Broken Ghost

Most teen angst can be relieved by soulful guitar player.

(2017) Thriller (Film Mode) Autry Hayden-Wilson, Scottie Thompson, Nick Farnell, Devon Bagby, Lessard Brandon, John Teague, Joy Brunson, George Griffith, Frank Lotito, Tyler Garrett, Lee Williams, Lexi Anastasia. Directed by Richard Gray

 

One of life’s great truths is that you cannot run away from your problems; they tend to follow you wherever you go, particularly when there’s a viral video involved.

Imogen Day (Hayden-Wilson) has left the building, or at least where she was living before and has moved to rural Montana along with her mother Samantha (Thompson) who has purchased the local pharmacy, and her artist husband Will (Farnell) who has gone on ahead to set things up at their isolated farmhouse.

There is definitely trouble in paradise (or at least Montana); Imogen now wishes to be known as Grace. She is a headstrong girl, but is sight-impaired. She’s not fully blind but most things are a blur to her and brightly lit so that necessitates her wearing sunglasses nearly all the time. She is somewhat suspicious of people and tends to shun them or at least drive them away but with good reason; she was severely bullied at her previous school and is trying to make a fresh start where nobody knows her. Will seems to have developed a porn addiction and an inspiration deprivation; he’s barely able to work on his art and ever since the issues with Imogen/Grace began. He has also had difficulty sexually with his wife. Samantha is severely frustrated and has taken to going out with her employee and friend Cath (Brunson) in the local bar after work.

To make matters worse, it turns out the isolated farmhouse they got for a song was a bargain for good reason; the previous resident, a somewhat eccentric and talented artist, slit the throat of his wheelchair-bound wife and 12-year-old daughter before hanging himself. Now there are some disturbing, unexplained things going on; drawings appear on bathroom mirrors, the television turns on by itself, there are strange noises coming from the attic that might be attributable to raccoons, but the whispers of Imogen’s true name that she hears at night are certainly not the work of raccoons.

The family is beginning to disintegrate from within. The source of Grace/Imogen’s bullying is discovered by new bullies at her new school. Samantha succumbs to her animal needs and has wild sex with a handsome stranger she meets in the bar, and Will finds a disturbing mural behind the wallpaper in Grace’s room. While initially Will denies that the house is haunted, he has begun to accept that it might be but that the spirits haunting the house if there are any seem to be benign. The goings-on in the house begin to mirror what happened previously to the homicidal artist – and there is the matter of a biker turf war that has escalated after the disappearance of two bikers that may or may not be connected with the Day’s home and suddenly Grace/Imogen has all the angst she can handle.

There are some things that work really well in this film and there are some things that don’t. To the good are the performances, particularly that of Thompson who is insanely sexy without being slutty, a desperate housewife who loves her daughter and her husband but sees everything falling apart and feels helpless to do anything about it. Hayden-Wilson has the kind of role that is all too common these days – that of the feisty, headstrong teen girl with a disability but she keeps the role from becoming tired or cliché. While I wonder how many parents would let a kid with vision issues as severe as hers wander around an unfamiliar landscape without someone to keep an eye on her, Hayden-Wilson has the confidence to play Grace/Imogen as the kind of young woman who would inspire parents to trust her that far.

While Gray does a fine job of building up the suspense in the first half of the movie, the pace is exceedingly slow and ponderous which is fine for European audiences but American thriller fans might not have the patience for it, particularly since the second half of the movie is an exercise in lost opportunities as the good will built up in the first part of the movie is all but spent by the time the credits unspool. The ending really is rather preposterous but although the temptation is great, I won’t spoil the elements of it even to give constructive criticism.

In the end this is a movie about loneliness; Grace/Imogen is lonely by choice, thrusting any would-be friends as far away from her as possible. Samantha is lonely in her bed as well as in her marriage and Will is isolated by his feelings of failure both as an artist and as a man. The family is isolated in their remote Montana farmhouse, and within that farmhouse each family member is alone. That’s not a bad metaphor for modern life if you ask me.

REASONS TO SEE: Gray builds up a decent creepy factor during the first half.
REASONS TO AVOID: The pace is very slow-moving.
FAMILY VALUES: There is quite a bit of sexuality and nudity, some violence and scenes of bullying.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was filmed in Livingston, Montana.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/27/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: See No Evil
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Stray

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Pick of the Litter – March 2019

BLOCKBUSTER OF THE MONTH

Captain Marvel

(Disney/Marvel) Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Annette Bening. This is the story of Carol Danvers, a human test pilot who becomes one of the most powerful creatures in the universe as Earth is caught in the middle of a war between two alien races. Set in the 1990s, this will be the last MCU film before the finale in May brings to a conclusion the first four phases of the lucrative film franchise with Avengers: Endgame. March 8

