The Midnight Sky (2020) ☆☆(2/4): An SF film without much wonder and pizazz

Posted on December 23, 2020 by kaist455

Netflix film “The Midnight Sky”, which was released in theaters in here and US a few weeks ago and then is released on Netflix today, is a disappointment without much wonder and pizazz. While it starts with an interesting story premise, the movie does not juggle well its several different elements and story ideas, and the overall result often feels half-baked and scattershot without generating enough interest or narrative momentum for holding our attention during its tedious 2-hour running time.

In the beginning, the movie, which is set in the middle of the 21st century, puts us right into the increasingly gloomy circumstance of Dr. Augustine Lofthouse (George Clooney), a middle-aged scientist who has been stuck alone in an observatory station somewhere in the middle of the Arctic Circle. Three weeks ago, something quite catastrophic happened almost all over the Earth, and other people in the observatory station besides Augustine hurriedly left to somewhere, but he chose to stay in the observatory station although he does not have many days to live due to his terminal illness.

Anyway, it looks like he made a right choice for now. That global catastrophe, which is simply called “the Event” in the movie, seems to have nearly wiped out the entire population of the human race and all other living species on the Earth, and Augustine becomes more depressed as often being reminded of the fact that he may be the last human being on the Earth at present.

However, despite that grim fact and his imminent death, there is something Augustine has tried to do as much as he can during last three weeks. As shown from one flashback scene set, he found a new moon of Jupiter several decades ago, and there was a strong possibility that this new moon of Jupiter can be a habitable colony for humanity. As a matter of fact, a big spaceship named Æther was sent to Jupiter a few years ago for confirming whether its new moon is really habitable, and Augustine hopes that he will be able to contact with Æther and then inform its crew on the dire condition of the Earth before it eventually arrives at the Earth.

While his efforts for contacting with Æther continue to be futile, Augustine comes to notice a small but strange thing on one day. It looks like there is someone else inside the observatory station besides him, and, what do you know, he soon comes to encounter a little girl. Although she is not that communicative, Augustine takes care of her anyway, and he and she slowly come to make some connection between them even though she remains mostly silent as before.

In the meantime, the movie also pays attention to what is going on inside Æther. Its crew members, who incidentally found that the new moon of Jupiter is indeed habitable in addition to being full of life (Please don’t ask me how the hell that is possible even though it seems to be quite close to Jupiter as shown from one brief scene), still have no idea on what happened to the Earth even while baffled by the continuing communication disconnection between them and the Earth, and then this communication problem leads to a series of problems in the middle of their return route to the Earth.

Of course, the movie accordingly throws a couple of long sequences unfolded in the space as the crew members of Æther try to fix these problems, but these sequences are not particularly thrilling or compelling as merely reminiscent of what we already saw from other recent space movies ranging from “Gravity” (2013) to “Ad Astra” (2019). Furthermore, the crew members of Æther are mostly broad archetypes without enough depth and personality, and the performers playing these characters are unfortunately under-utilized while only demanded to fill their respective spot as much as they can. While Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo are rather flat as two crew members who have been quite intimate to each other, Kyle Chandler, Tiffany Boone, and Demián Bichir manage to leave some impression despite their bland characters.

The screenplay by Mark L. Smith, which is based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel “Good Morning, Midnight”, also falters in the part associated with Augustine’s continuing efforts for contacting with Æther. Once discerning that he needs to go to some other observatory station with a better antenna, Augustine promptly embarks on a very risky journey across that harsh Arctic plain along with the little girl, but the movie simply plods along with its two main characters without generating much urgency, and we can only admire how hard Clooney, who also directed and co-produced the film, tries to carry his part. In case of young actress Caoilinn Springall, she holds her own small place fairly well besides Clooney, but her character remains to be more or less than a plot element, and her scenes with Clooney does not generate enough drama to engage us.

Although it is not a total bore thanks to its competent technical aspects including the cinematography by Martin Ruhe and the score by Alexandre Desplat, “The Midnight Sky” ultimately underwhelms us while looking quite insubstantial compared to similar but better space drama films out there. It does not have the captivating awe and excitement of “Gravity” and “The Martian” (2015), and it also does not have the sheer ambition of “Interstellar” (2014) and “Ad Astra”, and it even does not have the colorful creativity of “Europa Report” (2013) and “High Life” (2018). Believe me, you will have a better time with any of these aforementioned films.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Rewind (2019) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Rewinding to the abuse in his past

Posted on December 22, 2020 by kaist455

Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s first feature documentary film “Rewind” is often uncomfortable and disturbing to watch for good reasons. Calmly digging into his traumatic childhood past via a series of old home video clips shot around that terrible period, the documentary gives us a sobering examination of emotional scars which will probably never go away from Neulinger and several other survivors, and you may find yourself wincing several times like I did during my viewing.

At first, Neulinger shows us how things seemed to be fine and good on the surface for him and his family during the 1990s. His parents Henry and Jacqui were a decent couple who loved each other, and Jacqui reminisces about an amusing episode on how her husband came later than other family members at the time of Neulinger’s birth in 1989. As a professional filmmaker working in PBS, he thought that he needed a good video camera for recording their first kid’s birth, but, due to spending too much time on finding a right one, he only came to record the aftermath instead.

After several years, Henry and Jacqui came to have a baby daughter named Bekah, and a series of home video clips show us Neulinger and his younger sister having happy times while surrounded by their parents and several other family members including Henry’s two older brothers Howard and Larry. Henry recollects how much he and Larry, who was incidentally Neulinger’s godfather, were close to each other, and that is evident from a few recorded moments between these two brothers.

