The Independents follows a trio of singer/songwriters in their 30’s. All are struggling professionally and in their private lives, and each has considered giving up their love of music to get “real jobs.” Through a random chain of events, they end up together and form a folk rock trio and try to take it on the road, looking for gigs. Things do not go as planned. The movie is loosely based on the group The Sweet Remains, whose members are the actors and it is their music in the picture. And there is a lot of it. Like director John Carney’s films (Once, Begin Again, Sing Street), music dominates this movie, to the point that the plot takes second row. Decent enough music if you are into the folk rock scene, but not enough meat and potatoes for my taste. ★★

Farewell Amor follows a family of immigrants who’ve finally come together after a long time apart. Originally from Angola, Walter fled during the country’s political (and dangerous) upheaval. He came to the USA to make some money, to pave the way for his wife and daughter to follow. Unfortunately 17 years passed before the two of them could join him. The movie begins with Walter finally reconnecting with his family. The film is made up of 3 parts, one from each of the family members. Walter is a good man; while he did find the company of a woman while living alone in the USA all those years, he left her as soon as his wife was able to come. He expects to pick up exactly where they left off, but his wife is changed. Esther has found religion in those intervening years, and is not the same person. Sylvia is a teenager now and barely remembers her dad; he is a stranger to her. Unlike her mom, she is open to American culture and loves to dance, but is restricted by her conservative mother. The film does a great job of showing a story that is probably very common today, and told well. It doesn’t always hit the right notes, but it is a touching story. ★★★½

Paper Lives is a film out of Turkey, following a man named Mehmet, who finds a young homeless boy. Mehmet himself was an orphan, and he runs a recycling business whose workers are made up on men and teens just him, all without parents. It’s a hard job, scrounging the city’s trash daily for items to turn into money, and it is made tougher for Mehmet in particular, as he has failing kidneys, and he’s way down on the donor list. It’s at that dark and dingy warehouse where he finds Ali one night. The young boy was apparently thrown in one of his bins. With bruises all over his arms, legs, and back, it is obvious the boy has been abused. He doesn’t want to return home, nor go to the police. Because of their similar backgrounds, Mehmet takes an instant liking to Ali, and becomes a fatherly figure. It’s a touch movie through most of its length, until the end, where it takes a weird turn. As such, the experience was a bit unsatisfying for me. It’s always a bummer to be let down at the very end. ★★

Long time readers of my blog know that I favor the Marvel films to DC’s, and by a pretty hefty margin. But I was intrigued by Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the newest director’s cut of the disappointing 2017 film. Diehards will know this story, but for those casual movie-goers, here’s how it went down. Zack Snyder directed the first two DC Universe films: Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. Many thought the second film was too dark, so on Justice League, he was given a shorter leash and told to make it more appealing to a younger audience. When some of edits still didn’t do it for the higher-ups at Warner Bros, Joss Whedon (who’s Avengers movies were making money hand over fist) was brought in to make changes. When Snyder had to step away from the film over the sudden death of his daughter by suicide, Whedon finished up, making sweeping changes that changed the entire film. This is what was released in 2017, and it bombed. When I saw it the first time, I thought it was a bit of a mess (though I did enjoy the big climax). Big-time comic fans have been yelling ever since, to see what Snyder’s original vision would have brought. After so much clamoring, Warner finally gave Snyder his chance. They gave him a bag full of cash to shoot some new scenes and finish his “vision.” This time through was a completely different story. I loved this new cut, and I had no problem with the 4 hour runtime. The backstories make sense. The characters are fleshed out. The story isn’t rushed. Yes, it is far darker and gorier; gone is the campiness I thought Whedon’s final film brought. It now has the feeling of a true superhero team-up to prevent the end of the world, a la Avengers, which is what they wanted in the first place. I’m not sure Snyder will ever get a chance to make more DC movies, but I’d love to see what else he can bring if given the chance. ★★★★★

Isabel isn’t a true movie, but it is just a 3 part miniseries (airing on HBO), and with each episode at just an hour, it’s the same length as a long movie. A biopic, it tells the life of Chilean writer Isabel Allende, a name I was familiar with, but didn’t know much about. I went in blind, and was well rewarded. The film begins with Isabel as a young adult and a housewife, with a couple kids at home. She is approached by a friend to become a writer for a start-up women’s magazine which will focus on pertinent modern-day topics. Though Isabel has zero writing experience, she’s creative and a wiz for storytelling, always making up grand narratives for her kids at play. Isabel is an immediate success at work, but that doesn’t protect her when the country falls apart. A military coup happens in Chile in 1973, and in the beginning, Isabel helps smuggle people out of the country. When attention focuses on her though, and she gets threats against her kids if she doesn’t step in line, Isabel is forced to flee Chile for Venezuela, leaving her family behind. In flashbacks to her childhood, we see her feeling abandoned when her father leaves the family for another life.

Episode 2 picks up there: Isabel is alone in a new country, and with the unrest continuing in Chile, she is unable to get in touch with her family to even check in on their well being. When they finally do join her, her marriage to her husband becomes strained. His only work is back in Chile, so he’s away for weeks or months at a time. Isabel falls for another man, and leaves her family to go to Madrid with him, casting aside her family as her father once did. When she is forced to come back for lack of work in Spain, it looks like her relationship with her daughter in particular will never be the same. The episode ends with a burst of inspiration for Isabel in the early 80’s, and she writes her first novel. The final episode takes place mostly a couple years further down the line. Isabel is a successful writer, but her marriage has failed, and the main plot now is the health of her daughter Paula, who is near death. I found the first two episodes better overall, but still, I mostly liked the miniseries. While the show does show some of her faults a bit, it does try to always paint Isabel as a sympathetic figure, and I wasn’t always buying what they were offering. Daniela Ramírez is absolutely fantastic in the lead role; I hope to see her in something else in the future. ★★★½

I’ve seen most of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s big film hits (and his early stuff), but he’s also well known for 2 television miniseries: Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (5 parts, 1972-73) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (14 episodes, released in 1980). Clocking in at 8 hours and a massive 15 hours, respectively, I went in with patience, knowing, from his previous films, that I’d be rewarded.

Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day is basically 5 feature length movies, as each episode runs between 1h30m and 1h45m. In the first episode, we meet our characters. There’s a dinner party going on, with Jochen, his parents, his sister and her family, and Grandma, “Oma.” Jochen runs to get some more champaign and meets Marion; it is love at first sight and he brings her to the party, which Oma loves but everyone else thinks is weird. Jochen is a bright guy who works in a metal-making factory, and in fact, he invents a better way to make the latest order. The episode ends with the strong-willed Oma “bullying” a man to be her boyfriend, and then deciding that they need to get a place together.

Episode two focuses on Oma and her new boyfriend Gregor. They are shopping for a dirt cheap apartment they can afford, and this presents the opportunity for a lot of humor. They also start an illegal kindergarten to give the kids somewhere to go, rather than play in the street. After some fights with the authorities, they do finally get approval on their kindergarten, which gives them a small salary, enough to finally get a place together. The third episode goes back to Jochen, this time looking more at his workplace. His friend Franz wants to become the new foreman, but he doesn’t have the math skills to calculate the parts correctly. Jochen, feeling powerful after the success at resolving the work issue in the first episode, gets his coworkers to put pressure on the foreman who was hired from outside the company, hoping Franz can still get that job. There’s a funny side story involving Oma again, who thinks her son-in-law (Jochen’s father) is too despondent since she moved out and he lost his “arguing partner.” She takes out an ad for a quarrelsome grandmother who can live with her son-in-law, to take her place.