INDEPENDENT PICKS

The Hole in the Ground

(A24) Seána Kerslake, James Quinn Markey, Simone Kirby, Steve Wall. In this creepy Irish horror film, a woman struggles to begin a new life with her little boy in a rural environment but her fragile security is shattered by a crazy neighbor who insists her boy is not her son. As the kid begins to change in unsettling ways, she finds a terrifying connection between those changes and a mysterious sinkhole in the woods bordering her house. Is this paranoia on her part or is there something really horrifying going on?  March 1

Saint Judy

(Blue Fox) Michelle Monaghan, Common, Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard. Based on a true story, a young lawyer starts her life over with her son at an immigration law firm in Los Angeles. She takes on a case in which a Muslim woman, if not given asylum in the United States, will almost certainly be killed if she returns home. The lawyer must find a way around existing laws to save this woman’s life – and a nation’s soul. March 1

Gloria Bell

(A24) Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Michael Cena, Jeanne Tripplehorn. The titular character is a 50-something office worker who lives a bland existence by day but by night hits the dance clubs of L.A. looking for love. One night, she finds it. March 8

I’m Not Here

(Gravitas Ventures) J.K. Simmons, Sebastian Stan, Maika Monroe, Mandy Moore. An old man, estranged from his family, receives terrible news. Lost and trying to make sense of his situation, he turns to his past to discover where things went so terribly wrong and perhaps that it isn’t too late to fix things. March 8

Ash is Purest White

(Cohen Media Group) Tao Zhao, Fan Liao, Zheng Xu, Yi’nan Diao. The girlfriend of a small-time gangster fires a gun to protect him during a fight between rival gangs and is sent to prison for five years for it. When she is released, she hopes to pick up where things left off but that becomes clearly impossible; both parties have changed too much. This is the latest from acclaimed Chinese director Zhangke Jia. March 15

Iceman

(Omnibus) Jürgen Vogel, Andrė Hennicke, Susanne Wuest, Sabin Tambrea. In the Őtztal Alps in 1991, a human body was found in a melting glacier. At first mistaken for a modern hiker, scientists were astonished to find the body was over 5,000 years old. Based on that true event, this movie is a conjecture as to how that man got to his final resting place. The preview is also available on most Virtual Reality services including Oculus Rift, this is one of the first independent features to be so available. March 15

Roll Red Roll

(Sunset Park) Nancy Schwartzman. A two-paragraph newspaper story about two Steubenville High School football players arrested for the rape of an underage girl set off an investigative journalist off to look deeper. What she discovered was a town so invested in their high school football team that they were exposing their daughters to danger to protect their sons. This look at the pervasiveness of rape culture in small town America made national headlines. March 22

Diane

(IFC) Mary Kay Place, Jake Lacy, Andrea Martin, Estelle Parsons. Diane has always been the sort who feels compelled to help others. She also has a son who is dealing with his own drug addiction. With her world quietly beginning to self-destruct around her, Diane must face some elements of her past that she’d sooner forget. March 29

We Are the Heat (Somos Calentura)

Harvey doesn’t just feel the heat; he IS the heat!

(2018) Drama (Epic) Duván Arizala, Heidy Carolina Mina, Jarlin Javier Martinez, Josė Luis Preciado, Ana Lorena Renteria, Manuel Riascos Mena, Julio Valencia, Ariel Nuňez, Sebastián D’Angelo, Miguel Angel Banguela, Baudilio Guama Renteria, Yelson Chaverra, Nayron Pėrez Reyes, Rosa Esther Mosquera Aramburo. Directed by Jorge Navas

 

Over the decades, hip-hop has done something I don’t think most of its most ardent early followers thought that it could; it has become a universal art form. That isn’t so surprising given that the environment that spawned it isn’t unique to American inner cities; poverty is universal. So is institutional racism. So is anger. So is corruption. So is macho pride.

In port city Buenaventura, Colombia, all of those elements exist in spades. Harvey (Arizala), Freddy (Preciado) and Steven (Banguela) know them all too well. All three are struggling to survive in a town riddled with crime and despair. Harvey is doing his best to support his baby and his baby mama Luz Mar (A. Renteria) but like the others, he is deeply in debt and at a loss to repay it. He takes a job as a boat mechanic for a local crimelord to keep an ancient and falling apart boat running in order to move drugs in and out of the city. Steven has been fingered by a white corrupt cop (Nuňez) to steal a truck full of sporting clothes, as much as Steven wants nothing to do with it. Finally, hot-tempered Freddy still carries a torch for his ex Lindsay (Mina) who is now the object of lust for Ribok (Valencia), the second-in-command for the crime boss currently employing Harvey.

The three men get their solace as a talented dance crew that performs in the local dance hall at night in a variety of dance contests leading up to the big dance-off with a massive prize purse that could solve all of their problems. Their crew, Buenaventura Mon Amur, has a real good shot at the title too – with only the Royal Niggas standing in their way. That crew is led by Ribok, who is a talented dancer as well as a ruthless killer. The collision between Ribok and the BMA is inevitable as much as it is likely to be tragic.

