Up today are 5 classic films, some old, some not-so-old. It was going to be a set of American films, but the first one I picked ended up being out of Jamaica, so blew that right off the bat. Well worth it though, because it’s a good one! The Harder They Come (1972) stars music legend Jimmy Cliff as down-and-out Ivan, who has recently returned to Kingston. He’d been living in the countryside with his grandmother but she died, so he’s back to his mother’s house, and finding life in the city to be harder than expected. Ivan can’t find work anywhere, and his dreams of being a star singer are dashed because the local record producer reigns over the music scene with an iron fist. Everything Ivan touches goes to shit. All of his goods are stolen upon landing in Kingston. He starts running drugs, but even in a deadly business like that, he is paid peanuts compared to the worth of the goods he is moving. Even at church, the woman he eyes has been hand picked by the preacher as his next partner. When Ivan tries to get his bike fixed, the repairer claims it as his own. Literally, nothing goes right. When he does finally get a song recorded, the record producer realizes it will be a hit, but gives Ivan a take-it-or-leave it offer of $20 for the track. In the end, Ivan gets tangled up in some bad people related to those drug deals, but when the police descend on him, he realizes he has finally found the acclaim he’d been seeking. A great film dealing with the socially downtrodden and the plight of the poor, with a killer soundtrack provided by Cliff and other reggae and rocksteady groups of the day. Extremely popular in Jamaica, it’s fame in the USA helped explode reggae music in the early 70s. ★★★★

I’ve seen a couple films from “comedic legend” W.C. Fields, but have been very underwhelmed, and this coming from a guy who tends to like old-timey humor. Unfortunately 1940’s The Bank Dick continues that trend; it’s just not funny. Fields plays Egbert Sousé (note the accent mark, but without it, the viewer realizes Egbert is definitely a souse, or drunk), a man whose own family can’t stand him. He spends his days drinking and smoking at the local bar (tended by Shemp Howard of all people, made during his hiatus from the Three Stooges!) and generally not doing anything to contribute to society. That is, until he “accidentally” foils a robbery at the bank. The bank manager offers him a security job on the spot, and Egbert the drunk becomes Egbert the guard. Nothing changes about his life though. The finale deals with Egbert trying to waylay the bank examiner while some funds are missing in a scheme of Egbert’s, just as the bank is getting robbed again. There’s a lot of verbal gags (Fields’ bread and butter) but they have not held up. I can’t say I even chuckled more than a time or two. I laugh hard at the classic Charlie Chaplin films, but this movie is as dry as Egbert is wet. ★½

Unfaithfully Yours is a delightful dark comedy (and by dark, I mean pitch black, with pretty frank depictions of murder) from director Preston Sturges and released in 1948. Rex Harrison plays Alfred, a world-renowned symphony conductor with a young wife, Daphne (Linda Darnell). As many men can be with a beautiful younger wife, Alfred is a bit jealous, and this explodes when he returns from conducting overseas. While away, his brother-in-law August (the great Rudy Vallée) promised to “look after her” in Alfred’s absence, which in August’s terms, means hiring a private investigator to follow her around. The P.I. detailed that Daphne went to Alfred’s secretary Anthony’s hotel room one night, wearing only a nightgown, and was there for 38 minutes. That night, while conducting the orchestra, Alfred fantasizes about 3 scenarios regarding his wife. During the first musical number, a mischievous flighty tune, Alfred envisions the perfect crime, where he murders Daphne but sets it up to look like Anthony did it. In the second, a slower more thought-provoking musical number, Alfred writes Daphne a big check to go live her life without him. In the third, a fiery, tempestuous Tchaikovsky piece, Alfred imagines playing Russian roulette with the two lovers, but ultimately comes out on the bottom. Alfred tries to go with door # 1, but finds that in real life, a murder is a whole lot harder to pull off, to great comedic effect. It’s a rip-roaring, hilarious good time throughout. ★★★★½

I really want to like The Unbearable Lightness of Being more. It’s good, but I didn’t get “stellar” vibes from it, despite a great cast including younger versions of Juliette Binoche and Daniel Day-Lewis. Released in 1988 and taking place 20 years earlier in Prague, surgeon Tomas is a huge womanizer. Somehow his trademark opening line of “Take your clothes off,” seems to work with just about every woman. He always returns to Sabina though, an artist who seems to “get him” as he puts it. She has an eye for more than just art, and really seems to see Tomas as more than just a philanderer. Tomas may have to find room for another girl though, because he gets swept off his feet one day by the young and beautiful Tereza. A whirlwind relationship leads to marriage, but putting a ring on his finger won’t settle Tomas’s wandering eye. He continues to see Sabina, which initially upsets Tereza until she gets to know the mistress better, and eventually the two become good friends. However, their world is about to crash down. In the dark of night one evening in 1968, Soviet Russia invades Czechoslovakia. Tomas, being a well known surgeon with a highly valued opinion, has been critical of the communist government to this point, so for safety, he and Tereza flee to Switzerland. If Tereza thinks this will be a fresh start, those hopes are dashed when Tomas starts his tomcat ways again. She leaves him, returning to Prague despite knowing the restrictions she’ll face there. Tomas, despite his womanizing ways, truly does love Tereza, and follows her there, knowing the repercussions he could face. There’s a lot going on here and much of it is really good, but the film is hurt by long, seemingly unneeded erotic scenes between Tereza and Sabina, Sabina and her short-time boyfriend, etc. I don’t see how any of it adds to the plot, and the film could have been better served by cutting down on its long (3 hour) runtime. ★★★

Director Gus Van Sant is best known for Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, and my personal favorite, Good Will Hunting, but before all those hits came his first film, 1988’s Mala Noche. I’ve seen a lot of “first films” and they often aren’t great. Usually low budget affairs with no-name actors (and this film has both measuring sticks), a director’s first movie is usually just a stepping stone. This movie, though, is quite good, and I was surprised how engrossed into it I was by the end. The protagonist is a gay convenience store clerk named Walt. Walt is completely enamored by teenage Mexican immigrant Johnny, but Johnny isn’t having it. Walt tries every trick in the book, and admits to the viewer via narration that he is aware that he has all the power as a privileged white man trying to woo an illegal immigrant who has no money and a real fear of being deported if apprehended, but Walt continues to try to beguile, threaten, or cajole Johnny into sleeping with him. Johnny continually rebuffs him, leaving Walt “no other option” but to sleep with Johnny’s friend Roberto instead, theorizing it is “as close as he’s going to get.” Roberto doesn’t really come off as gay (neither is Johnny, but Walt doesn’t care), always wanting to be “on top” and sleep with the lights off, but he’ll take Walt’s money and a place to sleep at night. While Walt and Roberto are in this relationship, Walt is still trying to woo Johnny, until one day Johnny goes missing. Rumors abound that he went on vacation or was arrested and deported, but no one knows. The film leads to an explosive ending. When the movie started I didn’t think I’d get into it, as it gives off creepster vibes with the older Walt preying on teenage immigrants, but Walt convinces himself (and in a way, us too) that he is aware how the situation looks, but insists it is anything but. Walt is really in love with Johnny, or at least in lust, and cannot think about anything else. And Roberto is exploiting Walt as much as Walt is trying to exploit Johnny. Shot on a shoestring budget ($25k) it has the feel of a film from an established director who knows what he wants to show, not from a newcomer. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Kite Man (season 1), The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (season 2), Only Murders in the Building (season 4)
• Book currently reading: Downfall by Jean Rabe

I’ve seen a whole lot films from director James Ivory and his longtime producer and partner Ismail Merchant (here, here, here and here, for starters), so when I heard a documentary was coming out focusing on them, getting some behind-the-scenes on their long-running production company, I couldn’t wait to see it. Merchant Ivory details the long history of the team of people who made the films. Starting in the beginning with the super-low-budget films they made in India, it progresses to their breakout hits in the 80s and 90s with films made in England and based on classic novels (which is how I got into these films myself, having previously read Howards End and A Room With a View). It is jam packed with current and archival interviews from many of the stars involved in these films over the years, including Helena Bonham Carter, Hugh Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, and on and on. Also obviously talks about their personal lives as a gay couple, living, for the most part, when that was frowned upon. James talks about how it wasn’t really a secret in their professional circles (two men who lived together for 40 years sort of told you all you needed to know), but to Ismail’s family, James was just his “British friend.” It would not have been accepted in his conservative Muslim family, so they kept it private throughout Ismail’s life (he died in 2005) and James kept it quiet for several years after, until most of Ismail’s family had died too. I think, for most people, there’s not much to see here, but as a fan for many of these films, I absolutely loved it. ★★★★★

