Dora and the Lost City of Gold - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Photo Credit: Vince Valitutti / © 2018 Paramount Players, a Division of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ earns a sizable pile of silver

Directed by:  James Bobin

Written by:  Matthew Robinson and Nicholas Stoller

Starring:  Isabela Moner, Eugenio Derbez, Michael Pena, Eva Longoria, and Jeff Wahlberg

“Dora and the Lost City of Gold” – Homeschooling kids has been a modern-day topic in suburban households for years.  Certain families may have the resources and aptitude to teach reading, writing and arithmetic - and throw in sex education and dodgeball for good measure - to their children that may prove as effective as public schools.  The advantage, of course, is a familiar home-environment insulates kids from the disruptions and distractions in the hallways, playgrounds and cafeterias that can cloud learning.  Then again, confronting anxieties - and the people who contribute to them - at a young age can only help prepare young minds for adulthood-complications. 

In 2016’s “Captain Fantastic”, a father (Viggo Mortensen) homeschools his six children, as they all live off the grid in the woodsy Pacific Northwest.  The kids speak multiple languages, recite the intricacies of U.S. history and live off the land like Swiss Family Robinson, however, socializing with others might feel as awkward as playing tennis in a tuxedo and wingtips.  When the oldest sibling (George MacKay) proposes to a random girl after 15 minutes of courtship, the verdict – in this case - is in.  So, perhaps this dad can’t teach his kids everything. 

In “Dora and the Lost City of Gold”, Cole (Michael Pena) and Elena (Eva Longoria) are all-around fantastic and loving parents to their daughter Dora (Isabela Moner).  Dora is an off-the-charts brilliant kid with a bright, positive outlook, but since her professor-parents raised her in South American isolation, wearing a boa, actually means, wearing a boa constrictor.

When Cole and Elena plan to explore Peru to search for Parapata (the Lost City of Gold), they decide to send Dora on an equally foreign journey:  to temporarily live in Los Angeles with her aunt, uncle and cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg), who she hasn’t seen in 10 years.  

Dora – who regularly breaks into song, finds bustling crowds at the airport fascinating, carries a flare gun in case of emergencies, and looks at every moment as an opportunity to learn or share joy – immediately stands out at Silverlake High School, and she is the source of Diego’s embarrassment, who just tries to get through his schooldays without incident or fanfare.

If you do not know Isabela through her recent appearances in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” (2018) or “Instant Family” (2018), you might become a new fan.  She brings a never-ending, compelling exuberance to the world-famous animated children’s character, and rather than existing as an elementary school-age kid, this live-action teenager offers a more palatable tale – of dodging high school obstacles and the Peruvian wilderness - for adults.  Just think back to “Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace”, as George Lucas inexplicably forced Star Wars fans to experience 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker’s adventure.  The horror; the horror.

This well-intentioned and prepared teen leads Diego and two classmates on the outing of a lifetime to find her parents and the aforementioned lost city, while dodging dangerous wildlife and cartoonish mercenaries.  Director James Bobin’s light comedy with a primarily Latino cast – including Eugenio Derbez, Benicio Del Toro and Danny Trejo - has an upbeat tone and enough Indiana Jones-like sequences to fill 102 minutes.  Plus, for those who enjoyed (or currently relish) “Dora the Explorer” (2000 – 2019), you will most likely accept this story straightaway.   

For parents, you may not consider an immediate move to South America, but score one point for homeschooling children. 

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Surprise Me! - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

The predictable rom-com ‘Surprise Me!’ is incorrectly named

Written and directed by:  Nancy Goodman

Starring:  Fiona Gubelmann, Jonathan Bennett, Sean Faris, and LaShawn Banks

“Surprise Me!” – Genie Burns (Fiona Gubelmann) has it all!  A great job, terrific friends, a loving mom and stepfather, her health, and the perfect man.  Actually, scratch the last mention.  Genie’s single, but she’s waiting for the right guy to come along, and she declares to her friend Danny (Jonathan Bennett) while eating breakfast, “I want the whole plate.”

Don’t we all, and please include the garnish, some Tabasco and a full jar of ketchup.

Speaking of food, one day while Genie strolls through a Whole Foods-like grocery store, that mass produces its own sunshine and hands out kittens at the checkout lines, a random guy flirts with her.  Jeff (Sean Faris) - who best resembles a brunette version of Cobra Kai’s Johnny (William Zabka) from “The Karate Kid” (1984) – takes an immediate liking to this perky, positive and together lady, who also owns Surprise Enterprise, an event-planning company that specializes in throwing parties.   

Well, surprise!  Despite Jeff’s creepy, player vibes - that anyone with 20/100 vision and three out of the five senses can clearly recognize - Genie falls for him anyway, and (spoiler alert), by the 35-minute mark, this mismatched couple exchange those three little words. 

Writer/director Nancy Goodman follows Genie’s torturous, train-wreck trek, as her relationship quickly turns sour, and she tries to make it work.   Unfortunately, Jeff does not seem to care about Genie’s well-being, so she hashes out her problems with her on-screen support system.  Ah, if only the movie audience could be spared from this familiar rom-com theme, as this – otherwise - strong woman pines for a manipulative, callous jerk.

Genie pulls in Danny, her friend Lori (Robyn Coffin), and business partner Steven (LaShawn Banks) to help sort out her skewed perspective.  She has plenty of time, because apparently in this utopian universe - during a warm, picturesque summer in Chicago - no one really seems to work.  Sure, Genie throws a couple surprise parties in the first act - and she sort of manages a massive wedding for a wealthy client - but her plastic surgeon boyfriend Jeff, her attorney best friend Danny and she seem to spend all their waking moments riding bikes, enjoying amusement parks and shuttling between lofts and suburban McMansions. 

All these bright, pristine mechanics might feel like a typical Disney Channel sitcom, but the aforementioned small screen programs don’t have Attention Deficit Disorder, like this production.

In some ways, “Surprise Me!” feels like Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” (2003), where random ideas and events suddenly appear out of nowhere, have little connective tissue to the previous scenes and serve no distinct purpose other than to fill some imagined, screen time quota. 

-          For instance, Genie still stings from her father death from decades ago, and the film even flashes back to her youth, but this thread never really ties to anything in present-day, and the idea eventually disappears as mysteriously as it was introduced. 

-          Lori takes Genie to a paintball tournament, and the ladies hide behind a car and attempt to dodge paint projectiles for an entire 12 seconds.  Again, their entire on-screen paintball experience lasts just 12 seconds, and in the very next scene, Genie casually rides her bike in a beautiful park.  Did she bring her bike to paintball?

-          On top of all this unneeded drama, she also develops a food-binging disorder that calls for a therapist to intervene.  Don’t worry though, the screenplay’s tone seems to take none of this seriously, as a maniacal therapist – like Melissa McCarthy with an acute case of Turrets but zero comedic gifts – screams advice at her. 

Well, you might not scream at the big screen during a “Surprise Me!”-trip to the theatres, but don’t be surprised if your inside voice wishes for a much better movie.

(1/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic. Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Photo Credit: Universal Studios

Dir: David Leitch
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Helen Mirren, and Cliff Curtis 

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”. “Freebie and the Bean”. “Tango and Cash”. “Turner & Hootch”.

“Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” continues the story tradition of the “buddy” film formula; two unlikely, often complete opposite, characters are somehow forced into cooperation and are whisked into a narrative that involves hijinks, adventure, crime, or romance. We’ve had follies with escaped convicts, escapades with rogue cops, and jaunts that pair human and animal.

“Hobbs & Shaw”, two foes who first threw each other through windows and broke each other over furniture in “Furious 7” and then continued their fighting while working together in “The Fate of the Furious”, somehow has a little bit of everything thrown into its lofty narrative structure. This is an action movie plain and simple, a summer blockbuster extravaganza with enough “boom” and “bang” to fill two movies. It completely understands how to utilize its action movie super humans to the fullest extent, allowing enough witty one-liners and tree-chopping put downs to fill the spaces between action set pieces with enough humor to distract from the glaring lapses in narrative design. Still, if you’ve seen all eight “Fast and Furious” films, watched all four of the “The Transporter” movies, or watched Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson deliver wrestling moves in World Wrestling Entertainment, you know exactly what to expect from “Hobbs & Shaw”.

A genetically enhanced bad guy (Idris Elba) with a physics-defying motor cycle is trying to steal a dangerous, world-ending virus but is thwarted by a special agent (Vanessa Kirby) who steals the weapon and retreats into hiding. Lawman Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and outcast Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) are called in, unbeknownst to each other, to form a team to save the world.

Director David Leitch, who helmed “Atomic Blonde” and “Deadpool 2”, understands how to craft an action scene and how to provide that crucial element of fan service. When working with a franchise, “Fast and Furious”, that has built expectations so high for death-defying action scenes, applying the right amount fan service can be a difficult task. “Hobbs & Shaw” hits all the obvious marks, fans get a few explosive car chases, tough guy humorous banter between Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, and several  bone-crushing fist fights. The film is checking all the boxes.

But there is unfortunately something missing, the element of coherence and logic in storytelling that has all but been erased from the “Fast and Furious” films as they have grown in action franchise dominance. The element of drama and emotion that fleshes out their over heroic characters which has been replaced with heavy-handed emotional scenes that feel out of place and, in the case of “Hobbs & Shaw”, a “bromance” that plunges awkwardly between moments that are trying to be heartfelt and humorous. This dramatic element succeeds a handful of times when Johnson and Statham work individually with other characters in the film, unfortunately it seldom exists between the two leads.

“Hobbs & Shaw” highlights the primary expectations fans of the “Fast and Furious” franchise are looking for. The action moves closer to comic book movie status while the humor works on the most superficial terms. For the last film of the 2019 summer blockbuster movie season, “Hobbs & Shaw” is an easy, simple, unremarkable distraction.