This movie owes as much to the Step Up series of films as it does to urban crime dramas like Boyz ‘N the Hood and New Jack City only with an Afro-Caribe influence. Much of the music here could very well be American hip-hop in Spanish; the music that really spoke to me more deeply was the music that incorporates traditional Colombian rhythms, instruments and styles. One of the earliest sequences has BMA and their younger friend Baby Alex (Mena) recording his grandfather (B. Renteria) playing a traditional Colombia rhythm on the marimba. The obvious joy the two men have in modernizing a part of their heritage bridges generations and unites the two in their love for music and each other. It also reminds us of the importance of family in Latin culture regardless of economic station.

The dance sequences are frenetic and at times amazingly choreographed. The African roots of the dance styles are clearly apparent, although in all honesty I’m not much of a judge of dance moves, particularly urban ones. Some may be more impressed than I was; others may be less so. I’m just saying I’m not really qualified to judge well. The moves are certainly athletic.

The largely local cast is adequate for the most part although some of the line readings are a bit stiff. The most egregious problem here is that the script is a bit disjointed, bouncing from subplot to subplot sometimes with little warning or explanation. However, that is more of a problem in the first act of the film; as the movie progresses this particular flaw becomes less noticeable and the story does become compelling.

Even though the story is told in Spanish with English subtitles, I think a large chunk of American moviegoers will be able to relate to the circumstances of the lead characters. All those universal elements I remarked on at the beginning of the review are pretty prevalent in the inner cities of America, after all. The movie is rough around the edges and the acting isn’t always convincing but this is definitely cinema that comes straight from the heart. If urban dance moves you, this is a must-see.

REASONS TO SEE: The film demonstrates the universal nature of hip-hop.
REASONS TO AVOID: The story is disjointed particularly in the beginning.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a ton of profanity, some violence and some sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although the movie opened theatrically this past weekend in Miami and Los Angeles, it will be available on iTunes starting Tuesday the 26^th.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: iTunes
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/24/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Bodied
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Broken Ghost

Arctic

The deadly desolation of the Arctic circle beckons a plane crash survivor.

(2018) Adventure (Bleecker Street) Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradóttir. Directed by Joe Penna

 

There is something magnificent and terrifying about the polar wastes. It is awesome in its desolation and yet beautiful, the endless vista of snow, ice and rock outcrops. Little survives here but polar bears and fish.

Also, the occasional plane crash survivor. Overgård is the sole survivor of a light plane crash above the Arctic Circle. His plane is done for; one wing twisted and the nose blackened after an engine fire. He goes about the business of survival methodically, tending to the grave of the co-pilot who didn’t make it, scraping snow down to the base rock to spell out “SOS” and fishing through ice holes. From time to time he comes across polar bear tracks which cause him to scan the horizon nervously. He also tries to get his radio to work without any success so he essentially waits for someone to come and rescue him.

Eventually someone does but that ends up in catastrophe, the helicopter losing power and buffeted by polar winds and crashing to the snow. As in his situation, one of the pilots doesn’t make it. The other (Smáradóttir) is seriously injured, falling in and out of consciousness. Overgård tends to his new charge, trying to get her to eat the raw fish he is able to catch. He scavenges what supplies he can from the downed helicopter and comes to a decision; the girl won’t survive if he can’t get her to safety. He decides that he will leave the shelter of the plane where he might have been able to hold out for weeks and constructing a makeshift sled, determines to transfer her to a seasonal camp on the detailed map that he found in the copter.

That’s a far more dangerous thing to do than it sounds; the way is through a mountain range where the weather is even worse than on the plain. The footing can be treacherous and there are crevasses hidden from view that he can fall into. He is more exposed to the weather as well as to roving polar bears who are as likely to make a meal of him and his defenseless charge. Can he get her to safety or will they be just two more frozen bodies awaiting discovery in the Arctic?

First time feature director and YouTube veteran Penna crafts a pretty strong debut. The movie was filmed in Iceland and the natural surroundings are put to good use. While the desolation is well-represented, the peril of the Arctic really doesn’t come to the fore until the second half of the movie while Overgård is on the move. There are long stretches of time in between where there is little in the way of action but that doesn’t mean that the movie doesn’t carry its own fascination.

What this movie really has going for it is Mikkelsen. He has long been an actor who has always garnered my attention and he rarely delivers anything less than a solid performance. He does much better than that here, showing alternately quiet resolve and overwhelming despair. His character’s name is a bit of a giveaway; Overgård guards over his patient. There are also other unexpected Easter eggs in the film; I’ll leave it to you to find them.

