Category Archives: 2021

CODA

CODA                    5 stars

I finally found the movie CODA being shown at a local theater and had the chance to see it before the Academy Awards. It has been showing on Apple TV+ and before that it was at Sundance where it won multiple awards. For those who haven’t heard of it before, this is the movie about a young girl who is a CODA; that is, Child Of Deaf Adults. Ruby, played by Emilia Jones loves to sing, but she only does so privately, such as when we first see her singing “Something’s Got a Hold On Me” on her father’s fishing boat. Her parents, (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin) as well as her brother Leo are all deaf leaving high schooler Ruby as the only hearing person in the family making her indispensable as a way for the family to communicate with the world. The conflict is set up when Ruby joins the high school choir and the music teacher recognizes her talent and encourages her to try for entrance in an elite music school. The question then becomes whether her family can recognize Ruby’s desire to pursue something they cannot even hear and allow her to leave the family and the fishing business, something she has been a part of her whole life. It is a story using a formula that makes it a family hit and is aided by fine performances including those of Jones, Kotsur and Matlin. Eugenio Derbez is also effective as the music teacher who spends time coaching Ruby after school. Derbez is a well-known actor in his native Mexico. Everyone should see this favorite from Sundance that many have predicted to be the Academy Award Best Picture winner. And surprise! Last night CODA went on to win the Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscars.

The Lost Daughter

The Lost Daughter                           4 stars

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new movie, The Lost Daughter is not one that is easily understood or for that matter one I can relate to well. It’s an adaptation of a novel by one Elena Ferrante about a middle-aged woman, Leda (Olivia Colman, a favorite of mine) who is on a summer vacation on a Greek island resort by herself. The movie is not one that is driven by plot, but is more about creating a feeling. Leda’s career is in the literary field which brings her to large lecture halls where she meets men with great academic minds. She also happens to be a mother, having raised two daughters, largely by herself. It is these two worlds that collide causing her to make some choices most of us would not approve of. Most of the movie happens in and around the villa where she is staying, the beach and small shops that she visits. She meets and makes acquaintance with Nina, a young American mother (Dakota Johnson), and her extended family that seemingly invade the beach with their loud antics creating uncomfortable situations. There is Will (Paul Mescal), a much younger man who isn’t above spending time with the older Leda. And there is the local older groundskeeper, Lyle (Ed Harris) who seems to wonder if he can make a connection with Leda. So we can tell that Leda is a popular person. The rest of the movie takes us back twenty or so years earlier, when the young Leda (Jessie Buckley) is very frustrated at the task of raising her two daughters, ages 5 and 7. It is older Leda’s meeting with Nina, who has her hands full with her own young daughter, that gets Leda to remember her own experiences with her children, an experience that apparently includes some bad memories (and questionable choices). All of the actors are excellent in their roles making the characters believable while contributing to the audience’s feeling of unease. It is a film that was very well received by critics, but as I said, perhaps not one that some of us can relate to. The Lost Daughter had Academy Award nominations for Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley and Adapted Screenplay for Maggie Gyllenhaal. The movie can be found on Netflix.

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)       5 stars

Probably the movie of last year that most needs to be seen by everyone is Ahimr “Questlove” Thompson’s documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The film takes us back to the summer of 1969, a very tumultuous time in America, when a series of concerts were presented in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park where many well known black and ethnic artists came to perform in front of thousands of spectators. The concerts were free and open to the public featuring some amazing performances that included B. B. King, The 5th Dimension, Sly and the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson and a 19-year-old Stevie Wonder. The performances were all professionally recorded and preserved by Hal Tulchin who hoped to show the recordings to the world as what he called the “Black Woodstock”. Sadly, he found little interest in the project in a country that was reeling from assassinations, riots and the Vietnam War in the past year. So the footage sat in his basement for 50 years until it was recently discovered. Questlove has put together a beautiful documentary that shows us some of these performances and puts them into the context of the events of the late sixties. Included are many eye witness accounts from some of the people who attended over 50 years ago and who describe what the concerts meant to them. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in what had to be one of the easiest choices of the awards. If you haven’t seen it look it up on Hulu.

Oxygen

Oxygen                 3 stars

Oxygen is a new sci-fi horror thriller from director Alexandre Aja that has one of the most limited sets I have ever seen. It opens with a young woman (Melanie Laurent of Operation Finale and Now You See Me) who awakens inside a futuristic cryogenic pod with only a computer voice named MILO for company. She is told that her oxygen supply is running out and to make matters worse she has no memory of where she is or even who she is. To say the movie is thin on plot is a colossal understatement. The woman slowly pieces together who she is through visual clues provided by MILO who is not always very helpful, and phone calls she is able to make to the authorities who it seems have something to hide. The hidden secrets eventually do get revealed but the events seemed to take forever to get there. It helps not to think about the situation too much or you will start to see some holes in the story. The movie is aided by a great performance by Laurent who puts plenty of energy into this very limited role. In fact the entire movie depends on how convincing she is. The movie could have been significantly shorter without losing any of the story. The director is known for other stylistic horror thrillers like Crawl, Horns and Piranha, so if you have seen any of these you have some idea of what to expect. The movie is in French with subtitles. If you ever saw the French horror film High Tension (also filled with plot holes) you will know what I mean. Oxygen is available on Netflix.

