Category Archives: Biography

First Man

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First Man                             4 stars

First Man from director Damien Chazelle gives us a spectacular look of what it must be like to be on board those early space missions of the sixties.  It follows the career of astronaut Neil Armstrong from 1961 until the Apollo 11 moon mission with all the perils involved in space travel.  I found the moments about the time during the missions to be mesmerizing, but the parts of his personal life to be less so.  Maybe Ryan Gosling was not best suited for the role.  That cannot be said about Claire Foy who played his wife who brought some very painful emotion to her role.  Chazelle is best known for previous works La La Land and Whiplash both of which I found to be superior films.  First Man comes close but just misses that level.  The visual effects were first rate and the movie received a well-deserved Oscar in that category.

BlackkKlansman

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BlackkKlansman                 5 stars

I finally watched the Spike Lee movie BlackkKlansman from last year and have to say the wait was worth it.  This film about a black cop in Colorado Springs in the seventies who infiltrates the local Ku Klux Klan chapter in every bit as relevant today as it is for the times that it portrays.  The movie is quite graphic with the colorful language that the white racists to describe the blacks that live in their city.  There is little left to the imagination here.  And the cops who are working undercover to infiltrate “The Organization” have to appear to be every bit as racist as those they are investigating.  I understand that when Lee was introduced to the book it is based on, he took an immediate interest in it and wanted to include some comedic elements that he is known for and he wanted to relate it to events today.  To that end he shows us the confrontation that happened in Charlottesville in 2017 so that we are reminded that this hateful element of American society is still here and shows no signs of lightening.  Both John David Washington and Adam Driver were excellent in their roles.  And Topher Grace does a creditable job of portraying David Duke, the leader of the Klan.  The film well deserved its Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and will provide plenty of opportunity for discussion and analysis.

Green Book

Green Book        4 ½ stars

I finally viewed Green Book the much acclaimed Best Picture winner by director Peter Farrelly about Tony Lip, an Italian American bouncer from the Bronx who is hired by Dr. Don Shirley a world class black pianist to drive him on a concert tour that takes them to the Deep South.  Set in the early sixties, the travelers must depend on the Green Book, a travel guide published to allow black people find safe places for them to stay and eat in the days of segregation.  The two very different characters must learn to understand each other and deal with their differences to allow them to safely navigate some of the perils they are bound to face in this time of troubled race relations.  While certainly not a perfect movie, it has certain charms that will please audiences and first rate performances from Viggo Mortensen as Tony and Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley.  While the film touches on issues of racism in America showing us some the effects of it, it is not a deep study of the roots of the problem.  Green Book works best as a human drama showing us the value of trust despite our differences.

At Eternity’s Gate

At Eternity’s Gate            4 stars

At Eternity’s Gate is director Julian Schnabel’s portrayal of painter Vincent Van Gogh through the last years of his life, when he produced some of his best paintings.  This film stars Willem Dafoe as the master painter in a truly outstanding role.  The story is not told as a typical biopic however, as it includes some very artistic expressions of the emotions that Van Gogh experiences in his life.  Some of these methods may turn off some viewers, but they certainly are imaginative.  Despite the troubles that Van Gogh has, the movie tries to show us the great optimism he has as he tells how he feels about nature and how it can lead people to meaningful experiences and bring us together.  It also shows how he was misunderstood which led to his being placed in an asylum for a period and the alternate theories surrounding his mysterious death.

Rocketman

Rocketman         4 stars

From Director Dexter Fletcher comes Rocketman, a dramatic musical telling of the rise of musical prodigy Reginald Dwight into international superstar Elton John.  The film tells the story in a most unconventional way as it uses John’s songs as part of the narrative with characters doing some of the singing to describe their part.  Taron Egerton does a convincing performance as the adult Elton John including doing his own singing.  A central part of the movie is John’s checking into rehab after realizing his problem with drugs and alcohol where he recounts the story of his life to the members of the group.  Key to Elton John’s success is his collaborating partner, Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) who stood with him through his difficult journey.  John was a producer of the film and made sure that it told about his many problem’s through the seventies and eighties that included his addictions and lack of acceptance as a homosexual by his family and others.  Bryce Dallas Howard is memorable as the mother of the young Reginald in the movie’s early scenes.  Mostly though the movie is a joy to watch as it shows his many musical creations came to be.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Can You Ever Forgive Me?            4 ½ stars

Last year’s fascinating “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” tells us the true story of Lee Israel, a down on her luck celebrity biographer who upon losing her job embarks on a new career of fabricating personal letters of notable writers like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward.  Written by Nicole Holofcener, directed by Marielle Heller and starring usually comic actress Melissa McCarthy, this dark comedy drama has some of the best writing I have seen in years.  McCarthy plays Israel like a woman that you love to hate.  The character speaks with some very sharp in that comes from a place of rudeness and a bad temper like I have never seen.  The best scenes are those that she shares with her friend in crime Jack played by Richard Grant.  The two of them can trade insults like masters of the craft.  You get the feeling that McCarthy really is Israel including the fact that she is never really repentant about the crimes she has committed.  Melissa McCarthy received a well-deserved Best Actress Academy Award nomination for this one.  Good for her.  The movie also was nominated for best Adapted Screenplay as the movie is based on Lee Israel’s book.

