Oxygen is a French film about a woman buried alive. Yes, this has been done before, but this one has a twist. In the not-too-distant future, the woman wakes up in a cryogenic chamber, with no memory of how she got there or, even, who she is. Some disturbance or accident outside brought her out of hibernation, and now awake, when she isn’t supposed to be, she is using up the oxygen in her small, airtight chamber. Banging on the walls of the chamber and yelling for help yields no results. She begins to try to piece together her existence and what is going on, with the help of the A.I. running her unit, an A.I. named MILO. He has pretty advanced perimeters and while he is programed to keep her safe, he can also be a hindrance to helping her get answers. Thankfully, MILO can help her contact people outside, and she begins to put the puzzle of her experience together. The twist comes before the halfway point, but I’m leery to give it away here, because it does make the film so much more enjoyable when you get there. Mélanie Laurent is great in this nearly one-actor film, and while there are some eye-roll moments (why does she need to inflict pain on herself to retrieve memories?), I enjoyed the ride, and the suspense is real. ★★★½

Out of China, The Soul deals with the complexities of what defines a human soul, wrapped up in a murder mystery/quasi horror film. Late one night, police are called to the opulent house of businessman Wang Shi-Cong. He’s been dying of cancer for awhile, but it seems his estranged son, Wang Tian-You, has sped up the process, and murdered him. The only witness is Shi-Cong’s younger second wife, Li Yan, who is now expected to receive all of the money and control of the corporation. As police inspector Liang Wen-Chao, himself dying of cancer, starts digging into the case, it seems more questions come than answers. Shi-Cong’s first wife cursed him, shortly before committing suicide. His wife Li Yan may have been having an affair with his long-time friend and business partner, Wan Yu-Fan. The supposed murderer, Tian-You, was into some weird occult. And to make things weirder, Shi-Cong’s company was researching ways to heal the human brain, including from cancers and tumors, through a process of reinserting its own RNA, which healed damaged areas. The strange question came from inspector Wen-Chao: what happens if you insert the RNA from someone into somebody else? This question is ultimately what leads to so many twists in the film. It would be easy for a film like this to fall off the rails, and while it does take some paying attention to get through all the bends and double-backs in the plot, it doesn’t lose me entirely. It did feel taxing after awhile though, trying to keep up with everything, and I don’t think it got as deep as it wanted to. ★★★

The Disciple, from India, follows a man named Sharad who longs to be a skilled vocalist in the Indian classical music style, but it seems he just doesn’t have the talent for it, no matter how hard he tries. In the beginning of the movie, he’s in his twenties, and is studying under Guruji, a celebrated but poor vocalist who takes his profession very seriously. Guruji tries to guide Sharad as much as he can, but Sharad can’t get any further. Sharad has also assimilated his teacher’s view that singers should devote their lives to classical music, and he looks down on others who want to sing modern music, or people who go into commercial music for a paycheck. Sharad even puts off his mom and grandma when they lecture him about getting married and “a real job” so he can start a family. Sharad only has one goal: to reach enlightenment in vocalization and to impress others with his skill. As the movie progresses, we see some flashbacks to when he was younger and just getting into music, and then later, scenes from 10 years into the future, when he is approaching 40, and still following an old Gururji around like a little lap dog, and still unable to find professional success (and still single). I work in a field where I’m around musicians every day, including some very successful ones who I get to meet and talk to, and my experiences gave me a false feeling about the movie. Though admittedly I work in western music and can’t speak to the Indian tradition, but in my experience, the vast majority of musicians aren’t going to look down on others for wanting to get paid for their work. Even if a specific musician loves one style, he’ll take any gig as long as he can get paid to do what he loves. But other than that little quibble, I really liked this movie. It’s a fantastic look at how dreams can lead to obsession and self delusion. In the latter half of the movie, when Sharad is older, he looks beaten down by life, but is still trying to reach that unattainable goal. ★★★★