Official Competition

Official Competition        4 ½ stars

Official Competition by Argentine directors Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat brings together the great talents of Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martinez in a satirical comedy that absolutely skewers the filmmakers of “art” movies and the mega-wealthy. Cruz plays internationally renowned film director Lola Cuevas who has a curly head of hair that must be seen to be believed. She is hired by a millionaire owner of a pharmaceutical company to make a movie based on an award-winning novel called Rivalry, though the millionaire is clueless about art or movies. Lola decides that the two greatest actors in Spanish cinema must be a part of this great venture: the legendary actor Ivan Torres (Oscar Martinez) who despises the movie industry and the star of mega-hit blockbusters Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) who is obsessed with his own stardom. The book being adapted concerns the conflict between the two brothers played by Ivan and Felix where one of them blames the other for their parents’ death. Most of the movie (Official Competition) focuses on the rehearsal process which takes place in the wide open spaces of a modern architectural marvel that epitomizes great wealth. As the two starring men begin rehearsing under Lola’s direction we get a taste of their eccentricities and how differently the two view their craft. Lola has her own methods that sometimes make the actors endlessly repeat their lines until they are perfect and makes them participate in “exercises” that cause them tension and pain to the point where a normal person would just walk away. (In one scene the two actors must bombard one another with the most vile insults they can think of.) Their remarks and actions reveal how much Ivan and Felix despise each other. Their acts of one-upmanship get increasingly absurd as each is determined to show just how “great” they really are. Eventually the absurdity turns to an unexpectedly dark level. In its satirical fashion, the movie never deviates from the theme of showing how pretentious and narcissistic those in the art world can be. The movie belongs mostly to Penelope Cruz who brings her acting to genius levels as she conveys emotion with the slightest stare. Despite the focus of the movie on the art world, it can be enjoyed by all audiences. This is the kind of movie I think of for my favorite kind of comedy.

Flee

Flee                       4 ½ stars

For a remarkable achievement in storytelling and animation you won’t do better than the documentary movie from Denmark, Flee. Released at Sundance in 2021, this film finally made it to theaters at the end of last year. It has been on my list for a long time and I just viewed it recently. It tells of the unlikely years long journey of a gay Afghan refugee, Amin, who was forced to leave Afghanistan as a child in the 1980’s with his family. His story is told by combining recordings of his voice with stark animated images of the pain and anguish he and his family had to go through. There is a certain amount of unraveling of a mystery as elements of the story slowly emerge over the course of the film. The family, including Amin’s brother, mother and two sisters try to make their way to Sweden after the father is detained by the Afghan government and disappears. Amin tells his story after keeping much of it secret after twenty plus years, one that is full of persecution and suffering at the hands of the powerful and greedy. Flee is notable for having received three Academy Award nominations this year, in Animated Feature, Documentary and International Film. It is one that is truly worth watching.

Halloween Kills

Halloween Kills                  2 ½ stars

It’s almost Halloween and that means it’s time for that masked maniacal killer Michael Myers to return to the town of Haddonfield, Illinois to go on one more murderous rampage through the residents of the town. Halloween Kills is actually the second part of a planned trilogy of new Halloween films by director David Gordon Green. This, after the original series with Roman Numerals appeared on screens in 1978 and the eighties. I saw all of the earlier series of films but missed the last one in 2018 (but did see later). This one picks up where that one left off with a wounded Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a pickup truck being taken to the hospital with her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter after they have finally eliminated the spree killer, Myers. Or so they thought! We get an introduction showing us what happened forty years earlier with the first attacks against local teenagers and the town’s cops while Laurie had been babysitting and got caught up in the nightmare. It doesn’t take long before Michael shows that he is not so easy to get rid of and starts a fresh bloodbath using knives, broken glass and other sharp implements. He can make quite a show of creativity as he finds new ways of slicing and battering people to death! The earlier film got some good reviews, but this sequel, I admit was somewhat disappointing with Jamie Lee Curtis mostly sidelined in the hospital where she must recover from an earlier attack while offering philosophical statements about what Michael Myers represents in all of us. The fight is left to her offspring and a number of other characters who are determined to stop Michael as they chant Evil! Dies! Tonight!. This includes a local hot head (Anthony Michael Hall) who works the crowd into a frenzy after they gather in the hospital where the casualties come in. We get plenty of victims peering through rooms in the dark until the inevitable surprise attack by the masked Michael. It feels like a lot of the same without a satisfying resolution since we can imagine how it will end. It appears we will have to wait a little longer before this chapter comes to a close. Who knows. Perhaps Laurie Strode will still be fighting Michael into her eighties?

