to call her boring. I tend to like slower paces, so I think I’m in for a treat today.
I think we’ve all had those times where we try to revisit or relive a time or place from our past, some moment that was special, and it’s never the same the second time around, because you are a different person now than you were then. That’s at the crux of Old Joy. Mark is married and getting ready to have a baby when he gets a call from old friend Kurt, asking if he wants to go camp out for a night or two and visit some hot springs in the Cascades. While Mark has settled down, Kurt is still living the hippie lifestyle of their youth, in a state of near-homelessness, crashing on couches and very carefree. Against his wife’s apprehensions, Mark heads out with Kurt. It’s a poignant film that can be summed up in a scene that takes place about halfway through, when the two friends are lost and camp down overnight. Kurt is talking about a (probably drug-induced) theory on the universe he once had, and Mark asks, “Did you tell *them* about your theory?” It’s a question out of left field and takes Kurt by surprise. Mark seems to be referencing Kurt’s time in a mental hospital, and Kurt is obviously taken aback, thinking that Mark sees him the same way that everyone sees him these days. Kurt can only shake his head at the gulf that has opened between himself and his old friend, and finally says something along the lines that he wishes they could still be friends like the old days. When Mark replies that of course they are still friends, Kurt (and we viewers) see that time has moved on. Very melancholic movie, but in a good way, if that makes sense. The kind of feeling you get when you look back fondly at a good memory, enjoying it for what it was, but a little sad that you can’t go back to it. ★★★★★
Wendy & Lucy stars Michelle Williams (in the first of many collaborations between the actor and director) as Wendy, a homeless young woman trying to get to Alaska from Indiana, pursing a job at a cannery. She’s made it to Oregon with her trusty dog Lucy, but it’s here where she hits a wall. She gets a warning from a store security guard for sleeping in her car on the private parking lot, and then her car won’t start. While waiting for the mechanic to open, she goes to a local grocery store, ties up Lucy in front, and then gets nabbed shoplifting dog food. After being booked and released at the jail, she makes her way back to the grocery store hours later, only to find Lucy is gone. The kind security guard from earlier lets Wendy use his cell phone to keep tabs with the local dog rescue, in hopes that Lucy will turn up, but in the meantime she gets bad news from the mechanic: the repairs will be far more money than she has left. Wendy is out of options, at the very end of the road. It’s a bleak movie about a woman out of options, powerfully acted by Williams, and emotionally taught. ★★★★
Meek’s Cutoff is how Reichardt does westerns, and is loosely based on a fateful voyage along the Oregon Trail in 1845. Led by Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), a wagon train of a trio of families has left the traditional Trail for a cutoff, or “shortcut,” that Meek hopes will shave some time off. However, the trip takes the group through the Oregon High Desert, and the lack of water becomes a real problem very quickly. To compound matters, the travelers notice an American Indian watching over their progress from time to time. Some of the wives worry they’ll all end up dead from thirst or Indian attack, while Meek tries to waylay their fears, stating he knows the area and he’ll get them through to the other side, but as the miles and days of endless parched earth compile, death seems pretty certain. When the trailing Indian is captured one day, Meek wants to kill him immediately, but some, in particular Mrs Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams) argue to keep him alive, as he must know where water is. This movie doesn’t have a lot of answers and ends on a very obtuse note, but is expertly crafted to create that sense of real, growing danger with no end in sight. Great cast too, including Will Patton, Paul Danoe, and Zoe Kazan. ★★★
Night Moves brings another great cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard; I’m always amazed that auteur directors can get big names to do these low budget films) together for a lowkey thriller. Josh and Dena are friends who share common ideals about the environment and sustainability, and view a local dam as a real threat to the area’s ecosystem. Thus, they want to blow it up. They bring in an ex-Marine, Harmon, with knowledge of such things, and together hatch a plot. The first half of the film is blowing up the dam. With fake ID in hand, Dena buys 500 lbs of fertilizer and Josh procures a boat. The actual act goes off more or less without a hitch, but the next day, they learn from the news that a camper who was in the area has gone missing and is presumed dead. Dena was determined from the beginning that no one would be hurt, and she is wracked with guilt. Josh and Harmon start to wonder if she’ll go to the police and turn them all in, so something needs to be done (in sinister voice). There’s slow burn, and then there’s Night Moves. Using the term thriller is a bit misleading as the tension is light at best, and when there is action, it mostly takes place off camera, but I was still completely engrossed at this trio, who think they are doing a good thing, but who obviously have no idea the ramifications of their actions and who are in way over their heads. ★★★½
After Night Moves came Certain Women (2016) and First Cow (2019), but after that was Showing Up in 2022, her penultimate film before The Mastermind. Michelle Williams is back, this time as an artist/sculptor named Lizzy. She works in the offices of an art school in Oregon, while also working on her own art in the evenings. Lizzy is prepping for a showing of her latest works, but the world seems bent on slowing her down. Her landlord is a fellow artist who doesn’t seem to value Lizzy’s time (and is a terrible landlord to boot), and then her cat maims a pigeon one night. Lizzy throws the bird out the window, but of course the landlord finds it and starts to nurse it back to health, only to ditch it on Lizzy in the end anyway. Lizzy is also dealing with a brother with mental health issues and divorced parents who bicker over anything when they run into each other. As Lizzy’s show nears, she starts to wonder if anyone will attend, even her own family. And that’s it, that’s the movie. There isn’t really a plot per se, it’s just the normal, everyday machinations of a mundane life. Williams is nearly unrecognizable as a slouching, disheveled woman, the kind of person who disappears in a crowd and isn’t noticed. I didn’t connect with this movie at all, I just get what it was trying to say. The rare dud from this director. ★½
TV series recently watched: Girl Taken (series), Fallout (season 2), Hal & Harper (season 1), The Artful Dodger (season 2), Lost (season 2)
Book currently reading: Paul of Dune by Herbert & Anderson
Jons Movie Takes 