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.

Wicked

Wicked                 4 ½ stars

It has been over two decades since it first appeared on a stage and nearly ten years since the inception of turning it into a movie, and now Wicked has made it to theaters under the direction of Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights) bringing the Broadway musical numbers to the screen with some of the most lavish sets seen in a Broadway adaptation. The theater buffs know the story and the songs by heart by now, some having seen the stage show multiple times. I have not though, and won’t go into detail about the actual story, but will say that we see how the Wicked Witch of the West, known as Elphaba and Glinda first met at Shiz University and became friends and how Elphaba came to oppose a dictatorial Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) in the Emerald City. Earlier we learn that Elphaba was born with green skin so is shunned by those who know her even including her own father who blames her for her younger sister’s disability. The movie features the same characters of the play plus entire populations of Munchkins, students and teachers of Shiz university and the citizens of the Emerald City. The background consists of some very elaborate and colorful sets that can only be done in the world of film. The movie is titled Wicked, but at the beginning it is revealed that this is part 1. We will have to wait until next year for the remainder of the story. Of course, the movie shines most when Ariana Grande-Butera as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba are performing their widely recognized musical numbers such as the song Popular (sung by Grande). I understand that the songs were expanded some compared to the stage production and may be overdone. Grande is impressive with her wide range, but she is not quite the comedic talent compared to those who had the part on stage. The main attraction in my opinion is Cynthia Erivo with her commanding singing voice as well as her acting talent. She can convey the character’s emotions with simple frowns and glances. Erivo’s singing role in the movie is smaller than Grande’s but she really makes the most of it especially when she really belts out the song Defying Gravity, something I was really anticipating. I first became aware of the talent of this British singer born to Nigerian immigrants when I saw the 2018 movie Bad Times at the El Royale where she portrays a young singer struggling to become known. She was someone to pay attention to. The movie also has a theme very relevant to today when it shows the oppression of a group of characters by the ruling authority, that being the wizard. In this case it is the animals who are facing persecution, but they can represent any group that is different based on their appearance or country of origin. I already have Wicked, Part 2 reserved as one of my must see’s for 2025!

The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot                 5 stars

In DreamWorks’s animated feature The Wild Robot by Chris Sanders AI meets motherhood. Sanders previously directed Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon for DreamWorks and now returns with another winner. The premise of this beautifully animated film has to do with a shipwrecked robot that is lost on an isolated island far removed from all humankind. The robot, called Rozzum Unit 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), is programmed to serve and to obey all requests. She must complete every task when asked and frequently asks for feedback. In this new environment though, the furry and feathery inhabitants only fear this large menacing thing and usually just run away (except for the bear). After much confusion and getting thoroughly banged up, the robot goes into hibernation and through its artificial intelligence learns the language of the animals of the wild, but this still does not lead to much progress. Then, Roz as she comes to be known accidentally becomes acquainted with a new hatchling gosling after accidentally killing its mother. The gosling becomes completely attached to Roz and follows the robot everywhere. Thanks to a wily fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), who has been watching all of this, Roz comes to realize that her new job is to care for the gosling, now named Brightbill (Kit Connor) and raise him until he becomes mature enough to fly on his own and leave the island. What follows is a series of comedic frustrations as Roz tries to find ways of feeding Brightbill and training him to swim and to fly. Every parent will recognize that this is what it is like to raise a child. Roz learns that not everything comes with analysis and logic, but from the heart, (a line that is said more than a few times). This theme accounts for about two thirds of the movie. In the last third, a villain is introduced in the form of robots from the human city Roz came from who venture to the isolated island to bring Roz back to civilization. The lead robot, (voiced by Stephanie Hsu of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once) a floating drone with long tentacles for arms is especially menacing. The movie then becomes a confrontation between the robots and the animals of the forest, symbolizing man’s destructive nature on the environment. I much prefer the earlier part with Roz interacting with the animals of the island to this part of the movie. The Wild Robot is highly entertaining and suitable for all ages. Look for it to earn a Best Animated Feature nomination. Also, the song “Kiss the Sky”, sung by Maren Morris could earn a Best Song nomination.

