Category Archives: Drama

Never Goin’ Back

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Never Goin’ Back                              3 ½ stars

Much in the vein of Superbad and Bridesmaids, Never Goin’ Back brings us Angela and Jessie, two teenage girls who are living on their own glide through various bizarre hijinks in their small world in a Texas town. The two girls are without parents and are best friends who work as waitresses in a local restaurant. Angela has a plan to spend a week at the beach to celebrate Jessie’s seventeenth birthday and has spent the rent money on a hotel room. Thus, the girls must scheme to come up with the rent money while dealing with drug dealers, a few days in jail and getting high on some “cookies”. While often vulgar and crude, the movie has a very comedic core made genuine by the talents of the stars, Maia Mitchell and Camilla Morrone who portray the girls as strong women who would die for each other. The movie is loosely based on the memories of writer/director Augustine Frizzell who apparently spent her teenage years in endless mischief with her best friend in a small Texas town. If you can stomach the bathroom humor, projectile vomit and frequent drug use you may want to give Never Goin’ Back a look.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom            5 stars

There are some truly commanding performances in the George C. Wolfe directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (on Netflix). Viola Davis stars as the legendary 1920’s blues singer Ma Rainey in the film based on the August Wilson play of the same name. Alongside her is Chadwick Bozeman as the ambitious cornet player, Levee. This was to be Bozeman’s final performance as he unfortunately passed away last year. The movie is set in 1927 Chicago with most of the story centered around a recording session for Ma and her band as the members of the band and her white manager wait on Ma’s late arrival. Davis gives us a special performance portraying the domineering performer of the blues who won’t let any man walk over her, be he black or white. Her appearance has been transformed with gold teeth and dark makeup giving her a formidable look. Although the movie focuses on the recording session, it is really a way to show the racial injustices that existed for black Americans in the Jim Crow era. We hear examples of it in the stories the characters tell and in their treatment by the white men around them. Ma even says “They don’t care nothing about me. All they want is my voice.” Bozeman also makes the movie exceptional with his character’s dialect and confident nature who wants to break out on his own as a songwriter with his own band, but then falls victim to prejudice and his own temper. Bozeman is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and has to be the favorite to take the statue. Viola Davis already has one Oscar for Fences, also based on an August Wilson play. She is again nominated for Best Actress and this very could be her second win. The movie is one of a series of movies that Denzel Washington is producing that are based on the works of playwright August Wilson. It will be interesting to see what else there is in store.

The White Tiger

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The White Tiger                4 stars

The White Tiger, written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, and set in modern day India tells the story of a poor villager named Balram who goes from working for his granny in a shack of a tea shop to personal driver for a corrupt rich business family and ultimately to entrepreneur. The film, based on a book by the same name, has an involved plot that shows how Balram’s thinking and view of himself changes from obedient servant who will do anything to please his master to a businessman in charge of his own destiny. There is a great deal of imagery and metaphorical references that explains how people’s position in society is set by the caste system. They are compared to the roosters in a coop that are powerless to alter their own fate. Balram ultimately sees himself as the fabled white tiger, a creature of great rarity and unique features. Much of the movie seems comedic, but about halfway through it takes a very dark turn that was hinted at near the beginning. It uses a nonlinear approach to presenting the plot so that the audience has a sense of where the movie is going. The three main actors, Adarsh Gourav as Balram, Rajkummar Rao and Priyanka Chopra as two of his rich masters are all excellent in their roles. They and the supporting cast help to present a convincing fictional story based in truth. The movie’s contrast of the poverty of the villagers and the corrupt ultrarich that make up the cities is dramatic. We see the rich people that may appear to be kind until their own power and wealth is threatened at which point they turn on those around them to protect themselves. The movie is also illustrative of the rise of India’s position in the modern world. The White Tiger is a nominee of the Academy Award Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Alto Knights

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The Alto Knights               2 ½ stars

