Author Archives: Ron

About Ron

I like to watch movies and share my thoughts on them. I have been writing reviews and distributing them since 2013.

Kajillionaire

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Kajillionaire         4 ½ stars

Miranda July’s third feature as director, Kajillionaire, is a real treasure featuring a very odd performance by Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood. Her previous features The Future and Me and You and Everyone We Know were well received, but I never managed to see either one. Her movies are described as quirky with some very oddball characters and Kajillionaire fits right in. Wood exchanges her robot acting to play a young woman named Old Dolio, who has been raised by her parents Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger) to participate in their con games to rob people of their money and valuables. They aren’t really that good at what they do and are barely getting by. This leads to some very funny scenes. Old Dolio (don’t ask about her name) obviously has never known affection and doesn’t know how to behave around people. Wood has been made to look about as unattractive as possible in the role and masters the part. The trio spend their time stealing from post office boxes and visiting elderly people in order to rob them. They live in an old office building that is very cheap on the condition that they remove the soap suds that leak into the space on a daily basis. (Don’t ask.) Things change for Old Dolio when the trio are joined by Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), a young woman who likes the idea of being a grifter, but has a different take on it. Kajillionaire displays a wide range of emotions for its characters and gets to the point of what life is about, though in a very amusing way. Now I feel that I need to check out Miranda July’s other movies.

Motherless Brooklyn

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Motherless Brooklyn      3 ½ stars

One movie that has long been on my list to see is Motherless Brooklyn which came out about a year ago. It is a real pet project of Edward Norton who wrote the screenplay, directed and stars in the picture going back to 2001. The movie is about a gumshoe detective, Lionel Essrog (Norton) in 1950’s New York City whose boss and mentor is murdered, so Lionel spends the rest of the film trying to solve the crime. The movie is based on a 1990’s crime novel, but Norton set the story in the fifties after he acquired the rights to it. The movie is in the style of a fifties Film Noir and has a plot that is quite complicated. I will give some background without giving too much of the plot away. Lionel’s investigation takes him to a story of corruption within the city government involving a city official named Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) who has made it his mission to remake the city into his vision of a world class city at the expense of the poor and working-class people that inhabit it. The Randolph character is based on the actual city planner in the fifties, Robert Moses, who tore down black neighborhoods to build his parks and bridges and interfered with mass transportation like buses and trains because they were used by poor people and blacks. Alec Baldwin is brilliant as the character who craves power and despises those who care about the welfare of disadvantaged people. (Remind you of anyone?) Lionel has a condition, Tourette syndrome, that causes him to blurt out annoying and offensive remarks, but is otherwise and intelligent person. Sometimes this gets to be distracting from an interesting plot, but otherwise Norton gives an excellent performance. The rest of the cast is pretty amazing, including Bruce Willis, Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Josh Pais and Michael Kenneth Williams. It’s clear that Norton was out to get the best actors he could. At 2 hours, 24 minutes, the film tends to drag at times and you may have to pause the movie and back up to catch some of the key plot points, but it will be worth it. The jazz score written by Thom Yorke and performed by Wynton Marsalis is also amazing to hear helping to give the movies a very fifties feel.

Okja

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Okja                       3 ½ stars

I went back a few years to see an earlier film by Korean film director Bong Joon Ho. Ho is probably best known for the 2019 Academy Award winning film Parasite, about greed and class discrimination. His earlier movies that I have seen are The Host and Snowpiercer. His imaginative films typically contain elements of science fiction or fantasy with dark undertones, and this is certainly true of Okja, a tale about a genetically engineered super-pig that is loved by a Korean girl named Mija. Mija has been raising Okja from a piglet with her grandfather in the mountains of Korea for ten years and the two are quite close. But Okja is actually a genetically engineered animal intended to be a new food source along with hundreds of other such animals that was created by the conglomerate Mirando Corporation, led by the villainous Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton). One day the face of Mirando arrives at the farm in the form of Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), a comically self-absorbed TV show host, who is there to take possession of Okja and take her back to New York where she will participate in a sort of beauty contest for the giant pigs before they are taken to slaughter. This doesn’t sit well with young Mija, so she sets off to free Okja before she is shipped to New York. But along the way she encounters a group of animal rights activists, called the ALF, or Animal Liberation Front, led by Jay (Paul Dano), who has some personal issues with violence. This sets off plenty of action and comical situations that are amusing, all created with some ingenious special effects. The movie is enjoyable to watch, though due to language it probably is not suitable for young children. This was Bong Joon Ho’s second English language movie, his first being the manga inspired Snowpiercer. Since that earlier movie didn’t do well in the foreign markets, he decided to go the streaming route teaming up with Netflix. When it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the audience booed the Netflix logo, showing their disapproval of the streaming platform. Though overall, the movie was well received. The movie is somewhat predictable and lighter than Ho’s other movies, especially the award-winning Parasite that came out two years later.