The fourth episode features the start of a new marriage, and the collapse of another. Marion’s long-roaming mother comes home, and while she initially doesn’t like Jochen, he grows on her. Though everyone initially thinks it is a mistake, Jochen and Marion get married. At the same time, Jochen’s sister Monika has decided to divorce her abusive husband Harald. He resists, not because he still cares for her, but because he’s spiteful. The episode ends with a large party to celebrate Jochen’s and Marion’s marriage, where all of their family, friends, and coworkers all come together for the first time in the series. At the party, Aunt Kathe and Oma are able to convince Harald to agree to the divorce. A lot goes on in the final episode. Jochen’s bosses want to move their plant across town, and all the workers fight it. Marian’s coworker and one of Jochen’s coworkers, who met at their wedding party, get serious. Jochen’s best friend falls for Monika, but she seems taken with someone else. Can everything get wrapped up in the final 90 minutes?

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this series. So very funny, endearing, and maybe best of all, the feeling of a human connection is palpable. After so many hours with our characters, I felt like a member of the family. By the end, I was invested in their outcomes, and wanted the best for all of them. Even the ones who weren’t necessarily good people (Monika’s husband Harald) were shown as flawed humans, but not irredeemable. It’s a wonderful miniseries: no “action,” no outlandish plot elements, just real people living their lives, seeking happiness at home and at work. ★★★★

The previous series was released in 1972-73. Fassbinder had had a minor local hit in with The Merchant of Four Seasons, but he was still building a fandom. By the time Berlin Alexanderplatz aired in 1980, he was a star, with a couple internationally acclaimed films under his belt. Starting in 1928, this series follows Franz Biberkopf, a man newly released after serving 4 years in prison for killing his girlfriend. This series is longer, but easier to watch in short spurts; except for the first and last (epilogue) episodes, each of the rest was only an hour long.

The first couple episodes show him getting his bearings in a world that has changed quickly. Franz initially struggles for a secure foundation, trying to go clean after vowing to himself that he will not risk going to jail again. He has a quick affair with his dead girlfriend’s sister, something that seemed to be going on from before his arrest, but eventually settles for a Polish girl named Lina. After a couple jobs don’t pan out, he lands a job through Lina’s uncle Otto, selling shoelaces door-to-door. This leads to his downfall though: the first door he knocks on belongs to a widow who thinks Franz looks just like her departed husband. She lets herself be seduced, and when Otto hears of it, he goes after her too, expecting the same treatment. When he doesn’t get it, Otto roughs her up and robs her. This setback spirals Franz into depression. He leaves Lina, and goes and rents a single room in a flat. Franz drinks all day and night, is delirious half the time, and only slowly is brought back to life through the help of a kindly man who refuses to give up on Franz.

Those first couple episodes were a bit tough to get through for me. I couldn’t connect with Franz at first, but in the fourth episode, with his crash and resurrection, the show started to hit its stride. At the beginning of the fifth episode, Franz has returned to his friends and is ready to find life again.

The fifth episode introduces Reinhold; Franz and he hit it off and become fast friends. Reinhold can only stay in a relationship for a couple months and then is ready to cast off the girl for a new one. Franz is willing to take Reinhold’s leftovers. This provides a humorous (if sexist) diversion for an episode, before the drama returns. A man named Pums is running some kind of illegal operation in the area, employing many of Franz’s friends, including his long-time best friend, Meck, and Reinhold. Franz resists joining, keeping to his vow made to himself in the beginning. He inadvertently ends up on an illicit mission one night, and Reinhold (literally) casts him aside, pushing Franz out of a moving vehicle. Franz is hit by another car, and ends up having his arm amputated. Franz recupes with a woman who once carried a flame for him named Eva, even as Pums, Reinhold, and that crew decide what to do about him, since he knows a bit about their business now.

At the start of the eighth episode, Franz has decided that going straight has not worked out for him, and despite warnings from his friendly bartender Max, Franz starts working with Willy, a local crook. Franz does seem to finally find love though, when Eva introduces him to Mieze, and the two fall for each other quickly. However, it turns out Meize is just like Eva and Ida, and is a prostitute. Franz becomes her defacto pimp, just as he was for Ida before he killed her, and it seems his life has come full circle. Will things turn out the same as they did for Franz and Ida? It looks like they may, as Franz becomes jealous of a rich man Meize starts seeing at the end of the tenth episode.

The eleventh episode heralds that the end is nigh. Franz wants back in Pums’ gang, but Reinhold thinks that Franz has ulterior motives, namely, retaliation against himself. Franz is nothing but friendly with Reinhold though, inviting him over to his apartment. While there, Franz has a blowout fight with Meize, when she tells him she’s fallen in love with another man. Franz savagely beats her, and would have killed her just as he did Ida if Reinhold weren’t there to stop it. Like most abused women, Meize takes Franz back, and the episode ends with them frolicking in the woods.

The final 2 episodes and epilogue, I’ll leave to you to watch if you are interested. Reinhold will obviously play a bit part before the end, as well as Meck and Eva, the girl that has known Franz the longest. The final film-length epilogue has Franz wandering in a Fellini-esque dreamlike state through heaven and his own mind, even as his physical body recoups in a hospital. It’s a great series, about man’s struggle against the forces of fate, friendship, human’s fallacies, and even himself. The cinematography and “feel” of the series is better than Eight Hours; you can definitely see how Fassbinder has developed in those intervening years. I think Eight Hours is maybe more enjoyable from a pure story standpoint, but Berlin Alexanderplatz is the better overall project, with so many intertwining threads and characters that weave in and out over the course of its 15 hours. In Berlin, the story is secondary to the life and soul of Franz Biberkopf. It’s a true masterpiece. ★★★★★

• TV series currently watching: The Boys (season 1)
• Book currently reading: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Honey Bee is a small indie film out of Canada, about a young girl, Natalie, who gets woo’ed by a hot guy into a relationship, only for him to pimp her out at truck stops. She is completely fooled by his promises of a better future, and when she’s arrested in a sting operation, Natalie refuses to give Paul up. She ends up in a foster home, her fourth, and she has no expectations for anything good, after having been abused at her previous 3 foster homes. Fortunately, she’s finally found a good one, though obviously it takes her some time, and she has to make some freshly costly mistakes, before she comes to realize it herself. It’s a similar story that you’ve seen a million times, and this movie doesn’t break any new ground, but it is told well enough for what it is. Youngster Julia Sarah Stone shows promise in the lead role, it’d be interesting to see if she can build off this in her career. ★★½

Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) have been in a relationship a long time and have just had a baby together, but their relationship is on the rocks. She wants to get married, he doesn’t; she thinks he’s cheating on her, he loathes her parents, and these and more reasons are causing a lot of strife. After an awkward party where their in-fighting bubbles up in front of their friends, they get in a bad car wreck on the way home. Adrienne “awakes” in the hospital next to her own dead body, and witnesses a series of scenes such as her parents grieving in the morgue, Matteo speaking at her funeral, etc. Then Adrienne starts reliving some of her memories, and Matteo is along for the ride, however, he is trying throughout to convince her that she is not really dead. They share many memories of their life together, and it is a blend of reliving those moments, as well as talking to each other about the memory while they are living it. Example: they are at a rooftop party where they first met, and then in the middle of the conversation, she’ll say something like, “I fell for you right away.” So they are reliving those moments from a modern day perspective, not much different how we remember things when we look back. Throughout it all though, Adrienne is stalked by a dark figure who, at first, Matteo can’t see. Is she dead or alive, as Matteo contends, and who is the dark figure lurking in the shadows? We get the answers in the end, but this is one of those films where the ride is a lot better than the conclusion. I loved Wander Darkly through most of the film, and Miller and Luna are equally fantastic, but the ending felt shallow and lost a lot of the magic that was going on during the movie. I was in that 4-5 star territory until the last 15 minutes. ★★★

The Last Vermeer is based on the true story of Dutch painter Han van Meegeren. The movie begins at the end of World War II in Europe, where allies have just found a trove of paintings and wealth, supposedly stolen by the Nazis from the Jews. Captain Joseph Piller has been tasked with ferreting out the German soldiers who did the stealing and turning them over for sentencing. In the latest finding is a painting by 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Piller starts digging to find who owned the painting before the war, and traces its last owner to van Meegeren, who sold it for an ungodly sum to a German higher-up. Pillar begins to think that, in addition to stealing paintings from Jews, money was being funneled through the art transactions to fund the nazi war effort. He detains van Meegeren, who claims his innocence, and it isn’t until later, in prepping for his trial, that is it discovered that van Meegeren is a forger. He faked the Vermeer painting, as well as many others. The film shows a fascinating piece of history, and has fine acting from Claus Bang (Pillar) and the always enjoyable Guy Pearce (van Meegeren), but it suffers in the courtroom finale from a rather poor deus ex machina. It also paints (hardy har har) van Meegeren as a saint, ripping the nazis out of millions to thumb his nose at the critics who called his work (pre-forgeries) as talentless, but let’s not forget, he made a ton of money, which afforded him an awfully posh lifestyle at a time when many were suffering. ★★½

Going to finish up with a couple foreign language films recently released on Netflix. Classmates Minus (from Hong Kong) is getting decent reviews, but it’s just not my cup of tea. It’s about 4 men in their 40’s whose professional and personal lives haven’t gone according to plan. One is a director, but he’s stuck doing crappy commercials (and he doesn’t know his trade well enough to do even that). Another works at a mundane office, with no chance of advancement. The third is an overweight man doing registration checks in bad neighborhoods for the government. The last is a life-long stutterer who oversees a dying business left to him by his deceased father. Supposedly a dark comedy, I didn’t laugh once in the first hour. Didn’t chuckle. Didn’t enough crack a grin. It comes off as overly silly with a weird voiceover narration, and I could not get into it. I gave up after that first hour and went on to the next film. ★

Crazy About Her moves to Spain. It’s a romantic comedy following primarily a man named Adri. He’s out at a bar with a couple friends when he is picked up by Carla, a wild girl who introduces herself and then asks Adri for a single of night of sex with no strings attached. They have a wild night for sure, crashing a wedding, “borrowing” the honeymoon suite, and then she’s gone. Adri, who has avoided longterm relationships his whole life, is suddenly smitten. His friends tease him, but he tracks Carla down. Unfortunately she’s in a private mental health facility, so Adri has to “break in.” With a doctor’s help, Adri is able to get admitted, only to find that Carla really only wanted that single night and doesn’t return his feelings. Adri finds that getting in was a lot easier than getting out. But something amazing happens: he starts helping the others inside move past barriers that were holding them back. He also gets to know Carla better. Suffering from bipolar disorder, she’s always pushed people away, knowing that anyone close to her would have a hard time dealing with her wild emotions. The movie is a bit silly at times, but it doesn’t make fun of people with mental illness and, in fact, uplifts them. It acknowledges some people can’t be “fixed” but that doesn’t mean they can’t be happy. Good date film if you are up for some subtitles. ★★★½

• TV series currently watching: Gotham (season 1)
• Book currently reading: Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Watch List is a film out of the Philippines. This one’s been on my radar for awhile but finding somewhere to see it has been a chore. I’m glad I finally found it, because lead actress Alessandra de Rossi is a revelation. Maria and her husband are former drug users but have been clean for many years, and are raising their three kids in a poorer district. Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte’s infamous war on drugs has been rounding up anyone with a drug history and putting them through “rehabilitation” programs, so the couple is picked up, despite being sober for so long. Duterte has also endorsed vigilante justice against drug users, and this ends up in the killing of Maria’s husband. With no money coming in and unable to find a job because of her drug history, Maria resorts to going to the people who probably killed her husband. To protect her children, she becomes an informer for the vigilantes, and is even trained to kill with them on future missions. Some of these missions however go after people like herself, who’ve been off drugs for awhile and have families. Beset by guilt but faced with no other options, Maria has to decide what is best for her kids. While the film doesn’t break any new ground, de Rossi is absolutely incredible. I hope people see this one and, if she desires it, it leads to bigger opportunities. ★★★½

Watch List had a tour-de-force performance which was wholly unexpected, but I fully anticipated it from Aubrey Plaza in Black Bear. Seriously this woman needs more recognition for her work. The premise of this film isn’t too new, at first anyway. Allison is a former actress turned writer/director, who’s rented a cabin by a lake to do some solitary writing for her next film. She stumbles upon a couple in crisis though; the cabin’s owners Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and Blair (Sarah Gadon) are expecting a child and seem to only be staying together for that reason. The three share a dinner the first night, and initially the couple just bicker at each other, which is uncomfortable for Allison as anyone who’s been in that situation can attest. As the night goes on though, the sniping turns into a full out argument, as Blair senses sexual chemistry between Gabe and Allison. It does not get better after Blair goes to bed, as Gabe admits to Allison that he doesn’t love his girlfriend anymore. They start fooling around, and Blair walks in, leading to a climactic event at the conclusion of the first half of the film. I cannot say anything about the second half, because to do so would ruin a great surprise, but suffice to say it flips the film on its head, and gets even better from there. Plaza is amazing as she is in everything she does, and the movie is wonderfully written and precisely put together. The best film that no one seems to be talking about it. ★★★★★

Fagara hails from Hong Kong, and is about a woman who’s just lost her father to a sudden death. Preparing for his funeral, Acacia learns that her father, from whom she’s been estranged for several years, had two other others from other women, one in Taiwan and the other in China. Their shared father came to live with Acacia’s mother when she became ill, but would occasionally leave to visit Branch and her mother (supposedly his first love), though he didn’t often see his third daughter, Cherry, in China. This unlikely trio has to get to know each other, while groping with complicated emotions over their father, and also strained relationships with others in their individual families. The film centers around Acacia trying to run her dad’s restaurant, as he has a lease for one more year, which would be expensive to break. The movie struggles with uncertain footing a lot of the time; there’s a lot going on, and some of the moments don’t feel natural. However, the cinematography is absolutely stunning. This is visually one of the most beautiful films you’ll see. It’s an average film with above average looks. ★★★