When he was around 6, Neulinger was a smart and lively kid full of potentials, and his parents were surely proud of him, but then, to their bafflement, he became a lot more emotionally withdrawn than before in addition to having notable troubles in learning process. While his parents remained to be at a loss, Neulinger’s emotional problems got worse as time went by, and he was eventually sent to a psychiatrist for evaluation.

While showing several recorded moments showing some of his troubled behaviors, Neulinger has a frank conversation with his mother, and Jacqui still remembers well how disturbed her son was during that confusing time. At one point, she shows us an underwear written with words clearly reflecting Neulinger’s low self-esteem during that time, and this object brings more pain to both her and her dear son.

Now some of you have already had a pretty good idea on what was happening to Neulinger during that time. Yes, Jacqui came to suspect the possibility of sexual abuse on her son, but she hesitated when she was told about the dire possible consequences from reporting on that to the police. After all, the prime suspect would probably be none other than her husband, and that was certainly the last thing she wanted.

When the truth finally began to come out via his son’s desperate indirect expression, it was far worse than Jacqui and Henry might have imagined. Neulinger had been sexually abused by three close family members of Henry for a long time, and these horrible persons had also committed frequent sexual abuses on Bekah, who turned out to be as emotionally troubled as her older brother because of that.

As talking with not only his parents and younger sister but also a number of figures associated with the following court trials, Neulinger comes to revisit and face his dark and hurtful past, and we often sense how hard and difficult that is for him. He is ready for throwing some hard questions in his composed appearance, but he cannot help but become a bit emotional in front of the camera from time to time.

One of the most revealing moments in the documentary comes from Henry, who turns out that he had a deep secret he never told anyone before belatedly coming to learn of his dear son being sexually abused by those three family members of his. I do not dare to go into details because I am still wincing from one gut-chilling moment of revelation from him in the documentary, but I can tell you instead that this moment and several other key moments of revelation in the documentary will surely make you reflect more on that virulent cycle of abuse in family.

While he was hurt so much by those three family members of his father, Neulinger came to find strength and courage from not only his father but also his mother and her family members including her grandparents, who considerably supported their great-grandson with lots of care and love. Thanks to the sincere support from these family members of his, Neulinger was eventually able to deal with his unspeakable traumas, and he also could bravely testify against the man at the center of his trauma, though the long-awaited outcome of the trial turned out to be not that satisfying for Neulinger and his family.

In conclusion, “Rewind” is an earnest but ultimately harrowing presentation of painful memories of family sexual abuse, and Neulinger did a commendable job of handling his personal story with enough restraint and sensitivity. That past of his may be never through with him during the rest of his life, but he luckily survived and then has moved on, and I sincerely hope that this therapeutic filmmaking of his did help him a lot as shown from the end of the documentary.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

City Hall (2020) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): Of a city and its government

Posted on December 22, 2020 by kaist455

I must confess that I cannot help but become very, very, very nervous whenever I have to watch and review the latest work from Frederick Wiseman, a great documentary filmmaker who has never stopped in his long, illustrious career although he had his 90th birthday early in this year. As some of you now, his camera simply observes one thing after another without any narration or comment, and we usually have to sit and watch for more than 2 hours at least while trying to absorb and understand whatever is so plainly presented in his documentary.

In case of “City Hall”, its running time is no less than 272 minutes, but, folks, please don’t worry. If you once accept and then go along with Wiseman’s patient and unobtrusive approach, the documentary will eventually come to you as a vivid and absorbing presentation of the city government of Boston, Massachusetts during a period from fall 2018 to winter 2019. Besides, considering how much the American society has been ruined and tarnished during last four years by that deplorable prick who is still in the White House, it is certainly refreshing to see a bunch of decent and hard-working American civil servants trying their best for getting numerous things done for millions of citizens to be served by them, and this documentary, which is sort of an “anti-Trump film” as admitted by Wiseman in his interview at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, will surely make you feel you better while also reminded of the importance of a good democratic government.

In the beginning, the documentary casually glances around Boston and then looks at the exterior of the City Hall of Boston, which is a rather ungainly concrete building compared to other buildings surrounding them. We subsequently watch a bunch of its call center employees busily dealing with numerous calls, and we come to sense how the city and its government are constantly busy as handling many different matters coming to them everyday.

This opening is followed by a series of meetings among administrators working in the city hall, and the documentary calmly and patiently observes some of these meetings for a long time without giving us any background knowledge. This can be a little confusing and frustrating to us at first, but the camera steadily focuses more on what is being eagerly discussed among them, and we come to get more understanding of their works in addition to sensing their admirable professional dedication.

One of the recurring elements throughout the documentary is housing, and the documentary examines how the administrators of the city hall try to take care of this complex longtime issue. Although Boston has been one of the best cities to live in US under the good leadership of Mayor Marty Walsh, there are still many people struggling with their housing problem in the city, and those administrators in the charge of housing supply certainly have lots of things to be done besides closely coordinating with developers and local communities. Sticking to its detached attitude as usual, the documentary looks around many different houses on streets and allies of Boston from time to time, and we gradually come to get what Wiseman subtly tries to convey to us.

Meanwhile, the documentary also observes the diversities of the city population. As pointed out by Mayor Walsh at one point, more than 50% of the city population is non-Caucasian, and that makes him and his city government more determined to solve racial inequality, which has still been prevalent in the city. For example, the city government has supported more inclusive employment of colored people as well as female workers at construction sites, and we also see a number of different meetings for the discussions on how to boost more social/economic inclusion in terms of race and gender.

Of course, these and many other things are surely not something to be accomplished within a few years, but Mayor Walsh, who eventually becomes the human center of the documentary as appearing here and there throughout the documentary, and his people are ready to do their best for making their city better with more inclusion and diversity. These civil servants frequently interact with citizens for getting to know and understand their needs and demands, and there is a touching moment when Mayor Walsh sincerely expresses care and respect at a meeting for war veterans, which incidentally gives us some genuinely emotional moments as the documentary observes several other speakers for a while.