The latest movie about the mob wars of the 1950’s is The Alto Knights by director Barry Levinson which is out now in theaters. Levinson is probably best known for the movies Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam and Bugsy. This time he applies his creative skills to a gangster movie that pits one high level mob boss against an aging underling bent on expanding his realm on the streets of New York. Now, if you are going to make a gangster movie about the Italian mafia, you can’t do any better than casting the eternal gangster, Robert DeNiro in the lead role. And if you want to do even better why not cast DeNiro in two roles in the same movie? That’s what Levinson has done here with DeNiro playing Frank Costello, the boss of the gang in New York, who is in his later years and wants desperately to retire. The only thing is that his childhood friend from the streets, Vito Genovese (also played by guess who? DeNiro) has returned from Italy where he was exiled for many years and now wants a bigger piece of the action, like it was during prohibition. For him this means getting into the narcotics business, something that has a much larger profile with the authorities than alcohol ever did. Frank is all about keeping things calm and steady, while Vito is a real hothead who wants to be feared and will not take No for an answer. Thus, the conflict is set up leading to an attempted hit on Frank. DeNiro is the expert at talking like an Italian gangster, speaking in the coded language we know from such films. He shows us his other side as Vito, whose temper flares at the slightest provocation, much like the roles we have seen Joe Pesci play. But as I was watching I could not help but think I was looking at the Robert DeNiro tribute show. Sure, the two characters look different with the help of some astounding makeup, and Vito is always seen in glasses, but I still wonder how hard could it be to find another grade A actor to play one of the roles? There has to be many such suitable men who could do a great job with it. It was entertaining to listen to the dialogue used by crime bosses, the type we have seen in such classics as Once Upon a Time in America, Good Fellas and Casino, but it eventually gets tiresome. And there is a lot of narration from the aged Frank telling how things used to be. The focus was more on the tension between the two characters than on any of the actual crimes or hits they carried out. In fact, there was surprisingly little violence in the movie. I can only think of three hits in the two-hour movie. I do have to credit Debra Messing in her role as Bobbie, Frank’s wife. It was a great departure from her comedic characters like Grace from Will and Grace. I almost didn’t recognize her at first. Anyway, if you want to see the great Robert DeNiro in a memorable gangster film, go back and see The Irishman from 2019. And if that isn’t enough there will always be The Godfather. Otherwise, forget about it.

Nomadland

Nomadland                        4 ½ stars

Chloe Zhao’s movie Nomadland is likely not for everyone but is one that I found to be fascinating. The 2020 film stars Francis McDormand as Fern, a 60ish woman who finds herself jobless, a widow and without a home after spending much of her life working in a small Nevada town at a US Gypsum factory that closed its doors after 88 years. Like the factory, Fern is a casualty of the Great Recession and must find a new path in life. With only a van and her few possessions that she can pack inside, she adopts the life of many of her generation and becomes a nomad and travels from one campground to another picking up service jobs at tourist attractions and plants. (Some viewers may recognize sights from the famous Wall Drug.) Everywhere she finds a community of fellow nomads who cooperate with one another and are willing to help with her needs. The movie is about many things really, about loss, about finding fellowship and comfort from fellow humans and of course about the beauty of the American West and the Plains. Chloe Zhao not only wrote and directed the movie, but also produced and edited it as well. While not a western, Nomadland has much in common with her earlier work, The Rider as that movie dealt with a young cowboy losing his loved profession and included some remarkable cinematic filming. Many of the characters were portrayed by nonprofessional actors playing fictional versions of themselves, people who society has left behind and travel wherever opportunity takes them. As Fern says, they are not homeless, just houseless. The movie is very low on plot relying instead on the characters, the camera work and the score to make a real masterpiece. Nomadland is nominated for Best Picture and Best Director and could very well pick up both Oscars.

Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal                 4 ½ stars

I had not heard much about Sound of Metal before, but am glad that I saw it. Riz Ahmed of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story stars as Ruben, a drummer in a heavy metal band who is on tour with his band, Blackgammon. With him is his girlfriend/manager, Lou (played by Olivia Cooke of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl). Ruben begins to notice something is wrong early on when his hearing become muffled. He is soon diagnosed as having lost 80% of his hearing for an unknown reason, though playing in a very loud band might have something to do with it. Much of the movie focuses on how Ruben learns to live with being deaf by joining a deaf community where he must learn to communicate with others like him including connecting with a teacher for the deaf children at a local school. The feeling of silence is enhanced by imaginative sound effects in the movie that gives us some idea of what things might sound like for the deaf. The subdued acting of Ahmed contributes greatly to the understanding of his character. While at first he is enraged over what he is going through, he learns that he is not alone and must be willing to accept the help of others in his new journey. Sound of Metal is nominated for several Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor (Ahmed), Original Screenplay, Sound and Film Editing.

News of the World

News of the World                           3 ½ stars

The man who directed the Jason Bourne films and Captain Phillips, Paul Greengrass brought us the film adaptation of News of the World last year, working again with Tom Hanks who stars again as a true to life hero. Hanks is well cast as Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a former Confederate officer who, in the years since the Civil War has become a traveling reader, who brings stories of the outside world to the townsfolk of Texas towns who are willing to listen. The animosity present during the war has not been lost and there are plenty of expressions of intolerance in this part of the country and with it the accompanying violence. Kidd happens upon a lost ten year old girl on his journey who knows no English as she was captured by the Kiowa years earlier and only thinks of herself as an Indian. She is an orphan twice, having lost her German immigrant family and then her Kiowa family. It then becomes Kidd’s reluctant responsibility to take her to her only known relatives who live hundreds of miles away. Much of the movie centers on the moments when the unlikely pair get to know each other despite the great language barrier between them, but then there are the incidents of terror when Kidd becomes protector from the unsavory inhabitants of this savage world. The movie is aided by some impressive cinematography of the Texas landscape (actually filmed in New Mexico), a good score as well as the supporting cast that includes Mare Winningham, Bill Camp and Elizabeth Marvel. It is a bit on the long side with some slow stretches. It is mainly the performances of Hanks and the girl (Helena Zengal) that will keep your attention. News of the World has earned four Academy Awards nominations that include Original Score, Best Sound, Best Cinematography and Best Production Design.

Tesla/ The Current War

Tesla                                    2 stars

The Current War               3 stars

Within one year two movies were released about how the power of electricity was harnessed in America in the 1880’s and 1890’s. Both Tesla, directed by Michael Almereyda and The Current War, directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon cover the events when Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were competing over the building of the fledgling powergrid that would light up American cities into the twentieth century. Immigrant Nikola Tesla also figures prominently in the stories with his designs of an electric motor that could efficiently utilize alternating current. While covering the same subject the two films are very different in focus and style. Tesla, of course centers on the life of the genius inventor from the Austro-Hungarian Empire with Ethan Hawke in the starring role who plays him as a moody, silent individual often lost in thought. He is more concerned with changing the future of mankind with his inventions than seeking personal gain. (He, of course, eventually loses his fortune and dies penniless.) Edison is portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan who is far too old for the part and Westinghouse is played by Jim Gaffigan to comic effect. The Current War stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the genius Thomas Edison who is fighting for DC current to be used as the basis for powering cities while Michael Shannon portrays brilliant businessman George Westinghouse who is selling the idea of alternating current as a more efficient means of transmitting power. As the title suggests the movie centers on the battle between the two over whose company will build and control the transmission of electric power across the country. Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) is a supporting character in The Current War who first works for Edison, goes on his own and then partners with Westinghouse. In both films it’s curious that the filmmakers chose to have Tesla speak without the hint of an accent which seems unlikely for the European immigrant. Wealthy entrepreneur J. P. Morgan features prominently in both movies (Donnie Keshawarz in Tesla and Matthew MacFadyen in The Current War) as the man who ultimately finances the whole enterprise. The style of the two films is what makes the difference between them. Tesla takes a post-modern artistic approach using the character of Anne Morgan, J. P. Morgan’s daughter, to tell the story as the woman who falls for Tesla while also narrating the background of the film’s people and events, but from our present using Google searches and iPads. There are other anachronisms used in the movie such as a cell phone and electric vacuum cleaner. I presume this is a way of showing the influence Tesla’s genius was to have on future developments, but I found it to be distracting. There are even fictional scenes such as an ice cream fight between Tesla and Edison that Anne fortunately tells us never happened. Another device used is to introduce characters without identifying them until later that I found to be confusing. By contrast The Current War is a biopic about the two men done strictly chronologically that puts the names of the characters on screen as each appears. It’s a less artistic approach but it gets the job done. The criticism I have with The Current War is the fast pace of it and quick editing. You need to pay attention, but it is less confusing than Tesla. Both are less than perfect films, but you will learn a lot from them, such as how the execution of a condemned prisoner was used by Edison to further his argument that Westinghouse’s alternating current was too dangerous to use around people. Tesla premiered at Sundance in 2020 while The Current War premiered at Toronto in 2017 and was then shelved for 2 years until its release in 2019.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

The United States vs. Billie Holiday                           2 stars

There has been quite an abundance lately of films dealing with stories of racial injustice. The latest is Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday that tells the life story of jazz icon, Billie Holiday, or at least part of it. It stars Andra Day as the legendary singer who was a star in the 1940’s and created a controversy by singing the song, “Strange Fruit”, so much so that the government was determined to get her to stop. I was familiar with the song and its connection to Holiday but was not aware of the story behind it. The song’s lyrics describe in graphic detail the scene of a lynching of black men, something people were aware of in the forties, but mostly would not speak of. The Narcotics Dept. of the FBI in the person of Harry Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), federal agent is determined to make her stop singing it as the government is more interested in hiding the problem of the lynching of black men than it is in stopping them.  He does so by framing her with drug possession and he is aided by black agent Jimmie Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes of Moonlight) who infiltrates Holiday’s entourage. I found parts of the film hard to follow as some characters appeared for only a short while and others acted in such a way that I could not understand the motives for their actions. It is clear that few of those around the singer really cared for her and most were interested in their own gains. Fletcher is a hard one to understand as he is at first responsible for putting Holiday in jail and then has an affair with her. What a change that was! Two actors bringing comic relief are Miss Lawrence and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as part of Holiday’s entourage. The telling of her background was disjointed using a melodramatic way of showing her upbringing and her connection with a lynching. There is a comical interview scene with Leslie Jordan (whom Will & Grace fans will recognize instantly) as Reginald Lord Devine doing the questioning at a time late in Holiday’s career, inserted into the more chronological story. I felt it wasn’t done very effectively. We don’t get to hear the song Strange Fruit performed until well after the halfway point and though it is quite haunting it only shows up once. What we don’t get is any idea of how Holiday became so attached to it in the first place. Billie Holiday is known as the godmother of the civil rights movement before it was a movement and Andra Day does a remarkable performance portraying her. I just wish she was in a better movie about this historic icon.

Opus

Opus     2 stars

Based on a few recent films that include Blink Twice, Glass Onion and The Menu, we have learned that if a billionaire invites you to their private island, you should probably politely decline. Now we can modify that rule to say that if a wealthy celebrity resurfaces after a 30-year absence and invites you to their isolated compound in the desert, you should not accept! That’s the premise in the social thriller Opus, from first time director Mark Anthony Green, which recently appeared at the Sundance Film Festival and is now in theaters. The film is partly a commentary on the culture of celebrity worship and partly about a psychopathic cult leader. We meet Ariel (Ayo Edebiri of The Bear), a young writer for a pop culture magazine who is lamenting how she is being overlooked in her job. One day she is greeted by the news that a pop icon from the nineties who seemingly vanished has reappeared with the announcement of a new album. Moretti (John Malkovich of Velvet Buzzsaw and Young Adult) who is also known as the Debutante, has invited Ariel along with her boss, Stan (Murray Bartlett of The White Lotus) and a few other media types including TV talk show host Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis) to his compound in the Utah desert for the weekend to be the first to hear his new tunes. Ariel is happy to accept thinking it will be good for her career, but she seems out of place in this crowd. Upon arrival at the airport, the group is picked up by bus for a 4-hour ride to the compound. There they are treated like royalty to 4-star meals, a fabulous wardrobe and massages. Each of the six in the group is shadowed by a personal concierge who watches their every move plus they are under surveillance even in their rooms. Ariel finds this disturbing in addition to the fact that they must relinquish their cell phones and laptops. She seems to be alone in her concerns as everyone else is mesmerized by the persona of Moretti, who preaches great platitudes about the religion he has written about in a book they all received called Meditations of Levels. He sings and dances in what looks like a metallic space suit and has a group of followers who he calls Levelists who follow his every command, including a disturbing scene where one of them must manually open a roomful of oysters in search of rare pearls. (Many followers have scars on their hands from performing this ritual.) Ariel is the only one of the guests to be suspicious when one of their members mysteriously disappears and on her own goes on a hunt for clues as to what this cult is about. Ultimately, as predicted by the audience, the terror is unleashed when Moretti finds his guests unpleasing, and it is up to poor Ariel to find a way to escape and bring justice to this psychopath. In the end you can tell that the film thinks it has something to say about false prophets and the role of the media in a culture of fandom, but it amounts to a tired formula that we have seen many times. I found the ending unsatisfying as I felt it didn’t really explain Moretti’s motives. For a much better movie about a terrifying experience in a cult I recommend 2019’s Midsommar.