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.

A Good Person

A Good Person                  3 stars

A Good Person, written and directed by Scrubs star Zach Braff and starring Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh (of Midsommar, Little Women and Oppenheimer and Princess Irulan in Dune 2!) brings us into the all too familiar world of drug addiction and PTSD. In this movie it is Pugh who plays the drug addict, Allison, a young woman who had everything going for her including a loving fiancé and an active social life until a tragic accident resulted in her being addicted to OxyContin. Allison has a falling out with her mother (Molly Shannon), is afraid to work and is not above blackmailing former friends in order to score more drugs. Things are bad for Allison but also in pain are her fiancé, Nathan (Chinaza Uche), Nathan’s father, Daniel (the legendary Morgan Freeman) and Daniel’s granddaughter, Ryan (Celeste O’Connor of Selah and the Spades). You see, Daniel’s daughter and mother to Ryan were killed in the tragic accident. Long after the incident these people are trying to get on with their lives, some better than others. Daniel is now responsible for Ryan who has been acting out in high school. Having been an alcoholic before, Daniel is in a position to try to help Allison out of her addiction but it is a painful situation given the loss everyone has suffered. While Florence Pugh puts in a good performance as Allison the film feels rather formulaic on this all too familiar subject. Better movies come to mind like Requiem for a Dream, Rachel Getting Married and Clean and Sober (which features a young Morgan Freeman). There was also Sound of Metal in 2019. (Outstanding!) It’s a tough assignment to measure up to some of these excellent movies. Braff gave it a try, but it was also reported that he specifically wrote the movie for Pugh since the two were at one time involved in a relationship. It’s certainly not great. I will be watching closely for the release of Dune: Part Two which includes Florence Pugh playing the part of Princess Irulan.

Four Good Days

Four Good Days                 4 stars

I took in Four Good Days, a movie that previously appeared at Sundance and that deals with that old subject of drug addiction and the effect it has on those around the addict. In this drama by Rodrigo Garcia we are graced with two excellent actresses: Glenn Close as Deb, the addict’s mother who has been burned too many times by her daughter’s lies and thievery, and Mila Kunis as Molly, the addict with a heroin habit that has lasted for ten years and has lost everything including her marriage and her children. The movie starts with the two meeting and Molly begging for help from Deb with the shocking appearance of her skin and hair making it clear what her life has been like, but Deb refusing her daughter because she has seen it all before and won’t be fooled again. But finally she relents, taking Molly to a detox facility. Once there the doctor informs them there is a drug, Naltrexone that will neutralize the addiction for a month, but Molly must be drug free for four more days before taking it. And her only option is to stay with Mom and her husband Chris, (Stephen Root) until she can take the drug. Here is where the drama sets in. Deb knows she cannot trust Molly and lets her stay in the garage where a door alarm will sound whenever the door opens. We know that Molly could relapse at any time, but we still root for her hoping these two can find a way. And we really feel for Deb who is in anguish every step of the way over the hard choices she has to make. Most aspects of this movie are familiar as we get more background about the characters and how they got to this point. The desire to blame others for their problems is a constant theme. The story is based on the lives of actual people who we see at the end. It is the performances of the two principal actors that make the story especially compelling. Incidentally, Glenn Close and Rodrigo Garcia previously worked together on Albert Knobs in 2011.

Talk to Me

Talk to Me                          4 stars

Talk to Me from Australian newcomers Danny and Michael Philippou answers the question of what would a group of suburban teenagers do if they found a cursed mummified hand. If you said they would take turns using it to conjure dead spirits at a party while filming it with their iPhones you would be correct. This film which debuted at Sundance is easily the most intriguing horror movie I have seen so far this year. Teenager Mia (Sophie Wilde) who has recently lost her mother goes with her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s little brother Riley (Joe Bird) to a party of friends where the main event is to take turns grasping said cursed hand while strapped into a chair and saying the words “Talk to Me”. At this point the person sees a decaying human body staring back at them. If they can keep their composure they then say the words “I Let You In”, at which point a dead human spirit enters their body causing them to utter some threatening phrases and perhaps thrash about in strange contortions. But care must be taken to make sure the period of possession does not exceed 90 seconds. Sounds like a load of fun, doesn’t it? Mia takes a special interest in the activity when she believes this is a mechanism for her to communicate with her dead mother who died under mysterious circumstances, but something goes wrong resulting in severe injuries to the very young Riley. Naturally things take a dark turn as the teenagers try to find out the story behind the detached hand and Mia pursues ways to contact her dead mother. But there is a question as to whether it is her mother or something more sinister. Are you hooked yet? The movie does an effective job of showing us Mia’s grief (thanks to Miss Wilde) and includes some real mind grabbing special effects. I can also promise you a satisfying ending if you stick it out. The movie premiered at Sundance earlier this year. I saw it in an empty theater and now think it would have been a real blast to have seen it at Sundance with a fun full-size crowd. Look for it in theaters.