The Phoenician Scheme

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The Phoenician Scheme                 4 stars

If you’ve seen a Wes Anderson movie before you already have an idea of what to expect. His best includes The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Asteroid City. (Also, remember The Fantastic Mr. Fox). Anderson has a unique style identified by faded colors, stationary cameras, and characters with stilted and rapid fire speaking that is instantly recognizable. His new film, The Phoenician Scheme, is no different and shares themes as well as actors from previous films. Common devices he uses are espionage and parental challenges, both of which are present in this one. There are two main characters that cover the entire film. There is the shady industrialist, Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro of Sicario and The French Dispatch) who has an uncanny ability to survive multiple plane crashes and his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton who is a newcomer) who he wants to leave his empire to and who happens to be a nun. Korda is in the process of setting up a vast infrastructure project to secure his legacy, but he needs the cooperation of a series of odd characters to “cover the gap”; that is, to help fund his project. Thus, his travels to various parts of the globe to try to secure their cooperation by doing odd things like having a basketball shooting contest in a railroad tunnel. It’s also clear that these various businessmen have not been treated all that well by Korda. There is also an assembly of rival industrialists who are trying to thwart Korda’s plans, thus the assassination attempts. The all-star supporting cast includes Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed and Scarlett Johansson. Bill Murray, a Wes Anderson regular even makes an appearance as God in what appears to be scenes of the afterlife. Throughout the movie it’s the great pairing of Del Toro and Threapleton with a little help from Michael Cera as Bjorn, a Norwegian tutor that really makes the movie. They have a good sense of comic timing while applying Anderson’s trademark style of deadpan delivery. Amid all the zany happenings lies a message of the care of a parent for their child even if it’s not delivered well. Considering all the movies that have been made by Wes Anderson over the past thirty years, The Phoenician Scheme is one of the better ones even if the style is very familiar.

Night of the Kings

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Night of the Kings            3 suns

Night of the Kings is in the category of Spotlight meaning that it has been appearing at a number of film festivals prior to reaching Sundance. The story occurs inside a legendary prison in the Ivory Coast known as MACA. Though the army keeps the prisoners locked inside, the prison is really run by a prisoner known as Blackbeard. He and his friends use this control to profit from the prisoners. There is a tradition observed among the prisoners that during a red moon a “Roman” or storyteller is named who must entertain them with a great story told verbally. Thus, Blackbeard chooses a young prisoner who has just arrived and names him as the new Roman, so he gets the unenviable job. He is up to the task and weaves a fantastical story blending reality with legendary fables that enthralls the prisoners, sometimes to a frenzy. It is amazing that the filmmakers were able to pull this production off with a huge number of cast and extras. As a Westerner it is difficult to understand the beliefs being expressed here including the worship of someone who appears to be a common criminal.

Fire in the Mountains

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Fire in the Mountains                     4 suns

Although I didn’t fully understand it Fire in the Mountains was one of my favorites of the international films. Set in the Himalayan mountains of India, we follow a couple trying to eek out a living in a poor village. They have a young son who cannot walk and there is no road to their part of the village, so the boy must be carried down a trail for trips to the doctor. The mother pleads with officials to get a road built and listens and trusts in the doctors who use Western medicine. The father however, wants to believe in the local religion as preached by the shaman with its folk remedies involving animal sacrifices and elaborate rituals. Funding both views puts enormous stress on the finances of the family leading to conflict. (There is also the threat of being attacked by a leopard in the woods!) The performances were completely convincing and the expansive mountain views were great to look at. Since this movie deals with a culture I know little about there are aspects about it that made little sense to me, but I still found it to be a fascinating story.