I thought Caddo Lake was going to be more of a straight-forward thriller, and that’s what it seems like in the beginning; as soon as I saw M Night Shyamalan’s name attached to it (as producer), I should have known better. The film begins with a drowning at the lake, where Paris (played by The Maze Runner’s Dylan O’Brien) survives but his mother does not. The police chalk it up to a seizure that caused her to run her car off the road into the lake, but Paris isn’t convinced. A couple years, later, he’s still looking for answers. Also at the lake, we meet the other main character, Ellie (Eliza Scanlen). She butts heads constantly with her mom and step-dad but looks out for her step-sister Anna, until one day when Anna goes missing on the lake. Ellie heads out to find her, but becomes disoriented when she starts hearing strange banging noises. When she returns home, she finds that she has gone back in time 3 days. She boats back out to the lake, this time finding Anna, but quickly realizes this Anna was from a month ago, before she lost a baby tooth. There’s some weird things going on in this lake, and just as I started to suspect that Paris and Ellie are from two different time periods, it is confirmed, and the big Shyamalan-style surprise comes when we realize the two of them share more than the ability to jump through time. I was hoping for a better film, but got a made-for-tv style thriller. There’s some decent acting and the “feel” of the movie is solid, but it tries way too hard to tie up all the loose ends into a neat package at the end. ★★½

I had high hopes for Rez Ball as I generally like a feel-good sports flick, but this one doesn’t reach the heights that many do. It is based on a true story about the Chuska Warriors, a high school team from a Native American reservation in New Mexico. They have a new coach, a former alum who had success in the professional WNBA league and is recently retired from playing. She dreams of a bigger job but has been unable to get a job at a premier university due to lack of experience, so is “stuck” at her old high school. The star player on the team missed his junior year after the death of his sister and mom (killed in a crash with a drunk driver) and is now returning to the team for his senior year. With his return, the team has high hopes of contending for the state championship, but he tragically takes his life early in the season. The team is crushed, because while he was sad obviously, his suicide is a shocking surprise to everyone. The team goes on a losing streak, and only starts to turn it around when they embrace their Native American heritage and work together as a team. The movie is as formulaic as they come, you can practically connect the dots and predict each scene before it comes. And for a sports film, it’s awfully boring. Never a good thing. ★½

I didn’t rush out to see Twisters because I figured (rightly so, as it turns out) that it was pretty much just like the original mid-90s film starring Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and Cary Elwes. Sure, the plot is different (sort of) but the feel is the same, and just as in the first film, the “tornado action” is really the only reason worth watching. In this movie, after a prologue in which storm chaser Kate sees most of her team killed when a tornado turns straight towards them, we pick up on her 5 years later. She’s doing her research on tornados behind a desk now, but is called back to the field by friend Javi, who is still chasing storms. Unlike the first film, when Jo and Bill were the chasers in it for the science and thrill while being up against well-funded Jonas, this time Javi has the rich backer. Instead, the thrill-seekers are centered around opposing team Tyler, a YouTube sensation who seems to only into storms for his social media accounts. Of course, all is not as it seems, especially after Kate learns that Javi’s rich investors are only in it to buy land from people who’ve lost everything in the storms, and Tyler is using his platform to help out those in need. A few subplots that are really only there to fill out the story, but obviously you are watching this film to see the tornado destruction, and there’s plenty of it. Straight out of a Michael Bay film, the tornado disasters keep getting worse as the movie goes along, until the big finale at the end when a massive tornado heads straight for a city. As a piece of art, not so good. As entertainment, it delivers what you are expecting. ★★★

Chicken for Linda! is a short French animated film that is just about the cutest film I’ve seen in a very long time. From the beginning, you see that it is not really a kid’s film (though children, I think, would be just as caught up in it as adults), because in the first scene, a young child (Linda) is sitting in her high chair waiting for her dad’s famous chicken and peppers dinner when, “off camera,” we hear her mom start to panic that dad isn’t answering her questions. Adult viewers know that something is very wrong, and we next catch up to the family several years later. Linda is in elementary school and has some great friends, but doesn’t remember much about her deceased father. Her mom Paulette is a busy single mom who makes microwave dinners every night. Linda is fascinated by her mom’s wedding ring and wants to take it to school to show off, but Paulette refuses. When the ring goes missing, she blames Linda for stealing it, which Linda denies. It turns out the cat ate it, and when the cat “gives it back,” Paulette realizes her mistake and tearfully begs for forgiveness, promising anything to make it up. Linda wants chicken with peppers, and Paulette, who hasn’t made a home-cooked meal in who-knows-how-long, agrees. Unfortunately, a general strike is going on, and a chicken isn’t to be found in any of the local stores. So begins a wild adventure involving stealing chickens, a police chase, smashing furniture, and a wild party by the kids in the street. The movie is utterly charming, beautifully animated in a seemingly simple but deceptively complex way that has the look and feel of an old timey children’s book. And it is FUNNY. I laughed like a child, which is the best kind. ★★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Sunny (season 1), Rivals (series), Star Trek Next Generation (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

In honor of Halloween, I’ve got a series of classic horror and/or sci-fi films, starting with 4 from a British film producer known for his contributions to the genre, Richard Gordon, plus one from his brother Alex. These first 5 are all shorter films, most not much more than an hour and none reaching 90 minutes, and they were all cranked out between 1958-1959. First up is The Haunted Strangler, starring Boris Karloff and directed by Robert Day. Based on a screenplay written specifically for Karloff, it begins in 1860 as a man, Edward Styles, is marched to the gallows. He is being hanged for the murder of 5 women who were partially strangled and stabbed to death. Edward, who lacks control of one arm, is the obviously guilty party, but he dies professing his innocence. Twenty years later, a novelist, James Rankin (Karloff) is looking into the old case and has become convinced that Edward was innocent, and James is hunting the real killer. His prime suspect becomes Tennant, a doctor who frequented the local cabaret/bar where the women were targeted. Tennant also performed the autopsy on Edward after the man’s hanging, and when Rankin exhumes Edward’s body, sure enough they find the murder weapon, a surgeon’s knife used in the autopsy. But the trail of Tennant turns cold, as he was admitted to a local insane asylum, before running off with a nurse, purportedly to Australia. However, there’s more to this story that meets the eye, and the big twist that comes in the final third of the film is fantastic. Great story with some grisly thrills for its day. ★★★★

Fiend Without a Face was released with the above film as a double feature by MGM. As many sci-fi films of this era turned, it looked to nuclear power as an inspiration for bad stuff, at least, when left in the hands of bad people. At a US air force base in Canada, new nuclear power is running a radar installation, but something is amiss. A couple local people are found dead, with their brains and spinal cords sucked out. Major Jeff Cummings is looking into it, and his investigation has a lot of false starts until finally landing on scientist R.E. Walgate. Walgate wrote some books dealing with moving objects with his mind, and turns out he has been siphoning off some of that nuclear power to further his tests, which ultimately went awry. He created invisible beings who draw their own nuclear power, and they hunger for brains for growth and reproduction. It isn’t until the end of the movie when the nuclear juice is turned up enough that we can finally see these gruesome fiends, and they are terrifying (by 1958 standards). Lots of bloody gore abounds once the military turns their guns on the floating brains, which spew blood in fountains when shot. Not a great film, and some rough acting (several times actors get caught looking at the camera) but it is good pulp for fans of the genre. ★★½

