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.

Pain and Glory

Pain and Glory                   5 stars

Pedro Almodovar’s latest film, Pain and Glory has to be one of his finest. Previously, he has brought us such exceptional works as Julieta, The Skin I Live In, Broken Embraces and Volver and this one is at least as good as these and as full of emotional scenes. The film is about an aging film director who is past his productive prime and lives with a series of ailments that keeps him in pain. The director, Salvador Mallo played by Antonio Banderas is said to be a representation of Almodovar’s life. Mallo created a masterpiece film over thirty years earlier and is asked by a theater if he would appear at a showing of the restored version to give a Q&A. The problem is he would have to do it with the film’s star, Alberto, whom he had a falling out with and hasn’t spoken with since. Alberto had an addiction to heroin which he has not given up and after seeing Alberto, Mallo picks up the bad habit from him as well. Alberto discovers that Mallo has been writing texts about his life with a heartfelt approach and begs him to allow him to produce a performance based on it. Eventually, Mallo agrees to the plan after more arguments and the play becomes a reality. As the film progresses we are shown flashbacks to Mallo’s childhood when his family was poor. His mother played by the amazing Penelope Cruz, (one of Almodovar’s favorites in his films) realizes that young Salvador has a gift and arranges for him to be educated at a Catholic school. This gives him the tools needed for him to later express his creative genius in film. The film gives us noteworthy observations along the way such as how the pain in an artist’s life can lead to some of his most creative works. It’s a film that has some real positive things to say about the power that inspiration can have over times of trouble in a person’s life. This is a film that should be on several lists of the best of 2019.

RRR

RRR                        5 stars

RRR is the blockbuster 3-hour epic action movie that created something of a sensation in 2022 when it appeared in theaters in India and soon spread around the world. The movie stars two popular actors from Indian cinema, Ram Charan and N. T. Rama Rao, Jr. and tells a popularized version of two legendary figures from 1920’s India and floods the screen with heroic action and carefully crafted dance scenes all set to Bollywood style music. The title, RRR, stands for Rise, Roar, Revolt and tells the story of the colonial rule of India by the British and of two men, Rama and Bheem who lead a revolt against them. It all starts with a story showing the cruelty of the English rulers as the rich governor has a young Indian girl kidnapped from her family because of her artistic talents and in the process leaves a few corpses behind. It is meant to show the contempt and racist attitudes of the British toward their brown skinned subjects. That memorable scene is followed with separate action-packed sequences involving Rama and Bheem, (both very muscular men) where Rama fights off a crowd of men in order to apprehend one rock throwing individual and Bheem does face to face battle against a ferocious tiger. The two men have different motives for their actions and we eventually learn more about their backgrounds through flashbacks. The two meet and become friends with each hiding something in their background from one another. At one point, about a third of the way through the movie we experience the grand event of a sort of dance off between the English and the two heroes where the two cultures go toe to toe against one another with Rama and Bheem coming out on top. The number, called “Naatu Naatu” which goes on for several minutes, is a real crowd pleaser and was the winner of the Best Original Song Academy Award two years ago when it was performed live at the ceremony. It is not only entertaining, but it sets the stage for the wider conflict in the movie. Oddly, the movie was not nominated for International Feature. Eventually, the two heroes come together to do battle with literally hundreds of British soldiers in some of the most violent scenes I have seen lately. But don’t worry. It is all comic book style violence and is all done using CGI effects. (And we are assured that no animals were harmed in making the movie.) Whether or not you know anything about the history of India in this period, you will certainly be entertained by the film. And it would be best to see it with a group of friends.
 

Deerskin

Deerskin                              4 stars

I heard about Deerskin from a magazine article of some recent good movies that are available online so I picked this one out, a rather dark comedy. To call this movie offbeat and bizarre might be something of an understatement and it probably won’t appeal to a wide audience, but I was very entertained by it. It’s one of those movies that is funny just because it is so absurd, like Damsel which I saw a few weeks ago. It happens in a small French Alpine village where Georges (played by Jean Dujardin of The Artist), a middle aged man arrives. Georges, just divorced, answers an ad for an old deerskin jacket and buys it from an old man. He spends all of his cash for the jacket and receives a video camera as part of the deal. Georges is so impressed by the ‘killer style’ that it gives him he starts to imagine that the jacket is alive and carries on conversations with it. (Does that sound bizarre yet?) Then Georges meets some women in a local bar and makes up a story of how he is a filmmaker and is there for a shoot. (His crew happens to be working in Siberia.) Denise (Adele Haenel of Portrait of a Lady on Fire) falls for this act and agrees to help Georges out including helping him pay for the making of the movie! (Georges’ credit card has been canceled by his ex-wife leaving him with no money.) Thus, the two proceed to put together a movie based on the random scenes that Georges films of various people he runs into on the street. This odd movie succeeds in keeping your attention by making to wonder just where is this all going. I have not even told you the strangest parts of the movie, so you will have to see it to find out. The story and the excellent acting by the two leads make Deerskin something to see for fans of the bizarre. You might even call it murderous madness. This gem is not even 80 minutes long so you can get through it all rather quickly.