Monte’s Rating
2.25 out of 5.00

Skin - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Jamie Bell in “Skin.” (Voltage Pictures / A24)

‘Skin’ leaves a mark

Written/directed by:  Guy Nattiv

Starring:  Jamie Bell, Danielle Macdonald, Vera Farmiga, and Bill Camp

“Skin” – “Skin” is an ugly movie.  An ugly movie about fractured race relations, a problem that has plagued the United States for hundreds of years, ever since Manifest Destiny became a twisted thought, the slave trade opened for business and the shameful list goes on and on. 

Pick a sin.  Pick a year.  For all the positives about America, malevolent transgressions also plague our country’s history.  Racism is America’s original sin, and tragically, it continues to live, breathe and – in some spaces - thrive in 2019. 

Writer/director Guy Nattiv’s “Skin” is set in the 2009 Midwest during the grays of fall and winter, as the Viking Social Club sits in the countryside, surrounded by brown snow, muddy fields and dormant, leafless trees.  This group of men – and some women - willingly accept and embrace white power teachings, and their hate speech is equally matched by rugged, sporadic violence.  Their aggression is carefully orchestrated too, and the latest incident broke out between white nationals and black residents in Columbus, Ohio that resulted in 19 injuries, including one perpetrated by Byron “Babs” Widner (Jaime Bell) on a 14-year-old African-American boy. 

The skies may be gray, but on that particular night, the two primarily colors were white and black. 

Babs’ skin is also white and black, as his white face and shaved head are covered in black tattoos (ironic, isn’t it?), including a sizable arrow resting just below and rising above his right eye.  In this case, “eyesore” has a double-meaning, and his tats most certainly prevent him from working at any sort of “normal” 9-to-5.  Somewhere along the way, however, he hopes for something better, something righteous, and it begins after meeting Julie (Danielle Macdonald) and her three girls Desiree, Sierra and Iggy.

This is a small story about huge themes, and as troubling as Bell looks, it’s impossible to take your eyes off him, as Nattiv ensures that he points his unfiltered camera on Babs throughout the 2-hour runtime.  In his early 30s, Babs’ harsh exterior masks his guilt, and the film captures his possible shot at redemption, that is heavily tempered by his past physical choices and current immediate environment. 

Everything about “Skin” feels gritty, raw and unseemly, and while Bell rightfully dominates and carries the picture, Vera Farmiga delivers the best performance as Babs’ adoptive mom Shareen.  Known to everyone in the club as Ma – and married to its leader Fred (Bill Camp) -  Shareen certainly is in tune with her mothering instincts.  She’s gentle with these young, lost men and embraces them with kindness, warm meals and love, but Shareen never wears a speck of makeup and her long gray and brown locks might remind one of Margaret White (Piper Laurie) from Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” (1976).  You know…Carrie’s mom, and we know how that story went down. 

Nattiv opens a door and shoves us down into a world that we hoped didn’t still exist.  We might see racist images or hear comments on the 24-hour news, but under the murkiest conditions, “Skin” shines a spotlight on one of its distinct faces.

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic. Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

David Crosby: Remember My Name - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Photo Credit: Edd Lukas and Ian Coad/Sony Pictures Classics

Directed by: A. J. Eaton

Featuring: David Crosby, Jan Crosby, Cameron Crowe, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Neil Young

As a kid, my family and I would travel cross country from Milwaukee to Phoenix during our spring breaks. Those trips are a part of the reason why I like long road trips.

They’re an even bigger reason for my being a fan of music acts like the Eagles, Kansas, James Taylor and Crosby, Stills and Nash (there’s probably even a tune when Neil Young was a part of the quartet.) I confess to not knowing much about the personal lives or the struggles each of the people who made up these acts had.

Documentaries about the lives and times these musicians lived in, or in David Crosby’s case, still lives in are fascinating to me because of my constant love of human interest stories. A. J. Eaton’s “David Crosby: Remember My Name” fits that bill rather effectively.

The doc, which takes place during a 2018 concert tour starts at Crosby’s home. The man, who has had his share of run ins with the law, with drugs and with life itself, isn’t too keen on leaving his wife and their beautiful home, when he acknowledges that he still needs the gigs to pay for their sprawling and beautiful ranch.

A quick search of Eaton’s IMDB profile reveals several shorts credited to him, so it appears that “David Crosby: Remember My Name” is his first feature-length documentary, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like his first documentary. There’s a rich history as Crosby takes us on a tour of spots that have become historical markers in his life; the home where he and his first wife lived, coincidentally the home where CSN was first formed too. Crosby goes on to talk about why he lived in the Hollywood Hills in the first grocery store to populate the area.

What riveted me with his life is how much love he had for what surrounded him; people, places, but never things. What angered me was how much he threw most of it away on senseless and arbitrary actions on his part to destroy those relationships around him.

The documentary also painted him as a man in continual distress, even to this point on his life and the most remarkable perspective is his questioning why he is still here, even after a bout with Hepatitis C, a liver failure and transplant, and his ongoing issues with diabetes. Eaton helps to define all of this through Crosby’s wife, Jan. There is love between the two of them: you can see Crosby’s passion for her, for everything he does.

Including creating rifts and hardships for others in his life.

Crosby’s discussion about how Graham Nash and Stephen Stills came in to his life, about how they were able to harmonize together, like no one had ever heard, was painful to hear in some respects because of their falling out, which Eaton uses archival interviews with Nash, Stills and Neil Young to carry the throughline of the documentary.

In that throughline though, we discover a very stubborn man. Someone whose thirst for gifting the world with music, his music, was the only way, driving a wedge between those he cared for and himself. His stubbornness was also his passion and the need to constantly fuel that passion with drugs and love, leading to personal tragedy and jail.

Eaton delves into Crosby’s love for sailing, with Crosby talking about the schooner he bought named Mayan. Crosby wrote several of the songs eventually performed by CSN/CSNY while he was out sailing. One gets the sense that sailing for Crosby was almost as powerful as any drug he could have ingested.

All of this leads us back to the documentary’s coda; there is still passion and love for what Crosby does. There is regret for the things that happened in his life, the relationships he’s broken. It certainly didn’t feel like he took responsibility for those break-ups.

As riveting and as informative as “David Crosby: Remember My Name” is the man still feels like he’s searching for something that this documentary can’t answer, except to say that passion fuels the journey forward, even if we never know the destination.

3 out of 4 stars

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Credit: Andrew Cooper - © 2019 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Dir: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Kurt Russell, Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning, Emile Hirsch, and Timothy Olyphant

“When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’”

This sentiment from filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is a poignant statement not only for his entire career, but specifically for the ninth feature film from the writer/director “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood”. Often times labeled as a film nerd of the highest degree or a cinephile with encyclopedic knowledge, which are both completely true, Tarantino is also a dedicated film historian who is working within all of his films to keep the essence of long-ago filmmaking genre, structure, and style alive.

In “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” the nostalgia for the films and the history that defined the end of the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s for the film industry is present from the first frame and saturated until the final frame. Movie posters loom like skyscrapers over Los Angeles in 1969, Hollywood glows with rich detail and stunning beauty through the lights and architecture of famous landmarks, and real-life movie stars like Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), and Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis) weave into Tarantino’s fictional yarn.

It’s a combination of everything that the director has honed and crafted in his style and structure over the course of his career, there are even winks to his past found in both subtle and direct sources on the screen. While it’s undoubtedly a Quentin Tarantino film, “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” is also different from other films in his catalog. This film, in terms of story structure is akin to “Pulp Fiction” while the tone and pace feels most like “Jackie Brown”.

The story here centers on two friends working in the film industry in Los Angeles in the late 1960’s. Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the movie star whose leading man status is fading while the changing industry begins to embrace the counterculture movement of the time. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is the stunt man looking for work while helping his buddy Rick as both a personal motivator and occasional handyman. After a meeting with a producer (Al Pacino), an offer to work in Italian spaghetti westerns is offered to Rick who immediately realizes that his status in Hollywood is changing. The traditional hero with the chiseled jawline and neat appearance is being replaced with contemporary tough guys with shaggy hair who dress like hippies. Rick is beside himself while Cliff seems okay with change as long as there is work. It doesn’t help Rick’s ego that he lives on Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills, right next door to new rising starlet Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha).

Tarantino does a fantastic job of contrasting the two lives of Rick and Cliff against the life of Sharon Tate. Rick is grasping for the past throughout the film, struggling to understand the changing times and how he fits into a new era of movie making. Rick has a nasty cough that never seems to go away and a stutter that gets worst when he is forced to embrace the inevitable change that is coming. On the opposite side is Sharon Tate, a rising star full of enthusiasm who is just breaking into the Hollywood system. Seeing her bubbly charm as she dances at a big party, with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars at the time watching her own the dance floor, is as much lovely as it is somber. While Tarantino may weave fiction and fact into his own kind of revisionist history, we as the audience know the fate of Sharon Tate and her close friends at the hands of the Manson family.

The cast in Tarantino’s films are always abundant with familiar faces, the same is true here for the cameos which are incredibly fun. However, the film belongs to Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt who are both fantastic in the roles. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton as an entitled Hollywood actor most concerned about his relevance and the process behind his acting. In one moment, Rick destroys his trailer after messing up his speaking lines on set and the next he’s crying huge tears after a young actor offers words of admiration. DiCaprio is fantastic throughout. Brad Pitt, in one of the best roles of his career, plays Cliff with colossal amounts of coolness but also a hint of danger from a past that may or may not have involved murder. Pitt is phenomenal. Also impressive is Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate, her performance is charming especially when she sneaks into a cinema to watch “The Wrecking Crew”, the breakout role for Tate.