The Blazing World

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The Blazing World            3 suns

Three years ago at my first Sundance I saw a short film program that included a short called The Blazing World. It concerned a young woman who enters a door into an alternate reality. It was a most unusual film with some startling images. Now, three years later, the creator and director, Carlson Young, has returned to Sundance with her full length feature film based on the same idea. Young, who is only 30 has been quite an aficionado of classic horror movies which must have influenced much in her movie. She also stars in the movie as Margaret, a young woman who lost her twin sister in an accident when they were children. She is interested in the idea of alternate dimensions and encounters a strange man who invites her through a door to this new world. She enters with the idea that her sister may exist in this other dimension. What follows are some of the most bizarre sequences I’ve seen in the movies, much of it of a dark and decaying place with alternate versions of her parents. The movie had more form to it than the short on which it was based, but steers away from your more conventional horror movies. I’m glad I saw it, but I would recommend it only for the more hardcore horror fans. Interestingly, it was completely during the pandemic in 2020.

At the Ready

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At the Ready                      5 suns

At the Ready was easily my favorite documentary of the festival. The filmmakers follow three high school students in El Paso, Texas who have signed up for a Border Patrol training program at their high school. This is an extra-curricular activity for students, but instead of playing sports or doing creative writing they are learning how to do drug raids and find illegal aliens. All of the participants are of Mexican descent so there is some internal conflict about what they are learning. The kids even participate in competitions where their team is judged on how well they perform in staged events like drug raids. They handle fake guns so nobody gets hurt, but physically take down the pretend suspects. The kids seem to get support from their families as law enforcement seems to be one of the few viable career opportunities in the community. This is quite a dramatic departure from going to band contest and chess club like I remember from high school! The movie, filmed in 2018 and 2019 finishes with the students’ graduation and with them making plans for the future. In the Q&A session afterwards, the three students were present. When questioned, only one was still planning on a future in law enforcement with life intervening for the other two. President Trump figured in some of the discussions, especially in regard to feelings about the border wall. These high school law enforcement clubs and programs exist in schools throughout the state of Texas. I thoroughly recommend this movie.

Prime Time

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Prime Time         4 suns

The Polish drama Prime Time portrays a fictional hostage situation in a TV studio on live TV om New Years Eve, 1999. A young 20 year-old, Sebastian (Bartosz Bielenia) takes control of the studio with a gun and demands that he be allowed to read his statement to the nation on live TV. The situation becomes a standoff between Sebastian and the television staff and police. The tension between the parties is realistically represented as the police struggle with ways to handle the situation without getting people killed. We also see how the relationship between hostage taker and his two hostages changes as the hours pass by. The actor Bielenia is especially talented with his range of emotions. I saw this same actor only a few months ago in the Polish drama Corpus Christi with his character impersonating a priest in a small village. The producer of Prime Time said he needed to place the film in the nineties to show the importance of television at that time and to avoid the widespread availability of the internet and social media.

Sabaya

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Sabaya                  3 suns

The movie Sabaya was filmed in the Middle East in 2019 and 2020 and follows the efforts of a small group of Kurds who work to free captive young women and girls from a camp called Al-Hol in Syria. The girls that they are after are of the Yazidi religion of the Kurds and have been kidnapped by ISIS or Daesh as they are known in the Middle East. The girls, some captured as little children are forced to marry Daesh men and serve as sex slaves. The group uses women volunteers who infiltrate the camp and search for the girls in the tent city that is filled with hundreds of enslaved girls. After one is found, men from the group enter the camp and secretly smuggle the girl out to safety returning them to their family if they are still alive. The documentary follows the style of letting the filmed experience speak for itself without the use of narration. There is an occasional printed statement on screen but little explanation beyond that. The scenes where the girls relate the horrors they lived through are quite compelling. The film has to be one of the highest degrees of danger to the filmmakers to be imagined. President Trump gets mentioned a couple of times because of his decision to allow Turkey to attack the Kurdish people (a US ally) following the defeat of ISIS.