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.

Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future                       3 ½ stars

After a long absence from filmmaking, David Cronenberg, the master of the “body horror” film, has returned with his new offering “Crimes of the Future”. People familiar with his work will recognize him for such sci-fi horror films as Videodrome, Scanners, The Fly and eXistenZ. His style includes images of gory, grisly mutilations of bodies and he is not letting us down in Crimes. So get ready for the gore. There is too much to describe here, but the setting is a time in the future when evolution has removed the threat of pain and infection from our lives and some people have gained the ability to rapidly evolve their own bodies. One such person is Saul Tenser (a handsome Viggo Mortenson), a performance artist who allows surgeries to be performed on him in public by his associate Caprice (Lea Seydoux) by means of an autopsy machine that is operated by a remote control that seems to resemble a vagina. During these autopsies any new “organs” that Saul has managed to grow inside his body are removed and displayed with Caprice making sketches of the new creation. As Tenser says, surgery has become the new sex and it is there to be viewed by a live audience. Tenser gains the attention of many individuals including the director of The National Organ Registry, a man seeking his skills for a “live autopsy” and a “New Vice Unit” agent seeking information on illegal activity. The feel of the movie is aided by the scenes of bodies being cut open with automated steel scalpels  and some interesting furniture pieces including a bed that looks like an open cocoon and a chair made of bones. There is a lot of talk about the meaning of art and beauty and many dark interior scenes and secret meetings. Unfortunately, the film seemed to end rather abruptly leaving one with a rather empty feeling at the end. This is a true Cronenberg film. It will not be for everyone.

Watcher

Watcher                               4 stars

Imagine what a moviemaker would do if asked to make a horror movie set in Romania that did not involve vampires. That task is accomplished by relatively new director Chloe Okuno in the horror thriller Watcher. The movie stars Maika Monroe as Julia, the lonely American housewife who has followed her Romanian speaking husband Francis to Bucharest for his new job. Monroe has made a career of being the victim in many horror and drama movies that include It Follows, Villains, Greta and Bokeh. In Watcher, Julia has no friends because of the language barrier and wanders the city going to shops and diners while her husband is working. But she is not entirely alone as there is a dark figure of a man in the window of an apartment across the street that seems to always be present looking at her apartment. To increase the threat there is a story of young women in the city mysteriously getting their throats cut by a serial killer. Could the murders be linked to the man in the window? Not wanting to be another victim, Julia, the watched becomes the stalker, following the mysterious man through the neighborhood. This has to be one of the slowest developing horror movies I have seen recently, but it’s done well as the tension builds constantly until the startling conclusion. Monroe does a believable job as a woman who refuses to be another victim. Watcher was featured at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I had not heard of writer director Okuna before, but after seeing Watcher I look forward to seeing Bodies Bodies Bodies, a comedy horror movie that she has a writing credit for. (It is due to be released later this summer.)

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga                  2 ½ stars

I doubt that many people have heard of the Will Ferrell movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga that came out near the beginning of the pandemic. I had not heard of it until 2021 and just now looked it up on Netflix. This comedy starring and written by Ferrell tells about the dimwitted Lars Erickssong, a native of Iceland who has dreamed of winning the annual competition of the Eurovision Song Contest since he was a boy and sings as part of the group Fire Saga. There is plenty of stupid comedy which is pretty similar to anything that Ferrell has done in the past. The other half of the Fire Saga dual is Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) who worships Lars and is “probably not” his sister. She does a creditable job at comedy in what is not a typical role for her. Even though they are not all that talented the pair manage to qualify to be Iceland’s entry into the annual event featuring performers from over forty European countries. The musical numbers are overproduced and the movie gets a little too involved in its ridiculous plot. A bright spot is Dan Stevens who portrays a self-absorbed Russian singer who does some overly sexualized musical numbers with his male performers and is too interested in Sigrit to suit Lars. It’s a good one for Will Ferrell fans but it has a few dry spells where the comedy falls short.

Robot & Frank

Robot & Frank                   4 stars

For a simple yet elegant story about aging we go back ten years to 2012’s Robot & Frank starring Frank Langella as Frank, an elderly man living alone who spent time in prison for some heists committed in his younger days. Frank has two adult children who he wasn’t exactly a model parent to, but son Hunter (James Marsden) who looks after him on occasion has decided that Frank needs the assistance of an in home robot that can cook, clean and care for Frank. Frank soon figures out that the talking robot can also be commanded to assist him in committing burglaries so starts a new project training the robot to commit crimes and getting it to tell him the chances of success. It’s a pleasing comedy-drama that is driven by the excellent acting skills of Langella whose versatility has been featured in roles such as President Nixon, Chief Justice Warren Burger, Perry White in Superman Returns and Count Dracula in his long career. The movie was directed by newcomer Jake Schreier, who followed up with Paper Towns in 2015. I was very entertained by this comedy. Look for Susan Sarandon as the town’s librarian and Law & Order’s Jeremy Sisto as the sheriff.