Never Look Away

Never Look Away                                             4 ½ stars

Never Look Away is an epic storytelling of a young German artist who lived through the time of Nazi Germany and Communist controlled East Germany growing as an artist and developing his own special kind of painting.  Its three hour length covers a great span of time from the thirties to the sixties, starting with 10 year old Kurt witnessing a display of “degenerate art” and the horrors accompanying the Nazi’s waging war against the world.  After the war, Kurt, the young man (Tom Schilling) works as an artist for the Communist regime of East Germany producing art of the Socialist workers, but you can tell his talent calls for him to be something better.  Fortunately, he meets Ellie, a young pretty woman supplying new pencils to the artists.  Of course the two fall for each other having secret night rendezvous destined for disaster, given that her father is a former SS Nazi in hiding.  Eventually, the two of them escape to the West at the time of the wall going up where Kurt’s artistic career is advanced with the help of prominent artists of the growing movement of contemporary art.  The movie is at its best when we see Kurt being inspired to do his best work by the beauty of the world around him, but also influenced by some of the horror he has experienced from his younger days.  He develops a way of painting photographic images while blending them together in haunting black and white images.  The story is apparently loosely based on the life of real life artist Gerhard Richter, an admired painter of the 20th century.  Never Look Away was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards and is one that should not be missed.

Judy

Judy       4 ½ stars

The highly anticipated biopic Judy features Renee Zellweger as the doomed singer-actress Judy Garland in her final months before she died.  This is truly a showcase of Zellweger’s talents as she clearly captures the decline of the health and stature of one of America’s greatest talents.  Those who remember Garland from the sixties will find Zellweger’s approach to the role as remarkable as she is engulfed by the character.  I am so glad that the story was not the usual biopic piece that covers a performer’s entire career, but rather only focuses on a brief period of Garland’s life, that being the London tour she went on in 1969 only six months before she died of a barbiturate overdose.  This allows us to see what feels like a complete story that doesn’t jump over large periods of time.  It also allows the supporting characters to have parts that blend in with the story.  There are flashbacks to Garland’s early years as a child star under the control of the studio headed by Louis B. Mayer.  These scenes are meant to show how she had no childhood as her personal life blends into her onscreen performances including how she was given amphetamines to keep her energy up.  The movie is not all tragedy though as the viewer will be delighted to see her with adoring fans and to see a moving rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow near the end of the movie.  A near certainty is that Renee Zellweger will be expected to take home the Best Actress Academy Award next year.

Colette

Colette                 4 ½ stars

Another movie from last year that I just caught up to is Colette, a film that created a lot of buzz at Sundance in 2018.  This film stars Keira Knightley as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the acclaimed female French writer of the early twentieth century.  In the film, the young Colette from rural France marries the successful Parisian writer, known as Willy (Dominic West) and is transported to be among the intellectuals in Paris.  Willy is not really that much of a writer but he has created an industry of creating literary works by having writers ghost-write under his name.  Soon he figures out that Colette has a talent for writing and persuades her to write about her experiences creating the series of novels about “Claudine”.  What follows is a story of redefining gender roles and telling of stories that overcome the societal restraints of the time.  Some of these norms that are overcome even involve women in bisexual or homosexual relationships, quite a break from the traditions of the early 1900’s even in France.  Eventually, the couple reaches a crisis when Colette asks that she be given the rights to her own work.  The film was directed by Wash Westmoreland and was co-written by him and his partner, Richard Glatzer.  Sadly, Glatzer did not live to see his project reach the screen.  But you can have the opportunity to see Keira Knightley’s acting talents in this film based on the true story of one of France’s finest female writers.

Bombshell

Bombshell                           4 stars

My first reaction to Bombshell is that any movie that features Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie deserves some major attention.  And for the most part it delivers.  It tells the story of a small group of women at Fox News endured years of abuse at the hands of the CEO, Roger Ailes and finally banded together to bring him down in 2016. The performances by Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as a fictional character, Kayla are all first rate.  John Lithgow does a convincing job as Ailes, the perv who controls the lives of these women and treats them like his personal playthings.  The film stops short of indicting the entire network of Fox for its corporate culture that allows this behavior to take place.  You certainly don’t get the feeling that Rupert Murdoch (Malcolm McDowell) really cares about these women.  He is only too eager to put all the blame on Ailes and put his name in all the headlines.  One very memorable part of the movie are the interchanges between Kayla and Kate McKinnon’s character, Jess Karr who is a closeted Democrat and lesbian working at Fox and knows what has been going on for years.  The movie doesn’t tell us much about what happened to these people beyond 2016, but it is certainly worth seeing.  Look for a few Oscar nominations to come from Bombshell.