Cowboys is a very good film staring longtime character actor Steve Zahn as Troy. The movie opens with Troy ranging through the woods of northern Montana with his young son Joe. We quickly learn that Troy has kidnapped Joe from his estranged wife Sally (Jillian Bell). Another surprise hits when we learn that Joe is actually Josephine, a young transgender who always felt like a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Troy is a man’s man and was skeptical when Joe broke the news to him, thinking Joe was just a tomboy, but Joe was insistent. Sally never bought in, leading to a rift in the family, and thus Troy’s flight with Joe, heading for supposed freedom in Canada. To make matters worse, Troy is bipolar, and only keeps his wild mania phases under control with medicine, which he loses early in their trip. As the cops edge closer to the father and son, Sally has to come to terms with the person Joe is. Typically a movie like this as the mother be the “good guy” and the rough-and-tumble dad having to change the way he thinks, and it was interesting to see that script flipped. ★★★½

Little Fish, which started production in March 2019, ended up being a bit prescient, about a plague that hits the world. The one in the film is almost scarier than the one we got. Called NIA, it attacks your memories. All ages are affected, and there is no cure. Some lose their memories instantly in the middle of an activity, but most slowly succumb over time, in an Alzheimer’s kind of way, until the victim is left walking and talking with no memories of their friends or loved ones. In this environment, the film focuses on Jude and Emma (Jack O’Connell and Olivia Cooke) a young married couple who have already seen one of their best friends become a stranger, and now Jude is showing symptoms. At first he forgets little things, like an argument they had previously, but they both know it will get worse. Jude is an avid photographer, so the couple try taking photos and labeling them to help Jude remember, but that’s just a stopgap. It’s a terribly depressing film, and sure makes you want to hug your partner and cherish the moments you have. Fantastic acting by the entire cast, and a wonderful, heart-wrenching film. ★★★★

Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m a sucker for films from China. Better Days is my latest viewing, and it focuses on school bullying. A senior in high school, Chen Nian is next on the hit list from the mean girls, after their previous favorite target has just committed suicide. Chen Nian has a lot of cards stacked against her: her single mother is involved in illegal businesses for cash, trying to keep the family afloat so Chen Nian can get through school and into college. A bright student, Chen Nian hopes to ace the college entrance exams and get into a good school and better the family situation. The new bullying may end those hopes. Chen Nian finds an unlikely friend in Liu Beishan, a local hooligan who takes a liking to Chen Nian when she is the first person in a long time to show him kindness. When Chen Nian’s mom is forced out of the city after a bad deal, Chen Nian even starts to live with Liu Beishan in his hovel, and he starts to escort her home from school to keep the bullies away. Things go awry just weeks before the exam day though, when Liu Beishan is delayed, and Chen Nian is forced to walk home alone. The girls attack, beating her, cutting her hair, and stripping her clothes from her, all on camera. For a good portion of this film, which runs over 2 hours, I thought it was just an average tale of school bullying, but as the relationship developed between Chen Nian and Liu Beishan, that bond became the glue in the film and was riveting in the final third. It’s a raw and emotional film about the dangers of school bullying, and how modern technology has made it easier for bullies to terrorize their targets. ★★★★½

I could not get into Fire Will Come, and do not understand some of the praise heaped on this film. It’s a quiet, introspective movie about a man who is released from jail after having set a fire that did major damage to the countryside around his home in Galicia, a rural area in northern Spain. He’s guarded and keeps to himself around his aging mom and neighbors, knowing many of them resent him for the hurt he caused. That’s the whole movie in a nutshell. It features some beautiful camerawork and scenes, but to say that the film moves at a snail’s pace is an understatement. I guess it is about isolationism? I don’t know, and honestly don’t care enough to think too much on it. If it was any longer than its 80 minute runtime, I would have cut out early. ★

I saw a trailer for Coma, a sci-fi film out of Russia, before COVID, and have been wanting to see the movie ever since. My desire held even after so-so reviews starting hitting. I finally got a chance to see it, and while it isn’t great, it is a fun couple hours for sci-fi lovers. It’s about a world shared by everyone around the world when they are in a coma. The newest inhabitant, “the architect,” is there after a car accident, and he’s been hunted down by some other humans to join their group. Apparently he’s sort of a “chosen one” in a very Matrix-like way (and the film shares more than that similarity — it’s almost a straight rip-off). The bad guys in this world are called reapers, and they are former humans who are kept on life support in comas in the real world, even though the are brain dead. They are drawn to the living and want to snuff out their life. The real mastermind behind the architect’s involvement is revealed towards the end. The movie not great: it has shoddy acting by every single character, and even worse dialogue, but the visuals are truly inspiring. The coma world is made up of memories, all connected, and they blend together as memories do: a mural of a beach on a wall becomes an actual beach; half-formed buildings and animals move around because that’s all that the person remembered; and characters jump sideways to other platforms and city blocks in an Inception kind of way. The eye candy brings a 1-2 star film up to a 3 for me. ★★★

• TV series currently watching: Servant (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Alone With Her Dreams is a very touching film out of Italy about a girl, Lucia, who spends a year with her Grandmother Maria in the 1960s (though you’d never guess the year by the look and feel of the rural community). Lucia’s parents have been struggling to find work in the tiny village, and so have emigrated to France for jobs. Low on finances, they’ve arranged for Lucia to stay with her Grandmother while they get their footing. It is a year that will change Lucia’s life. Maria is very old-school and strict, and there’s a family spat that has been going on for a generation with her sister Pina. Maria will not explain the rift with Lucia, only telling her that she needs to stay away from that side of the family. Over the course of the year, Maria will make her first real friend, be exposed to love, and face a terrible tragedy that only her grandmother can really understand. The film is full of emotion and runs the gamut, you’ll feel it all throughout the short 90 minute run. Very heartfelt film about the power of family and love. ★★★★½

Miss Juneteenth is about a mother preparing her 15-year-old daughter for the local pageant, from which the winner wins a full ride college scholarship. Turquoise is a single mother, and she won the pageant herself many years ago, but had to drop out of college when she became pregnant, and has been working at a bar to make ends meet. Like most parents, she wants her daughter Kai to have a better life than her, and is pinning her hopes on this golden ticket to college. Unfortunately, Kai really isn’t into it, and would rather go into dance, which is her passion. Plenty of hurdles exist for Turquoise in getting her daughter through the show: her alcoholic mother who is a holy roller one day and a drunk the next; her baby daddy who’s in and out of jail, and always following a get-rich-quick scheme; and just the limited opportunities for people of color anyway. The film features strong performances by Nicole Beharie and Alexis Chikaeze in the two leads, but the rest of the cast is on the weaker side. It relies on its story, which honestly isn’t too different from many other down-on-your-luck kind of tales. I thought it was decent, but I also thought that if the single mom was white, this movie would’t have gotten nearly the acclaim. Yes, I understand that’s the whole point, but I just think on its merits alone, the movie is just a bit better than “ok.” ★★★

