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.

The Iron Claw

The Iron Claw     4 ½ stars

“Mom tried to protect us with God. Pop tried to protect us with wrestling.” These are the words of Kevin Von Erich speaking of how his father, Fritz Von Erich drove his sons to be successful in the professional wrestling arena, but ultimately as we discover to tragic results. The movie The Iron Claw, by Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Nest) is about the real life Von Erich family, the kings of professional wrestling in Texas in the eighties. The movie is inspired by the lives of Fritz, the father of the clan (Holt McCallany), oldest son Kevin (a muscular Zac Efron like you’ve never seen him before) who is filled with drive to be the best but is haunted by what he sees as a curse on the family, second son David (Harris Dickinson), the tall lanky blond who tag teams with Kevin, third son Kerry (Jeremy Allen White who you will recognize from The Bear (also Law & Order)) who left a career in track and field for the chance to join his brothers in the ring and finally Mike (Stanley Simons) who saw himself as a country musician; that is, until he too joined his brothers in the ring. The movie is about a family of wrestlers, but it is also about the firm grip of control that Fritz had over his sons, wanting them to be the best and earn the championship belt that eluded him in his wrestling career. “The Iron Claw” is the name of Fritz’s signature move, the use of his hand to squeeze an opponent’s head until they surrender, but it also symbolizes the way he controls his family including his wife (Maura Tierney) who must watch the destruction of the family as they pursue pop’s dream. (Fritz is not going to win any parenting awards with his approach.) The actors, especially Efron obviously had to work up their physique and train hard to wrestle to make this movie. The action in the ring looks as comical as the real thing to me. There is some reference to the staging that is done in pro-wrestling, it being the best performers that end up being champion, so I have no doubt that it looks as real as possible. Unfortunately for the Von Erich family the tragedy that befalls each is only too real as well. The effect on Kevin is devastating as we watch his descent into depression. This is probably Zac Efron’s best performance to date. (We should forget about 2015’s We Are Your Friends.) “The Iron Claw” is far from an upbeat movie and you should be prepared to shed some tears. But it does deliver its message about being loyal to one’s family no matter what.

Barbie

Barbie                   4 ½ stars

By now everyone who wanted to see the movie of the summer, Greta Gerwig’s megahit Barbie has seen it. I know I was late in getting to this party but still thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, it is a blatant marketing ploy by Mattel to capitalize on their iconic adult doll, Barbie, that appeared in the sixties and has been a mainstay of popular culture ever since. But the director of Lady Bird and Little Women, Gerwig has also made it into something of a subversive movie with its commentary on “the patriarchy” and Barbie’s realization of female empowerment. Barbie (the perfect for the role Margot Robbie (I, Tonya and The Suicide Squad)) and Ken (a blond Ryan Gosling (La La Land and The Nice Guys)) are always in a state of partying in their houses at Barbieland or at “Beach” until Barbie has her existential crisis experiencing cellulite and flat feet! On the advice of Weird Barbie (the wacked out but wise Kate McKinnon), Barbie goes to visit the real world. She succeeds in finding her adult owner, Gloria (America Ferrera) who is having her own problems with her tween daughter, but Ken who has tagged along discovers horses! and the patriarchy which he fully embraces and brings news of it back to Barbieland creating the crisis that the Barbies must deal with. Barbie and the audience learn the lesson of critical thinking and what women can accomplish in this world with the help of Barbie creator Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), Weird Barbie and a dramatic speech from Gloria. I enjoyed the roles of all the actors with the possible exception of Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel. Gerwig and her co-writer Noah Baumbach have created a fun movie with a message that is sure to be enjoyed for years to come. The movie also proves you can never have too much pink.

Maestro

Maestro               5 stars

It has been five years since Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut of A Star Is Born, a remake of a true Hollywood classic that he also starred in alongside Lady Gaga. Now he has co-written, directed, and starred in Maestro, a biopic on the life of Leonard Bernstein, the legendary American composer and conductor. Cooper elected to focus on his twenty-five-year relationship and marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre (played masterfully by Carey Mulligan (An Education, Drive, She Said, Promising Young Woman), showing us how they met at a New York gala, how she stayed with the man she loved through many difficult years until her death from cancer. We see Bernstein’s rise to fame after he directed the New York Philharmonic and the attention to his career by the media. The film does not show us much of his creative process in his compositions, choosing to show us his conducting skills (which I understand are very accurate thanks to Cooper’s attention to detail), and his tendency toward having affairs with men causing great strife for Felicia. I think that he made the right choice in not making the movie too broad as often happens with biopics. I really liked some of the creative elements used in the picture, such as the moving camera work in an opening scene where Bernstein learns he is to conduct the New York Philharmonic and we follow him from a bedroom as he moves through hallways and appears in the concert hall all in one continuous motion. The early scenes in the forties and fifties are all done in black and white making it look like old Hollywood, but when we get to the sixties and seventies the screen turns to bright colors displaying the difference in the eras. I loved the fantasy sequence showing dancing sailors giving us a hint of On the Town, but with Bernstein showing up in the act as a foretelling of the troubles to come. The film wouldn’t be nearly the success that it is without Carey Mulligan as Felicia who loves Bernstein but must suffer through his infidelities and his selfishness over his own greatness. The scene of the two confronting one another in their apartment during a Thanksgiving parade, (complete with Snoopy balloon) with her exploding in rage is equal to what I’ve seen in Anatomy of a Fall and Marriage Story. I have admired her acting skills since 2010’s An Education. She has been nominated for acting Oscars twice before and will surely be nominated for Maestro come Oscar time. She could very well win it this time. Bradley Cooper has Bernstein’s mannerisms down cold and keeps the energy of the film high with the quick dialogue he delivers along with the rest of the cast. The makeup on Cooper is convincing as we see Bernstein age through the decades. Undoubtedly, the movie will be rewarded for this. The only problem I had was with the movie not telling us what pieces are being performed when Bernstein is conducting. It is assumed the audience knows them and while they are familiar to me, I would like to know what they are during the movie. I am just glad I got the chance to see it in the theater to get the full effect. All music lovers should see this one and even if you’re not you shouldn’t miss it. Maestro is one of the best movies of the year.