Director Robert Day and actor Boris Karloff returned together for Corridors of Blood, dealing with a doctor, Thomas Bolton (Karloff) trying to find a way to perform surgery without causing pain. In a time before anesthesia, patients would have to be strapped down during surgery, and everything from minor procedures to amputations were done while the patient was awake and aware. Bolton is trying to find a solution. When he finally finds the right mix of nitrous oxide and sets up a display on a patient to show off his new tactics, his picked subject dies of a sudden stroke just before the surgery. In a panic, Bolton picks a new patient, but the new guy is a much bigger male. Obviously today we know bigger dudes will need stronger meds, but Bolton is unaware and goes through with it, leading to the guy waking up in the middle of the procedure. This gets Bolton laughed out of the room by the other doctors and his license to practice revoked. He continues his experiments at home, but in the meantime, has become addicted to his own medicines, including opium. No longer in the lab and cut off from getting ingredients, Bolton turns to the black market, and becomes the subject of blackmail by some ne’er-do-wells (led by a young Christopher Lee of all people, Saruman the White!), using him to sign off of fake death certificates to cover up their nefarious dealings. It’s a cool psychological thriller, with grisly (for its day) showings of surgeries and bloody aftermaths. ★★★

First Man Into Space plays on the fears about the effects space flight would have on man. Released in 1959, 2 years before the first manned craft cleared our atmosphere, the film shows the US Navy performing tests with sending a person right up to the edge of space (“100 miles,” obviously a lot further than we now know). One of the heads of the team is Chuck Prescott, whose brother Dan is the pilot. On the first test, Dan is thrilled to be so close to open space, and tells his girlfriend that he dreams of being the first person to cross that threshold. On the second test, instead of turning around when told, Dan punches the throttle and goes “250 miles” up into space. Chuck and those on the ground lose contact with him, but shortly afterwards his parachute is picked up coming back to Earth. Chuck goes to the site and finds space dust covering the spacecraft, but no sign of Dan. However, cattle in the area start turning up dead, and we soon learn that space dust has turned Dan into a disfigured monster. Chuck needs to find a way to stop his brother, or kill him if need be. It’s a silly movie when looked through a modern lens, but it goes to show how little we knew back then. ★★

The Atomic Submarine is another “what if” movie that hasn’t held up under modern scrutiny. It imagines a time when the military and commercial passenger boats and submarines would traverse the Northern Passage as a quick way of getting around. A few boats have recently gone missing though, including a passenger submarine carrying many civilians. The US military sends a state-of-the-art nuclear sub named Tigershark up to investigate. What they find is unexpected, and yet somehow the crew doesn’t bat an eye. It’s an alien UFO, traversing the underwater byways, sinking ships. The men on the Tigershark are able to map out its path, noticing that it always returns to the North Pole to re-energize. Thus, they stake out a place and wait for it. However, even surprise doesn’t give them the upper hand, as missiles have no effect, and when they ram it in a possible suicide mission, all they seem to do is wound it temporarily. They’ll need to resort to drastic measures before the creature can leave the Earth and gather its alien friends to come do more harm. This film is pure cheese with every 50’s cliche in the book, with nonsensical dialogue and even worse acting. Why does everyone on a nuclear sub in the middle of nowhere carry a gun? Is it really “our last best hope” when the movie still has 30 minutes to go? ★

Flesh for Frankenstein (released in 1973 in the USA as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein) was directed by Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey and stars Joe Dallesandro and a young 20-something Udo Kier. Kier plays Baron von Frankenstein, who has been looking to create a race of zombies who will obey his every command. He wants to create the perfect man and woman, who will mate to produce offspring who see him as god, but has been having a hard time finding the perfect male “head” from a man with strong sexual energy. In his pursuits, he has been ignoring his wife the Baroness and their 2 kids, whom the Baron sees as weak and unworthy of his legacy. When the Baron finally picks the male target, a man coming out of a brothel, he accidentally picks the wrong guy (an effeminate man who was only visiting with his friend). The guy he really wants for his experiments is Nicholas (Dallesandro), who sleeps with any girl that comes across his path, including the Baron’s sexually frustrated wife. The Baron realizes his mistake too late, leading to a gross correction later. The film is not great, but very entertaining if you can stomach it. It was rated X for sex, nudity, and violence, and there’s lots of disturbing stuff, including the revelation later in the film that the Baron and Baroness are siblings as well as married, and a scene of necrophilia. The director was definitely going for shock value all over the place, and the acting is over-the-top in a B movie kind of way, but there’s some interesting themes involving power and exploitation. Should I hate myself if I liked the film more than I should? ★★★½

Morrissey followed up the next year with Blood for Dracula (“Andy Warhol’s Dracula” in USA) with the same 2 leads. Didn’t get into this one nearly as much, and it comes off as just kind of silly, and maybe the last one was supposed to be silly too, and I didn’t catch it. Very noticeable this time though. Dracula (Kier) is needing fresh virgin blood to stay “alive,” but in Romania, the townsfolk have learned to stay away. His servant proposes going to Italy, where fear of the church may keep more virgins around. They end up at the estate of the di Fiore family (and lo! Celebrated Italian director Vittorio de Sica is spotted as the patriarch of the di Fiore family; there’s also a blink-or-you’ll miss it cameo by director Roman Polanski in a tavern), who has 4 daughters. For the rest of the film, Dracula seduces the young women one by one, but unfortunately for him, his first two victims are the middle daughters, and they’ve been banging the stableboy (Dallesandro). Drinking their blood makes Dracula sick and weaker, and so he continues his search, but the stableboy will be onto him before too long. This film is really a hot mess, and the whole Dracula tale just seems to be a venue in order to show lots of women taking their clothes off for him. Completely forgettable and not worth wasting your time on. ★

As a self professed movie lover, I’m ashamed to admit there was a gaping hole in my viewing history, and it’s time to rectify that. I’ve seen a lot of Martin Scorsese’s films, especially his “newer” stuff from the last 25-30 years, but I’d only seen a handful of his earlier stuff. We’re starting with 1973’s Mean Streets, his breakout, and third film overall. Harvey Keitel plays Charlie, a man in New York trying to get into business with his mafia uncle Giovanni. Charlie has a soft spot for Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a young man with a crazy streak who owes money to every loan shark in the area. Charlie keeps bailing him out, but that leash is getting long. For a long time in the movie, that’s all we know as a viewer; for the most part, the film is light on plot but heavy on substance, and if the substance wasn’t so damn good, it wouldn’t be a great film, but damn, the movie is still extremely entertaining. We see Charlie and his friends busting heads around town and doing all kinds of shady stuff. When the plot finally gets going, we learn that part of Charlie’s care of Johnny Boy comes from Charlie’s relationship with Johnny’s cousin Teresa, a relationship that Giovanni does not approve of. The overarching theme though deals with Charlie’s faith. He is devoutly Catholic, and thinks he may be able to avoid hell in the afterlife if he can save Johnny. But those loan sharks will eventually get tired of getting put off. Great film that oozes a dark, seedy feel throughout. ★★★★½

Mean Streets got a lot of buzz, but it was Taxi Driver that made Scorsese (and De Niro) a star. De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a man with severe insomnia. Since he’s not sleeping at night, he decides to start driving a taxi, as he’s up anyway, “so might as well get paid for it.” The people he comes across in the middle of the night are a wide range of people, from business people to pimps and prostitutes and everyone in between. From the beginning, Travis shows a disdain for the “scum of the earth” and as the film goes along, grows increasingly disgusted by the dregs of society. First, Travis falls for a woman named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), but when he takes her to a dirty movie, she gets pissed and storms out, and doesn’t see him again. For a time, Travis stalks her and hatches a plan to assassinate the presidential nominee whose campaign Betsy works for, but when that falls through, Travis sets himself a new goal. He knows of a 12-year-old prostitute (played by a young Jodie Foster) and decides to save her from her pimp. The whole thing is a grisly and at times disturbing journey as Travis descends into madness from sleep deprivation, and De Niro plays it to a T. For you younger kids, this film had lots of notoriety a couple years after release when John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate President Reagan, because he (John) was obsessed with Jodie Foster and decided to reenact Travis in the movie to get her attention. ★★★★