Around the sun is a sci-fi film, yet it isn’t. It can be called a romantic drama, but there’s hardly any physical contact between the two main (and only) characters, who are strangers when they meet in the beginning. This is a film that defies genres, and I loved it. Bernard is visiting a large chateau in France, and is being shown the place by Maggie, who works for a firm who owns the estate. At first, Bernard is a scout for a film company who wants to shoot a picture on this location, but it quickly becomes clear that this is only one possible scenario that brought Bernard here today. As the film plays out and Maggie and Bernard explore the estate, their backgrounds and circumstances change. In one scene, Maggie will ask Bernard if he’s seen any stars (meaning movie stars), and he jokes about it. In another, she’ll ask the same question, and Bernard immediately talks about his knowledge of constellations. So while there are multi-verses in play and we see glimpses of many of them throughout the movie, there is no real science fiction on camera. What the film becomes is a look at humanity and where it is today, through the conversations between our two characters over the course of a single day in a multitude of universes. Conversations touch on science, philosophy, art, and many other topics. They are the kinds of deep conversations that are too often missing from film (and our busy social culture) today. The chemistry between our two leads is palpable, despite (in some worlds) Bernard has a baby on the way from his (maybe estranged?) girlfriend. The movie gave me a strong Last Year at Marienbad vibe, both because of the lingering questions (Maggie mentions more than once a strong feeling of deja vu) and because of the empty building they are exploring. It’s an intimate, thought-provoking film, one that pulls you in to the lives of our characters. ★★★★

Savage is about a man, Danny, who’s grown up inside a street gang in New Zealand. Based on a true story, it starts in 1989 when Danny is an adult, but much of the film is told at two other key points of his life too: when he is a child in 1965, and later, as a teenager. As a kid, he lives in an abusive household, sometimes going so far as to provoke his father so his siblings are left alone. He is later caught stealing, and his father kicks him out of the house and sends him to a state school. He’s still there years later as a teenager, and his best friend is Moses, who is not a good influence. When Moses takes charge in a street gang called the Savages, Danny of course joins too, even viciously beating his brother, who’s in a rival gang. Back to present day, Danny is finally dealing with guilt for all the bad he’s done all these years, and he very much wants to see his mother and siblings again, though his brother (now long out of the gang life and raising a family) still holds a grudge. Danny needs to decide between loyalty to Moses, or his desire to get out of the lifestyle. The film is decent enough in spots, but unfortunately I found it hard to feel sorry for an adult who should know better. Being rough and getting in fights as a teenager is one thing, doing it as an adult is far different. I don’t have much pity for stupidity. ★★½

• TV series currently watching: WandaVision, Maniac (miniseries)
• Book currently reading: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King

Eternal Beauty has been on my watch list since it first premiered at a film festival in 2019, but I’ve just recently had a chance to see it. It stars the incomparable Sally Hawkins (how does she not have more awards in her closet?!) as Jane, a woman struggling with schizophrenia. Her particular hallucinations come in the form of whispers from inside the walls, voices from the radio telling her to do things, and she hears her apartment phone ring constantly, with a man on the other end telling her he loves her and always will. We learn as the film goes along that she is not the only one in her family suffering from mental illness, but she’s definitely been the person who has taken the fall. Several key events are happening at this particular point in Jane’s life: her domineering mother is dying, her older sister’s husband is having an affair, and her younger sister’s life is falling apart. With all this going on, Jane meets someone. Mike (David Thewlis) is also schizophrenic, and it is obvious to everyone that they aren’t very good for each other, obvious to everyone except Jane and Mike. The film is sort of a dark comedy drama, but I was uncomfortable laughing at some of the humor, because much of it poked fun at Jane’s illness, through her behaviors. Other times, her sickness was most definitely not funny, and took on an almost scary theme. As the film progresses, we learn more about Jane and how her life has taken her to this point. It’s a very good picture, and I was reminded a lot of Hawkins’ previous film Maudie. Like that one, this movie is very good but not necessarily great, but her performance is definitely worth the price of admission. I firmly believe she is one of those transcendent kind of actors that makes everything she’s in better. 3 stars for the film, 5 for her performance, balances out to ★★★★

Judas and the Black Messiah is a gripping movie, based on the lives of Bill O’Neal and Fred Hampton in the late 1960s. Bill (Lakeith Stanfield) is a two-bit hood who’s latest scam is pretending to be a cop in order to steal cars. He is caught red-handed, but rather than send him to jail, he is recruited by FBI agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) to infiltrate the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers. Their ultimate goal is to get close to Panthers leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), who is seen by J Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) as a real problem. Fred is a captivating speaker who articulates the anger black people are feeling over the recent murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Bill ingratiates himself quickly, and it isn’t long before he is running security for Fred. Bill seems moved by the things Fred says, but stays the course with the FBI for his promised riches and rewards when the job is done. Unfortunately Hoover isn’t looking for an arrest; he wants to put a final end to Fred’s calls for revolution. It is a captivating movie, and while I certainly don’t condone Fred’s calls for violence against the police, the film does a great job of explaining the anger behind his words. Stanfield is fantastic as a conflicted Bill, but Kaluuya’s Fred Hampton steals the show. Anytime he is in the scene, the camera is his to command, and his presence is felt through the screen. Tremendous performances, showing a damning moment of authoritative violence in our country. ★★★★

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is (yet another) story about someone stuck inside the same day, Groundhog Day style. This time it is wrapped in a teen drama and, like Palm Springs last year, features two people reliving the same day over and over instead of one. When the movie starts, Mark has already lived the same day a 1000 times or more, and knows everything that will happen down cold. He does good things for the passersby on the streets, but his latest goal is to get a kiss from a cute girl he saves from getting beaned by a beach ball at the pool, but no matter what he tries, it never works. One day, before Mark can step in front of the rogue ball, a new girl steps in front and deflects it, before walking to her car and driving away. Knowing she isn’t part of the loop, Mark hunts her down, and lo and behind, finds that Margaret has been living the same day over and over too. They decide that maybe they’ll be able to get out if they map out all of the magical moments that happen around town, things like an eagle catching a fish clean out of a lake, a janitor who sits at a piano when he thinks no one is around and plays beautifully, and kids who find joy in lighting up their new tree house. Mark has long ago accepted that he may never get past this day, and almost enjoys it, but Margaret seems to struggle, for a reason that becomes known in the latter part of the movie. It’s a cute film, maybe a little too cute for my taste. It’s not as good as either of the previously mentioned movies with this premise, and while there are some laughs, it isn’t as funny or as endearing as those. However, worthy of a single viewing. ★★★

I Care a Lot is ridiculous, implausible, but damn it’s a good time, with an all-star cast showing off their talents. Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) is a predator of the elderly. She’s in league with an unsavory doctor who tips her off to old people who are showing dementia, and then Marla gets the courts to grant her guardianship. With these powers, she puts the old folks in a home, auctions off their house and goods, and pays herself out of all the money coming in. Things are going well until she gets the wrong lady under her care. Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest) has nothing wrong with her, but Marla is still able to fool the courts and gets Jennifer under her care. Jennifer was supposed to be a “cherry,” with no living family on record to fight Marla, and thus when Jennifer eventually died, all her finances would go to her guardian. Unfortunately, Jennifer has a hidden past, and a son that very much wants to ruin Marla’s day. The unnamed son (Peter Dinklage) has a ton of money, a few thugs, and a very good, dirty lawyer who all try to intimidate Marla, but she’s having none of it. She knows there’s more to Jennifer than there seems, and wants much more money than she’s being offered to walk away. I enjoyed this movie much more than I was expecting. There aren’t any good guys here, it is just bad guys vs bad guys, and no one to root for, but they are all deliciously bad. That, I think, is the crux of the bad reviews online, no “good guy” to get behind. The finale stretches believability quite a bit, but the film is a blast. It is blacker-than-black comedy teamed up with wild thrills. ★★★★½

