Category Archives: 2020

Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy                      2 stars

Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy is the screen adaptation of the J.D. Vance memoir about his life growing up in a dysfunctional family in Middletown, Ohio, but with roots in the hills of eastern Kentucky. We see J.D. in two parallel timelines, one as a teenager dealing with his abusive drug addicted mother Bev (Amy Adams) and the other as a Yale Law School student called home to handle his mother’s latest episode of a heroin overdose. The movie is a series of abusive situations in which the family reacts to Mom’s explosive temper, brought on by a lifetime of disappointments. The acting by Adams and especially Glenn Close as the Mamaw, the matriarch of the family is realistic. Close has been transformed with a wig and baggy T-shirts into a gruff meanspirited grandmother who uses tough love to keep her grandchildren from falling into the pattern of failure familiar to her family. (Though there is a scene where she sets her husband on fire, but never mind that.) Close deserves the Academy Award nomination she received for the role. Unfortunately, it takes more than good acting to make a good movie so Hillbilly Elegy doesn’t deserve the same praise and is hard to watch as the characters put themselves through such misery. I didn’t read the book which is reputed to be a social commentary on poor working-class white America. Sadly, the many social and political issues raised in the book did not carry over into the movie that can be described as a series of face-slapping, door-slamming and drug fueled abusive scenes. It’s a collection of talented actors in a movie in search of a purpose. The director of Cinderella Man and The Da Vinci Code has missed the mark with this one.

Shadow in the Cloud

Shadow in the Cloud                       4 stars

In this year’s Shadow in the Cloud we follow a young female pilot, Maude (Chloe Grace Moretz) on a secret mission on a World War II B-17 bomber out of New Zealand. This is without a doubt the best B-movie of the year so far. You can tell it’s a B-movie at the outset by the seventies style rock music so you know you are in for a treat. Maude is a last minute passenger on the mission and the all male crew is not at all happy about it, as they berate her with sexist language and force her to ride in the Sperry turret in the belly of the plane, the only place where there is room. We soon see that she can handle herself well in the aircraft as she maneuvers the turret, and fires the machine gun at approaching enemy aircraft. Then there is the matter of an actual gremlin on the outside of the plane who is determined to rip it apart and kill everyone inside. For much of the movie we only see Maude in the turret as she must content with the abusive crew, enemy planes and the destructive creature. After we see the premise of the movie, things only get more intense as Maude performs incredible stunts with determination to stay alive and defeat both monster and Jap fighters with actions that only get more and more preposterous. Like any good B-movie the audience must take it all in stride and just go along for the action. Moretz is very convincing in the role making us believe she is a 40’s star who can dish it out better than she gets. Shadow in the Cloud is the best B-movie I’ve seen since 2018’s Revenge, also a movie where the female lead must take command of life-threatening situations with implausible results. The movie is available on Hulu and is recommended for all action movie lovers!

Another Round

Another Round                 4 stars

This year’s Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film comes from Denmark in the form of Another Round by director Thomas Vinterberg and stars Mads Mikkelsen who is Denmark’s most recognized actor. Martin is a high school teacher in Copenhagen who seems to have everything, a wife and family and a good job teaching history to his students. But there is something missing so he joins in a plan with three of his fellow teachers at the school to start an experiment where the four agree to steadily drink on the job on the theory that maintaining a blood alcohol level of 0.05% will improve their performance in their daily life. The rules are no drinking after 8:00 pm or on the weekends. So you are probably thinking what could possibly go wrong with such a plan? Apparently nothing, that is until one of their group challenges them to take things up a level and increase the alcohol intake. What starts out as a comedy takes a dark turn into a serious drama when each one finds out the price of such behavior to their professional and social lives. Much of the success of the movie belongs to Mikkelsen’s Martin who can express a wide range of emotion. (See his earlier work in After the Wedding, A Royal Affair and At Eternity’s Gate) Many of his scenes must have been improvised to great success. This collaboration of writers, director and actors takes a silly premise and makes it into an emotional, dramatic story about what is important in life.