There are also a lot more stuffs to be observed and processed in the documentary. I was intrigued by a brief scene at the city archival center which does much more than collecting and preserving old artifacts from the past. I became a bit wistful as watching a local baseball field filled with many people, which now becomes practically impossible due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I felt a little famished while watching a lovely scene where a bunch of citizens get a little taste of special Chinese noodle dish. And I was also amused by a rather funny scene where civil servants handle the petitions on nullifying parking tickets.

Since I watched “Crazy Horse” (2011) and then “At Berkeley” (2013), I have always admired Wiseman’s documentaries, and “City Hall” is another magnificent achievement of his just like his recent works such as “National Gallery” (2014) and “Monrovia, Indiana” (2017). It may already feel daunting for some of you due to its very long running time, but, as my late mentor/friend Roger Ebert, no good movie is too long, and it is surely long and good enough to contain the multitudes of Boston and its city government.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

I’m Your Woman (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): She is on her own now – with a baby

Posted on December 21, 2020 by kaist455

“I’m Your Woman”, which was released on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago, is an interesting genre variation to be savored for a number of good reasons. The movie may not surprise you much on the whole as dryly and leisurely moving from one expected narrative point to another, but it slowly comes to engage you via its gradual character development coupled with several tense moments full of unnerving uncertainty, and the overall result is an engaging mix between character study and noir thriller.

Rachel Rosnahan, who has been mainly known for her Emmy-winning performance in Amazon Prime period comedy series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, plays Jean, a young housewife who has lived alone with her shady husband Eddie (Bill Heck) in a nice big modern house. While she seems to be well aware of what her husband has been doing behind his back, Jean has been pretty content with merely being a loving wife to him, and she does not ask to him anything at all when he suddenly shows up along with a baby on one day. Regardless of whom the baby actually belongs to, she is ready to take care of the baby, though she is not even a very good housewife from the beginning.

However, her comfortably insulated world is suddenly turned upside down not long after that. While Jean is sleeping alone in the house at one night, one of her husband’s close associates suddenly comes into the house, and he hurriedly urges her to leave the house as soon as possible. Although the guy does not specify to her what is really going on, it looks like Eddie caused some big trouble outside, and it is apparent that she also needs to hide somewhere just like her husband.

Along with the baby and a bag full of cash, Jean is handed to a guy named Cal (Arinzé Kene), who seems to be an old friend of Eddie but does not tell her much about himself or his relationship with Eddie. Although she is not so sure about whether she can trust him at first, Jean slowly comes to depend on Cal more than expected, and they later manage to take care of a risky moment involved with a police officer in the middle of their journey.

Jean and Cal eventually arrive at a place which is supposedly safe for her as long as she keeps being quiet and not so suspicious to her new neighbors, but she soon gets frustrated with not only getting isolated but also getting exhausted due to the baby, who surely demands lots of care and attention just like many other babies. With no one to help or support her, she is frequently reminded of how clumsy she is in case of taking care of baby, and the only consolation comes from a middle-aged lady who kindly pays some attention to her new neighbor.

Around that narrative point, the screenplay by director Julian Hart and her husband Jordan Horowitz, who also produced the film along with Brosnahan, takes a plot turn earlier than expected. I will not go into details on what happens next for not spoiling your entertainment, but I can tell you at least that Jean finds herself getting involved more with Cal, and we are also introduced to several other supporting characters including Cal’s wife Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake), who turns out to be more than a loyal spouse.

Getting to know more and more about her husband, Jean is reminded again of how she has willingly turned a blind eye to his criminal activities, and she eventually decides to become more active in dealing with her current circumstance. For instance, she learns how to use a gun, and she does not hesitate to accompany Teri when Teri is about to handle their urgent matter for herself later in the story.

As subtly conveying to us the gradual inner changes inside its heroine, the movie smoothly enters a darker and grittier territory during its third act, and Hart gives us a couple of striking sequences to be appreciated for efficiency and dramatic impact. In case of one of these sequences, cinematographer Bryce Fortner’s camera mostly sticks around Jean, but the chaos and panic surrounding her are quite palpable to us, and we come to care more about what may happen next to her.

Hart also draws good performances from her main cast members. Demonstrating the more serious sides of her considerable talent, Brosnahan is terrific in the subtle and sensitive depiction of her character’s transformation along the story, and her performance shines whenever Jean comes to reveal her inner strength behind her mildly passive appearance. Jean is certainly afraid in addition to feeling quite uncertain, but now she is quite determined to confront a mess left by her husband, and we are not so surprised at all to see how far she can push herself in the end. In case of a number of crucial supporting performers surrounding Brosnahan, Arinzé Kene, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Bill Heck, Marceline Hugot, and Frankie Faison are well-cast in their respective roles, and Kene and Blake are particularly good as a couple whose relationship is quite deeper than it seems on the surface.

In conclusion, “I’m Your Woman” is another solid genre film from Hart, who previously impressed me with her second feature film “Fast Color” (2018). Like that little overlooked gem, “I’m Your Woman” deserves more attention for trying something different on its familiar genre territory and then pulling out some interesting elements to be observed and appreciated, and I recommend you to give it a chance someday.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Fatima (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): A little more thoughtful than you may expect

Posted on December 21, 2020 by kaist455

“Fatima” is a little more thoughtful than you may expect from its religious story subject. As your average agnostic atheist, I naturally observed its faith-based drama with some degree of skepticism from the very beginning, but it engaged me enough thanks to its earnest storytelling and several solid performances, and I could appreciate its admirably even-handed attitude between two different viewpoints hovering over the story.