I went into Another Round expecting a comedy of sorts, and while there are plenty of funny moments, it gets dark and uncomfortable, which made it for me, who is generally not a comedic film lover, much more enjoyable. It follows a quartet of friends, all teachers at the same school, entering their middle age years. Their jobs and private lives have taken on a routine that borders on boring, and you can tell it in their lackluster efforts with their students. Over dinner on a guys’ night out, they begin discussing a psychiatrist who has theorized that the human being is at optimal performance, both professionally and privately, when they are carrying themselves at a .05% blood alcohol content. The friends decide to test that hypothesis. They begin carrying around alcohol in their water jugs and cups, drinking on the job at school during the day, and keeping themselves honest with handheld breathalyzers. And at first, things go really well. More relaxed, they morph into exciting teachers again, engaging their students and families in ways they haven’t in a long time. But it doesn’t last. They start to stretch upwards, from .05%, to .08%, and higher. Viewers, knowing what is going on, can see the reckless behavior they begin to exhibit, and the fact that they are around children is even more disconcerting. However, as much as I dug the first hour plus, it ran off its rails in the final 30 minutes. The quartet hits a bumpy road, but not all of its due to their drinking, and in fact, being a bit drunk at tough moments is encouraged, even for the underage. It’s a great cast led by Mads Mikkelsen, who I’ve really enjoyed in movies like The Hunt and Arctic, among his many other supporting roles of the last 15 or so years, but the finale killed some of the excitement for me. ★★½

Saw a movie from the Boden and Fleck team lately that got me looking up other stuff they did, and picked this first film of theirs to follow up on. Half Nelson stars Ryan Gosling as Dan, a history teacher and girl’s basketball coach in an inner city school. He’s a good and popular teacher in class, using unconventional methods to reach his students, but his personal life is a wreck. He’s a drug addict, and has unsuccessfully tried rehab before. After a basketball game one evening, a student, Drey (Shareeka Epps), walks in on him doing drugs in the girl’s bathroom. Drey is one of Dan’s better students, and she keeps his secret. She has her own problems at home. Her single mom works long hours, and her older brother is already in jail for dealing drugs. She’s become the prey of a drug dealer, Frank (Anthony Mackie), who was friends with her brother, and wants to get her to start dealing for him now. Dan immediately recognizes Frank’s bad influence, and tries to warn him away, but Drey doesn’t listen. It’s a solid first film from this writer and director team, though the content is better than the delivery. Unfortunately the movie suffers from “young indy filmmaker shaky cam syndrome,” which is a very real thing. But if you can get past the camerawork, it’s a very good picture about two people fighting inner demons and depression, and showing that while people can come from different backgrounds, they can have much the same problems. ★★★

Mortal Kombat is proof, once again, that if you know what you are getting when you go in, even an average movie can be very enjoyable. A reboot of the film series, based on the highly popular video games right out of my childhood (I spent too many hours on the original Mortal Kombat and its first sequel as a teen), the newest film follows MMA fighter Cole Young, who learns about the eponymous tournament, in which he is destined to fight. He joins up with classic characters from the game, including Jax, Sonya Blade, Kano, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao, all under the tutelage of Earth protector Raiden, to train for the upcoming battle. They’ll be facing off against classic enemies Sub Zero, Mileena, Reiko, Nitara, and Kabal, under their own leader Shang Tsung. Anyone who played these games as a kid like me will recognize these names. And yes, Sub Zero’s longtime foe Scorpion will make an appearance. The acting is uneven (the actor playing Sonya Blade is particularly rough), the dialogue is pure cheese, but I bought in from the opening scenes. Being a big fan of those early games helped a ton, and I’m fairly certain that if you never played the games, phrases like “Come over here!”, “Finish him!”, and “Flawless victory!” wouldn’t excite you you at all. But they did for me, and the gratuitous gore and fatalities amped up the fun. Brought be back to my Sega Genesis days (assuming you knew the codes to unlock the blood — remember those days?!). ★★★★

• TV series currently watching: Star Wars The Clone Wars (season 4)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 

I’m a huge baseball fan (St Louis born and bred!) but have somehow passed the age of 40 having missed some of the greatest films about the sport. No longer! These are mostly classics that many of my friends have been giving me a hard time for never having seen. No excuses anymore.

The Natural stars Robert Redford as a hot shot young baseball player with dreams of being the best who ever played. On the eve of his debut, he is shot in the stomach by a crazy woman, and spends 16 years away from the game he loves. He shows up one day with a fresh baseball contract to play for the fictional New York Knights, the league’s worst team. After riding the bench for awhile, he gets a chance to play and shows everyone he is still the most talented player on the team. All of a sudden, the team starts winning. However, the owner and his business partners have betted against their own team, and they employ a hot sexy young woman to woo Redford, and it leads to a big slump in his playing. What eventually turns it around is a visit from his high school sweetheart, and resettling his mind. But when that long-ago bullet is discovered still resting in his gut, it threatens his team’s playoff chances, and his life too. I found the film a little heart-warming for its own good, and nearly completely unbelievable. For a player supposedly so naturally gifted, the player sure seems to be awfully streaky; he’s either hot or cold with nothing in between, and the team always goes the way he plays. Sorry to say, but in baseball, one man can’t carry a whole team (see Mike Trout). Decent enough film, but I’m not sure why this one gets so much acclaim. ★★½

We righted the ship with Eight Men Out, the story of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. I knew the story very well, having grown up on Field of Dreams as one of my faves, and was hoping for a great yarn of a tale. I was not disappointed. Starring John Cusack, John Mahoney, Christopher Lloyd, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, and a bunch more recognizable faces, the movie follows the infamous Chicago White Sox team as they are just finishing out a successful season as clear favorites to win the upcoming World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Unfortunately, the team as a whole is living under the burden of not being paid fairly for their work, under their cheapskate owner, Charles Comiskey. As such, they are ripe for a deal when gamblers come offering cash to throw the series. The movie does a fantastic job of painting all the different parties in their respective colors: the players who are willing to throw the games, those who resent their teammates because they want to win, the various gamblers and lowlifes trying to make a buck, and the families of the ballplayers at home. It’s a true ensemble cast with a lot of characters and moving parts, and it all comes together great. I think casual film lovers will find plenty to like, but die hard baseball buffs will eat it up even more. ★★★★

Speaking of Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner is one of the best at sports films (I even like his, shall we say, less-than-popular films, including For the Love of the Game). It’s criminal that I’d never seen Bull Durham, widely regarded as the best baseball film of all time. The film that made stars of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, and solidified Costner (he had been in The Untouchables the year before), it is about the Durham Bulls, a minor league team with two players going in opposite directions. Nuke (Robbins) is a hot shot young pitcher with a million dollar arm; he has majors written all over him, if he can just get his head straight and be more consistent on the mound. To teach him the ropes, the team brings in Crash (Costner), a career minor-leaguer who’s played 12 years with only a single small stint in the majors. While Crash gives Nuke the advice needed on how to succeed on the field, Annie (Sarandon) helps get him straight psychologically. Annie treats baseball as her religion, and knows more about the sport than most men. Every year she picks one rookie on the Durham Bulls to share her talents with. Not only does she bed them, but she teaches them everything she knows about staying calm on the diamond and keeping your head in the game when under stress. This is a truly perfect film. It really gets you inside a ball players head and the psychological aspects of playing, plus, because of the realness of it, I could practically smell the hot dogs and popcorn. The movie exudes baseball. It is smart, extremely funny, and romantic without being sappy. ★★★★★