Mass

Mass                     4 ½ stars

I had the chance to see a 2021 Sundance release in the form of Mass which has just been released in theaters. This is a heavy drama written and directed by Fran Kranz in his debut effort. I remember Kranz from his character on Doll House, the TV series, but he has had several other more significant roles since. The film mostly takes place in a single room in a small town church where two middle aged couples are to meet here for a purpose to be revealed. Before the meeting we see some of the arrangements being coordinated by a pastor’s wife and a woman counsellor. After the four arrive some cordial comments and small talk are made between them. Jay and Gail are portrayed by Jason Isaacs of Star Trek: Discovery and The Death of Stalin and Martha Plimpton of Raising Hope, while Richard and Linda are portrayed by Reed Birney from House of Cards (but I know him from Strawberry Mansion) and Ann Dowd who I remember from many films, but she may be best known for The Handmaid’s Tale. Finally the purpose becomes clear when we find their common experience is losing their children in a horrific school shooting that happened several years before. What follows in an intense outpouring of raw emotion, sorrow and rage as the characters relive the tragedy and the aftermath and seek some kind of explanation for what happened to their children. Not many movies try to tackle this weighty subject, but the performances given here are top notch and completely believable. The film doesn’t try to present an opinion on the subject except to show the level of pain that the loved ones experience in such a tragic event that has become all too common in America. I understand that Kranz has been working on the film for many years and I am glad that he finally succeeded in completing this much needed project.

Soul

Soul       4 ½ stars

Disney Pixar’s award winning animated film Soul is a bit of a departure from the studio’s usual productions. While intended mainly for young audiences there is a blend of metaphysical wisdom mixed in with the colorful magic that only the more mature watchers will appreciate. We meet Joe (Jamie Fox), a middle school band director who hasn’t reached his dream of being a jazz performer in New York despite years of trying. He gets his chance at a great gig when due to an accident he finds that he is transported to an otherworldly realm referred to as the Great Before. This is the place where souls receive their personalities before they travel to earth to be matched to a new body. Joe is mistaken for one of the mentors, old souls that have lived their lives and now pass on their wisdom to the young new souls. Joe meets one unfortunate new soul called Soul 22 (Tina Fey) who has rejected past mentors like Abraham Lincoln, Ghandi, Copernicus and Carl Jung for thousands of years and is an irritation to the Counselor Jerrys that run the Great Before. Then because of an unlikely accident the pair travel to earth together to be united with Joe’s body, though not in the planned way. It is then when the real magic happens with 22 encountering real life in the city and must learn to appreciate the many wonders of living while Joe struggles to find a way to make his appointment for his jazz performance. There are some moments of great tension and scary scenes, but they are done with enough care so are still appropriate for the young viewers. Still the message comes through that our hopes and dreams are what makes our lives worth living. Be sure to give Soul a try if you haven’t already.

Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez       4 ½ stars

Emilia Pérez by director Jacques Audiard is a movie that defies genre. It’s part crime thriller, part opera and part melodrama. Perhaps most of all it’s about trans identity and redemption of the past. It certainly goes against any expectations I may have had. Early on we meet, Rita (Zoe Saldana), a lawyer who defends criminals in the courts of Mexico City. She is good at her job, but also very alone. She is “called on” by a cartel leader named Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón in a career defining role) who wants to hire her for a most unusual job. Manitas wants to change his life and become the woman that he feels he was meant to be. Rita accepts the offer which entails her finding a doctor to perform the transformation, move Manitas’s family out of Mexico and to help fake his death. Years later, while working in London, Rita meets a woman at a gathering named Emilia Pérez. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that Emilia is the transformed Manitas and that she is not finished with Rita yet. Emilia misses her children and wants to have Rita reunite the family, but with Emilia posing as a long-lost aunt so that even her own family does not know the truth. Even Manitas’s wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez) does not recognize her. To relieve her guilt, Emilia establishes a foundation to find the tens of thousands of victims of the drug wars so that relatives can know the truth of what happened to their loved ones, many of whose deaths she was responsible for. Thus, the movie brings the tragedies of the drug wars out into the open showing what has happened to a society that has lost so much. Mexico has lost more than 100,000 people this way. And all of this is done in performances of song and dance, making the movie an opera with a tragic story to tell. Zoe Saldana is especially talented as a dancer as she condemns the evildoers she has been acquainted as she moves from one tabletop to another. But it is Sofia Gascón especially who gives the greatest performance as both parts of her role. The actress is herself a transgender making her well suited to the role, in addition to her acting ability. Selena Gomez also puts in a convincing performance as the wife in a part that is miles from her Disney girl roles of the past and allows her to connect with her Mexican roots. The movie is probably not for everyone, but if the idea of a crime thriller set to music piques your interest you should give it a try.