This is perhaps Tarantino’s most directly reflective film; the auteur is clearly looking back on his place in cinema history amidst the rapid and immense changes that have come along over the course of the director’s career. Tarantino has always been cutting edge in technique and storytelling but the progression of his films has gone from liberal examinations of present matters through foul-mouthed gangsters and sword-wielding assassins and have turned towards conservative genre structures from the past like war films with vengeance-seeking soldiers and western stories featuring six-gun shooting double-crossers.

“Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” has everything that Quentin Tarantino loves about films jam packed into one movie. Yet still, this film feels farthest from the style he is known for. There are still flares of vocabulary, amazing musical cues, and the occasional scene of violence, but the underlying tone in Tarantino’s ninth film is sweeter than anything he has done before. The introspection shown in regards to the aspects of film that Tarantino loves so deeply, that he fights to keep alive, is what gives “Once Upon a Time…” its beating heart. And through the journey of an aging movie star that believes he is becoming a has-been Tarantino deliberates on his own relevance as a filmmaker. It’s a beautiful, somber, and touching film. A fitting finale for one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers.

Monte’s Rating
5.00 out of 5.00

Quentin Tarantino Retrospective by Ben Cahlamer

‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’

Merely uttering the name Quentin Tarantino in most film circles has cinephiles running for the corners, checking their cards and making sure that their credentials are in order. All of this takes place even before his oeuvre can be discussed, palms glistening with sweat as conversation in hushed, hurried voices about his influences go on.

“Once Upon a Time . . .  in Hollywood” is poised to hit U.S. and Canadian theaters this weekend and  Phoenix Film Festival critic Ben Cahlamer is celebrating Tarantino’s mark on film history with his ordering of Tarantino’s classics.

Note that for the purposes of this list, “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Volume 2” are being treated as separate films, though the argument could be made that they are one film. We are intentionally omitting “Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood” because it is a new release this weekend.

9. “Death Proof” (2007, Dimension Films) Part of the double feature, “Grindhouse” along with Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror,” “Death Proof” is a tale of a stunt man (Kurt Russell) in his ‘death proof’ car. The film pays homage to the classic slasher, exploitation and muscle car films of the 1970s. I’ve only seen the film once and it has all of the hallmark Tarantino riffs, but in paying homage, it felt hyper-realistic and didn’t completely work for me.

8. “Kill Bill: Volume 2” (2004, Miramax) The second part of “The Bride” is a beautiful film in that it has the most character development of the two. But, because it is a separate part from the first volume, Tarantino’s homage to Martial Arts and Spaghetti Westerns doesn’t work as well as the first part. Bill’s (David Carradine)speech at the end of the film is heartfelt, but Uma Thurman’s empathetic reaction is even more on point.

7. “Reservoir Dogs” (1992, Miramax) I only saw Tarantino’s first film recently, but the heist story, the non-linear time line and the cast really drive this film in such a unique way. As I sit here thinking about it, “Reservoir Dogs” is what would have happened had all the villains from Joseph Sergeant’s “The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three” escaped, but became cornered after the event goes badly.

6. “Django Unchained” (2012, The Weinstein Company) Though it is a revision of the classic Italian film, “Django,” Tarantino’s stylized version unleashes Django Freeman (Jamie Foxx) in an ultraviolent story of revenge in the Deep South. Tarantino would go on to win several awards for his screenplay, while the film would be nominated for Best Picture. Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Dr. King Schultz, a German dentist-turned bounty hunter. Leonardo DiCaprio was a riot as Monsieur Calvin J. Candle.

5. “Pulp Fiction” (1994, Miramax) This was the film that put Tarantino on mainstream audience’s radar and was the start of John Travolta’s second renaissance. I actually caught this film on my university’s movie channel long after it was out of theaters, but I knew it was all the rage going into the 1995 Oscar’s telecast. The violence, the story telling, the attention to detail that Tarantino gave this black comedy caper is still fresh in my mind.

4. “The Hateful Eight” (2015, The Weinstein Company) I managed to see this twice in theaters, once on the 70MM Roadshow release and again on digital. My preference is for the Roadshow version because it creates a classic atmosphere for such a violent affair. What makes this movie sing for me isn’t just the cast; this is perhaps Tarantino’s strongest cast, only bested by one other of his films. But, the fact that the film is shot on two main locations (the stage coach and the lodge) and the tension that the limited locations provides, makes for a great drama.

3. “Kill Bill: Volume 1” (2003, Miramax) Originally intended to be released as a four-hour film, Uma Thurman proves, once again, why she is a stunning actor. The physicality of what she had to endure, in terms of choreographed fights and the savage beating she took makes this a masterpiece. But, it also keeps Bill in the shadows, something that adds to the homage to Martial Arts films that “Kill Bill” pays tribute to. The majority of the action is played out in this first volume, leaving the dramatic story telling for the second volume. Watched together, it makes for a single, excellent film, but “Kill Bill” suffers from the same problem as the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” third season cliffhanger “The Best of Both Worlds”: it starts off so spectacularly that the pent up energy really has nowhere to go in the second volume.

2.  “Inglorious Basterds” (2009, The Weinstein Company) Like many of Tarantino’s films, I hadn’t had the chance to watch the films he pays homage to until after I’d seen the Tarantino film. That’s because I have faith in his ability to create something wholly original and he succeeds in yet another black comedy; featuring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl and Melanie Laurent. The film is exceptionally violent, but the story it tells is one of understood retribution. Waltz would go on to win Best Supporting Actor at the 2010 Oscar telecast, along with the Cannes Best Actor Award, the BAFTA, SAG, Critics’ Choice and the Golden Globe.

1. “Jackie Brown” (1997, Miramax) The only script that Tarantino adapted from another work, Elmore Leonard’s “Rum Punch,” this homage to Blaxploitation films has an eclectic cast, a dynamite soundtrack and a beautiful romance. Pam Grier absolutely steals the show as the titular character while Samuel L. Jackson, though not as strong as his performance in “Pulp Fiction” really is a lot of fun to watch. The supporting cast, namely Robert Forster as a bondsman, Max Cherry (a role he was destined to play) and Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette, a loose cannon of an ATF agent really bind the whole film together. The whole affair is  as laid back as Tarantino is and he stamps his inimitable style on Leonard’s novel.

Before you go, did you know that Tarantino was an uncredited screenwriter on both “Crimson Tide” (1995) and “The Rock” (1996)?

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Photo Credit: ANDREW COOPER; © 2018 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is a flawed tale that’s too short and too long

Written and directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Al Pacino, and Kurt Russell

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” – “L.A. is my lady.” – Frank Sinatra, “L.A. is My Lady”(1984)

The Chairman of the Board may have claimed the City of Angels as his girl, but she’s been in a committed relationship with Quentin Tarantino for decades.  This modern-day cinema legend famously set his first three pictures - “Reservoir Dogs” (1992), “Pulp Fiction” (1994) and “Jackie Brown” (1997) - in Los Angeles, and Tarantino knows this urban terrain extremely well, because he’s lived in L.A. nearly his entire life. 

One’s hometown can certainly leave an impression, and although Quentin was born in Tennessee, he moved to Southern California around the age of 3, as noted in the book “Quentin Tarantino FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the Original Reservoir Dog” by Dale Sherman.  Hence, the rest is history. 

Well, Tarantino’s new film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is partially a history lesson.  It’s set in 1969 La La Land, but the title sounds like a restless children’s story.  A fable, perhaps, and in the said year, Quentin turned 6 years old.  

Perhaps an appropriate opening is “Once upon a time in 1969, racial tensions were explosive, the Vietnam War divided the country, but in July, Man landed on the Moon, and in August, a seminal rock festival invaded Upstate New York.  Say what you want about 1969, but the time was far from mundane.”

In Tarantino’s picture, life has become mundane for actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).  Rick was a bankable television star in the traditional-western “Bounty Law” on NBC during the early 60s, but these days, he occasionally plays antagonists as a TV guest star.  Unfortunately, his villainous characters always lose the big fights and aren’t kept around the win the wars.  Rick’s career is slipping before his eyes, and Cliff triggered two controversial incidents that dissuade studios from hiring him.  So, Cliff now plays the eternal role of Rick’s driver, but hey, he is not acting when proclaiming his friendship with Rick by sharing pizza and regularly offering encouraging words.  They are best buds, through and through.

They both need their mutual support, as the movie biz – with a smile - slowly pushes Rick off a cliff and into relative obscurity.  While Rick fears his future, Cliff really has nowhere else to go, and this laidback Marlboro Man – who wears moccasins in place of boots - truly embraces today’s blessings.  He drives Rick’s yellow Coupe de Ville and hopes to find some stunt work, despite his questionable past. 

This is a buddy movie, and one that isn’t afraid to take its time, as Tarantino fills the screen with intricate nuances from the period, as only he can.  Fans will guzzle and slurp Tarantino’s signature small touches, including his famous brand of cigarettes, but this film feels more personal than his others. 

Sure, “Pulp Fiction” had Butch sitting 12 inches from a television and watching a bizarre, dated cartoon, and “Reservoir Dogs” offered K-Billy’s Super Sounds of 70s, but here, Tarantino seems to insert even more moments from his childhood.  For instance, a random Wheaties box sits on a kitchen counter in plain sight, a crane shot lovingly captures the Van Nuys Drive-In, and several beats from the period like “Hush” and “Mrs. Robinson” along with random radio commercials pop out of nowhere and settle as a misty foundation that gently soaks into our eardrums. 

Tarantino clearly and successfully transports us into this time and place, but narratively, the movie lumbers with serious problems.  On top of Rick’s and Cliff’s journeys, the film introduces Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).  Her career is on the rise, and despite living next door to Rick on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, the only time that their paths have crossed is that invisible inflection point when Sharon’s star brightly sparkles upward and Rick’s….well, you know.