Going back to the classics with The Pride of the Yankees, the story of Lou Gehrig from 1942. It stars the great Gary Cooper as Gehrig, showing his life from his early days as a high school star, to his recruitment by the Yankees, and subsequent rise to stardom, ending after his diagnosis with the disease that would later bear his name, and his famous speech at Yankee Stadium. Going in, I knew a bit about Gehrig’s life, and was expecting this film to take some leeway with the particulars, as many historical dramas of this era did, and they definitely gave Gehrig’s life the Hollywood treatment. Still, I didn’t mind it so much, and the movie is definitely well done. It presents Gehrig as a bit of a saint, which is fine, added some stuff that didn’t happen, and stretched out his relationship with his wife (they didn’t meet until he was in his 30s, but the film shows them getting together when he’s still a rookie). All that stuff aside, Cooper gives a fantastic performance. It helps that Cooper was known for such a natural style, and Gehrig was your blue collar everyday worker kind of man. And the cherry on top came about 20-30 minutes in, when Gehrig is in the Yankees locker room for the first time, and in walks the Sultan of Swat. The filmmakers got the great Babe Ruth to play himself (as well as a couple other teammates). As a baseball fan, seeing video of the Babe in the flesh, walking and talking, left me star struck. ★★★★

As a lifelong Cardinals fan, I can’t watch The Pride of the Yankees without also watching The Pride of St Louis. The story of celebrated pitcher Dizzy Dean, the filmmakers here chose to almost entirely focus on Dizzy’s legendary colorful personality, so much so that it comes off as shtick. His fast-pace talking and self assuredness is endearing in the beginning of the movie, as he bemoans having to start in the minor leagues rather than whisk straight to the majors, but it grated on me after awhile. The movie follows his meteoric rise to become one of the best pictures in baseball and a world series winner with the Cards in 1934, but then Dizzy’s subsequent injury and quick exit from the sport he loves, only to find a second life in the broadcasting booth. Even as a diehard fan of the sport and the team, the movie didn’t do much to hold my interest. It’s rather forgettable and unfortunately. ★½

Finishing up with a baseball film from the writer/director team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who would later go on to make Mississippi Grind and Captain Marvel. Sugar follows a young man named Miguel Santos, a promising young pitcher in the fertile baseball land of the Dominican Republic. He lives and breathes baseball and dreams of making it to the big leagues in the USA, not because he loves the sport, but because he wants the money to help his family’s situation, who live very poor. Miguel, nicknamed Sugar, shows talent, and catches the scout’s eye enough to get an invite to spring training for the fictional Kansas City Knights. At spring training, he shows enough to skip rookie ball and go straight to their single A affiliate, the Swing, in Iowa. But there he hits a brick wall. Injured in a routine play, when he returns from the break, he doesn’t have the command he once did, and his confidence is shaken. I loved so many aspects of this film. The depiction of the pressures to succeed for young players, especially for those where they have entire families relying on them. The “haves” and “have nots” due to where they are coming from (Sugar gets a signing bonus of $15k, whereas another player in single A, an American who played on scholarship at Stanford, got a bonus of over a million). Plus the isolation Sugar feels coming to America, not speaking a lick of English. I think MLB has come a ways in the last 10-15 years since this film was released, in helping non-English speakers acclimate, but it still has to be hard. Great film. ★★★★½

• TV series currently watching: Star Wars The Clone Wars (season 4)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Unbelievably, I’ve never seen a film by the acclaimed and prolific director Agnès Varda (though a couple years ago, I did watch many of her husband’s movies). Often called the mother of the French New Wave, Varda was right in the thick of it with Godard, Rohmer, and the others. Today I’ll be looking at 5 of her earlier films.

La Pointe Courte is “unofficially” considered the first film of the French New Wave. Released in 1955, it preceded by three years Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge, which is generally credited as the first of the new movement. La Pointe Courte definitely has the style down though, in its documentary-like approach, off-beat soundtrack, and the now-classic camerawork. The movie has two overlapping plots. Centrally, we meet a couple who are on the eve of ending their four-year marriage. The girl thinks she has fallen out of love with her husband, and has met him at La Pointe Courte, the quiet seaside fishing village where he grew up, to see if they can make it work or not. In the bigger picture, the film is about the residents of the village. While the couple is secluded in their thoughts and conversations with each other, life goes on in La Pointe Courte. Women gossip about the town whore being pregnant again and wondering as to who the (un)lucky man is. The mothers gather in solidarity when a child dies. The men are harassed by local authorities about where and what they can fish. There are plenty of laughs, like when a 16-year-old girl is slapped by her father for wanting to date, and when she retorts that mother married him when she was 19, the daughter gets it on the other side of the face too. I loved the juxtaposition of the couple in their own little world, oblivious to what is going on around them, and the everyday events that seem like big deals to the villagers (even when they may not always be). Gorgeous cinematography on the coast, and a very enjoyable picture. Makes me hungry to see more from this director! ★★★★½

After her first film did not do well (how can that be?!), Varda waited 7 years to make her followup. Cléo from 5 to 7 follows 90 minutes in the life of pop singer Cléo, as she awaits news from her doctor of a biopsy. The film starts at 5pm on a Tuesday evening in Paris, with Cléo receiving a dire tarot card reading. Shaken, she goes about town with her assistant, Angèle, before arriving to her posh apartment. All she can do is worry, knowing in her heart she has stomach cancer. At Cléo’s apartment, she is visited by a songwriter to work on some new tunes, but Cléo feels she is becoming a pawn for the music industry and leaves, upset. This is at the halfway point in the film, and we see a definite change come over Cléo. Until now she’s been a bit of a diva. She lets clothes drop to the floor for her assistant to pick up, she disregards others’ opinions, etc. Now out on the streets of Paris alone, and later with an old friend, she begins to see more of the world around her. Still worried over her impending diagnosis, she starts to open up and live a little. Finally, she meets a man in the park, a soldier, himself worried because he is being shipped off to fight in the Algerian War. He is able to break through the clouds surrounding Cléo and when she finally gets her news, she is in a much better place. A great film with a feminist perspective, a woman who feels no one listens to her exactly because she is a woman, and the scenes of the bustling Paris in the ‘60s act as a time capsule for modern viewers. I ate it all up. ★★★★

Le bonheur was Varda’s next feature. François seems to have the perfect wife and perfect life. A carpenter by day, he goes home to a loving wife with a couple kids; Thérèse is obviously devoted to him, and they are obviously in love. So why does the young, pretty Émilie catch his eye at the post office? Before you know it, he’s started an affair with her. François is completely honest with Émilie, admitting that he loves his wife and could never leave her, but that he loves Émilie equally as much. Whereas Thérèse is familiar, comfortable, and the perfect mother to their kids, Émilie is young and wild, more adventurous in bed, and an element of excitement to François’s every day life. But François feels an increasing need to be honest with his wife and admit his infidelity. When he does, things do not go as he planned. The movie takes on an almost horror-life feel in the end, and ultimately, I think it is a pretty damning discourse on François’s dominating ego, and the subservient lives that wives are often forced to play to their husbands. ★★★½