The Columnist is a dark comedy with a few thrills thrown in. Out of the Netherlands, it follows a woman named Femke, who writes for a newspaper. Generally popular among woman readers, she has a lot of detractors, mostly right wing obnoxious types, who target her online. Despite advice from her boss and others in the biz, Femke reads the trolls’ comments on facebook and twitter, and it really starts to bother her. One day, while suffering from writer’s block in her (supposed-to-be) quiet townhome, she hears her neighbor banging around outside on a project. Having recently found that he has been calling her names online too, she pokes her head out the window to see that he is on the edge of the roof of their shared building. Casually edging out the window, Femke gives him a little nudge, and he falls and breaks his neck on the ground below. Heading back in the window and out the door, Femke stands over the body for a minute, before cutting off his finger as a souvenir. It is the first of many. Femke begins hunting her online harassers, finding out where they live and killing them. It’s a satirically funny film about people hiding behind their computers, and haven’t we all wished we could have it out with some online troll that gets under your skin? I’m in between the 3 and 3 1/2 star range on this one; not sure I’d watch it again, but it is very, very good, and has some unexpected suspense. ★★★

Finally, from Spain, comes The August Virgin. In the dog days of summer in Madrid, when many locals flee the city during its hottest days for cooler climes, Eva has rented an apartment to stay for the month of August. At 32, we soon learn that she isn’t just visiting, in fact, she lives in Madrid herself, but is looking to change something in her life, and thought a new environment would be the start of it. In the beginning of the film, she just wanders around and ends up wherever her feet lead her. She bounces into old friends, including her ex-boyfriend whom she’s obviously not moved on from, and meets new friends to hang out with for the summer. Some things speak to her on a deeply emotional level, like a seemingly depressed man in a similar mindset as her, and a band whose lyrics Eva can relate to. It’s sort of a coming-of-age film for the new generation. These kinds of movies used to be about high schoolers, but this generation is a bit aimless later in life. I mostly enjoyed the film, but I didn’t much care for the ending, as there isn’t much of a resolution or “ah-ha” moment for Eva or the viewer. I’m not sure she really learned anything at all, and is only in a slightly better situation than where she started. But the film is very well done. A touch (or more than a touch…) on the slow side, so not for everyone. ★★★

• TV series currently watching: none
• Book currently reading: Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Army of the Dead is characterized as a “zombie heist” film, and if that isn’t a mashup of genres, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately, it isn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds. A deadly zombie virus is let out of a government facility and it spreads through nearby Las Vegas like wildfire. Thankfully for the rest of society, the military is able to build a wall around the city, encasing it and saving the rest of mankind. However, there’s still a lot of cash buried in those casino vaults, and a casino owner hires a team to get him back his millions, in return for a hefty payday. What they find is more than they bargained for: while there are a fair share of mindless, slow shuffling zombies of the Walking Dead variety, there are also some highly intelligent, quick moving and quick thinking “leaders” of the zombie hoard, who are not as easy to kill or avoid. This film just gets sillier as it progresses, well past the point of enjoyment. Written and directed by Zack Snyder, the violence and gore is reminiscent of his earlier pics, a la 300 and Dawn of the Dead, but lacks the constant excitement of those pictures. Just too goofy to be good, even if you love the genre. ★½

Stowaway follows a trio of Mars-bound astronauts and scientists, on a 2 year mission to perform experiments there in prep to send humans to the planet. Just a day into the trip though, a problem without an easy solution comes down: the eponymous stowaway. An engineer working on the module before it left Earth, he got himself stuck behind a panel and inadvertently made himself a member of the crew. Unfortunately his presence threatens the lives of the others: a device that circulates and cleans the air they breathe has been damaged, and with an extra unaccounted person in tow, there won’t be enough oxygen for the team to make it to Mars. The quartet needs to do some quick thinking in order to save them all and continue the mission. Just a four-person cast, with 3 heavy hitters (Tony Collette, Daniel Dae Kim, and Anna Kendrick) with one relatively unknown (stowaway Shamier Anderson), but a strong cast can’t save this mostly boring film. A good space flick should be either thought provoking or a thriller (or hopefully both!), but this one is neither. Some tense moments for sure, but it is way too predictable to be a very good film. ★★½

Idris Elba is one of those really talented actors who too often makes questionable decisions in regards to projects. Concrete Cowboy is the latest. Cole (Stranger Things’ Caleb McLaughlin) has just been kicked out of his latest school, and his frustrated mom has taken him from Detroit back to his father in Philadelphia. His father Harp (Elba) is involved in the storied horse riding culture of Philly, of which I was completely unaware. Cole runs into Smush, a friend from 10 years ago before his mother took him away, and Smush is now involved in drugs and other shady deals. Harp warns Cole to stay away from such behavior, and encourages him to get involved in the stables, taking care of the horses. It’s a coming-of-age film with a twist, and shines a light on an important cultural group that many probably have never heard of. In a Nomadland-like way, many of the actors in the film are true urban cowboys and horse riders living in the Philadelphia tradition. It’s a fascinating group of people, but the movie is rather ho-hum. Nothing stands out, and the dialogue for me rang false, sort of like hearing kids use curse words because they heard other people say them, but don’t know how to use them properly; Smush and Cole cuss like they are reading lines off a book. Pretty forgettable film. ★★

