The Eyes of Tammy Faye - Movie Review

Directed by:  Michael Showalter

Written by:  Abe Sylvia

Starring:  Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Vincent D’Onofrio, Cherry Jones, and Gabriel Olds

Runtime:  126 minutes

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” changes perceptions

Mention Tammy Faye Bakker to anyone who lived through the 1980s.  The first image that comes to mind for many such folks is comedienne Jan Hooks playing her during a 1987 “Saturday Night Live” The Church Lady sketch.  

Tammy Faye/Jan begins hysterically crying with mascara pouring down her face after she says, “I put my hands up, and I said, ‘Demonic raisins, I rebuke you!’” 

Raisins?  

If you’ve never heard (or seen a clip) of Tammy Faye Bakker, she and her husband, Jim, ran and hosted a popular Christian television show called “The PTL Club” (1974 – 1987).  However, the program abruptly ended when Jim became embroiled in an adultery scandal, along with blackmail and missing funds from the PTL (Praise the Lord) Ministries.   

Soon after, life became a whole lot worse for Jim, and the public – by and large – vilified both him and Tammy Faye.  Her image became synonymous with the aforementioned SNL moment of unforgiving – but also hilarious - ridicule.

Hooks, along with Phil Hartman as Jim and Dana Carvey as The “no-nonsense” Church Lady, delivered a brutal takedown that compares to Tina Fey’s impression of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  Except in Hooks’ case, she only needed a singular sketch to deliver this everlasting impression, and once SNL sets its sights on your person with a dead-on impression, you’ve crossed a bridge with no way back.  Well, in most cases, because U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brent Kavanaugh seems to be faring just fine on the highest bench in the land, even after Matt Damon – as the judge - carried on about beer and Tobin, PJ, and Squi in 2018.  

The point is that the Bakkers ran into titanic career problems, but they also fell into a worse perception quandary, and Tammy Faye was seen as a sideshow or – with her trademark cakes of makeup – a clown.  

Well, Jessica Chastain aims and succeeds in changing opinions about the famous/infamous televangelist in much the same way that Margot Robbie did with her portrayal of detested figure skater Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya” (2017).  

Chastain gives a transformative performance here that deserves an Oscar nomination, and this film is her passion project. 

During a Q&A after a Sept. 12 Toronto International Film Festival “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” screening, Jessica stated that she wanted to produce – and star in – a Tammy Faye narrative feature after watching a documentary, presumably the 2000 doc with the same name.  Chastain saw Ms. Bakker as a sympathetic figure, and, through the 2021 film, she communicates her perspective. 

Director Michael Showalter and screenwriter Abe Sylvia forge a straightforward biopic that chronologically follows Tammy Faye’s life, except the opening few minutes.  It’s a film that moves quickly through several major lifetime highlights, and because of Jim and Tammy Faye’s collective drama and involved and winding rise to fame, the movie deliberately emphasizes dates, locales, and church organizations that help us follow along the sacred and unholy paths over a lengthy 126-minute runtime.

She was born and grew up in humble beginnings – as the oldest of eight children - in International Falls, Minn.  Located near the Canadian border, this city is one of the coldest places in the U.S., and her childhood was almost as icy.  Her mom, Rachel (Cherry Jones, who will always be the police officer in “Signs” (2002) to this film critic), runs her household as an authoritarian, and since Tammy Faye is her eldest, our young heroine never really catches a break.  

Their family attends church, but TF loves to worship, which even befuddles her mom and stepdad.  Fast forward to her college years at North Central Bible College, where she meets Jim (Andrew Garfield).  The lovebirds immediately become inseparable, and their religious calling and pure ambition take them from school and on the road to spread the Lord’s word.  

Although the movie’s makeup department makes Chastain almost unrecognizable during a vast majority of the 1980s scenes, the team deserves kudos for helping our 44-year-old actress look like a 20-something during the early stuff from the 1960s.   

Chastain’s upstart, idealist Tammy Faye from the 60s and 70s overflows with plucky charisma, as she’s a constant source of positivity and bubbly energy and even comes up with a popular puppet idea for kids.  This pair has a blast, and Showalter and Sylvia include some comedic, endearing spots for the audience, so no matter your feelings about Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, they are a likable duo in the movie’s first half.  Dare I say that TFB’s Betty Boop cadence is downright adorable.  

Still, their journey inversely veers ethically downward against their meteoric rise, one that includes television stardom and rubbing elbows with Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds) and Jerry Falwell (Vincent D’Onofrio).  

Garfield is especially good at depicting Jim’s obsession with securing more pledges rather than furthering righteous deeds.  During the film’s second half, Garfield’s Jim regularly looks exhausted, like he just got off the phone with an angry creditor, and in one scene, that’s the case.  

He’s compromised.  He’s tainted. 

By default, so is Tammy Faye, but the screenplay keeps her and the audience in the dark on Jim’s daily corruption.  He’s twisted in a tornado of schemes, but the stormy details are mostly kept off-screen.  Instead, Tammy Faye and we see the stresses on Jim’s face but don’t know the extent of PTL’s money problems.  In the movie, Tammy Faye freely shops and lives extravagantly, but she’s not involved in the day-to-day and long-term dishonestly.  In a way, she’s a mob boss’ wife.   

More surprisingly, Tammy Faye maintains progressive stances that clash with Robertson and Falwell.  She also stands up to the industry’s patriarchy, so - as previously mentioned - “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” may effectively change your previously-held beliefs.  

First, Tonya Harding in 2017 and now Tammy Faye in 2021.  Who would’ve thought that was possible?  

As The Church Lady would say – but without sarcasm - “Well, isn’t that special?”

Jeff’s ranking

3/4 stars

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Everybody's Talking About Jamie - Movie Review

Directed by:  Jonathan Butterell

Written by:  Tom MacRae

Starring:  Max Harwood, Lauren Patel, Sharon Horgan, Sarah Lancashire, and Richard E. Grant

Runtime:  109 minutes

“Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”:  We’re keenly watching and listening too

When director Jonathan Butterell’s movie begins, everyone’s not talking about Jamie (Max Harwood), but his mom, Margaret (Sarah Lancashire), and his best friend, Pritti (Lauren Patel), love conversing with him!  Jamie’s in Grade 11 at Mayfield School, and he and Pritti aren’t terribly popular, but they generally get along fine with everybody, save Dean Paxton (Samuel Bottomley), a relentless bully with a hefty backpack full of verbal insults.

Other than attempting to navigate through present-day teenage mazes and hazes, their primary strife is preparing for their future, as Miss Hedge (Sharon Horgan) – their only schoolteacher, it seems – frequently requests her students to think about careers.  Pritti, as studious as the English winters are grey, is singularly focused on becoming a doctor, while Jamie secretly covets an altogether different path.  He, at 16, wants to become a drag queen, and this cinematic musical – based on the theatrical play and a 2011 television documentary “Jamie: Drag Queen at 16” – is a positive film about finding the courage to be yourself.   

Our young lead character, openly gay, certainly has valid struggles – such as coping with the aforementioned bully and finding his father’s (Ralph Ineson) acceptance – and the movie certainly delves into those troubling spaces.  Still, the narrative doesn’t deeply dwell in horribly dark places for very long stretches.  The film projects more supportive tones, and the playful, lively numbers – like “Don’t Even Know It” and the title track – help lift Jamie and our spirits through a majority of the 109-minute runtime. 

Visually, cinematographer Christopher Ross captures lush, green rolling hills and blue-collar brick housing in Sheffield, England, located east of Manchester and south of Leeds.  Even though Margaret (who, by the way, is the BEST mom) and Jamie live on a tight budget, they and most others are usually smiling.  Also, Butterell caught some weather breaks during his shoot, because the sun usually shines brightly (except for some exceptional rain in the opening scene).  In other words, this film might give a boost to the Sheffield tourist industry.  The Airbnb locals should be pleased!  Inside Jamie’s school, art directors Liz Simpson and Adam Tomlinson offer warm color palettes of purple and neon blue when Jamie and his classmates break into catchy songs. 

Even though Jamie wrestles with the idea of slapping on his red, sparkling high-heels, finding a dress, applying makeup, and embracing the mettle to perform, the movie’s overall engaging direction barely lends any doubt that he will reach his goals.  Jamie certainly recognizes his on-stage anxieties, but the film’s light ambiances regularly reassure us that life will turn out alright.  

Look, “Everyone’s Talking About Jamie” does feel like a Disney Channel feature, where the rough edges are smoothed out with chocolate bars and comfy blankets.  That’s not a compliment, but Harwood is exceedingly charismatic.  The camera loves him, and we love him back.  He gives Jamie an authentic on-screen voice while also offering empathy to anyone who emotionally labored in high school.  Certainly, 99.9 percent of adults faced internal churn and doubts from ages 13 through 18, but Jamie and this movie specifically speak to LGBTQ audiences.

Looking back, however, Jamie’s drag queen mentor, Hugo Battersby (Richard E. Grant), might carry the most gravitas in the picture.  Hugo reveals his 1980s story, his heydays and crippling hours, as a VHS cassette presentation entitled “Adventures of a Warrior Queen – 1987” presents both tender and tragic nostalgia.  

Hey, can Richard E. Grant star in everything, and can we get a Hugo prequel?  

Well, for now, we’re all talking about Jamie, and we’re keenly watching and listening too. 

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Ten Essential Werner Herzog Documentaries

Werner Herzog turns 79 years young on Sept. 5, and this forward and fearless Oscar-nominated filmmaker frequently makes narratives and documentaries.  One of the most celebrated aspects of Werner’s documentaries – at least to this critic - is his narration.  His one-of-a-kind cadence, eccentric and blunt word choices, and old-school perspectives make him a most welcome verbal chaperone for his daring on-screen choices.

Well, in honor of this legend’s birthday, I’m looking back at ten essential Werner Herzog documentaries.

“Land of Silence and Darkness” (1971) – Fini Straubinger is a teacher, an astonishing one.  Fini, 56, organizes group events and one-on-one meetings to connect with those who cannot see and hear.  One might rightfully dub her a miracle worker, and Fini is also blind and deaf.  Werner follows Fini as she communicates with brand new friends  – at several sessions - through a deafblind alphabet.  She spells out words on their hands and hosts irreplaceable experiences like a trip to a botanical garden and access to zoo animals.  We see that physical touch is a vital need for these men and women.  At one point, the screen goes black, and these words appear: “When you let go of my hand, it is as if we were a thousand miles apart.”  It’s unclear who said the statement, but one can imagine that many blind and deaf individuals feel this assertion.  Well, for 85 on-screen minutes, we aren’t going anywhere!

“Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe” (1980) – Werner did not direct this 20-minute short, but he is the bonafide star, as he (spoiler alert) eats his shoe in front of an attentive UC Theatre audience in Berkeley, Calif.  The man of the hour vowed to dine on his footwear to help motivate his friend Errol Morris to make “Gates of Heaven” (1978).  Morris did, and so Herzog does!  Director Les Blank not only captures Werner preparing his meal with garlic, onions, and hot sauce, but Herzog offers several declarations about flawed society, filmmaking, and television for the camera.  “We have to declare holy war against what we see every single day on television,” Herzog calmly asserts.  Beautiful!

“Lessons of Darkness” (1992) – Iraq only needed a couple of days to invade and capture Kuwait in 1990, but the military set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields that burned for months and months.  The result was an environmental catastrophe.  In-kind, Werner’s 53-minute documentary barely touches the actual war.  His movie almost entirely focuses on the gruesome latter, as he captures the utter devastation of menacing blazes, miles of black smoke, and toxic oil lakes that soak in the desert.  Several swooping shots by helicopter reveal a post-apocalyptic horror show that Herzog ironically sets to classical music.  War may be hell, but so is its aftermath.  