The movie is based on an unbelievable real-life story surrounding three children who lived in Fátima, Portugal in 1917, and the opening scene shows one of them having a sort of spiritual experience inside a cave outside her town on one summer day of 1917. At that time, Portugal and its people were going through a very difficult time mainly due to the World War I, and Lúcia (Stephanie Gil), the youngest child of António (Marco d’Almeida) and Maria Rosa (Lúcia Moniz), comes to see the visions of her older brother struggling and suffering at the frontline shortly after encountering the apparition of a mysterious lady in the cave.

Although Maria Rosa does not believe much what her daughter tells her, she has been quite concerned about her oldest child’s safety just like her other family members. Whenever the mayor of the town is about to announce the latest list of soldiers killed or gone missing, she and many other anxious mothers in the town cannot help but feel very nervous, and this routine always ends with a contrasting mix of relief and grief among them.

Meanwhile, Lúcia happens to encounter another apparition of that mysterious lady while spending some time along with her two younger cousins Jacinta (Alejandra Howard) and Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) on the field outside their village. At first, they playfully try to shout “Ave Maria!” to the sky, but then, what do you know, something odd begins to happen around them, and then they soon come to behold that mysterious lady one by one. Although this lady does not tell them at all who the hell she is, Lúcia and her cousins come to believe that this lady is none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, and they certainly feel elevated by her momentary but undeniably sublime presence.

Lúcia and her cousins later promise to themselves that they will not tell this to anyone, but, of course, they cannot easily keep it secret from the adults around them, and the words on what they allegedly witnessed are quickly spread around the village and then all over the country. As they sincerely follow the instructions from the Blessed Virgin Mary, more people come to the town for getting blessed by her, and the mayor, who is not so religious compared to many others in the town, is not amused by that at all while also pressured a lot by his superiors in Lisbon.

And the people representing the Catholic Church are not so amused either. In case of a local priest, he has doubts on the claims of Lúcia and her two cousins, and he and his superiors are also quite concerned about whether this will cause an unnecessary trouble with the secular government of Portugal. They subsequently ask many questions to Lúcia and her two cousins, but Lúcia and her two cousins continue to stick to what they believe – even when they come to have their own doubt later in the story.

The screenplay by director/co-producer Marco Pontecorvo and Valerio D’Annunzio, which is based on the story by Barbara Nicolosi, also focuses on the increasingly strained relationship between Lúcia and her parents. Although she is a very religious person, Maria Rosa cannot easily believe her daughter as struggling with her hard and difficult daily life everyday, and her conflict with her daughter is further exacerbated by her accumulating anxiety over her oldest kid’s safety. While he tries to understand his daughter as much as he can, António soon finds himself quite frustrated due to what his daughter unintentionally causes, and Lúcia consequently becomes conflicted over her belief on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why did the Blessed Virgin Mary choose plain poor kids like her and her two cousins? And why does she have others around them suffer a lot because of their belief?

While the story eventually heads to an expected finale, the movie balances itself between conviction and skepticism as occasionally dropping by a part set in 1989. As listening to the story from older Lúcia played by Sônia Braga, Professor Nichols (Harvey Keitel) expresses his reasonably skeptical viewpoint from time to time, and older Lúcia calmly sticks to her story while gently recognizing the gap between their very different viewpoints. Although it comes to side a bit with Lúcia’s viewpoint in the end, the movie remains fairly even-sided on the whole, and Sônia Braga and Harvey Keitel, two dependable troupers who have always been interesting to watch during last several decades, bring some playful mood to their seemingly perfunctory scenes.

Overall, “Fatima” is more considerate and thoughtful than those crude faith-based drama films which blatantly force their belief upon their audiences, and Pontecorvo, who previously directed “Letters to Juliet” (2010), handles the story and characters with enough care and attention in addition to drawing the strong natural performances from his three young performers, who hold their own spots well amongst their older co-performers. Yes, there are surely more serious and thoughtful films about religion and faith out there, but the movie did a good job anyway, so I will not grumble for now.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Infiltrators (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): Their risky fight against ICE

Posted on December 20, 2020 by kaist455

“The Infiltrators”, which won the Audience award and the NEXT Innovator award when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, is an uneven but engaging mix of fiction and documentary. Although the overall result is not always as successful as intended, the movie is alternatively fascinating and chilling as a closer look into the social issues which have been far more daunting and depressing during last four years in US, and you will also come to admire the considerable courage of a small group of young people determined to fight against those systemic injustices under the US government.

The story is mainly set in Broward Transitional Center, a for-profit detention center located in Pompano Beach, Florida. Run by a publicly traded real estate investment trust which is associated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), this facility has held hundreds of alleged illegal immigrants classified as “non-criminal and low security detainees”, and the opening part of the film shows and tells us how an Argentine guy named Claudio Rojas was sent there after suddenly arrested by a bunch of ICE agents on one day of 2012. Although he had lived in Florida for several years, he and his family still did not have American citizenship, and he soon faced the possibility of deportation just like many other detainees around him as spending several months in Broward Transitional Center.

Fortunately, there were a number of activists willing to help him despite considerable risks for them, and we are subsequently introduced to some of them one by one. Although he could be deported to his parents’ homeland at any point, Mohammad Abdollahi had passionately worked along with other young illegal immigrants including Marco Saavedra and Viridiana Martinez, and these and other young activists planned to do more than helping Claudio from the outside. They decided to infiltrate into Broward Transitional Center for not only getting more information about the facility the but also getting Claudio and other detainees released from there, and Saavedra volunteered to be arrested and then sent there by Border Patrol even though this action of his could get himself into really serious troubles.

