Black Bag is a spy thriller with an old-school feel, from acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh, and featuring an all-star couple of leads in Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. They play married couple George and Kathryn, both intelligence officers in London. Though they are both spies, they cannot talk “trade secrets” with each other, as they are usually working on different “need to know” cases. One such case is George’s latest, when he is tasked with finding a double agent in their midst. He is given a list of 5 suspects, one of whom is his own wife. Shortly after giving George the assignment, his boss dies of a heart attack, so something is definitely up. What follows is some great old fashioned spy work, where George doesn’t know who he can trust, including the love of his life. I think I wanted to like this movie more, because while the tension-building is great, the big reveal at the end is heralded a bit too much, which lessened its impact. Still, it’s a good “thinking man’s” kind of movie, proving again that you don’t need action to have a very tense film. ★★★½
Good One is an absolutely fantastic indie film from a first time writer/director (India Donaldson) with a young lead in a huge breakout role (Lily Collias). She plays Sam, a 17-year-old going camping with her dad Chris, along with Chris’s longtime friend Matt and Matt’s son. Matt’s son bails at the last minute, making it just a trio. Sam and Chris have done camping/trekking together plenty of times and know the ropes, but from the beginning, Matt isn’t ready (packs too much, brings the wrong stuff, etc). Over the course of a few days, sometimes Sam acts as a window for us viewers, giving us a view into the lives of Chris and Matt, 2 lifelong friends, as they work through some private shit. But make no mistake, this is definitely a coming-of-age film about Sam, a trip in which she severs that line between being her dad’s daughter and being her own adult. Collias is tremendous as Sam, showing subtle changes in her face for every emotion she’ll encounter during the trip. A quiet film, but with a lot of lowkey suspense (like when a trio of young men shows up at their camp, or when Matt has a little too much to drink one night when he and Sam are alone) that keeps your attention throughout. Great stuff. ★★★★★
Like a lot of moviegoers, sometimes I ignore the reviews and pick a film based on a favorite director or actor. That’s the case for Havoc, because Tom Hardy is in, and hell, he’s one of the best. But what a turd of a movie. The reviews are so-so, and I have no idea what anyone would see in this. It’s a straight forward action film, about a dirty cop who is caught up working for a dirty mayoral candidate, while trying to rescue a fellow cop’s son who is mixed up in a Chinese drug gang over a gone-wrong drug deal, and a Triad drug lord out for revenge over her murdered son. Enough going on there for you? It’s a hot mess, and honestly I stopped watching about 40 minutes in, so I have no idea how it all went done. Honestly I don’t care to know. ½
The Golden Voice is a generic feel-good film about a young man, KJ (Dharon Jones), who has lost all hope and tries to commit suicide in a park in Philadelphia. As luck would have it, he tries to do so right near a homeless man who is currently sleeping nearby. Barry (Nick Nolte) has been on the streets for decades and has seen it all, and he talks KJ down. Over the next few weeks, the two become unlikely friends. Along the way, they give each other a reason to live: for KJ, to physically live, and for Barry, to let go of the pains from his past that have kept him in this situation for far too long. Nothing very memorable, but Nolte delivers a strong performance. He’s getting up there in years (I couldn’t believe he is 84 now!) and it’s easy to forget, but once-upon-a-time he was regular nominee and winner on the awards’ circuit. ★★½
I usually just stick to films, but here’s a 4-part miniseries out of the UK currently on Netflix, and I was blown away by it enough to write about it. Adolescence starts out innocent enough. Two detectives are talking in a car, but when they get a call on the radio, they peal out and join a parade of other cop cars, who all together storm a house. Drug dealers? Gang bangers? No, it’s a middle class family, and neither parent is the target. It’s the (very young looking) 13-year-old boy asleep in his bedroom. We don’t know the crime (finding that out is part of what makes the first episode so great, so I’m not telling!), but you gotta know the police would have a really good reason to go in guns blazing like they did. What follows is a scary look at the life of teenagers these days, more than the facts of the crime itself. I thought it was rough when bullies would knock books out of your hands or shove you against the wall when walking by when I was in school. Now it is all done online, and the psychological torture is mindboggling. How does any child survive to become a well-adjusted adult these days? Maybe they don’t, and society will get even worse. We’ll find out in the next 10-15 years. Anyway, brilliant show. Every parent and educator should watch this. ★★★★★
- TV series recently watched: Cheers (seasons 7-8), SW Tales of the Underworld (series), Adolescence (series), The Eternaut (season 1), Andor (season 2)
- Book currently reading: Hunters of Dune by Herbert & Anderson
Jons Movie Takes 