Sharon’s screen time remains separate.  Separate, but not equal, as we don’t learn a lot about her, other than she enjoys her California lifestyle via a few car rides, either with Roman Polanski, a hitchhiker, or on her own as she stops at a local movie theatre to watch herself perform in “The Wrecking Crew” (1968). 

Even though Sharon’s arc plays a fundamental part in Tarantino’s overall vision, she’s caught in movie-purgatory.  The camera burns enough calories that require more insight into Sharon, but it never comes.  Robbie either needs more to do, or her scenes should be dramatically cut.  Just give the audience a few glances of Sharon instead, and she become an on-screen mystery, and a deeply intriguing one. 

We don’t get either, and meanwhile Rick and Cliff meet some colorful, rich supporting characters, including a studious 8-year-old actress who appears to channel Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) from “True Grit” (2010), an insightful producer (Al Pacino) and a free-spirited teen (Margaret Qualley).  They leave such noteworthy impacts that beg for more minutes, but with a 2-hour 41-minute runtime already, there isn’t exactly room.   Even though “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” feels long, one could fruitfully argue that Tarantino needs four hours to ultimately fulfill his vision.  Just look to the last act, as it suddenly and clumsily introduces Kurt Russell as a narrator who explains a rushed-montage of events, which is highly bizarre, given the easy-going, carefree pace of the first two hours. 

Like Robbie’s screen time, this film feels caught in a terrible case of limbo that would wildly deliver either with a stripped-down, 90-minute Rick and Cliff-comedy or Tarantino’s possible narrative that needed 240 minutes instead of 161.  

Yes, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is a gorgeously-shot picture, DiCaprio and Pitt work their tails off to – indeed - become these two men who battle Father Time and their immediate environment to reclaim their places in the world, and Tarantino includes – in excess - his familiar indulgences, for better or worse.  With all this effort poured into this restless, SoCal “children’s” story, it’s inexplicable that the narrative seems so incomplete and this – in turn - lessens the eventual payoff.  This might not be Tarantino’s worst film, but given the presented construction, it’s his most flawed.  His undying connection with Los Angeles can never be questioned, but a loving relationship isn’t perfect every day.

(2/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The Lion King - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Dir: Jon Favreau
Starring: Donald Glover, Beyoncé, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alfre Woodard, John Oliver, Keegan-Michael Key, Eric André, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, and James Earl Jones

W.C. Fields famously quoted about the filmmaking process, “Never work with children or animals”.

There was a moment a few years ago, while watching a young filmmaker work on getting a cat to walk through a dog door, when these words haunted a production set for 2 hours. After numerous requests, which very quickly became pleas, of “cut” and “action” the director asked if there was any way to make a digital cat for the scene.

One week later, director Jon Favreau released the photorealistic digital remake of the beloved 1967 animated film “The Jungle Book”; a visual feast of the advancements in technology that made a jungle full of animals come to life like a nature documentary. With a star-studded group of voice actors, this new rendition of “The Jungle Book” was the spark that opened up the possibilities of Disney Studios revisiting more than just their human focused stories.

“The Lion King”, the 1994 landmark cartoon that changed the trajectory of Disney’s animation studios, is the newest past property to be reimagined through photorealistic strokes of digital artistry. The result is a technical marvel without much dramatic spirit, an absolutely beautiful painting that struggles consistently with adding emotional touchstones to its flawless digital rendering.

From the opening sequence, the breathtaking progression through the Pride Lands as baby Simba is introduced to the world, the amazing digital wizardry is immediately on full scale display. Nearly every character, landscape, and motion from the original animated film is mirrored with such meticulous care and constructed in such high definition clarity that you won’t realize you are smiling until you realize that you already started singing “Circle of Life”. It’s a gorgeous technological feat.

As the film progresses into the heft of the narrative, with its Shakespearean-esque cues and sing-a-long musical numbers, the technology remains impressive but the emotional components of these characters get lost in all the realistic animal composition. The flexibility of standard animation, which allows moments to compose backgrounds for atmospheric effect and exaggerate features for heightened reactions, assist in making Mufasa’s (James Earl Jones) death so tragic and allowing Scar’s (Chiwetel Ejiofor) murderous deeds to feel so threatening.

What this new film does is craft what looks like a Disneynature film; with such fine-tuned character compositions, Simba’s (JD McCrary) playfulness while singing “Just Can’t Wait to be King” seems dulled and at times oddly structured. Scar and the Hyenas appear so visually threatening on first introduction, with glowing eyes and sinister stalking motions, but they lose that edge the moment they sing or clumsily tumble into one another during altercations with the lions.

It doesn’t help that the film is trying so hard to be a shot-for-shot remake of the original cartoon. In the same way that the threat, thrill, and tension was lost in director Gus Van Sant’s recreation of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, the heart, humor, and harmony of this updated version of “The Lion King” also feels lessened by its need to match scenes and emotions from the original.

There are few moments when the joy and pleasure of the original take over, especially when Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) are on screen discussing slimy cuisine and singing about their life motto or when the formal Zazu (John Oliver) is flying around providing morning reports.

The talented voice actors throughout the film all have opportunities to shine but it never lasts too long. Beyoncé voices older Nala and sings exceptionally well, Donald Glover plays older Simba and offers a maturity that feels somewhat timid with hints of kingly confidence, and James Earl Jones brings all the gravitas, almost exactly so, from the original performance.

“The Lion King” is very often a beautiful experiment of how precisely detailed and richly composed technology can make an artificial world resemble the real thing. Unfortunately, it’s still a few steps away from providing this recreated film with the heart and soul found so affectionately in traditional methods of animation that made the 90’s version of this film such a classic.

Monte’s Rating
2.50 out of 5.00

The Farewell - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival

Please say ‘Hello’ to ‘The Farewell’

Writer/Director:  Lulu Wang

Starring:  Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, Lu Hong, Jiang Yongbo, Chen Han, and Aoi Mizuhara

“The Farewell” – Writer/director Lulu Wang’s film is about family.  For those who advocate to write about what you know, Wang took those words to heart.  “The Farewell” is a personal story, and as noted in the opening credits, this particular life-chapter is based on an actual lie.  Certainly, love is a common thread woven into most family tapestries, but lies – albeit in a reduced role – intertwine themselves into permanent lineages too. 

Whether large or small, a designed falsehood between family members can aid both parties, but usually, a fib disproportionally benefits the giver or receiver. 

For instance, Billi (Awkwafina), a late 20-something, is struggling financially in New York City.  When her mom Jian (Diana Lin) asks about her bills, Billi dismisses the question by answering that things are fine.  What’s more, Billi cannot quite find her career-footing, and her dreams of a fellowship dissipate into the ether via a rejection letter.  Soon after, her dad Haiyan (Tzi Ma) innocently inquires about any fellowship-news, and Billi responds that she hasn’t heard yet.  Both harmless lies benefit Billi, the giver, so she doesn’t have to summon the energy to speak out loud about these painful setbacks that already dance in her head on a continuous loop.

“The Farewell” centers around a big lie, but this one is designed to aid the receiver, Billi’s grandmother Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen).  She lives across the Pacific in Changchun, a growing urban center that sits in the northeast corner of China.  Her sister Little Nai Nai (Lu Hong) receives terrible news – directly from a doctor - that Nai Nai contracted lung cancer and has three months to live.  Rather than have Nai Nai stress about her fatal condition, the family decides to keep the news to themselves.  In addition, they all travel to Changchun and plan a fake wedding for her grandson Hao Hao (Chen Han) and his girlfriend Aiko (Aoi Mizuhara), as an excuse to see her one last time…and have an event to celebrate.

Wang’s picture is a glorious one to celebrate, as she perfectly captures the twisty nuances, frank discourse and natural measures of both anxiety and security that brew when extended families throw themselves together for a reunion, a wedding or a weekly meal. 

Other than some establishing shots of Changchun and other glances of the city, most of the fermenting drama, humor and several, several enticing meals reside in the close quarters of living rooms, kitchens and restaurants.  Everyone feels the weight of Nai Nai’s impending fate, but the trick is to sustain the pretenses and pleasantries, while she – without any idea – smiles, encourages everyone to eat, but also complains about Aiko. 

And why not?  Aiko is not part of the family just yet, right?

Well, Nai Nai’s intimate concoction of charm and blunt talk drive her magnetic charisma, and her everyday exchanges offer frequent opportunities for the audience to chuckle along with her.  You might recognize traces or perhaps heaps of Nai Nai on your family tree, and Zhao adds a bubbly, irresistible grace that lights up the camera with a blankets of warm coziness, even though this matriarch feels equally free to launch orders at her faithful subjects.  

Billi is Nai Nai’s most faithful subject.  Growing up in the U.S., she’s also the “most” American and feels practically incapable of keeping this family secret.  Billi is reliving Lulu Wang’s experience, and Awkwafina presents the film’s director as constantly shouldering this burden. She also wears grays, blacks and browns and the lightest – if any – makeup, as her physical presence matches her emotional demeanor. 

Billi looks to blurt out her sorrow for about 88 minutes of the film’s 98-minute runtime, as Wang not only organically constructs universal anthropological themes into a uniquely personal narrative, but also into a stressful drama, in which the family’s righteous plan could be exposed at any moment. 

Awkwafina and Zhao anchor the film through their deeply-relatable, soulful performances, and the supporting players flawlessly fit – including the real Little Nai Nai playing herself - as principled but also imperfect beings.  Wang must have deeply searched through her swathes of memories, as her on-screen family argues, partners, laughs, eats, and shares spaces with meticulous detail during this specific time capsule.  One that even fitting includes Lauryn Hill’s “Killing Me Softly”. 

At one point, Nai Nai declares, “It’s been too long since we’ve all been together like this.”

She speaks the truth. 

(3.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The Art of Self-Defense - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Photo Credit: Bleecker Street

Written and Directed by Riley Stearns

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola, Imogen Poots, Phillip Andre Botello, Steve Terada

As I was trying to figure out how to start my review of Riley Stearns’s “The Art of Self-Defense,” which expands this weekend, I had to chuckle.

