Quick takes on 5 films

Clara is an independent science-fiction movie about a scientist/researcher who is obsessed with finding life on other planets. Dr Isaac Bruno has been teaching at the university level to gain access to their research tools, including access to powerful telescopes around the world. The TESS telescope has just launched and the James Webb telescope (successor to the Hubble) is getting ready to, so Isaac is on a time crunch to find a planet viable of having life, to be the first candidate ready when the newest telescope is ready to search. However, Isaac has been in a depressed state for two years, since his wife left him (and other pains, which we learn in the course of the film), and it has been affecting his teaching, leading to him being put on leave and thus losing his assistants and research access. He puts out an ad to find a person to help him work from home, and Clara answers. Clara doesn’t know anything about science, but she’s homeless and needs a place to stay, and she’s smart and quick to learn. Bumps in their research and relationship ensues. I don’t know about director/writer Akash Sherman, but this movie has the feel of a first feature. Decent enough plot (though very predictable), but rough dialogue in spots, which is odd because it has so much scientific jargon. Maybe it’s just the subject matter, but the movie has the look and feel of being written by a person who knows the science but doesn’t know how average people talk and act around each other. And Isaac is too much of a loose cannon, giving up too easily when he meets resistance, for someone who is supposed to be dedicated to a life-long goal. It reminded me a bit of a movie I saw several years ago, I Origins, which is another film that was grounded in science in the beginning, and strayed to science fiction in the end. ★½

Maybe it’s because I don’t watch scary/horror films very often, or maybe I was just in the mood tonight, but I watched The Dead Center, and absolutely loved it. It starts with a John Doe being brought into a morgue after a suicide. As soon as the attendant leaves though, our John sits up and lets himself out. He ends up in a hospital bed down the hall, and the next morning, a nurse finds him catatonic. Not knowing where he came from, she calls the psych ward, where they take him. As a caring doctor there tries to get him to open up, the medical examiner at the morgue starts hunting for his missing body. It isn’t long before our mysterious Lazarus starts behaving very strangely, and people on his ward start ending up dead, of very sudden and peculiar circumstances. This is a slow and steady thriller, with only one “jump scare” that I recall. It is almost all in your head, and the word creepy doesn’t do it justice. Maybe fans of the genre wouldn’t dig it as much, but I was all in. Minor point deduction because some of the actors in this super low budget film aren’t all that great, but some others are actually quite good. ★★★★½

The Ground Beneath My Feet is an Austrian film about a woman, Lola, trying to balance home and work in today’s fast-paced, highly competitive world of business. Her sister Connie has had a life full of psychiatric problems, and her latest suicide attempt comes at an important time at Lola’s work. As such, Lola doesn’t let on at work what she is dealing with at home, trying to keep it hidden. Connie calls her incessantly, telling Lola she’s being mistreated at the hospital, while Lola is working long hours with no sleep. She’s also having a clandestine relationship with her boss, and being promised a big promotion if she does well on this latest project. The film has the feel of a thriller, and I kept thinking something big was going to happen, but it never does. It ends up being a pretty straight forward drama. It is well acted, but honestly there isn’t much to it. If it had gone for a different feel, less menacing, I may have ultimately liked it more. ★★

Ordinary Love is a very sweet movie starring Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson as a couple who’ve been married for decades, and remain best friends. They are alone, having buried their only son years before, but content, and very obviously still very much in love. Their latest tribulation comes when Joan feels a lump to the side of her breast. Trying to be supportive, Tom says it’s probably nothing, but to get it checked just in case. The tests come back positive though, and the film plays out as the next year of chemotherapy treatments, surgeries, pain, and anguish. They get to know other people in the cancer ward fighting their own battles, and through it all, Tom and Joan go through the gamut of emotions. Neeson and Manville do an amazing job of portraying a couple who know, from a lifetime of being together, what to say and how to say it, and are completely at ease around each other, anticipating each other’s movements and speech. It might be an “ordinary love” but it is one which we should all hope to have in our lives. ★★★★

VHYes is a film unlike any other that I can recall. The premise is simple (as is the movie): in 1987, a 12 year old is given a video camera (the old school big ones!) and spends a week filming everything with his new toy. Unbeknownst to his parents, the first tape he picked up was their old wedding video, so intermittent throughout is clips of the wedding as it is getting recorded over. There’s a loose plot of Ralph and his best friend Josh exploring a town legend, and there are also glimpses of the troubled marriage of his parents (as much as the young Ralph can understand), but the majority of the “movie” is snippets of TV shows that Ralph records at night: porn with the “good” parts edited out, a Bob Ross-style painting show by a woman with strange fetishes, an antiques roadshow, some home shopping network, and the like. The clips are, for the most part, extremely funny, and I laughed a whole lot. Anyone my age or older who lived through the 80’s will get a lot of nostalgic laughs out of it. For the most part, the cast is made up of people I didn’t recognize, though there are some familiar faces (not any big “leading men” or “woman” kind of people, but actors you’ve seen before), but at one point Tim Robbins showed up on screen, and a little later, Susan Sarandon, so I thought, “Wait a minute…” And sure enough, the film was made by their son, Jack Henry Robbins. It’s a strange picture, not for everyone, but it’s short (72 minutes) and, I thought, entertaining. There’s also some good creepy moments and even some dark thrills. ★★★