I’ve been hearing amazing things about Nomadland for quite awhile, and I won’t say I was disappointed, but, for my tastes, it wasn’t the end-all-be-all film I was expecting. Frances McDormand plays Fern, an older woman who’s recently lost everything. She and her husband worked for the same company in rural Nevada for years, but the company closed up (pretty much eliminating the town that depended on it), and then Fern’s husband died. Fern’s lost her house and is now living out of a van, taking on a nomad lifestyle. She moves place to place and takes work where she can get it, such as seasonal packaging at an Amazon distribution center, cleaning at an RV park, or the occasional restaurant job. The film is about Fern’s grieving process for her husband and former life, but it also plays out as a quasi-documentary, with Fern meeting and talking with others in similar situations. There are a few young Bohemians, but for the most part, it is an elderly crowd who, like Fern, have lost houses or in some cases, willingly chose the nomad life to see the country before they die. It did not surprise me to learn that many of the people in the picture were fictionalized versions of themselves, real-life nomads out on the road. We learn about the risk, perils, and rewards for this kind of living. This is probably why it did not grab me; I’m generally not a big documentary person. This film is heavy on facts and light on story, and while McDormand is excellent (as always), it’s just not my cup of tea. ★★★½

• _{TV series currently watching: WandaVision, Fargo (season 4)}
• _{Book currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert}

Early last month, I crossed 1500 movies blogged here. I’ve been wanting to write a quick note about it, but kept forgetting.

My wife teases me (playfully I hope?) that I watch too much tv. Between all these movies, many tv/streaming shows that I don’t even blog about, and every Cardinals/Blues game (born and raised St Louis!) I do have a screen in front of me a lot. Part of it is a big case of FOMO; I just can’t not watch something that I may end up liking. This seems to have gotten worse the last couple years. According to my Letterboxed, in the last 4 years, my movie totals have gone from 182, to 214, to 387, to 401 last year. Granted, some of those were re-watches that I didn’t blog about, but that’s still a lot of movies to watch.

Right now, I’m on pace for 450 films in 2021. I don’t think I’ll get that many, but I’m fairly sure I’ll hit 400 again. As the number of films climbs, finding something in particular I’ve written about has become a challenge. So here’s a couple ways to search for something I’ve seen since I started my blog in 2014 : 

If anyone else has better ideas on how to search for particular movies/history, let me know! And thanks for reading.

Julien Duvivier was a French director whose career started in the silent film era, but who found his greatest success later with “talkies.” He had a long career, making movies not just in France, but also in the USA and all around Europe (including a version of Anna Karenina starring Vivien Leigh, out of the UK in 1948) until his death in 1967. Today I’ll be looking at 5 of his early sound films of the 1930’s.

David Golder, from 1931, was Duvivier’s first sound film, and also his first picture with actor Harry Baur (they would collaborate many more times). It’s a grim story, light on plot but heavy on emotion. Golder is a shrewd businessman who is tight with his money at work, but free with it at home, perhaps a little too free. His wife is having a not-so-secret affair but continues to spend Golder’s money at will, and Golder cannot say no to his daughter Joyce either. In fact, when he has heart problems and ends up in the hospital, Joyce goes and buys a new car first, before heading to the hospital to see him. While there recuperating, his estranged wife tells him that Joyce is not his daughter, but is instead the daughter of her paramour. Still, when Joyce’s money runs out and she comes back begging for more, Golder cannot resist and instead goes to make another deal to seal her financial future, despite warnings from his doctors to stay away from stressful work. Don’t expect life to end happy for Golder; people have used him up all of his life. It’s a depressing film, but it is well shot and very well acted by Baur. ★★½

Poil de carotte (Carrottop, AKA The Red Head) is a remake of Duvivier’s earlier silent film of the same name. It is about a boy who is severely mistreated by his mother at home. Though blond, his mother has always sworn there’s red in it, so everyone calls him Carrottop. Mrs Lepic adores the two older children, but abuses Carrottop for every small transgression, berating him verbally and slapping him when the father, Mr Lepic, is not around. This has gone on for years, but a new person in the house may finally put a stop to it. A new maid is hired, Annette, and with her fresh eyes, she immediately sees the politics of the house. She warns Mr Lepic of the abuses, and while he is hesitant to admit this has been going on under his nose all this time, he does start to pay more attention. But this comes the day of his election to mayor of the town, and he isn’t as observant as he maybe wants to be. When even Carrottop’s godfather, the only adult to treat him kindly, is pulled away to another conversation, Carrottop feels there is nothing left for him in this world. Here, I thought David Golder was dark. This is about a dire a film as there is, about the unhappiness of a child, with fantastic acting by Robert Lynen in the lead and Harry Baur as his father. ★★★★

La tête d’un homme (literally A Man’s Head, but a proper translation would be A Man’s Neck) goes in a different direction, away from the family setting, and is a crime film. The mood is set from the very beginning, when Willy, a poor but good natured man, makes a joke in a bar, offering $100k to anyone who’d kill his rich (and single) aunt, so he’d get an inheritance. An unknown passerby drops a note that he’d take Willy up on his offer. The viewer doesn’t know if it is Willy or his fiancee who follows through, but the next scene has a drifter sneaking into the aunt’s house. However, he’s not there to kill, he’s been told by yet another unknown man that a pile of money would be on the bed. There’s no money there, just the dead aunt. The drifter, Heurtin, flees at the sight of the body, leaving fingerprints and footprints all over the place, just as his hirer wanted. With Heurtin’s evidence all over the place, the police seize on him right away, but a certain inspector, Maigret (Harry Baur again), thinks there’s more to the story. He purposefully lets Heurtin escape, hoping he’ll lead him to whoever really planned the murder. The first hour or so is great, lots of mystery, some Hitchcock-like thrills (but without the humor, sadly), but the final 30 minutes really dragged. By then the viewer knew the mystery, and it was just a waiting game to see how it played out. ★★★

Pépé le moko was a big hit for the director, and features a bonafide star in Jean Gabin in the lead roll. Pépé is an accomplished thief, with multiple holdups and even a couple bank robberies under his belt. He’s been on the run from the police for awhile and has fled Paris for the Casbah region of Algiers, where he is a local hero. Pépé shows terrible wrath against his enemies, but great compassion for his friends, and the locals hide him in the Casbah, with its labyrinthian streets and rooftops. Unfortunately because of this, he can’t leave this little area, or he’d be caught. The cops hatch a plan to lure Pépé out by capturing his friend Pierrot, but that turns south, leaving Pépé safe (though Pierrot doesn’t make it). You think he might be in the clear forever, until a vacationer from Paris with big beautiful eyes catches Pépé’s fancy. That’s about all I want to say about the plot, because the film’s twists and turns are too great to spoil. This film features a large cast of diverse characters, including crooks, dames, both straight and dirty cops, and people from all nationalities in the frenetic Casbah. It has a very Casablanca-like feel, and it would not surprise me if Michael Curtis saw this movie and had some inspiration for the look and feel of the city in that film. Outstanding picture from beginning to end. ★★★★★