Les créatures is a weird movie. It’s the first of these films that I’ve seen that had some bonafide stars (Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, and Eva Dahlbeck of the Ingmar Bergman troop, in one of her final appearances), but that star power can’t save this strange film. Edgar and Mylène are new to a tiny seaside village, and they keep to themselves, thus fueling rumors in the gossipy town. When alone, Edgar starts writing a story about the people in the village, and the movie starts to crossover between reality and fiction. A strange metallic object is passed around, and whoever has it in their possession, begins to behave erratically, and sometimes violently. In investigating it, Edgar finds that people are being controlled by a crazy scientist in a solitary tower, a man who likes to see people clash with each other. Edgar challenges him to a contest to try to save some people in the village from this behavior. All of the town’s inhabitants appear on a chess board between the two men, and they take turns moving them around and watching their interactions play out on a screen nearby. Can Edgar prevent total chaos, and what parts are real and which are just part of his story? Just a little too weird for me. ★★

If Les créatures is weird, Lions Love is off the deep end. This completely inane movie follows an insipid love trio living a ménage à trois lifestyle in late 60s LA. They are each actors (and in fact, playing semi-fictionalized versions of themselves, you can look them up if you care), but mostly just lounge about enjoying the hippie, carefree life. At least, I assume that’s all they do for the 2 hours length of the film; that’s all they did for the first 30 minutes, until I turned it off. There was no hint of a plot developing, it just seemed like a long string of improvised, stupid dialogue by pretentious idiots, being given free rein by a director unwilling or unable to reign them in. A complete waste of time. ½

• TV series currently watching: The Outsider (miniseries)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Awhile back, I reviewed some of the films from Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project boxset from Criterion, and today I’m digging into the second release, starting with Insiang. This film was released in 1976 in the Philippines, from influential Filipino director Lino Brocka. Insiang is the title character, a young and very beautiful woman living with her single mother, Tonya, in a poor village. Insiang is the desire of all the men in the community, but her regular boyfriend is Bebot. While Insiang wants a serious relationship with a man who will take her away from this poor setting, Bebot only wants what a lot of men at that age want. Unfortunately, Insiang has also caught the eye of the town ruffian and bully, Dado, and Dado will do anything to get her. Dado begins a relationship with Tonya, so he can move into the house and work his ways onto Insiang. He rapes her one night, and when she goes to Bebot for help, he only takes what he’s been wanting this whole time. When told of the deed, Tonya sides with Dado, leaving Insiang with no one to turn to. But she will get her revenge. I loved this movie. It’s a pretty straight forward melodrama, but done very well with a fantastic performance by Hilda Koronel in the lead role. The community if vibrant with colorful characters running the gamut from resigned to their lives there, youngsters with hopes of moving up and on, and everything in between. ★★★★★

Ever have those moments when you start a movie, and the look and feel of it just aren’t very good for your tastes, and you think, “Here we go….”, but then you stick it out and end up with a great experience? That happened for me on Revenge, a 1989 film out of the Soviet Union. It follows a handful of Korean individuals over two generations. Yan is a young teacher who lashes out at a student one day, killing her. The dead girl’s father is Tsai, who swears revenge on the teacher, and sets out on a 10 year journey to find him on mainland China. Unable to do so, Tsai returns home an older man. His wife offers her husband a young concubine, in order for Tsai to produce a son who can carry on the promise of revenge. Thus is born Sungu, whose life will take him up into Russia and back. From the opening moments, I wasn’t feeling the vibe of this film. It tries to pack this multi-generational, wide-ranging film into a crisp 99 minutes, with help through intertitles which get the viewer caught up on events between scenes. There’s also some weird music that you’d find out of a 70s or 80s hack and slash film, when this picture is anything but. However, those things grew on me by the end, and I ended up really enjoying the film. A deeply philosophical movie about life and destiny, it will leave you thinking long after Sungu finishes his mission. ★★★★

I did not get Limite at all. A silent film from 1931 out of Brazil, it is extremely light on plot and heavy on visual splendor. Unfortunately as a silent film and in black and white, it is decades ahead of its time and these aspects didn’t do much for me. It follows a trio of people afloat on a boat in the middle of a sea. The two women and a man mostly just float along without a lot of interaction, and their individual backstories are told in flashbacks. But given that there are almost no intertitles in this silent picture, to tell the viewer what is going or what the characters are saying to each other, it all comes off as very vague. More visual art than a true fiction story. It went way over my head, or maybe I just didn’t have the patience for a film like this today. A better-than-zero rating for the creativity in filmmaking, as some of the techniques seem way ahead of its time in 1931, but not very interesting unfortunately, and its 2 hour runtime felt very long indeed. ★½

I’m not sure what sets Law of the Border apart from all the other 60s westerns, other than it takes place in Turkey. I like a good western as much as the next guy, and enjoyed this one, but not sure it really is all that different from similar fair. Hidir is an outlaw and smuggler, getting goods across the border illegally when called upon. A new sheriff in town is trying to crack down on the smuggling and warns Hidir to cut it out. Meanwhile, the powers at be want to build a new school in one of the rural villages, and Hidir does want to see his son get an education so he has better opportunities than he himself did. Hidir’s not a bad guy, he just chose the only path open to him. When the shooting starts in the final 20 minutes, we get more over-the-top bad acting deaths than you can count, but other than that, it is a decent enough film. ★★½

Taipei Story, from celebrated Taiwanese director Edward Yang, follows a couple struggling with early adulthood in a burgeoning and modernizing Taiwan. Lung is a former baseball player, famous in his small town as a young star, but never found lasting success professionally. He’s still living in the past, and is aimless now. His high school sweetheart and still current girlfriend, Chen, is ambitious, but her previous employer has folded and she’s now unemployed. Lung’s brother-in-law lives in the USA and runs a successful import company that he built himself, and he’s been wanting Lung to come in as a partner, but the couple is struggling to raise enough money to make the move and invest. Further hurting their plans, Lung cannot say no to friends in need, giving out loans to former baseball buddies and Chen’s no-good father. These decisions, and Chen’s longing to get out of Taiwan for the dream of success in America, has put their relationship on the rocks. If you are expecting a happy ending for all, you may be disappointed. It’s an OK enough film, but with Yang’s reputation, I think I was expecting more. At some point I’ll be checking out his more renowned films that came later, but this film, his second, was just a bit above average. My impressions were of a pretty jaded look at the direction of the country, and a middle class that was getting left behind. ★★★

• TV series currently watching: Beartown (season 1)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I can’t remember the last time a movie was so beautiful, and yet so maddeningly obtuse. Thanks to abundant CGI enhanced landscapes, the world of The Wanting Mare is a sight to see. Taking place in some unknown time in the future, the film focuses on the city of Whithren, which suffers from sultry, mercury breaking heat year-round. Horses trot along the coast, and they are the biggest export. Once a year, the horses are rounded up and shipped south to the city of Levithen, which is under a constant winter. The inhabitants of Whithren long for the cold, but a ticket on that yearly transport is only available to the rich and the thieves, who are willing to kill for it. The main characters are a woman who lives with dreams of “the world before,” with said dreams passed down generation to generation. What is crazy is, we never hear what these dreams are. And as the movie progresses into the next generation, a new plot unfolds involving getting someone a ticket to the south, which doesn’t fit into the how the film opened. It’s a good thing this film was only 90 minutes long, because there’s only so far that gorgeous scenes can take you. The city of Whithren gasps like a life on its last dying breathe, and unfortunately it is more alive than the characters in this messy movie. ★½