Anora

Anora    4 ½ stars

The movies made by writer/director Sean Baker always seem to feature those struggling to survive on the edge of society. Think of The Florida Project about a young single mother living in a rundown motel or Tangerine about a transgender sex worker. Baker seeks to humanize those who live in the margins. The same can be said about Anora, the movie about a young sex worker in New York named Anora or Ani (Mikey Madison) whose world intersects with New York’s Russian oligarchs. At the start of the movie Ani is seen grinding away with clients along with several other nearly nude women at a strip club. Until a rich young Russian man named Ivan asks for a Russian speaking girl. Ani fits this requirement and is pleased to make his acquaintance. Ivan asks her if she works outside the club, and she agrees to meet at his mansion. It’s not really his mansion as Ivan is the son of a Russian oligarch and he is supposed to be in America to get an education. Ivan, whose English is only passable behaves like a horny puppy as the two go at it in the bedroom. Soon Ivan offers to buy her services for a week, paying a hefty price. He gets to be seen by his friends with a beautiful woman on his arm and she gets to live like a queen for a week. The fairytale romance escalates when the pair travel to Las Vegas along with Ivan’s entourage and they decide to get married, allowing Ivan to stay in America instead of returning to Russia to work for Daddy. At this point the movie seems like a new Pretty Woman, but then reality sets in when Daddy and Mother who are in Moscow find out that their son has married a hooker. A trio of Russian strongmen arrive at the mansion led by Toros (Karren Karagulian), a sort of babysitter for Ivan, who was unaware of Ivan’s antics. They have been ordered to check on the situation and upon finding it to be true follow Father’s orders to get the marriage annulled. What follows can only be described as manic comedy as Ani battles against the Russians with profanity and physical resistance while the misbehaving boy, Ivan runs away, abandoning his new bride who is now a captive. This group of four are a good copy of the Keystone Cops in an extended scene traveling all over New York trying to find the lost Ivan before his parents arrive from Moscow in their private jet. The movie belongs to Mikey Madison who makes Ani a sympathetic character despite her chosen profession. Some might remember her from Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood as the Charles Manson follower incinerated by a flamethrower. Expect her performance in Anora to be long remembered. The movie should also make audiences despise the privilege awarded to the insanely rich Russians living in America who make their billions off the working class in Russia. I must also mention that director Sean Baker manages to give one of the Russian goons named Igor a level of humanity as he takes pity on the poor Ani performing an act of kindness toward the end of the film. Baker as usual finds ways of giving his characters true humanity.

Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho            4 stars

In Edgar Wright’s latest thriller drama horror Last Night in Soho, we first meet Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie of Jojo Rabbit and Leave No Trace) in an old house where her bedroom is decorated in old movie posters of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sweet Charity and other relics of the sixties. She dances to sixties pop tunes played on a turntable in an elaborate dress made of newspapers. But Ellie really lives in the present in rural Cornwall, England and is fascinated by everything about the sixties and dreams of becoming an accomplished fashion designer. Then Ellie gets her big chance when she is accepted to a famous fashion school in London.  The young girl doesn’t exactly fit in with her streetwise classmates and soon moves off campus, renting a room above a bar where landlady, Miss Collins (the exquisite Diana Rigg in her final performance before passing away last year) says she needs to pay two months rent upfront and no male guests are allowed after 8:00. It is then that things take a mysterious turn when Ellie goes to sleep and the room becomes a sort of teleportal device sending Ellie to a hopping neon light covered 1965 London with all the flashy fashions and pop songs of the sixties. The mood of the movie shifts as the themes become darker and more sinister. Ellie becomes connected to a girl called Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy of The Witch and Emma) who may or may not actually exist. Unlike Ellie, Sandie faces the world with total confidence and owns the room she enters. She perfectly nails a rendition of Petula Clark’s 1965 hit Downtown. The movie embodies the look and feel of the decadent time period of the sixties and has some fine performances including Matt Smith’s Jack, a sort of sixties pimp who operates the acts at a London gentlemen’s club.  Eventually, though the movie devolves into full blown horror thriller mayhem when it gets to an over the top ending. I admit that I did not see the ending coming, so I won’t say more about it. If you are in the mood for a good thriller horror film, Last Night in Soho hits the spot.