“Little Dieter Needs to Fly” (1997) – In the documentary’s second minute, we see Dieter Dengler driving along an empty, winding road in foggy Northern California. Werner recites, “Men are often haunted by things that happened to them in life, especially in war or other periods of great intensity.  Sometimes you see these men walking the streets or driving in a car.  Their lives seem to be normal, but they are not.”  For Dengler, a German-born American and Vietnam vet, he lived through a six-month nightmare in a Viet Cong prison camp.  Decades later, these two men – filmmaker and pilot - travel back to Southeast Asia, as Dengler recounts his story, but he does so with his close ally, Werner, and they lend their voices and spirits together.  Dieter inspired Werner to subsequently make a narrative feature, “Rescue Dawn” (2006) with Christian Bale playing Dengler. 

“My Best Fiend” (1999) – Werner featured Klaus Kinski in five of his films, but after watching “My Best Fiend” – in which Herzog describes, rationalizes, and demonizes his contentious relationship with the man – you’ll wonder how they ever finished one.  Although their initial movie was “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972), they first met when Werner was 13.  Werner travels to a specific Munich apartment building – his childhood home for a stretch - and recalls his family lived with Klaus for a few months.  What?  Werner illustrates Kinski’s sheer madness at that time, and the documentary also offers footage from all five flicks, including the infamous actor’s mindless rages on “Aguirre” and “Fitzcarraldo” (1982), as Herzog and others on the sets describe their surreal experiences too.  Still, Werner worked with him for years, but hey, what are fiends for!

“Grizzly Man” (2005) – Timothy Treadwell lived with grizzly bears for 13 summers in Alaska, but he never reached his 14th.  A grizzly killed Timothy and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, towards the very end of his 13th trip.  However, he filmed over 100 hours of footage during his last five tours.  After his passing, Werner masterfully constructs his doc by interviewing Alaskan locals and Timothy’s friends and family, and then includes the grizzly man’s jaw-dropping clips.  Confident but misguided, the 40-something Treadwell – sporting a blonde “Prince Valiant” haircut – frequently expresses his love for the animals, as the 1,000-pound behemoths sometimes step within a foot or two of our ill-advised protagonist.  Werner perfectly opines, “I discovered a film of human ecstasies and darkest inner turmoil.”  

“Encounters at the End of the World” (2007) – Werner grabs a camera and hops on a military plane that flies from New Zealand to Antarctica.  His Oscar-nominated documentary is a gorgeous and equally frank look at an Antarctic summer.  While he shoots some downright spectacular cinematic moments – like scuba divers swimming below the ice, rogue penguins leaving their colonies, and an active volcano dangerously bubbling and gurgling – Herzog focuses just as many minutes on the scientists’ daily grind.  Werner distinctly expresses displeasure for McMurdo Station, a research center that resembles an “ugly mining down” with “abominations such as an aerobic studio and yoga classes.”

“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” (2010) – In 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel, and Christian Hillaire discover a cave in Southern France that contains art dating back 32,000 years on its walls, the oldest paintings ever discovered!  Werner and his small crew were granted access to film this miraculous find.  A majority of the artwork depicts animals – like horses, yaks, and rhinos – and Herzog and his team make the most of their precious time.  The doc’s most glorious moments occur during the actual cave time when we see these majestic images, ones from an incomprehensible lifetime ago.  Just incredible.      

“Into the Abyss” (2011) – Two young Texas men are found guilty of murder, and while one serves a 40-year sentence, the other, Michael Perry, is on death row and awaits his looming execution.  Werner travels to Southeast Texas – north of Houston – to candidly converse with the crucial people affected by this fateful, senseless day.  Herzog finds several perspectives of the crime and an eye-for-an-eye justice system through the victims’ families, local police, acquaintances, a death row worker, the convicted murderers (Perry and Jason Burkett), and a couple of surprises.  Werner does declare his opposition to capital punishment but gives complete respect to every interviewee and grants them open camera time to opine.  

“Into the Inferno” (2016) – Werner’s doc is about volcanos, and when starring down into one, he narrates, “It’s hard to take your eyes off the fire that burns deep under our feet. It couldn’t care less about what we are doing up here.” He’s right, and while Werner delivers plenty of Herzog-esque pitch-perfect commentary, volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer supplies scores of facts and figures. This dynamic duo travels to Vanuatu, Ethiopia, Indonesia, North Korea, and Iceland as they speak to the locals, absorb the volcanos’ impact on the cultures, and explore the combustible geological formations. Our director can’t help but divert his attention towards some bizarre tangents that capture his eye except, of course, when he stares into an inferno!

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CODA - Movie Review

Written and directed by:  Sian Heder

Starring:  Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, Eugenio Derbez, and Amy Forsyth

Runtime:  111 minutes

Bring tissues.  You may sail away on an ocean of tears.

Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) loves her family.  She also works on their fishing boat practically every day.  For anyone who labored with their mom, dad, brothers, or sisters in a family-owned business, you know that you’re locked into a 24/7 commitment.  

Okay, Ruby doesn’t immerse herself in everything-fish for every waking or sleeping moment.  Still, she regularly sets her alarm for 3 a.m. to accompany her dad, Frank (Troy Kotsur), and her older brother, Leo (Daniel Durant), on their vessel, The Angela Rose.  The three sail the Massachusetts coast, searching for the freshest of seafood, and the kids don’t fight the Rossi System because helping their dad is just what they do.  Their mom, Jackie (Marlee Matlin), does her part by maintaining their home.   

Our worker bee also is a high school senior, but college isn’t a thought.  Ruby maintains a full-class schedule at Gloucester High School, so life has loaded this 17-year-old with piles of assignments.  

She also has one additional commitment.  

Frank, Jackie, and Leo are deaf, so Ruby is a critical human rudder as a hearing deckhand on their boat.  She is present to answer radio calls from, say, the U.S. Coast Guard, and she also frequently interprets for her mom, dad, and brother with other fishermen and fisherwomen – and others in their town – day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year.  The Rossis live catch-to-catch (rather than paycheck-to-paycheck), so Frank can’t hire someone else.  Ruby is it. 

However, she smacks into a sudden riptide that emotionally yanks her in another direction.  Ruby joins the school choir because Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) - a boy she likes - signs up first.  However, she discovers her passion for singing, a pursuit that runs thick with irony.

“CODA” isn’t an ironic coming-of-age story.  It’s a straight-up one, albeit with a twist.  Ruby is a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA).  Although this dynamic isn’t a unique cinematic story.  Writer/director Sian Heder’s film is a remake of “La Famille Belier” (2014), nominated for six Cesar Awards.  Louane Emera – who played Paula Belier, Ruby’s 2014 counterpart in the French picture – won the 2015 Most Promising Actress Cesar, and after watching Jones’ performance, she has a bright future as well.  

During a Jan. 28, 2021 Deadline Hollywood interview, we discover that Jones (19 years young) never had a singing lesson before being cast, and she learned sign language for the role.  You could’ve fooled this critic because Jones effortlessly carries both skills on-screen like she’s been signing and professionally singing for almost two decades.  Emilia has a beautiful voice, one that will stop you in your tracks and bring tears to your eye for good measure.  

Heder’s movie is a lovely, heartwarming affair that tugs on our emotions in the most critical moments.  However, to get there, she tows us through Ruby’s trying scheduling dilemma, which – admittedly – can be laborious.  The movie’s runtime is 111 minutes, but looking back, you’d swear “CODA” is well over two hours.  Not only does Heder frequently volley between our young protagonist’s two worlds, but the writer/director also regularly features Ruby’s mischievous friend, Gertie (Amy Forsyth), and Miles.  We hope that our lead and Miles capture some teenage romance, and Walsh-Peelo is a familiar face because he made a splash in “Sing Street” (2016) as a lovestruck teenager who formed a band to impress an older girl.  The roles are reversed here, and Ruby is a flat-out superstar who doesn’t realize it.   

(Note: Jones and Walsh-Peelo are English and Irish natives, respectively, and they offer splendid American accents.  You’d never know that they are from across the pond, but as a minor criticism, neither one sports a hint of a Massachusetts accent.  (i.e. park the car = pahk the cah).  Well, their General American English enunciation is more pleasing anyway, so let’s roll with it.) 

Indeed, the script rolls through several moving parts.  To complicate matters, the Rossis attempt to form a collation with other locals to sell their own fish rather than continually watch intermediaries deeply cut into their profits.  

That’s no easy task, but it’s not particularly engaging for the audience to sit through either.  Now, I’ve seen the movie three times, and during the first screening, following the family’s new business pursuits felt like a humdrum slog.  However, after subsequent viewings, I realized that this procedural plot point is pretty darn vital to the story.  Heder needs an anchor to keep Ruby more involved with the fishing business, and revamping their distribution model is a fine script idea.  The added gravitational pull effectively drags Ruby farther away from choir, and we feel her angst and conflict along the way.

Ruby’s home life – like just about every teenager - isn’t anxiety-free, and in her case, the family’s trade is everything.  Her folks aren’t dolling out chores but responsibilities.  Therefore, Heder reinforces this reality by regularly pitting Ruby into a constant stream of minor battles.  Granted, she doesn’t live in an abusive home.  Not in the least, but she faces a daily grind of arguments. 

What is her reprieve?  Singing.

Her harmonious gift catches the high school’s choir director’s attention.  Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez) believes Ruby could earn a scholarship to his alma mater, the Berklee College of Music in nearby Boston.  

Derbez is a rock star as Ruby’s teacher, as Mr. V. balances pure enthusiasm for his choral craft with hilarious sarcasm and intolerance for failing to meet him halfway, even for the smallest of points.  

For instance, Bernardo wishes to speak with Ruby and Miles after class.  The kids slowly stroll back to their teacher, and he casually responds, “Today, if it’s possible.” 

Later, Mr. V. discovers that these two didn’t practice their duet together.  He frustratingly points out, “Duet.  It’s in the word.  You must ‘do it’ together.”  

Derbez, a massive television star in Mexico and a graduate of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography and Theatre, lands and delivers his best U.S.-based acting role to date, one that allows him the freedom to explore his comic talents as well as his musical ones.  Truly, Derbez’s Mr. V. is one of the great big-screen educators in recent memory, and you’ll find yourself cheering on Ruby’s incremental progress during every precious lesson.

Time, however, is a precious commodity, and Ruby finds herself unable to fit two immovable objects – after-school lessons with Mr. V. and her fishing obligations – into her schedule. 

Her relatives’ reactions to choir range from indifferent to discouraging, and Jackie takes the most pessimistic view.   She doesn’t see the point and feels that her daughter is just a teenager with her priorities out of whack.  Perhaps Ruby is expressing a rebellious streak.  

Jackie says, “If I was blind, would you want to paint?” 

That hurts.  

Jackie doesn’t get it, but then again, she has a different viewpoint, especially since Ruby accuses her of not socializing with the other fishermen and fisherwomen, their spouses, and kids.  Ruby mentions that her mom only catches up with her deaf friends once a month, so yes, Jackie’s time revolves around her household, and she closes herself off from nearly everything else.  To be fair, it’s more of an assumption but a fair one.  Matlin plays Jackie with her character’s flaws on display, but to her, financial solvency takes priority over a teenager’s whim.  

A pragmatic approach, for sure, because who wants bankruptcy?  Still, this movie is about Ruby’s journey, so Jackie’s objections become a serious hurdle.

Leo and Ruby crash into hurdles rather than step over or around them.  These siblings bicker more fervently (and more vulgarly) than British Parliament’s Question Time during a three-day hunger strike and immediately after an England World Cup loss.  How’s that for argumentative?  Leo resents Ruby because their folks lean on her - through her hearing – and he feels emasculated or reduced in stature.  He wants to make big decisions for their business but believes that Ruby constantly undercuts him.  If there’s an heir to the throne, Ruby will wear the crown, a title that she doesn’t want.  Durant’s Leo is a bit brazen with a chip the size of Fenway Park on his shoulder, and he adds a contentious dimension to Ruby’s stress.  Then again, their relationship also plays like fun sibling rivalry, although they frequently use vocabulary that one cannot repeat on terrestrial radio.  Think of the seven infamous words and multiple them by 100.   