This is not as compelling a film as it might have been. While I think it is a good idea that Penna doesn’t reveal too much about the characters or the circumstances focusing entirely on the survival aspect, there are times it feels like we’re watching parts of movies we’ve already seen. Some of the mechanics of survival become a little bit overdone; while I understand that the fishing lines are necessary, we don’t need to see him checking them as much as we do. A little cinematic shorthand might have been nice.

In some ways it might have been better had this movie come out later in the year. Mikkelsen’s performance might have had an outside shot at Oscar consideration then; in February he has virtually no chance barring an aggressive marketing campaign by Bleecker Street. However, seeing as many of us are in Oscar mode with the ceremony coming up the weekend this is being released in Orlando, it might get some folks who love great performances to check this out. However, some readers in Northern climes may not be too eager to see a movie given the recent Polar Vortex that reminds them of the weather outside their door.

REASONS TO SEE: Mikkelsen doesn’t need dialogue to deliver a scintillating performance.
REASONS TO AVOID: There are stretches where the film feels like it’s caught up in itself.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity as well as a couple of bloody images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The picture on Overgård’s ID badge is the same one that was used for Mikkelsen to show a younger Hannibal Lecter in the TV show Hannibal.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/23/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 71/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Grey
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: We Are the Heat

New Releases for the Week of February 22, 2019

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, F. Murray Abraham, Kit Harrington, Craig Ferguson, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill. Directed by Dean DeBlois

The final entry in this trilogy has Hiccup and Astrid now leading the village which has turned into a chaotic paradise for dragons. The appearance of a female Night Fury coincides with the biggest threat the village has ever seen, forcing Hiccup and Toothless to journey to the near-mythic Hidden World, the original home of all dragons – if it exists. If it doesn’t, dragons may well disappear forever.

See the trailer, video featurettes and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for adventure action and some rude humor)

Arctic

(Bleecker Street) Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradöttir. A man stranded in the Arctic after a plane crash must make a life-or-death decision whether to stay in the relative safety of his camp and maybe never being rescued, or trekking through the harsh environment and unknown peril of the Arctic on the chance he might make it to safety.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Adventure
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for language and some bloody images)

Fighting with My Family

(MGM) Dwayne Johnson, Florence Pugh, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost. The true story of wrestling superstar Paige who along with her brother Zak get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try out for the WWE. When she is the only one selected, she leaves family and the familiar behind to enter the cutthroat world of pro wrestling alone.

See the trailer, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Biography
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and sexual material, language throughout, some violence and drug content)

Never Look Away

(Sony Classics) Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl. Loosely based on the life of Gerhard Richter, an artist survives the horrors of Nazi Germany only to find himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany. Determined to find his artistic freedom, he plans an escape that will take him to the West where he will become the vanguard of a new artistic movement.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for graphic nudity, sexuality and brief violent images)

Run the Race

(Roadside Attractions) Tanner Stine, Kristoffer Polaha, Mykelti Williamson, Mario van Peebles. Two orphaned brothers look to football as a way out of poverty. When one’s shot at an athletic scholarship to college is derailed by an injury, the other brother laces up the track cleats and hopes to make his brother’s dream come true anyway.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Epic Theaters at Lee Vista, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Port Orange Pavilion, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal The Loop, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG (for thematic content and some teen partying)

Total Dhamaal

(Fox STAR) Ajay Devgn, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Mishra. A small-time criminal gets his hands on a treasure but his partner double crosses him and disappears. However, the partner blabs the location of the loot to three rival gangs which gets back to his ex-partner and the race is on to get to the booty before the others do.

See the trailer, clips and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Alone/Together
Mithrai
NTR: Mahanayakudu

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Alone/Together
Kumbalangi Nights
LKG
Mithrai
NTR: Mahanayakudu
We Are the Heat

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Alone/Together
The Changeover
Extreme Job

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Alone/Together
Blue Alchemy: Stories of Indigo
NTR: Mahanayakudu

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Arctic
Fighting with My Family
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
We Are the Heat

Point Man

Two soldiers who don’t see eye to eye.

(2018) War (Vision) Christopher Long, Jacob Keohane, Chase Gutzmore, Marcus Bailey, Matthew Ewald, William Shannon Williams, Jeff Williams, Paul de Havilland, Joe W. Nowland, Acorye’ White, Jimmy Ace Lewis, Bryan Bachman, Cody Howard, Triston Dye, Jason Alan Cook, John Charles Harnett, James Roseman, Jason Damico, Marianne del Gallego. Directed by Phil Blattenberger

 

Once upon a time, war movies depicted American soldiers as brave, heroic and honorable and why not? The wars we were involved in were for the most part clearly defined from a moral standpoint. Then came Vietnam and everything changed.

Andre “Casper” Allen (Long) is “in country” and he’s not thrilled about it. Martin Luther King has just been assassinated back home and the civil rights movement is reaching a crescendo. Meanwhile he’s risking his life for a country where his people are hated, discriminated against, lynched and in general treated like second hand citizens. Even in Vietnam he’s called “Soul Man” by the locals who while they seem to be more accepting of him than his fellow Americans, are too busy trying to kill him for him to make friends.

