Category Archives: Drama

Back to Black

Back to Black      2 stars

One genre of film that I really like is movies about the making of music. These are the ones where we see the process of coming up with and writing a good song. They can be either fictional or about a real artist. Unfortunately, we don’t get that in the new Sam Taylor-Johnson biopic called Back to Black, the movie about the rise and tragic end to British pop star Amy Winehouse (starring Marisa Abela) who died of alcohol poisoning back in 2011. Instead, the movie focuses mainly on her troubled romance to husband Blake (Jack O’Connell) who was addicted to drugs and alcohol and played a major part in allowing Winehouse to share in the addiction. We do get several stage performances of Winehouse and her disagreements with the record producers. (She could certainly stand up for herself.) But I didn’t see enough of her composing music and feeling it in the process, other than one scene early in the movie. Abela does a decent job portraying the singer, even using her own voice in some of the songs. (It’s unlike Elvis then where Austin Butler only did lip syncing.) Much better examples of artist biopics were Rocketman (Elton John), Bohemian Rhapsody (Freddy Mercury) and even Ray (Ray Charles). We also get too many scenes of her getting more tattoos, but we do see how that enormous signature beehive hairdo came to be. If you saw the documentary, Amy, from 2015 you would see some significant details that are left out of Back to Black. The movie treats her father, Mitch (Eddie Marsan) far too sympathetically as he in reality only returned to Amy’s life after she became famous and did little to help her out of her addiction. Her record producer and band members are treated as mere background characters, and her bodyguard is left out altogether, even though in the movie she is hounded by the paparazzi. In the end the movie is reduced to one about a bad romance and I think we already have plenty of those.

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.

Drive My Car

Drive My Car      3 ½ stars

Drive My Car, by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a real challenge to the viewer’s endurance that shows two people making a connection who have both endured unspeakable, painful loss. Yusuke Kafuku is a well known actor and director whose wife of twenty years, a television screenwriter died suddenly at home. Two years later he is picked to direct a stage production of a Chekhov play in the city of Hiroshima. There he is assigned a young woman driver who is to transport him around in his own old Saab, because the company doesn’t accept the risk for the valuable talent driving themselves. The film is highly complex and has a real story to tell, but at three hours in length this is a movie that really takes its time to develop. There are long scenes devoted to the script readings and rehearsals of the play where we wonder what Kafuku is trying to accomplish. He is obviously in pain over the loss of his wife even though it has been years since the event. The young driver seems like a minor character at first, but with her being around so much these two finally find that they share great tragedy in their lives. The lines and scenes from the Chekhov play serve to bring out the sense of loss too. One odd twist is that each of the play’s characters does their lines in a different language making it a multilingual play, a strange choice. It is also no mystery that the latter part of the movie happens in Hiroshima, a city that suffered great tragedy. That plays a part in the story as well. The movie includes some rather frank discussion about sex between the characters that is important to the plot, that we westerners might have trouble with. The movie was good but was very long. It delivers a dramatic message about enduring and living through the pain of life.

Babylon

Babylon                2 ½ stars

One word can summarize the Damien Chazelle tribute to old Hollywood known as Babylon. That is extravagance. In the opening scene there is a lavish party for the rich and famous taking place in the mansion of a Hollywood producer complete with drunkenness, cocaine use, nude dancing and a live band. The scene seems to go on forever, only ending with a live elephant being led through the ballroom in order to distract the partiers from the possible overdose death of a drugged out teenager. The movie is full of over-the-top situations and scenes full of extras that are designed to give us a sense of utter chaos. This is how Chazelle sees the world of Hollywood filmmaking in the twenties and thirties (which may not be far from the truth). Other scenes take us to the California desert where elaborate sets are created involving hundreds of people for simultaneous filming of movies. In the silent film era you don’t have to worry about the noise interfering with your scene. Throughout the movie we follow the exploits of three main characters, Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a young Mexican American man starting at the bottom of his career in Hollywood, Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) an unknown actress who is ambitious and certain that she is to become a star and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), an aging Hollywood actor who doesn’t realize yet that his career is rapidly coming to an end. Their stories as well as those of a handful of other characters show us how people achieve fame in the film industry only to see their lives ruined or suffer humiliation after the public becomes tired of them. It is a theme as old as Hollywood itself, only Chazelle is determined to assault our senses with all the debauchery, treachery and extreme cruelty that he can pack into Babylon’s three hour runtime. It feels like he is trying to give it a Baz Luhrmann treatment only without the caring for the human qualities of the characters. This is from the same man who brought us La La Land, First Man and Whiplash, all more interesting and entertaining films than Babylon. There is a fascinating scene about the making of the original Singin’ in the Rain (not the Gene Kelly version) and a final homage to Hollywood where we see some of the most famous images from popular films including 2001:A Space Odyssey and Avatar. Margot Robbie I must say gives an amazing performance of the confident Nellie LaRoy and should not be blamed for this overproduced and overhyped movie.