Ruby communicates more than seven words to her dad.  They sign frequently, but she has the most emotionally distant relationship with him (within their home).  

Frank doesn’t have a hipster beard but a long, straggly one.  Kotsur – regal and charming in person (as I’ve met and interviewed him) – is considerably unkempt as Frank, a man weathered and pained over the years through economic strife and hard labor.  He probably never gives his physical appearance and clothing choices second thoughts, and perhaps, they are reflections of his internal churn.  

Back to the point at hand, Frank’s overwhelming concern is keeping a roof over their heads, so his daughter’s choir fascination is just a distraction.  Still, he doesn’t encourage or discourage her.  He’s Switzerland.  He doesn’t interfere.  As long as the fishing continues unabated, Frank and Ruby are at peace but still detached.  So, Heder offers plenty of room for their father-daughter rapport to grow, which is all by design.  

Days and nights at the Rossi residence would feel mainly routine (because we’re experiencing Ruby’s life-voyage through her eyes) except for two key elements.  First, Heder sometimes includes frank, sexual humor that flies out of seemingly nowhere.  These unexpected moments tonally don’t fit into the movie, but no question, there are some genuine belly laughs here, and Kotsur and Forsyth are especially funny. 

Second, everyday parenting and consternation over cash flow problems rise above the mundane for moviegoers because the Rossis communicate through sign language.  No question, watching Frank, Jackie, Leo, and Ruby interact is a rare encounter at the movies.  The four characters’ everyday discourse - even with the smallest of details, like Jackie telling Ruby to stop slouching - adds layers of nuance and newness to the cinematic experience, certainly for hearing communities.  They are refreshing ones for deaf audiences.

There are bonds between the hearing and deaf, both behind the scenes and on-screen.  In addition to Jones, Heder learned to sign for this film, and the director also includes a striking scene in which hearing viewers experience music through a deaf perspective.  Even though the moment lasts for perhaps 10 or 20 seconds, it will remain with you for weeks and weeks after the end credits roll.   

With its rare big-screen focus, unexpected humor, beautiful song choices (which will not be revealed in this review), and some downright touching moments, “CODA” resonates, but it all comes together through this acting ensemble and their obvious chemistry.  Just as Ruby seems like she’s been signing and professionally singing for nearly twenty years, Frank, Jackie, Leo, and Ruby feel like a genuine family, and Mr. V. is her second one too.  

Ruby connects with both clans.  Will her worlds no longer collide but unite?  Well, you have to watch “CODA” to find out, but bring tissues.  You’ll need them because you might sail away on an ocean of tears.

Jeff’s ranking

3/4 stars

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Candyman – Movie Review

Dir: Nia DaCosta

Starring: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, Kyle Kaminsky

1h 31m

In 1992, director Bernard Rose brought author Clive Barker's short story, "The Forbidden," about an urban legend known as The Candyman, to gruesome cinematic life. The film starred Tony Todd as the hook-wielding ghoul who fell in love with the wrong woman and was punished by racists for his desire and Virginia Madsen as the inquisitive grad student searching the housing projects of Cabrini-Green in Chicago for the origins of the urban legend. By saying his name five times in the mirror, you invite the Candyman into the world, hook, gore, and all. 

The film, which has grown a cult following over the years, is a rare horror film well ahead of its time in examining the injustices, frustrations, and rage for the treatment of Black people in America through the lens of genre filmmaking. While Bernard Rose's vision may offer a few unforgettable chills and a more than memorable villain, the story seemed only to graze the surface concerning the politics and social commentary found inherent in a story about the sins of America's past. 

In the thought-provoking, confident continuation of the myth, directed by Nia DaCosta, Candyman's legend has been hushed to forgotten folklore, not even a bedtime story to scare the little ones. Gone are the distressed Cabrini-Green housing units, in their place, a gentrified living tower with sleek designs and floor-to-ceiling windows that illuminate the Chicago skyline. Candyman, in present times, isn't the one we remember from the past film. Instead, the tale exists with a falsely accused Black man blamed for giving candy with razor blades to White children. His demise, at the hand of aggressive law enforcement, is the lore that is remembered for current times. 

The story of Candyman begins to take greater shape in DaCosta's account once a painter named Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) begins exploring the ruins of Cabrini-Green. Anthony's insight and very soon obsession with the myth starts to consume him. The relationship with his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Parris) begins to suffer after Anthony's Candyman art exhibit ends with the gruesome murder of two people. Soon, Anthony comes face to face with the unspoken legend from the past, leading more unsuspecting people to remember and say his name. 

DaCosta, who wrote the script along with Win Rosenfeld and Jordan Peele, takes this urban legend and imbues it with current themes of social commentary surrounding the injustices for people of color, the brutality inflicted on Black bodies, and the historical trauma, some as recent as last year, perpetrated throughout American history. It doesn't take profound observation to connect the tagline for this film, "Say His Name," to the Breonna Taylor incident that advocated to "Say Her Name." The design of CANDYMAN paints Chicago as a modern landscape with deep history underneath its glossy exterior. The opening credits display a masked Chicago skyline hidden in the fog. It's a nice callback to the birds-eye introduction of the original film. And, instead of framing the scares and violence with an abundance of gore, DaCosta focuses her fear more on creepy factors utilizing mirror tricks and depth of field to display how close Candyman is throughout the film. It's a nice touch that allows this version of the myth to shape its unique atmosphere. 

The perspective of CANDYMAN shifts, perhaps too often, between Anthony and Brianna as the film leads towards its ultimate culmination. When the third act hits, the emotional notes established for Anthony disappear to a large extent as the film focuses on Brianna's journey towards the truth the movie has kept a mystery. 

In one of the film's best elements, DaCosta utilizes shadow puppets to reimagine the past and how stories are changed, exaggerated, and hidden the longer they are kept. It's a beautiful and elegant touch. It's within this technique that CANDYMAN tells the most intriguing tale. Storytelling, folklore, and spoken traditions exist to keep a piece of history alive and relevant, no matter how horrifying those pieces may be. To allow the world to know that a people, place, or event existed. It also allows for a reframing of traumatic events, a way to make sense of the fears and monsters that have brought sorrow and pain to the world, in a manner allowing for stories to capture those traumas and take away their power. You can feel this version of CANDYMAN engaging in all those aspects of storytelling.

Even amidst some late missteps, Nia DaCosta's CANDYMAN utilizes the horror genre and vengeful spirit to tell a powerful tale of social, economic, and racial inequality.  

Monte's Rating

4.00 out of 5.00

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Final Set - Movie Review

Written and directed by: Quentin Reynaud

Starring:  Alex Lutz, Kristin Scott Thomas, & Ana Girardot

Runtime:  1h 45min

“If you'd won quicker, you'd suffer less.”

Watching her son, thirty-something professional tennis player Thomas Edison (Alex Lutz) apply an ice pack to his knee during dinner, Judith (Kristin Scott Thomas) can't help but ask, “why lose the first set?”

Having helped propel Thomas to early greatness as a young prodigy, Judith struggles to remove her coaching hat to support her son the way that a typical mother would. Coming from a place of not only criticism but also love – because to care for Thomas and the knee he'd had operated on multiple times in the past is to question why he still feels the need to try to compete against the top players of the world at his age – to say that their relationship is complicated would be an understatement. But understating it is precisely what makes their dynamic and everything else in French writer-director Quentin Reynaud's “Final Set” so real and compelling.

Minimal and precise, the dialogue between not only Thomas and Judith but also Thomas and his loving, supportive, but equally conflicted wife Eve (Ana Girardot) is spare throughout the work which boasts a quasi-documentary feel. Yet, delivered by this exceptional group of actors who can say so much with a look or tone, we feel the weight of one’s meaning even though the English subtitled lines are spoken in French. In fact, generating a great deal of conflict and depth from these micro-moments, it's a film where those inquisitive looks over dinner or cautious actions – even the way one character packs or carries a tennis bag – speak louder than words.

From the Australian Open in January to the ATP finals for the highest-ranked male players in November, tennis, more than most sports, is essentially played for eleven months out of the year. Unfortunately, with a ranking of 245, which is a far cry from the great hope he was supposed to be twenty years earlier when he choked during a grand slam, Thomas' respectable but still low stats keep him out of most major tournaments, which cater only to the top players in the sport. 

And while he would prefer to enter every competition he can, his wife – a former player herself who now handles the behind-the-scenes business decisions – has to gently remind her husband that when you subtract the travel, food, and lodging costs, far too often, the actual winnings from some of these events don't justify the expense. Supplementing the income he barely receives from matches he's allowed to enter by working as a children's coach at his mother's tennis club, while everyone around him is waiting for him to hang up his racket or join the over thirty-five tour, Thomas decides to make one last stand at Roland Garros.

Otherwise known as the French Open, at Roland Garros, tennis is played on courts of famous red clay where the surface of the terrain not only sticks to a player's shoes, socks, legs, clothes, and arms if they take a nasty fall, but as legends like Andre Agassi and Roger Federer are first to admit, it's also sheer hell on the knees. And if it's hard on those joints at any age, you know it's destined to be agony for Thomas whose prominent knee surgery scars, arthritis, ligament lesions, and osteoarthritis are shown and discussed within the first five minutes of Reynaud's movie.

Nonetheless, knowing he doesn't have a lot of time left but not quite ready to follow in his wife's footsteps and train for another career because – despite being a husband and father – a life outside of tennis isn't something he's ever considered, Thomas decides to make a run at the Open by playing several brutal rounds as a qualifier. Facing other players not lucky enough to get in via wild card or ranked highly enough, even though his wife Eve tells him to “have fun” before he leaves for a match, we know that for the serious Thomas, fun doesn't really enter the equation. No, in this quixotic, underdog run, it's just about determination, desperation, and the work.

Drawing a parallel throughout to a cocky, young, but exceptionally gifted seventeen-year-old phenom on the rise (played by real pro player Jürgen Briand), who even Eve admits reminds her of her husband, obviously, you know that eventually, the two men will have to square off at some point to achieve the dramatic potential of Thomas “playing himself” in “Final Set.” Still, it's in the authenticity of the film's battle to that battle – and particularly the amount of regret, guilt, excitement, frustration, and pain of both the past and present that flood our main ensemble from start to finish – that makes this film feel like something beyond just your typical inspirational sports drama.

Furthermore, the time that Reynaud takes off the court and how much trust he puts into this excellent trio of actors (with once again, Scott Thomas doing some of her best work both later in life and in French) makes his bold decision to spend the film's final twenty-five minutes on the court so incredibly effective. Set during a showdown between the two pros at different points in their life, Reynaud goes right for the greatest hits of dramatic tennis. 

Zeroing in on a five-set grand slam match between a David and a Goliath, which features a never-ending deuce, racket smashes, cramps, long rallies, and more, the film achieves something so thrillingly intense that for a long time, I actually forgot for a while that I was watching a movie instead of championship play. More than that, as someone whose TV is often left on The Tennis Channel, it was only after the movie ended when I was reading the film's production notes that I realized that the final match went on for nearly the length of a traditional “act” of a Syd Field screenplay.

Yet, similar to the way that I love a good football movie even if it isn't a sport I actually watch, this isn't to say that one needs to be an avid tennis fan or even know much about the sport to enjoy “Final Set.” Filmed at Roland Garros and using that tried and true blueprint of “Rocky,” which similarly spends a good chunk of the film's last half right in that boxing ring as we watch events unfold in what I'd call “hyper-real time,” Reynaud's film is wildly ambitious in its scope. Refreshingly, though, it's as invested in the human story as it is in its tennis, which comes through in the film's fully earned last shot. A superbly executed ensemble effort that plays out against a backdrop that's the stuff of modern myth-making, as we watch Alex Lutz's Thomas fight against time and his own body's wear-and-tear, we're right there with him, eager to battle it out to the very end.