He’s outspoken and opinionated which doesn’t endear him to his commanding officer, Lt. Sutton (Ewald) and he has to endure the racist taunts of Mississippi redneck Pvt. Meeks (Keohane) in the barracks. His platoon is being sent out into a largely hostile territory where unit 29 Bravo has disappeared and with whom all communication has been lost. They are being sent to sweep the area of Viet Cong and find the missing company, or their remains.

When his platoon gets into a firefight, four of the soldiers are pinned down – Casper, Meeks, and African-Americans Joe (Gutzmore) and Felix (Bailey) when Sutton bugs out to save his own neck, leaving the other four there to die. They fight their way out and go looking for Sutton – and it’s not to buy him an ice cream as Casper puts it. In the meantime, the four cut-off soldiers find the missing 29 Bravo and discover that their mission has devolved into killing every Vietnamese civilian possible whether they have any ties to the Viet Cong or not. Casper, who has become the quartet’s de facto leader, decides to take matters into his own hands which leads the group further and further down the rabbit hole.

=The morality of the Vietnam war is something America has been trying to come to grips with ever since we pulled out of Saigon, an act that is still hotly debated today. The soldiers who fought there are often caught in the middle; they were spat upon and despised by the left for even going to war and they were looked down upon and despised by the right for not winning it. Even today there’s a stigma associated with those who fought in the war, despite our rush to “support our troops” in the present day. The soldiers who served in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos don’t get the respect today that their peers who fought in other wars received and continue to receive.

We have to remember that a very large percentage of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam were basically teenage boys from poorer environments. This is a fact of the war that the movie fails to capture – most of the soldiers here seem to be older. The movie does capture the chaos of having leadership that was often self-contradictory and often did senseless things without explanation.

This is a very low budget indie. Do not expect to see battle sequences loaded with explosions and Dolby^TM bullets whizzing through the air. Most of this is done with practical effects and it appears that the budget for fake blood was pretty low as well. Some war film buffs might find that disconcerting. The actors here are largely unknown and while they mostly acquit themselves well, some of the dialogue that they’re required to speak doesn’t sound much like how soldiers actually talk.

This isn’t a home run but it isn’t bad. There are a lot of good things going on here, not the least of which that we get a chance to examine our moral evaluations of the war – everyone above a certain age has one. I’m not going to say this is the war as soldiers experienced it but I think that it gets some of the confusion, the moral dilemmas and the chaos of the war. High kudos to the filmmakers for at least trying something different and succeeding enough of the time to make this a recommended rental.

REASONS TO SEE: The film gives a sense of the conflict that African-American soldiers went through.
REASONS TO AVOID: Some of the dialogue is a bit on the clunky side.
FAMILY VALUES: There is all sorts of salty language, racial epithets and war violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although this was the first American narrative production to shoot in Vietnam for a movie about the Vietnam War, some of the combat scenes were shot at Lee Ranch here in Orlando.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/20/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Platoon
FINAL RATINGS: 6/10
NEXT: Arctic

ROMA

Cleo enjoys the view from the rooftops of suburban Mexico City.

(2018) Drama (Netflix) Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Daniela Damesa, Nancy Garcia Garcia, Verónica Garcia, Andy Cortės, Fernando Grediaga, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Josė Manuel Guerrero Mendoza, Latin Lover, Zarela Lizbeth Chinolla Arellano, Jose Luis López Gómez, Edwin Mendoza Ramirez, Clementina Guadarrama. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

 

Some movies assault our senses frontally; others wash over us like a wave. Roma, the Oscar-nominated Netflix opus from acclaimed Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, is one of the latter types of films.

Set in the upscale Roma neighborhood during the turbulent 1970s and loosely based on the director’s own childhood. Cleo (Aparicio) is the maid and nanny for an upper middle class family, including Sra. Sofia (de Tavira) and the father (Grediaga), a medical doctor. On the surface, life is good for the family; they have a lovely home and enjoy evenings of watching TV together as a family with the maid and the other servant Adela (N. G. Garcia) taking care of the family’s every need.

But when the doctor leaves for a conference in Canada which turns out to be a euphemism for leaving his family for his mistress, things turn upside down for the family. Sofia becomes withdrawn, angry; she relies on Cleo more than ever to run the house. The children begin to act out. In the meantime, Cleo gets pregnant courtesy of her jerk of a boyfriend Fermin (Guerrero) and she goes into labor just as the notorious Corpus Christi massacre of 1971 is underway. The family begins to disintegrate from within.