Passing

Passing                 4 stars

In 2021 one of the most sought-after tickets at Sundance was for the movie Passing. I couldn’t get one then but recently saw this offering written and directed by the actress Rebecca Hall (The Prestige, Vicki Christina Barcelona, The Town). The name of the movie comes from the practice of light skinned Black Americans passing as white to escape discrimination. This first effort of Hall’s tells of the relationship between two former classmates, two young Black women who meet by chance one day after twelve years at an upscale hotel dining hall in New York. It is the 1920’s so Jim Crow is very alive in this setting. Irene (Tessa Thompson (the Creed movies and the Avengers movies)) is light skinned so can be mistaken for being white, though that is not her intention. The other, Clare (Ruth Negga (Loving)), blonde and appearing to be white, gets Irene’s (Rene) attention and introduces herself. Rene finds out that Clare now has a white husband and a daughter and that the husband (Alexander Skarsgärd) has no clue that Clare is actually part black. (He also has severely racist views!) Rene lives in a nice Harlem brownstone and is married to a black man (André Holland) who is a doctor. They have two sons and a live-in maid. After some time, Clare works her way into Rene’s life saying she misses her old life. Rene lives comfortably, volunteering for the Negro League, attending balls and tea dances and associating with a white novelist (Bill Camp). All of this is very intriguing to Clare who recklessly finds a way to join in the fun. Clare even flirts with Rene’s husband who insists that he doesn’t care for her. It is clear that Rene is uncomfortable with Clare’s actions but puts up with the behavior for the sake of being civil. While Clare is the one who is pretending and playing with fire, the movie is really about Rene’s reaction to this new presence. Rene has a comfortable life but is forced to face the presence of racism that brought these circumstances to reality. Both actresses are superb in their roles with Thompson getting credit for an emotionally subdued performance. The feeling of the story is aided by the black and white filming, the old fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio and a great jazz score accompanying the film. I recommend it as a drama that will make you think.

King Richard

King Richard       4 stars

If you want to see another inspirational sports movie then go see King Richard, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and written by Zach Baylin. But the movie is more than that as it is also about the unwavering belief and determination of Richard Williams, father of future tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. Will Smith portrays Richard, the girls’ father who has a written plan for his two daughter’s success and will not accept defeat even in the face of the odds against them, coming from the streets of Compton in the early 1990’s. Even though we know what the eventual outcome is, stardom in the all-white tennis world for two young black women, the obstacles facing them appear all too real. Richard works with the young girls on run-down neighborhood tennis courts while having to fight off the young men of the streets threatening them and forces his way into meetings with the white coaches who are needed for the girls’ success. Richard tells a lot of stories of his growing up in a world of racial prejudice with a father who would not look out for him. (The movie does not even include the worst of it.) He is determined not to have this experience repeated on his daughters. Fortunately, there is also a mother, Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis) who looks out for their interests and calls out Richard when he tries to go too far without consulting her. The white coaches are perplexed at Richard’s insistence that the girls be pulled from the junior tournament circuit when he sees how the parents of the other girls are treating their daughters and the resulting behavior as spoiled brats. Of course the movie would not be the success it is without Will Smith’s convincing acting performance as the father who won’t take No for an answer. He is deserving of the acting Oscar he received (despite all the ceremony controversy). This sports movie delivers with the expected climactic competitive scene as is the tradition, but the focus shifts from the father to daughter Venus when she faces the best in the world. The movie is available on HBOMax.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On                  4 stars

The stop motion animated feature Marcel the Shell with Shoes On can be described as poignant, heartfelt and fun. This charming “documentary” follows the life of Marcel, a one-inch-tall mollusk shell who has a face with one eye and a pair of sneakers. Marcel lives in a house that is now an Airbnb with his grandmother, Connie, who is also a shell. The latest resident in the house is a man named Dean who is renting the place until he can find a new home. But Dean happens to be an amateur filmmaker and he decides to film Marcel as he goes about his business of living, finding ingenious ways to get around such as using a hollowed-out tennis ball and a bottle of honey. Marcel is quite talented, coming up with makeshift inventions and putting on a show when the time calls for it. He can make telephone calls and has a piece of lint for a pet. But he can also make plenty of mistakes and is very conscious of his shortcomings, making frequent apologies. Marcel is the creation of Jenny Slate, who was on Saturday Night Live for one season and Dean Fleischer-Camp, film director and her then husband. They made short videos of Marcel and placed them on YouTube back around 2010, creating a viral sensation. They then got the idea of making a full movie about the little guy and wrote a story for him. Jenny does the voice and Dean does the filming. Reportedly, they spent seven years making the one-and-a-half-hour movie, released in theaters in 2022. The story is expanded as we learn the house was previously occupied by a couple who fought and split up, but the man took all the other shells that are Marcel’s family with him leaving Marcel and Grandma all alone. So, Dean suggests to Marcel that he can post the videos they make and get the word out about the search for Marcel’s “relatives”. The film has a good message about the value of family and community. It was definitely more entertaining than I initially thought it was going to be. It was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Academy Award.