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★★˝
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) - Gilroy
You are here for the acting. Washington dumps his usual, charismatic leading man persona and plays a socially awkward lawyer with a touch of Asperger's syndrome. Fighting the good fight all those years—he wore his lack of visible success like a badge of integrity. When the great (the erudite, public face of this two man law firm) man passes away; Roman J. goes from making 500 dollars a week to making 500 dollars an hour. Needless to say, the tin star of integrity doesn’t go well with a thousand dollar suit.
My son, My son, what have ye done? (2009) - Herzog
This is another one of Herzog’s mockumentaries played as a straight drama. The tale of a man slowly slipping into madness—anything bizarre in the film is taken directly from the court transcripts of the case. From the interviews, we can see him clearly latching onto random events and mystifying these experiences. The worst hit of fate was getting the lead in a grisly Greek tragedy, which of course, he incorporates into his delirium. There is a nice buried idea here about myths coming alive in real life.
Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) - McQuarrie
The emotional connections the two unfortunate women have with the lead are the glue that holds this stunt film together; he only lives to go off stunting. A perfect example of the cardboard construction would be the nuclear exchange scene. Arguably, if the villains were thinking straight, two bullets to the back of the head would be the only way to go. Story over. They win! Instead they opt for the more difficult thing, shooting past them and liquidating the other gang with four simultaneous kill shots; then they create an elaborate diversion to tippy toe over and grab the three MacGuffins and vanish like thieves in the night. Shooting them in the head, while their backs were turned would have been the simplest solution—for the second time! The film refers to the botched exchange later in the film and is less about needling the stuntman about his incompetence and more as a passive-aggressive aside reminding the audience as evil henchmen, they are contractually obligated to be completely brain dead.
Heart of Midnight (1993) - Chapman
A kind of a cheesy, horror film where an emotionally fragile young woman inherits an old vaudeville theater and begins renovating it and turning it into some jazzy nightclub, taking her first (do or die) steps in the big bad world. A troubled ghost roaming the hallways and making things go bump in the night may come from the venue’s last incarnation, when it was an underground sex-club.
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) - Litvak
An invalid heiress uses her psychosomatic illness to control the people around her (she bounces around perfectly in the bed when she is preoccupied) but has to remember to get into character and grab her crutches when she climbs out of it. Her husband’s debts in this talky Film Noir have become so massive he opts for her life insurance as the answer to all his financial problems. When the walls begin to close in, it’s kind of evocative she could simply jump up and skedaddle at any time. This was blown-up from a 30 minute radio play.
Irina Palm (2005) - Garbarski
Her dying grandson gets a last chance on life when he is offered an experimental treatment in Australia free of charge. The only hitch is this working class family has to raise the money themselves for the airplane tickets and the hotels. A middle aged widow, with no employment history needs desperately to find a job in order to save her grandson’s life. The film oscillates between a “gripping” drama and a black comedy.
Hemel ( 2012) - Polak
This Father and daughter are super intimate. He has been a serial dater since high school and falls head over heels in love for the first time late in his life. The emotional stuff was their exclusive thing and when all this goes to some bimbo, this causes a serious rift in their relationship. It’s kind of funny that if he had had a son; there would be no drama here. A hungry lion cutting a large swath through club land wouldn’t be as interesting as a ravenous lioness on the stalk. She is essentially a carbon copy of her father.
★★★
One Week (1920) - Keaton & Cline
Buster gets a pre-fab, do it yourself home kit as a wedding gift from his uncle in this 25 minute short. A sore loser re-numbers some of the crates as a last act of revenge on him, resulting in a great, lop-sided contraption of a house. This was Keaton’s second film in the can, although first one to be released after having graduating from being Fatty Arbuckle’s side kick. Buster’s screen persona is fully formed from the beginning; the great stone face; the inventive visual gags; and his stunts-—done with precise mathematical calculations and obvious physical danger.
