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.

Parasite

Parasite                5 stars

The movie to see in theaters now is Parasite, the creation of Korean director Bong Joon Ho, who previously brought us The Host, Snowpiercer and Okja.  This movie does have a message about the haves and the have nots, but does so with biting wit and a story that holds our interest throughout its 130 minute run time.  We are introduced to a poor family in South Korea who are scraping by with menial jobs but are far too smart to starve.  The son learns of a wealthy family who needs a tutor for their daughter to learn English so he easily gets the job through lies and false credentials.  Before long the family of four all secure jobs with this family using lies and various deceitful schemes landing them work for which they are not qualified in this luxury home.  It doesn’t hurt that the rich couple seem to be extremely gullible willing to believe almost anything.  Just as this family of con geniuses are enjoying their newfound wealth, an unfortunate discovery is made that takes the movie through an unexpected and dark turn.  I will leave you to find out what happens at that point, but be assured you will not be bored or distracted from what lies in store for these characters.  There is plenty of suspense and action for the faithful moviegoer.  I found Parasite to be one of the best films I’ve seen this year.  I just hope that more people skip the usual Hollywood fantasy/action movies and seek it out.

Downsizing

Downsizing         2 stars

I saw two movies recently that can be classified as social satires, one of which was very well done and the other while having great intensions falls far short.  Downsizing, from 2017 takes place in the near future when a technology is discovered that allows people to be shrunk in size to only a few inches tall.  The promise is that this will save the planet from environmental catastrophe by reducing the human footprint and allow people to live in luxury in a place called Leisure Land because their cost of living is reduced to a tiny fraction of normal.  It stars Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as the couple willing to embark on this adventure when he becomes disillusioned with his job.  The movie has a few funny moments but loses its satiric edge as it seeks to deliver a message on the inequalities of this new world and the dangers of overconsumption.  By the end of the movie I just wanted to say: Ok I get it. There are always injustices in the world!  The movie was by director Alexander Payne who in the past has given us great movies like “Sideways” and “The Descendants”.  Something did not go well with the idea for Downsizing.

Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant

Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant.        3 suns

For my final film of the festival, I saw something really bizarre: Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant in the Midnight section. In this British comedy a young woman gets pregnant via engaging in a sex act with the neighbor boy who is half alien as a result of his mother being abducted by aliens before he was born.  The comedy all centers around the very exaggerated trauma that a woman goes through while pregnant.  There is plenty of screaming and vomiting and slimy fluids involved while the young woman keeps blaming the half alien for her trouble.  There is even a vacuum cleaner involved in a bizarre abortion attempt. We get a peek at what an alien penis looks like and after many antics the baby alien finally arrives.  The movie was a riot in the theater, and the actors even brought baby alien with them and allowed fans to have their picture taken with him.

Night Nurse

Night Nurse.        4 suns

Another entry in the NEXT section was Night Nurse, by Georgia Bernstein who is from Northbrook, Illinois.  The film can be described as an erotic thriller with a comedic tone. The setting is the night shift at a retirement home where the elderly residents are cared for by a team of nurses. A new nurse, Eleni joins the staff and is assigned to take care of Douglas, a man in his seventies.  Eleni is soon persuaded by Douglas to participate in a scheme where elderly men in the area are called on the phone and made to believe that she is their granddaughter and she has been in an accident and is being held by the police.  The men must send money to help her out.  Not only does she go along with the scam, but the two engage in erotic sexual behavior during the calls.  (It’s very steamy.) Eleni is not the only nurse to participate as most of the nurses are included in this erotic club. Douglas gets away with this by feigning dementia, so the administrators have no suspicion about the scheme (even though Douglas has bought a new convertible and drives his harem of nurses around in it.  Don’t think about it too much.) Mimi Rogers of erotic movie fame with films such as Someone to Watch Over Me, Desperate Hours and Full Body Massage plays the role of the doctor in charge of the home. The movie is a nice little diversion to enjoy. The movie was made with a very small budget. The director said that she hired personal friends as the nurses and had a family connection to Rogers.  She used her grandmother’s house as the movie set.  She got the idea for the movie after someone made an attempt to scam her grandmother out of money by using such a scheme.

Ghost in the Machine

Ghost in the Machine     3 1/2 suns

From the Sundance category NEXT, I saw the documentary Ghost in the Machine from director/ screenwriter Valerie Veatch. The subject of the doc was AI but not from a technical standpoint or its development. Rather it was about the power that the titans of the tech industry hold over us. It presents the arguments at a very rapid pace that feels overwhelming and covers a wide range of aspects of AI, most of which I had heard before.  It covered the exploitation of foreign tech workers in very poor countries, the environmental impact of the huge data centers being built around the world, the heavy involvement of the military in AI and the close ties of Sam Altman, Elon Musk and other tech giants to the Trump administration.  I didn’t know much about the origins of AI going back to the start of Silicon Valley.  According to the documentary the beginning of the computer industry was heavily rooted in the development of the field of statistics which really started in the late 1800’s. The pioneers of this field both in the US and in the UK had very racist beliefs, believing that the white race was superior to all other races.  Statistics was developed as a tool to measure intelligence in the races in order to prove their point. What followed then was the belief that eugenics should be used to reduce less desirable traits in the human race. So, then the logic goes that these early racist views still persist in AI and the industry leaders today. (If you read some of the statements said by Elon Musk you could make that correlation.) I can’t say that anything stated in the film is untrue, but have no doubt there are facts being left out.  The director was asked about presenting the other side of the issue, but said there was little point in doing so as you would only hear the same rhetoric that we see in the media. I know that there is great hope and promise for the advancements that can be achieved with AI in the future, but this very biased film is a warning about the costs of embracing this new technology.