Bottoms

Bottoms               4 ½ stars

The newly released Bottoms brings the raunchy high-school sex comedy into the 2020’s. The movie’s writers, Emma Seligman (who also directs) and Rachel Sennott (starring as P.J.) have described it as this generation’s Heathers, (that teen comedy from 1988 starring Winona Ryder). In this fast paced and foul-mouthed story, BFF’s P.J. (Sennott) and Josey (Eyo Edebiri) are gay high school girls starting their senior year, who regard themselves as ugly and are very horny for girls on the cheerleader squad. It’s a tough time for them as all the attention is on the school football team, the Vikings who are about to face their chief rival in the upcoming game. The quarterback, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine doing some over the top acting) is the boyfriend of cheerleader Isabella, who Josey is hot for. Clearly this forlorn pair need a plan. Under pressure P.J. comes up with the idea of forming a girls fight club hoping to attract some hot girls to join, with Josey in agreement. Their pretext is that girls are in need of self-defense training and it is a way to promote feminist empowerment. Unfortunately, the founders know nothing about fighting so simply punch each other in the face to start things off. (They also invent a story about being in juvie where they supposedly acquired these skills that they don’t really have.) Eventually, their love interests do actually join the club where the girls beat each other up even with their teacher sponsor present (former NFL player, Marshawn Lynch). How long can P.J. and Josie keep this up before their true motives are discovered? You will have to see the movie to find out but in the meantime you can enjoy some of the funniest writing I have seen this year. No topic is too sacred for Seligman and Sennott to poke fun at. While being rather raunchy the movie has a smart feel to it like Booksmart and has a high level of energy like Bring It On, (also a cheerleader movie). You might say it is similar to American Pie, but with queer female characters. Rachel Sennott and Eyo Edebiri previously have done web shorts together on Comedy Central. Sennott previously appeared in last year’s Bodies Bodies Bodies and Edebiri was in this year’s Theater Camp. (One of the cheerleaders in Bottoms is played by Kaia Gerber, daughter of Cindy Crawford, important for my generation.) I think we can count on seeing plenty more work featuring these talents as well as from director Emma Seligman.

Fremont

Fremont              4 ½ stars

We return again to a movie that was first shown at Sundance in 2023 with Fremont by Iranian born filmmaker Babak Jalali. One wouldn’t think that a story about an Afghan immigrant escaping from her war-torn country to the United States would make for a good comedy, but that is exactly what Jalali has set out to do. Donya (Anaita Wali Zada, who herself escaped from Afghanistan) is a young Afghan woman who was a translator for the US Army and now resides in Fremont, California, having left her family behind. She has a job working in a Chinese cookie factory in San Francisco, where she seems to have a very bland life. She lives in an apartment building where many fellow Afghans reside, but has contact with many non-Afghans due to her job. There is her boss at the cookie factory who is always upbeat and seems to care about her, her coworker who is often looking for a date, and her psychiatrist who she seems to have conned into giving her free sessions with her complaints about not being able to sleep. Zada portrays Donya with a deadpan look, never cracking a smile or showing any emotion, yet she is someone that people have empathy for. At the factory she lands the job of writing the cookie fortunes when she convinces the owner that she has the intelligence to write the encouraging yet vague messages that the customers will find interesting. But then she takes the chance of writing a personal message with her phone number and putting it in the cookies in an attempt to reach out to someone. This could change her life but may lead to other unforeseen consequences. The style of the movie done in black and white and with straight ahead shots seems to be from an earlier period of filmmaking and something we haven’t seen in a while. The film is very low key and slow moving, but is guaranteed to get some laughs from the audience. Zada is right for the role of Donya and is very believable as the young Afghan who seems lost yet determined to change her life. Fans of the show The Bear will recognize Jeremy Allen White as the lonely mechanic that Donya meets on one of her adventures. Fremont is a moving story about a lost person who holds on to the possibility of being found. I recommend it.