The Damned don’t Cry (1950) - Sherman
A kind of re-telling of the Bugsy Siegal story (he started Las Vegas) refitted with the meaty part going to Joan Crawford. She claws her way up from tragic poverty. She holds tight to the arm of her current business partner, trashing his opponents, bucking her man up, pointing him towards the scams, then casting them aside after each step up the social ladder. Only to realize at the end, that there is a price to be paid for always taking the easy money.
Three Identical Strangers (2018) - Wardle
A nature vs nurture experiment with human guinea pigs with the CIA holding the purse strings in the shadows—who else would fund this nut-bag research? The two best characters have bit parts in the film; the two intellectually superior eggheads. In one scene, Brainiac puts his hands behind his head and leans back in his chair and blows hard about how totally clueless the parents were. He could never simply tell them how damaging certain behaviors were for their children or point them to the path to better parenting. He was merely paid to observe the folly. The other scientist who knew about the experiment from the water cooler talk in the office has a trophy table in her condo crowded with vanity photographs to remind herself daily of her importance: she simply spills the beans, the study won’t be released until after all the participants have croaked.
Leave no Trace (2018) - Granik
The film concentrates on a young woman’s coming of age; interacting with the strange outside world that she has no real contact with, but also no fear of. After being told that honey bee stings are rare, there is a nice shot of her grabbing a handful and letting them dance around on her hand. Her curiosity ranges everywhere. Her father is on an opposite tack. He is shutting down emotionally and beginning to push her away in subtle ways. He can no longer hitch hike on the highways. She has to function as a go-between and convince the truckers he is harmless enough for him to be even allowed inside the cab. We get a foreshadow of the title of the film, he has to be mobile in the PTSD forest and one day a minor slip will be the death of him.
BlacKkKlansman (2018) - Lee
The best thing in the film were the asides to the audience during the story drawing the direct comparisons to contemporary politics, although if you weren’t paying attention during the entire film, the director spells everything out for the audience in the epilogue. There is a nice moment when he goes undercover at the radical meeting, and you can see his mind boggling: in what parallel universe is this talk construed as violent extremism? And how in hell is he going to make a mountain out of this wee molehill to his superiors?
The Last Suit (2017) - Solarz
His daughters are about to sell off his home out from under him and ship this retired tailor and Tarsus (his pet name for his bum leg) off to the old folk’s home. Seeing the end is near, he decides to make a run for it—flying solo from Argentina to his hometown in Europe to keep a sacred promise he made 70 years ago. Being frail and close to 90 years old, he is not going to complete this odyssey by himself and needs a whole host of accomplices willing to help him achieve his goal, especially when the trip begins to throw beanballs at him.
A touch of Spring (2017) - Xiaodan He
This is an open ended character study of a Chinese immigrant returning home after ten years for a visit. In this large, extended clan (a reunion takes up an entire room in a community center), she is known simply as Auntie Canada (not that she has anything nasty to say against Justin Trudeau land) Best scene is when she meets the black (she has abandoned the care of her daughter to her mother) sheep of the family at a café and she decides puts on a little mascara and a leather jacket. The camera then pans to not to the unlucky girl but herself sitting opposite her. The great success story and the tale of misfortune and unhappiness in the family are mirror images of one other. When she returns to home after the trip, she simply starts cleaning up the mess in her life.
Puzzle (2018) - Turtletaub
This is an introspective film about a housewife discovering passion in the form of jigsaw puzzles. This slowly enlarges and bursts the narrow perimeters of her life forcing all the people around her grow with her changes or be left behind. Her puzzle mentor believes everything happens completely at random with no rhyme or reason and his great love of puzzles comes from the moment when the last piece fits and everything comes becomes serene and ordered for a brief moment.