In many ways the movie feels more Italian than Mexican; the slice of life aspect that sees the dual deterioration of Sofia and Cleo has the fatalistic yet dreamlike – albeit strangely realistic – quality that marks the films of some of the great Italian directors of the 70s through the 80s. Cuarón shoots the film essentially in medium shots nearly exclusively, making u feel like flies on the wall but oddly detached. We are not so much part of the family but spies within. All that’s needed to complete the effect is a gigantic tape recorder.

Shooting in black and white usually produces either a retro or documentary feel but again there is that feeling that we are voyeurs in the household. In fact, I would venture to say that this is reality television in the sense that movies once fulfilled that role. It is at once mundane and beautiful.

While Cuarón is specifically examining his own background in a specific time and place, this movie is equally applicable to virtually any time and place. Not all of us grow up with servants but nearly all of us grow up with challenges in our family, whether it be the sudden loss of a parent, alcohol or drug abuse or simply that the times they are a’changin’, we all know heartache in our lives.

This may be too slow-moving for some. The story unfolds like a rose even though there is more rot than rose to it. Parts of the movie are difficult to follow although Cuarón does tie everything nicely by movie’s end, I suspect that there aren’t a lot of Americans who will be patient enough for the two hours plus running time. Also, most of us are going to see this on television or computer screens at home or in some other distraction-heavy environment. If ever there was a movie that was meant to be experienced in a movie theater, it’s this one. Here in Central Florida, the movie was only available in The Villages which is a real shame. That’s partly due to the onerous rental terms that Netflix set for the film, making it nearly impossible for a theater to turn any sort of profit for running the movie. Maybe at some point kinder heads will prevail at Netflix and they will make the film available for a more reasonable theatrical release. I think the goodwill that such an action would generate among their subscribers (and potential subscribers) would be worth far more what they are profiting from the film currently.

REASONS TO SEE: Some of the most beautifully composed shots you’ll see this year. Aparicio is a major find. The cinematography is compelling.
REASONS TO AVOID: The movie is slow moving and occasionally disjointed.
FAMILY VALUES: There is violence, profanity, graphic nudity and adult themes throughout.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first movie from a streaming service to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/19/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 96% positive reviews: Metacritic: 96/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Cinema Paradiso
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: The Point Man

Patrick (2018)

All dressed up and nowhere to go.

(2018) Family (Screen Media) Beattie Edmondson, Ed Skrein, Tom Bennett, Emelia Jones, Emily Atack, Cherie Lunghi, Peter Davison, Jennifer Saunders, Gemma Jones, Bernard Cribbins, Adrian Scarborough, Meera Syal, Milanka Brooks, Scott Chambers, Rupert Holliday-Evans, McKell David, Roy Hudd, Maria Barr, Rosie Ede, Olivia Buckland, Elena Valdameri. Directed by Mandie Fletcher

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a well-known dog nut. Not merely a dog lover, but a dog nut, one who talks incessantly about my four-legged family members, who dotes on their every whim, and who would rather spend an evening cuddling with them rather than just about everything else. It does occasionally drive Da Queen batty.

Therefore, take the following review with a grain of salt as I will state outright that my objectivity goes right out the window when it comes to dog movies. In this one, Patrick is an adorable pug who is spoiled rotten by his wealthy, elderly owner. When she collapses while taking him for a walk and dies, his despair is palpable. But oddly, Patrick is bequeathed not to the exceptional, successful granddaughter nor to the equally wealthy son but to Sarah (Edmondson), the ne’er-do-well, disorganized hot mess of a granddaughter who can never arrive anywhere on time, not even granny’s funeral.

For Sarah, the “inheritance” couldn’t come at a worse time. She is stuck in an apartment after her latest in a long line of beaus has dumped her, leaving her in a neighborhood where she knows nobody in a flat that has a strict no pets policy which wasn’t an issue initially because Sarah hates dogs and she’s not terribly good with people either. She’s just starting a new job as a high school English teacher and she’s eager to make a good impression so that she’ll be kept on for next term. Patrick, used to having the run of the palace gets separation anxiety early and often and seems bound and determined to alert the landlord to his presence, destroy all of Sarah’s things and leave poop bombs for Sarah to step in or piddle puddles to slip on.

Naturally, she falls in love with the adorable little dog. It doesn’t hurt that through Patrick, she is introduced to Ben (Bennett), a stable and kindly man who loves dogs nearly as much as I and Oliver (Skrein), a handsome hunk of a veterinarian. He also helps her get through to her unruly class and preaches the joys of healthy living and exercising. Well, not so much preaches but allows her new mate Becky (Atack) to do the preaching; he just provides the opportunity, giving Sarah the excuse to go walkies in some lovely riverside parks throughout England.

There really isn’t a dramatic conflict here; the change from dog hater to devoted dog owner is a fairly seamless one and the film’s climax has to do with a fun run which she is physically unprepared for and whether or not she can complete it. Honestly, that’s it…so those film buffs among my readership might be excused if they want to give this one a pass. I do understand; as plots go this one is pretty much standard dog movie fare albeit one with lovely English settings.