Rock Springs

Rock Springs.      4 1/2 suns

One movie getting a lot of buzz here is Rock Springs by director/ screenwriter Vera Miao. This movie is in the Midnight section that is reserved for the very weird, sometimes gory films. Rock Springs certainly fits that description as it concerns an Asian mother, her daughter and her mother-in-law who move into an isolated home in the woods only to discover that there is something monstrous hidden in the woods. I can’t say a lot about it without giving away the plot but can say it concerns a small forgotten chapter of the racist history of the US. I really liked the way the story was told in chapters from different characters’ points of view and in a non-linear fashion. It is a monster movie that ends with a hopeful message. And the special effects were very impressive.

Seized

Seized.        5 suns

Seized documents the events we were following back in 2023 after the police raid of a small-town newspaper in Marion, Kansas.  The story about the abuse of power that shut down the Marion County Record was covered internationally and highlighted the importance of journalistic ethics and the US Constitution. The director, Sharon Liese tells the story through interviews with the editor of the newspaper, employees including one bright, young man hired just out of college one year after the raid, local politicians, police officers and business owners.  We find that one corrupt person in power with the cooperation of other officials was able to seize the property of the paper, resulting in the death of the 98-year-old owner.  The editor fought back through litigation using arguments framing the issue as a matter of freedom of the press.  The director has created an engaging movie that shows the cost to those affected by this fierce debate.

Hot Water

Hot Water.     4 1/2 suns

Hot Water is a light drama about family relationships with humor added to deal with the tension being faced by two family members.  It is by Lebanese director Ramzi Bashour and concerns an American boy being kicked out of high school in Indiana for a violent act and his Lebanese mom who is forced to deal with the situation, leading to a road trip across the country. The mother, played by Lubna Azabal is a professor at a university and a single mom to 19-year-old Daniel (Daniel Zolghadri who is biracial) . After being kicked out of school, the only option for Daniel is to move in with his dad who lives in California.  But to do that mother and son have to travel across the country by car and meet up with dad halfway.  Thus starts the mother and son road trip bringing together the pair who rarely see eye to eye but love each other, nonetheless. Of course, dad has a history of alcohol and drug abuse, so this decision seems questionable. There is plenty of beautiful scenery on the journey and some funny adventures too, like when they meet Sasha (Dale Dickey), a friend of dad, who brings them to a geothermal hot spring in Colorado where she proceeds to go for a dip completely naked. Along the way they confront their differences and find how they really care for one another.  (We finally do meet dad and find out just how weird he is.) Another interesting touch is the way that Mom displays that she is trilingual, speaking English, Arabic and French, easily switching from one language to another. I highly recommend Hot Water, which I expect to make it into theaters.  The director, Ramzi Bashour, Zolghadri and Dale Dickey were present for Q&A. I got to talk with Zolghadri who told how he loved to see the country this way.  

Filipiñana

Filipiñana.     2 1/2 suns

Filipiñana from the Philippines was one of my least favorite films so far.  The movie is set in an exclusive country club in the Philippines and is all about the rich taking advantage of the poor and separation of the classes. We follow young Isabel who is a tee girl at the country club, (That’s a person who places the golf ball on the tee for the rich members. ) She admires the president of the club and spends much time trying to return a lost golf club to him.  The caddies at the club are exclusively women. The film puts on full display the patriarchal nature of this society and how the wealthy minority are taking advantage of the poor farmers by taking their land.  There is a hint of the violence in this country, but we never actually see it.  The movie is filled with scenes of little dialogue and static camera shots that seem to stretch on forever.  It is all about injustice but is so subtle in its approach I found it hard to detect.  Sometimes a movie can leave too much up to the imagination of the viewer.

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!       4 1/2 suns

I was especially pleased with Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! by Japanese director Josef Kubota Wladyka and starring Rinko Kikuchi which follows married couple Haru (Kikuchi) and Luis who regularly compete in competitive Latin ballroom dancing in Tokyo.  But then Luis suddenly dies leaving Haru all alone.  Fortunately, Haru’s sisters encourage her to get back out on the dance floor where she soon is taken up by her new dance instructor who is world famous and who also happens to be married.  One can see that this situation will lead to trouble and the movie does not disappoint.  It is an honest depiction of how hard (and messy) it is to deal with grief while delivering on many humorous situations.  It also includes some fantasy like aspects drawing from Japanese culture.  I enjoyed seeing the blending of the Japanese and Latin cultures which is a real thing in Japan. So far this is my favorite drama of the festival.