A few days I posted a set of films with nothing spectacular, but today the law of averages helped me out. The President’s Cake is an Iraqi film taking place during the Gulf War in late 1990, though it is not a war film itself. It follows a little girl named Lamia, whose parents are recently dead. She is being raised by her grandmother Bibi and they are very poor, with the US sanctions against Iraq making it difficult (impossible?) to get by. Going to school every day, Lamia hears the USA jets flying overhead, but tries to go about her life. At school one day, the teacher announces it is time to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday, which is a national holiday in which everyone is expected to participate. By random draw, Lamia is tasked with baking a birthday cake for the class, and she has no idea how she will come up with the ingredients, as prices for eggs and staples have raised tenfold. Under the guise of taking her to the city to purchase them, Bibi is in fact looking to give Lamia up to a foster family, as she cannot care for her on her own anymore. Faced with this, Lamia runs away, and tries to gather the cake ingredients on her own. She runs into and is aided by classmate Saeed, whose father, a cripple, begs and clandestinely robs on the streets of the city. The two young classmates are in for an adventure, as predators seem to stand on every corner, trying to rob, fleece, or kidnap (or worse) throughout the city, all while Bibi tries to locate her, getting no help from the police who deride “these stupid peasants.” Eye opening coming-of-age film, one that gets you rooting for a happy ending, and incredible performance from the young Baneen Ahmad Nayyef as Lamia. The cast is all non-professional actors, but you’d never know it. ★★★★★

Ricky is a gritty indie film with a good cast to back up its hard themes. It’s not a complex movie, and the shaky camera syndrome in the opening scene had me thinking this was going to be a mistake, but there’s more under the hood, so to say. Ricky is 30 years old, but in many ways, is still a child. He’s recently released from prison after doing 15 years, meaning he went in as a teenager but comes out a man. We don’t learn for a long time what he did, but obviously it’s serious. Because of the situation, he doesn’t know basic things that most 30-year-olds do. He doesn’t know how to talk to girls. He is thrilled when he gets his driver’s permit. He’s as awkward as any teenager during his first sexual experience. His younger brother is, in many ways, more worldly experienced than he. The movie explores these ideas, as well as the harsh reality of a man trying to go straight and narrow despite the system being stacked against him. The film’s low budget is telling and the acting is very uneven (some standouts, but many underwhelming to say the least), but it’s certainly not a bad film with an important tale to tell. ★★★

Romería, a Spanish film, is about a girl looking for answers. It’s 2004, and Marina is graduating high school and wants to go to film school, but in order to qualify for the scholarships and grants she needs, she has to show her genealogy/ancestry. Her father’s name is missing on her birth certificate, as he and her mother were never married and both died when Marina was a child. She heads off to her father’s family in southern Spain on the sea, most of whom she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl, as they did not keep in touch. If she expected a warm welcome, Marina is sourly disappointed. Nearly everyone is nice to her face, but in a condescending, snarky way. The family is wealthy, and since she’s recently turned 18, they think she is there for the money. Marina has her mom’s diary, which talks about how she didn’t get along with Fon’s (Alphonso’s) sisters, and they do indeed seem to be real bitches. Marina’s cousins (her own age) are nice to her, but of the adults, only two seem to accept her with open arms: Fon’s cousin Xulia, and Fon’s brother Iago, who seems to have been the black sheep of the family. It is Iago who starts filling in the gaps of Fon’s life to Marina, and what she learns is startling. She was always told he died when she was a baby in 1987, but finds out he died in 1992, hidden away by his family like a leper. This leaves her feeling empty, wondering why he never came to Barcelona to visit her, but the pieces of his troubled life and tumultuous relationship with her mom start to come together slowly, about their shared drug use and ultimate deaths to AIDS. The film ends in a Fellini-esque dream sequence, as Marina tries to discover the truth, which lies somewhere between what she’s always been told and the stories Fon’s family is feeding her. Excellent movie about the secrets a family will keep. ★★★★

I watched Signal One reluctantly, because it stars Dennis Quaid and Josh Hutcherson, two actors who, for whatever reason, seem to always end up in subpar movies. But it also stars David Thewlis, who is great, and I am a sci-fi nerd, so I gave it a shot. Ended up reminding me a lot of The Creator, another science fiction movie with incredible visuals but a lackluster story. This one is about a woman, Annika (Isabelle Fuhrman), who is recruited to work at a top-secret facility built to communicate with aliens. A signal has been coming in, but so far, the scientists haven’t been able to crack it or figure out how to send a message back. Annika is able to do so, but she wrestles with the question on if we (humanity) should respond, as we don’t know what the aliens are trying to say. There’s exactly one thrilling moment in the movie, when the team responds to the aliens and the aliens answer back. We don’t know how to communicate, so like a baby copying its mother’s words, we just repeat something in the message sent to us. The aliens respond by turning off all all electricity on our planet for 8 minutes and 19 seconds, the time it takes sunlight to reach our planet, to tell us they heard us and they know where we are. This of course kills a lot of people (downed planes, interrupted emergency services) and creates panic, but it is the first step in opening our eyes to a greater universe, for good or bad. There’s far too many wild leaps of conjecture without any evidence (which is really silly for a movie purportedly based on science), and some silly B movie plot twists, but the overall idea of what first contact with an alien civilization would look like is pretty good. I liked the ideas, and the graphics are top notch, but the movie has too many flaws to be really great. ★★★

Ending on a great one today. Manas (Portuguese: Sisters) takes place in a tiny fishing village in Brazil and follows 13-year-old Marcielle, or “Tielle” as she is called. She misses her older sister, who left suddenly and seemingly for no reason a couple years ago, and is coming of age in a village with not-so-hidden secrets. We know something is up when she asks if a pregnant girl in the village got her belly on the barge (a bi-weekly visitor to the village to load up fish for sale, where the older girls engage in prostitution for extra money), and Tielle’s friend responds that no, it came from the girl’s father, and “Everyone knows that’s how it goes in this village.” It isn’t much longer before Tielle’s father asks her to go on a hunt with him, and he starts in on her. All of a sudden, Tielle’s protector becomes her attacker. When Tielle tries to bring it up to her mom, her mom defends him, and replies “Some things cannot be changed.” Tielle tries to take control in the only way she can, by putting on lipstick and going to the barge, where at least sex can be on her own terms, but this makes her father fly into a rage. Even the police seem to be powerless to stop it. But Tielle is not her mother, who looks past the man’s faults because he rescued her from her own abusive father, and she isn’t her sister, who stayed until she was old enough to leave on her own. Tielle is going to put a stop to this, one way or another. A lot of powerful imagery in this film, like when her dad leans over her one night under the light, and his shadow looms large on the wall. We learn in the end titles that the film is based on the stories of the women of Marajó Island, off the coast of Brazil, making this harsh film that much more important. ★★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Enterprise (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