Quo Vadis, Aida? (translated Where are you going, Aida?) may be the first Bosnian film I’ve seen, which is cool by itself, but the film is outstanding too. Based on the events of the Srebrenica massacre, an event of which I was sadly unaware, it follows a teacher, Aida, who has been forced into the role of interpreter between her Bosnian people, the invading Serb army, and the UN peacekeepers who are supposed to be keeping the Serbs in check (and failing miserably). Aida has been a translator for the UN during the Bosnian war when the Army of Republic Srpska nears her hometown of Srebrenica, and she gets her husband and two children to come to the UN camp for safety. It’s a hopeless situation, because the invading army ignores all of the protests and threats from the powerless UN, and Aida knows it. When the army comes to the gates of the UN camp and starts strong arming its way around, Aida does all that she can to try to save her family. Though the Bosnian War happened when I was a teenager, I know very little about the conflict, and this is an eye-opening film showing the human toll the war took on everyone involved. Just like so many civil wars, it pitted neighbor against neighbor; there were moments where Aida had friendly conversations with their invaders, people who were former students of hers, knowing that if her son wandered outside the gate, those soldiers would be commanded to shoot him. Fantastic film full of drama, intensity, and crushing loss. ★★★★½

Before going in, I made a mental note to give up on Hotel Coppelia if it was bad. I guess it was just good enough for me to stick around to the end, but just barely. It takes place in the mid 60s in the Dominican Republic. Longtime dictator Rafael Trujillo was recently assassinated and there is a power struggle erupting in the country, bordering on a civil war. The duly elected president has been cast aside by a military coup. Amongst this turmoil, the viewer follows a brothel in a run-down former hotel. Judith is the boss and she only cares for the building and her pocketbook; she is strict with her girls and looks out for them only so far as it keeps money flowing in. When fighting on the streets draws near, Judith at first welcomes the deposed president’s rebel fighters, and when they are overcome, she allows in the American soldiers too. Americans are there fighting FOR the military in power, because the US leaders fear communism taking control if the people win back the government. Judith doesn’t care about any of this, just that she and her business survive till the end. Not a very likable person. There’s only 1 recognizable face in this film (Nick Searcy, who plays the US commander) and only 2 decent performances in the whole picture (and neither is Searcy). Nashla Bogaert plays one of the prostitutes struggling to do what’s right, and Jazz Vilá gives a heartfelt performance as a homosexual/transvestite sex worker at the “hotel”. The rest of the cast is full of hams and over-acting, and the plot does nothing to draw the viewer in to the predicament of either the country or the workers in the brothel. ★½

Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (yep, that’s a long title) is a very good film, following a woman named Márta who’s recently returned to her home country of Hungary. She was on a path to success in America as a very well regarded brain surgeon, but gave it all up to pursue a man. A month ago, at a medical conference, she met János, and he said he’d meet her on a bridge in Budapest on a specific date. On that day, János isn’t to be found, and when Márta tracks him down, he says he doesn’t recognize her. Márta gets a job at the local hospital, where of course János works. At first the other doctors in neurology don’t think much of Márta, but she earns their respect with her brilliance in diagnosing patients. Meanwhile, she’s been stalking János, and also seeing a therapist; she’s wondering if she made the whole thing up in her head. The ending comes out of left field just a bit, but the journey there is a whole lot of fun. There’s a heaping of psychological suspense, some quiet thrills, and lots of guesswork and mystery. Is Márta crazy? Is János who he says he is? And lets not forget the young med student, Alex, who become smitten with Márta. I’d like to rate this film higher, but the nature of the mystery really only lends itself to a single viewing, so I’m going to knock it just a bit, but I definitely recommend checking it out if you like foreign films. ★★★½

News of the World is a good old western, a genre that you don’t often see with leading man Tom Hanks. He plays Jefferson Kidd, a grizzled former military captain (from the recently ended Civil War) who makes a living now going from town to town in southern Texas, reading the local and federal news. In one such trek, he comes across an overturned wagon with a man who’s been killed, and a frightened 10-year old girl hiding. The girl doesn’t speak any English, only the local Native American language of Kiowa. Kidd goes through the dead man’s belongings and finds a letter certifying that the girl was found among a Kiowa village that had been razed by the Union Army. She’s of German descent, but her family was killed by natives when she was 4, and she was raised by them, and the man was taking her to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to get her reunited with surviving family. Kidd gets her to the checkpoint, but the head of the Bureau there is going to be gone for three months, and with surly types around that’d love to get their hands on a little girl, Kidd takes it upon himself to make the dangerous trip to the girl’s family. They must go through lands of outlaws, Confederates who refuse to believe the war is over, and a daunting landscape of desert and dust storms. It’s a very good, tense film, with some brevity to keep it from feeling too dark (the communication barrier being one example). Hanks is great as you’d expect, but Helena Zengel steals the show as the girl. The desolate and open lands of southern Texas is the other big star, the films exudes the feel of the land in 1870. Very entertaining and well put-together picture. ★★★½

• TV series currently watching: The Boys (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

About a year ago, I watched a few films from Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, and enjoyed them. Today I’m biting into his Dekalog, a 1988 TV series, which is sort of a modern take on the Biblical Ten Commandments. 10 episodes, each an hour in length, tackling a new philosophical approach to each commandment. Each episode stands alone. The only shared aspect is the setting, as they all take place in the same apartment/housing complex.

Going in order, the first episode deals with the first commandment. In it, a man is teaching his son to have faith only in facts and science. Everything is measurable and definable, and the boy, who is very bright, enjoys solving equations on one of the family computers. When the boy has questions about what happens after death, the dad is very matter-of-fact, saying there is nothing after death, but the boy gets very different answers from his aunt, a devout Catholic. In the end, we learn that science can’t always predict everything. The second episode focuses on the power of human words and their affect on people. A woman begs a doctor for his opinion on if her ailing husband will live or die. She’s become pregnant by another man, and at her age, she has a decision to make: keep it and alienate her husband, or abort, possibly her last chance to have a child. If she loved one man more than the other, the decision would be easier, but she admits she loves them equally. The doctor however refuses to say; he’s seen miracles too often to make a decision.

Instead of the Sabbath, the third episode focuses on the importance of a single day, Christmas Eve. Janusz is a taxi driver returning home on Christmas Eve, first dressed up as Santa for his kids, and then in a private toast with his wife and mother-in-law. At midnight mass, he spots Ewa, his former mistress who broke up with him 3 years ago when they were caught red handed by her husband Edward. Ewa approaches Janusz for help, saying her husband never returned home that day. Janusz makes up a lame excuse to his wife and heads out with Ewa to try to find Edward, and they spend the entire night until morning in doing so, but Janusz starts to suspect more is at play. The fourth episode deals with the relationship between a father and his daughter. Anka is a college student living with her single father Michal, and he is going out of town for a few days for work. While he’s away, she finds a sealed envelope in his desk with directions not to open until his death. Morbidly curious, she opens it, and finds inside a letter from her mother, who died just after giving birth to her. Anka learns the family secret: that Michal is not her biological father, but that he would raise her as such. Michal is hurt that she learned this while he is still alive, but Anka flips it on him, saying that she has always been remotely attracted to him but kept her feelings buried, knowing they were wrong since he was her father. He admits much the same. But the real truth isn’t revealed until the very end (or is it?).