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Autumn Sonata – Movie Review

Written and directed by:  Ingmar Bergman

Starring:  Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Halvar Bjork, and Lena Nyman

Runtime:  93 minutes

In the autumn of her life, Bergman gives a sonata for the ages

Cinema legend Ingrid Bergman was born on Aug. 29, 1915, so it’s the perfect time to reflect on her work.  Let’s look back at her extraordinary performance in her last theatrical film, “Autumn Sonata”. 

“Autumn Sonata” (1978) - Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman) is a mom and concert pianist, but to her, not necessarily in that particular order of importance.  Definitely not.  In her 60s now, Charlotte has enjoyed a long career of playing (and vacationing) just about everywhere, and she isn’t shy about casually mentioning her long list of faraway cities where she has left her symphonic mark.  Los Angeles, Madrid, Zurich, and Hamburg pop into conversations, and her longtime partner -  Leonardo, who just passed away - had a home in Naples, she says.  

Charlotte lives a privileged celebrity existence, although one based on a foundation of hard work and God-given talent.  The woman is musical royalty in influential circles and with appreciative audiences, but she isn’t cherished at home, and quite frankly, Charlotte has never been too concerned about reveling in her role as a mom. 

Now that Leonardo passed, her 30-something (or early 40-something) daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) offers her mom a place to rest and heal, and since the two haven’t seen each other in seven years, this could be a golden opportunity to mend their estranged relationship too.  Eva is married to a dutiful older man, Viktor (Halvar Bjork), and they have a grand, spacious home with plenty of room for Charlotte to have her privacy and hold court with her hosts.  

Will time heal all wounds, or will the scabs rip right open?   Well, if “Autumn Sonata” featured the former, we’d have “Love, Actually” (2003), but this isn’t that movie.  

“Contention, Actually”, “Baggage, Actually”, or “Triggers, Actually” could be fine alternative titles, though.

Writer/director Ingmar Bergman’s (for the record, no relation to Ingrid) troubling family drama is almost entirely contained within Viktor and Eva’s house over the thrifty 93-minute runtime.  Ingmar’s picture is minimalist, but he infuses so much backstory into the here and now that both Ingrid and Liv relive their characters’ past strife and command it to the surface in subtle and brutally frank ways.  Since this mother and daughter now exist under one roof for a short time, they are forced to confront their differences because simply pleasantries won’t last more than a few hours or a day, tops. 

Where else can they go?  

Eva isn’t leaving her residence, and there’s no escape for Charlotte unless she storms out under some heightened duress.  Charlotte and her husband managed their household affairs when Eva was a minor.  Today, the two women are temporarily paired in Eva’s home, and Charlotte has to play by her rules.  (Additionally, another person - in addition to Viktor - lives there, and every scene with this individual pours fuel on an already explosive circumstance.  These uncomfortable moments also effectively enforce Charlotte’s already existing indifference towards her family.)  

No, her daughter isn’t ordering decrees, but Mom isn’t running the roost either.  She has to play defense if Eva becomes aggressive about historical gripes.  

“Autumn Sonata” is a movie about parental mistakes – that are inevitably made by every mom and dad in some ways – and the imprints on their kids.  Granted, Charlotte didn’t verbally assault Eva about mistakenly using wire hangers and subsequently beating her with one, but Ingmar and Liv show that her general apathy was just as harmful.  Perhaps, more so.  

Although Viktor offers his inputs on occasion, the movie – which would be a dynamite play - is a two-person production.  Ingmar relies on his two accomplished actresses to perform the heavy lifting, as the camera frequently moves into intimate spaces during their exchanges.  The results are explosive, hurtful, and revealing, and while Eva has straight-up motives for divulging her anger, Charlotte dances between sorrow and resentment.  

Both women’s performances are rich and heroic.  Liv already earned two Oscar nominations walking into this picture, and she probably should’ve secured her third here.  Ingrid garnered her seventh Academy Award nomination as Charlotte.  She won three Oscars, and if not for Hal Ashby’s “Coming Home” (1978) – in which Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won Best Actor and Actress statues, respectively – Ingrid may have captured her fourth.  

Well, no matter.  The planet had already etched Bergman’s legacy in gold, but in her last theatrical role - during the autumn of her life - she gives a sonata for the ages.

Jeff’s ranking

3.5/4 stars

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Annette - Movie Review

Dir: Leos Carax

Starring: Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, and Simon Helberg

2h 20m

In the opening 10 minutes of director Leos Carax's musical "Annette," the cast, director, and writers Ron and Russell Mael (alternatively knows as the band "Sparks") break the fourth wall and perform a surreal musical number while walking through the illuminated streets of Los Angeles. It is a moment of joyous cinema, a unique introduction that seemingly prepares the viewer for something special to follow. Unfortunately, 130 minutes later and I was still waiting for the feeling the first 10 minutes gave me.

"Annette" is a complicated artistic vision from two complicated creative artists. Leos Carax, who helmed one of my favorite movies of the last decade, "Holy Motors," is an impressive auteur at twisting fantasy into a distinctive and startling reality. Ron and Russell Mael, featured so lovingly rare and embracingly odd in Edgar Wrights's documentary "The Sparks Brothers," have composed beautiful blends of pop-rock music throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In "Annette," these two creative forces craft a frustrating, confusing musical mishmash of emotions that seldom finds its tone and often struggles to identify what it is trying to say to the viewer.

Henry (Adam Driver) is a comedian with a biting, cutting edge one-person performance piece. Ann (Marion Cotillard) is a world-renowned opera singer whose beautiful voice aches with torment and joy throughout every single note. Henry and Ann fall in love and begin a much-publicized relationship, making media headlines with every transition in life. Their glamorous lifestyle is a shared experience, but also a selfish one; both Henry and Ann have egos that they must compete with, both in the relationship and individually.

Ann gets pregnant and gives birth to a little girl named Annette. Her representation is seen through the use of a wooden marionette. Henry and Ann grow further apart once Annette is born. Henry's career spirals out of control negatively, while Ann's star continues to shine brighter. Henry becomes egocentric, Ann becomes discontent, and Annette watches her parent's future falter.

Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard give committed performances from start to finish. Driver does a great job of embracing the self-loathing, arrogant nature that grows more rotten as the character struggles to maintain relevance. Marion Cotillard lovingly imbues the tender and tormented characteristics of her ambitious opera singer. The issue with "Annette" does not exist in the level of commitment these two fine actors give their characters. Instead, it's the story they must operate.

The Mael brothers have composed albums that challenged the contemporary norms of pop rock music, many times emulating but never copying the popular trends. They have always been distinctly individual creative minds; throughout "Annette," ideas surrounding performance, the artistic process, and even the vessel for this film, the musical genre, shift in tone that straddles the line between mockery and sincerity.

Annette, a wooden marionette with expressive features and deliberate movements, represents how the two adults, mostly Henry, view their child. The execution of this element is unsettling. While it defines Henry's devolving mentality in small ways, the story becomes so lopsided with the emotion it is trying to coerce that the subtle pieces get lost in the confusion. As the film progresses and grows less like an incredible performance piece and more like a bleak relationship drama, "Annette" never recovers.

While Leos Carax composes a few scenes with dazzling flair and enchanting whimsy, and some of the songs connect with amusing results, the majority of "Annette" feels misguided.

Monte's Rating

2.25 out of 5.00

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Nine Days – Movie Review

Written and directed by: Edson Oda

Starring: Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong, Tony Hale, Arianna Ortiz, David Rysdahl, and Bill Skarsgard

Runtime: 124 minutes

Spend two hours to experience ‘Nine Days’

“Our house is a very, very, very fine house.” – “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970)

Will (Winston Duke) lives in a fine house. At first glance, his place is a turn-of-the-20th century (or ballpark, a 1930s) one-story ranch coated with mustard-yellow paint, and a white-post fence decorates the front. Actually, this residence seems ordinary, but its chosen lot is a little bizarre. The abode sits on an ambiguous, desolate desert with distant nondescript granite mountains in the background, and a completely flat landscape of sand and dust immediately surrounds the homestead. No one will find cul-de-sacs, Targets, dog parks, or children’s birthday parties here. (This spot could be a few miles away from the I-10 freeway between Phoenix and Los Angeles. In reality, writer/director Edson Oda filmed his movie in Utah.)

The dwelling, however, is far from commonplace. It’s mystical. Although no one observes traditional birthday parties with cake and favors, the events in Oda’s “Nine Days” could offer the possibilities for those particular future celebrations.

You see, Will interviews souls – who appear in person as everyday adult human beings – for nine days. As a one-person judge and jury, he decides if they should be born into the world.

Look, this man has a more important job.

Oda’s film features a small collection of characters, and it’s set in primarily one location, so it feels perfect for Broadway. Although, Oda isn’t a playwright. The man has nine short films on his resume. “Nine Days” is his first full-length feature, and it’s a beautifully crafted, deeply thoughtful story that confronts the human condition and a myriad of its aspects. He taps into several familiar personalities with his on-screen souls, and when watching them converse with Will, one can visualize friends or family. Perhaps, our co-workers are speaking.

Maria (Arianna Ortiz) could be Sofia, a sweet mom of two, from accounting.

Alexander (Tony Hale) acts just like Dale from sales, looking forward to happy hour and the weekend ballgame.

Mike (David Rysdahl) is Sam, the tech whiz from IT who spends much of his free time logging into work after hours.

Emma (Zazie Beetz), however, is a unique candidate and has a distinctly different relationship with Will, as she returns his curiosity with reciprocal interest. Through and through, Oda assembles a talented ensemble, including some virtuous moments with Benedict Wong, who plays Kyo, Will’s boss or colleague. Kyo and Will’s work relationship is a little vague. That’s by design, but there’s one hundred percent clarity that Wong’s character cares about Will’s well-being.

Someone should.

Even with many engaging supporting turns, “Nine Days” is Duke’s film. Duke stands 6’ 5” and is a towering on-screen presence, but Will is a gentle giant, an introspective and serene one. No telling how many years, centuries, or eons that Will’s been interviewing potential newborns. He intimately knows his craft, like a professor teaching Economics 101 every Fall and Spring semester for 30 years. Even though he has a little over a week to assess a candidate, he probably zeroes in on his decision within the first few minutes of discourse. (See also Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”.)

The film’s narrative isn’t over in a blink. The 124-minute movie is a fairly straightforward tale – with sure, a supernatural concept – but it sways into Will’s backstory and further explores his connections with Kyo and Emma. Our lead has legitimate reasons for his stoic, fatherly mask, but some gentle, well-placed pushes from those within his orbit can peel away this thin veneer. In more pragmatic spaces, Oda spends sizable amounts of camera time on a couple of conventional, electronic living room objects. Still, emotional swells are tied to these devices, and they have vastly essential functions (that will not be revealed in this review).

Still, “Nine Days” isn’t a gadget movie. Far from it.

Without invoking a specific religion, it’s a spiritual one, a film that could appeal to anyone who has lived and breathed on the planet, and at times, it may be impossible to hold back tears.

Yes, Will lives in a fine house, but he makes it an extraordinary home.

Jeff’s ranking

3.5/4 stars

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The Suicide Squad - Movie Review

Written and directed by: James Gunn

Starring: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Viola Davis, Daniela Melchior, Joel Kinnaman, Nathan Fillion, Pete Davidson, David Dastmalchian, Jai Courtney, Michael Rooker, and Sylvester Stallone

Runtime: 132 minutes

‘The Suicide Squad’ kills

And you thought a talking tree was weird.

Writer, director, producer, and occasional actor James Gunn pulled off some pretty darn impressive cinematic magic in 2014. He directed and co-wrote “Guardians of the Galaxy”, and stirred millions of moviegoers to passionately care about his Marvel Studios’ space adventure, one starring an NBC sitcom actor, a pro wrestler, Uhura from the new “Star Trek” films (but donning green makeup), a talking raccoon, and the aforementioned tree. Gunn’s film raked in 733 million dollars at the box office.