Raging Bull, released in 1980, is considered one of the greatest sports movies of all time. Despite a lukewarm reception when it came out, it has risen in esteem in the ensuing decades, so I’ve been excited to see if it lived up to the reputation. Based on the life of boxer Jake LaMotta, it starts in his early career in the early 1940s. Jake (De Niro) is a fantastic middleweight boxer, but he refuses to take money from the mafia, despite the wishes of his brother and trainer Joey LaMotta (Joe Pesci, in his first big role). Without the mafia’s influence, Jake is never given a chance at a title bout, despite some great wins, including against previously undefeated Sugar Ray Robinson in 1943. Despite his success in the ring, Jake’s personal life is a mess. He leaves his first wife for 15-year-old Vikki (marrying her after she becomes pregnant at 16), and then goes on to rule his house with an iron fist. A jealous man with a mean streak, Jake slaps Vikki around whenever he thinks men are paying too much attention to her. As his personal life breaks down, so does his professional, so that the final 20 minutes of the film, the coda as it comes off, shows where Jake’s life has taken him 10-15 years later: an overweight has-been holding on to a legacy that seems hell bent on forgetting him. It’s a violent film, and not just inside the ring (which is, by itself, extremely violent, much harsher looking than the Rocky movies, for example). The story has more narrative than the first 2 films above, maybe because it is based on a real person who lived larger-than-life. To date, Robert De Niro’s only Oscar win for a leading role. ★★★★★

After Hours is a completely different film from those above. No strong alpha male character; in fact, the main character Paul (Griffin Dunne) can’t seem to accomplish anything on his own. Paul works in a mind-numbingly boring job but gets excitement one night when he meets Marcy in a cafe. He is reading a copy of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer (not a great book in my opinion) when they meet, and it is fitting, because what follows over 1 long night for Paul is an almost surreal sequence of events, including lots of crazy stuff that could come right out of a Henry Miller novel. On a night that Paul will never forget (if he survives), he will witness suicides and murders, go to a mohawk nightclub, fight with a taxi driver with a vendetta, become the object of a desire of two unhinged women (including a lonely waitress with relationship issues), and is mistaken for both a burglar and as a john picking up a gay prostitute. And all that’s just the tip of the iceberg! But unlike Miller’s book, I loved this film. It is crazy, zany, thrilling, funny, and edited brilliantly so that I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat through most of the film. The breakneck pace unfortunately can’t hold forever, and the film does peter out before the end credits roll, but otherwise it is a near-perfect film. ★★★★½

If the above film seems to draw inspiration from a book I didn’t like, this one is straight-up based on a book I did. The Age of Innocence is a faithful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Edith Wharton, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder. In the later 19th century New York, society and your place in it is everything. Newland is a respectable young lawyer and is ready to announce his engagement to the demure and respectable May Welland, when her cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, returns to the city. There are whispers that Ellen does not belong in polite society, as she is fleeing a marriage in Europe. It doesn’t matter that she has good reason to do so (her husband slept with anything that moved); divorce is legally allowed but will still get you shunned by your neighbors. Newland is almost immediately swept off his feet by the free-thinking and devil-may-care attitude that Ellen displays, and begins to secretly court her even as his engagement to May is announced. The book plays out with this sort-of torrid affair, where Newland and Ellen go right up to the edge of scandal, but never quite cross over it, whether because of his values or her fear of hurting her cousin May. There’s lots of talk about what is and what is not allowed in society, with Newland continuing to test those limits. The film captures the feel of the book, which is completely opposite of the frenetic pace of the above Scorsese films. Still, I enjoyed the book a lot more, though the film is visually captivating and extremely well acted. ★★★½

Bonus film: Italianamerican, a 1974 doc made after Scorsese’s first big hit in Mean Streets. Just about 45 minutes, it is Martin sitting down and interviewing his parents Charlie and Catherine Scorsese, talking about their experiences growing up in a first- and second-generation Italian neighborhood in New York, the sense of camaraderie, the struggles, all of it. It’s a heart-warming take and reminds you how little you may know about your own parents’ lives before you came along. And it’s funny, with the banter between the 40-year-married couple and their admonishments to their 30-something son (“this better not end up in the film!”). The camera doesn’t stop, even when Catherine has to get up every once in awhile to check on her sauce on the stove in the kitchen (the recipe for which rolls with the credits at the end!). I saw a lot of my own parents in it, the sense of storytelling, growing up with a ton of people in a small house, all of those things that are part of a bygone America. Great little film worth checking out.

• TV series recently watched: Presumed Innocent (season 1), Slow Horses (season 4)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

Wolfs is getting middling reviews, with people saying things like, “The only thing going for it is Brad Pitt’s and George Clooney’s camaraderie,” and, I thought, “I love those guys when they are in movies together!” So maybe this film was just made for me, and I did indeed really, really like it. It begins with a scream in the dark. An up-and-coming district attorney named Margaret (Amy Ryan) was fooling around with a younger man in a hotel room when he bounced off the bed and crashed through a glass table, killing him. With her bright political future in peril, Margaret calls an “emergency number” once given to her for just this kind of situation, and a short time later, in walks a “fixer,” (unnamed, played by George Clooney). He’s there to “take care of it” and put things right. Unfortunately, the hotel has hidden cameras everywhere, and the hotel owner, not wanting to get the bad press, has hired its own fixer, so very soon, in walks another man (again, no name, played by Brad Pitt). These two men don’t know each other, and they don’t want to know each other. Both are used to working solo, as the job requires, but now they have to work together (Margaret only trusts “her guy,” the hotel only trusts “its guy”). The only problem for them is the dead guy in the bedroom may not be so dead after all, and not only that, but there’s enough drugs in his backpack that some bigger crime lord is most certainly involved in some way too. So begins a wild night around New York. The film takes place all over that one night, and it is a whole lot of fun. Thrilling action with gun fights and mob bosses, and lots of laughs from the hostile banter between Clooney and Pitt. ★★★★

I think I’m done looking up films from Japanese director Ryüsuke Hamaguchi. After being blown away by his last two pictures, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by his earlier stuff. Happy Hour, from 2015, is good-to-very-good, but it is super long at over 5 hours, and I felt every moment of it. It follows the lives of four women, life-long friends, and looks at their personal and interconnected lives. Sakurako is in a weird marriage with a domineering but cowardly husband. Jun is currently trying to divorce her husband, but she has no cause (apparently Japanese divorce court is a lot stricter than ours), and he seems hellbent on keeping her as his wife, whether she’s happy or not. Akari is already divorced, and works as a nurse, where she runs the ward with an iron fist, belittling the new nurse who is training there. Fumi seems pretty content with her marriage and life, but her husband has a wandering eye, so you get the feeling that all will not turn out well. Everything I said takes hours to develop, and nothing comes easy in the movie, but some of what does work is the slowly-developing answers that do (finally) come in the end. But man, they take a long time in coming. Two very long sequences in particular really tried my patience: one is early in the film, when the four women attend a communications seminar by hippy-dippy “expert” Ukai, who has a part to play later in the movie too. This seminar goes on for like an hour by itself, as they do group activities that have nothing to do with the rest of the film. The second: a reading by an author later in the movie. Literally a woman reading from her new book, for again, like 40+ minutes, as some (minor) drama happens in the hallway outside. Good God, if you make it to the end, it feels like a war of attrition. I liked it well enough (eventually), but I really don’t have any desire to sit through it again. ★★★½

Blood for Dust got some good reviews and has that guy from Game of Thrones (Kit Harrington, aka Jon Snow), but it really let me down. Taking place in 1992 (I guess so they can’t give the characters cell phones?) it follows a traveling salesman named Cliff (Scoot McNairy, who is very good here) who is struggling to make a living in a dying industry. At the beginning of the film, Cliff and his buddy Ricky (Harrington) witness a boss commit suicide, but the why of it is left until much later in the film. 17 months later, Cliff is struggling as I said, when he is approached by Ricky with a job proposition: running guns and drugs. Cliff is the perfect mule, as he has been making long drives all over the Pacific Northwest for a decade, and “knows every waitress and motel from Montana to the coast.” Cliff, who devoutly attends church on Sundays, doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be down for this job, but his son is fighting cancer and he has been wracked with guilt with what went down over that earlier suicide, so he takes the dangerous job. The rest of the film plays out like your standard crime thriller, with lots of double-crossing and gun fights. Nothing spectacular, and after so many gotcha- moments, I started rolling my eyes more and more. ★★