Edmondson, best-known for Bridget Jones’ Baby over here, is an appealing lead who knows how to take a good prat fall. Some of her facial expressions are a bit over-the-top; subtlety might have benefited her performance more here but when you’re making a movie aimed at a certain demographic sometimes grand gestures and over-the-top facial mugging can be called for. I’ve never understood why. She is well-supported by a fairly impressive list of British thespians, including Cherie Lunghi (Excalibur), Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous), Skrein (Deadpool), Peter Davison (Dr. Who), Gemma Jones (Bridget Jones’ Diary) and Bernard Cribbins (The Railway Children).

Patrick the pug will absolutely melt your heart, especially when you see him in his dapper tux during the funeral sequence at the beginning of the film. Sure, he’s a handful and spoiled absolutely out of his gourd but any pug lover (I’m looking at you, Char and Adam) will tell you that they are among the most loyal and loving creatures in the canine firmament. This is something of a niche film; dog lovers (and dog nuts) are going to be beguiled by the pug while others may find its charm wasted on them. As a romantic comedy it is a bit of a non-starter while kids who are looking for something a bit more frenetic may be bored. In any case I don’t think this is especially a kids movie even though it is being marketed somewhat that way; there are no children in the movie other than a niece and nephew who make brief appearances here and there whenever Sarah is with family. Still, those who like to dress up their fur babies and have placards proclaiming “A House is Not a Home Without a Dog” in their homes will be absolutely enchanted.

REASONS TO SEE: Edmondson is an appealing lead.
REASONS TO AVOID: A very rote family film.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of dog poo humor and a bit of mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Edmondson is Saunders’s daughter in real life.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/18/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 32% positive reviews: Metacritic: 28/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Beethoven
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: ROMA

The Last Resort

Back in the day, the residents of South Beach really knew how to have a good time.

(2018) Documentary (Kino Lorber) Gary Monroe, Ellen Sweet Moss, Susan Gladstone, Kelly Reichardt, Mitchell Kaplan, Edna Buchanan, Stan Hughes, Denise Bibro. Directed by Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch

 

In the years after World War II, the city of Miami went through what would have to be termed a major renaissance. The beautiful beaches, warm weather and the presence of brand spanking new air-conditioned hotels became irresistible to those from the Northeast who endured harsh winters. Many of them, close to retirement age, decided that Miami would be a fine place to live. There were plenty of old art deco hotels in the South Beach area that had been converted to apartments; rents were dirt cheap. South Beach became a largely Jewish community, termed by residents as a stetl, a small but vibrant settlement.

Andy Sweet was a Miami native, the son of a prominent Miami judge whose family had helped develop the big beach side hotels that brought in a vibrant nightlife (Miami was the second home of the Rat Pack and most of the big names in Vegas played there regularly. Jackie Gleason hosted a variety show from there back in the day.

Along with his good friend Gary Monroe, the two young photographers set out to capture the South Beach community. Most of the residents were getting on in age; many of them were Holocaust survivors. Dubbed the Miami Beach Project, Sweet and Monroe proposed a ten year involvement, recording the residents and places that made South Beach so unique.

The two couldn’t have had more different styles. Monroe preferred black and white as a medium; his pictures were largely posed and had a more somber quality to them. Sweet preferred a much more spontaneous approach; his photos nearly exploded with color capturing not only the moment but the personalities of the people in them. Although many of the subjects posed for Sweet, he managed to get a more casual look as if capturing them in the act of being themselves.

Sweet wouldn’t live to see the project through to completion. A mere five years in to the project, Sweet was brutally murdered in 1982 at the age of 28, found stabbed 29 times in his apartment in what was conjectured to have been a drug deal gone terribly wrong. Miami was already changing drastically when Sweet died; a huge influx of Latin (mainly Cuban) immigrants began to change the culture of Miami and on the flip side, became the center of the cocaine trade at about the same time leading to an exponential increase in violence. Although Monroe went on to complete the project alone, by the time he did most of the Jewish residents were already gone, having moved to places like Fort Lauderdale and Boynton Beach where rents were more reasonable. These days South Beach is the center for nightlife in Miami, where the young and famous go to be seen.

While there are plenty of talking head interviews with Monroe and Sweet’s sister Ellen as well as a few people who knew him or of him (director Kelly Reichardt is one) which generally speaking can be terribly irritating, it is the photographs that Sweet took that takes center stage. They very nearly didn’t.

After Sweet’s death, his family was too distraught to even look at his photographs and put his negatives in storage. When Monroe broached the subject of putting together a retrospective of his partner’s work only three months after Sweet’s death, his family was infuriated and this led to an estrangement between Monroe and Sweet’s family that lasted for decades. In the meantime, the storage company charged with keeping Sweet’s negatives inexplicably lost them during a move. They have to this day not been recovered.