I hunted down Pixie, despite its middling reviews, due to its star, Olivia Cooke. I’ve loved just about everything she’s been in in her young career, but even the so-so reviews of this film were generous. Honestly, I thought this movie was pretty terrible. The set up is a couple of young men rob a quartet of priests, priests who are a front for a drug smuggling operation. The robbery goes bad when the priests end up dead, and then while driving home, one of the robbers finds out his partner has been dating his ex-girlfriend, and shoots and kills him. He then heads over to said girl to confront her, and is himself struck and killed. The girl and her two new rescuers decide to make some money on the newfound drugs, but the rest of the priests, and other underworld kingpins, are on their tail. It’s all supposed to be funny in a quirky kind of way, but I never laughed once. After the latest stupid misstep in the film (the trio frolicking on the beach despite the really bad guys with guns being too close for comfort), I finally gave up on this movie with less than 30 minutes to go. I just didn’t care enough to see how it ended. ½

Chaos Walking also got average reviews, but this one was more my style. It takes place a couple hundred years in the future on a new planet that has been colonized by Earth. The “first wave” arrived a generation ago, and the planned second wave never came, so the settlers have been on their own. There’s something unique about this world though: the private thoughts of men (women are unaffected) are broadcast for everyone nearby to hear, as clear as if spoken aloud. Called your “noise,” it is doesn’t allow for any secrets, unless you are strong-willed enough to control your thoughts. But let’s face it, if you try to tell yourself not to think about something, that’s the first thing you do. In the little village of Prentisstown, all of the women are gone, supposedly killed by the native people to the planet over 10 years ago. Into this setting we follow Todd (Tom Holland). The youngest in the village and most likely its last survivor since, without women, no more will be born, he always has a hard time controlling his noise. The village’s quiet life is thrown into upheaval when an exploratory ship from the long-promised second wave crashes on the planet. There is only one survivor: a woman named Violet (Daisy Ridley). The mayor of the town, Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), fears her, because he can’t hear her thoughts, and wants her silenced. Todd vows to protect her, and when Todd’s father tells him that Prentisstown is not the only village on the planet, the duo set out for a new place, and hopefully to find a way for Violet to contact her mother ship for help. Yes, the movie has more than a few potholes. Part of that is due to its huge setting; there’s so much information here that it is impossible to explore it all in 2 hours, but the action of the film is engaging and the acting by the top trio of characters is on point. It’s also unexpectedly funny in all of the right moments. I wouldn’t mind a sequel (or even a prequel) to see more of this unique and awesome planet. ★★★½

• TV series currently watching: Defending Jacob (series)
• Book currently reading: Song of Susannah by Stephen King

In the last couple years, I’ve become an increasingly big fan of Pedro Almodóvar’s films. I’ve seen several of his earlier films, but needed to catch up on his newer stuff, so that’s where I went today, starting with 2004’s Bad Education. Taking place in 1980, it follows a film director, Enrique, who is visited by a former schoolmate, Ignacio. Ignacio and Enrique once shared a sexual moment at their Catholic boarding school as young teens, and Ignacio is now looking for a job as an actor. He has brought a short story called “The Visit,” which tells the story of their time at school, including young Ignacio’s time being assaulted by the priest. In the story, Ignacio’s character grows up to be a transgender drag queen. Enrique is enraptured with the story and wants to turn it into a film, but doesn’t think Ignacio can play the part of himself, believing his muscular physique isn’t feminine enough for the role. Ignacio is sure he can lose weight and slender down to take the role. As the film plays out, we see the continuing of the story-within-a-story, as well as secrets that come to life about Ignacio, that he has kept from Enrique. It is a fairly gripping story, and has a bit of a surprise ending, but I wasn’t enthralled throughout, like I was on other, upcoming films, like the next one… ★★★