Around that point, directors/co-producers/co-writers Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera begin to alternate between reality and fiction. We see Marco preparing for his infiltration with his fellow activists, and then we get a fictional scene based on the recording of a conversation between him and a Border Patrol officer who was about to arrest him. Now played by Maynor Alvarado from this point, Marco begins to work on his mission step by step once he is sent to the Broward Transitional Center, and he soon encounters Claudio and then informs Claudio on what he is going to do.

Claudio, who is played by Manuel Uriza during the fictional part of the film, willingly tells Marco on many things he should keep in mind during his ongoing detention period. For instance, many of detainees in the facility will certainly welcome any opportunity for getting released instead of getting deported, but some of them are not so trustworthy for being “frogs”, who often interact with those guards in the facility for getting more advantages.

Nevertheless, Marco and Claudio embark on helping several other detainees they can really trust, and we are accordingly served with several dramatic moments showing how Marco and Claudio help these detainees while getting some assistance from Marco’s colleagues on the outside. In case of one detainee, he suddenly finds himself on the deportation list, but, thanks to being informed on a legal loophole at the last minute, he manages to be sent back to the facility in the end.

In the meantime, Marco comes to learn that the facility also has around 100 female detainees, and that prompts Viridiana, who is now played by Chelsea Rendon, to do the same undercover mission. Her first attempt of infiltration is a total failure, but, after going through more preparation with her colleagues, she eventually succeeds in getting into the facility, and it does not take much time for her to get a little friendlier with her fellow female detainees.

As they come to succeed more and more, the situation consequently becomes far riskier for Marco and Viridiana. Sensing that something fishy is going on among their detainees, those guys running the facility become more watchful than before, and Marco and Viridiana naturally become more concerned about that dreadful possibility of getting themselves exposed at any point.

It is not much a spoiler to tell you that Marco, Viridiana, and their colleagues come to have a small moment of victory for not only them but also a number of detainees in the facility, but the film feels rather jarring in its transition from fiction to reality, and its supposedly feel-good ending is inevitably overshadowed by what would follow a few years later. As many of you know, ICE has become more heartless and unforgiving thanks to the current US president during last four years, and I must say that what is presented in the film often seems tame compared to those numerous real-life horror stories involved with ICE and those illegal immigrants in US.

In conclusion, “The Infiltrators” is not entirely satisfying for a number of weak aspects including its rather thin storytelling, but it is still worthwhile to watch on the whole, so I recommend it despite some reservation. Although I was disappointed to see that it does not focus that much on what has been committed by ICE and the US government during last four years, I guess that is the job of other documentaries in the future, and I will eagerly wait for them.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Chadwick Boseman’s last film

Posted on December 20, 2020 by kaist455

Netflix film “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, which was released on Netflix on last Friday shortly after having a limited theatrical release in US several week ago, is a commendable adaptation of the acclaimed play of the same name by late August Wilson (1945-2005), who has been regarded as the “theater’s poet of black America”. Like “Fences” (2016), which is also based on one of Wilson’s notable plays, the movie presents a compelling drama of race and class, and, thanks to the engaging ensemble performance from its main cast members including the one who sadly passed away a few months ago, there are a number of superlative dramatic moments which will definitely linger on your mind for a while.

After the prologue scene in Georgia, the movie promptly moves onto its main background: a small recording studio located somewhere in the downtown area of Chicago on one day of 1927. During that period, Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) was one of the most popular African American blues singers in US, and now she is about to record another performance of hers, but she is being late as usual, and this certainly frustrates not only her manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) but also Mel Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne), the owner of the recording studio.

Meanwhile, the four band members to accompany Rainey are also waiting for her arrival in the studio, but they are not particularly concerned because they know and understand well how brash and stubborn she is as your typical trailblazer. As Cutler (Colman Domingo), Slow Drag (Michael Potts), and Toledo (Glynn Turman) talk with each other just for spending time before her arrival, we can clearly sense their longtime comradeship, and the actors playing them are flawless in their effortless interactions on the screen.

The last member of the band is Levee Green (Chadwick Boseman), a cocky young trumpeter who has been quite ambitious and hopeful about his music career. As reflected by the prologue scene, Levee is very eager for any opportunity to boost his career, and, to his older colleagues’ amusement, he is even willing to look a bit more humble and solicitous in front of Sturdyvant just because Sturdyvant may be interested in recording the latest works composed by him.

When he is subsequently ridiculed by his older colleagues for that, Levee comes to reveal what has been boiling and churning for many years behind his seemingly confident façade, and everyone listens to him with silence because, as fellow African Americans, they know too well how painful and infuriating life can be for African Americans. In his first showstopping moment in the film, Chadwick Boseman is utterly captivating in expressing his character’s old anger and resentment, and this is all the more poignant considering that he had only several months to live due to his terminal cancer during the shooting of the film.

After a little moment of respite and reflection provided by Toledo, Rainey finally arrives, but then she causes a series of problems right from the start. When she arrives in front of the studio along with her girlfriend and her young nephew who is supposed to participate in the recording, she happens to have a trouble with a police officer, and that is just the beginning of more headaches for her manager and Sturdyvant. Both of them are surely getting tired of Rainey more than ever, but they really need her new recording for their business, so they have no choice but to follow whatever Rainey demands.

While certainly knowing well how much her manager and Sturdyvant are frustrated and enraged, Rainey is not willing to step back at any chance because, as an African American woman, she is very determined to exert her power over these two Caucasian guys as much as she can. Viola Davis, who has been one of the most interesting actresses to us during last two decades, brings a considerable degree of intelligence as well as personality to her larger-than-life character, and her charismatic performance comes to hover over the story even during her absence.

