It’s funny, I don’t like pets, but I do like animals. As such, I always seem to enjoy the Disneynature films, and the latest, Penguins is no exception. Narrated by Ed Helms and showing a year in the life of an Adélie penguin named Steve, it is a touching film with tremendous cinematography showing the deadly, but beautiful, Antarctica landscape. Steve is 5 years old and will be taking his first mate. Steve is always late everywhere he goes: he’s late to the mating area, late to preparing a nest, late to finding a girl, and later, late to start catching fish to feed the growing family. It is a cute and endearing film, and it always amazes me the instinct animals have to survive in such a harsh environment. Steve and his fellow penguins travel hundreds of miles to know how to be in the right place at the right time to survive, and while Steve and his “wife” split up at the end of the summer to go off to northern waters for warmth, they know to come back to the exact same spot the next season, since they mate for life. Fun little film.
Having just read Native Son, I had the chance to watch the recent HBO film based on it. It brings Bigger Thomas into modern times, and while I enjoyed some aspects more than the book, but overall still not a great story for me. Whereas in the book, Bigger kills Mary, the daughter of his wealthy boss, on the first night of his job, in this film, the spend days or weeks hanging out and getting to know each other. The film does a better job of showing how completely out of touch from reality the rich Mary is, asking Bigger where he “summers,” and making racist comments like, “I always think about what black people think about that subject.” However, the film takes away Bigger’s complete mistrust and animosity towards white people in general, and once the murder goes down (less than halfway through the book but much closer to the end of the movie), it wraps it up pretty quickly. Great acting by Ashton Sanders (from the acclaimed Moonlight a few years ago) but not a tremendously powerful film, despite all efforts.
Becoming Astrid is a Swedish-Danish film about the early life of Astrid Lindgren, the famous author of many children’s books, including Pippi Longstocking. Astrid is raised on a potato farm in Sweden and excels in making up stories to amuse her siblings and friends. As a 16 year old girl, she gets a job as an intern to the editor of a local paper, and it isn’t long before she begins a love affair with the much older man. When his divorce is slow in coming and Astrid ends up pregnant, she flees to Stockholm to give birth, so as to not bring shame on her family, and later sends her baby to a foster mother in Copenhagen. What was supposed to be just a few months turns into years of waiting on her man to be free, and Astrid longs to reunite with her child. Unfortunately sort of a bland film, though Alba August is incredible as Astrid. The story just isn’t all that engaging, and her story-telling, the thing she is most famous for, is barely discussed. I will try to keep an eye out for August in future films though, very great work from her. And I learned from good old wikipedia that she is the daughter of none other than Pernilla August, a Swedish actress who worked with Ingmar Bergman in his later career (including in Fanny & Alexander), and was famously Shmi Skywalker in those Star Wars films.
The Happy Prince is one of those films where a great story, fantastic acting, and outstanding sets and costumes all add up to a fairly average movies. I’m not sure I can put my finger on why it doesn’t all come together, but it just never hit its stride. The film is a biography about the last years of Oscar Wilde, after he’s been convicted of homosexuality and served his time in jail, and he’s now living destitute in France. Wilde spends his time remembering better times when he was the toast of London, and struggling with his current situation and failing health. He has quarrels with his lovers, longs to reunite with his estranged wife, and hides from the ridiculing young English men who only know him because of his crimes. It sounds much more interesting that it is, I only wish I could say why. Sometimes greatness just doesn’t happen even when all the elements are there.
The Mule is an entertaining film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, about an old man who has lost his business and home and becomes a drug mule to earn it all back. He spent his life working as a florist, ignoring his family and their needs along the way, but the internet has now shut him down. Approaching 90 years old, he brags that he has never even gotten a speeding ticket, which, coupled with his old age, makes him the perfect, unsuspecting drug runner. The DEA, lead by Bradley Cooper, is on the case and trying to find this mystery driver bringing hundreds of kilos of cocaine into Chicago, but because Eastwood doesn’t follow a regular path, makes frequent stops to visit friends, helps stranded motorists, and stops to get his favorite sandwich from a roadside shack in the middle of nowhere, the cops are unable to pin him down, even with an informant inside the organization feeding them information. Very funny film, with most of the humor involving Eastwood’s age (he gets a burner cell phone on each trip with directions, but doesn’t even know how to text), but also a lesson in paying attention to the important things in life before they are gone.
Jons Movie Takes 