The Whale

The Whale          4 stars

Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of the play, The Whale is a devastating character study of a broken man on a path of self-destruction, but with real redeeming qualities. We meet Charlie, (played by Brendan Fraser who we have not seen on the screen in several years) a severely obese man living in a dirty, cheap apartment who is an English professor still teaching classes online. His laptop camera is always turned off when talking with his students. We slowly learn of his circumstances through his interactions with the other characters that include Liz, his friend and a nurse (the great Hong Chau), his estranged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink of Stranger Things), a young door to door missionary (Ty Simpkins) and his ex-wife (Samantha Morton). Charlie is a man who has suffered great pain in his life and abandoned his family years earlier. His great weight gain is attributed to this pain, resulting in his massive size of over 600 pounds and restricting his movement inside the apartment where he can only get around with the help of a walker. The entire movie takes place in the apartment where Charlie spends the majority of his time on the couch with his laptop and watching TV. The sight of his massive body created by a fat suit and some effective special effects is something that the audience cannot forget. Fraser does the best acting of his career, as the critics have said, expressing a wide range of emotion, from despair to self-loathing to hope for those around him. His greatest moments come when he sees the best aspects of others including seventeen year old daughter, Ellie, when others can only see failure. Much of the movie will feel like a real downer, but Charlie’s eternal optimism brings some real uplifting moments by the time it ends. Look for Fraser to be nominated for the Best Actor Oscar and I would not be surprised if he ends up actually winning. As for director, Aronofsky, The Whale adds to a list of successes that includes Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan and mother! (the last one especially for horror fans). For those that have yet to see The Whale, the title does not refer to the main character. I highly recommend it.

Women Talking

Women Talking                 4 stars

The title of Sarah Polley’s new movie Women Talking is indeed very descriptive of the events that transpire on screen. There are both plenty of women and talking. We are introduced to the women of a religious community where something horrific has occurred that must be dealt with. At first it is hard to tell when and where the movie takes place as the furnishings and the wardrobe are fairly primitive. It could be in the early 1900’s but the events eventually reveal that the year is 2010. Periodically, a woman of the community wakes up with bruises or an infection or is pregnant resulting from being raped while being drugged. The elders of the community (all men naturally) attribute this to “an act of wild female imagination”, but the women are not fooled. The movie consists almost entirely of a debate among the women held in a barn to decide what action they should take. They can stay and fight for their rights against the men or they can collectively leave the community and start over somewhere else. The women are brilliantly portrayed by actors Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Michelle McLeod, Sheila McCarthy, Judith Ivey and Jessie Buckley, among others. Each has their own way of expressing their feelings ranging from relative to calm to outrage. The violent acts are never portrayed on screen and we only capture brief glimpses of the men. There are peaceful scenes that take place in the fields with the children that remind us that there are more lives at stake here. The only man with a film role is August (Ben Whishaw), a teacher who was educated at a university and is present to take the minutes of the meeting because none of the women can read and write. Also, August is secretly in love with one of the women. The movie, written and directed by Polley is based on a book of the same name by Miriam Toews, itself based on actual events that occurred in Bolivia. The actor turned writer/director has been away from filmmaking for many years, but has created some memorable works including Stories We Tell, Take This Waltz and Away from Her. This present work is a subdued and effective way of dealing with a culture of violence against women that is all too prevalent worldwide.

Tár

Tár                          4 ½ stars

I returned to the theater to see Todd Field’s long awaited treatment of a successful female first class orchestra conductor who may be a monster in Tár. Cate Blanchett takes on this challenging role in what must be one of her best performances as the talented and arrogant Lydia Tar who conducts the Berlin orchestra and fills in her time with a book tour, writing original compositions and teaching at Julliard. The movie starts with her doing an interview with The New Yorker about her conducting. Most of the time I couldn’t understand what she was talking about, but Blanchett makes you believe that she is an expert, so convincing is her acting. After seeing examples of how she can control and damage the lives of those around her, including her assistant Francesca (Noemie Merlant), events catch up with her and her world begins to unravel. Much of the movie will make you feel uncomfortable which is what Fields is going for. Some of the scenes are meant to make you believe that Tar is mentally not well. Two of Field’s previous works are In The Bedroom and Little Children, both telling stories that are unsettling. The success of the movie rests on Blanchett who commands your attention every minute she is on screen. It is hard to imagine her not winning the Best Actress Oscar for this performance.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery           4 stars