We Grown Now (which also takes place in 1992, weird coincidence) follows two young boys (maybe 10 years old?) living in the infamous Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago. The older people living in the buildings talk about how when they first came there, kids would play outside and families would gather and hang out, but by 1992, crime is rampant. Malik and Eric are, for the most part, oblivious to the bad parts of the neighborhood, doing just what kids do: playing, getting into trouble, and picking on their siblings. However, the viewer is not oblivious: we see one of their mom’s discussions on the phone about struggling to come up with money, and when the boys skip school and go to, of all places, the art museum, they come home to find their parents rife with worry, thinking the boys were lying dead somewhere. The two boys don’t understand the worry, but it is drilled into them. The police, rather than patrolling more, decide to antagonize the innocent, by making all residents (even the children) carry ID’s at all times to get into the buildings, and one night, raiding the apartments at 2 in the morning, ostensibly looking for drugs but really just wrecking the place and scaring the kids. Through it all, nothing seems to come between Malik and Eric, until it looks like one of them will move away when a better opportunity comes along for his mom. It’s a raw film about the loss of innocence, and eye-opening to me in particular, seeing what these boys are going through at that age; I wasn’t much older myself in 1992, but had a much different experience obviously. I know plenty of families struggle, but you always want kids to just be kids, and not have to worry about “grown up things” until they have to. Good film from director Minhal Baig, whose other film Hala I enjoyed too, a few years ago. ★★★½

Didi is a good, at times great, coming-of-age film that feels extremely authentic, compared to how some of these films can go. It follows 13-year-old Chris Wang, who lives with his sister, mother, and grandmother in California (their Dad still lives in Taiwan, working there to support the family). Did and his sister are first-generation citizens, fluent in English at school, while Mandarin is still spoken at home, and Chris (called “Didi” by his family and “Wang Wang” by his friends) is very much aware of how different he is compared to his classmates. Still, he is doing what every 13-year-old is doing, which is trying to fit in. Unfortunately for Chris, he doesn’t always make the best choices, and goes out of his way to try to impress the “cool kids” and “pretty girls,” even fabricating stories to get their attention. It’s a balancing act that no one can keep up forever, and hopefully it doesn’t end up losing his real friends in the process. The movie does a fantastic job of putting the viewer in Chris’s shoes, and it is easy to recall that feeling of being left out, and wanting to fit in, of thinking this is your whole world. Obviously looking back with wisened eyes, it’s easy to see you still have your whole life in front of you at 13 and none of what is happening then is really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Chris’s fights with his sister especially had me laughing at memories of some of the stuff I pulled with my brother! Funny and moving film. ★★★½

Got out to see Joker: Folie à Deux tonight, the sequel to the massive hit Joker from a few years ago. Bringing back star Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck/The Joker, this film picks up where the last film ended. Joker has been in Arkham Asylum for 2 years while the state tries to decide if he is competent to stand trial for 5 murders he committed in the first movie, or if he is too bat-shit crazy.

Fleck is pretty nuts, which is obvious to the viewer, especially knowing the trauma he faced as a child, all of which we learned in the last movie. His defense team has been building a case of split personality, but prosecutors want to nail him for the murders and insist that he is aware of all of the crimes he has committed. The jail guards are pretty rough with him too, and it seems Fleck can’t get a moment’s rest anywhere he goes. Outside the jail and courtroom, “the Joker” has gained quite the following, with nuts and crooks celebrating his name and creating a persona of an anti-hero out of him, a man willing to stand up against the establishment. Fleck seems pretty oblivious to all the attention, but he does have eyes for one person: Harley (“Lee,” as he calls her) Quinzel, portrayed by Lady Gaga. Lee is also in Arkham, she says because she burned down her parents’ house after her father abused her for years. Arthur falls in love-at-first-sight with Lee, who has a crazy streak to match his.

The state decides Fleck is able to stand trial, and it commences. As the film shifts to a courtroom drama, Lee roots for Arthur from the seats, quietly calling for him to let his Joker persona free and take command of the proceedings, something that his “fans” in the courtroom and outside demonstrating in front of the building all want as well. Along the way, we get a deeper look into the mental illness that consumes Arthur’s life.

This movie is bombing at the box office and getting middling- to downright-poor reviews in the process. However, I loved it. Sometimes I can chalk bad reviews up to either, 1) real critics don’t always know an entertaining film when they see one, or 2) “average filmgoers” can’t recognize a good film when it comes along. This movie seems to be getting nailed from both sides though! The only thing I can guess is that people aren’t digging that it is a musical, and it is a true musical. I myself love a good musical, so the idea of characters stopping to break out in song once in awhile doesn’t bother me at all. I thought the acting was brilliant (expected from Phoenix, but surprisingly good from Gaga too, the first time I’ve been impressed by her on screen) and the story was intriguing. I was rooting for the antihero Arthur Fleck, who has gone through hell to (hopefully) reach some level of redemption by the end, or at least become comfortable with himself as a human being. ★★★★

Will Ferrell and Andrew Steele have been friends for nearly 30 years, since a young Will and Andrew both started at SNL at the same time, Will an actor and Andrew a writer (who wrote many of the iconic sketches that featured Will). They became good buddies and continued to hang out after each left the show. Then in 2021 during COVID, Andrew sent an email to Will that he, now she, was transitioning to be a woman. To Will, this came out of left field, and the former Andrew, now Harper, obviously worried how one of his best friends was going to take the news, and if they would even still be friends. Will responded that they should do something together, sort of to get it all out in the open, and thus was born the idea of Will & Harper. As Andrew, Harper loved driving cross country and visiting small towns, stopping in roadside bars to meet people and share stories, but she’s never done it as a woman. Will and Harper set out from New York to drive to California, a leisurely 17 day trip with many stops along the way. Will ostensibly is there to provide emotional support in situations where Harper may feel uncomfortable, but along the way, viewers are treated to the duo’s conversations about that sense of wanting to be who you were born to be, of decades of trying to hide who you are from everyone around you, and the friendships that are stronger than you could have hoped for. It’s not all smooth sailing, as there are plenty of places in this country that will not support Harper, but the film is at times funny and poignant, full of emotion and support. Afterwards, I appreciated the loving human being that Will Ferrell is, but more so Harper, for being so vulnerable as to share a lot of private thoughts and hard moments in her life. ★★★★★

Limbo is a cool film out of Australia, starring an unrecognizable Simon Baker (in his buzz cut and a few days’ growth of unkept beard, gone is the suave look he rocked for nearly a decade on The Mentalist). He plays Travis, a detective who has been sent to examine an old murder cold case in the tiny town (or, really, too-small to even be a town) of Limbo, located way out in the outback. Travis, addicted to heroine after doing drugs undercover years ago, doesn’t seem to care much if he finds anything or not, as he’s just doing what he was sent to do, but as he digs into the evidence, he uncovers lots of the buried (and not-so-buried) racial divide that still exists between the white residents and the aboriginal Australians. Charlotte was killed 20 years ago, and rumors at the time pointed to a white man named Leon, who liked to invite black girls to parties to watch them dance. Leon seems to have recently died, but his brother Joseph is still around, and he’s not talking. Neither is Charlotte’s surviving brother Charlie, nor, at first, is Charlie’s younger sister Emma. But Travis’s resilience finally pulls some information out of them, but maybe not enough to get the powers-at-be to reopen the case, if they were ever really interested in doing so. It’s a slow burn and any answers at all are frustratingly slow in coming, but the film oozes atmosphere and modern noir, and Baker’s performance is worth the price of admission. ★★★½