Revee naturally envies that privileged status of Rainey, but it subsequently becomes quite evident to him and us that he does not have much chance from the beginning, and he ultimately becomes a tragic figure who lets himself ruined in a devastating way. While Boseman, who will inarguably garner a posthumous Oscar nomination for his performance in the movie, ably handles his several key moments during the second half of the film, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo, and Michael Poots are equally terrific in their respective supporting parts, and Jonny Coyne and Jeremy Shamos are also well-cast as two other crucial supporting characters at the fringe of the drama.

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is directed by George C. Wolfe, a two-time Tony winner who has been mainly known for his stage works. Although the movie shows its theatrical aspects from time to time, it focuses on the strength of its main cast members’ performance thanks to Wolfe’s plain and unobtrusive storytelling approach, and the main cast members did a brilliant job of conveying to us the ideas and emotions inside Wilson’s play, which is adapted by Ruben Santiago-Hudson for the film. In short, this is a well-made film firmly supported by Boseman, Davis, and its other main cast members, and it is also touching to see how vigorously Boseman worked till the end of his short acting career. He was indeed a talented star actor, and it is a shame that he left us too early, but, at least, he gives us one last good performance to be admired and remembered.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Prom (2020) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Glittering but passable

Posted on December 18, 2020 by kaist455

Netflix film “The Prom”, which was released on Netflix in last week shortly after being released in theaters a few weeks ago, is as lively and glittering as you can expected from a musical film directed/co-produced by Ryan Murphy. It is surely bold and colorful without any ounce of shame on using broad stereotypes and contrived narrative, and I appreciated the game efforts from its cast members, but then I eventually got tired as recognizing its numerous weak and superficial aspects.

As many of you already know, the movie is an adaptation of the acclaimed 2018 Broadway musical of the same name, which was loosely inspired by the public reactions to the Itawamba County School District prom controversy in Fulton, Mississippi in 2010. As reflected by the film, a young lesbian high school girl attempted to attend her high school prom along with her girlfriend, but her request was unfairly denied, and her legal action against that subsequently drew lots of public attention at that time while getting considerable supports from a number of prominent celebrities in US.

However, the movie mostly focuses on a quartet of fictional Broadway performers eager to get the spotlight by any means necessary for each own reason. While Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Steep), who is your average narcissistic Broadway diva, badly needs something to make her career bounce from the latest flop, Barry Glickman (James Corden), who happens to perform along with her in that flop, is also as desperate as his longtime friend/colleague, and the same thing can be said about Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman) and Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells), two small-time Broadway performers who have never had any big breakthrough in their respective careers for many years.

And then there comes an opportunity which seems to be too good to miss. Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman), a teenager lesbian girl living in Edgewater, Indiana, requested a permission to attend her upcoming high school prom along with her girlfriend who has incidentally not come out of her closet yet, but the parent-teacher association of her high school led by Mrs. Greene (Kerry Washington) is not willing to give her the permission at all, and Mrs. Green and many other conservative parents are even ready to cancel the prom just for stopping Emma and her girlfriend. At least, Emma gets considerable support from Principal Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key), but this plucky girl surely needs more support in public, and that is where our four Broadway performers discern a golden chance for all of them.

Of course, it soon turns out that they are the last persons Emma and Principal Hawkins need right now, and the movie generates some nice laughs as Dee Dee and her fellow Broadway performers blatantly wield their flamboyant sides in front of the folks of Edgewater. Meryl Streep, who is no stranger to musical films at all, goes all the way with her character’s incorrigible narcissism as gleefully performing “It’s Not About Me”, and she is flawless as usual in delivering the ironically comical sides of the lyric.

While Dee Dee and her fellow Broadway performers clumsily try to support and help Emma after a cruel incident which really breaks her heart, the movie provides a series of musical moments as required, but the result is a mixed bag on the whole. I liked the sweet sincerity in “We Look to You”, and I also enjoyed a tribute to Bob Fosse musicals in “Zazz”, but then I winced more than once as watching the rather pedesterian presentation of “Love Thy Neighbor”, which unfortunately does not utilize well Andrew Rannells’ considerable comic and musical talent.

Above all, the screenplay by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, who also wrote the book for the 2018 Broadway musical, often falters due to its thin characterization and half-baked storytelling. When the mood becomes a little more serious during its second half, it tries to bring some depth to its main characters, but they still remain to be more or less than exaggerated caricatures, and that makes us more aware of many artificial aspects of the film including the strained acting of James Corden, who often looks like overplaying his character’s sexuality.

Nevertheless, the movie is not a total failure at least thanks to the spirited acting from Streep and its several other main cast members. Although she initially seems to be stuck in a thankless role, Kidman shines as delightfully performing “Zazz” along with Jo Ellen Pellman, and Pellman, who makes her debut here in this film, deserves to commended for holding her own place well among her far more notable co-performers. Quite engaging in her unadorned performance, she provides necessary gravitas to her character as well as the story, and it will be interesting to see next several years of her nascent acting career.

Overall, “The Prom”, which is incidentally another Netflix film directed by Murphy in this year after “The Boys in the Band” (2020), is a well-made musical product, but it did not particularly impress me much due to its numerous flaws which distracted me from time to time, and I eventually found myself watching its feel-good finale without much care or attention. Sure, its sincere message on tolerance and acceptance is something we always should keep in mind, but, folks, I was not entertained enough by how it is about, and that is all.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Panda Bear It (2020) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): He sees that panda bear everywhere…

Posted on December 16, 2020 by kaist455

Four years ago, I received an e-mail from a young American independent filmmaker named Evan Kidd, who was quite eager to persuade me to watch his first feature film “Son of Clowns” (2016). Although I had never heard of him or his works, I decided to give him and his first feature film a chance because 1) that would be the interesting first experience for me as a meager movie reviewer who still has a lot to learn and 2) I was intrigued by the main subject of his movie when I watched its trailer. While I did not like his movie enough for recommendation, I wrote a 2-star review anyway, and the review was posted on my blog and then on rogerebert.com (You can read it here, by the way).