Fortunately, his sister’s partner Stan Hughes found several boxes of work prints while emptying a family storage unit. Hughes is something of a digital photography expert and although the prints were badly faded with time, he was able to start the restoration process, restoring the pictures to their original color vibrancy.

]The movie is not only a pictorial history of the evolution of South Beach but also a love letter to a man whose career was cut far too short. His work speaks for itself and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to see them. The pictures may sometimes have resembled vacation snapshots of happy seniors dancing, flirting, sunning themselves or porch-sitting but every one of them captured so much more than a moment.

REASONS TO SEE: The photographs really have character. A very interesting chronicle of the evolution of Miami’s South Beach.
REASONS TO AVOID: This is definitely a niche film.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Sweet did a series of city government employees shortly before his death. One of the subjects turned out to be the police detective who would investigate his murder.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/16/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews: Metacritic: 74/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Smash His Camera
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Patrick

Hunter (2018)

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.

(2018) Horror (Random Media) Jason Kellerman, Rachel Cerda, Leigh Foster, Ryan Heindl, Nick Searcy, Beau Forbes, Adria Dawn, Bill Bannon, Susan Monts-Bologna, Andrew Gebhart, Lynda Shadrake, Ann Joseph, Leah Uteg, Kiley Moore, Darren Stephens, Ryan Kitley, Renee Sebby, Riley Sebby, Shon McGregory, Claudine Tambuatco. Directed by David Tarleton

 

Chicago has been a violent place since the Jazz Age. These days it’s a poster child for urban gang violence and murder. Still, the Windy City has a special quality all its own, if you don’t look too closely into the shadows.

Hunter (Kellerman) was at one time a feared MMA fighter. He was absolutely devoted to his mother (Shadrake) and little sister (Uteg). All that is shattered when they are killed in a home invasion. Only Hunter survives and he carries with him images of horror from that night that haunt him non-stop.

He is reduced to living on the streets of Chicago in the dead of winter. Starving and cold, he hears about a shelter from his only friend, Crazy Sybil (Dawn) and in near desperation he goes to find a warm bed, hot food and maybe even a shower. However, the price for staying is that he must talk to a therapist, in this case named Danni (Cerda). The problem is, Hunter isn’t interested in talking. He’s just interested in surviving and so Cerda has to find a way to break down his walls.

Those walls are up for a reason. It turns out that the gang that killed his sister and mother are still out there and still murdering. Hunter knows their secret and may be the only person who can stop them, but Hunter isn’t sure whether they are real or figments of his imagination. Spoiler alert: they are very real. In the meantime Danni and Hunter have crossed a line into romance which now makes her a target.

This actually has a pretty nifty concept, one I can’t discuss completely without spoiling the film. Suffice to say that revealing Hunter’s last name would be a very big clue. It also should be noted that the way in which Chicago is utilized as a setting lends itself to the type of movie this actually is, although in a much different way than fans of the genre are unused to. What genre? I can only say it’s a subset of the horror genre and leave it there.

Kellerman doesn’t look like your average horror or action hero, nor does he look like the average MMA champion. When he hasn’t been “homeless-ed” up with a raggedy beard, scruffy clothes and weathered skin, he resembles more the happy-go-lucky Jewish boy next door in a romantic comedy albeit one with Hebrew calligraphy tattooed to his chest. Nonetheless he does a pretty strong job in the lead and has a big future ahead of him given the right breaks.

Unfortunately, Tarleton opted to use a myriad of jump cuts perhaps in an effort to give us an idea of Hunter’s confusion and torment. If that was the purpose (and I have no definite idea that it was only that it’s the only explanation that makes sense) he was unsuccessful. After watching these cuts for only 20 minutes I began to get a headache and had to shut the movie off for a bit. That’s never a good sign.

Tarleton is more successful at building up to the climax, and he does so masterfully. We get a sense that Hunter is unreliable as a narrator, doubting even his own senses. That works really well in the course of the film giving us an is-he-crazy-or-is-he-not subtext to work with. In many ways the movie has a lot of inventive qualities and if the editing had been less frenetic this actually could have been a superior film. I give the filmmakers props for giving us a movie that has a lot of potential and viewers who are able to handle a lot of rapid-fire images perhaps better than I could may actually end up enjoying this immensely. Those who are more sensitive (like myself apparently) may find this to be more of an ordeal than a pleasant experience though. If that’s the case and you really are intrigued, I suggest having plenty of aspirin on hand.

REASONS TO SEE: The atmosphere is suitably Gothic, something Chicago lends itself to well.
REASONS TO AVOID: The filmmakers have an over reliance on jump cuts which tends to be headache-inducing after a while.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a fair amount of violence and gore, some profanity as well as a bit of sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Schatz won an Emmy for her work on the documentary Through a Child’s Eyes: September 11, 2001.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Radial
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/15/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Thirst
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Last Resort