The French Dispatch

The French Dispatch       4 stars

Fans of Wes Anderson will instantly recognize the director’s style in this latest anthology and tribute to The New Yorker magazine in The French Dispatch. It’s a collection of stories that are presented as belonging to the final issue of a fictional magazine called The French Dispatch. Each of the writers present their stories, all set in a French village called Ennui, that all seem surreal yet plausible at the same time. The movie has the same style we remember from Isle of Dogs, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom: the fascinating sets, the quick editing, the dry narration and a collection of well known actors. In fact this time we get a real overload of them including Bill Murray, Francis McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, Benecio del Toro and Adrian Brody just to name a few. Anderson is said to have a fascination with The New Yorker so many of his characters are meant to be representations of various writers, art critics and the like, which means little to me. I just enjoyed the movie and the way that he tells the stories. I won’t go into any detail about the individual stories except to say that my favorite was the one about the man in prison for a double murder who attracts the attention of the art world with his abstract nude paintings of one of the prison’s guards. I have seen most but not all of Wes Anderson’s movies, so now I may have to look up the ones that I missed. His movies aren’t for everyone, but those who are fans of his previous movies will undoubtedly love The French Dispatch.

Pinocchio

Pinocchio             3 ½ stars

Last year’s Pinocchio by Matteo Garrone updates the Disney animated movie to a live action version, where the bright fairy tale gets converted to a much more grimy version about a wooden boy puppet who desires to become a real boy. Having never seen the Disney cartoon I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but I understand that it is more true to the original novel than the 1940 Disney version. Pinocchio and company live in a fantastical world where fantasy and magic abound. We can understand why the puppet wants to run from Gepetto (Roberto Benigni) and find a better life. The problem is that Pinocchio is not all that smart and constantly finds ways to get into trouble, leaving others to rescue him including a fairy who looks out for him. The movie is long but is suitable for children and brings with it a message about the consequences of mischief and disobedience.

Spencer

Spencer               4 ½ stars

Pablo Larrain’s Spencer is a biopic of a different sort, one that sets the mood early with a view of a pristine kitchen with a sign that says “They Can Hear You”. The discordant jazz score tells us that this is a story filled with tension and distress. We are viewing the Christmas holiday with the British Royal Family, around 1991 and the primary focus is on Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart in her best role to date). She has been married to Prince Charles for ten years and it is clear this is not the picture of happiness. Throughout the movie the camera is always on Diana and we only get a periphery view of the rest of the royals. Diana interacts more with the staff of the palace including Major Alistar Gregory (Timothy Spall), Maggie, her dresser (the great Sally Hawkins) and the chief cook (Sean Harris) and the police assigned to guard the palace. The set schedule and assigned wardrobe for each occasion brings out how for Diana this is a prison where she has little freedom. Although it is never spoken we know that there is another woman in the picture. There is no character representing Camilla Parker Bowles and we never hear her name, but it is clear there is something unwelcome going on. In this fictionalized drama, Diana is haunted by ghosts of Britain’s and her family’s past. Her own family estate lies vacant and boarded up, but the memories still occupy her. The one bright spot in her life are her two sons, William and Harry. When we see her with them her entire mood and that of the film becomes bright and warm. The music and cinematography contribute to the feeling of the movie but it is really Stewart’s performance that make this a great movie. I don’t think it is too early to say that Kristen Stewart is the one to beat for the Best Actress Academy Award. (Of course, I am waiting to see Lady Gaga in The House of Gucci.)