Category Archives: Drama

Colossal

Colossal                                1 ½ stars

Colossal received generally positive reviews from critics and I have to say that I just don’t get it. Colossal is not your typical monster movie even if it does feature a pair of gigantic creatures attacking buildings and killing people in the city of Seoul, South Korea. Gloria (Anne Hathaway at her best) is an unemployed party girl living with her boyfriend in New York City, who gets kicked out since the boyfriend can no longer put up with her irresponsible behavior. So she head back to her hometown and occupies her parents vacant house. She happens to meet an old childhood friend, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) who takes pity on her and donates some old furniture to her and gives her a job at his bar. There are strange stories on TV and the internet about a giant creature, several stories tall that has been going on regular rampages in Seoul but they seem to be just background to the story of our two characters. That is, until Gloria finds out that the monster has this mysterious connection to her and only appears at a specific time in South Korea. As the story develops Oscar is revealed to have a damaged personality as he does things only a sociopath would do. Only then does the significance of the previously mentioned foreign giant monsters become clear. The rest of the movie becomes a battle of nerves between the pair as you wonder just how far they will go. Through much of the movie I was left wondering just where is this going especially when what you would think would be the center of attention, (the monsters) seem to be only a distraction, like people playing a video game. When Oscar’s personality and intentions became clear I thought a good write could make this a good story leaving out the monsters altogether. In spite of the good acting, I was left disappointed by this movie. I don’t know much about Nacho Vigalondo, the writer director, but apparently he is known for movies featuring characters with very twisted minds. I did see his science fiction movie, Paradise Hills last year which was a very bizarre film.

Breakthrough

Breakthrough                    2 ½ stars

Breakthrough is a faith based movie that came out last year that looks a lot like Lifetime movies on TV (or at least how I imagine them). The movie is about a true story of a 14 year old boy who fell through ice on a lake and was under for 15 minutes before being rescued, which makes up about the first half hour of the film. The remainder is concerned with his long recovery and how the boy’s mother stays with him and prays that God will heal him in spite of the enormous obstacle ahead of him. For the most part it was well acted featuring Chrissy Metz of This Is Us as the boy’s mother. Topher Grace is horribly miscast as the pastor of the mother and boy’s church. Grace is fine as a wiseass or a good villain, but is not who you would think of for a sympathetic pastor. Of course the nearly two hour film has an inspiring message of the power of prayer and love, but it could have been done in about thirty minutes less.

The Half of It

The Half of It                      4 stars

While looking for new and interesting movies I happened upon one on Netflix called The Half of It. This is a new variation on the Cyrano de Bergerac story set in a small town high school with the kids going through the tortuous path of looking for love. Here we find Ellie Chu, a 17-year old Chinese American who seems to be the only minority in school and has not made any friends. She is very intelligent and well read as she seems to know about the great philosophers and great books. She also plays the piano and guitar and can write songs. Ellie lives with her immigrant father in a train station apartment where they are in danger of having their power cut off since they are poor. So, it makes sense that she makes a little extra money by writing class essays for her classmates for a fee. Along comes Paul, a jock who plays on the football team and is a little dimwitted but very sweet. Paul needs Ellie to write a love letter for him to the girl he is infatuated with, Aster, and is willing to pay for it. Ellie is soon drawn into this scheme and is soon coaching Paul on subjects like great books, films and art, so that he will sound more interesting to Aster. This arrangement only becomes more complicated when we see that Ellie is also attracted to Aster, so when she writes things for Paul she is really writing about her own feelings. Of course Ellie and Paul become closer too through the experience as he appears to be her first real friend. Eventually, things spiral out of control when the truth of what is going on is revealed. The movie is based on the director’s own life experiences. Alice Wu has written a genuine film that deals with the subjects of race, religion, family traditions and sexual orientation that feels real for the most part. Later in the film there are situations that depend on manufactured coincidences that felt contrived which goes along with the territory of teen romances. Viewers will not have to be concerned about any uncomfortable scenes. There is nothing more graphic than an occasional kiss throughout the movie. The Half of It is one 2020 movie that I highly recommend.