Some films are made just to elicit a reaction, and Green Border is there to make you angry. With the world up in arms about what to do about refugees pouring across borders, it examines the ugliness of one border in particular, that of Poland and Belarus. In 2021, a family from Syria are fleeing ISIS, trying to get to a family member in Sweden. They’ve been promised safe passage from Belarus, so they fly there and are able to make it across the border to Poland. Now in the EU, they think they are safe, but their nightmare is just beginning. Turns out, the dictator ruler of Belarus has been promising safe passage to all immigrants who will listen, and weaponizing them against Poland by swarming the border. Poland doesn’t want to deal with them, so they’ve tasked their border patrol with rounding them up and throwing them (sometimes literally, as they do with a pregnant woman) back across the barbed wire separating the countries. The family gets tossed from one side to the other several times in the first third of the film, and when we catch up with them near the end of the movie, they are looking rough from weeks of living outside, still without a resolution. We also get a viewpoint from one of the border guards, a young man with a pregnant wife of his own. The man doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but as is so often the problem, he’s “just doing his job.” Those he works with, however, do seem pretty terrible. Another section of the film follows the activists, people trying to help the immigrants, but with no real power and severe laws restricting what they can and can’t do, all they can really do is patch up the immigrants when they find them (putting salve on their trench feet from walking the swampy area) and send them on their way. And if you made it through all the atrocities shown throughout the film, you might get sick with the epilogue; in 2023 when Ukraine refugees are looking for a place to flee, Poland welcomes them with open arms. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that these white-skinned safety-seekers look a lot more like their neighbors. A tremendous film, but its depressing message is one you might not stomach to watch twice. ★★★★★

Crossing another Hamaguchi film off the list, this time with 2021’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (released, in fact, the same year as his breakout Drive My Car). This is an anthology film in 3 parts. The first, Magic (or Something Less Assuring) starts with two good friends, Meiko and Tsugumi, driving home after a model shoot. Tsugumi is relating an amazing first date she recently had, but something she says about the guy, the way he talked to her, startles Meiko, and she gets quiet especially when Tsugumi says the guy is still getting over an ex-girlfriend. When Tsugumi gets out of the taxi, Meiko goes straight to the guy, because in a twist of fate, she’s the ex-girlfriend. Meiko needs to decide between hers or her best friend’s happiness. The second part, “Door Wide Open,” is my favorite, about a male student’s vindictive scheme against a professor for flunking him in his class (a grade the student very much deserved). The teacher has recently written a well-received novel with some racy sex scenes, so the student sends his older girlfriend in to try to seduce the teacher and get it on tape, to release to the public and ruin the teacher’s life. Things do not as planned. In fact the ending is nothing like what you’d expect, and is fantastic. The final part, “Once Again,” was the weakest for my tastes. Two women spot each other and think they know each other. One, Natsuko, recognizes a girl from high school with whom she had a romantic relationship, but neither could commit to a lesbian relationship at the time. The other woman, unfortunately for Natsuko, is not the same woman, just a look-alike, but she, Aya, thinks Natsuko also looks familiar, like someone she once admired for her subtle bravery against bullying in school. Overall, a nice film, especially the first two parts. ★★★½

Here definitely lives in the moment, but because of this, there’s really no narrative structure that I could find. It follows a construction worker in Brussels named Stefan who is on the cusp of a 4 week vacation, but unlike most people going on vacation, he doesn’t seem very excited about it. In fact, he doesn’t seem very excited about anything, coming off as depressed, or maybe resigned is a better word. No real energy in life. His car is currently in the shop and he wants to pick it up on Monday to drive to visit his mother, and while walking around town over the weekend, he meets Shuxiu, a Chinese grad student working at her parents’ Chinese food restaurant while studying plants for school. Finally interested in something, maybe for the first time in awhile, Stefan puts off picking up his car to spend time looking through microscopes with Shuxiu. That’s it, that’s the movie in a nutshell. Even beautiful cinematography can’t save this one. It is dull and as lifeless as its characters. The plants and trees flowing in the wind have more life than the characters. ★½

• TV series recently watched: House of the Dragon (season 2), Battlestar Galactica (season 4)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a cute little film about a man on a mission. Harold is an older man living with his wife Maureen in England when he hears news that an old friend, Queenie, is dying from cancer. He pens a rather lame letter to her, obviously at a loss for words, but can’t bring himself to mail it. He walks past the local mailbox to a bigger center, but can’t drop it there either. He walks to the nearest post office, but still can’t drop it in the receptacle. Seemingly on a whim, he starts walking to Queenie, who is in hospice 450 miles away. He doesn’t even call his wife until he is on the road, and she does not take it well. It is implied that Queenie may have been an old romance or perhaps even an affair at some point, but the truth isn’t revealed until near the end of the film. Along Harold’s way, his story spreads online from people he passes, and he becomes a local celebrity. People start walking with him, until eventually he has a whole crowd making the trek, but as is the case when movements get too big, the journey itself begins to overtake Harold’s original goal, to the point that he eventually has to sneak away in the night to continue on his own. When he finally gets to Queenie, all is revealed and we learn a lot about Harold, resolving mysterious flashbacks he was having along the way about his estranged son David. Jim Broadbent has a room full of awards from his decades in acting, but he’s pretty sedate in this one, perhaps to make Harold seem so unassuming, but it’s hard to connect with him as such. Some cute moments but I felt the big reveal wasn’t enough to bring it all together. ★★★

I’m a sucker for movies like Hard Miles. Even though I know how it is going to play out, and I recognize every trope as they are coming, I can’t help but become a blubbering mess by the end. Inspired by a true story (which is different than based-on, if you want to cut hairs), it follows a teacher named Greg Townsend who works at a juvenile facility, working with last-chance teens. Greg can relate to what many of them have gone through in their lives, because he too was bullied and emotionally/physically abused by his father growing up, and his own brother is in jail too. To let out his inner anguish, Greg took up cycling a long time ago, and is looking forward to a 700+ mile ride during his upcoming vacation, a ride that ends at the Grand Canyon. In his training, he gets the idea to make a cycling team out of some of the kids at the facility, as a team building exercise, but also to hopefully open their eyes to a wider world out there if they can just escape the gangs and bad influences in their lives. One kid in particular, Woolbright, seems hellbent on becoming a lifer, though he is definitely at the end of his last rope: any more infractions and he is going to adult jail. After fighting the powers-at-be, Greg is finally given permission to take 4 boys, and while they have no competitive cycling experience, he turns them into a team who work together to cross the long miles. Along the way, Greg is fighting his own demons, as his father is dying and has asked to see him, something Greg is unable or unwilling to do. Everything you’ve ever seen in movies like this is on display, so you can either roll your eyes or buy in, and I bought in. I was cheering them the whole way and hoped each young man would make the right decision when faced with a possibly life-altering choice. Probably not a great movie, but a great movie for me. ★★★★

After loving Evil Does Not Exist recently, I chased down another film from the director, 2018’s Asako I & II. Gotta say, very underwhelmed. The film begins following a pretty young woman named Asako, who is strolling the streets of Osaka and meets a young man named Baku, and the two seem to fall in love-at-first-sight. They go from 0 to 10 overnight, despite Asako’s friends warning her to slow down, because Baku has a reputation for loving-and-leaving. Asako isn’t having it, as she’s got it bad. One evening, after Asako has stayed the night, Baku goes out to buy some bread and never returns. His buddy says that is par for the course, that Baku will disappear for hours or days or weeks at a time, but he always comes back. Two years later, Asako is working at a coffee shop in Tokyo when she sees a professional businessman who is Baku’s doppelgänger (the two are played by the same actor). The man, Ryohei, is confused about this woman who keeps staring at him and calling him Baku, but he likes her and tries to get with her. At first, Asako keeps Ryohei at arm’s length, trepidatious about her confused feelings since he and Baku look so much alike. Eventually she gives in, and 5 years later, the two are living together and are very happy, talking about marriage and kids. But things go crazy when Asako sees an ad one day, and there’s Baku, now a famous model who’s just gotten his first acting gigs too. Asako was able to bury those old feelings when she could pretend Baku didn’t exist anymore, but that is no longer the case. There’s some good moments here, the movie isn’t awful, but the end really fizzles and the characters are all one-dimensional, and each of them has tunnel vision. Maybe I’ll try another one from director Hamaguchi next time. ★★½

