Honey Bee is a small indie film out of Canada, about a young girl, Natalie, who gets woo’ed by a hot guy into a relationship, only for him to pimp her out at truck stops. She is completely fooled by his promises of a better future, and when she’s arrested in a sting operation, Natalie refuses to give Paul up. She ends up in a foster home, her fourth, and she has no expectations for anything good, after having been abused at her previous 3 foster homes. Fortunately, she’s finally found a good one, though obviously it takes her some time, and she has to make some freshly costly mistakes, before she comes to realize it herself. It’s a similar story that you’ve seen a million times, and this movie doesn’t break any new ground, but it is told well enough for what it is. Youngster Julia Sarah Stone shows promise in the lead role, it’d be interesting to see if she can build off this in her career. ★★½
Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) have been in a relationship a long time and have just had a baby together, but their relationship is on the rocks. She wants to get married, he doesn’t; she thinks he’s cheating on her, he loathes her parents, and these and more reasons are causing a lot of strife. After an awkward party where their in-fighting bubbles up in front of their friends, they get in a bad car wreck on the way home. Adrienne “awakes” in the hospital next to her own dead body, and witnesses a series of scenes such as her parents grieving in the morgue, Matteo speaking at her funeral, etc. Then Adrienne starts reliving some of her memories, and Matteo is along for the ride, however, he is trying throughout to convince her that she is not really dead. They share many memories of their life together, and it is a blend of reliving those moments, as well as talking to each other about the memory while they are living it. Example: they are at a rooftop party where they first met, and then in the middle of the conversation, she’ll say something like, “I fell for you right away.” So they are reliving those moments from a modern day perspective, not much different how we remember things when we look back. Throughout it all though, Adrienne is stalked by a dark figure who, at first, Matteo can’t see. Is she dead or alive, as Matteo contends, and who is the dark figure lurking in the shadows? We get the answers in the end, but this is one of those films where the ride is a lot better than the conclusion. I loved Wander Darkly through most of the film, and Miller and Luna are equally fantastic, but the ending felt shallow and lost a lot of the magic that was going on during the movie. I was in that 4-5 star territory until the last 15 minutes. ★★★
The Last Vermeer is based on the true story of Dutch painter Han van Meegeren. The movie begins at the end of World War II in Europe, where allies have just found a trove of paintings and wealth, supposedly stolen by the Nazis from the Jews. Captain Joseph Piller has been tasked with ferreting out the German soldiers who did the stealing and turning them over for sentencing. In the latest finding is a painting by 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Piller starts digging to find who owned the painting before the war, and traces its last owner to van Meegeren, who sold it for an ungodly sum to a German higher-up. Pillar begins to think that, in addition to stealing paintings from Jews, money was being funneled through the art transactions to fund the nazi war effort. He detains van Meegeren, who claims his innocence, and it isn’t until later, in prepping for his trial, that is it discovered that van Meegeren is a forger. He faked the Vermeer painting, as well as many others. The film shows a fascinating piece of history, and has fine acting from Claus Bang (Pillar) and the always enjoyable Guy Pearce (van Meegeren), but it suffers in the courtroom finale from a rather poor deus ex machina. It also paints (hardy har har) van Meegeren as a saint, ripping the nazis out of millions to thumb his nose at the critics who called his work (pre-forgeries) as talentless, but let’s not forget, he made a ton of money, which afforded him an awfully posh lifestyle at a time when many were suffering. ★★½
Going to finish up with a couple foreign language films recently released on Netflix. Classmates Minus (from Hong Kong) is getting decent reviews, but it’s just not my cup of tea. It’s about 4 men in their 40’s whose professional and personal lives haven’t gone according to plan. One is a director, but he’s stuck doing crappy commercials (and he doesn’t know his trade well enough to do even that). Another works at a mundane office, with no chance of advancement. The third is an overweight man doing registration checks in bad neighborhoods for the government. The last is a life-long stutterer who oversees a dying business left to him by his deceased father. Supposedly a dark comedy, I didn’t laugh once in the first hour. Didn’t chuckle. Didn’t enough crack a grin. It comes off as overly silly with a weird voiceover narration, and I could not get into it. I gave up after that first hour and went on to the next film. ★
Crazy About Her moves to Spain. It’s a romantic comedy following primarily a man named Adri. He’s out at a bar with a couple friends when he is picked up by Carla, a wild girl who introduces herself and then asks Adri for a single of night of sex with no strings attached. They have a wild night for sure, crashing a wedding, “borrowing” the honeymoon suite, and then she’s gone. Adri, who has avoided longterm relationships his whole life, is suddenly smitten. His friends tease him, but he tracks Carla down. Unfortunately she’s in a private mental health facility, so Adri has to “break in.” With a doctor’s help, Adri is able to get admitted, only to find that Carla really only wanted that single night and doesn’t return his feelings. Adri finds that getting in was a lot easier than getting out. But something amazing happens: he starts helping the others inside move past barriers that were holding them back. He also gets to know Carla better. Suffering from bipolar disorder, she’s always pushed people away, knowing that anyone close to her would have a hard time dealing with her wild emotions. The movie is a bit silly at times, but it doesn’t make fun of people with mental illness and, in fact, uplifts them. It acknowledges some people can’t be “fixed” but that doesn’t mean they can’t be happy. Good date film if you are up for some subtitles. ★★★½
- TV series currently watching: Gotham (season 1)
- Book currently reading: Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
Jons Movie Takes 