Part of Kieślowski’s deal to make this series was to make longer cuts of 2 of the episodes, and turn them into feature films for theater release. The first of these was the fifth episode, and after a little research, I heard the consensus is that the film is basically just a longer version. So instead of the 1 hour episode, I watched the film, A Short Film About Killing (for the fifth commandment). Three main characters here: a jerk taxi driver named Waldemar who creeps on young woman, an idealist young lawyer fresh off his bar exam named Piotr, and a sadist named Jacek. Jacek derives pleasure from pushing rocks onto cars from overpasses, pushing guys into urinals in public bathrooms, and shooing away pigeons when an old lady is trying to feed them. But he has more sinister plans: carrying around rope and a metal rod in his backpack, he sets his sights on a murder. Waldemar is the unlucky guy when he picks Jacek up, and the gruesome murder does ensue. However, Jacek seems to not enjoy it as much as he thought he would, and in the next scene, taking place a year later when he has been caught, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, he appears truly contrite. His lawyer was Piotr, who anguishes over not being able to save Jacek from his fate. You would think that the whole “thou shalt not kill” would focus on Jacek’s crime, but instead, the film comes off as an inditement against the death penalty. Whether you believe that Jacek should be punished for his brutal crime this way or not, the film does argue that there was a human being worthy of redemption inside the killer that was Jacek’s body. Great, suspenseful film, with a message that is still timely.

I’ll return to the second film later, because I hear it is actually much different than its counterpart in the Dekalog series, so for now, I’m going back to episode 6. Instead of focusing on adultery, the director chooses to go the heart of the matter: love. Tomek is a 19-year-old living with his friend’s mother while the friend is away. He’s a bright student, but is obsessed with a mid-to-late 30’s woman who lives in the apartment across the way from his. Using a telescope, he spies on her every night, calls her to hear her voice (never answering her “hello”), and finds ways to get her to come to his place of work, the post office. He even gets a second job as a milk deliveryman in order to visit her apartment regularly. She is unaware of the spying until he is forced to admit it during one of the ploys to get her to his job. She is rightfully angry at first, but it isn’t long until his innocence turns her head. She’s had a jaded outlook on love and sex for years, and is now drawn to Tomek’s innocent love.

(By the way, I did go back and watch the longer version, A Short Film About Love, later. It is definitely a much different film than the episode. It paints Tomek more as a calculated figure, portraying his rituals in voyeurism leading up the events in the shorter TV version. There’s an expanded beginning, more time devoted to the lady Tomek lives with and her love and caring for him, and the end is a much different, happier ending.)

Episode 7 gives a twist on “thou shalt not steal.” In this one, Majka kidnaps her sister Ania, only to reveal that Ania isn’t her sister; it is her daughter. Impregnated at 16 by a teacher at school (where her mother was the headmistress), Majka agreed to let her mother raise the girl as her own. But it didn’t turn out as Majka wished, as she grew jealous in not being able to raise Ania the way she wished. Now in her early 20s, she has plans to take Ania to Canada and start a new life. Lots of things were stolen here, Majka’s chance to be a mother not the least of them. The eighth episode is all about truth. Elżbieta is a younger woman visiting Poland from the USA. She’s friends with Zofia, an older woman who teaches ethics at the university. Zofia and Elżbieta have been professional friends for awhile, but share a connection of which Zofia is unaware. Elżbieta sits in on one of Zofia’s lectures, where students propose ethics questions for discussion. One student submits the problem from Dekalog 2. Elżbieta submits her own. She says that during World War II, a young Jewish girl was brought to a Catholic family for hiding, but that he family, a husband and wife, had changed their minds and turned the child away at the door. As it turns out, Zofia was the wife, and Elżbieta was the girl. Elżbieta has known this for some time, but never told Zofia when they’d met in the past.

Episode 9 deals with faithfulness in marriage. Roman has just received a diagnosis of impotence from his doctor, that he will no longer be able to maintain an erection. He goes home to his younger, beautiful wife, Hanka, and tells her that she should be satisfied, and has his permission to end their marriage and find a lover. She assures him that sex is not that important, that she loves him and will not stray. However, Roman begins to suspect that she already has a young lover on the side, and his jealousy gets the better of him. The final episode focuses on greed. Two adult brothers come together for their estranged father’s funeral. After his burial, they go to his flat and find that he had a multi-million dollar stamp collection. Rather than bringing them together, this event opens up schisms of paranoia between them.

I really enjoyed this series. For one, it is extremely even, meaning, I don’t think there were any “bad” episodes. I have my favorites (4, 5, and 7), but I think if you asked 10 viewers, you’ll get different answers based on how each episode speaks to you. There’s the overall theme of the episode, but also a lot of subtle things going on that you can spend time thinking about later on. Overall, I found them to be only lightly based on the Ten Commandments, and instead, more of a philosophical approach to the underlying meanings of those commandments (adultery boiling down to loving your spouse, coveting goods more to being content with what you have). Though not overtly religious, there is a cool moment in nearly every episode involving a non-speaking character, the only character who runs throughout the series, who looks on, often at an important junction for the main character of that episode. Is it an angel? A conscience? The characters definitely have different reactions to him, depending on their motives. Great stuff. ★★★★

I’m a sucker for the Pinocchio story, and was excited to see the latest Italian version from director Matteo Garrone (there’s yet another coming soon from Netflix, a stop motion musical from director Guillermo del Toro). This version is a live action film, with youngster Federico Ielapi in the title role, and Roberto Benigni as Gepetto. There’s nothing I can say about the plot that you don’t know, so I’ll just give my thoughts. I really loved this film; it has the look and feel of a magical fable. It is much darker than the classic Disney film; it was made as an adaptation of the original 1883 Italian book, and not a remake of the Disney picture. As such, there are parts that are quite unsettling, and this is not a film for little kids (it has a PG-13 rating for “disturbing images”). But while there are some scary moments, it still made me feel like a kid again, and I was enchanted throughout. Well acted, and beautiful shot in Tuscany, it is a true magical film. On a side note, I watched it in the original Italian, though the director also had the film dubbed in English and I hear that version is done well too, for those that don’t want to read subtitles. ★★★★

Benigni’s part in the above film got me to thinking about his other work, so I hunted down the movie that was his biggest success, 1997’s Life is Beautiful, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. Before now, my only experience with him was a couple of Jim Jarmusch’s films (which I liked) and Federico Fellini’s final movie (which I didn’t). Life is Beautiful is one of those films that shouldn’t be good, yet it is. It tackles an uncomfortable subject with humor and a unique perspective. In 1930s Italy, Guido is a Jewish man who lives life to the fullest. The first half of the film or so involves him ignoring the political changes of the country while pursuing a woman who fate keeps pushing him into. Honestly this first half was a bit of a bore for me, as Benigni’s style of humor is on the edge of whimsical, but bordering on annoying. In the second half, picking up 4 or so years later, where Guido and Dora are married with young son, Giosuè, we get to the meat of the film. Guido and Giosuè are picked up and loaded on a train for a camp, and Dora begs to be put on a train too, so as to not be separated from them. Guido has shielded his son from the evils going on in the world, and so Giosuè has no idea what’s going on. Guido keeps the charade going, telling his son that the train it taking them on a grand adventure, and when they arrive, explaining it all as a big game; if they follow the rules, they’ll win. It’s a wonderful film about a man trying to save some innocence in his son by any means necessary. Watching it, I didn’t know if I should laugh at Guido’s games, or cry at the terribleness of it all. The mix of these emotions is what makes it so great. ★★★★½