How does that happen?

Gunn’s unbarred imagination and charisma are two good guesses.

Well, Warner Bros. Pictures hired Gunn to helm a new Suicide Squad escapade, “The Suicide Squad”, and according to Louis Chilton’s The Independent Aug. 3, 2021 article, the new movie is neither a sequel nor a reboot. By my count (and it could be inaccurate), three squad members – Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) – plus Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) are carryovers from the 2016 flick. Now, how many TSS felons, in total, appear in the 2021 version?

It’s difficult to determine because an array of men and women sporting bright primary and secondary color spandex and pleather frequently and quickly pop on and off the screen. It may be easier to shovel an incoming Miami, Fla. tide back into the ocean during hurricane season than accurately count the number officially included on Waller’s Suicide Squad.

If you’re not familiar with the D.C. comic or the 2016 film, here’s a quick rundown. Waller heads a government black ops program comprised of super and non-so-super villains to lead “The Dirty Dozen” (1967)-type missions to protect or serve the United States’ best interests. If the baddies are successful, Amanda knocks time off their prison sentences, but if a squad member fails to follow orders, she can push a red button and blow up the person’s head to smithereens via a well-placed microchip inserted into their skulls before deployment. Unsurprisingly, the assignments are hyper-treacherous, so chances for survival are slim, and hence the team name. However, their alias is Task Force X. Still, Suicide Squad has an edgier and catchier moniker.

For this movie, Waller gives the orders to travel to Corto Maltese – a South American island nation - and destroy a towering, bleak laboratory that quasi-resembles a cylinder version of Pyongyang’s infamous Ryugyong Hotel (nicknamed The Hotel of Doom) before its partial-remodel, of course. The Squad doesn’t know the exact nefarious guests inside, but since a military faction – not friendly to the U.S. - overthrew the Corto Maltese government, it’s best to mess up their plans today rather than confront a more menacing adversary tomorrow.

Ms. Waller explains all this in a classroom setting to her star pupils: Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), and King Shark (Sylvester Stallone).

Here are some brief bios:

Bloodsport is a mercenary/bounty hunter-type and imprisoned for firing a Kryptonite bullet at Superman. This incident was off-camera.

Peacemaker is a muscle-bound all-American soldier with an overzealous love for the country, and he wears a spherical silver helmet, which his team refers to as a toilet bowl.

Ratcatcher 2 is a pleasant 20-something with a connection with rat populations.

Polka-Dot Man can fire thousands of polka dots from his hands that act as bullets, lasers, or something.

King Shark is, well, a walking, talking 7-foot shark who wears cargo shorts and enjoys a steady diet of human beings.

These particular and several other villains-turned-temporary-patriots dive into a kamikaze – by-sea and by-land – assault on Corto Maltese. Waller and Flag devised an overarching plan, but individual confrontations occupy immediate spaces of gory clashes and utter lunacy. Lunacy with sarcastic, twisted humor because not all of these Dirty Two Dozen or so will make it out alive. Although we don’t want our brand new on-screen friends to perish, Gunn and his team take mischievous glee in devising various deaths for our amusement. Think of your reaction to Marvin’s (Phil LaMarr) sudden end at the accidental hands of Vincent Vega (John Travolta) in “Pulp Fiction” (1994).

“Oh Man, I shot Marvin in the face,” Vincent says.

Gunn appears to take a similar approach, except he doesn’t have just one Marvin. He includes gunplay, explosions, runaway helicopters, and much more that deliver fatal blows to many villainous peeps.

Since Gunn dials down his extensive cast to fewer antiheroes, the narrative can focus on a smaller crew, allowing more screen time to develop the characters, explain their backstories and current motivations, and create chemistry. “The Suicide Squad” isn’t all 132 minutes of non-stop bloody chaos. The script gives us chances to pause for a few serene moments where these frenemies have opportunities to build friendships. So, when a fatality feels close, we sense those grave tugs and scratches and shift and wince in our theatre seats for King Shark or Harley Quinn to find safety.

Then again, Robbie’s HQ can sometimes lull us into her damsel-in-distress routine, which is a deception, because she’s one of the fiercest fighters in this wild bunch, and Gunn ensures to capture this essential and entertaining dynamic. For the record, Robbie was born to play this D.C. character…and, sure, Tonya Harding too.

Gunn might have been born to make “The Suicide Squad”. He nicely finds a pleasant Guardians’ vibe with his Suicide brood, that includes playful camaraderie and catchy rock or punk tunes, like Kansas’ “Point of Know Return”, The Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died”, and Pixies’ “Hey”, to name a few. He also returns to his creepy, crawly horror roots, and to be more accurate, his slithery ones. Elements of his sicko, midnight-madness horror film “Slither” (2006) slink their way into this picture, which partially turns “TSS” into a grotesque and colossal monster movie.

To quote C+C Music Factory, “Things that make you go Hmmmm….”

And “Holy smokes!”

Look, “The Suicide Squad” kills, as its fearless director, film crew, and actors perform in a whip-smart, tonally spot-on chaotic symphony, where the on-screen insanity may be primarily CGI-based, but these flawed characters – at least the core ones left to finish the fight – are rock solid. I’d gladly invite this crew over for Thanksgiving dinner, as long as Peacemaker takes off his helmet at the table, Ratcatcher 2 doesn’t bring her closest friends, Polka-Dot Man keeps his polka dots to himself, and King Shark promises not to eat any guests. Maybe Bloodsport can speak with his pals beforehand.

Is this movie for everyone? Clearly not, and you’ll probably want to save your grandmother from a “The Suicide Squad” viewing, unless, of course, she’s a pro wrestling fan...and intrigued by a walking, talking 7-foot shark sporting cargo shorts.

And you thought a talking tree was weird.

Jeff’s ranking

3.5/4 stars

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The Suicide Squad - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Suicide Squad

Dir: James Gunn

Starring: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Viola Davis, Joel Kinnaman, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, and Sylvester Stallone

2h 12m

The modern superhero movie has allowed audiences to grow familiar with strange, odd, and unusual sights. Like an underwater kingdom where an aqua man telepathically controls marine life. Or a young boy who turns into a powerful being just by saying the words "Shazam." It's commonplace to see superhumans battle giant creatures, massive monsters, or ancient gods on the big screen at least once a month these days.

Director James Gunn, who is responsible for producing a specific brand of strange and silly to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with two "Guardians of the Galaxy" films, tackles the reboot/sequel of the bad-guys-gone-good 2016 movie "Suicide Squad." Leave it to James Gunn, the director of some horribly beautiful cinema like "Slither" and "Super" who also got his start in the Troma Entertainment brand, to make the best kind of silly and perverse comic book movie to date.

The mix of dark and mindless humor, gory and unflinching violence, and the odd and quirky heart he gives the characters we shouldn't care about is a combination of everything the writer/director has tailored over all these years. "The Suicide Squad" forms a pitch-perfect comic book movie with a new stance to the saturated market of world-saving heroes. And yes, he also contributes more strange, odd, and usual sights, like a walking, talking shark who sounds like Sylvester Stallone.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) organizes a group of outcast bad guys who do covert operations that the world's superheroes can't do. The Suicide Squad, as they call themselves, is assigned to invade the fictional Corto Maltese to stop a government coup with plans to unleash a secret weapon on the rest of the world. The team is led by the reluctant Bloodsport (Idris Elba), a marksman who is touted as putting Superman in the hospital with a kryptonite bullet. The rest of the team features Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), both from the previous “Suicide Squad”, and new teammates like the rodent controlling Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchoir), the demoralized Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), the homicidal justice seeker Peacemaker (John Cena), and a giant walking shark named Nanaue (voiced by Sylvester Stallone). In true comic book fashion, the ragtag team must accomplish their mission before the world is destroyed.

James Gunn takes absurdist humor to incredible extremes throughout the film, taking a bloody or violent moment and undercutting it with some comedy element. Whether dark, deadpan, silly, or sometimes all of them at once, it's within this humor-driven sensibility that "The Suicide Squad" finds its footing for the composition of the characters that range from unredeemable to misguided.

Gunn is an accomplished screenwriter, bringing straight tension and horror with the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" or modernizing the live-action follies of the ghost hunting gang in "Scooby-Doo." Gunn finds the unusual beats and abnormal rhythms in storytelling. It's what separates and defines his unique style.

Throughout "The Suicide Squad," Gunn takes the formulaic structure of the superhero film and modifies it just enough to make it feel out of rhythm. With a character like Harley Quinn, who fans would assume might be front and center in this film, Gunn places the well-known character in a supporting role while giving her the best fight scene the character has in any film. The arrogant Peacemaker is perfectly cast with John Cena, who is doing the charming bad guy wrestler character, even at one time showing up in a mock pair of "tights." Gunn abrupts the accustomed structure with characters like Nanaue, also known as King Shark, and Ratcather 2, providing them with a piece of the strange heart that grounds the film with emotion amidst the chaos and mayhem that happens consistently on-screen.

"The Suicide Squad" combines heart, humor, and heroics in fun, ingenious, and gruesome ways. It's the most fun film of all the summer blockbuster films in 2021.

Monte's Rating

4.00 out of 5.00

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Jungle Cruise - Movie Review

Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Édgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, and Paul Giamatti

2h 7m

My first ride, on my first trip to Disneyland, was The Jungle Cruise. The mechanical boat tour into the Amazon was pure joy. The scary rhino, the underwater hippos, and the mysterious 8th wonder of the world all combined for a magical experience. It was fun, exciting, humorous, and very silly.

The same can be said of director Jaume Collet-Serra's harmless "Jungle Cruise," a sometimes amusing and completely summer popcorn-worthy journey into the Disney ride adaptations. Part "Pirates of the Caribbean," part "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Jungle Cruise" wears its influences proudly on its sleeve. It even features not one but two charming heroic leads pushing the film forward.

Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) is a reckless and confident explorer trying to lead an expedition into the Amazon to find a powerful secret deep in the jungle. With the help of her brother McGregor (Jack Whitehall), Lily must steal an ancient arrowhead stone to find the path to the old treasure. Traveling from England to South America, Lily and McGregor need a boat and a captain to make their journey. They find help from Skipper Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), a hustling tour guide who owes money to a grumpy riverboat dealer (Paul Giamatti). Skipper Frank cons Lily and McGregor into hiring him, unaware that the dangerous German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons) is hot on their trail. The hunt for the secret treasure leads all groups into a supernatural conflict with the cursed ancient conquistador Aguirre (Édgar Ramírez).

Amid a story combining a bevy of complicated and distracting influences, "Jungle Cruise" maintains much of its momentum because of the chemistry and charisma between Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson. Their banter, wisecracks, and insults are humorous and add an element of fun to almost every scene. Jesse Plemons and Jack Whitehall are also good in supporting roles. Plemons, with a thick accent, chews up the scenery with glee. Whitehall, with a haughty attitude and a trail of suitcases in tow, shines consistently.

The story struggles to keep up with the many other stories it's trying to tell. Aguirre, composed of snakes, and his undead jungle inhabited conquistadors, are trying to break their curse. Prince Joachim travels in a submarine and wants to rule the world. Add Skipper Frank and Lily's combined, and sometimes different, motivations to find the treasure, and "Jungle Cruise" gets lost on its journey.

"Jungle Cruise" doesn't do anything completely different from other Disney adventures of recent memory, but that doesn't keep it from having a whole lot of fun. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt keep the cruise cruising for over 2 hours. Their chemistry is infectious. "Jungle Cruise" is fun, a popcorn film with a little bit of everything for viewers looking for a nice summer cinema distraction.