It’s not because Stearns made a gorgeous dark comedy that I am chuckling. In fact, he did.

The film opens in a small café with our protagonist, Casey is deep in his own world. A French couple makes a stop, hoping to find a decent cup of coffee. The coffee, which it turns out is actually swill even by American standards leads to their playing a game, which indirectly involves our said protagonist.

Minding his own business, Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) gets up and leaves. We know from his body language, which is as stiff as a board that he knew what was going on, and the next scene cracked the theater up. That’s the type of genius that writer-director Stearns brings to this story. He needed someone like Eisenberg to pull off the joke.

The mild-mannered Casey Davies is an accountant and has anti-social tendencies when it comes to the office, even to life in general. He lives a minimalists’ life, but it doesn’t look uncomfortable.

That is unless you’re his dog, the poor little dachshund who goes hungry when his master forgets to get food. A late-night trip to the grocery store results in an attack on Casey by an armed motorcycle gang.

During his recovery, Casey sorts out the need to evolve, to be more than he was. In essence, he needed to stand up for himself. His OCD takes the form of a need to defend himself, bringing him to a gun shop. Between the comical interaction with the gun store clerk and the “cooling-off” period required of all new handgun owners, you’d think that Casey was going to blow up.

He maintained his cool and found another outlet – a karate school.

This is where we’re introduced to Sensei, played by Alessandro Nivola. Sensei has very strict rules for his dojo. Discipline is the name of the game as Sensei sees potential in Casey. Nivola was an absolute joy to watch on the screen; every take he looked as if he was just going to bust out laughing. He managed to hold his composure.

At first, Casey is intimidated, but willing to give karate a try. Kennith (Phillip Andre Botello) is his first sparring partner and the very first lunge Kennith knocks Casey down. Nonplussed, Casey gets right back up, with Kennith noting Casey’s firm balance. It’s these types of off-kilter jokes that make “The Art of Self-Defense” a joy to watch.

As Casey builds trust with Sensei, he is invited deeper into the inner sanctum. This attracts the attention of Anna (Imogen Poots), a much higher-level student who is subject to the wrath of her instructor, Sensei. One could point out the toxicity of Sensei’s relationship with Anna, but seen in the context of the fuller story and the humor, it plays out as well as it could; again because Poots was the right choice for this particular character.

Casey and Anna form a relationship and it serves as a strong counterpoint to Sensei’s constant beratement. We shouldn’t leave Sensei out of this review too much because mystery shrouds the doorstep of his dojo. And, there is a reason why guns are never allowed.

This is the genius of Stearns’s writing as he says so much more than the surface level of the characters. Each situation has a purpose, even if some of those situations don’t end up going much further than their introductions, especially when it comes to Sensei.

Sensei’s teachings throughout the film make perfect sense, because each character never gives away their hold-card, so it is difficult to “read” the other characters. At the same time, there is a sense of knowing what’s going to happen, even when Stearns manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

This is the frustrating aspect of “The Art of Self-Defense.”  Stearns blends the dry wit of Wes Anderson and the intelligence that goes with Anderson’s stories with Martin Brest’s sense of timing.

Stearns can’t quite blend the two together, but the rapidity with which “The Art of Self-Defense” moves, it somehow seems to come together just right. And in a dog-eat-dog world, this movie fits the bill just perfectly.

Oh, and my chuckle – whomever at Bleeker Street thought of counterprogramming this circle of life movie against Disney’s “The Lion King,” is an absolute genius.

3 stars out of 4

An interview with the stars and director of 'Finding Alice' by Jeff Mitchell

“Finding Alice”, a drama about a resident aide who takes an old man from a nursing home to find his daughter, won the 2019 Phoenix Film Festival’s World Cinema Audience Award, and director Pablo Fernandez, actress Emma Melkersson and actor John La Briola flew from Sweden to the Valley to soak up some sunshine, meet new friends and celebrate their film. 

The Phoenix Film Festival recently caught up with Pablo, Emma and John via an international phone call, and we enjoyed a warm and lively reunion.  We discussed the challenges of playing the two characters, the film’s most emotional scene, the future for “Finding Alice”, and much more!

In addition to PFF’s award, “Finding Alice” also won the 2018 Oslo Film Festival’s Best Feature, the 2019 L’Europe autour de l’Europe’s Luna Award, and the 2018 October Los Angeles Film Awards’ Best Narrative Feature, Director and Honorable Mention Actress.

PFF:  John, how did you prepare to play Henry, a man with dementia, and what were the challenges?

JLB:  In the original script, Henry had a stroke, so I (studied) people who were afflicted with that. As the film went on, we thought that Henry dragging his foot was not the way to go, and we went with dementia (instead).  A challenge was (deciding) how “with-it” is Henry?  

He has moments of clarity and some capacity for numbers.  He’s very preoccupied about how much an overdue library book would cost, so he has some idea that five cents a day for a book that should have been returned in 1965 adds up to (a large) amount, so he’s aware of that much.

I’ve had a few people criticize me about how believable (my performance) is.  A woman who has a mother with dementia was offended or something, but other people said that I nailed it, so I don’t really know. 

PFF:  Emma, you play such a complex character.  Right away, I was drawn to the story, because I wanted to understand Erin’s (Melkersson) motivation.  When she was making bad decisions in the nursing home and on the road, were you aware of her backstory?

EM:  I knew her backstory and how she ended up in the nursing home.  She’s trying to just find some sort of stability and closure with her very painful past, and yes, Erin is a complex character.    

PFF:  Many of the scenes were so thoughtfully framed, especially during a pivotal moment with Henry and Erin while their car was parked.  Were there certain scenes that you were really, really meticulous about getting a shot just right?

PF:  There is a funny story about that scene.   It was framed as a two shot, so we had Emma on the right and John on the left.  The DP and I were arguing about this framing.  We were shooting the scene, and for each take, Emma is getting better and better, and she’s just amazing.  Really great, and the DP decides that Emma is so good, we should get a close-up of her.

Changing an angle of a camera is never something that you do in two minutes.  Sometimes, it takes a half hour, and when an actor has reached a (certain) level of emotion, you don’t want to break it.  You want them to keep working and keep doing what they’re doing.  As we are shooting this scene – and Emma and John don’t see it - but the DP and I are behind a black (curtain) and are screaming at each other.  The DP wanted to get closer, and I didn’t want to break this moment.  We both had a point.  It would help the story to be closer to Emma when Erin is opening her heart, but at the same time, I thought the two shot was really good as it was. We didn’t need to get a close-up, and I didn’t want to break the moment…and we were screaming.

PFF:  Have moviegoers approached you after festival screenings to talk about that scene?

EM:  In Phoenix, a (couple) came up to me, and the husband was all teared up, and he said, “Thank you.  My wife had the same, exact story.” 

She was standing next to him in complete shock.  She was empty, and he was crying.  It was an amazing moment, because he was just so thankful for hearing Erin’s words in Pablo’s script.  So, that was a crazy moment.  It was true.  Those words, they were real.

PF:  It’s one of the scenes that people really, really remember.

Photo Credit: Lauren Hansen/Lunabear Studios

PFF:  Michelle Williams said - in an interview - that she was really nervous about her most dramatic scene in “Manchester by the Sea” (2016).  Emma and John, how did you prepare for your scene?

EM:  Since, it was my casting scene, I said the words out loud, when I read the script.  So, I had them in mind, ever since I got the part.  When we shot it, it was about a year (later).  I knew that the scene meant a lot, and I wanted to do it with respect. 

That whole day, I was in my own mind, listening to music and trying to focus.  People tried to talk to me, but I needed to be peaceful.  Yea, I was nervous.  I was, because I wanted to do it justice. 

PFF:  Henry seemed to be sleeping during that scene, but do you think that he heard Erin in some way?

JLB:  I circled that scene on the calendar, and that was the one that I built up for.  On some level, I think that Henry hears her story in his sleep.  I don’t think this is a man who sleeps very well at all.  I think he has troubling dreams, and even though he can’t complete a thought sometimes, I think the emotions are there. 

PFF:  “Finding Alice” is a Swedish film, but English is the on-screen, spoken language.  Tell me about that choice. 

PF:  I wanted to reach a broader audience and as many people as possible.  I do love Sweden.  I do love the environment, and we, as Swedes, should be proud of this film.  We made something beautiful, and we made it in a different language, but it doesn’t matter. 

PFF:  Was there anything uniquely Swedish in the film?  For instance, when Henry and Erin walked in the countryside.

EM:  I guess we are spoiled.  We have beautiful nature here in Sweden, and we (embrace) our environment. 

PFF:  “Finding Alice” has played at the Phoenix and Oslo Film Festivals…among others.  What’s next, and where can people see your movie?

JLB:  We’ve been nominated for four prizes in the Madrid Film Festival.  That’s coming up in August, and we also got into the Bucharest Film Festival.  So, nine festivals in total. 

PF:  After Bucharest, we don’t know.  Let’s see what happens.  The hard part with making a film is getting distribution.  We hope the festivals are helping us get some exposure.

PFF:  I love the two blue cars that Erin and Henry took on the road.  The beat up, older one and the shiny, new one.

JLB:  One interesting behind-the-scenes-thing is that the muscle car caught on fire.  It overheated, and we (ended up) pouring bottled water on the engine.  We had to stop shooting every 20 minutes, because the car would overheat, and it actually did catch on fire.  Emma and I were both sitting in it, and everyone was running, waving their arms and saying, “Get out!”

PF:  I was on the radio and saying quite calmly, “The car is on fire.  The car is on fire.”  I  think the crew didn’t understand what I was saying, but the car was on fire.   

EM:  We thought (you were saying), “The car is so cool, it’s like on fire.”