Un carnet de bal (Dance Program, also called Life Dances On) is another lovely drama with some truly beautiful moments. Christine is a young widow at 36, but she doesn’t mourn her recently passed husband, as they led a cold life together. Going through papers at the house, she comes across her dance card from her debut ball 20 years ago, and is moved to find the men she danced with that night, to see how their lives turned out. What she finds however, is no ones’ lives went as they’d dreamed, and often for the worse. When she goes to the first, Christine finds that he has been dead all these years, and his poor surviving mother long went insane from the grief. The mother thinks that Christine is Christine’s mother, and that the daughter and her son will soon be together. Unable to find the second name on the list, Christine moves on to number 3. He achieved his goal of becoming a lawyer, but was disbarred just 2 years later, and now has changed his name, and is running a seedy nightclub, with a gang of thugs and hooligans under him. The fourth man (here’s Harry Baur again!) also changed his name, but to do good. A promising musician 20 years ago, he was heartbroken when Christine chose another man, and left his career path. Now a priest, he teaches underprivileged boys how to sing in the church choir. The fifth has become a guide in the French Alps. He makes playful advances towards Christine and says he’d give up his job to be with her, but when a distress signal goes out for some travelers caught in an avalanche, he immediately leaves her to go help. The sixth man has become mayor of a small town, and it is the day of his wedding; he is marrying his maid. The mayor and his bride-to-be fight like cats and dogs, so we get some humor injected into the movie, that is, until his estranged son shows up at the wedding. A couple more former suitors follow, and the film does end on a strange note, but for the most part, it is a nostalgic trip down memory lane. If not for the out-of-left-field ending, I’d give this one another 5 stars. Harry Baur would make a handful of more films, but this was his last with Duvivier. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo during World War II, and shortly afterwards died of mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1943. ★★★★

• TV series currently watching: WandaVision, Fargo (season 4)
• Book currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert

I just recently watched a few films from celebrated Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. In a weird twist of fate, my first film up today comes from director Andrei Konchalovsky, who was the screenwriter for Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood and Andrei Rublev. Dear Comrades! tells a fictional biography around the real-world events of the Novocherkassk massacre. In early June, 1962, Lyuda Syomina is a single mother taking care of her father and her daughter Yuliya. As a member of the Communist party and on the city council, Lyuda is afforded luxuries that most do not have; she is able to get food when others are facing lowered rations and increased prices. When prices on meat and dairy go up, while at the same time wages at the factory (the big employer for this city) go down, there is a strike by the workers, which includes Yuliva. The powers that be cannot let news of a strike get out, so they clamp down on the city with a big military presence, which gets ugly fast. The KGB officers shoot on the unarmed civilians, leading to a frantic day where Lyuda cannot find her daughter. Lyuda must reconcile her love of party vs her love of family, and the film lets it play out as she grapples with that choice. Shown in stark black and white with a great old classic feel, it is a harsh look at an event that many of us in the west (myself included) were probably never aware. Good movie. ★★★½

Little Big Women comes from Taiwan, and focuses on the Lin family. Shoying is the 70 year old matriarch, who is a true rags to riches story and runs a successful restaurant. She has 3 adult daughters: eldest Yu is a successful doctor, married and with Shoying’s only grandchild, Clementine; Ching is a dance teacher and independent woman, divorced; and youngest Jiajia has been groomed to take over the family business. There are already cracks in the family, lots of secrets that each doesn’t want to share with each other, when the kids’ father, Shoying’s estranged husband, dies. He hasn’t been around for 20 years, but Shoying insists on having his funeral in their town, rather than in Taipei where he’s been living all these years with his mistress, Meilin. Jjiajia has met Meilin, it was she who was at the man’s side when he died in the hospital, but she is hesitant to approach Shoying about allowing Meilin at the funeral. As the youngest, Jiajia is the only one who doesn’t remember a time when their dad lived with them, and she’s never really heard why he left or why the rest of the family hates him so much. Through short flashbacks, we see some of the events that got the family to where it is today. The film is about the secrets families keep, and the shame that can come from bottling up past transgressions and refusing to let past hurts go. Like a lot of east Asia films, it is a deep and introspective film, and beautifully done. Any family with skeletons in the closet can relate to what the characters are going through, and it is easy to see how a single decision can have generational consequences. A perfect film in my opinion. ★★★★★

Staying in Asia but moving over to Korea, we get Space Sweepers, and yes, the movie is as ridiculous as the title, but don’t let that keep you from watching it. This is a high flying space adventure taking place in the year 2092. The Earth has become a polluted wasteland, and the wealthy are living in a space colony awaiting resettlement on Mars, which is going to be terraformed to become a “new” Earth. The poor however are struggling to make ends make, and the film focuses on one such group, who are scrapping by, by scrapping. Space sweepers are workers who comb the orbit of Earth for old junk, like dead satellites, floating rocket boosters, etc., and turn it in for scrap. The sweeper ship Victory has a crew of 4 misfits: a pilot who is looking for the body of his dead daughter floating in space, a captain willing to do anything to make a buck, a tatted up engineer/tech with a sordid past, and a sentient robot with dreams of getting human skin to become an android. Their latest find is a junk ship, but it has a stowaway, a young girl who is wanted by the authorities. The news says she’s an android which has been rigged with a bomb in her insides, put there by a terrorist organization known as the Black Fox. However, our crew sees that she is not a robot, and is just a girl, and as the movie develops, of course we find out the good guys are necessarily so, and neither are the bad guys. This movie features amazingly good effects right up there with the best space films of today; it is edge-of-your-seat action through nearly the entire ride. Outlandish? Yes. Unsteady acting? Yes. Cheesy dialogue at times? Yes. Implausible (even for sci-fi)? Yes. Hell of a lot of fun? YES. Not going to wow the critics, but man, this is a fun movie. ★★★★

Next we head to the arctic north, with Red Dot coming out of Sweden. A tried-and-true triller about a couple being hunted by some evil people in snowy forests. David and Nadja are a young couple going through a rough patch, and decide to try to go on a weekend camping trip to reconnect. On the way to the remote area, they run into some rough looking country boys fresh off a hunting trip of their own, and David hits their parked truck in a gas station, before pulling away without talking to them about it. They see them again that night while staying at a hotel on the outskirts, and the next day, they have graffiti on their car and it has been keyed. David and Nadja drive off, madder than hell, and see the boys’ truck again at a rest stop. Nadja jumps out, keys their truck in return, and jumps back in her car to escape. That night, the “red dot” comes for them, in the form on a laser scope on a hunting rifle. This film has every cliche you’d expect from this genre: a dead dog, a pregnant girl (Nadja), a frozen lake to traverse, etc. It is a passable 90 minutes, but that’s about it. No new territory here, and while the ending tries to play “gotcha,” it has fallen flat long before then. It has its moments, but nothing that is lasting. ★★½

Layla Majnun hails from Indonesia, and is a new version of a classic 7th century Arabic tale about star crossed lovers. Layla is an independent free thinking woman, a college graduate, author, and teacher, but she is getting a bit old to be single in her religion and culture. She agrees to marry Ibnu, a man from a wealthy background who has a political future. Shortly after, Layla travels to Azerbaijan to teach for 2 weeks, a life-long goal of hers, and there she meats Samir. Samir has been infatuated with Layla for a couple years, having read her book; it was he who arranged to get her to his home country of Azerbaijan. He woos her for the first half of the film and she is definitely falling for him, but she refuses to go against her pledge to marry Ibnu. All this cheesy movie is is an Indonesian Lifetime movie. Sappy story, inconceivable plot twists, dastardly villains, and pretty actors who couldn’t act their way out of a box. Mildly heartwarming, but by the end of the 2 hours, I had more eye rolls than tugs at the heart strings. A very silly film, no A’s for effort around here. ★½