What You Wish For is a very good low budget thriller/horror film, and a notch above your standard hack-and-slash flick that is often seen in this category. Ryan is a very good chef but he has a habit of racking up gambling debts, so he has fled to Latin America to avoid those to whom he owes money. He’s there ostensibly to visit his friend Jack, a buddy from culinary school. Jack isn’t as talented as Ryan, but his career has gone a lot better. He currently caters to a very rich crowd, who fly him around the world to prepare high class meals. Ryan and Jack hang out for a day or two while Jack awaits his newest clientele, but one morning Ryan wakes to find Jack has hung and killed himself. Poking around Jack’s stuff, Ryan sees he is worth a lot of money, and devises a way to finally pay off his creditors. No rest for the weary, as the next day, “the agency”’s representatives show up to help “Jack” put together the upcoming meal. Ryan impersonates him, but as it turns out, the diners have a very macabre palate, the whole reason Jack was paid so well for his skills and why he had so much self-loathing in the end. Now Ryan needs to provide a stomach-churning meal, as police detectives sniff around the place and one of Jack’s friends (and possible early targets) shows up for a visit. It’s some great, grisly fun, with some surprisingly strong performances from the cast here and there. ★★★½

I don’t often go back to older films in my blog, but was recommended Excalibur by a buddy, who couldn’t believe I’d never seen it. I do love a good adventure and fantasy film, so armed with a warning that the film may look dated, I went in. I was pleasantly surprised. The film follows the entire Arthurian legend. There’s Uther Pendragon, Excalibur and the Lady in the Lake, Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Morgana and Mordred, and Perceval and the Holy Grail. The whole kit-and-caboodle. Honestly, it’s a lot to cram in 2 hours, and it definitely feels rushed. The plot speeds along at a breakneck pace, with no time at all allowed for character development. And since the knights are all wearing full armor (including visors) sometimes I got lost as to who was who. The acting leaves a lot to be desired, especially Merlin, though actor Nicol Williamson was, by all accounts, very well thought of on the stage. At times the film seems to be a bunch of people play-acting and hamming it up, but maybe I can chalk that up to the times. Having said all that, the movie is better than it has any right to be. I very much enjoyed it, and though I knew most of the legend, it was nice seeing it told from start to finish in an engaging way, and honestly, despite coming out the year after I was born, the special effects are respectable. I had a good time! ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Evil (season 4)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

Every now and then I am completely blown away by a film and don’t understand why more people aren’t talking about it. That’s the case with Daddio, a 2-person drama starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn (who proves he still has it after all these years). Nearly the entirety of the film takes place in a car, sort of like Locke (must-see for Tom Hardy’s performance); this one has less tension but just as much emotion. Johnson plays Girlie, a woman arriving home to JFK airport after a trip to Oklahoma, and fate puts her in a cab driven by an unnamed man played by Penn. Their long drive across the city, hampered by traffic as night descends, becomes a look at humanity and what makes people tick. The driver is your stereotypical cabbie, he’s been around the block in more than just his car, and has insight into what people want. Over the course of 90-ish minutes, he and Girlie have conversations about what drives men and women, which at surface value seems a bit dated, but it still makes a whole lot of sense. For awhile, Girlie is getting explicit texts from a man whom she seems annoyed with, and the cab driver picks up that there’s tension there, and is able to get her to open up about what is going on in her life, including by the end, what took her to Oklahoma and back. It’s not a one-way street though, as Girlie gets a peek into her driver’s personal life. The director (Christy Hall in her directorial debut, though she was also a screenwriter on It Ends With Us) knows whats up and lets her star actors act. There’s nowhere to hide in a cab and no were to hide with a camera in your face, so we see the subtlety of our actors and, especially with Penn, are reminded just how brilliant they are. You will be moved, disgusted, and, hopefully by the end, understanding of this crazy experience we call life, and the connection a human can make with another human if you just try, and are willing to be vulnerable and open up. ★★★★★

Ok Mom, here’s one for you and Dad to enjoy. Thelma is a 93-year-old woman whose husband died 2 years ago, leaving her alone for the first time since they got married when she was 23. She’s alone but not lonely, as she has a caring daughter and son-in-law and a very loving adult grandson who drives her wherever she wants to go and will sit and have meals and conversations with her all the time. One day, Thelma falls victim to a phone scam that swindles her out of $10k. Her family is upset but have no idea what to do about it, but Thelma, inspired by having recently watched Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, wants to get to the bottom of the scam and get her money back. She’s not going to be jumping buildings or dodging bullets like Cruise, but she has her own challenges commensurate to her age: battling hearing aids, scooters, staircases, and thinking she knows every old person she comes across (“Where do I know you from? You look so familiar.”). There’s a lot of cute, funny moments which I think are targeted just a bit above my age bracket; I’m middle-aged, still aways off to old age, and while I chuckled here and there, I think the older crowd would probably bust a gut. There’s also some poignant moments, like when Thelma and her friend visit someone they haven’t seen in years, only to find her sitting in a big empty house all by herself, surrounded by roaches and fuzzy memories, a dark reminder of what could await people if they outlive all their friends and family. It’s a decent enough film, a little hokey at times, but enjoyable. ★★★

He doesn’t receive much recognition, but C Thomas Howell (Red Dawn is my personal favorite, but let’s not forget The Hitcher and The Outsiders) has been doing this a long time, and his latest is Ride, a western-ish film about a family facing hardship. John is a former rodeo star, and he and his wife Monica (sheriff in their little town) are trying to stay afloat amongst rising medical bills for their 12-year-old daughter Victoria’s cancer treatments. The local hospital can no longer provide the top-notch care that she needs, so they recommend a fantastic clinic. The only problem is that place charges $40k just to get in the door, and there’s no way John and Monica can afford that. While this is going on, their oldest son Peter is getting out of jail, where he’s been for four years after his reckless driving caused the death of his girlfriend at the time. His family never visited him in jail, partially over resentment because a younger Victoria was also in the car that day. Thankfully she was ok, and in fact it was the check-up afterwards in the hospital that found her tumors. But in any case, Peter is getting out, and his first stop afterwards is a drug dealer. With no money, Peter promises to pay with future earnings from the rodeo, and wouldn’t you know it, he wins on his first time out. Having learned of his sister’s predicament though, Peter gives the money to his dad, landing him in serious trouble with the dealer. Afterwards, when John confesses just how much money they need, Peter knows exactly who to rob to get that kind of cash. With John at the end of his rope, he reluctantly agrees to help, but will Monica be able to look the other way, or worse, aid in the coverup, once evidence points to her son? The movie is awfully predictable and has just about every movie trope under the sun, but it isn’t terrible, just very unremarkable. Neowestern film lovers will probably find plenty to enjoy. ★★½

His Three Daughters has been called a “showcase” for its three co-lead actresses, and it is certainly that, making it must-see if you just want to see superb acting. Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne play Katie, Christina, and Rachel, who have gathered together in their father’s (Vincent’s) apartment as he has entered at-home hospice from cancer. These sisters all have issues of their own that have kept them from being close to each other, and some are harboring some severe baggage. Katie is the oldest, and she has typical oldest child syndrome, trying to run and micromanage everything in her life. She has been unable (or, more likely, unwilling) to face her father’s worsening condition, and despite living close by, hasn’t visited in months. Middle child Christina lives across the country and the other sisters always thought her life was so perfect with a husband and family, but she has issues. The youngest is Rachel, who had a different father after their mother remarried, but he died when she was 4 so Vincent has always been the only “father” she ever knew. In fact, for many years she has shared the apartment with Vincent, becoming his caregiver as he has deteriorated. She resents the other sisters for this, but as the youngest child and always feeling a bit left-out (mostly due to Katie’s needling), she has kept all that to herself. With Vincent in his last days though, the girls will have to face each other and look into themselves. Through all of the drama, Vincent’s imposing presence is felt all over the apartment, even though he is never seen, living out his final moments in his bedroom offscreen. It is a tour-de-force from each of the women, you won’t find much better. ★★★★½