Monte's Rating

3.00 out of 5.00

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The Green Knight - Movie Review

Dir: David Lowery

Starring: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Barry Keoghan, Erin Kellyman, and Ralph Ineson

2h 5m

In the early moments of director David Lowery's enthralling and visionary "The Green Knight," the words "filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance by anonymous" introduces the viewer to this Arthurian coming-of-age story. The legend of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is an influential work of English literature, a 14th-century tale about morality, nobility, fate, hope, salvation, vanity, and many more themes that have been studied and debated about by scholars.

The brilliance of David Lowery's vision, perhaps better to call it a hallucination, for "The Green Knight" is that the film isn't interested in finding understanding. It never positions itself for easy answers but instead lavishes in the knots it finds while unraveling the quest from the Round Table into the forest citadel. It has everything that current times have instilled into stories of knights in shining armor, adventure, danger, monsters, witches, spirits, and bloodshed. But "The Green Knight" never feels modernized; instead, there is no effort to update the language or repurpose the legend to fit a comfortable popcorn movie style. "The Green Knight" casts a spell of storytelling, an absorbing and visually beguiling tale.

A gloomy and dank village, seemingly shrouded in a layer of fog, is home to an aged and sickly King Arthur (Sean Harris). Gawain (Dev Patel) is the arrogant nephew of Arthur; his mother (Sarita Choudhury) is a powerful sorceress. Gawain lacks ambition, spending most of his time passed out in a brothel while seeking the attention of Essel (Alicia Vikander). But Gawain wants to be a knight, seated at the Round Table of King Arthur, praised and adored for his heroism.

The Green Knight (voiced by Ralph Ineson) rides into the Round Table chambers; the monster looks made of ancient wood and carries a green ax. He offers a challenge to any knight brave enough to land one single blow against him. Gawain, seeing a chance to prove himself, jumps, sword in hand, at the opportunity. The Green Knight does not fight; instead, he offers himself to the attack. Gawain, startled for a moment, strikes the Green Knight, cutting his head off. Gawain, being cheered by the other knights is proud, until the Green Knight reawakens, picks his head up, and rides off with a laugh, knowing that Gawain must meet him in one year to face the same challenge.

David Lowery is in complete control of the vision for this Arthurian adventure tale, character fable, artistic metaphor. The film is paced methodically. "Slow burn" might be an accurate description for some viewers looking for more swashbuckling and swordplay. However, some will relish the visual gracefulness that engulfs nearly every scene of this film. Lowery interplays literal and metaphorical themes on life and death, nobility and cowardice, humbleness and vanity. The composition of nature, both in the overgrown and dying landscapes, the densely consuming and light scattering fog, all serves as some variation of meaning to the journey of Gawain. The folly of man, the seduction of glory, the demise of the world, and so forth. "The Green Knight" has much to say.

Dev Patel is excellent, a career-best performance. The naïve, almost teenage-like arrogance of Gawain plays nicely as the stakes grow closer to the request Gawain must honor, one that displays the character's spinelessness and selfishness. Patel, with his heroic good looks and likable swagger, plays the deeply flawed Gawain impeccably. Add Alicia Vikander in a subtle yet essential role, Joel Edgerton as a harbinger of mortality, and Barry Keoghan as an extended version of Gawain. The cast makes the visionary quest all the more appealing.

"The Green Knight" is complicated yet utterly beautiful cinema. An allegory comes to life with impressive performances and confident direction from David Lowery.

Monte's Rating

4.50 out of 5.00

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Stillwater – Movie Review

Directed by: Tom McCarthy

Written by: Tom McCarthy, Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain, and Noe Debre

Starring: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Lilou Siauvaud, and Abigail Breslin

Runtime: 140 minutes

‘Stillwater’ moves to different, surprising, and refreshing beats

Stillwater, Okla. sits 984 feet above sea level in the north-central portion of the state. Looking at a U.S. map, Kansas might be smack dab in the center of the country, but Americans obviously consider the Sooner State as part of the heartland too.

This 50,000-resident city is known for red dirt music, the Tumbleweed Dance Hall, and cheese fries at Eskimo Joe’s, a popular sports bar. It’s the home to Oklahoma State University and the economic, cultural, and football magic that comes with a major college presence in town. Stillwater is also Bill Baker’s (Matt Damon) hometown. He’s in his 40s or 50s and has toiled on oil rigs for most of his adult life.

Not now.

He’s been laid off and works odd, part-time construction jobs. When we first meet Bill, he’s cleaning up debris after a tornado leveled a neighborhood, where family homes now resemble mounds of toothpicks, splintered plaster, and broken dreams. Driving back from the site, two Spanish-speaking co-workers can’t grasp why anyone would rebuild a new home in the same city, in Tornado Alley’s path, after already losing everything. One man says that Americans don’t like change.

Although Bill hasn’t voiced it, change is a four-letter word, and his routines provide comfort. Over the last five years, however, the aforementioned expletive has been a horrible burden. A French court sent his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) – an overseas student - to a Marseille prison for murdering her roommate, and Bill has flown back and forth countless times over the last 1,800 days. Steadfast, she claims her innocence, but no one expects the system to release her from a tiny jail cell until her sentence is up.

Bill feels powerless, helpless, and toothless about Allison’s legal calamity, but also about his repeated flights across the Atlantic and infrequent employment.

This massive life interruption has disrupted just about everything, and now this nomad and his part-time foreign existence are his new normal. Bill, however, disturbs this imperfect reality when he looks for – and finds - a break in Allison’s case, and this uncomfortable American attempts to be a detective in a distant land.

Director Tom McCarthy (“The Visitor” (2007), “Spotlight” (2015)) strips away any distance between Bill and the audience. His camera closely follows his lead all over Marseille in a layered drama that is part-character study, part-crime thriller, part-culture clash, and part-family drama. Folks – including this critic – who love Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner “The Secret in Their Eyes” (2009) should appreciate this movie and its construction as well. Both dramas – murder mysteries that also include pivotal scenes in soccer stadiums – defy convention and play with pace and genre, which help unfold the narrative in unexpected ways.

Although McCarthy presents a portion of the film in French, there’s not enough francais to qualify “Stillwater” for a Foreign Language Film Academy Award, but Matt Damon gives an Oscar-worthy turn as Bill.

As out of place as a snowball sitting on a tropical island, Bill emotionally closes himself off from his environment and anyone within speaking distance. He’s polite but brief to the Best Western Marseille front-desk clerks, a prominent lawyer, and a pre-teen girl Maya (Lilou Siauvaud) and her mother Virginie (Camille Cottin), who Bill meets at the said hotel. For him, uttering French - even for the tiniest of acknowledgments - isn’t even a thought. Bill will give customary addresses like, “Thank you,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” but always in English. Although he has visited France dozens of times, he doesn’t bend to the culture. He wears plaid shirts, jeans, an ever-present baseball hat, and carries a backpack too.

In a 2018 Graham Norton interview, Emily Blunt and her husband John Krasinski discuss their trans-Atlantic relationship, and she expresses that he should blend in more while in England.

Blunt says, “I did encourage him that he’d be welcome more if he’d stop wearing a baseball cap because I just said, ‘You look so American! Nobody wears baseball caps here.’”

Bill falls into a similar trap, and at one point, Virginie shares that same sentiment. He’s unapologetic in his look and demeanor, which is idealistic but not terribly strategic when trying to find local sources for his daughter.

If you’re wondering, yes, there’s an obvious Amanda Knox similarity with Allison’s predicament, and Ms. Knox took to Twitter on July 29 and articulated her concern.

“Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER,” Knox said on Twitter.

In a July 28 interview with John Benson for Cleveland.com, McCarthy said, “I just was fascinated with that story from 14 years ago. I knew if I grabbed that piece of information, there was no getting away from it because it’s so historically specific. But there’s no similarity in our two stories beyond an American student in jail.”

He adds, “I was just really interested or fascinated by the human drama there – what would that be like to have your daughter in jail in a foreign place where you weren’t familiar with it?”

Setting this disagreement aside and settling back with the film, Damon is thoroughly compelling as Bill, who travels on a trying, emotional journey. His character is an introvert, one attempting to come to terms with his changing world and slowly reaches out to accept (his) today: his flaws, mistakes, and current environment in Marseille, a bustling coastal multicultural European city with 3 million residents.

Bill needs a lifeline, and Virginie and Maya extend their hands, as their budding friendship will trigger warm smiles and feelings. Our protagonist could use a break. After a lifetime of broken promises and relationships, his rigid exterior starts to crack to allow the good stuff to pour into his soul. Cottin and Siauvaud are perfectly cast as Bill’s allies, his connections toward reflection and healing.

“Stillwater” offers so much to reflect upon, including images of both locales and their impacts on one man, an old soul who doubles as a new traveler.

Jeff’s ranking

3.5/4 stars

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Joe Bell – Movie Review

Directed by: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Written by: Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Reid Miller, Connie Britton, and Gary Sinise

Runtime: 90 minutes

‘Joe Bell’: The messages ring, but the narrative structure doesn’t

“I’ve decided to walk across America.” – Joe Bell (Mark Wahlberg)

In director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “Joe Bell”, Joe - a working-class family man - drops his responsibilities at home and embarks on a trek from La Grande, Ore. to New York City. Jadin (Reid Miller), his eldest son, joins his dad, and this two-person reverse Lewis & Clark journey feels entirely apropos. Joe delivers an anti-bullying message to anyone who will listen, in response to Jadin receiving repeated torments because of his sexual orientation, both at school and online.

Lest anyone think that the United States is in a post-homophobic world in 2021. Sure, the country has come a long way, but the Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court decision – that legalized same-sex marriage – didn’t arrive until 2015, and this film – based on a true story - is set two years prior.

Green’s 90-minute movie includes a triad of themes: Joe’s relationship with his son, Jadin’s clashes with certain classmates, and the Bells’ journey. These are straightforward ideas – and real-life events – that Green and his team can easily translate into a feature film, but “Joe Bell” takes an altogether different narrative approach.

This movie – based on Diane Ossana and Larry McMurtry’s screenplay – goes arthouse all the way and communicates its views through highlights and bursts of the three aforementioned topics. Additionally, Green endorses a non-linear timeline, and the result is a messy concoction of both family and societal strife. Yes, the film successfully communicates the Bells’ story by provoking raw feelings, but the purposely choppy presentation brings unnecessary chaos and misdirection to a movie that doesn’t need them.

Even though Jadin’s struggle is the film’s emotional heartbeat, the movie takes an in-depth look at Joe’s arc, hence the title. Joe, who would feel perfectly comfortable living like Jeremiah Johnson 24/7, generally accepts that his son is gay, but not entirely. He sometimes says the right things to Jadin, like “I love you”, but Joe doesn’t completely acknowledge his son’s reality. Ossana and McMurtry’s script effectively navigates a delicate balancing act, where they don’t paint Joe’s internal churn in broad black or white strokes. They don’t portray Joe as a cartoon character of straight-up rejection or frustration. On the other hand, he’s not wholeheartedly altruistic in his support either, but his viewpoint changes after the harassment at school reaches a breaking point, and his cross-country quest is born.

We see Mr. Bell push a baby carriage with tent equipment and other essentials, and he makes stops to speak on his anti-bullying stance, but Green limits the big-crowd pomp and circumstance and spends more time – it seems – with Joe sitting in the dirt or leaning against a wooden fence and pondering the past. Joe claims that his motivation is for Jadin, but he seems to endorse his penance. His experiences are muddy and grueling as he travels uphill both ways. Rather than celebrate his efforts with masses of supporters, the movie shares his troubled thoughts through occasional one-on-one conversations. Unfortunately, these random meetups aren’t terribly memorable, save one completely absorbing chat with a sheriff (Gary Sinise) that makes you wish that Sinise would star in everything.