Reading Lolita in Tehran is based on a memoir and though it has a strong message of standing up to tyranny, it’s not a very well-done movie and I couldn’t get past the idea of its shaky premise. In the film, Azar returns to Iran after having studied and taught in the USA. It’s 1997, and the Iranian Revolution has just set up a new government in her native country, and Azar wants to be there bringing new ideas. She begins teaching at a university in Tehran, but it isn’t long before she gets pushback from students and the powers-at-be for teaching Western literature. When a new law is enacted that women must cover their hair, Azar refuses and eventually loses her job. That’s as far as I got in the film, couldn’t continue on. The acting isn’t great (to say the least), and all I could think was, “What did you think was going to happen?” I applaud her for standing up for what she thought is right, but don’t cry foul when you get what you know is coming. Kudos to her bravery, but it’s a blah movie that I couldn’t get through. ½

A Danish film, The Last Viking opens on a man named Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) barging into his family’s apartment with the cops hot on his heals. He has just enough time to tell his brother, Manfred (the always-great Mads Mikkelsen), to bury a bag of money at their mom’s property before Anker is taken away. He ends up doing 15 years in jail for robbing a bank of 40 million kroner, but sticks to the story that he doesn’t know what happened to the money. When Anker is finally released, he returns to his brother for the dough, but in the ensuring years, Manfred, who was always a bit eccentric and strange, has gotten worse. He has developed dissociate identity disorder (formerly known as multiple identity syndrome) and thinks he is John Lennon, the Beatle. In fact, whenever anyone calls him Manfred, he instinctively tries to kill himself, jumping out of a movie car or any nearby window, whether the window is on the ground floor or a couple stories up. Anker brings him back to their parents’ property, now an Airbnb, in hopes to jog his memory on the money. Along the way they meet a psychiatrist with ideas of “reuniting the Beatles” with other mentally-ill patients who think they are Ringo, Paul, and George, thinking this may bring Manfred around. In the brothers’ search for healing, they must delve into their troubled and abusive childhoods. The movie has lots of humor, some mystery, and even a little mild action thrown in (as Anker’s former bank-robbing partner comes around sniffing for a share), but I couldn’t help but think the movie didn’t know what kind film it wanted to be. It’s a bit all over the place. Just when you think it is going to be a comedy, something cruel happens; just when Manfred has a moment of enlightenment and the movie becomes endearing, the moment is quickly shattered with something else unexpected. ★★★

Voicemails for Isabelle is exactly what you’d expect from reading the cliffs notes blurb on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s safe, expected, and just (barely) cute enough for a romantic comedy. Jill and Isabelle are sisters and best friends growing up, but Isabelle got the short stick and has fought various ailments all of her life, most notably cystic fibrosis. Continually bedridden, she has been Jill’s biggest fan as Jill would regale her with stories of school, boyfriends, and life. There was never any jealousy there, only well wishes, and Jill’s life is crushed when Isabelle eventually dies just as Jill is about to start culinary school. Jill finds solace in continuing to leave Isabelle voicemails on her phone, as a way of healing and “talking” to her sister. Unbeknownst, the number has been reassigned, and Wes has been receiving, and listening to, the messages. Wes and Jill are a lot alike, in that they’ve had a hard time finding a meaningful relationship, and as he hears Jill’s stories of her life, he starts to fall for her, though they’ve never met. He remedies that by “bumping into her” one day, and the two start falling in love. We all know where this is going, as eventually she will find out that Wes has been receiving all those voicemails. Even though you know how the movie will play out, practically from the opening credits, it’s funny and cute in all the right ways. No new ground broken here, but a decent date night movie. ★★½

Power Ballad is the latest from writer/director John Carney, who does all the music-themed movies. Better than the last, this one stars Paul Rudd as Rick Power, a former rock band singer who left his band just when they were on the cusp of stardom in order to marry and settle down. Married now for years and with a teenage daughter, Paul is in a wedding band in Ireland and has a good time doing what he loves. The band’s latest gig is in a castle of all places, and the rich clientele has a famous friend attending: Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas). Danny is a former member of a very famous boy band, but he hasn’t found success as a solo artist yet. Danny and Paul hit it off, and spend the night drinking and talking music, playing songs for each other. Initially, Paul thinks Danny is just a boy-bander, but finds that he’s actually quite talented, but the music industry just wants him to play the kind of music his fans are used to. Danny is blown away by a song Paul wrote years ago, but one he’s never been happy with parts of and never recorded or released. At the end of the night, Danny gifts Paul an expensive guitar and wishes him well. 6 months later, walking in the grocery store, Paul hear’s his song over the speakers. Turns out Danny recorded it and released it as his own, and it is zooming up the charts. Now Paul needs to hunt Danny down, wanting credit for his song, but proving so will turn out to be difficult. I learned a couple things in this movie: Paul Rudd really can’t act (he’s fooled me a couple times, but he’s cringe-worthy in this one), and Nick Jonas definitely can. Not a great movie, but like I said, more enjoyable than Carney’s last couple. ★★★

Carolina Caroline is about a young woman who gets swept off her feet by the thrill of being bad. She sees a con artist swindle a few dollars off a gas station worker one day, and confronts him. She doesn’t want to expose the crook; she wants to learn how he does his cons. The guy is intrigued by this beautiful girl chasing after him, and accepts. The two become bank robbers, and for a couple weeks, all goes well, until all of a sudden, it doesn’t. Turns out the guy is willing to do anything to avoid getting caught, but there are some lines the girl is unwilling to cross. It’s a juvenile movie, with childish dialogue, paper-thin characters, and a paint-by-numbers plot. Seems to have been written by a 12-year-old. Unfortunately no great movies in today’s batch, can’t win them all. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Sugar (season 2), Dexter (season 3), One Hundred Years of Solitude (season 2)
• Book currently reading: The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar

The Currents is an Argentine film, following a woman named Lina. It opens on her in Switzerland, receiving a prestigious award, which she promptly tosses in the trash can before going for a walk around town. When she comes to a bridge, she jumps off into the river below. She survives, and when she returns to Argentina, mentions nothing about her suicide attempt to her husband. It is obvious she is depressed though, and has developed a severe anxiety about running water, refusing to take showers and quivering in fear when she tries to wash her hair in the sink. She eventually confides in an old friend, who uses gas to put Lina to sleep before giving her a sponge bath and washing her hair, in a ritualistic way implying she’s done this before. It seems Lina’s fear of water existed before her dunk in the water. It all starts to make sense when Lina visits her own mother near the end of the film, a woman who suffers from her own mental illnesses. A really beautifully made picture, but it tested even my patience, and I’m known to sit through 4+ hour movies (or more) with ease. ★★½

I usually stick to new-ish movies (or classics) but I stumbled upon Sunshine in a blog somewhere and decided to give it a go, mostly because of its writer, Alex Garland (big fan). This is the movie director Danny Boyle and Garland made after their first hit, 28 Days Later, and I was not a fan. And shame on me, because Sunshine is more like it than Garland’s hits that would come later. A team is on a space mission to the sun, which has been growing dim for a decade, throwing Earth towards a worldwide winter which will kill off humanity. A first mission launched seven years prior failed, with its crew never heard from again, so this is round 2. They must get to the sun with a huge nuclear payload, which is supposed to “jump start” the energy in the sun to start producing again. There are plenty of emergencies along the way, including a heart-stopping mission about 30 minutes in that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but overall the film fails for me, for many of the same reasons as 28 Days Later. In the final act, it becomes a hack-and-slash film with a 28 Days Later-esque disfigured bad guy trying to kill the surviving crew members, complete with the same dumb camera tricks used in that movie that I hated so much. A few moments of brilliance portending Garland’s growing writing skills, but not a memorable flick. In the end, just kind of silly. ★½

Omaha is a fantastic small independent film starring John Magaro, a very recognizable face from his busy schedule in the last decade, though I can only remember him as a lead in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow (liked it a lot). It opens on him, as Martin, as he bundles up his 6-year-old boy Charlie and 9-year-old girl Ella into a dilapidated car early one morning. They are leaving their home for the last time, as they’ve just been foreclosed on, and Martin says only that they are going to Nebraska. Ella is old enough to know something isn’t adding up and asks a few questions, which Martin vaguely answers or ignores completely, but Charlie is young enough that he’s just along for the ride, whatever the destination. It is clear to the viewer that Martin is flat broke, and money gets tighter over the few days as the family continues their road trip. At first Martin is counting dollars, but by the end of the film, he’s counting cents, and we wonder if he has any plan to provide for his children. I initially thought that he had a job lined up and they were heading towards a new life, but the reality will hit you like a ton of bricks. Magaro is fantastic as a man at the end of his rope, and I know it’s a tiny low budget film, but how did it not get more attention? Really powerful movie. ★★★★½

Tuner is a heist film about a young man named Niki, an apprentice piano tuner to an aging man named Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman). Harry has run his family business all of his life and loves to tell stories, many of which revolve around how he found little Niki, a former piano prodigy and the best player he ever heard, and convinced him to follow him in the piano tuning business. Niki is always carrying around ear plugs and heavy noise cancelling headphones, due to a condition called hyperacusis; loud noises cause him unbearable, debilitating pain. But he does have good ears, making him ideal for this job. It also makes him good at some less savory jobs, as he soon learns. When Harry forgets the combination to his wall safe, Niki puts his ear up against the safe and turns the dial until her hears the tumblers fall, and is able to crack it. His newfound skill earns him some shady friends, who employ Niki to start robbing rich houses in the area. Niki uses the money for good, paying Harry’s ongoing medical bills and whatnot, but when things go south (and you know they will), it will be Niki left holding the bag. Parts of the film are very good, but overall it felt contrived and unsatisfying. Doesn’t help that I’ve got nutcrackers in my house less wooden than the actor playing Niki. ★★½

Don’t Say Good Luck is a musical drama, starring Adam Sandler’s daughter Sunny in the lead as 16-year-old Sophie. Sophie is into musical theater and is auditioning for her school production of Waitress (the Sara Bareilles hit from a few years ago). She’s hoping for a secondary character but ends up nailing the lead. Should be an exciting moment in her young life, but her home life is in tatters. Her mother Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey) beat cancer a few years ago but it has aggressively returned, so while Sophie is rehearsing, Elizabeth’s condition continues to worsen. The musical numbers are performed quite well (no idea if that’s really Sunny singing or not, but if it is, she’s got talent) but until she actually makes a name for herself, I can’t help but hear “nepotism” ring in my head. And Lynskey is a one-trick pony who hasn’t performed well in a movie or show (I’m looking at you Yellowjackets, despite the early hype) in a long time, maybe ever. The movie is just fine, and completely forgettable once the credits roll. ★★★

Hollywood Shuffle is fantastic satire from actor and first-time director Robert Townsend, released in 1987. He plays another “RT” in the film, lead character Bobby Taylor, an aspiring actor in LA struggling to land a meaningful role. As he laments, black actors only get to play jive-talking gang members, butlers, or slaves. The movie is mostly told in sketch comedy-like scenes, where Bobby envisions things he overhears or ideas that come to mind, like a school (full of white teachers) teaching young black actors how to talk jive, or a black version of Siskel and Ebert pointing out how ridiculous white movies can be but how they see the nuance in a movie about pimps that rove the streets as zombies preying on working girls. When Bobby does get a callback for an audition, he learns that the (again, all white) movie team wants an “Eddie Murphy type” actor (since that is currently bankable). Hollywood Shuffle is a comedy but its satire hits hard, showing time and again how right Bobby is, and it hits home when he reads a note from his younger brother stating that the kid wants to be an actor just like Bobby when he grows up. Bobby then envisions the little guy as a stereotypical pimp, one of the only roles available to a black man. The movie drags a bit in the end (which says a lot, as it’s a short film at under 80 minutes), but the writing is spot on. You can see the influence of cowriter Keenan Ivory Wayans, who had met Townsend doing standup a few years earlier; he would start In Living Color’s sketch show just a couple years later in 1990. ★★★½

Crossing Delancey is a very typical 80s romcom. Knowing that going in, I knew what to expect and the film delivered what I was looking for: nothing complicated, but a cute love story, and in 80s fashion (and still popular today), from an unexpected source. Isabelle runs in intellectual circles and is a bit of a snob because of it. She tries to tell people that she doesn’t need a man in her life and is happy single, but she secretly wants companionship (often settling for sex with a married man for occasional flings), and her very Jewish grandmother is constantly trying to set her up. The matchmaker comes around one day with a new potential man, Sam, but Isabelle is put off by the fact that Sam owns a pickle store. While a respectable shop in the Jewish community, Isabelle wants a learned man, and has been pining away for local author Anton. We all know where this is going and the film doesn’t disappoint. It’s a delightful film with truly equal parts romance and comedy, about a woman who is lonely but “too intelligent” to admit it to herself, and turns a blind eye to where the love could be found. The city itself is a main character too, full of the buzz an bustle of 1980s New York. Not a complicated film but a charming one. ★★★★