Hearts and Bones is a subtly great film, meaning it isn’t going to beat you over the head, but it did leave me thinking at the end. There are two main characters. Dan (Hugo Weaving) is a celebrated photojournalist known for his wartime photography. He is getting ready for a big showing of his work at the local gallery when he is approached by Sebastian (Andrew Luri), a Sudanese immigrant. Sebastian begs Dan to not display some of his most famous work, photos that were taken during a massacre in a Sudan village 15 years prior. Dan assumes Sebastian knew people that were killed and doesn’t want those memories resurfaced, but there is more going on here. Also in the background, Dan is suffering from severe PTSD from a career of life harrowing events, as well as fear (explained later) over his partner’s pregnancy. As Dan and Sebastian become friends, more of their stories come out. It is a complex film about life, compassion, and moving on from traumatic events. I don’t think it is everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoyed the emotional rollercoaster. And who doesn’t love Hugo Weaving? ★★★½

Let Him Go has another aging legendary actor, this time Kevin Costner, and teamed up with a great leading lady in Diane Lane. They play retired lawman George and his wife Margaret, living in the remote, quiet Montana countryside. The films gets started quick: in the opening minutes, we see their adult son die from a fall off a horse, his surviving spouse (their daughter-in-law) Lorna remarry a man named Donny, and then run off to North Dakota with him and her son (their grandson), Jimmy. The problem is, right before they left without a word, Margaret saw Donny hit Jimmy and Lorna in the parking lot in town. Fearing that he will do worse with no one around to keep him in check, George and Margaret pile in the car and take the road trip to track them down. They get more than they expected, when they find that Donny comes from a family of ne’er-do-wells who aren’t going to let Lorna and Jimmy leave them. In a heated confrontation, they chop off George’s fingers with a hatchet. If they think that will stop this former lawman, they have another thing coming. This is a solid drama/thriller. The constant sinister feelings from all of Donny’s family is a bit over the top, and Costner lays on the stoic lawman a little too thick, but for the most part, I was entertained. Nothing too unexpected, things go about the way you’d think, and there is quite a bit of filler in here to get to its 2 hour runtime, but it is solid. ★★½

Monsoon is about a man, Kit, who returns to the country of his birth, Vietnam, after the death of his mother. He’s there to find a suitable place to scatter her ashes, and his brother will be arriving in a few days with the ashes of their father as well, who had previously passed away some time prior. Kit knows nothing about Vietnam; his parents fled with him following the war, when he was only 6, and he was then raised in England. He doesn’t even speak the language, and has just fleeting memories from his early childhood. He meets up with a family who was close friends with his parents (including his old childhood friend, who he barely remembers), and also begins a sexual relationship with a black man who’s father fought for the Americans in the war. Much less a physical journey to find a resting place for his parents, the film is more a spiritual journey of Kit reconnecting with his roots in a country, and with a people, he only remembers in his soul. It’s a lovely film, light on plot but heavy on emotion. To say it progresses slowly is an understatement, as the movie is leisurely in all aspects from dialogue to movement to even the camerawork, which is in juxtaposition to the frenetic pace of the traffic on the Vietnam streets. Kit is played by Henry Golding, of Crazy Rich Asians fame, in an underrated role where all he needs to do is look forlorn and uncomfortable, and he does it well. The movie is directed by Hong Khaou, a name I did not recognize, but when I looked him up, it made sense. His only other film, Lilting, has a much similar feel, and I loved it as well. This movie’s not for everyone and its pace will turn many off, but it is rewarding for those that enjoy this type of film. ★★★★

I seem to be alternating between quiet, contemplative films and actions flicks, so let’s keep that trend alive, and since Let Him Go wasn’t a true action movie, I’m going to balance the scales with a good old disaster movie. Greenland is about a big comet hurtling towards Earth on a collision course. It stars Gerard Butler as John and Morena Baccarin as his wife Allison. They are in a bump in their relationship, but all that is forgotten when the comet comes into play. In the beginning, the news is reporting that it is just small pieces which will break up in our atmosphere, and then later, larger pieces which will strike the ocean harmlessly. When John gets a presidential alert on his phone that his family has been selected for emergency sheltering, he knows something else is going on though. They race from their suburban neighborhood with their kid just as a large chunk hits and levels Tampa, FL, and they feel the shockwave hundreds of miles away. When they finally get to the military base, they are turned away at the last minute when the military discovers that their child has diabetes, and they are not allowing anyone on the transports who is sick or who has a preexisting condition. This leads to a new round of outlandish adventures for our family, as they are separated and then try to find each, and ultimately a safe place. Like all disaster films, all credibility goes out the window as the movie goes along (and not only because of the impending extinction of the human race). The first half of the film was a lot of fun, but as the outlandish events kept piling up, I started to get bored. Never a good thing during an action film. ★★

Ammonite is a fictionalized telling of a part of Mary Anning’s life. Mary was a paleontologist who unearthed marine fossils along the coast of England in the early to mid 19th century. Portrayed by Kate Winslet, she is shown as a lonely and bitter woman, angry at society for having her work go unnoticed or, worse, stolen by men because of her sex. She is known of course in circles in her field, but she doesn’t get the recognition or money that a man would. One day, she meets an admirer of her work named Roderick, who spends the day with her and introduces his wife, Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), to Mary. Charolette is depressed, or as they called it back then, “ill,” and Roderick offers to pay Mary to watch over her for a month or so while he travels. Mary needs the money, and so agrees, though she really doesn’t want anyone intruding on her solitude. Very quickly though, Mary begins to have feelings for Charlotte, who reciprocates. The unavoidable comparison is, of course, the recent breakout hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but unfortunately there’s no fire in this film. The romance comes too fast and is gone just as quickly, and while Winslet and Ronan are undoubtedly heralded leading ladies, they can’t save the dull, run-of-the-mill plot. ★½

My only experience with French director Olivier Assayas is a couple of his newer, English language films: Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper (both of which I loved). Today I’m going back to watch some of his French films, starting with 1994’s Cold Water. It follows two teenagers in love in 1972 Paris, Gilles and Christine. Both have been getting in trouble a lot lately, and Christine in particular is about 2 steps away from having am emotional breakdown, thanks to an abusive father. One day they are stealing records from a store when they are caught; Gilles is able to get away, but Christine is caught, and her dad decides enough is enough and sends her to a mental hospital. She escapes, and heads to a teenage party at an abandoned rural house. Gilles goes there too, only learning about Christine when he gets there. She’s having a meltdown, and has already chopped off her hair and stabbed a girl with the scissors. Gilles is able to calm her down, and when she broaches the subject of leaving all of their life behind and going out to live a bohemian lifestyle, he reluctantly agrees. The finale is completely unexpected but it works so well. This is a movie that grew on me as it went along. I honestly couldn’t stand either of the characters in the beginning, but I came around to them by the halfway point, and was rooting for them to find some kind of happiness by the end. I think the movie is open to a lot of interpretation. What I took from it is a couple of teenagers who are on that cusp of adulthood. There are moments when they are still kids, others where they have a very profound understanding of life and the struggle for meaning in it. This is a film I’ll definitely watch again one day. ★★★½