During last four years, Kidd made several small works including a short documentary film “Run of the Picture” (2019), which is about a young African American athlete who also tried to be a filmmaker. Again, I was not that satisfied as noticing a number of weak aspects here and there in the documentary, but I willingly pointed out them to Kidd while also recognizing the parts which did work in contrast. As far as I could see from his reply to my e-mail, he seemed to appreciate my feedback, though I was not that good in evaluating films compared to many professional movie reviewers out there.

Anyway, despite my negative responses to his two works, Kidd generously sent me a screener of his latest film “Panda Bear It” several months ago, and I must confess that I let him down a bit. Busy with reviewing many other movies which interested me more, I kept postponing watching it, and I only came to check out its trailer yesterday afternoon. While watching the trailer, I had reasonable doubts on whether the movie could be as successful as intended, but I decided to watch the film itself during that evening, regardless of whether I would be able to review it or not.

It turns out to be not as effective as its creator hoped, but “Panda Bear It” shows me that Kidd has been really getting better in his nascent career during last four years. To be frank with you, I could not react well to its blatantly whimsical story promise, and the movie still shows the visible signs of limited production time and budget (It was shot only with around $500 during seven days, by the way), but the overall result is more polished and assured compared to “Son of Clowns”. As a matter of fact, I came to feel more urge to encourage and support Kidd for watching whatever will come from him in the future.

At the beginning, the movie gradually establishes the depressing emotional status of its young African American hero who has pursued a rap career in his hometown in North Carolina. As reflected by a brief flashback shot, Kamus (Damien Elliott Bynum, a real-life rap musician who is solid in his natural performance) recently lost someone quite dear to him, and we see him still struggling a lot with his consequent grief during a recording session where he miserably fails to perform his latest work.

At least, Kamus has several people who sincerely care about him, but he does not interact that well with any of them. He has lived with his grandmother and a younger brother at his home, and his grandmother is willing to be a matchmaker for him, but he is not particularly interested in letting a stranger come into his life. He has earned his meager living via working in a local convenient store, but he often finds himself too depressed and dispirited to work, and that makes his caring co-worker more concerned about him.

Meanwhile, it turns out that our hero is not so right in his troubled mind. He frequently sees a figure wearing a panda bear costume when he is alone by himself, and we see this figure communicating with him via gestures. It is not ominous or malevolent at all, and it sincerely wants to cheer him up as much as possible, but Kamus remains sad and glum as before without any progress in his artistic work.

This setting distracted me a lot because of its glaring artificial aspects, but, fortunately, the movie gets improved once Kamus is later persuaded to go outside along with his imaginary companion. By his grandmother’s car, they soon leave his hometown, and then they come to spend the following night in the middle of some remote rural area.

Although I still did not buy its story premise, the movie kept engaging me nonetheless. The scene involved with a trio of goofy supporting characters is rather jarring to me, but then the movie comes to get its heart in the right place thanks to the appearance of Eric Hartley, whose supporting turn was incidentally the best thing in “Son of Clowns”. While Kamus’ imaginary companion continued to distract me as before, the following several scenes between Kamus and Hartley’s farmer character are sweet and touching with the genuine sense of human connection, and I found myself wishing that Kidd had trusted his story and performers more instead of emphasizing that damn panda bear, which, in my opinion, is more or less than a quirky story device to make his film a little more distinctive than millions of micro-budget independent films out there.

In conclusion, “Panda Bear It”, which is currently available on Amazon Prime in US, is not wholly without interest although I still cannot wholeheartedly recommend it. I was disappointed again, but I still think Kidd, who also handled editing and cinematography besides directing, writing, and producing it, is a good filmmaker capable of more development and improvement, and I am willing to observe the next steps of his career anyway.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

RKO 281 (1999) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A terrific TV movie to complement “Mank”

Posted on December 14, 2020 by kaist455

To be frank with you, it took some time for me to appreciate the greatness of Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941), which has been regarded as one of the greatest works in the history of cinema during last several decades. When I watched it for the first time in 1996 via a cheap video tape copy, I merely regarded it as one of the classic films I was obliged to watch, and it was just another familiar tale of power, ambition, and loss to me at that time. When I watched it again in 2003 via a copy of the local 3-disc DVD edition, I was surprised to discover what a fresh and exciting piece of work it actually is in terms of storytelling as well as filmmaking, and my admiration and enthusiasm toward it have only grown more and more during last 17 years.

The local 3-Disc DVD edition, which I am still keeping at present despite its rather dubious production background, has only three supplements, and one of them is Benjamin Ross’ 1999 HBO film “RKO 281”, whose very title came from the studio production number of “Citizen Kane”. While David Fincher’s recent Netflix film “Mank” (2020) adamantly sticks to Welles’ co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz’s bitter viewpoint on how he came to write “Citizen Kane”, “RKO 281” mainly presents Welles’ viewpoint on the production of “Citizen Kane” in addition to paying some attention to Mankiewicz and several other real-life figures revolving around Welles, and the result is a vivid and compelling presentation of that troubled history surrounding the making of “Citizen Kane”.

At the beginning of “RKO 281”, a black and white newsreel scene, which is evidently influenced by the “News on the March” sequence in “Citizen Kane”, gives us a succinct summary on the meteoric rise of Welles during the 1930s. While recognized as a new boy wonder of Broadway thanks to several critical successes achieved by him and his famous theater company, Welles went further as doing a number of notable radio shows, and then he reached to the top thanks to his infamous radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” in October 1938. After boldly conquering both theater and radio in New York City, he was certainly willing to move onto another artistic field to challenge him, and that was why he subsequently accepted an offer from the RKO Studios in Hollywood, which guaranteed to him the unprecedented total artistic control over the first movie to be directed by him.