Days of the Bagnold Summer is a dull English “comedy” about a teenager stuck at home with his single mom for the summer. Daniel was supposed to go spend the summer with his dad in Florida, but his often-absent father was busy having a new baby with his new wife, so he cancelled on him. Daniel and his mom Sue spend the summer butting heads. She nags him to get a job, but Daniel, a Metallica lover through and through, has dreams of joining a metal band (he doesn’t play an instrument, but he can be a “front man”). Meanwhile, Sue might have a new boyfriend, one of Daniel’s former teachers, which creeps Daniel out to no end. Sound funny? It’s not. This is about as dull a movie as I’ve seen in awhile, as boring as Daniel looks throughout the picture. It elicited a couple half-chuckles from me here and there, but that is it. Halfway through, I was ready to claw my eyes out, out of sheer apathy for either of these dull people. Do families really live like this? ★

Identifying Features is a very slow burning Mexican drama tackling the current immigration environment. There are a lot of films out there following people crossing the border and their struggles, but this one takes a new perspective: what about the family left behind? In the beginning of the film, Magdalena bids her son farewell as he and a friend head north from Mexico for opportunities in the USA. Months go by without him calling or checking in, and Magdalena begins to worry. She heads for the border to see if she can find some news, but doesn’t get any closure. She finds out that some buses that head towards the border are waylaid and robbed, and there’s a good chance her son has been killed. Still, no concrete answers, and Magdalena continues her search. At the same time, the film is following another young man, Miguel, whose been in the states for a little while, but who was just caught and deported. He is returning to Mexico, but the mother he left behind is missing from their home. He and Magdalena cross paths and continue their journey together for a time. The viewer sees Miguel’s and Magdalena’s shared stories from both sides of the coin. This slow drama may not be for everyone, as there’s no real action (outside of 5-10 minutes in the very end), and it is very much a thoughtful, introspective kind of film. The ending is a huge gut punch though, and very much worth building towards. ★★★★

Sometimes the stars align, and I get to watch a bunch of good movies in a row. Except for the one clunker in this grouping, that was the case here, and I’m ending on the highest note yet. Our Friend is an endearing film about the bonds of love and friendship in the most trying of times. Matt (Casey Affleck) and Nicole (Dakota Johnson) are dealing with a terminal diagnosis of cancer in Nicole. Matt hasn’t always been the best dad to their two daughters, having been absent for work for a couple years, and he’s a bit overwhelmed with everything, so family friend Dane (Jason Segel) moves in to help. The movie jumps around regularly, in both present day (2013) as well as the decade or so leading up to it, including moments like when Dane and Matt met, bumpy moments in Matt’s and Nicole’s relationship, etc., always stating how many years or months it was before “the diagnosis,” which is really when everything changed. Dane is a goofy guy who hasn’t seemed to get his life on track, himself suffering from depression, but he is rock steady for this family when they need him, even when others start to drift away, as people do when faced with such a terrible event as the impending death of a friend. I was moved, I laughed, and, of course, I cried. Spectacular movie with all three main actors on their game. Segel has shown his range before, and Affleck already has a bunch of awards under his belt, but I’ve just recently started to change my mind about Johnson. After the 50 Shades films, I wanted to dismiss her as just a pretty face with movie star parents helping her in the industry, but several films in the last couple years (Bad Times at the El Royale, The Peanut Butter Falcon) have made me rethink that. This one is as good as it gets. ★★★★★

Driveways is a one of those nice, quiet movies that easily moves the audience through its subtleness. It follows a single mother and her son, Kathy and Cody, as they arrive to her sister’s house in quiet suburbia. Kathy’s sister has just died with no other family, so Kathy is there to sell the house. They’ve been estranged for many years, and to Kathy’s horror, she sees that her sister was a hoarder, and the house is packed. As Kathy and Cody being to clean it up, they get to know a couple of the the neighbors, and in particular, the ornery old man next door, Del. Cody’s always had a hard time making friends, but he makes an unlikely one in the form of Del. It’s a very human story about love and understanding, and interactions between people regardless of background or ideals. Very nice work from Hong Chau, young Lucas Jaye, and especially Brian Dennehy as Del. It was one of the acclaimed actor’s last roles; he died a month before the film’s release. ★★★½

Minor Premise is about a scientist messing with human memory, and using himself as the test subject. Building off his renowned father’s work in the field, Ethan has been mapping memories in the human brain and finding a way to show them on screen like it was recorded with a camera. He makes a breakthrough and is able to map 9 distinct aspects of the human mind, with the 10th being a “default,” carrying all 9 at the same time. By looking at a map of where the activity of each aspect is most prevalent in the brain, Ethan deduces which aspect is his logic or intelligence, and turns that aspect up for 1 hour, to see if he really is smarter for that time. Unfortunately in his loosey-goosey experiment, things do not go as planned. Ethan immediately starts having blackouts, and seems to only be aware of his surroundings for a 6 minute stretch every hour or so. With the help of his research partner and former girlfriend, Ali, they determine that each aspect of Ethan’s mind is getting control of his body for 6 minutes, and then another takes control. These aren’t multiple personalities, as it is still Ethan, just different aspects of his mind, with the other parts of his mind shut off, so they aren’t remembering what each other is doing. The strain is slowly but surely killing Ethan, and so the race is on to get him back to normal, before the more violent aspects of Ethan’s mind really get him into trouble. The film has a fascinating premise (hardy har), but in practice, it wasn’t as good as the idea. Long before the credits rolled, I had almost checked out, and just watched to see how it ended. The actors are rough too, which can sometimes be forgiven for a low budget film. It was nice to see Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Riggs from Twin Peaks!), but let’s face it, he’s not winning any awards either. ★★

I’ve seen most of Ang Lee’s films (so many good ones! But The Ice Storm is probably my favorite), but I’ve somehow always missed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was finally time to cross that off the list. The film centers around a handful of main characters in 19th century China. Li Mu Bai is a renowned swordsman looking to finally lay down his mythical sword Green Destiny, and retire. He’s bested every foe put in front of him except for “the one that got away:” the Jade Fox, an assassin who killed his master many years ago. Mu Bai’s heart belongs to Yu Shu Lien, but through a twist of fate, they never pursued a relationship. In this setting, the Jade Fox returns, with a new young pupil. This mystery girl is revealed pretty early in the film, and there’s a second love story involving her and a desert bandit. If it sounds a bit convoluted, it is, but the story isn’t what people talk about most when this film comes up; that praise is saved for the action sequences. The hand-to-hand battle scenes are spectacular even 20 years after the film was released, and from what I’ve read, very little CGI was used, mostly just to remove the suspension wires that allowed the fighters to fly through the air. They’re good enough that I found myself wanting to pause the movie and rewind just to re-watch them! It’s a high-octane action film with (just) enough heart to keep you intrigued when there’s no fighting going on. ★★★★

Character development? Nope. Deep, involved plot? Who needs it?! We get mindless action in Godzilla vs Kong. I didn’t expect outstanding cinema, but I enjoyed it for the same reason I enjoy the Fast and the Furious films: they know their audience, and they deliver the thrills. In this sequel to the newer Godzilla and Kong films, our two big titans meet up to go toe to toe, wrecking any planes, boats, or skyscrapers in their way. There’s a half-assed story about a big bad tech company trying to harness power to defeat these titans at their own game, but let’s be honest, if you are watching this movie, you aren’t quibbling over a little thing like plot holes. What’s weird about this movie is, it has a really strong cast, but they actually perform “down” to their roles, rather than lift them up. There’s more eye-roll worthy moments from the dialogue alone than I recall in any movie I’ve seen lately. But damn, I was entertained. ★★★½