Smithereens also showcases the city, albeit a grittier side, as it follows a young woman named Wren. She’s fled her home in New Jersey to live the punk rock scene in New York, only to find that most of it has since moved to LA. She latches on to rocker Billy, who was in a band called Smithereens with a one-hit-wonder years ago. Billy keeps dropping hints that he’ll take Wren to LA, but is just as likely to ignore her when she comes around, in favor of any other interesting woman who may be near. While Wren keeps following Billy like a lost kitten, she ignores the potential match right in front of her: Paul. Paul is homeless and living in a van, but he truly cares for Wren, no matter how badly she treats him. After getting evicted from her apartment, Wren takes to sleeping in Paul’s van, but will take off anytime she thinks she has a chance to connect with Billy. There’s no happy ending in this film. It isn’t all that deep, and the acting from a bunch of never-was’s is pretty rough, but just like Crossing Delancey, the feel of the city is great. It’s the best redeeming quality of this film. Honestly not sure what the film was trying to convey. It is trying to get me to feel sorry for Wren? Because I don’t; she takes advantage of people and is given a pass because “she’s punk.” ★★½

Choose Me is a straight up romance, though does have a few funny moments here and there. The three main characters are Mickey (Keith Carradine), Nancy (Geneviève Bujold), and Eve (Lesley Ann Warren). Mickey is recently released from a mental hospital and has come to LA to find an old flame, Eve. He goes to a bar, Eve’s Lounge, but the Eve tending bar isn’t the Eve he remembers; turns out this Eve bought the place after the original owner killed herself. Eve is a former prostitute who knows how to please a man, but not how to keep a man. She can never get herself in a good, healthy relationship. As such, she follows a popular local radio talk show hosted by Nancy Love, who serves relationship advice nightly. Despite being an expert on the radio, Nancy is shy and reserved around men in real life, and in an odd turn of events, ends up as Eve’s roommate (though Eve doesn’t know this is the Nancy she listens to every night). Into this twisted affair comes Mickey, a very confident man who is either a crazy liar or has done it all, admitting to having flown helicopters and photographed all around the world and knows martial arts. He doesn’t come off as a braggart, is just very matter-of-fact, and he is looking for a woman to marry. At turns, he falls for Nancy and Eve, but is somehow pulled into an affair between Eve’s current boytoy (a married man and pretend-gangster named Zack) where he has to defend himself with brutal force. There’s a lot going on there, but the heart of the story is about finding the right person in this crazy thing called life. Who doesn’t love a good love story, especially when there are occasional fisticuffs? ★★★½

A Dry White Season stars Donald Sutherland as Ben Du Toit, a born-and-raised South African in Johannesburg in the mid-1970s. Ben lives a carefree life and is unaware of the political strife shaking his country. When his gardener, a black man named Gordon, comes to him asking for help because his young son was arrested on trumped-up charges and caned as punishment, Ben brushes Gordon off, thinking the boy must have done something to deserve it. Soon after, the boy is caught up in a protest against apartheid and killed. Ben “makes a few calls” but doesn’t do too much, until Gordon is also arrested and evidence comes out that he is being tortured, eventually dying in custody. Ben can’t turn a blind eye anymore, and starts to get involved. For Gordon’s widow, he hires a lawyer (a later career role for Marlon Brando) and sues the police, but they ultimately lose the case with a heavily stacked court system against them. Ben then makes it his mission to get the news out on his own. The papers that describe the police brutality are often run by black Africans, and are dismissed by the white populace, so Ben wants to tell a story that his fellows will actually listen to. But doing so will turn the police against him and his family. A very powerful film, all the more so because it takes place not all that long ago. In fact, though it takes place in the 70s, it was released in 1989, and at that time, apartheid was STILL going on. It’s almost impossible to believe that a country like South Africa could carry on such blatantly racist practices for so long, but it’s a reminder that these things can still happen today. There are certain people in our government who like to say that race is no longer an issue, but we should remember that it is, and always will be if we are not vigilant to injustices. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Visions: The Ninth Jedi (series), Lost (season 5), Race Across the World (series 4)
• Book currently reading: Bloodline by Claudia Gray

Starting off today with a couple really good indie dramas. Mad Bills to Pay follows 19-year-old Rico who is a man by age, but still a boy by deed. He spends his days selling homemade cocktails on the beach outside New York City and his evenings getting hight and drinking with his friends. Not a whole lot of ambition there, despite the good example of his extremely hard-working single mother, an immigrant. Rico’s going to have to do some growing up quick though, when he knocks up his 14-year-old girlfriend Destiny. Destiny expects him to take care of her and their child, moving in to the small apartment Rico shares with his mom and younger sister (who is older than Destiny). Like a lot of expectant mothers no matter their age, Destiny knows the import of what is coming and starts ragging on Rico to start taking this seriously, but it is going to more than nudging for him to realize how much his life is about to change. A raw, completely riveting movie about a guy who’s just not ready to grow up. Rico keeps taking one step forward, two steps back, no matter how much he “wants to be a man” and be everything that his own jailbird father never was. ★★★★½

Due West is not a deep movie (not nearly as deep as it wants you to think it is), and isn’t as thought-provoking as the above film, but it has emotional heft that is hard to ignore. An unnamed woman (her name is never given, purposefully I’m sure, to imply that this could be anyone you know) lives in a small west Texas town. She is texting mysteriously with someone telling her to meet tomorrow at a city a couple hours away, and to bring $700 or don’t come at all. For a long time, we don’t know what for, but if you read any description of the movie, you know it is for an abortion. The secrecy surrounding the woman trying to come up with the money and get to the meeting is because abortions are very illegal in Texas now, and she, along with anyone aiding her, would face prosecution. The woman hasn’t made this decision lightly though. It’s not because she wasn’t careful, it’s not because she’s too young or too old or any practical reason. The woman was raped, and if you think that’s isn’t awful enough, just see the trials and tribulations she has to go through to try to move on from that terrible event in her life. A movie that makes you see both all of the good and all of the evil in mankind, in equal measures. ★★★★½

