Category Archives: Drama

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!       4 1/2 suns

I was especially pleased with Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! by Japanese director Josef Kubota Wladyka and starring Rinko Kikuchi which follows married couple Haru (Kikuchi) and Luis who regularly compete in competitive Latin ballroom dancing in Tokyo.  But then Luis suddenly dies leaving Haru all alone.  Fortunately, Haru’s sisters encourage her to get back out on the dance floor where she soon is taken up by her new dance instructor who is world famous and who also happens to be married.  One can see that this situation will lead to trouble and the movie does not disappoint.  It is an honest depiction of how hard (and messy) it is to deal with grief while delivering on many humorous situations.  It also includes some fantasy like aspects drawing from Japanese culture.  I enjoyed seeing the blending of the Japanese and Latin cultures which is a real thing in Japan. So far this is my favorite drama of the festival.

No Other Choice

No Other Choice               3 stars

Man-su is the kind of man who has it all.  A good paying job, a beautiful wife, a house in the suburbs and two children.  He is a successful middle manager in a Korean paper company and a past Pulp Man of the Year.  But suddenly an American company has bought out the company and that can only mean job cuts. Man-su finds himself out of a job and after a year of searching still has not landed a new one forcing spending cuts at home. What can a man do except kill the competition for what openings there are in his industry? This is the premise of Park Chan-wook’s comedy drama No Other Choice.  It seems I don’t see things the same as most of the critics as I didn’t appreciate the change in style going from serious drama to slapstick comedy.  There was too much of a change in tone that bothered me.  Man-su (played by Lee Byung hun of Squid Games) takes out fake job ads for a paper company to find the best candidates so he can find them and murder them.  Then he will be the most qualified man remaining.  The problem is that Man-su is really bad at killing, often getting mixed up in the victim’s lives. Then he bumbles his way through each situation. The movie is a long way from being plausible, but apparently that is what Park has in mind.  I wasn’t buying it, which ultimately made the movie less interesting for me. It doesn’t get my vote for Best Foreign Film Academy Award.

The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse                 4 stars

The Lighthouse is a very dark moody horror film that follows the interactions of two lightkeepers who must work together on an isolated island somewhere in New England in the 1890’s.  This film is by the horror movie master, Robert Eggers who made The Witch a couple of years ago.  This movie may not have quite the supernatural elements that that excellent horror movie did, but certainly scores on its hopeless mood using black and white filming, a smaller screen and some very mournful music and sound effects.  The two actors portraying the lightkeepers give us amazing performances.  Willem Dafoe is the aging experienced man who gives the orders, instructing the younger worker, Robert Pattinson in some of the worst back breaking, miserable work you can imagine.  Both give us haunting and masterful performances.  If there were an Oscar for the best curses uttered by an actor, Dafoe would win easily.  The story centers on the conversations and interactions between the two men as they alternate from hating each other to showing genuine concern for one another.  But ultimately the movie is about a slow descent into madness with a few fantasy elements thrown in.  It is up to the viewer to interpret what these fantasy scenes are about.  And since it is a horror movie there are some very unsettling scenes involving human bodily functions and sexual images.  This film is definitely a downer about humans in a deteriorating situation, but does it in a most impressive manner.  It is not a movie for everyone.

Jojo Rabbit

Jojo Rabbit                          4 stars

In a time when our society seems to be tearing each other apart in the culture wars who would conceive of a satirical comedy about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews?  Here comes Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit to take on the task of telling us the insensitive, comedic story about a 10 year old German boy who is a member of the local Hitler Youth during World War II, where the children are taught to fight for their country and to hate the Jews.  Besides all this, young Jojo as he is called, has an imaginary friend who just happens to be Adolf Hitler.  There is plenty of comedy here that is used to poke fun at the hate being spread against our fellow man.  When little Jojo has to return home to his mother, he happens to discover that Mom is secretly hiding a young Jewish girl in the house.  Jojo considers turning her in to the Gestapo, but is reluctant when the girl promises to cut off his Nazi head if he does.  Given this stalemate, Jojo decides to learn about what Jews are like by quizzing the girl who tells him all sorts of nasty things that Jews do.  Of course by doing so the two are only becoming closer and come to realize how much alike they are.  The film delivers on its message with the help of fine performances from Thomasin McKenzie as the Jewish girl, Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo and Sam Rockwell as the incompetent Captain Klenzendorf who serves as the camp commander for the local Hitler Youth.  Waititi brings us a movie with a message of hope amid all the slapstick humor and dramatic moments.  I highly recommend it.

It Was Just an Accident

It Was Just an Accident                  4 stars

It Was Just an Accident, by the noted Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi is a revenge movie but is deeper than that as it questions the cost of revenge. I have never seen any of Panahi’s other films, but I understand that he has many productions to his name and is well regarded. A minor accident at the beginning of the film sets in motion a series of events that will have a lasting effect on the lives of several persons that were held captive in a notorious prison run by the oppressive Iranian government. Vahid is a mechanic who one day hears the sounds of a customer in his shop who is being served by his partner. He thinks he recognizes the customer’s limp as the prison guard who tormented him using “enhanced interrogations” while he was being held in prison years earlier. The man is Rashid, a man with a family, who walks with a limp because he has an artificial limb. Vahid schemes to find Rashid’s home, follow him and kidnap him, then sets about trying to bury him alive in the desert. But Vahid’s problem is he can’t be absolutely sure he has the right man since he was always kept blindfolded while in prison. So, he sets out to find other people who were also held prisoner and tortured by the same guard, bringing them all together to identify Rachid and confront their own past nightmares. They have heated arguments about the situation discussing whether to let him go or execute him. Things get even more complicated for them when they find out that Rachid has a wife who is in desperate need of medical aid and they must help her and the couple’s daughter. They find that given the chance for revenge, the cost to their being and sanity may not be worth any satisfaction they may receive. The ending is very powerful and not what I expected. Jafar Panahi was himself held prisoner by the authoritarian regime and was prohibited from making more films, but he hasn’t let that stop him. You can understand why the Iranian government doesn’t want him to express his views. He made this movie without the knowledge of the government using amateur actors and what could be termed as low production techniques, filming it all in Iran. Nevertheless, he has produced a powerful film, one that achieved critical success and won awards at the Cannes Film Festival last year. I was lucky enough to find it in the theater where I saw the full effect of the drama. Don’t be surprised to see it mentioned in the Academy Award nominations in a few weeks. It happens to be the official Academy Award foreign film submission from France.