Saint Frances

Saint Frances                     4 ½ stars

It appears that Chicago has a new talent in filmmaking in Kelly O’Sullivan, writer and star of Saint Frances. The movie was set to show in Chicago last March but things got put on hold with the pandemic. I finally got the chance to view it and was impressed. O’Sullivan plays Bridget, a 34-year old single woman who has never gotten her life together. At the start she meets and sleeps with Jace, a young 26-year old who is very sharing with his emotions, much more so than Bridget. She then lands a job as a nanny for the six-year old daughter of a lesbian and biracial couple named Maya and Annie. The daughter, Frances is very precocious and opinionated and has a lot to say about Bridget. Bridget, who says she doesn’t even like kids has a lot to learn in this new role as she takes Frances on walks to the park and to her various classes. The young actress playing Frances is a real scene stealer with her often spoken words of wisdom. This is all happening while Maya and Annie are welcoming a new baby boy into their family and Bridget has just had an abortion after getting pregnant from her night with Jace! The writing is brilliant and understated and done with a real sense of pacing making me think that O’Sullivan has the makings of another Greta Gerwig. The film has a message about a person learning to love themselves and has something to say about prejudice toward people that are different without going overboard. I would warn audiences that there is a great deal of talk about certain female bodily functions and the aftereffects of having an abortion that you rarely see in movies today. The squeamish might have a hard time with some scenes.  Saint Frances appears to be O’Sullivan’s first writing effort as well as director Alex Thompson’s first time directing a movie. The movie also features some Chicago landmarks having been filmed in the area. If you are interested in seeing a realistic movie about female friendship I have to recommend Saint Frances.

Pain and Glory

Pain and Glory                   5 stars

Pedro Almodovar’s latest film, Pain and Glory has to be one of his finest. Previously, he has brought us such exceptional works as Julieta, The Skin I Live In, Broken Embraces and Volver and this one is at least as good as these and as full of emotional scenes. The film is about an aging film director who is past his productive prime and lives with a series of ailments that keeps him in pain. The director, Salvador Mallo played by Antonio Banderas is said to be a representation of Almodovar’s life. Mallo created a masterpiece film over thirty years earlier and is asked by a theater if he would appear at a showing of the restored version to give a Q&A. The problem is he would have to do it with the film’s star, Alberto, whom he had a falling out with and hasn’t spoken with since. Alberto had an addiction to heroin which he has not given up and after seeing Alberto, Mallo picks up the bad habit from him as well. Alberto discovers that Mallo has been writing texts about his life with a heartfelt approach and begs him to allow him to produce a performance based on it. Eventually, Mallo agrees to the plan after more arguments and the play becomes a reality. As the film progresses we are shown flashbacks to Mallo’s childhood when his family was poor. His mother played by the amazing Penelope Cruz, (one of Almodovar’s favorites in his films) realizes that young Salvador has a gift and arranges for him to be educated at a Catholic school. This gives him the tools needed for him to later express his creative genius in film. The film gives us noteworthy observations along the way such as how the pain in an artist’s life can lead to some of his most creative works. It’s a film that has some real positive things to say about the power that inspiration can have over times of trouble in a person’s life. This is a film that should be on several lists of the best of 2019.

RRR

RRR                        5 stars

RRR is the blockbuster 3-hour epic action movie that created something of a sensation in 2022 when it appeared in theaters in India and soon spread around the world. The movie stars two popular actors from Indian cinema, Ram Charan and N. T. Rama Rao, Jr. and tells a popularized version of two legendary figures from 1920’s India and floods the screen with heroic action and carefully crafted dance scenes all set to Bollywood style music. The title, RRR, stands for Rise, Roar, Revolt and tells the story of the colonial rule of India by the British and of two men, Rama and Bheem who lead a revolt against them. It all starts with a story showing the cruelty of the English rulers as the rich governor has a young Indian girl kidnapped from her family because of her artistic talents and in the process leaves a few corpses behind. It is meant to show the contempt and racist attitudes of the British toward their brown skinned subjects. That memorable scene is followed with separate action-packed sequences involving Rama and Bheem, (both very muscular men) where Rama fights off a crowd of men in order to apprehend one rock throwing individual and Bheem does face to face battle against a ferocious tiger. The two men have different motives for their actions and we eventually learn more about their backgrounds through flashbacks. The two meet and become friends with each hiding something in their background from one another. At one point, about a third of the way through the movie we experience the grand event of a sort of dance off between the English and the two heroes where the two cultures go toe to toe against one another with Rama and Bheem coming out on top. The number, called “Naatu Naatu” which goes on for several minutes, is a real crowd pleaser and was the winner of the Best Original Song Academy Award two years ago when it was performed live at the ceremony. It is not only entertaining, but it sets the stage for the wider conflict in the movie. Oddly, the movie was not nominated for International Feature. Eventually, the two heroes come together to do battle with literally hundreds of British soldiers in some of the most violent scenes I have seen lately. But don’t worry. It is all comic book style violence and is all done using CGI effects. (And we are assured that no animals were harmed in making the movie.) Whether or not you know anything about the history of India in this period, you will certainly be entertained by the film. And it would be best to see it with a group of friends.
 

