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.

Quo Vadis, Aida?

Quo Vadis, Aida?              4 ½ stars

Quo Vadis, Aida? from 2021 is a movie that should be seen when the viewer is in the frame of mind to accept a truly tragic situation. The movie by Jasmila Zbanic is based on the true story of what happened at the village of Srebenica, Bosnia during the war there in 1995. This is where one of the greatest war crimes in Europe was committed with the murder of thousands of innocent Bosnian men by the Serbian army. The film is told mainly from the point of view of Aida, a middle-aged Bosnian woman employed by the United Nations as an interpreter. This provides her with insight and access to what is going on at the UN base camp where thousands of Bosnian refugees are seeking protection after being driven out of their homes. As this tragedy unfolds she is also trying to see that her husband and two sons do not fall into the hands of the soldiers. The film shows us the senselessness of war in general and the complete ineffectiveness of the UN to prevent an atrocity due to failure of policy and of bureaucracy. We see how the nightmare unfolds step by step as Aida tries to work with the UN officials to find a way to protect her family and is met by resistance from the authority figures. The UN officers are not solely to blame as they are restricted by the orders from their superiors and so are prevented from following through on their promises to protect the local population. The film plainly tells how this atrocity happens and its effect from a personal point of view. The viewer should go into the film knowing there will be nothing pleasant about the ultimate outcome, though there are few scenes of direct violence shown on screen.

The Midnight Sky

The Midnight Sky             2 stars

The Midnight Sky, directed by and starring George Clooney was released at the end of 2020 during the pandemic but I never heard of it until over a year later. Judging by its media presence few people had seen it. This science fiction drama concerns a reclusive genius scientist named Augustine Lofthouse who has isolated himself at an arctic research station as a catastrophe threatens to destroy most of the human population on Earth. So you know right away that we are in for some heavy drama of the hopeless variety. Added to the mix is a group of astronauts and scientists who are headed back to Earth after a several years long mission to investigate the habitat on a distant moon of the planet Jupiter. Unfortunately, no one has informed the crew of the spaceship of the recent developments back home. So it falls on Augustine to find a way to contact them and reveal the bad news and warn them that they would be better off not returning to Earth. (Nevermind that his communication with the ship happens instantaneously despite the fact that the ship is still in deep space.) We are never told exactly what happened, but we assume there must be a radioactive atmosphere around most of the planet due to some human activity. The movie moves at a very slow pace and has an ominous tone to it that really gets depressing. There are a few flashbacks to the young Augustine where we find out he had a promising family life at some point and that it all changed leading him to a lonely life. Some harrowing moments are experienced by Augustine and by the ship’s crew that they manage to survive, but this does little to take us away from the doomed feeling we get from the film. There is nothing fun or for that matter thrilling about the movie. It certainly is no Gravity. There is a plot twist in the movie that I won’t describe, but will only say that I thought the filmmakers were setting this up in a deceptive manner by holding back certain facts until they are revealed at the end. I have not appreciated this type of plot device in other movies and was sorry to see it here. There must be better ways to treat the subject of global disaster than what The Midnight Sky has done. I will say that the special effects used to create the spaceship were impressive. If only they had been used in a better movie.

Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul

Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul   4 stars

Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul written and directed by Adamma Ebo is a satirical comedy that takes on organized evangelical religion as its target, one that is well deserved. Regina Hall (of The Best Man, Love & Basketball and Girls Trip) is Trinitie Childs, the first lady to mega-church pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (This Is Us’ Sterling K. Brown) of an Atlanta megachurch that once was the church home to thousands. But lawsuits resulting from the sexual misconduct of the pastor led to its closing and now it is up to the super couple to bring it back to the glory of the past. The fictional story is done almost entirely in the form of a documentary with a film crew following the couple in the ornate church, their Italianate villa and Trinitie’s shopping sprees at the mall. The fake documentary style isn’t one of my favorites, but the comedy successfully skewers the self-delusion and complete blindness of the shortcomings of the Lee-Curtis character. Hall, one of my favorite comedic actresses does an excellent portrayal of the devoted wife who will do anything for the church and her flawed husband until it all starts to fall apart. The movie really rests on the two main actors as there is little for the various other characters representing former congregants, rival pastors and the victims of misconduct to do. I generally favor movies that target the rich and self-important as the move does, but the style of the fake documentary is not one I am used to. The movie was featured at the Sundance Film Festival this year where it first premiered. I suggest that you go see for yourself and have a few laughs.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever              4 stars