Dumb Money

Dumb Money                    4 stars

The new based on real events movie Dumb Money by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) starts by introducing the players on screen showing us their estimated worth. That way it becomes clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in the stock trading world, or who are the billionaire hedge fund managers and the retail traders (who the billionaires refer to as Dumb Money). In the early days of 2021 while America wasn’t watching the news about Donald Trump’s second impeachment, they were following a story about a small publicly traded company called Gamestop that was being promoted by a single nerdy small investor named Keith Gill (Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine and There Will be Blood). He broadcast his message of belief in the stock on Youtube and Reddit under the name of Roaring Kitty, convincing thousands of small investors to buy it to show the big guys on Wall Street that the stock was undervalued, making the phrase “I like the stock” a rallying cry. The hedge fund managers are all betting against them, selling Gamestop short, allowing them to make a lot of money when and if the stock crashes in value. (I don’t really understand how this works but the movie helps to explain it.) The billionaires are portrayed by Seth Rogen, Vincent D’Onofrio and Nick Offerman who strut around in their luxury suites and tennis clubs. The little guys who buy into the stock and hold it with religious fervor are a nurse named Jenny (America Ferrera), a retail clerk (Anthony Ramos), and a couple of college students (Talie Ryder and Myha’la) who are all desperate for money. The movie provides some non-investing characters to ask questions about what is happening, allowing Gill to explain it in easy to understand terms. These include his wife, Caroline (Shailene Woodley) and his idiot brother Kevin (Pete Davidson in another well executed smart-ass role). All this eventually leads to the climax of a congressional inquiry when there is an apparent impropriety that protects the billionaires from further losses. The movie effectively tells the story of what happens when Wall Street greed collides with the power of social media combined with the isolation brought on by the pandemic. Dumb Money is not The Big Short by any means but dramatizes a story about stock trading done in a way that makes it relatable to the average viewer. Also, fans of hip-hop artist Cardi B should be pleased by the choice of music.

Free Guy

Free Guy              4 stars

In the 2021 action comedy Free Guy, directed by Shawn Levy (the Night at the Museum movies) we first meet Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a very chipper guy who greets his goldfish, puts on his blue dress shirt and goes to his job at a bank where he cheerfully greets everyone. He and his best friend, Buddy the security guard (Lil Rel Howery of Get Out) seem unsurprised when the bank is robbed by masked villains with very large guns and calmly drop to the floor and have a casual conversation. As he walks through the streets of Free City he is surrounded by the mayhem of crashing cars, people shooting at one another, and falling debris from damaged skyscrapers. Yet none of this disturbs him, not even when he wakes up again in his room and repeats the day, just like the previous one. We soon see that all of the characters in Free City are part of a video game played around the world and Guy is simply a NPC (non-player character) in this game where the players operate their characters from home. Then one day he spots an attractive woman on the street that he thinks must be the girl of his dreams. She is known only as Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer of Killing Eve) in Guy’s world, but is also named Millie as the woman who is operating the avatar from her computer. In the real world Millie and her friend Keys (Joe Keery) are the coders who created the popular game that is owned by a giant corporation run by an authoritative tech lord called Antwan (Taika Waititi). When Guy follows Molotov Girl he discovers the truth about his existence in the game. Millie puts a pair of sunglasses on Guy that shows him the mayhem that the players of the online game see. This leads him to the decision to play his own game gaining experience and fame, making him a celebrity among the players in the real world. The movie combines elements from The Truman Show, Wreck It Ralph and Groundhog Day but with a great deal of comic action and impressive special effects aided by some amusing cameos from action movie-stars (such as Channing Tatum, Hugh Jackman and Dwayne Johnson). As the action progressed the idea came to me that this was like a type of West World where nobody gets hurt and with music that lightens the mood. (There is a great use of the theme song from The Greatest American Hero.) This is a fun movie that is silly and sweet and quite a departure for Ryan Reynolds who is best known for his superhero roles in action movies.

A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice      4 stars

For the third time in six years the world’s most famous detective, Hercule Poirot, as portrayed by Kenneth Branagh is on the case to solve another mysterious death. With Branagh again directing, it is after World War II and the world is getting back to normal, with Poirot having become a recluse, quietly retired in Venice. But he can’t stay hidden for long when the renowned American mystery writer Ariadne Oliver (a more subdued yet comical Tina Fey) tracks him down to recruit his services regarding the death of a young woman, Alicia Drake on behalf of her mother, Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). The catch is that Poirot must attend a children’s Halloween Party on All Hallowed Eve in a large, dark decaying house to be followed by a séance where the dead Alicia is to be contacted. In that respect the movie is a departure from the two earlier outings, Murder on the Orient Express and A Death on the Nile. The exotic locations are exchanged for the confined setting of a creaky, mysterious mansion on a stormy, rainy night and there is a distinct focus on the supernatural with odd camera angles and sudden noises happening periodically. The séance is conducted by the famous medium, Mrs. Reynolds (Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh), attended by Poirot, Drake, and Oliver as well as Drake’s housekeeper Olga (Camille Cottin), the doctor who treated Alicia, Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan of Belfast), his 12-year-old son, Leopold (Jude Hill also of Belfast), Poirot’s bodyguard and Mrs. Reynold’s assistant. As you would expect with Hercule Poirot being present, the suspicious séance is followed with one of the participants experiencing a fall which proves fatal. Unable to reach the police, Poirot follows his usual protocol, locking everyone in the mansion, interviewing all the potential suspects one by one until the mystery can be solved. The case is based on one of Agatha Christie’s novels, Halloween Party, but it definitely has a supernatural slant to it with apparitions and strange noises contributing to the mystery. Mystery writer Oliver has another motive it is clear as she wants to find a way to increase her book sales and challenge the great detective’s skepticism of all things spiritual. The film is greatly enhanced by actors Michelle Yeoh, Tina Fey and Camille Cotton, but there is a real treasure in the young Jude Hill who is so excellent as the doctor’s precocious son. Branagh previously cast him in Belfast where he was again the son to Jamie Dornan. It will interesting to see what else awaits this young man. I found A Haunting in Venice to be the best of the three Poirot movies and want to assure viewers that the movie belongs in the world of mystery thrillers and is not a true horror movie. See it while it is still in theaters!