Relic

Relic       4 stars

The last time I was at Sundance I saw several good horror movies, but at the end of the festival ran into one moviegoer who said he had one more to see called Relic that was supposed to be pretty interesting. I finally sat down to watch Relic as it was just released and I wasn’t disappointed. The movie is by a new filmmaker and concerns the effects of a loved one’s dementia on their family. The movie is set in a big house is an Australian town that is home to an elderly woman, Edna (Robyn Nevin). Edna is reported missing which brings her daughter (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter (Bella Heathcote) to the house to investigate. After a few days of searching, Edna suddenly reappears without explanation of where she was. Although she is physically fine it’s clear something is wrong here. As daughter and granddaughter stay to take care of her, the house seems to mysteriously decay as a black growth slowly appears on the walls. This coincides with Edna hearing strange noises and having conversations with someone that’s not there. She behaves in ever increasing erratic and violent ways that confuses her family. The large house is full of cluttered hallways and mysterious doorways that helps to add to all the confusion the family members are experiencing. There is a background story about an ancestor who had a horrible death that offers some explanation of the seemingly supernatural happenings, like all good horror movies need to have. The movie does a slow moving buildup to an eventual frenzy of frightening events that will overwhelm the viewers. Although the movie is not quite at the level of The Babadook or of Hereditary, it’s good if you are up for some good family horror and clicks in at only 90 minutes long.

Harriet

Harriet                  4 stars

Harriet Tubman, the slave girl turned freedom fighter for many slaves in the pre-Civil War south finally gets the big screen treatment in Harriet. Cynthia Erivo does a superb job of portraying the tiny Harriet with her expressive acting and her big voice. We know Erivo from her role in Bad Times at the El Royale and for winning a Tony for The Color Purple. The movie is something of a romanticized account of her escape from her abusive master, her encounters with the people running the Underground Railroad and her coming a legendary conductor, venturing into the South and leading many black slaves to freedom in the North. The anguish that the slaves went through is told in convincing style, but some of the encounters and dangers of the escape attempts seemed to be a bit overdramatic. Some of the movie serves as a good history lesson such as the treatment of The Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 that made it legal to hunt and return escaped slaves in the North and how a plantation owner’s wealth was measured by how many slaves they owned. Some of the violent consequences of the Slave Act are enacted in the film. We also see how some blacks lived in the South as free people, but that required them to carry papers showing their freed status that any white person could require them to show. Notable performances in the movie also include Janelle Monae as Marie Buchanon, a free black woman helping escaped slaves, Leslie Odom, Jr. as Henry Still, one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad and Vondie Curtis-Hall as the reverend who preached obedience to the slaves while also helping to harbor escaped slaves. The movie is two hours long, but seems to move along quickly. I watched the deleted scenes too and was disappointed to see some minor characters removed from the final version. The movie deserves its Oscar nominations for Cynthia Erivo as Best Actress and Best Song performed by Erivo.

The Lion King

The Lion King     2 stars

Disney felt the need to redo the animated beloved movie The Lion King from 1994 only this time with modern CGI effects and a new all star cast. The movie is a technical achievement in visual effects with very realistic looking animals and background terrain, but the feelings of the emotions are missing as none of the facial expressions of the original animated characters can’t be duplicated. I also found it hard to tell some of the characters apart based on their appearance. The familiar story is very much the same as the original so of course there is no new territory covered here. There were good comedic performances by Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner as Pumbaa the warthog and Timon the meercat. The music was impressive with some original songs being sung by an African choir. I am just not convinced that this movie needed to be made even though it had impressive theater ratings.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil          2 ½ stars

Five years after Sleeping Beauty got the Disney treatment in Maleficent comes the sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. You may recall that in the 2014 movie, Maleficent, the horned winged fairy in the Moors turned out to be a sympathetic character who loved and cared for Aurora, the human princess who had been cursed to eternal sleep. The new movie continues the story a few years later with Aurora (Elle Fanning) still living in the wooded Moors where she regards Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) as her mother. Things are still tense with the humans in the kingdom of Ulstead though where Maleficent is viewed with suspicion by King John and Queen Ingrith (a wonderfully scheming Michelle Pfeiffer). When Prince Phillip, son of the king and queen proposes marriage to Aurora, the upcoming wedding becomes an opportunity for the two kingdoms to unite in an alliance. This leads to a very tense scene that might be called Meet the Parents, Disney style. The tensions boil over and King John ends up with a sleeping curse which Queen Ingrith uses as an excuse to start a war with the fairies. But it turns out that it was the Queen who put the curse on her husband King John which would make her President Trump’s favorite character in the movie. Then Maleficent discovers that there is an entire kingdom of fairies led by Borra (Ed Skrein) that have been hiding out from the humans and are looking for a way to wage war against them. One tragic character is Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a fairy who is opposed to war and is a protector of Maleficent. After this the movie turns into something out of the Marvel movies with a long fight sequence between the humans and fairies with the humans producing a secret weapon to ensure their success. The movie goes back and forth between fight and warlike scenes to cute comical scenes involving cute small creatures of the forest including Thistlewit, Flittle and Knotgrass from the original film. There is also a female henchman, Gerda (Jenn Murray who some might remember as the emotional Lady Lucy Manwaring from Love & Friendship) who is something of a secret assassin of the Queen’s. The special effects are topnotch in true Disney fashion but the story tends to be formulaic and predictable. It’s a good one for true Disney fans to see, but is probably not for everyone.