Deep Water tries to be a disaster movie that covers the most bases but doesn’t succeed at any of them. In the beginning, as passengers are boarding a plane from LA to Shanghai, it has some Final Destination levels of ridiculousness, ominously showing all of the little things going on that could go wrong, giving you a sense of (quite silly) foreboding. Most of it is brought on by the stereotypically loud and obnoxious overweight American. When the catastrophe finally comes, the plane is forced to crash into the Pacific Ocean, with no land in sight. The pilots (played by Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart) do all that they can, but the plane comes apart upon impact and the majority of passengers are killed or missing. The survivors band together to realize they are out of the frying pan, into the water, as the ocean is packed to the gills with the most ferocious sharks ever shown on screen. The movie devolves into a silly shark flick, and not even a good one at that. The scene when the plane goes down is as tense as it gets, but it is all downhill (or down the drain, if you like) after that. ★★

Normal is from writer Derek Kolstad, of John Wick fame, so you know what to expect going in. It stars Bob Odenkirk as Ulysses, who is serving as interim sheriff in the tiny town of Normal Minnesota, after its previous mayor recently died of a heart attack. Seems like a quiet town, but it has some idiosyncrasies. The sheriff’s office is loaded with high power guns and C4, there’s a new $18 million town hall going up, a little old lady has a long-range police scanner in her fabric shop, and other things that just don’t add up for such a small middle-of-nowhere town. The townspeople all seem to be a little too nice to their temporary sheriff. The opening scene of the movie, showing Yakuza in Japan sending some hoodlums to Normal, gives the viewer a clue as to what may be going on here, but it comes to a head when some out-of-towners attempt to rob the bank. Ulysses, unaware of what the town is hiding, steps in to diffuse the situation, but ends up on the shooting end of a town full of people unwilling to let anyone in on their secrets. Great action film with a lot more laughs than the typical John Wick movie. Doesn’t break new ground, but it doesn’t have to. ★★★½

Ian McKellen is one of the greatest living English actors, and he shines in The Christophers, playing a renowned artist named Julian Sklar. Most of Julian’s fame comes from two series of paintings he did 25 years ago called the “The Christophers,” where his muse is painted in portrait. A third series was hinted at by Julian, but he never finished or showed them. Now very old and still living off his former fame (he makes money by selling Cameo videos to fans), his adult children Barnaby and Sallie see a way to make some money once dear old dad dies. The two hire Lori Butler, a once-promising painter who hasn’t exhibited in a decade, to be Julian’s assistant and to finish Julian’s third series of Christophers behind his back, knowing that the paintings would each selling for millions upon his death and “discovery” in the attic. The brash and abrasive Julian doesn’t immediately warm up to Lori, but when she is forced to come clean about her motives, the two form a bond. Lori helps Julian move past some of the grief he’s been carrying over the real Christopher, a man Julian loved once (back before being gay or bisexual was “the cool thing” according to Julian) and Julian too can help Lori re-find her love of painting and overcome fear of rejection. You’ll laugh and be moved in equal measures, and McKellen shows that age has not slowed down his wit or expressiveness. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Agents of SHIELD (season 1)
• Book currently reading: Tides of Blood by Richard A Knaak

Exit 8 is a Japanese psychological thriller based on a video game. For a background, the game was developed in 9 months (an absurdly short time by game standards these days) as a way for the developer to “kill some time” between other, bigger projects. It went on to be extremely successful, and thus this movie. In the film, an unnamed young man gets off a subway while chatting on his phone with his recent ex-girlfriend, who has just told him that she is pregnant. The man is at a loss for words and isn’t paying attention to where is going, until he realizes that he is somehow going in circles, seeing the same signs again and again. He quickly realizes that he isn’t going in circles, but is in some kind of repeating maze. A note on the wall tells him to proceed if everything is normal, but if he see’s an “anomaly,” he is to turn around. The exit pointing the way out says “0” and every time he chooses right, it counts up until his desired exit 8, but if he misses an anomaly and continues forward, it resets to 0. Some anomalies are benign, like a different sign on the wall or an upside down letter, but others are either psychologically disturbing (often) or downright dangerous. And it gets harder and harder for the man (and others trapped down there too, as we soon learn) to know what is real and what is not. It’s a fantastically unsettling movie that will get your heart rate beating, and proof that you don’t need a big budget to make a very interesting and fun film. ★★★★

It’s already been 5 years since the Mortal Kombat film franchise rebooted, and a sequel has finally arrived. Just like the first movie, this is pretty much a direct video game adaptation, meaning lots of (bloody) fights and silly dialogue, but if you understand that going in, it’s a fun action flick. Emperor Shao Kahn and his gang of evildoers are ready to take over Earthrealm. His counterpart, Lord Raiden, has to put together 5 of Earth’s greatest champions to fight Shao Kahn’s forces in death matches (“It’s called Mortal Kombat for a reason you know?”) for the future of mankind. Their centerpiece is Johnny Cage, missing from the first film, and portrayed by the always-entertaining Karl Urban. There’s even a return for star actor Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion. Gore is over-the-top, just as you’d expect. More of the same from the first film, which is not a bad thing. ★★★½

Branching out from my usual fare and watched Obsession. I don’t do a lot of horror movies, but this one got such good reviews and a friend highly recommended it. Glad I gave it a go (even if I’d never watch it again!). Baron (“Bear”) has a big crush on Nikki, but the two are part of a circle of four long-time friends, and Bear doesn’t know if his feelings are reciprocated. His buddy Ian knows Bear likes Nikki, but warns him off. After a party one night, Bear drives Nikki home, and when given the opportunity to admit his feelings, he balks, and Nikki gets out of the car and walks up to her house. In an emotional fit, Bear pulls out a $5 toy he recently bought at a shop, a toy that is meant to grant a wish, and wishes that Nikki loved him more than anything in the world. As he is about to drive away, he looks up to find Nikki standing at the car door, the moonlight in her eyes. She tells him a story that her father is dying and she feels alone, so can she come over to his house for the night. Coincidence? Of course not! Before Bear knows it, Nikki is making a memorial out of his recently deceased cat to cheer Bear up, standing at the edge of the bedroom watching him sleep, and taping the door shut to try to keep him from leaving. It isn’t long before her adoration turns violent towards herself and anyone else who might stand in the way of her man. The reason I don’t often do the horror genre is they can get silly at times, and this one certainly does go overboard on the implausibly (even for such an outlandish premise), but it’s still a wild and entertaining ride. ★★★★