I’ve been hearing about Promising Young Woman, and particularly Carey Mulligan in the lead, since it came out, and I’m just now finally getting a chance to see it. It’s a great film, about a woman whose life hasn’t turned out as she expected. 30-year-old Cassie once had a promising career path, but dropped out of med school years ago, and has been living with her parents while working in a coffee shop. For kicks, she dresses up sexy and goes to bars to get picked up, but those hookups never go the way the men want. She fakes being drunk until a man takes her to his place, and just when he starts to make his movie, she sobers up quickly, all in order to frighten the man into maybe not taking advantage of another girl in the future. All of this is due to the event that set her life off course in med school. At the time, her best friend Nina was raped by a guy at a party. With Nina’s reputation for being a bit loose, the guy claimed the sex was consensual, and everyone believed him, from the school to the authorities. Cassie is now getting even in the only way she knows how, that is, until she hears that the guy that raped her friend has moved back to the area. Cassie now has a much bigger goal than just scaring guys at bars. It is a fantastic film, and a stark lesson in the “me too” movement. There’s a lot of dialogue in the film that definitely makes you think, and Mulligan’s performance is indeed off the chain. The ending was a little too tidy for my tastes; for a messy film about a messy subject, the conclusion tied things up in too pretty of a bow, but still, this is a strong film with an important message. ★★★★½

I’m continuing to work through some of James Ivory’s films, and next up is Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures, a lesser-known work he and producer Ismail Merchant made for television. In the film, a group of art lovers and collectors descend on an Indian palace in hopes to procure a set of famous miniature paintings. These works of art have been stored away and haven’t been seen in a generation or more, but their reputation has brought a few worldly travelers. Lady Gee curates at a London museum and doesn’t think the environment in India is good for the art. Clark is an American millionaire and he wants the paintings for his own private collection. Lady Gee is a hoot, sniping condescending quips without realizing it, and sharing with the world that the current Maharaja and his sister were nicknamed Georgie and Bonnie by their Scottish governess when they were kids, which was the last time Lady Gee had visited. Bonnie seems to want to sell the paintings and use the cash to escape her corner of the world; the modern woman, who drinks and smokes, wants to free herself. The Maharaja himself doesn’t seem to care what happens to the paintings he inherited. He only has eyes for Lady Gee’s woman traveling companion, but does he have something else going on behind everyone’s backs? With a lot of humor and enough intrigue to keep you engaged, I really enjoyed this one. It’s sad more people have seen it; while I don’t think it is earth shattering or anything, it is a quaint story and beautifully shown with the art and music of India throughout. ★★★½

The Europeans is an adaptation of a Henry James novel. Though I’ve never read this book, I have read 3 other James novels, and knew what to expect. I’m glad I did, because otherwise I might have had a very different opinion of this movie. The film takes place outside Boston, where a well-to-do family, the Wentworths, are visited by some hitherto unknown cousins from Europe, brother and sister Felix and Eugenia. Eugenia is fleeing a failing marriage, and the two seem to have come simply because they have nowhere else to go; they are broke and living off their name alone. The Wentworths however are doing very well, though their austere lifestyle doesn’t give that impression. The oldest daughter in the family, Gertrude, is wanting to get out and see the world, and she is instantly drawn to Felix and his European ideas, though she has been courted by local minister Mr Brand to this point. Eugenia wants a good match too, and bats her eyes at two local suitors: Gertrude’s younger brother Clifford, and Wentworth cousin (from the other side of the family) Robert Acton. The intrigue in the movie is all from the relationships and interactions between these characters and more. It’s a delightful film. If I had not read any James before, I may have been bored, but being prepared for the deliberateness and subtle style, I was enthralled from the beginning. And the period costumes and sets are spot on and beautiful all on their own. It’s a fun film, must-see stuff for people who love old-school period dramas. ★★★★

Talk about turning on a dime. Jane Austen in Manhattan is just awful, with absolutely no redeeming qualities that I could find. The film centers around the auction of a recently found “new” play written by a young Jane Austen (an event based on a true story). The play is purchased by an egotistical theater director. He wants to stage the play in modern avant-garde style, with his cult-like followers (who are abysmal actors). A rival group wants to put on a production in keeping with Austen’s original intent. But the actual plot of these 2 groups going at it against each other is only the backdrop; there’s a ton of side plots and other interactions going on between the multitude of characters, most of which lead nowhere and do nothing but fill up time. Everyone from the directors on down come off as pretentious douchebags. It’s a bizarre, silly movie. You can maybe try 30 minutes of it if you like, but if you expect it to go anywhere after that, don’t hold your breath. ★

Quartet is an English film about a couple living in Paris in 1927. Stephan is a shady art dealer, and his wife Marya adores him. Among the English aristocrats living in Paris, Marya is an enigma; people whisper about her background because she has none. Marya grew up poor but has a refined air that keeps her mysterious. Near the beginning of the film, Stephan is arrested for trading in stolen goods and sent to prison for a year. With no money to support herself, Marya is taken in with the Heidler’s. HJ Heidler and his wife Lois have a spare bedroom in their apartment with an open agreement between them: HJ can let his lady friends stay there, which Lois allows because she doesn’t want HJ to leave her. HJ seduces Marya and she begins an affair with him, at first reluctantly because she has nowhere else to go, but later, whether because of desperation or loneliness, she really starts to crave him. Unfortunately around this time, HJ has started to tire of her. He puts her up in a hotel, where Marya grows suicidal. Lois has also grown tired of the arrangement, and begins sniping public digs at Marya when they are out with friends. What will happen when the unknowing Stephan gets out of prison? There are some nice moments, but on the whole, the film is very average and, unfortunately, forgettable. There are especially fine performances from the two leading ladies, Isabelle Adjani and Maggie Smith, though the film does rely a little too heavily on Adjani’s big beautiful blue doe eyes to draw the viewer in. ★★½

Heat and Dust is a somewhat flawed film, but I still found it very charming and exotic. It returns to Merchant Ivory’s roots in India, about a woman searching for answers there. In the film, two storylines are told concurrently. In the 1920s, Olivia has fled a hospital in India, and is never seen again; the viewer is made to assume she is dead. In flashbacks, we see her prior arrival to the country, following her dignitary husband, and the time leading up to her disappearance. In present day, Olivia’s sister’s granddaughter, Anne, has come to India to research what happened to her great-aunt. In the past, Olivia is fascinated with the country and its people, and in the present, Anne is as well, and the viewer sees a shared trajectory of their lives, all those years apart. Whereas her contemporaries see the locals as uncivilized, Olivia becomes infatuated with a local prince, called the Nawab. Rumors persist that he is funding Indian bandits who’ve been raiding English families, but her in naivety, Olivia brushes aside the rumors and begins an affair with the Nawab. In present day, Anne too begins a love tryst with an Indian man. The answers of what became of Olivia do come in the final moments of the film, to great affect. I wanted to give this movie 4+ stars, and there are plenty of moments that thrilled me, but some plot elements didn’t pan out, or went nowhere at all, so I felt they could have trimmed some fat and made this a much more remarkable picture. Still I really enjoyed it. ★★★½