Relic

Relic       4 stars

The last time I was at Sundance I saw several good horror movies, but at the end of the festival ran into one moviegoer who said he had one more to see called Relic that was supposed to be pretty interesting. I finally sat down to watch Relic as it was just released and I wasn’t disappointed. The movie is by a new filmmaker and concerns the effects of a loved one’s dementia on their family. The movie is set in a big house is an Australian town that is home to an elderly woman, Edna (Robyn Nevin). Edna is reported missing which brings her daughter (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter (Bella Heathcote) to the house to investigate. After a few days of searching, Edna suddenly reappears without explanation of where she was. Although she is physically fine it’s clear something is wrong here. As daughter and granddaughter stay to take care of her, the house seems to mysteriously decay as a black growth slowly appears on the walls. This coincides with Edna hearing strange noises and having conversations with someone that’s not there. She behaves in ever increasing erratic and violent ways that confuses her family. The large house is full of cluttered hallways and mysterious doorways that helps to add to all the confusion the family members are experiencing. There is a background story about an ancestor who had a horrible death that offers some explanation of the seemingly supernatural happenings, like all good horror movies need to have. The movie does a slow moving buildup to an eventual frenzy of frightening events that will overwhelm the viewers. Although the movie is not quite at the level of The Babadook or of Hereditary, it’s good if you are up for some good family horror and clicks in at only 90 minutes long.

Harriet

Harriet                  4 stars

Harriet Tubman, the slave girl turned freedom fighter for many slaves in the pre-Civil War south finally gets the big screen treatment in Harriet. Cynthia Erivo does a superb job of portraying the tiny Harriet with her expressive acting and her big voice. We know Erivo from her role in Bad Times at the El Royale and for winning a Tony for The Color Purple. The movie is something of a romanticized account of her escape from her abusive master, her encounters with the people running the Underground Railroad and her coming a legendary conductor, venturing into the South and leading many black slaves to freedom in the North. The anguish that the slaves went through is told in convincing style, but some of the encounters and dangers of the escape attempts seemed to be a bit overdramatic. Some of the movie serves as a good history lesson such as the treatment of The Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 that made it legal to hunt and return escaped slaves in the North and how a plantation owner’s wealth was measured by how many slaves they owned. Some of the violent consequences of the Slave Act are enacted in the film. We also see how some blacks lived in the South as free people, but that required them to carry papers showing their freed status that any white person could require them to show. Notable performances in the movie also include Janelle Monae as Marie Buchanon, a free black woman helping escaped slaves, Leslie Odom, Jr. as Henry Still, one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad and Vondie Curtis-Hall as the reverend who preached obedience to the slaves while also helping to harbor escaped slaves. The movie is two hours long, but seems to move along quickly. I watched the deleted scenes too and was disappointed to see some minor characters removed from the final version. The movie deserves its Oscar nominations for Cynthia Erivo as Best Actress and Best Song performed by Erivo.

The Roses

The Roses                           4 stars

It has been 36 years since we saw Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in that classic comedy The War of the Roses when the married Roses viciously attacked each other with verbal insults and worse as their marriage descended into mayhem. So naturally it was due for an update according to writer Tony McNamara (Poor Things, The Favourite) and director Jay Roach (Bombshell and three rounds of Austin Powers). This time around it is Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman taking on the roles of Theo and Ivy Rose, the married British couple in a decaying marriage that they cannot escape from. Early on we get a taste of what we’re in for when the two of them are in a session with a marriage counselor and the two of them are asked to list ten things they like about each other. Theo says of Ivy, “I’d rather live with her than a wolf.” Ivy’s compliment to Theo is “He has arms.” after she has just seen a documentary about a man living without arms. It gets worse from there with some imaginative use of some swear words. Then we cut to the time they first met at a restaurant where Ivy was working and the two of them end up in a walk-in freezer having sex. From there we flash forward several years and see that they have two children and have moved to northern California where Theo is a successful architect and has designed a new maritime museum. Ivy does dinners for small gatherings, but dreams of opening a restaurant. Big changes come when she succeeds in starting a wildly popular restaurant and becomes famous, while Theo loses his job after he is blamed for the destruction of the museum in a storm. That’s when things start to go badly between them with Theo seemingly resenting Ivy’s success while he has become a stay-at-home Dad. The verbal jabs between them get ever more creative and vicious while their circle of friends become very uncomfortable with the language. The friends include married couple Barry (SNL’s Andy Samberg) and Amy (SNL’s Kate McKinnon) making for a very amusing duo. Also among the cast are Ncuti Gatwa of Doctor Who and Sunita Mani (Death of a Unicorn). Alison Janney completely takes over one scene as Ivy’s attorney when Theo and Ivy take their disagreements to the highest level. The casting of Cumberbatch and Colman was masterful, as they make you believe in their love/hate relationship throughout the movie. Credit must be given to screenwriter Tony McNamara for coming up with so many insults that are almost poetic. The Roses is definitely a dark comedy, though I will leave it up to you to decide if it is as dark as the original The War of the Roses.

The Lion King

The Lion King     2 stars

Disney felt the need to redo the animated beloved movie The Lion King from 1994 only this time with modern CGI effects and a new all star cast. The movie is a technical achievement in visual effects with very realistic looking animals and background terrain, but the feelings of the emotions are missing as none of the facial expressions of the original animated characters can’t be duplicated. I also found it hard to tell some of the characters apart based on their appearance. The familiar story is very much the same as the original so of course there is no new territory covered here. There were good comedic performances by Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner as Pumbaa the warthog and Timon the meercat. The music was impressive with some original songs being sung by an African choir. I am just not convinced that this movie needed to be made even though it had impressive theater ratings.

Palm Springs

Palm Springs      4 ½ stars

The last time I went to Sundance the Andy Samberg/Crintin Milioti romantic comedy was the hottest ticket going and I was not able to see it then (in spite of getting to over 30 movies). I finally saw it after it was released on Hulu and found it was a real delight. It seems to start out with the old formula of Groundhog Day as Andy Samberg’s Nyles is attending a wedding with his girlfriend Misty and finds that he is in a continuously repeating loop of the same day that always starts over the moment he falls asleep or is killed. He has apparently been at this for hundreds of days when we see him but things change when circumstances bring Cristin Milioti’s Sarah, the older sister of the bride into the same loop to share Nyles’s fate. Nyles plays seemingly amazing tricks on people as he already knows what events are going to happen to the second and tells people details about their lives that he has learned in previous iterations. Things take a darker turn as the two explore imaginative ways of trying to get out of the loop including killing themselves, but then speculate on how meaningless everything is in this strange world they find themselves in. Ultimately, the romance in the romantic comedy shows up as the two find out how much the other means to each. This “formulaic” romantic comedy works well and is definitely worth seeing.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil          2 ½ stars

Five years after Sleeping Beauty got the Disney treatment in Maleficent comes the sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. You may recall that in the 2014 movie, Maleficent, the horned winged fairy in the Moors turned out to be a sympathetic character who loved and cared for Aurora, the human princess who had been cursed to eternal sleep. The new movie continues the story a few years later with Aurora (Elle Fanning) still living in the wooded Moors where she regards Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) as her mother. Things are still tense with the humans in the kingdom of Ulstead though where Maleficent is viewed with suspicion by King John and Queen Ingrith (a wonderfully scheming Michelle Pfeiffer). When Prince Phillip, son of the king and queen proposes marriage to Aurora, the upcoming wedding becomes an opportunity for the two kingdoms to unite in an alliance. This leads to a very tense scene that might be called Meet the Parents, Disney style. The tensions boil over and King John ends up with a sleeping curse which Queen Ingrith uses as an excuse to start a war with the fairies. But it turns out that it was the Queen who put the curse on her husband King John which would make her President Trump’s favorite character in the movie. Then Maleficent discovers that there is an entire kingdom of fairies led by Borra (Ed Skrein) that have been hiding out from the humans and are looking for a way to wage war against them. One tragic character is Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a fairy who is opposed to war and is a protector of Maleficent. After this the movie turns into something out of the Marvel movies with a long fight sequence between the humans and fairies with the humans producing a secret weapon to ensure their success. The movie goes back and forth between fight and warlike scenes to cute comical scenes involving cute small creatures of the forest including Thistlewit, Flittle and Knotgrass from the original film. There is also a female henchman, Gerda (Jenn Murray who some might remember as the emotional Lady Lucy Manwaring from Love & Friendship) who is something of a secret assassin of the Queen’s. The special effects are topnotch in true Disney fashion but the story tends to be formulaic and predictable. It’s a good one for true Disney fans to see, but is probably not for everyone.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood      4 ½ stars

What better movie to follow Won’t You Be My Neighbor? than the drama A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood? Tom Hanks takes the role of TV icon Fred Rogers in this dramatization based on the real life friendship between Rogers and a magazine writer played by Matthew Rhys. The writer, Lloyd, is a cynical man who has many personal problems in his life and is suffering from a broken relationship with his father played by Chris Cooper. The magazine, Esquire, is doing an issue on heroes and Mister Rogers is the only one who would agree to an interview with Lloyd. The movie actually focuses more on Lloyd and his anger issues more than it does Rogers, but it makes an effective story. The miniature sets, puppets and fantasy sequences are used to get him to focus on his family and his relationship with his father (who left his family when Lloyd was young). Fans of This is Us will recognize Susan Kelechi Watson who plays Lloyd’s wife. Hanks captures the personality of Fred Rogers well with his personal style of interacting with children and adults. Dealing with Rogers’ direct and personal approach could be very challenging for many adults as well as his teenage sons which is mentioned. He really shows that Mister Rogers was very much the same man as the character he portrayed on TV for over thirty years. The movie takes place in 1998, only two years before the show ended. I find it preferable for a movie to focus on a short period or event in the life of an entertainer or famous personality instead of the traditional life story we see so often. This film delivers the message of dealing with our feelings and life’s challenges that Fred Rogers was all about.