Category Archives: Drama

Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths       3 stars

This film by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu, with its long title is a very ambitious project in scope as well as being quite long at 159 minutes. It has some basis on his own life, which is a departure from his earlier award-winning films including Birdman and The Revenant. The main character, named Silverio (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is a renowned activist and filmmaker of documentaries from Mexico, who is about to accept an award in Los Angeles for his latest film. He has a troubled relationship with his family including his wife, grown daughter and teenage son. And he is haunted by the loss of an infant son years earlier, who in the film didn’t want to be born, preferring to stay in the womb. Yes, you read that right! Much of the film deviates from reality, taking on a surrealistic tone such as when Mexican soldiers from The Mexican War appear pretending to be fighting, a commuter train suddenly flooding with water or with Silverio meeting Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortéz on top of a hill of human flesh. It’s all meant to show how Silverio is wracked with guilt. His time is split between two worlds, that of America where he is praised for his films and that of Mexico where he is from. Silverio both loves the beauty of Mexico and its people and hates it for its poverty and corruption. There are some people, including some of his own family, that despise him for this duality of his life. The film has some very artistic merits to it and has some masterfully done cinematography, especially when the camera does extremely long continuous takes gradually transitioning location and mood. The movie is grand in scale and Iñárritu has a lot to say, but it is probably a bit much for most audiences to take in. By the end of it I felt exhausted.

Pieces of a Woman

Pieces of a Woman                          3 stars

The title of Kornel Mundruczo’s Pieces of a Woman gives one the picture of a person being broken into pieces. This is truly the objective of the movie as we follow several months of Martha’s (Vanessa Kirby of The Crown) suffering after the loss of a baby daughter immediately after a difficult home birth. Sharing in the grief are her blue collar husband, Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and her elderly mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn). We see how each character deals with the loss differently and how it tears relationships apart. It is Kirby who gives a realistic performance of a woman broken by the experience, but then recovers from it on her own terms. For most of the movie I felt like I was watching people who were wallowing in self pity, who cannot feel empathy for the suffering of others. This is especially true of Sean, the working class husband who Elizabeth thinks is not good enough for her daughter. His reaction is one of rage as he fails to show up for work, has a brief affair and can’t find a way to cooperate in a sex scene with Martha. He is basically an ass, which makes it a perfect role for LaBeouf. Burstyn gives an excellent performance as the mother who is more concerned with making the midwife pay for the baby’s death than helping her daughter through the pain. The movie really belongs to Kirby who has been nominated for Best Actress by the Academy Awards for the role. The movie’s early scene showing the labor and delivery deserves a special mention as it is all done in a continuous take that lasts more than twenty minutes. The movie does have a courtroom scene about the lawsuit against the midwife, but it feels more like a subplot than the focus of the movie. For a better movie about the emotions of parents going through the loss of a child, I recommend Manchester by the Sea.

Mank

Mank                    4 ½ stars

Mank, now available on Netflix, is a rarity as it portrays 1930’s Hollywood while also being filmed in the style of the thirties. Directed by David Fincher (of The Social Network and Gone Girl), it stars Gary Oldman as Hollywood screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz who is best known for writing the screenplay of Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane. The film is in black and white and looks much like the movies of the thirties, not only by the tones and shots on the screen, but also by the quick paced dialogue of that era. At the beginning we learn that in 1940 the young 24 year old phenomenon Orson Welles has been given free reign to make whatever movie he wants with whatever resources he needs. Welles has chosen Mankiewicz to write a screenplay about a corrupt media mogul who has even greater ambitions. Throughout the movie we see Mank confined to a bed following a car accident as he dictates to a secretary and receives visits from associates and occasional phone calls from Welles. The rest of the story is done in flash backs to Mankiewicz activities in the thirties where we really get a view of what old Hollywood was like, featuring such figures as Louis B. Mayer of MGM and an aging William Randolph Hearst, the ultrarich media mogul. Amanda Seyfried portrays Marion Davies, Hearst’s mistress and confidant of Mankiewicz. There is a good deal of social commentary on the politics of the age, so it helps to have some historical background. It is set in the midst of the depression at the beginning of the Roosevelt administration with labor strikes going on and with Hitler creating a stir in Europe. There is a socialist movement going on in California with writer Upton Sinclair challenging incumbent Republican Frank Merriam for the Governor’s office. The scene featuring a gathering of big wigs and socialites at Hearst castle engaged in a political discussion is fascinating as the socialist leaning Mankiewicz goes toe to toe with the Republican backers in the room. Much like Welles film, Mank can be viewed as an indictment of the superrich who live off the backs of the workers that keep their enterprise going. It is really Oldman who makes the film work though he is much older than Mankiewicz was at the time. Mank leads the Academy Award nominations with a total of ten, including Beast Actor for Oldman, Best Supporting Actress for Amanda Seyfried, Best Picture and Best Director for David Fincher. The screenplay was written by David Fincher’s father Jack who died in 2003 so never got to see it become reality.

Never Goin’ Back

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

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

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

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.