The Father

The Father          4 ½ stars

In The Father, an aging man suffering from dementia is portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, in a role that is said to be especially written for him. Anthony is being watched after by his daughter Anne (Academy Award winner Olivia Colman) who has moved him into her flat in London, and is faced with the difficulty of finding a caregiver who can tolerate Anthony’s behavior and insistence that he doesn’t require help. There have been films about family caring for a person with dementia before, like Amour in 2012 and Still Alice starring Julianne Moore in 2014. (Another new movie, Supernova, deals with the subject but I haven’t seen it.) Those movies were mainly focused on the people doing the caregiving and not so much the person with the disorder; whereas Florian Zeller’s The Father strives to show us the pain and disorientation that Anthony is going through. Zeller does this by sequencing scenes such that time is an unknown quantity, by making subtle changes in the color and furnishings of the flat, and by using scenes that may be a hallucination to Anthony making things all the more confusing to him. His goal is to make the viewer share in the discomfort and fear one must face when they can no longer make sense of their surroundings. He goes so far as to have some actors change their roles within the film, causing a more disorienting feeling. Hopkins is masterful in the role as the intelligent man who can be charming one minute and then cut a person down in the next. I have no doubt that he deserved the Best Actor Academy Award he received. Even in his eighties he shows why he is considered one of the best. (Hopkins was asleep at home when the Best Actor award was announced and released a recorded acceptance speech the next day.) Colman, who may be Britain’s finest actress is also brilliant as the daughter who is trying to cope, but sometimes is about to break down at what she sees.  The other actors too are among England’s finest including Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss and Olivia Williams. The film gives us a realistic conclusion of Anthony’s decaying mind, thankfully without being sensational. It has a deep emotional impact in its short hour and 37 minute running time.

Zola

Zola                        4 stars

Back in 2015 there was a tweet thread that went viral on the internet written by a stripper named Zola giving a real time account of a wild ride of her and her “friend” through harrowing experiences in Florida. The thread created quite a sensation but for those of us not addicted to Twitter, the movie Zola by director Janicza Bravo is here to tell us of this ride through hell. The story follows the exploits of Zola (Taylor Paige), a young black stripper and Stefani (Riley Keough), the white girl she meets at a restaurant who insists they will be friends, and convinces Zola to take a trip to Tampa, Florida to make some money performing at a strip club. (If the premise turns you off, you should probably pass on this one.) The driver on this journey is X, Stefani’s “roommate” while Derrek, Stefani’s boyfriend is also along for the ride. The adventure is all fun and games for a while until things turn much more sinister for the two young women. Without going into detail it is up to Zola, the only sensible one in the bunch to protect Stefani from the chaos and major crimes. All the while, Zola is writing an account of the experience on her smart phone which of course goes viral. The movie is both a comedy and a cautionary drama/thriller about a situation getting out of control. If you liked Spring Breakers and Hustlers you will likely be entertained by Zola. Be forewarned that there are scenes involving strong language, sexual scenes and nudity, so the film is not for everyone. The performances by the two lead actresses are what really makes the movie entertaining.

Dream Horse

Dream Horse                     4 stars

Dream Horse is a very traditional British feel good comedy about a middle aged Welsh couple living in a poor village who take on the task of raising a thoroughbred race horse. Toni Collette stars as Jan who used to raise prize winning livestock, but now breaks out of her dull routine and buys a mare on a whim. Since she and her arthritic ridden husband Brian can’t afford this venture on their own, they form a syndicate with some of the townsfolk and the result is a promising young horse to be named Dream Alliance. What follows are all the cliches you would expect in an underdog horse racing movie: the struggle of the training, the exciting first race with the heart-pounding stretch run, the moments of doubt and tragedy and ultimate triumph. Of course it all works to perfection in the film based on a real life story from Wales. Collette can do no wrong in her role as Jan. (For a different kind of role for Toni Collette see the horror movie Hereditary.) Damian Lewis plays a sharp local accountant who joins the syndicate having previously put his family in peril with a gambling problem. The story was actually previously told in a documentary from a few years ago called Dark Horse. I missed that one, but this film was a pleasure to watch.