JLB:  We had a lot of car problems, but it led to a cool, spontaneous, unplanned scene late at night when Henry and Erin are on the bridge looking at the stars.  We were stuck in the middle of nowhere and waiting for another car, so we just got out and improvised.  It ended up in the film, so I like that moment a lot.  

PF:  Thank you to the Phoenix Film Festival for having us.  It was really a lot of fun, and you guys really took care of us.  We felt like we were home. 

EM:  We had the best time.

PF:  I really loved the festival and hope that we can go back.  Even without a film, I would like to experience it again.  It was amazing.

Photo Credit: Nader Abushhab, NBMA Photography

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic. Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Stuber - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Photo Credit: Karen Ballard / Copyright: © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved

‘Stuber’ is short on plot and originality but long on buddy-comedy laughs

Directed by:  Michael Dowse

Written by:  Tripper Clancy

Starring:  Kumail Nanjiani, Dave Bautista, Natalie Morales, Iko Uwais, and Mira Sorvino

“Stuber” – WWE fans have been wildly cheering and feverishly booing Dave Bautista, 50, since 2002, but this pro wrestler became an instant movie star in 2014 with Marvel Studios’ release of “Guardians of the Galaxy”.   His portrayal of Drax the Destroyer offered a combination of massive brawn and perfect comedic timing that made Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Rock household names.  Despite his formidable appearance, Drax flourishes as an accessible character with his frank honesty and nonexistent-awareness of nuanced conversation.  It’s a charismatic concoction that should not be ignored.

Kumail Nanjiani, 41, is a comedian, and he may have felt ignored for years as he bounced around with one-time appearances on television shows and small parts in random movies like as a cable guy in “Hell Baby” (2013).   

The “Silicon Valley” comedy series was Nanjiani’s big break, and he parlayed that success into a charming, relationship comedy “The Big Sick” (2017), a film that he co-wrote, so he properly fed himself loads of on-screen moments to drop his droll, observational humor.   

Bautista and Nanjiani have worked for years in developing and thoroughly knowing their strengths, and since they finally hit cinema-success in their 40s and late 30s, respectively, they don’t waste any time pushing their strong suits in “Stuber”, a clashing-personalities, buddy comedy.  Experienced moviegoers have downed this familiar movie-formula since the days of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, but it somehow morphed to include policeman/detective angles during the 1980s with “48 Hours” (1982), “Lethal Weapon” (1987) and “Midnight Run” (1988), to name a few.  

Here, Vic Manning (Bautista), a police detective (naturally), is desperately trying to catch an elusive drug dealer named Oka Tedjo (Iko Uwais).  Sure, Tedjo is a bad guy, but he also killed Vic’s partner.  With a fuse shorter than Herve Villechaize bending down to tie his shoe, Vic is in no mood to waste time or compromise, however, due to a very specific reason, he cannot drive. 

That’s a tough pill to swallow in Southern California.

He needs a taxi or - as we say in 2019 - an Uber, and this is where Stu (Nanjiani) answers the call.  Vic’s constant dependence on Stu and his Nissan Leaf is the glue that reluctantly bonds these two characters, as this impatient cop snaps at his unassuming driver to shuttle them all over Los Angeles - from Koreatown to Long Beach - to chase down Tedjo. 

Well, you might be blinded by the continuous bombardment of police clichés that fill the movie’s 93-minute runtime.  Which clichés?  Vic’s boss (Mira Sorvino) wants to take him off the case, constant mentions about an impending drug deal, shootouts in seedy neighborhoods, and a strained relationship with a close family member because of the job.  In this case, it’s between Vic and his daughter Nicole (Natalie Morales). 

Except for Morales’ positive screen presence, none of the other aforementioned elements contribute anything to the story.  In fact, the background noise surrounding Vic and Stu almost feels like a designed parody, and its tone is caught in purgatory between farce and serious storytelling.  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t connect with either one.

On the other hand, just about every moment between Vic and Stu does connect with good old-fashioned cheesy slapstick and sharp-witted verbal jabs.  At the outset, the hulking Vic climbs into the car, and Stu comments, “Let me guess, you want me to drive you to all the Sarah Connors in the city.”  

Since Vic’s actual bark with Stu is much worse than his bite, our driver shouldn’t feel too much danger from him…just from the surrounding gunplay and bloodshed.  Okay, the arthouse-only crowd won’t be amused, but “Stuber” has a definite audience, as Bautista and Nanjiani’s natural chemistry serves up plenty of laughs. 

So, never mind that you can see a typical double-cross coming from a mile away, and Tedjo does not utter more than a few syllables (if any) until the last 10 minutes of the third act.  These problems don’t matter, right?  Geez, Bautista and Nanjiani certainly know their strengths.

(2.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Summer Night - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Directed by: Joseph Cross

Screenplay by: Jordan Joliff and Joseph Cross

Story by: Jordan Joliff

Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Ian Nelson, Analigh Tipton, Callan McAuliffe, Ella Hunt, Bill Miner, Hayden Szeto, Lana Condor, Elena Kampouris, Melina Vidler, Khris Davis, Victoria Justice, Justin Chatwin

Joseph Cross’s “Summer Night” is a peculiarity. It is a coming-of-age story, which reflects the real-world values that affect high school and college-aged kids. The theme of the film is deftly set with Cross’s use of “Can’t Catch Me” by NoMBe & New Mystics as we meet Taylor (Callan McAuliffe).

“Summer Night” is also a very self-aware story. This theme of “we’re invincible” comes alive as Cross and co-screenwriter Jordan Joliff introduce us to Jameson (Ellar Coltrane, “Boyhood”) and Seth (Ian Nelson) in a very fluid way within the same forest as Taylor. Jameson is very much a loner as he ponders his life. It’s not immediately known why Jameson is in a brooding mood, but Coltrane plays it with panache as we know that this is his story.

As Seth, Ian Nelson has a far more interesting and robust character. Cross and co-screenwriter Jordan Joliff take a risk in not immediately disclosing Seth’s situation and Nelson’s performance is nuanced well enough that we don’t necessarily want to know right away either.

By not immediately disclosing Seth’s situation, it has the intended benefit of allowing Cross to continue to fluidly integrate other characters, giving them each a chance to shine, namely Analeigh Tipton as Mel, Seth’s girlfriend. Telling the story in the way that Cross did, It also obfuscates Jameson’s story by building in too many other, smaller moments. They define the driving theme, but the story’s fluidity also gets in the way of truly shaping the main characters and their situations.

Once we get into a party atmosphere at The Alamo, where Jameson settles with Harmony (Victoria Justice) and he avoids Corin (Elena Kampouris), Jameson doesn’t have so much pent up tension, we get the chance to see Coltrane relax too. We get to watch Taylor strut his vocal chords as well as his theatrics on stage.

As Jameson, Seth and Taylor realize that they aren’t as invincible as they once thought they were, Cross forces them to decide if they’re going to remain within the comfort of their cocoons or if they’re really ready to mature in to that next stage of adulthood. This is where Coltrane and Nelson really shine; their defining moments decided in the drunken haze of partying.

Though Taylor is not a central figure in this story, the character defines Cross’s themes. Taylor gave the appearance of being a “rough and tumble” type character, but he definitely has a soul that complimented Jameson and Seth.

“Summer Night” screened at the Phoenix Film Festival this past April and is being released in theaters nationwide this weekend. The performances are really what make Joseph Cross’s film sing. Some of the story mechanics don’t necessarily work, but the fluidity with which we’re introduced to characters and their intertwining situations really push the envelope of coming-of-age stories.

2.75 out of 4 stars

Wild Rose - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Buckley blooms in ‘Wild Rose’  

Directed by:  Tom Harper

Written by:  Nicole Taylor

Starring:  Jessie Buckley, Sophie Okonedo, Julie Walters, Daisy Littlefield, and Adam Mitchell

“Wild Rose” – “Whosever heard of a country singer from Glasgow?” – Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley)

Rose-Lynn loves country music!  It’s sewn into the fabric of her being and also into her white leather jacket (with tassels) and accompanying white cowboy boots.  When she’s not performing onstage at the Glasgow Grand Opry, she listens to this particular music genre - born in the southern United States sometime during the early 20th century – on the bus or at the Inness House where she vacuums and dusts from 9 to 5 as a cleaning lady.  Rose-Lynn refers to country as three chords and the truth, and she firmly stands by that claim, because those words are tattooed on her right forearm.

Her conflicted truth is that she desperately wants to travel to Nashville and make it as a singer, however, she’s saddled with responsibilities in her Priesthill working-class neighborhood.  You see, Rose-Lynn has two young children, Lyle (Adam Mitchell) and Wynonna (Daisy Littlefield), who desperately need – and compete for - her attention, so dropping her life in Scotland and leaving for the United States carries all the practicality of skydiving while attempting to solve differential equations on a spiral notebook.  Should one attempt this dual-pursuit?  Sure, but probably not without messy consequences.

Director Tom Harper, writer Nicole Taylor and Buckley passionately shepherd Rose-Lynn through her conflicted struggle, as she desperately craves to fly towards her dreams but is grounded from leaving the nest.  She’s stuck, in a somewhat-similar fashion as Guy (Glen Hansard) from the indie Irish musical “Once” (2007), except he stunted his musical career through self-doubt, anxiety and ongoing acceptance of meager creature comforts.  Certainly, Rose-Lynn has insecurities and does not possess the wherewithal to locate open doors towards a more promising future, but make no mistake, her aspiration-barriers – in the form of her truly lovely kids – are physically real.

Taylor’s adoration for country music is wholly genuine, as she notes in a 2018 interview, “I’m a lifelong country music fan.  It’s been my obsession, since I was 12 years old.” 

She adds, “You get two and a half minutes of catharsis in every country song, and for people who are not used to articulating how they feel, it’s the best.”  

Meanwhile, Buckley delivers the best lead female performance of the year (so far) as Rose-Lynn.  This redheaded Irish actress served a masterful turn as an unsettled young woman in the slow-burning thriller “Beast” (2017), and here, Buckley offers a duality to Rose-Lynn, but with designed palatability. 

Harper and Buckley – from the get-go – establish Rose-Lynn’s coarse outer shell, as she frequently curses, is willing to come to blows and overlooks her responsibilities while throwing down drinks at local pubs.  Rose-Lynn is a cluttered handful, however, when she sets aside her daily realities and sings, her worries disappear into toe-tapping rockabilly-thunder and misty blisses of gentle harmonies that ask for our notice, and we enthusiastically and freely bequeath.

To put it simply, Buckley is magic, and her tender ballads like “Peace in This House” and “Glasgow” are the most enchanting.  Buckley and Taylor wrote some tracks like “Cigarette Row” and “Covered in Regret”, but actress Mary Steenburgen – of all people – co-wrote “Glasgow”.

During a June 2019 interview with Stephen Colbert, Buckley said, “(Mary Steenburgen) is amazing.  I mean, how much talent can one person have?”

After experiencing “Wild Rose”, you will undoubtedly ask yourself that same question about Jessie Buckley. 

(3.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Maiden - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Sony Pictures Classics, via Associated Press

‘Maiden’ is a must-see voyage

Directed by:  Alex Holmes

Starring:  Tracy Edwards, Dr. Claire Russell Warren, Angela Heath, and Jeni Mundy

“Maiden” – Some people reach for the stars.  Tracy Edwards reached for the ocean.

Growing up in a loving household, Tracy’s sunny trajectory in the UK took a sharp and painful detour, and before one could say “troublemaker”, high school administrators suspended her 26 times.  This frustrated teenager left home, and her unlikely, winding path led her to, of all things, sailing.  In approximately eight years – and fueled by a motivated, adventurous spirit – Tracy hired a crew and captained a yacht in the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race – a 33,000-mile nautical journey - at the age of 24.  

“It was something I had to do,” Edwards says.

Director Alex Holmes (“Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story” (2014)) sits down with Edwards, her crew members and competitors, as they look back at this historic race.  Certainly, anyone who possesses the courage to sail around the world deserves thunderous accolades, but her story offers a groundbreaking twist, because she captained her ship, the Maiden, with an all-female crew.

Needless to say, up until that time, yachting was a male-dominated sport.  In fact, out of 230 sailors in the previous Whitbread Race, only a handful of women (four or five) – including Edwards who worked as a cook - participated.  Edwards desired to race again but rather than be - literally - relegated back to the kitchen, she wanted to navigate a ship and decided that the only way to ensure this dream is to form an all-female team.  This, of course, changed the reality of the sport, and since the media and her competitors deemed her efforts as a sideshow, a stunt or exercise in futility, she and her crew changed perceptions as well.

“Maiden” not only works as an empowering tale but also as a harrowing one.  In addition to forming a team with 12 other women, taking on a dual role of skipper and navigator, and fighting through unforgiving, unpredictable weather, Edwards had two cameras on board to capture their victories and hardships. 

Very quickly, we realize that a round-the-world sailing voyage is a life-and-death struggle, because, Mother Nature can show no forgiveness. 

As Edwards explains, “The ocean is always trying to kill you.  It doesn’t take a break.”

Holmes weaves the miraculous 30-year footage of the Maiden team and their trials on the high seas, while Edwards, and some of her crew members – like Dr. Claire Russell Warren, Angela Heath and Jeni Mundy – reminisce about their thought processes leading up to the race and their experiences during the half-year expedition. 

While the women, as their youthful 1989-1990-selves, adjust to constantly changing winds and conditions, keep keen eyes on the competing yachts and push towards a hopeful triumph, their 2019-counterparts offer calming, confident vibes for the camera.  Every woman carries a self-assuredness that may be difficult to quantify, but so easy to see and embrace with joy and admiration.  Tracy Edwards and the Maiden crew may or may not steer you towards the ocean, but these women will leave you inspired to reach for the stars.

(3.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Midsommar - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Dir: Ari Aster
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, and Will Poulter

Death, dying, and the grieving process can be a personal and unique experience. For each individual who must endure watching someone leave, mourn the death of someone important in their lives, and ultimately grieve the fact that life will proceed without that person in their lives, the process can be a mixture of emotions both good and bad. But it is a process that is wholly unique for the individual.

In some cultures, this process has a defined set of steps that must be followed. For Native American tribes, the grieving practice is often incorporated into the processing of the burial arrangements with each tribal community having a different set of operations that are incorporated into the traditional practices. Some of these specific practices are vastly different, oftentimes misunderstood or challenged by non-tribal people, from the “normal” process demonstrated throughout traditional America. But when you break it down, all the steps in the grieving process are present.

Director Ari Aster, who expertly crafted one of the best horror films of the last decade with “Hereditary” which also featured one of the most stunning lead performances of 2018 from Toni Collette, returns for his sophomore film and focuses again on emotional trauma felt and caused by humanity. “Midsommar” is a film about clashing cultures, emotional codependency, and romantic manipulations wrapped up in dark shrouds of black humor.

Dani (Florence Pugh) is still grieving a family tragedy when her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) invites her to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer celebration in Sweden. Dani, lost in utter heartache and grasping to remaining fibers of her relationship with Christian, reluctantly pushes herself to commit to the trip. Not long after entering the mysterious community at the start of an 11-day festival, the couple begins to participate in strange rituals, drinking concoctions that lead to hallucinatory nightmares and partaking in bizarre ceremonies with unusual outcomes.

“Midsommar” functions on numerous levels, with influences ranging from films like “The Wicker Man” for thematic control and “The Color of Pomegranates” for color and design. However, the films of Ingmar Bergman seem most influential throughout the film, specifically “Scenes from a Marriage” pairs beautifully with the narrative components and tone being operated throughout this film.

It’s within the narrative that “Midsommar” is most impressive. Aster has already proved with “Hereditary” why genre film is such a good vessel for complex narratives and emotional storytelling but also why horror films can specifically evoke so many different types of emotions in the process of deeply affecting the viewer. “Midsommar” is operating with many of the same processes but the story here is reaching farther, tackling issues of foreign predispositions, cultural misunderstandings, gender dominance, the power of femininity, relationship codependency, and the many meandering meanings of romantic relationships.

At its core, “Midsommar” is a break-up film mixed with the grieving process that follows the end of a relationship, it’s an examination of that terrible relationship everyone has tried to save only to suddenly, and often times disastrously and painfully, come to the realization that it cannot be saved. Mr. Aster layers relationship concepts ingeniously throughout the film; through the ritual of cult ceremonies that operate as metaphors for sex and desire, through the process of aging and the death and dying rite involved in the relationship one has to another and the pain of moving forward without that person, and through the miscommunication of culture and tradition in examining just how different perceptions of love can be.

The composition of this film is familiar in tone and structure to “Hereditary”, however, the themes are fashioned in a far different way. The horror elements, which are violent and shocking throughout, accommodate the bleak yet humorous tone that Aster is trying to achieve. It’s interesting that throughout this film, where the emotional strings are being plucked at vastly different strengths, the humor feels so natural. It helps bring some levity to the dark subject matter that is transpiring in bright daylight scenes, sometimes tinged hallucinatory perspectives.

These concepts do not work without the brilliant performance from Florence Pugh who in the first few minutes of the film completely invades the viewer's emotional space through devasting pain and sorrow. The remaining performance is a range of emotions that are genuinely composed. Jack Reynor plays Christian, the not-so-great boyfriend character, who convincingly displays that he is more self-obsessed and self-concerned than he is dedicated to his relationship.

“Midsommar” is a beautifully photographed film that is most often composed in the bright shining sunlight. There is an uneasiness to horror films that operate in daylight, that the evil being orchestrated has no remorse for whatever it plans on doing in full, clear view. It’s an achievement to the director of photography Pawel Pogorzelski who has proven such an immense range with the collaboration with Ari Aster in two films. From stunning wide frame shots of peaceful yet inescapable environments to unnerving wandering shots seemingly taken from something watching in the clouds, all the way to the gory glory of shocking violence, it’s all beautifully and purposefully rendered.

“Midsommar” is the second film for director Ari Aster, that’s an impressive two-film catalog already. Mr. Aster continues to strengthen his voice and skillset as a filmmaker, but his perception for how one can utilize genre to tell emotionally complicated stories is the real achievement for this filmmaker. “Midsommar” demonstrates that sometimes the scariest monster isn’t a monster at all, sometimes it’s the emotion connected with the fear of loss and outlook towards the unknown.

Monte’s Rating
4.50 out of 5.00

Spider-Man: Far from Home - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Jake Gyllenhaal, left, and Tom Holland in a scene from Spider-Man: Far From Home. (Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

Dir: Jon Watts

Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Favreau, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, and Jake Gyllenhaal

Growing up is complicated. It involves shifting attitudes and desires, becoming comfortable and capable with new responsibilities, and often times the destruction and development through awkward phases where self-confidence and self-awareness builds and crumbles with every encounter within every situation. If that sounds terrible, it is!!

Think about all these multifaceted aspects of emotional and physical development and add to all of this an extra special ability, something not provided to the rest of your peers. With this great power comes the great responsibility of having the abilities to save a life, to end a life. Suddenly the algebra test, the big dance, the pep rally, don’t have the same level of importance.

Director Jon Watts returns to further the adventures of Peter Parker with “Spider-Man: Far from Home”. Taking the story to new territory, this time away from the school hallways and into foreign countries on a class trip, the journeys of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man grow more dangerous with added hero duties but also more personal as Peter’s two lives converge with greater risks. For a film coming off the heels of a pop culture event like “Avengers: Endgame”, “Spider-Man: Far from Home” succeeds by looking towards the future and offering a glimpse of what the continued Marvel Universe might have in store.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) continues to go through the trials and tribulations of adolescence, however, the world isn’t the same anymore after the near cataclysmic “snap” from Thanos that altered lives and caused a 5-year pause of life for millions of people…including Peter Parker and many of his classmates.