Assayas’s next feature film was Irma Vep, in 1996. This is a fascinating film, about an aging French film director named René who is filming a new version of an old silent film titled Les Vampires (Irma Vep is obviously an anagram of vampire). René is a heralded director whose best days are unfortunately behind him, and he’s getting to the point where the reputation of his past great films is no longer carrying him. He hires a Hong Kong actress, Maggie Cheung (playing a version of herself), as the lead, based solely on having seen her in a couple films and liking the way she looks. The problem is, she doesn’t speak a lick of French, so is entirely reliant on the people in production who speak English. The film within a film is very artsy and even early in production, doesn’t look like it will be anything good, but René doggedly continues. Outside the film, the viewer sees “behind the curtain” at all of the drama that goes on, including infighting, rumors, press interviews, producer-called changes, etc. There’s a lot of satire about the current state of French film in the mid 90s, which many think isn’t accessible to average movie goers who want more action and less esoteric “high art.” For instance, some laugh at Maggie Cheung’s work with Jackie Chan in Hong Kong, yet those movies obviously made money. I loved this movie; there’s so much going on, so many characters and interactions to keep track of, amidst the hectic “hurry up and wait” life inside film production. Cheung is wonderful, as is a lot of the supporting cast. ★★★★

Jumping ahead a few years to 2008, Summer Hours is great as well, but in a much different way. Whereas Irma Vep was energetic and fun in a rambunctious way, Summer Hours is just a quiet, beautiful, picturesque kind of film. It opens with three adult siblings visiting their mother, Hélène, at her French villa, on her 75th birthday. The entire family is wealthy; each of the kids is successful in his or her own right, but the money started with Hélène’s uncle, who was a famous painter. The oldest of the children, Frédéric, is the only who still lives in Paris. Middle child Adrienne has a career in America, and youngest son Jérémie has just taken a job in China, and neither get back to visit mom very often anymore. Frédéric is definitely the most sentimental; Hélène takes him around the house pointing out all the expensive furniture and art her family must sell when she dies, and he doesn’t want to hear any of it, planning on keeping the house and all its wealth in the family for future generations. When Hélène does die within the year though, his plans are overruled by his sister and brother, with Jérémie in particular wanting money to buy a house in China and a summer home in Bali. The movie left me feeling very nostalgic (I too have aging parents) but also, I think, the director is trying to tell us that we can only truly live if we cast off the inanimate objects that hold us down. There’s a great scene in the end where the house has been sold, and Frédéric’s kids invite a bunch of friends over for a weekend party. His daughter reminisces about her grandmother and the moments they shared in and around the house, and then smiles while she joins her boyfriend. It’s a very touching film. ★★★★½

From the very beginning, I had a hard time connecting with Something in the Air, mostly because I just wanted to punch the lead character in the mouth. In the early 1970s, Gilles is a high school anarchist, protesting various injustices in all the worst ways: spray painting graffiti, attacking school authority figures, rioting against the police, etc. He bounces back and forth between 2 girls, losing the first because he can’t commit, and the second because he isn’t radical enough for her tastes. As the movie plays out, Gilles becomes less interested in revolutionary ideas, and more into his art, as he shows talent at drawing and painting. Unfortunately we never really get to know Gilles as a person; like a lot of high schoolers, he just regurgitates ideas and thoughts he heard or read. The film as a whole is very short on what is actually going on in the heads of our characters. Actually, I just don’t care what is in their heads. The film meanders along with no real point other than telling us how Gilles got from Point A to Point B. The movie is supposedly autobiographical, so that makes sense I guess, but it doesn’t make for very interesting viewing. The first real dud from this director. ★½

Carlos was released before the previous film, but it is also 5 1/2 hours long, so I saved it for the weekend 🙂 Originally released as a three part miniseries, it tells the tale of real-life terrorist Carlos the Jackal. The first episode begins in 1973 and tells of Carlos’s (born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) rise to influence in various far-left terrorist cells, including the Japanese Red Army, small German Revolutionary cells, and the PLO. Rarely involved in direct conflict, he supplies guns and weapons to these groups and does much of the planning, including a raid on the French Embassy in The Netherlands, and attacks at airports. Eventually, one of his coconspirators is picked up by the authorities in France, who names Ramírez Sánchez under his alias, Carlos Martinez, and even tells them where his current girlfriend lives. They go to the apartment to search for the girl, who isn’t there, but Carlos is. Carlos ends up shooting his way out, and goes into hiding in Yemen for a couple months. When he comes back in late 1975, it is with a vengeance. Part one ends with his latest collaboration with the PFLO, as they are getting ready to attack a conference where the ministers from various member countries of OPEC are meeting. Their intent is to kidnap them and force them to read statements condemning their country’s actions against the State of Palestine.

The second episode picks up right there, with Carlos and his crew on the bus, armed, ready to storm the conference. Until this point, the film has never stayed on one event or moment too long; it has given us little tidbits here and there of Carlos’s comings and goings, but now, finally, we get a good section of film devoted to one event, probably because it is the one that made Carlos an (infamous) celebrity. His group takes the emissaries hostage, and negotiate a plane to take them to Algeria. Things do not go as planned, as once in the air again, no other country will accept them. They are forced to return again to Algeria, but Carlos is able to worm his way out, with a fat check (clandestinely) from the president of Libya, and all parties live to see another day. The rest of the episode is mostly dialogue, as Carlos falls in and out of favor in various groups. It seems to be a slow period in his life.

The final part jumps ahead a couple years, and finds Carlos in Budapest in 1979. He’s at a point in his life where he has the backing of powerful friends in Communist and Socialist governments around the world, and Hungary is sheltering him as long as he doesn’t plan any attacks while in its borders. More of a mercenary and planner now, he’s taking in lots of cash in return for guns, all “in the cause” against imperialist countries, anyone who would subjugate people. When two of his coconspirators are arrested, he puts pressure on the French government to have them released, in the only way he knows: he kills a couple French emissaries by assassination, bombing a train carrying one, and planting a car bomb outside a newspaper on the morning their trial starts. It doesn’t get his friends off, but it does make Hungary’s government come down on him, as they are under pressure from other countries to expel him. This is just the first domino to fall. As the years go by, Carlos continues to lose friends; the fall of the Berlin Wall loses his backers in East Germany, and then Syria and Libya refuse to go against the big powers in the west and also will not admit him. The film winds down as Carlos’s influences continue to dwindle; he is stuck in the only country that will take him, Sudan, until he is finally arrested and imprisoned.

The film is decent, but it suffers the fate that many biographical films do. It is too documentary-like, too much of “Carlos meets with this person” and “Carlos goes here and does this.” The second episode with the single long mission is the best, but many parts of the rest of the film can be a bit dull, which is never a good thing. Even the filmmakers are aware of this, because in slow stretches, they would try to inject energy by having Carlos have sex with a random girl or kill someone, but these come out of left field and don’t bring much to the table. The actors are hit and miss, and while Édgar Ramírez as Carlos is decent, he isn’t allowed to show much range: there’s calm and there’s mad, and that’s about it. When compared to some recent terrorist biopics, like the first couple seasons of Netflix’s Narcos series, Carlos falls flat. I think it could have been better as a shorter, more concise picture, focusing more on the big moments rather than everything. ★★½