Volver kept my attention throughout, and it helps that it features a magnetic Penélope Cruz in the lead role. Raimunda lives in a tiny apartment in Madrid with her husband Paco and teenage daughter Paula. Raimunda and her sister Sole grew up in a tiny village, a village with a reputation for ill winds from the east and residents with so-so sanity. Case in point: their aunt Paula (for whom Raimunda’s daughter was named). Aunt Paula is growing senile and believes she is visited by her sister Irene, Raiumunda’s and Sole’s deceased mother, who died in a fire 4 years prior. That’s the backstory. At first, the action of the film follows Raimunda’s little circle. Paco has been making disgusting eyes at his daughter Paula, and makes a move on her one evening while Raiumunda is away. Paula kills her father, stabbing him to death, and upon returning home, Raiumunda stuffs the body in a deep freezer at a local restaurant. Around the same time, Aunt Paula dies, and Irene’s ghost makes itself known to Sole. Since Aunt Paula no longer needs her, Irene has moved in with the single Sole, so she won’t be lonely. Meanwhile, little tidbits about Irene’s life, as well as the estrangement between her and Raiumunda, begin to come to life, not to mention how the neighbor (Augustine) was involved. Lots of loops, lots of morbid laughs, and plenty of high blood pressure inducing emotion make this a fun film to watch, and one that I think has a high “rewatchability” factor. ★★★★

Broken Embraces has an interesting premise, but meanders around way too much for any sort of big payoff in the end. It follows a blind screenwriter named Harry Caine, who once was a non-visiually impaired director named Mateo Blanco. Something in his past made him change his name, and the reasoning unfolds over time. Harry is visited by a rich s.o.b. with a story to tell, but the tale he weaves sets off all kinds of alarms in Harry’s head. Turns out the rich man is Ernesto Martel Jr, whose father Harry knew very well. Told in flashback, we see that Ernesto Sr was a wealthy businessman who courted his secretary, Lena, into a love affair. Lena ends up falling for hotshot director Mateo though, and they begin an affair on the side. Nothing is going to go well for anyone in this scenario. What should be a deep engaging mystery falls off the rails well before the big climax. The whole thing felt too disjointed, and several of the characters too contrived. There’s some solid acting in most of the roles, but not enough great moments to bring up the low points. Very average. ★★½

The Skin I Live In has an interesting premise, and is Almodóvar’s version of a horror film. The set up is this: Robert (Antonio Banderas) is a renowned surgeon who is working on new techniques that may advance the medical field significantly. He claims to be testing on mice, but in reality, he’s been holding a woman, Vera (Elena Anaya), captive for years, and she’s been his test subject. The only person in on the kidnapping is the head of housekeeping in the expansive mansion, Marilia, who we later find out is Robert’s mother. Into this crazy scenario comes Zeca, a criminal that is tied up in this family and its history. He comes into the house one day and wrecks the cozy little play Robert has been running, and the intrique only gets better from there. The first 45 minutes of this film were fantastic, and then it took a (seemingly) weird turn. We flash back 6 years prior, to how Robert lost his wife and daughter, both to mental illness. Robert’s answer to this tragedy was to kidnap the man who raped his daughter and chain him up in the basement, Saw style. This little detour into Robert’s first kidnapping had me wondering where all this was going, but the payoff comes, you just have to ride it out. Ended up being a very good, sickly twisted, mental thriller, with a tremendous performance by Anaya as Vera. ★★★½

Julieta is a middle-aged woman whose life, at the beginning of the film, seems nice and calm. However, a chance encounter with a childhood friend of her daughter, Antia, throws her cushy lifestyle into turmoil. Julieta immediately cancels her move to Portugal with her boyfriend, and hastily moves from her current apartment, across town to her old building, where she used to live with her daughter. Told mostly in flashback from here on out, we learn about Antia’s birth through teenage years, and what led to her estrangement from Julieta. It’s now been over a decade since the two have even spoke, and Julieta has become obsessed with seeing her again. Afraid she’ll never get a chance if she moves away, Julieta doesn’t want to leave the one place where Antia might find her again. It’s a wonderfully emotional film, very human and nuanced, about a woman dealing with a lifetime of grief and loss, who has felt betrayed time and again in her life. ★★★★½

• TV series currently watching: M.O.D.O.T. (series)
• Book currently reading: Song of Susannah by Stephen King