I Carry You With Me

I Carry You with Me                        4 ½ stars

Established documentary film director Heidi Ewing (who I remember from her Oscar nominated documentary Jesus Camp) made her feature film debut with I Carry You with Me, a story that should not be missed. We get a unique treatment of two relevant issues in this movie about a young gay Mexican chef, Ivan (Armando Espitia) who meets and falls for Gerardo (Christian Vazquez), but faces a life of very limited opportunities in his home country; thus Ivan enters the U.S. illegally, finds his way to New York City where he finds life equally tough as an immigrant who speaks little English. The film is set in the nineties and shows the scorn gay men must endure in Mexico including from their own families. (Both Ivan and Gerardo are treated poorly as boys by their own fathers.) When Gerardo does finally join Ivan in New York, they must face the reality that their immigration status must prevent them from ever seeing their families again. The filming techniques used by Ewing with hand-held cameras gives us a very gritty feel of what life is like in these low income areas. The film is based on the real-life experiences of a renowned chef in New York, who is a restaurant owner, thus at about two-thirds of the way through, the movie transforms into documentary style as we follow Ivan (now about twenty years older) through his present day life that still includes Gerardo. It emphasizes how for these immigrants reaching the American dream includes a great deal of sacrifice that makes one question if it was all worth it. I Carry You with Me was featured at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and received a Film Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature for Ewing earlier this year.

Mulan

Mulan                4 stars

Disney gives its live treatment to another of their classic animated films in Mulan, with director Niko Caro of Whale Rider and The Zookeeper’s Wife, bringing us the story of Mulan, the young Chinese girl (played by Yifei Liu) who feels called to join the emperor’s army as a man to help fight off an invader determined to kill the emperor (a royal looking Jet Li). The story, based on a Chinese legend, is much the same as the 1998 animated movie but there are no musical numbers nor is there the small comical dragon, Mushu to provide comic relief. But we do get very colorful scenes showing Mulan’s village, the emperor’s palace and the natural expanse of China. There are plenty of action sequences featuring Mulan, the soldiers and the battles with the enemy and Bori Khan, the rebel leader (Jason Scott Lee). Khan is aided by a shape shifting sorceress (Gong Li) who can transform into an animal or impersonate another human with dire consequences. Since the movie is done with live actors it asks a lot of the viewer to believe that Mulan looks like a boy to the other characters, unlike the animated version. The strength of the movie is the story and the action sequences that are almost but not quite at the level of a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Liu’s acting also aids the personal moments of her character, though that is not the main focus of the movie. The violent battle scenes may make it not so suitable for very young viewers, but it is mostly bloodless battles that do leave quite a few casualties. Some of the soldiers of Mulan’s unit provide the comedic moments of the movie. I definitely liked the movie better than most of the audience reviewers seemed to. Some people must have wanted the musical animated version again. Mulan earned Academy Award nominations in Visual Effects and Costume Design. It was released during the height of the pandemic so it never got a theatrical release and could only be seen on streaming services. I recommend it for action fans and for fans of artistic movies.

Minari

Minari                   5 stars

I first heard of the film Minari at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. I did not see it there but I heard that it was very well received by the audience. The movie, about a Korean immigrant family who move to Arkansas in the eighties was finally released about a year later, no doubt delayed by the pandemic. The movie was written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, himself a Korean immigrant who came to America as a child with his family, so the film is semi-biographical with the young son David in the role of the writer. It is the father, Jacob’s (actor and executive director, Steven Yeun) dream to own his own farm growing vegetables native to Korea to sell to the local growing Asian community. This is of course very challenging and unfortunately, Jacob’s enthusiasm is not shared by his wife, Monica, who resents leaving California; thus, this becomes a source of tension in the family. There are a few references to racist attitudes from the locals, but for the most part the immigrant family is accepted in the community including at a nearby church they choose to attend. Probably the most interesting relationship is between young David and the grandma who travels from Korea to be with the family. At first he does not like her, saying things like she smells like Korea and doesn’t know how to be a good grandma. There are some funny scenes between the two and they eventually grow closer especially as grandma comes to know him and stands up for how he is treated. Grandma Soonja is played by Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung who would go on the win the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for the role. The film is about the immigrant experience in America, but it is also about how a family deals with tough circumstances and the strain the relationships have to face. The film deserves its Academy Award nomination for Best Film, but some people may be put off by the ambiguous ending. The name Minari comes from a plant native to Korea that is used in many Asian dishes. It was part of the writer/director’s memory growing up and is known to be able to grow almost anywhere, making it a metaphor for the film.

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.