Man oh man, movies like Evil Does Not Exist make me rethink my rating system. I loved a couple of the movies above, but this one is on a whole other level. It’s director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s followup to his massively successful Drive My Car a couple years ago, and it makes me want to look up some of his older stuff! In a sleepy mountain town, a small community is up in arms about a company wanting to come in and build a glamping site (glamorous camping for the older crowd out there 🙂 ). The residents voice legitimate concerns about how the company will handle human waste from visitors, since the businesses and townsfolk rely heavily on local spring water and wells as their primary water source. The company representatives, who are in town to present the plans for the site, are in over their heads and ill prepared to answer the tough questions. They are willing to learn though, and spend some time with one resident in particular, Takumi. Takumi lives in a cabin, with just his young daughter (the mom has died). He enjoys cutting firewood, gathering spring water for a local restaurant, and the quiet life. The two glamping site reps spend a day with him and see just how nice this community is. The end will surprise and baffle you if you aren’t paying attention (hint: pay attention to all the seemingly minor dialogue about the local deer throughout the film), but it is a rewarding film if you are picking up on the clues along the way. A movie I could easily watch again and again, and probably find more to enjoy each time. Beautiful camerawork throughout and a quietly intense movie from start to finish. ★★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Star Trek Next Generation (season 2), Voltron Legendary Defender (season 2), Batman Beyond (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

I’ve been doing this blog so long that even when a sequel takes nearly a decade to come out, I have the original back in the bowels. Inside Out was an instant classic, so it’s no surprise Disney returned to it at some point. Set two years later, the sequel picks up on 13-year-old Riley on the cusp of big changes in her life. Her 5 emotions (Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, and Joy, who sort of runs things) have been cruising comfortably, as Riley’s life has been pretty good of late. But then the Puberty Alarm goes off, and things will never be the same. New emotions just show up one day, including Ennui, Embarrassment, Envy, and their ringleader, Anxiety, who will play an important role in teenager Riley’s life for a little while. Riley gets an invite to a hockey camp, run by the high school varsity coach. Riley jumps at the opportunity to make an impression. Inside, her emotions are a wreck. Anxiety is exerting more and more influence, harming Riley’s “sense of self,” hopefully not irreparably, while in the real world, Riley starts alienating her longtime friends in an effort to “be cool” to the older high school girls at the camp. Joy and the original emotions need to fight back before Anxiety takes it too far. It’s a very good movie, cute and funny and still feeling fresh with the new emotions, and it does a good job of portraying the crazy emotional roller coaster that is being a teenager. Great for kids and adults alike. ★★★★½

Rebel Ridge is a fantastic action film currently on Netflix, and it’s one that will make your blood boil in anger and frustration from the very beginning. Terry (Aaron Pierre with a tremendous performance) is biking through a little town when he is pulled over by a local cop. “Pulled over” is a bit understated, as his bike is rammed from behind, throwing Terry to the ground. Being black in a predominantly white area, Terry is cool, calm, and collected, and doesn’t escalate the situation. He is respectful and complies with all orders. Two cops search him, turning up over $30k in money, which obviously raises eyebrows, but Terry has a good excuse: he sold his car and his minor stake in a restaurant for the money to bail his cousin out of jail (there’s a very good reason for that mess too, which comes later). Rather than let him go his way, the cops seize the money and tell Terry to get out of town. Terry is not leaving without his cousin though, so he goes to the courthouse to explain his side, and when that goes nowhere, he goes to the police station to tell his side to the police chief. They railroad him at every step, threatening him until it seems the whole world is out to get Terry. Still, he doesn’t resort to violence until much later in the film, long past when any rational person would just lash out in resentment at the biased system. And Terry, being a marine who taught classes at the academy in hand-to-hand combat, certainly has the skills to take care of himself. When it’s good, it’s REALLY good. Like blood pressure-rising, heart quickening, edge-of-your-seat good. But it does bog down in some of the dialogue and mystery-unraveling sections, as to why the police are so headstrong to keep things off the books, killing some of the momentum at least a couple times throughout the film. Still, I think it is a highly rewatchable film for the action and excitement. ★★★★

Gotta admit, I didn’t run to see Young Woman and the Sea when it first hit Disney+. Despite great reviews, I wasn’t a fan of another based-on-a-true-story film about a swimmer (Nyad, which also got good reviews), so bad on me for lumping this one with that one. This film is fantastic. It stars Daisy Ridley as Trudy, who lives in New York with her Jewish-German immigrant family. The film begins in 1914, when little Trudy is on death’s door from the measles. She survives, but is left with diminished hearing, and the doctor tells her parents to keep her out of the water for fear of infection that could make it worse. Trudy isn’t having it, as she has fallen in love with swimming. 10 years later, she has become one of the premier women swimmers in the country, but her conservative father is planning her future and arranged marriage with little thought for what she wants. Trudy is able to get to Paris in the 2024 Olympics, but a poor trainer doesn’t have her ready and she fails to medal, derailing the entirety of the sport for women. Just when she is about to give up and marry whoever papa picks, she meets Bill Burgess, an Englishman who successfully swam across the English Channel. He motivates her to try the feat herself, but again, her trainer hampers her attempt. All seems lost, and Trudy returns to NY. Don’t despair, as she will get her chance to try again. I knew nothing about Trudy before the movie, and didn’t know what was going to happen. If it had been an indie film, I would have half expected Trudy to die there in the sea, but being Disney, I figured this one was going to have a happy ending. What I wasn’t ready for was how emotional it was going to be. Outstanding performance by Ridley in the lead, and it’s a great feel-good story that I could watch again and again. ★★★★★

LaRoy, Texas takes place in the fictional tiny eponymous town and follows a man named Ray. Ray is submissive and you can tell he’s never been particularly popular or good at anything in life; even when shown evidence that his wife is cheating on him, he just sort of shrugs and says, “ok.” But his life is about to get exciting. He buys a gun and pulls his car off the road, to commit suicide, but just before he does, a stranger pops into the passenger seat to his car. The stranger hands Ray an envelope of cash and says that he (Ray) must kill his target the next day; he’s obviously confused Ray with a contract killer he was supposed to meet right here, and Ray picked the wrong spot to park. Ray decides to do the job, hoping that the money will lure his wife to stay with him, and that decision will start a zany story involving blackmail, double-crossing, and lots and lots of death, because the real killer is around, and he wants his promised money. There’s some funny side stories, because in a little town like LaRoy, everyone knows everyone, so paths cross a whole lot in the first hour or so of the movie, but ultimately it tries to be too smart for its own good. By the time the third or fourth backstabbing hits, I was almost rolling my eyes. No big stars in this one, but lots of familiar faces, including John Magaro, Steven Zahn (and who doesn’t love Steve Zahn?!) and Dylan Baker as the killer. ★★½

IF looked like a very cute movie from its first trailers, and, for the most part, it delivers what you’d expect. 12-year-old Bea (Cailey Fleming, young Judith from The Walking Dead) is living with her grandmother in an old apartment in New York while her dad (John Krasinski, who also wrote and directed) is in the hospital. Grandma tries to show Bea old pictures and art she (Bea) did when she was young and would visit, but Bea isn’t having it, as “she’s too old for that kid stuff.” But apparently she’s not too old to see imaginary friends, as she soon learns. Turns out she’s one of very few who can see these characters, “IF’s” as they like to be called, first meeting a large furry creature named Blue and an old-timey Betty Boop-looking drawn girl named Blossom. The only other person that we know who can see them is an adult named Cal (Ryan Reynolds), who has been unsuccessfully trying to get these IF’s to new kids, as they’ve all been abandoned by their original kids once those children grew up. Bea decides to help out, so her and Cal set out to find new homes for all the IF’s in the area. It is indeed a cute little film, with plenty of color and childlike laughs for the kids, but some nostalgia for kids-at-heart who may fondly remember playing with nothing more than your imagination when young (is that even a thing for today’s generation?). Not a stellar movie, and the acting from the lead isn’t great (sorry Cailey fans), but not terrible and certainly a fun movie for family film night. ★★★