Based on a true story, Pressure tells the story of the preparation for D-Day from an angle not told before. It’s June 2, 1944, with the intent to launch for the beaches of northern France in 3 days on June 5. General Eisenhower (played fantastically by Brendan Fraser, continuing his film resurgence) brings in two highly respected meteorologists to give him the weather report that all will be good for the highly coordinated mission. One, the American Irving Krick (Chris Messina) has a sterling reputation in Hollywood for having predicted the red skies for the shooting of Atlanta burning in Gone With the Wind (and other films), and he says to launch of June 5, it will be perfect weather. The other man, British James Stagg (Andrew Scott), who’s there under the recommendation of Winston Churchill, says to wait. He sees a big storm in the Atlantic coming this way, and forecasts crashing waves, no visibility, and gusty winds, all of which would spell doom for the Allies’ invading force. Unfortunately, the next window for launch would be June 18, something that Eisenhower and the brass refuse to accept, as they know they can’t keep the cat in the bag from Germany that long. Buoyed by tremendous acting and an incredible script, director Anthony Maras keeps this film tense and fraught with an impending sense of danger throughout. Who knew a movie about the weather could be this fun?! ★★★★★

Blue Heron, a semi-autobiographical film from writer/director Sophy Romvari, follows a family of Hungarian immigrants moving to a new home in Vancouver, Canada. The kids have been in Canada long enough to have (mostly) lost their accents, but the parents still revert to their native tongue more times than not. There are 4 children, 3 younger (with the film mostly following daughter Sasha, playing the role of the director Romvari), and an older brother Jeremy, the mom’s son from a previous relationship. We immediately see that Jeremy is struggling with social issues. Sasha witnesses him stealing from a store one day, and he becomes withdrawn from the family. It isn’t long before he gets nabbed by the police for a petty crime, and the family turns to psychologists to see what is going on. The final third of the film moves forward 20 years to an adult Sasha, who is talking about her brother (in the past tense now, signaling something happened to him, with others, trying to figure out what made her brother the person he was. It shifts from a narrative film to an almost documentary-like approach. Didn’t care for this latter section, though the initial story of little Sasha living in a turbulent house was pretty good. Still, just because you set up a camera behind a child doesn’t mean the film is from her perspective, and the point-of-view moves too much to truly be a coming-of-age. Just a bit too all-over-the-place for me. ★★

• TV series recently watched: Race Across the World (series 3), Stargate SG1 (season 5)
• Book currently reading: Fallbacks Bound for Ruin by Jaleigh Johnson

As I said in my last Spider-Man film review, don’t worry about spoilers here. Because there’s some doozies if you can avoid them until you see it in person.

The latest in Marvel’s Universe is Spider-Man: Brand New Day. After the events of the 2021’s No Way Home, the world has forgotten Peter Parker, and that includes his best friends. Peter is alone, so for the last 5 years, he has been fighting crime and living solo, with no ties to the world. The only person he really talks to is a connection in the New York police department. The city’s newest threat, though, may be more than Spider-Man can handle on his own. A strange new villain has been attacking the city’s Damage Control centers, places that monitor superheroes and develop tools to help (or hinder) them. Along with an unlikely friend in the Punisher (yay for Jon Bernthal!!), Spidey must discover the identity of this new really bad badguy before more people get hurt. All while dealing with his own personal emotions of losing his best friend Ned and girlfriend MJ.

Absolutely fantastic movie, full of action, heart, emotion, and a couple great twists, continuing the trend of the recent Spider-Man films. Even though Marvel’s other recent films haven’t always taken off (I loved Thunderbolts*, but it didn’t exactly rake it in at the box office), Spider-Man has been a reliable draw. For the first 3 Spider-Man-centric films in the MCU, they progressed thusly: 1) $880 million at the box office, 92% Rotten Tomatoes; 2) $1.1 billion, 91% Rotten; and 3) $1.9 billion, 93% Rotten. That last one is good for third all-time domestically ($1.1 billion in the USA alone), and seventh all-time globally. That’s a whole lot of spiderwebs. Early tracking has Brand New Day with a shot to finish in the top two all-time domestic opening in the $325+ million range, and an outside chance of claiming the # 1 all-time spot from Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, which sits at $357 million. I can tell you that I have not seen a theater packed like it was tonight since pre-COVID days. I went to a big 20 screen multiplex, and the parking lot was full to the gills. Not like Disney needs the money, but they’ll be bringing in the accountants for overtime next week. ★★★★★

The late 50s and 60s saw some Japanese films which were obviously heavily influenced by some of what was going on in American film at the time. Starting today with a trio of action noir films that could easily have come out of the USA. First up is Rusty Knife, released in 1958 and directed by Toshio Masuda (later did Tora! Tora! Tora!). It’s about an ex-convict who’s been trying to go straight for the last 5 years. He did time for killing the man who raped and murdered his girlfriend, but is now discovering that maybe he killed the wrong guy. Meanwhile, his former employers the yakuza are trying to bring him back into the fold, all while the police are also trying to recruit him to narc. Besides the main dude having done time for killing the wrong guy, there’s also a possible new love interest, who’s father seemingly killed himself but which also may be a case of mistaken murder. For a bunch of “professionals” they sure seem to get things wrong a lot. That being side, it’s pretty engaging, once you get all the characters (and whose side they’re on) figured out. 3 stars for a good ending that you do not see coming. ★★★

Cruel Gun Story is a movie starring Joe Shishido in the lead. He played a lot of villains in the 300+ movies he did in Japan (I’ve reviewed quite a few in this blog) and while he had a small role in the above picture, by the time this film came out in 1964 he was getting pretty well established. This one’s a heist film, and Shishido plays Joji, the ringleader. He is tasked with putting together a team to rob an armored car enroute from a horse racing track to the bank in town. Joji has his second, a longtime friend, but needs at least 2 more to pull it off, and the options aren’t good; he ends up with a needle pushing disgraced ex-cop and a has-been boxer who has taken a few too many blows to the head. Initially, the job goes as planned, until the security guards driving the armored car don’t fall for getting out when ordered, and remain safe inside their bulletproof vehicle. Joji and his team steal the whole truck with the guards and money still inside, but while deciding their next plan of action, are double crossed by the those that hired them. And then the team breaks down and starts double-crossing each other. I quickly got the sense that no one was going to survive this bloodshed, and I was right, after a Butch Cassidy-like finale. Not too satisfying of a conclusion, but it’s a fun ride getting there. ★★★½