Flora and Son

Flora and Son                     4 ½ stars

I returned again this week to a film that appeared at Sundance but missed at the festival. Flora and Son is the latest creation of writer/director John Carney, who previously brought us Begin Again, Sing Street and his masterwork, Once. Again, the Irish filmmaker has created a simple story about conflict in a relationship that centers around and is resolved by the process of song writing. This time the story is about a young, Irish, working class, single mother, Flora (Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono)) who is struggling to raise her 14-year-old son, Max (Orén Kinlan) in a small Dublin apartment. Max, unfortunately has a habit of stealing and getting into trouble at school and is facing the prospect of being sentenced to a juvenile facility. In an effort to keep him out of trouble, she recovers a discarded guitar, has it restored and gives it to the troubled teen, hoping to get him interested in music. Max wants no part of this plan, but Flora is drawn to the guitar and goes in search of online guitar lessons, and in so doing finds Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a musician in Los Angeles who hires himself out for personal lessons online. The pair discuss the chords on a guitar and what it means to write a good song and before long Flora is critiquing Jeff’s songs and suggesting ways to make them better. The discussions get quite personal as they discuss the feelings created by a song and refer to song terms like the verses, the chorus and the bridge, something you only see in a John Carney movie. Occasionally, Jeff is shown in the same room with Flora to show how they are connecting over their discussions. (The viewer must ignore the fact that performing music together via Zoom is not practical due to the time delay.) Carney is always interested in his characters getting closer together, but also in the process of writing good music which I love to see. And ultimately there is hope for her son, Max as he reveals some musical talent as he learns to use a synthesizer to create rap music, and mother and son find that they do have a common bond in music. The movie has the right amount of humor and successfully dealing with family conflict without getting too sappy though it is probably not Carney’s best movie. Flora and Son is newly released in theaters so I suggest you see it there while you can. It is also available on Apple TV+.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings           4 stars

I’m not a great fan of the Marvel movies but I took in the acclaimed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings from 2021 to see what it was about. This is certainly an action filled story with plenty of martial arts fighting and CGI effects combined with an intergenerational origin story about characters trying to find their place in the world while dealing with family expectations. There is a lot of back story involved despite most of the time seemingly devoted to one extended fight scene after another. I can’t go into great detail, but the two main heroes are Shang-Chi (Simu Lui) and Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), brother and sister who are each on their own having left their father’s world who is a legendary warlord (Tony Leung as Wenwu) who has great power due to the ten rings he wears on his arms when engaged in battle. The pair are drawn back to their father when he reaches out to them to confront a great wrong done to their family many years before. The past events took place in a magical place called Ta Lo, hidden in a deep forest where many strange creatures live with the humans. The village is protecting the world from a great evil force that would like to take the souls of all the creatures it can, as happens in a superhero movie. Shang-Chi and Xialing find themselves on the opposite side from their father, thus we have the setting for the many fights that take place. The story is interposed with the action scenes along the way allowing the characters to show off their martial arts skills and their powers over the forces of nature. Special mention must go to Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan who shows off her fighting skills before she was in Everything, Everywhere All at Once. As well as Awkwafina as Shang-Chi’s girlfriend from San Francisco, a civilian who gets caught up in the action. There is a lot more to the story than I have described, and a lot of action packed into the two and a quarter time of the movie. As with any superhero movie you must suspend your disbelief when characters take all sorts of punishment from super destructive forces without sustaining injuries (something that tends to bore me). As Marvel movies go, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is better than most and I understand that there should be more expected from this lesser known hero of the MCU.