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.

Mirai

Mirai                      2 ½ stars

Mirai is a Japanese animated movie that came out last year by anime director Mamoru Hosoda.  The story is about a young boy of 5 or 6 who has to deal with the addition of a baby sister to the family, one that he has a hard time accepting.  There is a lot of misbehaving on the part of young Kun until he is visited by the young teenage version of his little sister who guides him through some odd crisis with his family.  He is also visited by the human version of the family dog who joins in the adventures.  Kum also goes through some other strange adventures when he leaves the house and encounters people that have key roles in his life.  I haven’t seen any of Hosoda’s previous work but I wasn’t thrilled by the story of a little boy who is something of a brat and is slow to respect others in his family.  It’s not up to the level of work by Hayao Miyazaki who brought us Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and The Wind Rises.  Those were truly exceptional animated movies that I still remember.  Animation is a way to tell a story with some very fantastic elements that can’t be done with live action.  I hope that Hosoda can succeed in coming up with some truly fantastic stories with a moral message.

The Good Liar

The Good Liar                    3 ½ stars

The Good Liar brings together two senior Hollywood legends in Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren for an intricate con game as McKellen’s Roy, an experienced con man seeks to gain the trust of elderly widow Betty (Mirren) and deprive her of her millions in life savings.  We get a steady building story for a while as we learn of Roy’s background as a con man and see how he convinces Betty that he is everything she is looking for after they meet with the help of an online dating service for mature people.  All is not perfect as Betty’s grandson Stephen (Russell Tovey from Years and Years) gets suspicious and looks into Roy’s background.  The viewer gets a good dose of Roy’s character as certain scenes make it clear that he has little regard for the suffering of others.  Things take a turn when flashbacks reveal some of Roy’s true story dating back to the 1940’s.  After this point things start to get a little unbelievable when the characters make decisions that you wouldn’t expect them to.  The movie does have a twist as all good con movies should, but it’s not unexpected as the promotions for the movie have already hinted at it.  This movie gets an A for the acting talents of its stars and C for the story.  It’s best to see this one if you haven’t already seen the previews.
 

Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme                 5 stars

It’s hard to describe Josh Safdie’s new film, Marty Supreme, which recently opened in theaters. You could say it’s a sports movie about a young man’s path to greatness in the world of table tennis, but that would be completely inadequate. The director of Good Time and Uncut Gems has created something unlike anything I have seen before. Marty Supreme is a manic, unhinged joy ride where one wonders what will happen next to top the previous scene. Timothée Chalamet has played a sociopath, a musical genius, a chocolatier, a messiah figure and a cannibal. So why shouldn’t he be a self-absorbed con man who thinks of himself as the greatest thing ever to hit table tennis? Marty Mauser is a very good shoe salesman who also happens to be an incredible table tennis player in 1952 New York and wants to go to the world championships in London to prove it, if only he can get the money to get there even if that means stealing from his boss. Once there he nearly succeeds, but meets his nemesis, a young Japanese player from Tokyo who defeats Marty in the final, thus depriving Marty of the title and all the winnings. (Along the way he makes acquaintance with Kate Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow of Shakespeare in Love), a movie star past her prime, who he also finds ways to con into his plans.) For the rest of the movie, Marty’s singular focus is to get back to the championship the next year and win the title, and he will do whatever it takes to get there. Since he has no money, he will literally beg, borrow and steal (mostly steal) to get the funds that he needs to claim what should be his. Marty’s other talent is his ability to talk his way through any situation he finds himself in. And he is not above involving his friends or even his pregnant girlfriend (Odessa A’zion (I Love LA)) in his various schemes, whether it’s hustling unsuspecting schmucks at a bowling alley or ransoming money from a rich, hardened gangster (director Abel Ferrara) by holding his prized dog. There is some top-notch talent involved in the making of this movie as we can see from the amazingly realistic sets and the fast-paced action. The supporting cast of mostly unknown actors portraying aging characters populating New York make it appear very authentic. But the film really belongs to Chalamet who is essentially in every scene portraying the young man with unlimited confidence who is determined to get his way, no matter who he hurts. This looks like one of his greatest roles yet. You should not miss it. I look forward to whatever is in store for him next.

Knives Out

Knives Out                          4 ½ stars

One of the best movies of this year has to be Knives Out, the traditional murder mystery in the style of Agatha Christie.  Written and directed by Rian Johnson, the renowned detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) has been hired to solve the murder of crime mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) who has been found in his estate with his throat cut.  There is no shortage of suspects as his entire dysfunctional family seem to have enough motive to do him in.  there is plenty of changes in direction and red herrings as are required in a good mystery.  One such event happens at the reading of the will which points to one particular suspect of great interest.  It is then up to the great Blanc to sift through all of the clues and mis-directions to come up with the real explanation for Harley’s demise.  The movie is filled with stars including Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, Toni Collette and Frank Oz.  This is a very enjoyable film that will keep your interest throughout.