A Colt is My Passport is a spaghetti western in a yakuza Japan setting, complete with a western style soundtrack. Joe Shishido is back, as contract killer Kamimura. Kamimura is great at his job, one of the best, and his latest job involves killing a man named Shimazu. Kamimura has been hired by yakuza boss Senzaki to kill Shimazu, a former partner who has been found to be embezzling. Shimazu is always guarded and is too smart to leave himself vulnerable, rarely being seen outside his stronghold. But Kamimura is smart, and when next Shimazu and Senzaki meet, Kamimura has set up a block away on a tall building and fires with deadly precision. Senzaki isn’t pleased that the target was killed while he was near, landing him at the police station to answer questions, but there’s nothing to tie him to the killing, so he is let go. Not one to let loose ends lie, Senzaki goes after Kamimura. Kamimura expected this though, so he and his friend Shun are already trying to skip town. Unfortunately for the duo, Senzaki has powerful friends, and Shimazu’s son wants revenge too. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game, with powerful killers on both sides, and ending in a duel straight out of a Clint Eastwood flick. Outstanding action and a gripping plot all the way to its explosive (literally) conclusion. If the film sounds cool but you aren’t a fan of subtitles, be patient: it is currently being remade by Gareth Evans with a pretty strong cast. ★★★★

Shochiku was traditionally one of the biggest film studios in Japan, but by the late 60s, their movies (mostly dramas) were considered “old fashioned.” Facing the behemoth that was Toho studios (Godzilla), Shochiku responded with a series of horror movies. The X From Outer Space (1967) is a direct response to Toho, featuring its own gigantic monster. It takes awhile to get there though, too long in my opinion. A group of astronauts are charged with finding why spacefarers keep disappearing near Mars, and when they get there, they find huge spores that almost take out their ship. They bring one back for study, but when exposed to Earth’s atmosphere, it starts to grow, and becomes this giant chicken-looking thing that starts wrecking the place. This is a super boring movie, taking far too long to get to any action, with lots of frivolous scenes that do nothing to advance the plot. The characters are quite literally running in circles at times, bouncing from Earth to the moon base to Mars and back again (and again). And did I mention the monster looked like a giant chicken? ★

Goké, Body Snatcher from Hell followed in 1968, and is a better offering. An airplane is flying through a red hazy sky with bizarre happenings (birds flying into the windows with grisly abandon) when the pilot receives a bomb threat. While searching the fliers’ bags, one man pulls a rifle. As the shit is hitting the fan, a UFO flies past in the red sky, knocking out one of the plane’s engines and causing it to crash on a deserted island. The survivors gather, but the hijacker with the rifle runs into the jungle and encounters the alien from the UFO. It carves and entrance into his skull and takes over his body, turning him into a vampire-like being who starts to hunt the rest of the survivors, sucking their blood. As the movie progresses, we learn that this alien is just the lead in a force coming to Earth to kill everyone. Is it campy? Sure, but it also has some nice old-fashioned visual scares and is at least more engaging than the space flick above. ★★½

The Living Skeleton starts silly with some extreme over-acting, but it settles in to be a very good horror film. A group of deadly pirates have taken over a ship, and end up killing everyone on board, including the damsel-in-distress Yoriko. 3 years later, Yoriko’s twin sister Saeko is still in mourning when she starts to see visions of Yoriko. Looks like Yoriko’s ghost is out for revenge, as she starts hunting down members of the pirate gang. The movie is just vague enough that you don’t know if Yoriko’s ghost is doing the killing, or if she is inhabiting her twin’s body to do the deeds, or if something else sinister is going on. Sort of an update on the traditional Japanese ghost horror genre, or kaidan as they are called natively. The movie has it all, from identical twins to a mad scientist to a bad guy impersonating a good guy to get closer to the heroine. Not to mention a wild ending. Crazy film, and I was into it all. ★★★★

Genocide, as a film of the late 60s, plays up to the present fears of global annihilation. The gist of it is that insects, which fear their own deaths along with every other living thing on the planet because of mankind’s impending atomic wars, decide to rise up and take out humans. Some new strain of insect (which look a lot like bees) start biting people, and once bitten, the human goes insane, killing others before succumbing to the venom’s toxins. Sounds silly, and it is, but there’s some good subplots going on too that kept me interested. There’s a playboy getting it on with his girlfriend and an American woman (who turns out to be in league with the insects) and an American GI who was transporting a bomb when all this started, later gets bitten, and then goes off the deep end. The Japanese doctor trying to come up with a cure seems to be the only rational one of the lot. Zany movie, but entertaining! ★★★

• TV series recently watched: Widow’s Bay (season 1), ST Voyager (season 7)
• Book currently reading: Enemy of My Enemy by Alex Segura

Christopher Nolan is once again doing his Christopher Nolan-thing: giving us an epic movie on a grand scale. Something he’s done time and again, with films like Interstellar, Inception, and Dunkirk. And what better story than one of the grandest: Homer’s Odyssey. So what can Nolan, a man obsessed with perfection and accuracy, do with such a subject? Gives us a movie that needs to be seen on the biggest screen available.

No spoilers here, and you either know the story of Odyssey (or, at least, bits and pieces of it) or you don’t. The movie is 3 hours long, detailing Odysseus’s years-long journey home after the Trojan War, where he was a hero for coming up with the idea for the Trojan Horse. Along the way he battles cyclops, giants, sirens, maelstroms, and even the gods themselves, but through it all, he is determined to return to his love, his wife Penelope, and their son Telemachus. Telemachus has grown up without a father, and is bitter over the suitors who come to his home daily to woo Penelope in hopes of marrying her for a shot at the throne, in Odysseus’s absence. No one really believes Odysseus will return, except for his family and one trusted servant.

Nolan spent gobs of money to develop new techniques to make this film, and did the majority of it “the old fashioned way.” You won’t find buildings-tall green screens and layers of CGI. There’s tons of natural action scenes with real (not computer-generated) armies fighting to the death. All of the actors have been very forthcoming with how hard this movie was to make, but to a person they agree that there comes satisfaction with having made something that will speak to people, because it has themes that are as meaningful today as they were 2800 years ago. This is a movie that you can watch again and again, and probably catch something you missed each time. Brilliantly done with an absolute all-star cast top to bottom (even some of the bit-part extras are recognizable faces!). I don’t know how Nolan is going to top this one. Maybe he’ll surprise us and make a small indie film next? ★★★★★