The cinematic stars don’t align on this road trip, and the film doesn’t help itself with frequent flashbacks – of Jadin’s school experiences – that interrupt the pace and flow of Joe’s selfless deeds that also double as hopeful redemption. These disruptions are a double whammy because they don’t offer a comprehensive view of Jadin’s world. Instead, we see isolated scenes of a potential romance, taunts in the boys’ locker room, a game day cheerleading attempt, and a few other glimpses.

Still, Miller and Wahlberg give convincing performances, and they offer a couple of moments that will linger long after the credits roll. Jadin and Joe’s story is a consequential one, and the film’s messages ring, but the narrative structure does not.

Jeff’s ranking

2/4 stars

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Old - Movie Review

Dir: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, and Eliza Scanlen

1h 48m

It was 1999 when director M. Night Shyamalan directed one of the great horror films, "The Sixth Sense," a film that changed the landscape of genre filmmaking moving into the new millennium. Fast-forward 22 years later, and the director is still composing his brand of a scary movie with old school "Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" vibes with the newest entry "Old." 

In "Old," a group of vacationers looking for a relaxing day at a beach encounter a strange anomaly that rapidly ages them. Making thirty minutes resemble about a year of life. The Shyamalan story, borrowed from the 2010 graphic novel "Sandcastle" by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, preys on the fears associated with time and the questions that arise when life disappears in the blink of an eye. 

Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are on vacation at a remote paradise island with their two kids Trent (Nolan River) and Maddox (Alexa Swinton). The beautiful resort, which greets its guests at the door with a fancy drink and offers lodging in glass-walled rooms, feels too good to be true. Guy and Prisca struggle with their relationship and use this getaway to escape the reality of their situation, one that feels already finalized once they return home. An invitation to visit a remote beach feels like the perfect adventure for Guy, Prisca, and their kids. However, once on the secluded sandy piece of paradise, strange events begin to happen. Trent and Maddox begin to outgrow their swimsuits, the adults develop wrinkles on their faces, and a dead body rapidly decomposes. The group realizes the beach is making them to age rapidly, causing them to desperately search for a way off the coast before their time runs out. 

"Old" is equal parts silly and thought-provoking. Shyamalan, who has always had a knack for turning a "Twilight Zone" episode into something bigger, writes a film that wants to talk about the deeper existential complexities of the aging process but instead remains a surface-level body horror thriller. 

Now, don't get me wrong, there is still fun with the sensations and spectacle introduced every few minutes in "Old." Watching young Trent (played older by Alex Wolff) and Maddox (played older by Thomasin McKenzie) age into teenagers with a new understanding of emotions is amusing. Seeing a cardiothoracic surgeon, played with glee by Rufus Sewell, mumble about forgetting which movie Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson starred in while also performing a gory beach surgery will make you smile and squirm. During the visceral moments, the director's restraint does a great job of allowing the viewer to connect the dots independently, which is often far scarier than seeing the event. At times the camera will circle like a ticking clock or sway back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. These technical pieces assist in adding tension.

Shyamalan understands how to evoke the big emotions in "Old" but misses the smaller, more interesting pieces that ultimately get left behind or interrupted for the big scare or twist. But in small moments, Shyamalan taps into the fear and trauma of the aging process with clever insights during unexpected scenes. One is when Maddox, who has aged into the caretaker role for her sibling and parents, walks into the ocean waves reciting positive affirmations to help her understand the situation she is tasked. This moment connects to the inevitable role some adults will take with elderly parents and children. Another is when Guy begins to have vision issues, and Prisca starts losing her hearing, the moment plays with subtlety. Both characters refuse to acknowledge the problem; instead, they hide it and modify their physical positions to fit their new health concerns. Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps are excellent in these smaller moments. 

"Old" spends most of its nearly 2-hour runtime indulging in its horror and thriller genre characteristics. While these moments are amusing within the film's premise, Shyamalan never unites these pieces to the ultimate horror of time being taken from someone. The memories, the feelings, the experiences, the whole reason why these people are desperate to escape the beach, are pushed into small scenes that rarely spend enough time to connect the sentiments to the situation. While "Old" sets up an engaging premise with amusing character turns, the final result will fade from memory faster than time passes on this beach. 

Monte's Rating

2.25 out of 5.00

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Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain – Movie Review

Directed by: Morgan Neville

Starring: Anthony Bourdain, Ottavia Bourdain, David Chang, Lydia Tenaglia, Christopher Collins, Tom Vitale, and David Choe

Runtime: 118 minutes

‘Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain’ travels on several personal roads

“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.” – Anthony Bourdain

“In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family.” – Anthony Bourdain

Anthony, a chef at Les Halles, shared a kinship with this restaurant, but in 2000, he found a bigger family, the world, through a tell-all book. He wrote a New York Times Best Seller, “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”, found a spot on Oprah’s couch, and hosted a 35-episode television show, “Anthony Bourdain’s a Cook’s Tour” (2002 – 2003).

The rest is history. Two other massively successful TV series, eight Primetime Emmy wins, worldwide fame, and look, once you play yourself on “The Simpsons” (1989 – Present), you’ve made it.

For millions and millions of devoted fans, they tuned in to 223 combined episodes of “No Reservations” (2005 – 2012) and “Parts Unknown” (2013 – 2018) to observe Bourdain’s travels around the globe and delicious meals that he relished. Still, most importantly, they wanted to watch him. This charismatic, outspoken New York City native had that intangible It-factor that magnetic stars possess. Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville – who made documentaries about Sidney Poitier, Brian Wilson, Johnny Cash, Keith Richards, and Fred Rogers – serves up one about the aforementioned big-personality, small-screen star in “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain”.

In a July 12, 2021 Uproxx.com interview with Vince Mancini, Neville explains a key reason for moving forward with this doc.

“I’ve been making documentaries for almost 30 years, and I’ve made films about how culture connects us. I felt like Tony was like a fellow traveler. He was kind of a documentary filmmaker himself. I felt like I was starting at a place where I had some baseline understanding of the type of guy he was,” Neville says.

Since Bourdain spent countless hours on television and has been quoted in so reams of print and online stories, how do you sum up the man’s viewpoints in a 118-minute film?

In a July 15, 2021 ComingSoon.net interview with Tyler Treese, Neville describes the utterly enormous undertaking to collect all kinds of Bourdain data points to then distill the best, most vital moments for the film.

“I went through every article, book on tape, voiceover session, podcast, and I pulled out all the lines of anything that I thought were interesting things he said. And then I put together a binder of like 500 pages of things he said, and I organized them by subject,” Neville says.

Yes, several friends and colleagues speak about Anthony in “Roadrunner”, but when watching the documentary, it’s remarkable how often Bourdain narrates his film with a seemingly never-ending catalog of clips and voiceovers.

It’s by design.

“In a way, I thought about it like William Holden in ‘Sunset Boulevard’, that he’d be narrating it from beyond the grave. And I think Tony would have liked that, too,” Neville says in the same ComingSoon.net interview.

Compacting staggering sums of video and audio into two hours is one thing, but tonally, how do you make a Bourdain film when he suffered such a tragic end? He hung himself in Kaysersberg, France, on June 8, 2018, at 61.

This critic – who, admittedly, hasn’t watched a Bourdain television program – did not view this movie with a sense of doom. Most fans will view it differently, but the first 70 minutes primarily celebrates his meteoric rise to stardom as the picture arranges scores and scores of Bourdain clips, outtakes, and confessionals. The dizzying montage paints him as an ambitious, compelling free-spirit who finds himself standing in a muddled abyss but staring and stepping into a wave of colossal success.

Bourdain’s long-time producer Lydia Tenaglia says that before his television experience, he never traveled. In his mind, he did, but now, does “the reality match the imagination.”

During those very early TV days, it feels like Tony was the fastest drag racer in three rural Midwest counties, and suddenly, NASCAR plucks him out from Healy, Kan., and throws him in The Daytona 500 on Day 1. Meanwhile, Anthony circles the track and yells to his pit crew, “Do I just push the pedal to the metal?”

He moves at 190 mph (sort of) all over Vietnam and Japan and attempts to stay on his path, or better yet, find one. He does and eventually paves the way for Lydia and her husband/co-producer Christopher Collins.

Bourdain opines, “One minute, I was standing next to a deep fryer, and the next, I was watching the sunset over the Sahara. What am I doing here?”

Neville gives glimpses of Bourdain’s self-destructive inclinations during the movie’s first half, but this portion of “Roadrunner” is generally upbeat. He fills the hour-plus with the Anthony that fans probably know with additional slabs of his foundation via personal reveals from Bourdain and those who knew him best, including his ex-wife, Ottavia Bourdain.

The film alludes to Tony’s occasional wrath, but we don’t see it on-camera. That’s missing. Otherwise, his story seems complete, with primarily festive highs rising to a peak, and then the film’s second half follows his descent to the movie’s conclusion. Past addictions, depression, and a couple of specific life events seem to fuel his heartbreaking plunge, and the on-screen discourse is honest, raw, and emotional. Perhaps the film’s most difficult moment is – ironically - when his toddler-aged daughter, Ariane, plays on a swing, or when Bourdain voices self-harm, a spooky foreshadowing. It’s hard to say, but there’s no doubt that Bourdain’s exit from this world left a considerable void for so many. For those who knew him personally or only from TV, closure may never come, but this documentary will offer insight into his emotional travels.

This doc offers takeaways from Anthony’s missteps (including absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder) and his ultimate demise. Still, “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” presents just about all sides of him, a self-proclaimed misfit who opened himself up to everyone, and the world hugged him back.

Jeff’s ranking

3/4 stars

Black Widow - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Dir: Cate Shortland

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, and O.T. Fagbenle

2 hr 13 min

In the Marvel Universe, we've seen a teenage web-slinger, an ancient god with a mythic hammer, a millionaire with a technologically advanced suit of armor, and a super-soldier whose strength and speed are beyond any other human. Finding a normal human amidst these superhumans is always interesting, especially one that can hold its own without gamma-ray modification, radioactive spider bite powers, or advanced machinery.

Natasha Romanoff, alternatively known as Black Widow, is a talented spy and deadly assassin. She was trained from childhood in a top-secret Russian training program known as the "Red Room," a program that takes young women and turns them into elite assassins known as "Black Widows." She eventually abandoned the group and joined The Avengers. Natasha is one of those humans who stands toe-to-toe with superheroes, often using her cunning intelligence and lethal hand-to-hand combat skills to match the super abilities of her counterparts.

Natasha's story within the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a sad one. Often her character was relegated to simplistic supportive roles where she was primarily used as a feminine object. The lone female in a group of men would show up to save one of the other characters with her spy skills, calm the Hulk with a lullaby, or fly the Avengers plane from one adventure to another. This all led to her ultimate sacrifice in 2018's "Avengers: Endgame," a moment for the character that could have been monumental for her complete story but ultimately felt tone-deaf within the story.

"Black Widow," directed by Cate Shortland, provides the back story for Natasha. It explores her childhood within a deep operative spy family living in America, the dark roots of her training program with the Red Room, and minor character pieces that provide context for her role as an Avenger. The introduction is interesting and exciting, but the push to stay within the formula crafted by the Marvel Cinematic Universe eventually overshadows the exciting parts that begin this story.

The film begins with a young Natasha (Ever Anderson) living in a small town. Her mother (Rachel Weisz) sets the table for dinner with her younger sister Yelena (Violet McGraw). Natasha's father (David Harbour) returns from work; he looks distracted upon arrival and then nervous once a mysterious phone call disrupts dinner. The family immediately abandons their home, driving aggressively through their quaint town while streets close around them with the sight of flashing lights. Quickly, they are followed by people shooting guns and narrowly escape. Natasha's family is revealed as a Russian spy operation, immediately after running this mission, the family is separated, and Natasha and her sister are sent away.

In these initial moments, "Black Widow" interestingly establishes its story, showing a group of trained spies trying to detach from the emotions that compose a family. The kids do a great job of interacting with the adults in these early scenes. Their emotion for the family is felt deeply, while the adults have grown to view these interactions, and this family, as a mission.