Elvis

Elvis                       4 ½ stars

The new movie Elvis promised to be a grand extravaganza about the legend, the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley and in the hands of Baz Luhrmann, it is all that and so much more. Luhrmann has previously brought us visually stunning movies like Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby. He does it again in this biopic about Presley and his longtime manager Colonel Tom Parker, telling it in a very nonlinear style that highlights the triumphs and tragedy that this relationship brought to them both. Tom Hanks portrays Parker as the carnival promoter who is always looking for the next big act that will make him rich, and the man who would exercise power over Elvis through his entire career. The transformation of Hanks into this bloated master manipulator is amazing. Look for an Oscar for the Makeup category for this one. Austin Butler who has had several small movie roles takes on the challenging job of capturing the spirit and energy of Elvis’s performances and his inner conflicts and I would say he just about has it. The movie hits all the major points of Elvis’s life, his rise to stardom, the controversy over his hip wiggling performances, his stint in the army overseas, the Hollywood era, the Las Vegas Elvis and his addiction to barbiturates and alcohol that shortened his life. But it also effectively shows how he was influenced by the Black music that he was surrounded by growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi. His performances are interspersed with those of B. B. King, Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard and many others, so we see that without these Black artists there would have been no Elvis as we remember him. But the main story of the film is of the ties between Elvis and Parker as told through Parker’s eyes starting with his memories commanding that “The only thing that matters is that that man gets on that stage tonight.” This one deserves to be seen on the big screen. Next year look for Austin Butler as the notorious villain Feyd-Rautha in the sequel to Dune!

Greyhound

Greyhound                         4 stars

If it weren’t for the pandemic we would have had the chance to see Greyhound, the WWII thriller about submarine vs. convoy warfare on the big screen. As it is we have to settle for watching this action packed war film from 2020 on our TV screens. Greyhound was written by and stars Tom Hanks, playing Captain Ernest Krause, who is in his first command in early 1942 on an American destroyer as it escorts a troop convoy crossing the North Atlantic to Britain. The movie chooses to give us little character development on Krause, focusing mainly on the harrowing mission of protecting the convoy from a wolf pack of German U-boats that are intent on sinking as many Allied ships as they can. On the screen we see a troubled Krause dealing with uncertainty as he issues orders to the young crew and receives reports about the radio signals, radar sightings and sonar pings that are all part of the challenge of locating the feared U-boats. We never see the face of the enemy or any crew of the other Allied ships, but get plenty of at sea action through the heavy use of special effects. We know the other participants are there by their voices over the radio including a German U-Boat commander proclaiming: We will hunt you down! The story is fictional, but the conflict that it depicts about the war at sea is entirely real. I have to believe that the Navy jargon and the use of instruments as portrayed is highly accurate. The movie received multiple nominations and awards for its realistic sound effects including an Academy Award nomination. I only wish I could have seen it in the theater.

Mr. Malcolm’s List

Mr. Malcolm’s List                            3 ½ stars

In Mr. Malcolm’s List we travel back to the London of the 1810’s in a Jane Austen-esc period comedy romance about beautiful people of high society. I understand this type of thing is on TV now in Bridgerton, but Mr. Malcolm’s List is a much lighter version that should appeal to a variety of audiences. Mr. Malcolm (Sope Dirisu) is rich and single and is London’s most sought after bachelor who is on a mission to find his perfect mate. One candidate for Malcolm’s affections, Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) has accompanied him to the opera and was embarrassed to have answered a question about local politics in a peculiar way and is ridiculed in a local publication. She is incensed to discover from her silly cousin Lord Cassidy that Mr. Malcolm has a list of traits that must be met for any potential mate. Julia must get her revenge and the perfect plan is to enlist her poor childhood friend from the country, Selina Dalton (the beautiful Freida Pinto) to fulfil the list’s requirements and then reject Mr. Malcolm. What a dastardly plan! The movie has all the features of a romantic story for this period: the grand balls, the polite conversation, the horseback rides and the secret meetings. It has a nearly all female production staff and a very diverse cast that gives a different look to London high society of the early nineteenth century. Previously, it was a short of the same name featuring the same two main actors, Dirisu and Pinto, in the main roles. It’s not quite Jane Austen but it will do for one and a half hours of light entertainment.

Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing                             2 stars

I have not read the book that Where the Crawdads Sing is based on, but judging by the talk about it the book by Delia Shannon it must be a real page turner. It’s too bad that the feel of the book did not translate very well in Olivia Newman’s on-screen adaptation. The movie follows the life of young Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones of Normal People) who must live on her own in the swamps of North Carolina after suffering the abuse of her father and being abandoned by her entire family. Kya is considered a pariah by the local people and is referred to as swamp-girl. She has few friends as she must fend for herself starting at age seven. The story involves a possible murder when a body is found at the bottom of a fire tower so naturally it is assumed that the loner Kya must have been the murderer despite a total lack of evidence. Enter retired lawyer Tom Milton (a very lawyerly David Strathairn) who volunteers to defend the accused Kya for no pay. One should not think of this movie as a murder mystery as doing so will leave them disappointed. The less said about that the better. Rather it should be viewed as a story about surviving against all odds and as a love story. Even so the story was not all that convincing perhaps because of some of the supporting performances or not taking full advantage of the southern setting of the movie. The abusive Chase (Harris Dickenson) who Kya initially falls for is very two dimensional. I saw it as so much melodrama that did not grab my full attention. None of this is the fault of the lead actress, Edgar-Jones who gives a creditable performance as Kya.

The Sea Beast

The Sea Beast                    3 ½ stars

With The Sea Beast, presented on Netflix, director and animator Chris Williams allows us to enter a world where those sea monsters of legend reputed to roam the seas actually exist. Here there are a cadre of heroes (both men and women) who sail in their wooden ships and hunt down and battle these giant creatures in defense of their kingdom. In this story, our two heroes are Jacob, a young man who was rescued from the sea as a boy and has served under Captain Crow of the Inevitable, (one of the best monster hunters who has served for decades); and Maisie, a young, orphaned girl whose parents were themselves monster hunters who lost their lives fighting the creatures. Maisie can’t get enough of the stories of the glory of the hunt, having read of them in her books, even including stories of Jacob. After Maisie stows away on Jacob’s ship and they do battle with a few of these monsters, including the most fearsome Red Bluster, Jacob and Maisie find themselves separated from the ship and her crew, stranded on an island inhabited by some of the creatures, including the giant Red Bluster himself. It is only after this encounter that they come to realize that Bluster and the other monsters may not be the dangerous creatures as told in the old stories. Perhaps the books are not telling the whole story. The film is another variation on the misunderstood creature that is befriended by a young person, who then must persuade the misguided adults into seeing things differently. This theme was present in the How to Train Your Dragon movies and in Raya and the Last Dragon as well as Nimona. The Sea Beast is much the same story, with the high seas as the setting. Chris Williams was the animator behind Big Hero 6 and Moana and has expanded his role to include director in The Sea Beast. It’s a good story for all ages but is clearly not original. It is reported that it may be getting the How to Train Your Dragon treatment with plans for a sequel. See it if you are a fan of animation. I recommend though to be wary of whales and sharks.

The Man Who Sold His Skin

The Man Who Sold His Skin         4 stars

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania takes on the high-end art world and the inequalities of immigration policies toward refugees in The Man Who Sold His Skin. Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni) is a young Syrian man in a war-torn country who only wants to marry his girlfriend when he is targeted by the authoritarian government and is forced to become a refugee fleeing to Lebanon. Sam catches the attention of a famous provocative artist, Jeffrey Godefroi who offers him his freedom if he will allow the artist to use Sam’s back as a canvas in order to tattoo a new piece of artwork. In exchange for the freedom to travel to Belgium where his girlfriend now lives with her new husband and payment from the artwork’s proceeds, Sam must agree to being put on display at art museums for the public to view. The artwork on his back is a visa meant to criticize the treatment of refugees. In making this transaction Sam exchanges one sort of imprisonment for the enslavement of being reduced to a piece of art. Ben Hania shoots some scenes at odd angles using windows and mirrors meant to emphasize how Sam is treated as an object. Sam seems happy with his newly found notoriety at first, that is until he finds that his girlfriend is not so thrilled at the idea of being rescued and he learns of his mother’s feelings about his decision. The premise of the movie is of course absurd and is meant as an indictment of the art world and the racism directed toward certain ethnic groups. The Man Who Sold His Skin received multiple accolades including an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language film, though much of the film is in English. For another attack on the high-end art world though with a comedic twist, I recommend Velvet Buzzsaw.