The Boys in the Boat

The Boys in the Boat                       2 ½ stars

Director George Clooney who brought us such movies as Good Night and Good Luck,
Leatherheads and The Monuments Men returns to the director’s chair for a feel-good
underdog sports movie in The Boys in the Boat. This true story about an
eight-man rowing team from the University of Washington that competed in the
1936 Berlin Olympics and won a gold medal for the US is based on the
bestselling book by the same name. It follows the team through their struggles
during the depression, focusing mainly on rower Joe Rantz (Callum Turner of
Emma and Fantastic Beasts) who was abandoned by his father at age 14 but is
trying to stay in school to earn an engineering degree. Joe and the others are
drawn to the sport primarily based on the promise that is a guaranteed paying
job for those who make the team. The team coach (Joel Edgerton: Loving, It
Comes at Night, Boy Erased) has a vision of success with the young men of the
junior varsity team at U of W and tells them they are competing in the most
difficult sport in the world. While I agree that this is a story worth learning
about, the movie becomes one sports movie cliché after another. You can insert almost
any sport into the plot, whether it is boxing, basketball, track and field,
tennis or horse racing and you will have basically the same movie. (But not
golf. There is no sport in movies more boring than golf.) You have the grueling
workouts, the early spark of talent, the belief in greatness, the setbacks (in
this case the challenges from the administration against the junior team, the
need for raising more funds to go to Berlin) and the final heart pounding
competition. In this case we even get the appearance of Der Feurer at the final
event who is there to see the triumph of the Germans over the other teams. The coxswain,
Bobby (Luke Slattery) shows some real personality as he shouts encouragement to
the team when they are racing. But otherwise, these athletes seem like bland
copies of one another in their scenes together. There is an amusing romance
when a former classmate (Hadley Robinson) tries to get Joe’s attention and you
would almost expect a musical number out of a thirty’s movie to break out.
There were some nice touches like the aerial shots of the boats in steady
rhythm and the moving grandstands on a train that follows the course of the
race. The movie is good as a comfortable sports movie, but empty of any
surprises.

God Save Texas

God Save Texas: The Price of Oil. 4 stars

God Save Texas is a series of episodics produced by Richard Linklater with three of them showing at Sundance. All are directed by native Texans and reflect some subject about conditions in Texas that affect the entire country. The Price of Oil was directed by Alex Stapleton who is from the Houston area and is Black. The focus of the episode is on the black population of Texas, their contribution to development of the oil industry, and the marginalization they have suffered for its profits. The doc goes back to the 1830’s when Texas won its independence but followed the practice of slavery. It shows how blacks were left out of the history of the state. With the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century, blacks did not receive their share of employment in the oil industry, but have suffered from the environmental dangers of having the refineries placed next to their neighborhoods. The director made it personal by showing how some of her own relatives were impacted by these practices. The episode was largely made during the pandemic. I recommend seeing the series. It was inspired by the book God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright.

Between the Temples

Between the Temples 4 stars

I happened to accidentally find one of the better comedies of the festival with director Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples. Jewish Cantor Ben (Jason Schwartzman of Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited) has a lot on his mind. It has been a year since his wife died tragically and he is living with his two moms (Caroline Aaron and Dolly de Leon (who was brilliant as the Philippino worker on the doomed luxury yacht in Triangle of Sadness). He is depressed and is unable to sing in temple. And one of his mothers is trying to set him up on dates. But he is still guiding his bat mitzvah students as they prepare their studies. Then he gets a new student in Carla (a hilarious Carol Kane (Annie Hall and Taxi)), a widowed woman in her seventies who never had her bat mitzvah before and wants to correct that omission. Only there is something familiar about her as Ben remembers her as his music teacher when he was a boy. So Ben must navigate this new situation while not fully revealing the circumstances to all the interested parties. It’s a sweet screwball comedy with perfect leads in Schwartzman and Kane. I found it similar in style to Moonstruck especially when it came to a certain dinner scene with all the characters gathered together. The director and writers were present for Q & A and told how a real story provided the idea for the movie’s premise. We also learned that they did three versions of the final scene over two days. Nathan Silver is an accomplished director with many credits only I was unfamiliar with his movies. Maybe I will see more of them now.