Starting off today with the latest Disney soon-to-be-classic, Raya and the Last Dragon. It takes place in a fantasy world once known as Kumandra. 500 years ago, Kumandra was beset by evil entities called the Druun, which turned people to stone. The people turned to their protectors, dragons, who used the last of their power to create a magical orb which vanquished the Druun and brought the stone people back to life. Unfortunately the dragons did not return, and the last living one, Sisu, went into hiding. Rather than stay united, the people fought each other for control of the orb and is supposed mystical powers, and Kumandra was divided. Now in present day, Chief Benja of the Heart tribe wants to unite the people again, but old jealousies rear their ugly faces, and in a struggle, the orb is smashed. Its breaking unleashes the Druun again, and this time, there are no dragons to save mankind. Benja’s daughter, Raya, goes on a quest to find Sisu, and then find enough power to fight back the Druun before all is lost. The movie is getting heaps of praise, and it is deserving of all of it. As you’d expect from Disney animation, it is beautifully crafted, but the wonder of the film doesn’t end at the visual splendor. The story is fun (and funny!), with a diverse cast and a meaningful message for kids and adults both. A rare 5 star rating for me. ★★★★★

The Dark Divide is a film about a man coming to terms with the grief over losing his wife to cancer, with the help of the great outdoors. It’s a theme that’s been done before, and while it is based on a true story, those have been done before too. Still, it’s well presented and enjoyable. Robert is a rather staid man with the highly adventurous career of a lepidopterist (studies butterflies and moths). He’s out for a 30 day adventure in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, despite having only been camping on overnights before (a fact that causes the locals to scoff in disbelief, knowing the dire reputation of Gifford Pinchot). The adventurous side in the man’s relationship was his wife, who is seen in flashbacks to her time before she got sick, and as the film progresses, as she gets worse. It was she that applied for a Guggenheim grant before she died, and now Robert wants to use that money for this trek, both for his career, but also to preserve his wife’s legacy. Some films (like Reece Witherspoon’s Wild) are more serious, whereas this one has a lot of humor in it, but it wasn’t off-putting. What can I say, I’m a sucker for these kinds of movies. ★★★

The Personal History of David Copperfield is a new take on the classic Dickens tale, and with modern cameras and computers, it brings the story to life in dazzling, colorful way. It tells the semi-autobiographical story of Dickens as Copperfield. Born to a lady but without a man in the household, little Davey is shuffled around throughout his life, living with family, servants, boarding schools, and even strangers. He is put upon in life, but never lets it get him down, amusing himself and friends with stories elaborated from his own life, to the point that the line between fantasy and reality is blurred. And that helps in a story like this, with crazy, nearly unbelievable characters and the almost dreamlike way the tale unfolds. The movie is visually gorgeous, just like a good old children’s book, and very funny (like how every person in David’s life makes up a new nickname for him). Putting it all together is an amazing cast including Dev Patel in the lead, Tilda Swinton, Peter Capaldi, Hugh Laurie, Ben Winshaw, Benedict Wong, and others. I really enjoyed this wonderful picture and the spectacular way it unfolded. ★★★½

You got me HBO, you reeled me in. I thought Those Who Wish Me Dead might be a tightly wrapped thriller hiding inside a Hollywood budget, but no, it’s not. Shame on me for not at least checking a review or two and saving myself a couple hours. Owen and his son Connor are on the run from some well trained and well funded assassins because “he knows something,” and the father and son are running towards rural Montana for help from his brother-in-law, Ethan, a sheriff. The assassins beat them there though, and ambush them on a rural highway. They are run off the road, and Owen is killed. Connor is able to escape, and finds refuge with Hannah, a firefighter who’s on lookout for fires in the forest. She’s been demoted there after a failed psych evaluation, after watching a trio of boys die in a fire, boys she was unable to rescue. As the assassins hunt down Ethan and his wife, in hopes of finding Connor and tying up loose ends, Hannah and the boy bond and try to survive. There are more plot holes than there are bullets in this movie, and that’s saying something, as the assassins never seem to run out of ammo. This Hollywood “blockbuster” can’t be saved from a strong cast, including Angelina Jolie and Jon Bernthal, and the bad guy team of Nicholas Hoult and Aiden Gillen. By the final crushing crescendo, and last forced emotional run, I was exhausted, and not in a “mind blown” kind of way. ★½

What a way to right the ship. Supernova is my kind of film: a quiet, introspective, and deeply personal story about a couple in love and facing a tragedy that hopefully I don’t have to experience. Sam and Tucker (Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci) are a gay couple, partners for decades, and Tucker is suffering from early onset dementia. He’s early enough in the illness that he still retains a lot of memory, but he does have moments of confusion, and they both know that darker days are ahead. While Tucker is still cognizant, they go on a road trip visiting places that were special to them over the years, ending at Sam’s family home for a big surprise party. It is there that Sam learns that Tucker is not planning on fading away quietly until he doesn’t remember who Sam, or even himself, is. Firth and Tucci are at their absolute best: two decorated actors in brilliant performances. The connection between the two are felt in the subtle glances, or a lingering touch, or a strain of the eye. It’s a deeply touching film about the pervasiveness of love. ★★★★½