In 2018 the Marvel movie universe introduced us to Black Panther and the hidden African country of Wakanda. Then shortly afterward we learned that the star of the movie, Chadwick Boseman who played T’Challa, the king passed away from cancer. So, in the sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the opening scene deals with the sudden death of the king due to an illness. T’Challa’s sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright) is unable to save him and faces the loss along with the rest of the kingdom. This movie is very international in scope dealing with geopolitics and Wakanda’s place in the world. Wakanda has the most advanced weapons and technology in the world due to their possession of the metal, Vibranium. That means everybody else wants it. But then it turns out there is another hidden superpower in the world. This one is Talokan, an underwater kingdom, led by a godlike man called Namor (Tenoch Huerta) who is over five hundred years old. The people are descended from a Mesoamerican race forced out of their land by the Spaniards in the 1500’s. Namor’s mission is to find and kill a university student named Riri (Dominique Thorne) who invented a machine that can find new sources of Vibranium. (The Talokan’s also have access to the metal and have advanced weapons.) This aspect makes little sense though, since we know that once something is invented it can’t be stopped by killing the inventor, but don’t let that get in the way of a good story. The Wakanda Queen, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri, Okoye (Danai Gurira) and T’Challa’s lover, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) decide to defend the student, making Wakanda an enemy of Namor, setting off a war between the two nations. This being a superhero movie, one must set aside the things that seem implausible and just enjoy the action. There are plenty of special effects with the vehicles and weapons causing mass destruction. The characters are kept interesting too, showing the grief they go through and their concern for one another. Ultimately, the situation does get resolved and it looks like we can expect another chapter in the story of Wakanda. And there aren’t even any aliens appearing in the movie!

Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2                        4 ½ stars

Nine years ago, Pixar thrilled us with an innovative animated film about childhood emotions in Inside Out. The five emotions managed a child’s feelings about the things going on in the girl’s life all to great comic effect and with compassion. The emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira) and Fear (Tony Hale) are back in Pixar’s sequel where the child, Riley, just turns thirteen, bringing a whole new set of challenges for the emotions to deal with. Riley starts out as a normal well-adjusted child who likes to hang out with her two friends and play on the middle school hockey team. Things are going fine for Joy and company until an alarm on the console goes off, that is the warning for the arrival of Puberty! A construction crew suddenly arrives causing chaos followed by the new emotions led by Anxiety (Maya Hawke) who try to take over Headquarters. Accompanying Anxiety are Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (French for Boredom) (Adèle Exarchopoulos). In the real world we follow Riley who is attending a hockey skills camp with her old friends, but now faces the chance to be accepted by more mature and talented girls at the expense of leaving her old friends behind. Anxiety takes over control at HQ, sending the old emotions to long term storage in the Vault and Riley’s sense of herself to oblivion where all her bad memories go. It’s up to Joy and company to escape and take control of HQ back from Anxiety. The movie is a creative and imaginative way of portraying the changing emotions of a teenage girl and is done in the usual Pixar comedic fashion of Pixar. The picture is very colorful and full of action and especially shows the concern that Joy has for Riley’s well-being. The movie is completely appropriate for children and does not deal directly with changing bodies or attraction to boys. It focuses on a child’s sense of themselves and how they relate to other children, or the usual things that teenagers go through. Inside Out 2 is recommended for all ages.

See How They Run

See How They Run           4 stars

For a fun time you won’t be disappointed with the new whodunit “See How They Run” by director Tom George and writer Mark Chappell. The comedy mystery does a variation of the play within a play theme, using Agatha Christie’s popular stage play “The Mousetrap” that has reached its one hundredth performance in 1953 London’s West End. There is a plan to turn the hit play into a film version to be directed by Hollywood director Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody who I have not seen in ages) and written by Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Ayelowo). Early on in the movie one of the film crew turns up dead at the play’s after party, done in by a mysterious dark figure in a coat and hat. In steps Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell of Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) of Scotland Yard to be aided by rookie officer Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan of Brooklyn and Lady Bird) who are tasked with identifying the murderer. Stoppard sets about interviewing the myriad of suspects all of whom seem to have a possible motive while the enthusiastic Stalker tries to help in amusing fashion. (She writes everything down in her notebook including Stoppard’s advice of Do not jump to conclusions.) The suspects even include famous actor Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) who stars in the play. The movie features multiple flashbacks and on screen titles to show the passage of time that all serve to fill in the details. Especially entertaining are the interactions between the experienced but put upon Stoppard and the rookie Stalker who proves to be somewhat annoying, but observant. Of course, we eventually reach the inevitable gathering of the suspects in a room that even includes the famed Miss Christie where the murderer is to be revealed. For Agatha Christie enthusiasts there are many references to her works and characters that I will not go into. The movie is a good time with a story containing many red herrings and a few twists as a good murder mystery should. The advice “Do not Jump to Conclusions” is a very good rule to follow.

My Octopus Teacher

My Octopus Teacher      5 stars

I finally saw the 2021 Academy Award winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher” by documentarian Craig Foster. Foster filmed his underwater encounters with the eight-legged subject in the waters off South Africa near his home after going through a period of crisis in his own life. In the film he made daily trips to the kelp forest where all sorts of colorful creatures live and followed the life of a single female octopus, bringing the experience to a personal level. It isn’t a film of scientific study but succeeds in showing what it takes for this animal to survive in the sea, including escaping from the sharks that prey on the octopus and finding ways to catch its own source of food. He does all this using just a snorkel and without a wetsuit allowing him to get close to the animal which reacts to him with curiosity. He even catches a close encounter with one of those hungry sharks followed by a long period of recovery for the mollusk. The film is only a little over an hour and a half long but by the end you feel that you understand something about this creature that is almost an alien to humans. For nature lovers this is one that should not be missed.