Now, the world is trying to return to some state of normalcy, but for Peter, the world will never be the same. Spider-Man is an Avenger, went to another planet in space, helped save the world from Thanos, and, most affecting, lost a mentor/father figure in the process of it all; for Peter, life continues to grow vastly complicated. And, just when things seem to settle down, when Peter has a moment to plan his pursuit of MJ (Zendaya) during his class trip abroad, another terror arrives destroying cities across the globe while a new ally named Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) enters Earth from a parallel dimension. Complications abound.

Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers do a nice job of tying together the major events that have passed since “Avengers: Endgame”, utilizing Peter’s interactions, like a touching discussion with Happy Hogan (John Favreau) or humorous banter with bestie Ned (Jacob Batalon), and general world interruptions, like a funny school news report or foreign television correspondence, to move the story forward. However, amongst all of these world establishing elements is something much stronger, an emotional component that directly addresses the missing piece of Tony Stark whose memorialized visage is a constant reminder for Peter of the responsibility and ultimate sacrifice heroes must make. Most of these reminders are subtle designs, like graffitied walls or physical objects like a pair of sunglasses left for Peter from Tony.

While these components all push the story in some really interesting directions, it does take some overly deliberate time to get these pieces into operational places. For the first 45 minutes of the film, the pacing is a complete mess. Side stories like a romance between Ned and classmate Betty (Angourie Rice) and encounters between Happy and Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) are introduced quickly without much consequence towards the primary focus of everything. Amongst the complications that have overtaken Peter’s life, some of the side stories seem inconsequential in perspective of everything that has happened. Perhaps that’s the purpose, however, that the minor distractions in Peter’s life are easier to handle than the burden of the greater components. That focusing on minor issues that Peter understands how to grasp is better than trying to figure out why threats are constantly trying to tear the world to pieces. It feels like this was the direction being proposed in the early moments of everything in the film, but it’s not so clear.

When Mysterio, a really charming yet offbeat Jake Gyllenhaal, enters the equation, “Far from Home” finds exceptional traction because of some inventive narrative choices but also because it focuses specifically on Peter Parker and the enormous emotional swings that have been affecting his life. In the second part of the film, it becomes obvious that Peter Parker can no longer just be the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”, that the world has changed so much for Peter that his motivation and identity will forever be connected to a red mask of a superhero.

“Spider-Man: Far from Home” is connecting a wealth of story ideas to make its ultimate point. In the process, the film struggles initially to find its balance of all these themes, but by the end, the different storylines, whether delicately or forcefully placed, work in establishing a new world and direction for Spider-Man to venture.  

Monte’s Rating
3.00 out of 5.00

Spider-Man: Far from Home - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Tom Holland as Spider-Man. Photo: Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures

Directed by: Jon Watts

Written by” Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers

Based on “Spider-Man” by” Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Starring: Tom Holland, Samuel L. Jackson, Zendaya, Cobie Smulders, Jon Favreau, J. B. Smoove, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Jake Gyllenhaal

I love it when a plan comes together.

The funny thing about “Spider-Man: Far From Home”, the latest adventure featuring your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is that it is a story about plans being formulated and then systematically being questioned, shredded and then reformulated.

And disrupted yet again.

Tom Holland had big shoes to fill in his first film, “Homecoming” as he inherited a role previously played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, and he did so with grace. He joined the Avengers for their last two outings, Infinity War and the recent “Endgame”, which if you want a Marvel Double Feature, you can still catch it in theaters.

“Far From Home” takes place shortly after the events in “Avengers: Endgame,” with a running gag to remind us of those events. Don’t worry, the gag plays itself out really well. With this story immediately following “Endgame”, Peter Parker has even bigger shoes to fill as he’s reminded of the death of his mentor, Iron Man.

The creative team behind “Homecoming”, director Jon Watts and co-screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers return, giving “Far From Home” a nice sense of welcome continuity and, more importantly, some stability following the events in “Endgame.”

McKenna and Sommers balance the levity of Spider-Man’s character with the danger that faces him, as a teenager fawning for MJ (Zendaya). His trusty sidekick, Ned (Jacob Batalon) is along for the ride. MJ is a bit more aloof here than the character was in Homecoming, and that distraction serves Parker’s lusty angst towards her well. Batalon has a lot of fun as the ground cover for Parker, but his antics weren’t as unique as they were in “Homecoming”. McKenna and Sommers did a nice job of building out his character so that it didn’t seem as overbearing as it might have seemed.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck is the wild card. McKenna and Sommers present him to us as an expert on the Elementals, who mysteriously threaten the earth. The performance grew on me as the story progressed, with Gyllenhaal using his low-key dramatic style to nuance the character.

The writing duo also gave our supporting cast a very meaty presence. Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury, playing the detached role of “uncle” to Peter; someone to remind him of his responsibilities as Spider-Man. Marisa Tomei, whose final moment in Homecoming is still talked about two years later, has a smaller presence here, but is no less prominent. In fact, her motherly love and advice gets us on the right foot as Parker and his classmates take off on their grand adventure. Jon Favreau returns as Happy Hogan.

Watts brings a grand sense of adventure as Parker and his classmates take a science trip all over Europe with stops in Venice, Prague and London. As with “Homecoming”, Watts continues his grounded visual style in Spider-Man: Far From Home, giving us the look and feel of an epic MCU story with the reality of the environment.

This is an important distinction as it relates to our hero. Within Watts’s reality-driven visual style, McKenna and Sommers bring a brevity to Peter Parker. As someone who is still grieving over the loss of his mentor, Tony Stark, Parker is torn between his desires as a teenager and his responsibilities as Spider-Man. In fact, there were a couple of moments where I felt that the trio, Watts, McKenna and Sommers channeled their inner Richard Donner.

Speaking of disruptions in well-laid plans, the film clips at a nice pace for a 129 – minute film, but the trademark humor of the MCU hampers the film just a bit much. There is a point in the film where the pace picks up a bit more momentum, making the second half of the film better than the first.

I had one criticism about “Homecoming” that omits the Uncle Ben character. No, it’s not because the characters’ name is similar to mine, but because I didn’t feel that strong, guiding hand presence from Tony Stark that the character gave Peter in Sam Raimi’s film. “Spider-Man: Far From Home” rectified this for me in an exceptionally meaningful way.

“Spider-Man: Far From Home” is an uneven film, but it demonstrates what grown-up MCU can look like. It is still heavily dependent on the humor, which is doesn’t need to be. Both Holland and Gyllenhaal give strong performances.

Oh, and don’t forget to stay through all of the credits.

Yesterday - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Dir: Danny Boyle

Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Sophia Di Martino, Ellise Chappell, and Kate McKinnon

I have spent enough time perusing the aisles of record stores throughout my life that it’s pretty easy to identify which store clerk is the Beatles fan. The amount of reverence for John, Paul, George, and Ringo is almost always the same too, it’s a feeling of admiration and honor for a musical group that many critics consider the greatest rock n’ roll band of all time.

Sir Paul McCartney recently played a show locally; radio stations curated their playlists to day-long Beatles’ music, generations of music fans heading to social media to discuss their connection to Paul and the band, even the state highway department customized their safety banners to clever song lyrics with quips like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Life Goes On...If You Slow Down”. It was amazing to see during the course of one day just how much of a cultural influence/phenomenon the Beatles are and will continue to be.

Director Danny Boyle (“127 Hours” and “Slumdog Millionaire”) and screenwriter Richard Curtis (“Love Actually” and “Notting Hill”) take the influence of the Fab Four and pose the question, “what if the Beatles never existed?”. “Yesterday” is a unique idea wrapped up in an overly familiar structure, still, it’s a charming little tale that is going for all those feel-good vibes you are expecting.

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is a struggling singer/songwriter with a decent voice and a personality that is suited for a moody artist who plays tunes alone on stage with just their guitar. Jack decides to quit his pursuits as a musician and return to being a school teacher, but his best friend/road manager/chauffeur/biggest fan Ellie (Lily James) convinces him to keep the dream alive. While riding his bike home after yet another failed gig, Jack has a traffic accident at the very moment the entire world undergoes a power outage. When he awakens, the Beatles have been erased from history.

“Yesterday” has an ingenious premise that brings about a nice mixture of humor and a heartfelt homage to the myth and renowned catalog of the Beatles. The question “what happened if the Beatles never existed” is well-worn throughout the composition of the world being built in the film; we are shown the extent of the band’s influence beyond just their music but also blending into the cultural, social, and political landscape throughout time. It’s consistently amusing, sometimes quite funny, even when the film fades into the derivative narrative components associated with a love story angle and the common thematic arc of the rise and fall of the struggling artist.

What helps the romantic approach is the performance from Lily James who is simply the charm and heart that keeps the relationship between Jack and Ellie have such a genuine sentiment.

Himesh Patel does a decent job as Jack but unfortunately, the character development feels somewhat one-note in terms of Jack’s overall motivation and conflict resolution between love and success in the end. Fortunately, Mr. Patel does a better job as an artist singing some of the most famous songs in music history, that’s the most daunting task of the film.

“Yesterday” doesn’t try to over-explain anything with its premise; we are never informed of the “why” or “how” of everything, which is a good thing because it helps the film retain its crowd-pleasing charm. While it will be easy to ask questions that will effortlessly poke holes in the narrative once you have a chance to step away from the film. Still, if you love the Beatles and are looking for one of the highlight feel-good movies of 2019, “Yesterday” will have you singing.

Monte’s Rating
3.50 out of 5.00