• TV series currently watching: Gotham (season 3)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I’m not usually big on documentaries, though I have seen a couple I liked, but I’ve heard good things about some of the films from Canadian Allan King, who took a cinéma vérité style with his work, and wanted to check some out. Starting with Warrendale. It documented a facility in Toronto that housed emotionally disturbed children, from aged 10 or so up through high school age. These were kids from tough backgrounds, or were emotionally stunted, who would have a history of violently lashing out when under stress. Rather than treat with drugs, the counselors would wrap their arms and legs around the violent child (or teen, as was often the case in the film) and hold them in a vice, straight-jacket like grip, talking soothingly and trying to get the kid to vocalize why they were upset, all in an attempt to get the kids to get in tune with their emotions. Some of their techniques were uncomfortable to watch (bottle feeding the teens like they were babies, a little too touchy feely with the adult men and the younger girls), but it’s hard to argue that they were at least trying something different to help kids who may otherwise be in a harsher institution. King’s technique is not to present any narration or voice-over at all, so he doesn’t criticize the techniques being used, he just lets the camera do the talking, and the emotional peaks and valleys of some of the teenage girls in particular leave a lasting impression. ★★★½

King took his “silent observer” approach to a marriage on the rocks in A Married Couple. This doc follows a couple approaching middle age, with a young son, who fight non-stop, and it isn’t just a lover’s quarrel; they get downright mean in their spats. While they do occasionally have some fun together — going to the beach, being playful in bed — they bicker constantly otherwise. All of us have been around an arguing couple, and the feeling of awkwardness that comes with it. This is 90 minutes of that. As most petty arguments go, they argue about nothing. Neither can admit when they are wrong, so arguments will start on one subject, and go off on a tangent and become about something else entirely, until they are just flinging insults and names at each other. It’s very sad to watch, I kept hoping for the woman to get her shit and just leave him, but that’s not what this film is about. Not sure what it is about, as it wasn’t very entertaining. ★½

King gets back on track with 1973’s Come On Children. It’s sort of like Real World 20 years before MTV did it. King took 10 teens aged 13-19 (5 boys, 5 girls) and put them in a farmhouse for 10 weeks. The film starts with them driving up in a van, and they start partying it up immediately, doing drugs freely. One of the first conversations is about women’s rights and abortion, and I thought the film would be full of topical conversations of the day, but it never developed into that. By the end, it became a more personal film for these kids, and their individual feelings of isolationism, the counterculture movement, and not having a voice at home with their parents. The highlight of the film is a young Alex Lifeson, who is billed with his birth name of Aleksandar Živojinović. Just 17 during the filming of the movie, he was already involved in the band Rush, but had yet to release their first record. Obviously he would go on to a rock-and-roll hall of fame career, but here, he’s just a kid with his whole life in front of him. Really cool time capsule of the life of youths in the early 70s. ★★★

The previous films were from the 60s and early 70s, but by 2003, Allan King was getting up there in years himself, and his last couple films focused on an older population, and themes probably sitting on his own mind. Dying at Grace follows 5 patients in the palliative ward of the Salvation Army Toronto Grace Health Centre. I found it fascinating, watching some highs, but mostly lows, of 5 individuals nearing the end of their lives, and ultimately passing away. The way each goes is as individual as the person. Some don’t want to go, and fight it. Some embrace death as an end to the constant pain. The film shows all aspects of the end of life: medicines, treatments, the emotions of the patients and their loves ones, etc. It also paints a beautiful picture of the health care workers as they tirelessly try to give comfort: physical, emotional, and spiritual. The movie doesn’t make death scary, but just as the last step in life, and hopefully, as a door to what’s next. A sad film, but a very gripping one. ★★★★

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company is in another facility, and this time looking at older people suffering from various kinds and levels of dementia. Though it has a similar feel to the previous film, for whatever reason, I didn’t connect with this one in the same way. I still felt for the people going through this terrible disease, as they were confused, and sometimes combative because they were confused, but it didn’t hit me with the emotional weight that Dying did. I’m sure it’s a great movie, and especially if you’ve had a loved one go through this, it will probably leave you in tears, just not for me. ★½

• TV series currently watching: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

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