Orphan: First Kill

Orphan: First Kill               ½ star

Orphan: First Kill is the prequel to the 2009 movie Orphan about dwarf young woman who passes herself off as a child who also happens to be a psychopathic killer. Judging by First Kill I won’t be seeing the earlier one. The movie explains how Esther, the diminutive 30 year old and the most dangerous inmate of an asylum in Estonia escapes and makes her way to America and convinces a grieving family that she is their lost daughter who disappeared four years earlier. First Kill breaks one of the rules of horror movies at the start by leading with scenes of bloody mayhem instead of waiting the customary 20 minute minimum. After that it asks way too much of the audience to believe as the premise plays out. In the first Orphan Esther is played by a 10 year old playing the part of a 30 year old pretending to be a 10 year old. In First Kill the same actress is a 25 year old playing the part of a 30 year old pretending to be a 10 year old. I can’t tell which is harder to believe. Perhaps we are supposed to blame the victims for falling for such an absurd trick. There are other inconsistencies that are not explained such as the lack of any genetic testing in this modern age of DNA and how the medical doctors could be fooled by the masquerade. There is an attempt to make things more interesting with a twist that is introduced midway through the movie with Esther not being the only one with a secret to hide. I advise everyone to stay away from Orphan: First Kill, especially with so many interesting movies coming out in the next few weeks.

The Woman King

The Woman King              4 ½ star

The historically based action drama The Woman King opened with much anticipation and succeeded in delivering. The mostly female production staff tells the story of an African tribe in the early 1800’s that was home to an all female army of fierce warriors who defend their home and people from neighboring warring tribes. This is in the period when the slave trade was still practiced in West Africa, though the United States was done with the trade by this time. The slave buyers here are represented by the Portuguese speaking Brazilians who pit the African tribes against one another, encouraging them to provide human slaves from their enemies. Viola Davis appears as the battle tested Nanisca, the general of the Agojie, the elite troops of the kingdom of Dahomey. Her role here is unlike any other she has had before (Fences, Doubt, The Help) as she goes full on action hero, charging into the enemy ranks and overseeing the training of the female soldiers. She has plenty of battle scars from her years of service and is very circumspect about her own situation in the quiet down times. One can tell there is a story from her past that is slowly revealed in the film. There is also the story of one of the young soldiers, Nawi, (Thuso Mbedu of The Underground Railroad) who is given to the army by her father after she refuses to be married off to an old rich man. Her path to becoming a warrior is equally intriguing to that of Nanisca as she learns the consequences of disobeying orders, but becomes key to the developments in the story. John Boyega of Star Wars fame does an impressive job in the role of the King of the Dahomey, who must decide what is the best path to take for his people and find a way of ending the practice of selling humans for profit. Like any good action movie there are plenty of scenes of fighting with the weapons of the time: swords, spears and flintlocks causing great loss of life and bloody wounds on both sides of the conflict. These scenes put together by director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, The Old Guard) become quite extended and realistic. The script is by Dana Stevens based on a story by Maria Bello and others. I don’t know just how much of the story is true, (It is an “inspired” story.) but it is well past time that this episode of history of African women fighters is recognized.

Don’t Worry Darling

Don’t Worry Darling        2 ½ stars

By now everyone has heard some of the behind the scenes drama about Don’t Worry Darling, the Olivia Wilde directed vision of a utopia of married couples set in a 1950’s suburban paradise where the wives relish in house cleaning, modern dance lessons and preparing epicurean meals for their husbands who spend their days at work on a mysterious project called The Victory Project that no one understands. That drama is something I don’t need to go into, but in the movie itself it doesn’t take long to get the feeling that something isn’t right in paradise. Alice (Florence Pugh does a fantastic job!), the housewife to husband Jack (Harry Styles) starts to see signs that things are amiss in her world. She hears strange tunes, sees food that is not real and imagines the walls of the house are closing in on her. Her seemingly happy neighbors who all share the same cul-de-sac and with whom they all indulge in wild drunken parties don’t see the same signs and deny that there is anything sinister going on. The one exception is Mary (Olivia Wilde) who wants to put a stop to Alice’s suspicions. There is plenty to be suspicious about as the head of The Victory Project, Frank (Chris Pine) is treated like the worshipped leader of a cult. There is something demon like about him and in this case Pine is suited to the role. This type of dystopian society film has been done many times before only in a less preachy manner. Eventually, we get to an explanation via a heavy use of flashbacks. There is a definite feminist message against a very repressive society and a praise for those who would rebel against it. One gets the feeling that there was a lot of anger behind the writing of this film. For a superior treatment of a similar theme, only from a racial perspective I much prefer Get Out, the 2017 horror film by Jordan Peele. But it does appear that Don’t Worry Darling has its fans. Don’t count me among them.