Category Archives: Drama

Being the Ricardos

Being the Ricardos           4 ½ stars

Aaron Sorkin brings his quick pacing, high drama style to the subject of the TV show I Love Lucy in Being the Ricardos. It’s not a true biopic as most of the story takes place in a one week period in a fictionalized take on the lives of married couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as they and the TV show staff produce an episode of the hit TV sitcom that made Ball and Arnaz stars. Nicole Kidman portrays Ball brilliantly as the woman who was a master at creating comedy with her wit and sight gags and Javier Bardem is convincing as the Cuban bandleader who mesmerizes a crowd and is popular with the ladies. Sorkin, the writer and director uses creative license in bringing the red scare accusation against Lucy at the same time that she announces she is pregnant and she suspects that Desi has been cheating on her. The matter of the pregnancy is most memorable as the two insisted that the pregnancy be part of the show against the will of the network and the corporate sponsor. The accusation from Walter Winchell of Lucy being a communist is a reminder of the time period of this film, when Hollywood was racked by such charges. The best part of the movie involves the interaction of the actors and writers as they engage in heated discussions of how to change the script and action to get the most laughs out of the 30 minute episode. It is made clear that every aspect has to meet with Lucille’s approval. The other actors, William Frawley (J. K. Simmons) and Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) bring their own character and issues to the show. Frawley with his off screen wisecracks and Vance who is uncomfortable playing second fiddle to Ball. Though most of the action focuses on the single week early in the TV’s show’s long run, we also get plenty of background about how Lucy and Desi met and how the movie studio exec’s treated Ball until she got her chance to break through on “I Love Lucy”. Don’t listen to the critics about the casting. Nicole Kidman is completely convincing in bringing Ball’s character to the screen.

Girl Picture

Girl Picture                                         4 suns

We end on a positive note with Girl Picture, a sort of coming of age movie from Finland. It features three teenage girls who exploring their feelings about love and sex. Two of the girls, Mimmi and Emma, form a new romance with each other without the knowledge of their parents, while the third, Ronkko, is checking out the teen parties in search of satisfying sex. I thought it was a positive portrayal of female relationships where the girls do not depend on the approval of males and are not in threatening situations that are common in so many teen movies. The three actresses in the lead roles has admirable performances.

Dos Estaciones

Dos Estaciones                                  2 suns

In Dos Estaciones we go to a rural area of Mexico where a tequila factory is owned and operated by Maria. We see the harvesting of the agave plants and the daily operations done by the plant’s workers. The film is a representation of life in the quiet village and of the beautiful landscape of the area. The story is about the struggles Maria is facing to keep the factory operating in the face of a pest infestation and mounting debts. My problem with the movie is that the points are made in such a subtle fashion that I couldn’t really follow it. In the Q&A we learned that small tequila factories have a hard time competing when the cost of the crops keep rising, a point that would have been good to know in the movie. Instead the actions taken by the lead character left me confused because there seemed to be something that was left out. Besides that this had to be one of the slowest paced films I have seen, which is not something that I usually complain about.

The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future

The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future            4 suns

In this drama from Chile we first see a river that has had a fish kill with hundreds of dead fish on the bank. Then a young woman wearing a motorcycle helmet emerges from the river gasping for air. The shifts as we are introduced to a Chilean family including an older man, Enrique, the owner of a dairy farm who was just admitted to the hospital, his son, Bernardo, daughter, Cecilea and Cecelia’s two children. Details emerge about Enrique’s wife, Magdalena who apparently abandoned the family decades ago and the hurt caused by her absence. The when the young woman from the river arrives without speaking she is recognized as Magdalena returned from a mysterious existence meant to change the lives of her family. Though Magdalena is obviously decades younger than Enrique there is little surprise that she has returned. This movie is my personal winner for the day. The arrival of Magdalena brings the prospect of death and tragedy to this family, but then the promise of hope in the face of environmental catastrophe. And there is really a scene that involves a cow singing!

Saturday Night

Saturday Night  4 stars

Chevy Chase at the Weekend Update news desk. John Belushi in a bee costume. A profusely bleeding Julia Child. The infamous Land Shark. These are all very familiar images to the fans of Saturday Night Live in its first incarnation back in 1975. Saturday Night, directed and co-written by Jason Reitman (Whiplash, Juno) takes us back to the night in October, 1975, when in 90 minutes the first episode of a revolutionary new comedy show called Saturday Night is set to go live on NBC. The show went on to become a staple of late night television, but those who were there that night had no way of knowing that. Calling the scenes chaotic would be an understatement. In 90 minutes, we see fights breaking out between actors, a fire burning on stage, the sound system failing, one cast member refusing to sign his contract because of a bee costume, a few confrontations with the network censor who can’t quite grasp some of the script’s sexual references and a studio executive threatening to air a Johnny Carson rerun in place of the show. According to what I have read, much of what we are seeing is based on recollections from those who were there on October 11, 1975. It’s hard to imagine that the show was not better planned and had so many loose ends before airing, but this is what we are to believe. Much of the credit for the success of the movie must go to lead actor Gabriel Labelle, (of The Fabelmans) who portrays producer Lorne Michaels trying to keep his cool and deal with a myriad of mishaps. There are a few familiar faces in the cast that include J. K. Simmons as an arrogant Milton Berle, Willem Dafoe as NBC studio executive David Tebet, Matthew Rhys as the show’s host, George Carlin and Nicolas Braun as both a whiny Jim Henson and nervous comedian Andy Kaufman. Jon Batiste appears briefly as musical guest Billy Preston. The casting of the Not Ready for Primetime Players was spot on. The young cast is made up of practically all unknown actors that I did not recognize, but I had no difficulty picking out who it was they were portraying. The look of the comic actors was near perfect from the style of Chevy Chase, the moodiness of John Belushi to the wackiness of Gilda Radnor. The only cast actors that I did recognize were Lamorne Morris (New Girl) as Garrett Morris and Rachel Sennott (Bottoms) as Lorne Michael’s wife and show writer Rosie Shuster. (Rosie plays an important role in convincing John Belushi not to walk out on the show before it even starts.) We gain some insights about the show along the way including that some studio execs wanted the show to fail and were only using it as leverage against Johnny Carson. And we see how Chevy Chase and John Belushi hated each other. (And how head writer, Michael O’Donoghue hated everybody.) We even catch a glimpse of writing team Al Franken and Tom Davis. Those of you who were around for the beginning of Saturday Night Live should definitely see it to see what happened before Chevy Chase said “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night!” for the first time. Afterward I went back and watched the first episode again. I must say the magic was still there.

Piggy

PIGGY                                                   3 suns

Once again we dive into the horror genre, this time to a rural village in Spain with an especially bloody story about a bullied teenager. Sara works in her parent’s butcher shop and happens to be very overweight making her the object of abuse from some of the other girls in the town. After another day of torment, she witnesses a stranger kidnap and beat three of the girls but is frozen in fear as he drives away with them in his van. Instead of saying anything to the police about what she knows she is intrigued by this stranger and tracks him down for reasons she is not sure of. The film is shocking and especially violent with plenty of bloody scenes. It is a cautionary tale of adolescent behavior and the desire to be accepted. This one is not for everybody.

Alice

Alice                                      4 suns

An imaginative film that I thoroughly enjoyed was Alice. Alice (Keke Palmer) is a house slave on a southern plantation where she is owned by a cruel white man who maintains discipline through pitiless beatings. One day Alice has had all she can take and makes a run for freedom, only to find herself in modern 1973 America where she meets a kind truck driver named Frank (Common). This blending of time periods is not a case of time travel but represents a southern plantation that kept its slavey practice in place for more than 100 years. In this story Alice quickly catches on to the changes made in America transforming herself in the style of Pam Greer of the blaxploitation films of the seventies. What a cultural statement! The film is an excellent portrayal of the struggle of Black Americans against oppression across eras of American history. During the Q&A, the filmmakers talked about how there have been actual cases of people kept in slavery up to the 1960’s but they did not go into details about how this happened. It would be interesting to learn more about it.

Speak No Evil

Speak No Evil                      3 suns

Sundance always has its share of imaginative horror films so today I took in Speak No Evil. Here a young European filmmaker has conceived a story that starts with a Danish family on vacation in Italy who meet a Dutch couple that they easily make friends with. When the Dutch couple invites them to their home in the Netherlands, they quickly accept bringing their young daughter with them. Then when the hosts start to behave in some odd and eccentric ways such as disrespecting the wife’s dietary restrictions, the visitors do their best to be accepting and maintain politeness. But then as is always the case in horror movies, certain things happen, choices are made and inevitable consequences result. Things do not turn out well for our visitors. If you liked the movie Midsommar from 2019, then Speak No Evil is for you.

Marte Um

Marte Um           3 ½ suns

Marte Un means Mars One. In this Brazilian drama that has a special meaning about hope for the future as we see the lives of a working class black family as they struggle to raise their children and survive. The mother, Tercia, has doubts that she may be cursed when things go wrong for them. Each of the four family members face problems when obstacles are put in their way, but eventually they realize they have much to be thankful for. The film was made in 2018 when President Bolsonaro, the extreme right wing candidate was elected. Although this connection was mentioned in the film’s promotional materials I didn’t see how it played into the story, so it wasn’t quite what I expected. But it is still worth seeing.

Klondike


KLONDIKE           5 suns

My personal winner for the day was KLONDIKE. It’s a fictional story about a Ukrainian couple who live in an isolated farmhouse in Eastern Ukraine, but it is set in 2014 during the war of Russian incursion when a Malaysian airliner is brought down by a Russian missile. News footage from the actual events give us more background to the story. Tolik and Irka are expecting a child, but their world faces havoc when this war is brought to their doorstep. Tolik struggles to deal with the damage to their home, the soldiers who demand that their needs be met and a wife who refuses to leave her home. Things are further complicated when Irka’s brother shows up and we find that the family has sympathies on opposite sides of the conflict. The camera work is striking with the very long scenes that slowly reveal the horrors of war in the background while the characters are struggling just to survive. The film is highly relevant to today with its message about the futility of war. It deserves some special recognition.