The first act of “RKO 281” revolves around Welles’ struggle to find a project ambitious enough for him and his growing reputation. While he has surely made a big impression on the folks of Hollywood with his glorious entrance, Welles, played by Liev Schreiber, soon finds himself running out of time without anything to be greenlit by RKO and its current president George Schaefer (Roy Scheider), and then there comes a serendipitous moment when he happens to be invited to the big manor of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (James Cromwell) in San Simeon, California. While getting the glimpses on the private life of Hearst and his longtime mistress Marion Davies (Melanie Griffith), Welles comes to have a brilliant story idea for his first movie, and then he persuades Mankiewicz to write the screenplay based on that. As your average jaded Hollywood writer, Mankiewicz, played by John Malkovich, is not so reluctant at first, but he eventually agrees to work for Welles because, well, it looks like the last opportunity in his dwindling movie career which has been deteriorated by his alcoholism. Having been one of Hearst and Davies’ regular guests for years, Mankiewicz surely knows some interesting personal facts about them, and he does not hesitate to use these facts including the pet name for Davies’ certain body part during his following creative process with Welles.

While he did his best for completing the screenplay within a short period of time as demanded by Welles, Mankiewicz is also well aware of the big danger of what he and Welles are attempting to do, so he sincerely warns Welles on that. Although he is not as rich and powerful as he once was, Hearst still can wield considerable power and influence over the presidents and executives of those major Hollywood movie companies including Louis B. Meyer (David Suchet), and it is only a matter of time before he comes to learn of what Welles’ first movie is about. Nevertheless, Welles decides to take risks mainly because he believes that his movie will draw more publicity due to Hearst, and Schaefer and RKO go along with his decision despite having understandable concerns.

What follows after that is a rather brief but exhilarating part giving us a closer look into the production of “Citizen Kane”. We see Welles thoroughly studying and analyzing John Ford’s “Stagecoach” (1939) along with his cinematographer Gregg Toland (Liam Cunningham), and then the movie serves us a series of amusing moments on the set including the scene where Welles and Toland go all the way for getting an extreme low-angle shot exactly envisioned by Welles. Because of that and many other incidents on the set, Schaefer and RKO executives have constant headaches everyday, but they have no choice but to keep tolerating Welles as legally bound to their contract with him.

However, these troubles turn out to be nothing compared to lots of wrath and threat from Hearst, who instantly embarks on suppressing Welles’ film by any means necessary once he is notified on the film by infamous Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Fiona Shaw). As depicted in the film, Hearst and Louella Parsons (Brenda Blethyn), another notorious gossip columnist in Hollywood who had incidentally been on his payroll for years, put lots of pressure on Meyer and other Hollywood studio bosses, and it is chilling to see how they could nearly succeed in destroying “Citizen Kane” once for all.

Nevertheless, the screenplay by John Logan, which is partly based on Michael Epstein and Thomas Lennon’s Oscar-nominated documentary film “The Battle Over Citizen Kane” (1996), is surprisingly sympathetic to Hearst as well as Davies. While it goes without saying that he is the chief villain of the story, Hearst looks genuinely hurt after learning more of how his private life with Davies is blatantly appropriated by Welles and Mankiewicz’s story, and that consequently brings out his worst sides. In case of Davies, she is also not so pleased about that either as a fairly good Hollywood actress who is quite different from her tragically untalented fictional counterpart in “Citizen Kane”, and that makes her reflect more on many unhappy aspects of her relationship with Hearst, which becomes more strained than before thanks to his battle with Welles’ movie.

The conflict between Hearst and Welles in the story eventually culminates to a coincidental private encounter between them not long before the eventual premiere of “Citizen Kane” in New York City in May 1941. As arguing with Welles on “Citizen Kane” for a while, Hearst seems to sense that Welles is not so different from what he once was many years ago, even though he is still regarding Welles with anger and contempt. Regardless of whether this dramatic moment really happened in real life as Welles claimed later, there is some ironic poignancy in Hearst’s last words to Welles in the movie: “My battle with the world is almost over. Yours, I’m afraid, has just begun.”

Although it must be pointed out that Logan’s screenplay frequently takes artistic liberties with its real-life story (For example, Welles was actually never invited to Hearst’s manor, and it was in fact Mankiewicz who conceived the story idea of “Citizen Kane” first), the story and characters in the film are vividly presented under Ross’ competent direction at least, and his main cast members are uniformly excellent on the whole. While he does not resemble Welles that much, Liev Schreiber did a good job of channeling Welles’ larger-than-life persona instead of resorting to mere imitation, and he is also supported well by a bunch of vividly colorful performers. Often looking as weary and sardonic as required, John Malkovich complements Schreiber’s spirited acting well on the screen, and their dynamic interactions on the screen establish the solid ground for a fictional moment of reconciliation between Welles and Mankiewicz after their serious clash over that controversial authorship of “Citizen Kane”. While Roy Scheider is ever-patient as a guy who must constantly balance himself between his business and Welles’ artistic ambition, James Cromwell and Melanie Griffith ably convey to us the human sides of Hearst and Davies’ flawed but ultimately enduring relationship, and Brenda Blethyn, Fiona Shaw, Liam Cunningham, and David Suchet are also effective in their small supporting parts.

As a TV movie, “RKO 281” looks plainer compared to “Mank”, but it is still worthwhile to watch thanks to its engaging storytelling and performance, and it will certainly make a wonderful double feature show along with “Mank”. Although quite different from each other in many aspects including tone and style, these two movies show and tell us a lot of things about “Citizen Kane” via their respective fictional narratives, and you may appreciate more of the sheer genius of “Citizen Kane” after watching them together.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment