Category Archives: Music

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.

Sound of Metal

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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.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

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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.

A Complete Unknown

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A Complete Unknown   4 ½ stars

Legendary folk singer/song writer Bob Dylan finally gets the biopic treatment in A Complete Unknown, by Director James Mangold (who previously did the same for Johnny Cash in Walk the Line). The movie focuses on the short span of time from Dylan first appearing on the music scene in Greenwich Village in 1961 to his rise to stardom in 1965. You can tell from the opening scenes you are in for a treat when the 20-year-old Bob Dylan, arriving in New York from Minnesota, seeks out his idol, an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in a hospital and sings ’Song to Woody’ which he personally wrote for Woody. Watching the private performance is folk singer Pete Seeger (Ed Norton) who was well known by this time. Both men can see that they will see more of this kid. Likewise, we the audience see something iconic in the actor portraying Dylan, Timothée Chalamet, who is already well known to movie audiences from appearances in Dune, Wonka and Don’t Look Up. He plays the notes and sings in a warbly voice that is more than just an impression. He gives a performance that raises your expectations for the movie wondering what he will do in later scenes. In the movie, Dylan forms relationships with people in the industry including Joan Baez, Seeger and management types like Albert Grossman. He crashes with girlfriend Sylvia (Elle Fanning) who, through her activist causes, gives Dylan an awareness of the crises headed for America, inspiring his songwriting. You can see why he wrote The Times, They Are a Changin’. It is through the relationships with these characters that we get a sense of how Dylan is changing and that he is charting his own course. I was glad that unlike some biopics the movie did not go into his upbringing, (think Rocketman and Ray) leaving some sense of mystery about him. Of course, the fact that Bob Dylan himself was a producer of the film probably has something to do with how he is portrayed. There are several different venues depicted from small nightclubs to the Newport Folk Festival, giving a sense of Dylan’s rising fame. The movie culminates at the popular music festival where the drama of whether Dylan will follow the tradition set by the festival or go full loud volume electric guitar. The critics say that there was much playing around with the events depicted, meaning the movie isn’t exactly accurate. Since I don’t remember anything of that time I can’t say, but it sure makes for some good movie drama.

In the Heights

In the Heights                    4 ½ stars

For my first 2021 movie to be viewed in the theater I saw the musical extravaganza In the Heights. This is the film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway musical about the joys of living in New York City’s Washington Heights, a primarily Latin community. Along with the wonder of the neighborhood are the struggles the main characters go through trying to find their place in life. The scenes go well beyond what could be done in the confines of a stage production using large set pieces with what must be hundreds of dancers and carefully choreographed numbers with moving cameras. The story centers on four or five young people who are all facing challenges and tough decisions as they search for their calling, be it in the community or in a new setting. The young cast is impressive but it is Anthony Ramos of the original Hamilton on Broadway who really steals the show with his convincing role as Usnavi, the Dominican Republic native who runs the bodega that he inherited from his parents. His well delivered hip hop lyrics to Miranda’s songs are masterful. The movie was released on home video, but it is best to see it on the big screen to really get the full experience.

Maria

Maria    4 stars

Director Pablo Larrain has constructed not so much a movie but a portrait of Maria Callas, one of the greatest female opera singers who ever lived. In Maria, Oscar winning actress, Angelina Jolie gives one of her best performances to date, completely breaking from the action roles she is known for. In the movie we follow Maria in her final days living in her extravagant Paris apartment in the 1970’s where she remembers her greatest past performances while self-medicating with a variety of drugs. Her only company is her faithful butler and her housemaid who watch over her religiously. Occasionally, she is visited by her doctor who urges caution in the face of her deteriorating condition. He advises that she should not attempt singing anymore as it puts too much stress on her frail body. Even so she still goes to a vacant theater where she attempts singing with the help of a supportive pianist. She is visited by a TV journalist who records her telling of the important times in her life. The journalist exists only in her mind though and has the same name as one of the drugs she is taking. She even relates her long relationship with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Callas is framed in shots showing her almost in a trance, alternating to scenes of past opera performances made to look like old films of the fifties and sixties. Opera fans will adore hearing parts of pieces by Verdi, Bellini and Puccini in these segments. The voice of Callas is superb, apparently being a blend of Jolie’s voice and actual recordings of the opera star. The opera scenes not only serve to showcase Callas’s talent but also relate to parts of her life that she is thinking of in each particular scene. The production design of the street scenes in Paris and the fashion and contents of Callas’s apartment are done in such authentic detail you can imagine that you are really there. Of course, it is Angelina Jolie who delivers a performance that conveys the singer’s diva status as well as her lost sense of reality. Maria is nominated for one Academy Award, that being in Cinematography. The Academy did not see fit to nominate Jolie for another acting award, though she deserves it.

Moana 2

Moana 2               3 ½ stars

It’s hard to believe that it has been eight years. That was when a young Polynesian woman, Moana went on an oceanic adventure across the Pacific with her demi-god friend, Maui on a mission to save her people in the hit animated Disney movie Moana. That was so long ago that Donald Trump was about to become President. Well, some things tend to repeat themselves. Now we find Moana (Hawaiian actress Auli’i Cravalho), having become a wayfinder is once more on a quest, this time to find signs of other island dwelling people and end her people’s isolation on the South Pacific Island of Matanui. Only, before leaving, Moana experiences a troubling vision telling her that long ago, a god like being called Nalo hid a secret island that had served to bring the island people together and that if things are not restored, it will mean the end of her people. For this journey she recruits a crew with her consisting of an elderly farmer, a sort of canoe design engineer, Loto and her large friend Moni who has a crush on Moana and likes to create images on canvases. After some preliminary adventures involving the coconut pirates, the Kakamora, the crew finds Maui (Dwayne Johnson) who is being held prisoner by a female god called Matangi (Awhimai Fraser). Once freed by Moana and the crew, they team up to accomplish the true mission, to find the lost island and set foot on it which will end the curse of Nalo. Before any of this can happen, we are treated to all sorts of action set to upbeat songs in the usual Disney fashion. Cravalho who plays Moana and is a Broadway actress really can belt out the songs, only the songs themselves are not quite so memorable. This movie does not use the song writing talents of Lin Manuel Miranda, like the original Moana did. While the characters are fun and amusing, the main villain seems to be the storm created by the evil god, who we don’t see much of. Much of the action centers on the characters saving one another from magic tornadoes and various creatures of the sea. Maui does his usual act of transforming into other creatures suited to each situation they encounter. The message here is that we benefit most by working together as a team. And naturally, the animation is top notch in the usual Disney fashion. I would not call it the best animated movie of the year, but you can’t miss by taking a young audience to see it. Judging by the box office, it is one of the major hits of the year.