I’ll admit that I didn’t run out to see Project Hail Mary at the theater, despite being a sci-fi nerd, because it looked a bit too silly to me. The trailers leaned heavy on the comedy (and in my opinion, there was too much of it, especially in the first half of the movie) but it’s still an awesome science fiction flick. Based on a book by the same author who wrote The Martian (another fantastic space film), it has the same kind of “man out in space on his own” kind of idea, but with a twist. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up alone in a space ship in deep space with total amnesia, no idea why he is out there; the two other spacefarers died in their induced hibernation during the long trek. Grace starts to get his memories piecemeal, which we see as flashbacks, that give us the story. Some kind of alien parasite has been sucking energy from our sun, and if humans can’t figure out how to stop it, our sun will grow too weak to keep the Earth warm, killing all the plants and animals and thus all the people too. Looking out into space, scientists have found the same problem with all stars except one: Tau Ceti, 11.9 million light years away. Using those same little parasites, which can emit tons of energy, they built a ship to get Grace (and his now-dead team) all the way out there to see why this one star is surviving, and to bring that knowledge back. Except Grace will not be bringing it back, because there’s only enough energy for a one-way trip, and he’ll have to send the cure back on tiny probes. Thankfully, Grace isn’t as alone as he thought he’d be. When he gets to Tau Ceti, he finds an alien, which he names “Rocky.” Once they learn how to communicate with each other, they learn they are there for the same reason, to save their home worlds from dying stars. The exciting parts in this movie are exhilarating, edge-of-your-seat affairs, and the movie has a surprising amount of heart as Rocky and Grace look out for each other as they face death time and again. Could have been a perfect sci-fi movie if they’d just cut back on some those silly laughs, but still a thrilling movie. ★★★★

She Dances is a great little indie flick with a strong cast. The (almost always) underrated Steve Zahn plays Jason, an absent father (been doing a lot of films like that lately) who is tasked with chaperoning his daughter Claire on her latest trip. Claire has always been into dance, and there’s a new competition for her to enter with her longtime friend and dance partner Kat. Much of the humor of the film is provided by these two Gen Z’ers and the out-of-touch Dad, but there’s some seriousness to the movie too: the hanging specter of Jack. Jack was Claire’s brother and Jason’s son, who died a few years ago (cause never mentioned; I suspected suicide), an event that ripped the family apart. It ended Jason’s marriage and sent him spiraling into alcoholism and withdrawing from Claire’s life. Jason has been sober for awhile now, but still hasn’t faced the hurt Jack’s passing has left him. Jason is uncomfortable around Claire because she reminds him of Jack, and Claire is hesitant to open up to Jason because of what it may dredge up. Jason is, after all, a recovering alcoholic and honestly doesn’t recall much of that dark time. Ethan Hawk costars as a longtime family friend and Jason’s business partner, and Claire is played by non other than Steve Zahn’s real-life daughter Audrey Zahn, in her first role. ★★★½

Jackie Chan will always be known for his martial arts films, but over the last few years, time has obviously diminished his action roles and he’s been taking more dramatic films. Such is the case for Unexpected Family, where he plays the elderly Ren. Ren is suffering from dementia, and while he lives alone, he is well-liked by his neighbors who take turns looking after him. A young tenant moves in named Zhong Bufan, and Ren mistakenly thinks it is his long-lost son returning home. Seeing Ren brighten up, the neighbors convince Bufan to play along. Initially, Bufan wants nothing to do with it, but when he thinks he may be able to manipulate Ren into giving him some money, he agrees. It isn’t long before Bufan grows to like Ren too, and gives up is nefarious plot. Ren, a former weightlifting coach, coached his son to a gold medal many years ago, so Bufan and the neighbors decide to reenact that championship meet in an attempt to bolster Ren’s memories and spirits. Things do not go as planned. Lots of Chan’s customary silly humor in the beginning of the film, but it really hits its stride in the second half, where it becomes more dramatic. Chan has acting chops, and I dare you to keep the emotions in check when he confronts his estranged “son” in the end. ★★★

Two Prosecutors shines a light on what life was like under the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge, when Stalin was removing dissenters. It begins in a prison in Bryansk, where a prisoner is tasked with burning letters written by prisoners, letters which will never see the light of day. He is stricken by one though, written in blood, and somehow smuggles it out. The letter makes its way to a young prosecutor named Kornyev, a staunch communist but also a young idealist, and he comes to Bryansk to try to interview the prisoner who wrote the letter. He receives all kinds of run-around. The powers-at-be at the prison don’t want anyone to know how they are treating their prisoners. When Kornyev finally does meet the prisoner, an old man named Stepniak, we see why: Stepniak shows plenty of evidence of physical abuse and is coughing up blood, in obvious poor health. Turns out Kornyev has been so adamant because he once saw Stepniak give a speech about Bolshevism at his law school, and Kornyev knows that Stepniak is no dissenter. He’s a proper party man, and wants to know why Stepniak ended up here. He tries to take Stepniak’s case up the food chain, but everywhere he goes he is met with red tape and blockades. The red machine is in full force, and is not ready to admit any failure; with them there is either for or against, and if Kornyev isn’t careful, he may end up “against.” Excellent slow-burn drama. One of those movies where not much happens, but all the intrigue is told “in between” the dialogue. ★★★½

From one dark period in our world history to another, with the German film Amrum. Based on childhood of the film’s writer Hark Bohm, it takes place in the eponymous village, on a tiny German island off the coast, in 1945. The war is winding down, which is great news for most but unbelievable to others, namely Hille and her son Nanning (the main character). Hille is a staunch Nazi supporter, while her husband is off fighting in the war, but the rest of the village, far removed from Berlin and its worries, is ready for the war to be over. This includes Hille’s sister Ena. Ena and Hille are from this village and are staying in their childhood home; Hille’s house in Hamburg was bombed by the allies. Nanning finds himself at the center of this weird crossroads. When he repeats what a villager said about being thankful that the Russians are only 50 miles from Berlin, Hille wants the villager reported to the local magistrate, saying she is disloyal to her country. Even most family members in the village (aunts and uncles) are not sure what the war was supposed to be about, and are happy that they will stop losing friends and loved ones to “Hitler’s war.” After Hille gives birth to a new baby, she falls into postpartum depression, and refuses to eat. She makes an offhand comment that she’ll only eat white bread with butter and honey, all items that are extremely hard to come by these days. Nanning begins an adventure to find, trade for, or work for these items, in hopes of lifting his mom’s spirits, but it will be a tough job with society crumbing around him. Extremely well-depicted coming-of-age film, and a reminder that while our leaders will always try to divide us into “them” and “us,” most people are just living normal lives like everybody else. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Star City (season 1), The Vampire Lestat (season 1)
• Book currently reading: The Winds of Dune by Herbert & Anderson