Rian Johnson brings us the return of Benoit Blanc, the world’s greatest detective in Glass Onion. The sequel to Johnson’s 2019 hit Knives Out finds Blanc (Daniel Craig) at the scene of a gathering of wealthy friends at a private Greek island owned by entrepreneur Miles Bron (Edward Norton) that includes a giant glass enclosure that Miles calls the Glass Onion. This time the friends are there for a game of whodunit prepared for them as an amusement for one weekend. There we find Bron with his old pals that include Claire (Kathryn Hahn), the governor of Connecticut, Lionel (Leslie Odom, Jr.), an engineer at Bron’s company, Alpha, Birdie (Kate Hudson), a model and “social influencer” who can’t avoid making accidental racial slurs, Duke (Dave Bautista) a YouTube channel host who promotes conspiracy theories among other popular subjects on social media and Andi (Janelle Monae), Bron’s old business partner who dropped out of the business after Miles screwed her over. All were brought here by solving an elaborate box filled with puzzles that revealed the invitation. That is; except for Blanc, who seems to have shown up for mysterious reasons. Bron refers to this group as The Disruptors, but I prefer Blanc’s name for them: the shitheads. Since this is a classic murder mystery we eventually get to a point where bodies start dropping and everybody present seems to have a motive for wanting someone dead. At this point I have to be very careful about not revealing too much of the plot. The situation is well written following the rules for a murder mystery. All of the characters are suspects and we gradually find out more about them and events that happened in the past like as Blanc says, the layers of the onion are peeled back until we reach the center. Each of the actors brings out notable aspects of their character like Norton’s Miles who only cares about himself and Monae’s Andi who has a mysterious air about her. I think I preferred the original Knives Out slightly more, but this one will certainly keep your interest and keep you guessing until the startling conclusion.

Missing

Missing                 2 stars

For my first 2023 release I saw Missing. Just five years ago the groundbreaking film “Searching” brought us a mystery told in the unique way of viewing images on computer screens and surveillance cameras as a father goes searching for his missing daughter. Now filmmakers Will Merrick and Nicholas Johnson have made Missing, using a similar approach to story telling about a mother (Nia Long) who goes missing while on a vacation to Columbia with her new boyfriend, leaving 18 year old daughter June (Storm Reid) to try to find what happened to her with only a little help from the FBI. June, however, is quite accomplished at using social media and various online apps, making use of them to find clues as to what happened to her mother. She has clever ways to break into the boyfriend’s online accounts and find previously hidden details about him. And she is aided by a Columbian freelance investigator by way of Taskrabbit who is very helpful, leading to even more discoveries. About every 20 minutes or so a new startling revelation is discovered that completely changes June’s perception of some person or other including her mother. The movie feels like the ultimate in Things Are Not as They Seem genre as we follow things further and further down the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, this movie goes beyond the breaking point, with events that are just too much to be believed. I wanted to like the movie but by the end I felt that it had gone too far with the various twists with too much for me to accept. I am betting others will be disappointed by the ending. For a better treatment of this type of online mystery, go back and see 2018’s “Searching”.

Aftersun

Aftersun              3 stars

I picked Aftersun to watch because I saw that one of the stars of the film, Paul Mescal, is up for the Best Actor Academy Award for his role. I would say he does give a good performance, but in a movie that is well understated, telling a story that leaves much to the imagination of the viewer. The entire movie follows Mescal as Calum at about 30, a young father taking his eleven year old daughter, Sophie to a resort hotel in Turkey for a few days. We watch as the two do typical father daughter things like hang out at the hotel swimming pool, play a game of pool, go to the beach and do some Karaoke. We pick up a few details like we know that Sophie lives with her mother in the UK and we surmise that Calum doesn’t have a lot of money. Some of their trip is caught on video camera which is important because years later the adult Sophie is looking back on the occasion, but says nothing about that trip. We have the feeling that things did not go well for Calum in his life. He obviously cares about his daughter, but he is too young and not prepared for fatherhood. In the movie no details about his life before or after the vacation are shared. We really only see this short time that Calum and Sophie share in the hour and a half runtime of the movie. We will have to be satisfied with the writer/director’s (Charlotte Wells) choices in leaving out the background of these characters in this, her first feature film. Some of this information I had to glean from movie reviews as I was left wondering after only watching the movie. Mescal gives a good performance but I can’t help but think what other male performers were passed over for this nomination.