The Piano Lesson

The Piano Lesson             4 stars

Denzel Washington acting in the role of film producer has helped bring us the third film adaptation of an August Wilson stage play. Previously, he brought the plays Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to the screen. This year it is the dramatic family drama The Piano Lesson, a story of conflict involving a decades old family heirloom, retribution over a crime and a ghost story. The conflict is between siblings Boy Willie (son of Denzel Washington, John David Washington reprising his stage role) and Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler of Till and I Saw the TV Glow). He has travelled from his home in Mississippi to 1936 Pittsburgh to try to convince Berniece to let him sell the family piano so he can buy farmland back home. She treasures the musical instrument, seeing it as a connection to family members who have passed on and will never allow it to be sold. The land that Boy Willie is after was owned by a white man whose family employed Boy Willie’s family as sharecroppers for generations. The man recently died when he fell into his well, so the land is now available. His death is part of a legendary ghost story we often hear of in the movie, referred to as the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. Most of the movie takes place in a couple of rooms in the small house owned by Uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) where other family members and friends gather and fill in the story. These include Lyman (Ray Fisher), Wining Boy (Michael Potts) and aspiring reverend Avery (Corey Hawkins) (who shows up to court Berniece). Berniece’s young daughter, Maretha also inhabits the house. The various characters engage in friendly conversation, intense arguments and one very lively musical performance that serves to slowly reveal a dark story of the past going back to slavery times that continues to haunt this family. The movie demonstrates that the past never dies, and the memory of long dead family members lives on as symbolized by the piano that has depictions of the family carved into it. First time director Malcolm Washington, and son of Denzel Washington, faithfully reproduces the play, but has probably gone overboard with his inventive shots and embellishing the movie with too much focus on the supernatural. John David Washington is a talented actor, but he overdoes the intensity of his character, I thought. The most praise should be given to Deadwyler as Berniece who expresses the emotions she goes through with her words and her face. As usual she is completely convincing in this role of a suffering woman determined to protect the piano and keep her daughter safe. The Piano Lesson isn’t the best of the August Wilson adaptations, but it deserves to be seen. I will be looking forward to the next one that Denzel Washington brings to film.

Annette

Annette               4 ½ stars

The minute I read the description of Annette I knew I had to see it. It is “a dreamy delicate dance between farce and fantasia” and “a magnificently ludicrous rock opera”. This musical by French director Leos Carax is an opera in the sense that almost all of the dialogue is sung and that from the first scene there can only be tragedy for the characters in the film. The film is set in modern Los Angeles with Adam Driver as the very dark and successful comedian Henry McHenry who performs in a broody belligerent manner wearing a bath robe on stage while the audience sings in unison to him. Henry meets the popular opera soprano Ann (Marion Cotillard) and the two instantly fall in love and become a media sensation. But we see trouble is coming when several women all come forward with accusations of abuse against the narcissistic Henry in a MeToo moment. But then everything changes when the pair give birth to their daughter, Annette, a baby girl who has a unique gift to put it mildly. (I can’t say any more than that without giving away the magic of the film.) To say that the movie is unusual and weird is an understatement. The interaction and tension between the two leads are integral to the story, but it is really the performance of Driver as well as the bizarre premise of the story that will keep your attention throughout the film. The music of the band Sparks is also quite special to the movie, though there may not be any tunes that stick with you long after viewing it. Another key role is filled by Simon Helberg as The Accompanist who is devoted to Ann, but can’t get close to her. I understand that Helberg wanted to be in the film so much that he actually moved to France and learned French (even though the film is in English). So come see it for the story of love, hate, jealousy, exploitation, and murder or come see it for the music. Whatever you do, come and see Annette.

For a preview of the opening number of the film go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWb3KpvAz8s

Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Evan Hansen           3 ½ stars

Welcome to the world of teen anxiety, depression and suicide attempts. This is the theme of the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen which won multiple Tony awards a few years ago. There is much to like here if you can accept the premise of characters breaking into song to express their dilemmas. All of the actors give convincing performances even if lead actor Ben Platt at 28 is far too old to reprise his role as the teen with social anxiety, Evan Hansen. They include Julianne Moore as Evan’s mother, Kaitlyn Dever of Booksmart as Zoe, the sister of suicide victim Connor, Amy Adams as Connor and Zoe’s mother, Danny Pino of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit as their step-father and Amandla Stenberg as the overachieving classmate Alana. The movie deals with the touchy subject of teen suicide with a story of Hansen pretending to be a friend of Connor after he is told of his suicide by Connor’s mother. It seems a letter that Hansen wrote to himself as a therapy assignment was found on Connor’s body, so it was assumed that Connor was the writer. It is then that Evan goes along with the misunderstanding and constructs a lie making him a friend of the troubled teen before his death. The spreading of the lie seems beneficial at first with a fundraiser being started as a way to remember Connor, but things ultimately get worse for all involved. I believe I liked it more than most critics, but it is certainly not one of my favorite musicals. Maybe making a musical about teen depression and suicide is asking too much.