Girls Will Be Girls

Girls Will Be Girls 4 1/2 stars

In Girls Will Be Girls we find a coming of age story set in India in the Himalaya mountains. In a strict boarding school, Mira has just earned the title and responsibilities of Head Prefect. She has the pressures of keeping her grades up and dealing with a strict mother, but then a new boy arrives at the school that takes an interest in her. It’s a story of discovering desire and romance for the first time from first time writer-director Shuchi Talati. Mira has to be very careful about what she reveals to her mother about the relationship, but the mother takes an interest in the boy’s wellbeing too, setting up a conflict between mother and daughter. It is a well told story done with slow building tension. Both of the young actors were present for the Q & A. It was one of the best movies of the fest I have seen so far.

Love Machina

Love Machina 4 stars

How would you like to transfer the consciousness of a loved one into a robot so that they could continue to exist and be with you after they passed away? It sounds unimaginable but that is the aim of futurists Martina and Bina Rothblatt. Marina has been conducting this project since 2006 so that his beloved wife can continue to love as a machine. The robot consists of only a head and can listen and speak with the help of AI and it is named Bina48. Martina has been gathering data that defines Bina’s thoughts and digitizing them. The result at this point is regarded as a simulation but it is quite remarkable what has been accomplished so far. It seems like the stuff of science fiction, and would seem to be something we couldn’t have dreamed of only a few years ago. The movie presents other great advancements that have been made in technology recently and shows the hope that we have for the future. It gives a very positive picture of what the future holds.

Agent of Happiness

Agent of Happiness 4 stars

One of the more unusual government functions I have heard of is the measurement of happiness. In Agent of Happiness the filmmakers follow a pair of government agents through the mountains and villages of Bhutan as they survey the population with a series of questions to find out the state of happiness of their citizens. Its purpose is to help guide the government in the future development of the country. The film focuses mainly on one agent named Amber who is about 40 years old and actually has his own story to tell. The survey asks questions about people’s possessions like refrigerators, TV’s and farm animals, but also how they rate their own happiness. Like any of us, the people have misfortunes they talk of like deaths in the family, abusive mates, alcoholism and even living as a transgender person. But they also reveal the hopes they have for the future. Amber’s own story is about caring for his aging mother and of a girl friend that he wishes he could marry. Unfortunately, Amber is not a Bhutanese citizen being of Nepalese descent, thus he cannot leave the country. And that is enough to deny him of his dream of a wife and settling down. Thus behind all the beauty of this land and the optimism lies the stories of pain and loss and how like people everywhere, they find a way to carry on.

Ferrari

Ferrari                   4 stars

There is a lot of heat and noise coming from the fast cars on the roads of Italy in Michael Mann’s new movie Ferrari about the man behind the sports car company that bears his name. There is also a lot of heat being generated off the track too coming from Ferrari’s wife, Laura (Penelope Cruz in one of her finest performances) who is unhappy with her place in her marriage to Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver). This auto racing movie set in 1957 does concern competition between drivers of the world’s fastest machines on land, Formula One race cars, but it is also about the challenge Ferrari is facing, trying to save his company from bankruptcy while also keeping his life with his mistress, Lina (Shailene Woodley) secret from his wife. Early on we see what Laura is capable of as her fiery temper leads her to fire a gun, nearly hitting Ferrari. There is no hiding her feelings as only Cruz can show. She is still hurting from the death of her only son who died one year before that she blames on Enzo. But Ferrari needs to accommodate Laura as she controls most of the automobile company. The company is not selling enough sports cars to keep it afloat, but if one of its race cars can defeat Maserati in the famous Mille Miglia, the thousand-mile race across the hills of Italy, then it will be possible to sell many more of the expensive cars and save the company. Ferrari must also convince the right investor to help finance his venture so he must manipulate them into seeing things his way. You can see that Enzo has a lot on his mind. The movie viewer has a lot on his mind too as there is a lot of drama going on when not on the racecourse. Of course, there are plenty of exciting scenes of the race cars hurtling around the track and competing against each other on the road around hairpin turns through the countryside. I can’t imagine how it was possible to film scenes like this, but they are thrilling. There is no hiding the hazards of the sport in this era as is shown by some very graphic scenes that will silence the audience. Adam Driver displays his usual intensity, though not exploding with rage like he has in other roles. He keeps a subdued presence, but you can imagine him boiling beneath the surface as Ferrari maintains control over how the drivers are to handle the cars in the race and deal with a hostile wife at home. We don’t really get to know the drivers well, other than one who is especially eager to win at all costs. Patrick Dempsey portrays Piero Taruffi, the most experienced driver who has somehow survived to an advanced age for racecar drivers. There are some interesting things to see from this time, such as cars that carried two passengers and how the occupants sometimes have to work on a disabled car during a race to get it running again. There is so much packed in the two-hour plus running time that by the end of the race it is almost immaterial who the winner is. The movie is not for everyone, but anyone with a passing interest in auto racing should see it. As well as any fans of the talented Penelope Cruz.