Category Archives: Drama

A Thousand and One

A Thousand and One   4 stars 

A. V. Rockwell tells a story of a young Black mother raising a son against the backdrop of a gentrifying New York City that tends to deny opportunity from the poorer minorities.  Inez (Teyana Taylor) is living in shelters in the 1990’s and as an act of redemption decides to kidnap 6 year old Terry, from foster care where he has been placed.  But there is a secret kept hidden that can shatter their lives if discovered.  We follow this small family for the next twelve years as they struggle to build something together with her friend and eventual husband,  Lucky (William Catlett). Both Inez and Lucky have criminal backgrounds making things a challenge,  but are committed to keeping Terry in school on a path to success.  It is a moving,  well acted and well written story that keeps you rooting for this loving and unlikely family. The cast was present for Q&A including the little boy who played the young Terry and was really charming. The movie was very well received by the packed in audience. It was an excellent movie that I almost missed. 

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Sometimes I Think About Dying  4 stars

Despite the title this movie has a very positive message.  It is a close look at the life and private thoughts of its main character, Fran, a young woman working in a small seaside town in Oregon.  Daisy Ridley stars as the woman who seems to have a rather dull life working in a small office,  only interacting with her coworkers when needed.  The movie starts by showing her normal work and home routine using long stretches of silence,  but blended in are private scenes that convey her thoughts about death or ways to die. One day a new worker, a man in his forties joins the team and he and Fran make a connection and arrange to see each other from time to time.  They find that there are more things that they don’t have in common than things they do,  which leads to some awkward moments in their conversations. Both of the characters are driven to express honest thoughts that can be hurtful.  The film conveys a message of acceptance of others despite the differences we have.  I should also emphasize that Fran’s thoughts on death do not represent any suicidal tendencies.  They are a way of showing the private thoughts we have that are hidden from the outside world. For Ridley this is a real departure from her work on the Star Wars movies. It is one to check out if you find it. 

Radical

Radical  5 stars

There are so many good imaginative movies at Sundance which makes it hard to identify the very best.  But I believe we have one in Radical.  It is a true story about a Mexican teacher starting a new job at one of the poorest and badly performing elementary schools in Mexico. The school is in a border town that is full of violence and corruption where the students come from extreme poverty.   Mexican funny man Eugenio Derbez stars as Sergio Juarez who is taking over the sixth grade class for the new school year.  Derbez is known for the comedy How to Be a Latin Lover and for his role in CODA. His role here is much more of a dramatic one, but he is great in it.  Sergio has a very different approach to teaching where he really gets the students enthused about learning,  but has to deal with disapproval from the Director and from parents who don’t like their children getting their hopes up too high.  The idea of a hero teacher bringing out the potential of underprivileged children has been done a few times but Radical really does an outstanding job at it. Derbez and two of the child actors were present for the Q&A. Many of the scenes shown in the movie happened in real life including the corruption that deprives the school of computers.  At the Q&A it was revealed that after ten years the school still does not have computers and it would be pointless to get them because they would only be stolen for the parts.  The two girls answered that they hope to continue with acting careers. I did not have this one on my initial list but looked for it once I heard some of the word of mouth,  (plus it has Eugenio Derbez, one of the funniest actors I have seen.)

King Richard

King Richard       4 stars

If you want to see another inspirational sports movie then go see King Richard, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and written by Zach Baylin. But the movie is more than that as it is also about the unwavering belief and determination of Richard Williams, father of future tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. Will Smith portrays Richard, the girls’ father who has a written plan for his two daughter’s success and will not accept defeat even in the face of the odds against them, coming from the streets of Compton in the early 1990’s. Even though we know what the eventual outcome is, stardom in the all-white tennis world for two young black women, the obstacles facing them appear all too real. Richard works with the young girls on run-down neighborhood tennis courts while having to fight off the young men of the streets threatening them and forces his way into meetings with the white coaches who are needed for the girls’ success. Richard tells a lot of stories of his growing up in a world of racial prejudice with a father who would not look out for him. (The movie does not even include the worst of it.) He is determined not to have this experience repeated on his daughters. Fortunately, there is also a mother, Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis) who looks out for their interests and calls out Richard when he tries to go too far without consulting her. The white coaches are perplexed at Richard’s insistence that the girls be pulled from the junior tournament circuit when he sees how the parents of the other girls are treating their daughters and the resulting behavior as spoiled brats. Of course the movie would not be the success it is without Will Smith’s convincing acting performance as the father who won’t take No for an answer. He is deserving of the acting Oscar he received (despite all the ceremony controversy). This sports movie delivers with the expected climactic competitive scene as is the tradition, but the focus shifts from the father to daughter Venus when she faces the best in the world. The movie is available on HBOMax.

She Said

She Said               4 ½ stars

She Said takes on the subject of sexual abuse and misconduct in Hollywood from a journalistic approach and from an entirely female perspective. This is the true story of the New York Times investigation and take down of one Hollywood’s most powerful producers, Harvey Weinstein. We have all heard the story before, of the decades of assaults and intimidation and coverup payouts that centered around Weinstein and in the end how it led to the Metoo movement throughout the corporate world. In the film we see the efforts of the two Times investigative reporters, Megan Twohy (Carey Mulligan of An Education and Promising Young Woman) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan of The Big Sick and The Plot Against America) as they follow leads, knock on doors and are rebuffed at nearly every turn. Through a series of interviews and flashbacks we get the stories of not only repeated abuse of Hollywood actresses (including Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd) and Mirimax employees, but of the multitude of enablers in the industry that allow the abuse to continue. The formula of the movie is one we have seen before, in All the President’s Men, Spotlight and The Post, only this time the reporting is down exclusively by women who in addition to their jobs have to deal with raising children and fending off creeps in bars. Even though we know the eventual outcome we feel the frustration of the reporters as they hear the stories but can’t persuade the victims to go public out of fear of their families learning what happened and retaliation from Weinstein. It is only after being informed of the payouts by the lawyers and accountants that they learn the true scope of the crimes. For the documentary treatment of the subject, see the 2019 movie Untouchable. It gives a firsthand account from some of the women victims and the exposing of Weinstein’s crimes.

Bones and All

Bones and All                     4 stars

From director Luca Guadagnino comes a story of two young lovers on a road trip travelling across the country in the 1980’s in a search for purpose. Timothee Chalamet is Lee, reuniting with the Call Me by Your Name director, and Taylor Russell is a teenage girl, Maren in this teenage romance horror as a young pair learning to deal with the secret that they both share. I won’t reveal what that secret is but let’s just say that it involves a lot of blood and they are not vampires. Bones and All is actually based on a young adult novel by the same name where the heat between the two young travelers gradually intensifies as they drive from one rundown  Midwestern town to another. The story is actually reminiscent of Badlands or Natural Born Killers as they commit certain crimes against the unsuspecting victims. We must understand that this is not a matter of choice. It’s just that this is who they are. Maren is on this journey to try to find her birth mother accompanied by a cassette recording from her father and her own birth certificate that reveals her mother’s hometown. She encounters Lee by scent, revealing that they share something in common. Oh, and there is an old man she meets along the way (Mark Rylance of Bridge of Spies) who teaches her some things about their kind. (This has to be the creepiest role of Rylance’s career to date! He plays it perfectly.) He will show up at the most unexpected of times. The well paced movie alternates between slow cinematic scenes of the country and loving interaction to scenes of utter bloody horror. There are also a few single scene roles for some well known actors including Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloe Sevigny, David Gordon Green and Jessica Harper. Despite their acting skills the movie mainly belongs to Taylor Russell who is very believable as the young Maren. Besides 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino is also known for his films Suspiria (also a horror film), and I am Love. This one is probably best meant to be viewed by the strictly horror movie fans. I look forward to his next project, Challengers, starring Zendaya coming in 2023.

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.