"Black Widow" transitions into adulthood for Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), now an Avenger and international superstar of sorts, and Yelena (Florence Pugh), now with a mind-controlling group of assassins. Scarlett Johansson has played this role many times. Yet, provided with her own singular story aside from the supporting role provided in other films, Johansson shines throughout this film. Add Florence Pugh, who is excellent in everything she does, and the chemistry between the two assassins is humorous and heartfelt. Pugh wholly owns the role of Yelena; whether mocking her sister's combat moves or taking control of her emotions during a family dinner, she is a great addition.

"Black Widow" works great until it feels the need to push the Marvel formulaic measures into the forefront. Once the dynamic family story ends and the human element for these characters turns into a story about global control using mind-altered assassins under the management of a bad guy named Dreykov (Ray Winstone), who ultimately doesn't work for the story, the film crumbles apart. And when the story falls out of the sky in a blaze of flames, the abandoned potential to make a compelling story for this overlooked Marvel character turns to ashes.

The cast and a few of the early action scenes, which stay in the realm of spy film espionage action, provide "Black Widow" with enough entertainment to keep things interesting. Still, it's hard not to imagine something better for Marvel's Black Widow.

Monte's Rating

2.50 out of 5.00

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Black Widow – Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Directed by: Cate Shortland

Written by: Eric Pearson

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, and Ray Winstone

Runtime: 133 minutes

‘Black Widow’: This MCU cloak-and-dagger story somewhat satisfies

Budapest.

Hungary’s capital city is also the country’s largest, with 3 million people living in the greater metropolitan area. Budapest is known for old-world architecture and a slew of museums, theatres, and operas. If you’re hungry, a mean goulash or chicken paprikash could satisfy, or an easy, breezy boat ride along the Danube River might soothe the soul.

Well, Marvel fans – including this critic – have wondered about some specific events in the Queen of the Danube - involving Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) for years. Black Widow (Johansson) and Hawkeye (Renner) briefly mentioned Budapest during their New York City battle with the Chitauri in “The Avengers” (2012) and, more recently, just before Natasha died in “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).

As they fly to Vormir, Clint smiles while enjoying the space travel and remarks, “It’s a long way from Budapest.”

Well, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Natasha (two years), but she’s back in a full-length feature film. No, Marvel Studios isn’t resurrecting the dead nor parading a Black Widow from an alternate universe. For the record, that multiverse stuff is so well-played in the “Loki” (2021) Disney+ series, but in “Black Widow” (2021), our femme fatale travels back to Europe after “Captain America: Civil War” (2016). She catches up with some former colleagues and faces off against an old enemy. Both parties are from another life before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers.

Director Cate Shortland and screenwriter Eric Pearson also reveal the happenings in Budapest….and Ohio.

Ohio?

Yes, Natasha’s on-screen journey begins somewhere in The Buckeye State, a comforting place with Friday night football games, kids riding bikes sans organized, parental-planned playdates, and warm family dinners that arrive at the kitchen table every night at six.

After recently enduring “F9: The Fast Saga” (2021), I can report that “Black Widow” offers more satisfying emotional beats and heart-pounding thrills in its first 10 minutes than the latest Dominic Toretto flick does during its entire 143-minute runtime. With all the talk about family in “F9”, we feel a closer one here or the presumption of one. Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh and Violet McGraw) are the dearest forms of kin that Natasha knows.

Not only is Shortland filming a post “Civil War” adventure and Budapest reveals, but also an origin narrative, so she and Pearson pack a ton of story into one film.

After a spectacular opening, Ms. Romanoff searches for a dénouement or an escape from the Sokovia Accords, as its enforcer Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) looks to mark her with his brand of justice.

Well, Norway seems a pleasant reprieve, especially during the summertime. Although someone interrupts her moment of peace faster than you can say, “Villains are everywhere.”

An armored Skeletor-looking baddie confronts her and seeks a package of vials with glowing red liquid that packs more wallop than Texas hot sauce in July. This crimson concoction could crash the Black Widow program, a Russian quasi-military array of female assassins, one that Natasha knows all too well.

So, she aims to confront its ringleader, Gen. Dreykov (Ray Winstone), and dismantle his sinister militia. Ms. Romanoff catches up with her sister from another mother Yelena (Pugh), and they recruit Melina and Alexei. Pugh, Weisz, and Harbour are perfectly cast, but Florence gets the most screen time since Yelena and Natasha are close in age, and these two loners are better as a dynamic duo. Natasha paired up with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014), and this film has a similar vibe, including Taskmaster, the mysterious masked villain (chasing after the radiant red stuff) who is this story’s Winter Soldier.

Europe is the setting for this cloak-and-dagger flick, where fists, flips, kicks, and kabooms do the talking, and car chases sometimes spill onto subway platforms.

The danger is everywhere, and as our heroes keeping driving forward through gunfire and explosions, the stakes are dramatically raised, figuratively and literally. The film, however, works best in smaller, intimate quarters, especially when Natasha confronts her past that includes Yelena, as these pseudo-sisters sometimes act as frenemies. Pugh and Johansson have strong on-screen chemistry, especially when Yelena challenges her older sibling. She feels that Natasha abandoned her to hang with a superhero tribe. In turn, Natasha pushes back while also extending branches with at least an olive or two.

Both women have mastered brawling and accurately firing bullets, which they sometimes target at each other. The ladies are peers or pretty darn close to it for all intents and purposes and don’t share unequal Electra Woman and Dyna Girl dynamics. The point is that Ms. Romanoff is deceased in MCU present-day (or 2023), and Yelena looks to be the heir apparent in future MCU adventures.

Yelena will have to lose the Russian accent because Natasha shed hers for General American English, which is puzzling, especially when her mom, dad, and little sis are around.

How long does it take to lose an accent anyway?

Well, Natasha lost track of her old clan for years and years, so the movie aims to reform those emotional ties while the formidable foursome faces Dreykov and his Black Widows. The antagonists are offshoots of similar mercenaries that we’ve recently seen on the big screen, including “Red Sparrow” (2018) and “Anna” (2019), except on steroids. Not actual steroids, but Dreykov has amassed more cash and technology than Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk put together, so let your imagination run with that.

Bigger doesn’t always mean better, as the third act – like the aforementioned “F9” - ignores physics laws and also the frailty of flesh and blood against detonations, thousands of bullets, and flying steel shards ever-present in every conceivable direction. Look, Natasha, Yelena, and Melina are not souped-up super-soldiers, but – at times - the film sort of pretends that they are. Either that or they are Harry Houdini disciples in secret.

Alexei actually is a super-soldier - the Red Guardian, a Soviet/Russian version of Captain America - but Shortland doesn’t explore his abilities nearly enough. The same goes for developing Taskmaster’s character and explaining the Black Widow program’s reach, but then again, the film’s 133-minute runtime could’ve used another hour to address all the moving parts. Shortland and her assistant directors and editors had the unenviable tasks of cutting from somewhere.

Still, the film looks tip-top, delivers hold-your-breath thrills, and gives a goodbye salute to Natasha Romanoff after her shocking and affecting demise two years ago. Loki suffered a similar fate in “Endgame”, but he (or a Loki variant) landed on a whole series that was greenlit for a second season. Ah well, at least we get the lowdown on Budapest, albeit without a hearty bowl of goulash. So, the movie somewhat satisfies.

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) – Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Directed by: Questlove

Featuring: Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, B.B. King, The Fifth Dimension, and Stevie Wonder

Runtime: 112 minutes

'Summer of Soul': Celebrate a 20th-century landmark event with this 21st-century cinematic treasure

The Summer of 1969.

What’s the first image that comes to mind? The Apollo 11 Moon landing or Woodstock (or the Woodstock Rock Festival) might be #1 for most Americans.

For the Gen X crowd, Bryan Adams’ 1985 single “Summer of ‘69” could round out the Top 3.

After watching director Questlove’s enormously entertaining and informative documentary “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” – the best film I’ve seen this year and the best doc since “Searching for Sugar Man” (2012), my #1 film of 2012 - move over Bryan Adams. The Harlem Cultural Festival – held from June 29 to Aug. 24, 1969, in Mount Morris Park - joins the famed NASA space mission and that other music party, about 100 miles away on a Bethel, N.Y. farm.

If you haven’t heard of the Harlem Cultural Festival, you are not alone. Although 300,000 people – primarily Black audiences - attended the free New York City celebration of jazz, blues, Motown, gospel, and more, this was 52 years ago. Promoter Tony Lawrence worked with the NYC government, skilled camera crews, and countless other moving parts, but no takers bought or licensed the rights for the video of about two dozen (or more) musical acts that performed over six joyful Sundays during June, July, and Aug.

The documentary states, “After that summer, the footage sat in a basement for 50 years. It has never been seen. Until now.”

Questlove – one of the founding members of The Roots – had to decide which groups, singers, and songs would make the cut into his documentary. He faced a similar puzzle as the “Woodstock” (1970) doc team, which included assistant director/editor Martin Scorsese.

“Summer of Soul” has a 112-minute runtime, and during a Feb. 3, 2021 IndieWire interview, Questlove said that 45 hours of festival film footage existed, so do the math. Wow, and during the same conversation, he explains his process.

“I probably had to do six or seven rounds of just sitting through all that footage, and either directly watching it or studying it, or just having it on in the background, and something catches my attention,” Questlove says.

He adds, “I wanted to take note of what just gave me goosebumps.”

The man’s goosebumps-sense is on-point. He finds and picks an abundance of flat-out dazzling performances from The Fifth Dimension, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, and more, including a mesmerizing 19-year-old Stevie Wonder donning a stylish brown suit with a mustard ruffles shirt flaring from underneath his jacket collars.

(On a personal note, my favorite moments are from The Fifth Dimension and Sly and the Family Stone, but I won’t give away the specific songs in this review.)

The film offers seemingly countless pulse-pounding and captivating on-stage recordings, but Questlove lets the video run for entire songs, rather than only offering small, 30-second clips here and there. We are treated to the 3-to-5-minute classic tracks from start to finish. Frequently with any live performance, singers and their bands give us a little extra, which our filmmaker and the fans in attendance proudly embrace.

Dorinda Drake was 19 at the time, and she remembers walking with her three best friends to the park because it was only 10 blocks away.

“It was exciting. We hadn’t had anything like that in Harlem that I can recall,” Drake says.

Musa Jackson was just a kid in 1969.

“I remember being with my family walking around the park, and as far as I could see, it was just Black people. This was the first time I’d ever seen so many of us. It was incredible,” Jackson says.

“Beautiful, beautiful women, beautiful men. It was like seeing royalty, ” he adds.

Royalty saw the fans and Musa too. Gladys Knight & the Pips sang on July 20 (the same day as the aforementioned Apollo landing), and she couldn’t get over the vast numbers to watch her perform.

“When I stepped on stage, I was totally, totally taken aback because I didn’t expect a crowd like that,” Knight gushes.

In between songs and sometimes during them, Questlove finds stars like Knight and Lin-Manuel Miranda to opine about the festival’s magnitude, but he also weaves political and socio-economic issues of the time. The 1960s saw the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Heroin addictions reached epidemic levels in American cities, and young men were fighting and dying in Vietnam.

The country was on fire, but the film – through Questlove and his editors like Joshua L. Pearson – shows how music is a release for the men and women on stage and in the audience.

“Summer of Soul” is a beautiful, eye-opening movie that reaches out into culture, spiritual beliefs, politics, race relations, and more, and they are all connected to the music.

It’s a yesterdecade time warp into a wondrous collection of shows – with striking fashion choices and theatric movements - that should’ve been given pop culture references over the last 50 years. Most regrettably, they haven’t, and generations have passed without sharing collective, public discourse. Well, everyone can now celebrate the Harlem Cultural Festival, a 20th-century landmark event, with this 21st-century cinematic treasure.

Jeff’s ranking

4/4 stars

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