12 and Holding (2005) - Cuesta
A single blind spot in their parenting could be doing irreparable damage to three children as the parents (who know best) impose their own agenda’s onto them with the kids resisting these mistakes with varying degrees of success and failure. Strangely, these children seem to be much more perceptive at seeing the world around them than the adults, but that is not going to spare some of them from tragedy.
The Son of Joseph (2016) - Green
The film has a very specific tone. There is a great wooden, theatrical delivery of the lines. At times, the actors look into or address directly the camera. A mother has always told her son that he has no father, and he has never given this a second thought until now: now he sets out to find why his father abandoned him. There is a hidden humour that would be laugh out loud hilarious in any other film. One of his school mates offers him a dream job; one which most teen-aged boys would kill to have. The man he is searching for may be a card carrying, dyed-in-the-wool Satanist. Although the film uses Christian mythology, one could go with the profane interpretation of the film, that of a young man seeking not “the holy father”, but “a” father figure to help him maturate into adulthood.
★★★˝
Longford (2006) - Hooper
This is a nice mediation on redemption. The waiting room of forgiveness is filled with jay-walkers where forgiveness is merely a rote gesture and sprinkle of water, but what if someone truly wicked entered that room and took a number for the next flight to heaven: would they be forgiven for their heinous crimes? Elder statesman Longford has visited prisoners all his life as part of his faith. There’s wonderful acting in this subtle mouse and cat game of Longford coaxing a prisoner towards spirituality, and a completely damaged human being latching onto whatever options she has and exploiting them. The first time we see the Medusa, she sits with her back to the main room so the lip readers the tabloids have sent in can’t decipher her conversation. She is going to be hounded to her grave. As Longford heads off on another one of his crusades; he is an easy target for the reactionary press playing to the mob, but the film reminds us that moral principles are always held up by a unbreakable backbone of steel.
Oasis (2002) - Chang-dong Lee
The star-crossed couple here are equally matched in their disabilities; she has Cerebral palsy and he is an ex-con with a distinctive lack of cognition—he is a menace to himself and everyone around him simply because he is incapable of thinking things all the way through. There is a formidable obstacle in the film in the depiction of the abuse and exploitation of the disabled— totally at the mercy of their caretakers. If you can power over that hurdle, you may find a film that has a few moments of magic realism, poetry and beauty.
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) - Gilroy
You are here for the acting. Washington dumps his usual, charismatic leading man persona and plays a socially awkward lawyer with a touch of Asperger's syndrome. Fighting the good fight all those years—he wore his lack of visible success like a badge of integrity. When the great (the erudite, public face of this two man law firm) man passes away; Roman J. goes from making 500 dollars a week to making 500 dollars an hour. Needless to say, the tin star of integrity doesn’t go well with a thousand dollar suit.
My son, My son, what have ye done? (2009) - Herzog
This is another one of Herzog’s mockumentaries played as a straight drama. The tale of a man slowly slipping into madness—anything bizarre in the film is taken directly from the court transcripts of the case. From the interviews, we can see him clearly latching onto random events and mystifying these experiences. The worst hit of fate was getting the lead in a grisly Greek tragedy, which of course, he incorporates into his delirium. There is a nice buried idea here about myths coming alive in real life.
Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) - McQuarrie
The emotional connections the two unfortunate women have with the lead are the glue that holds this stunt film together; he only lives to go off stunting. A perfect example of the cardboard construction would be the nuclear exchange scene. Arguably, if the villains were thinking straight, two bullets to the back of the head would be the only way to go. Story over. They win! Instead they opt for the more difficult thing, shooting past them and liquidating the other gang with four simultaneous kill shots; then they create an elaborate diversion to tippy toe over and grab the three MacGuffins and vanish like thieves in the night. Shooting them in the head, while their backs were turned would have been the simplest solution—for the second time! The film refers to the botched exchange later in the film and is less about needling the stuntman about his incompetence and more as a passive-aggressive aside reminding the audience as evil henchmen, they are contractually obligated to be completely brain dead.
Heart of Midnight (1993) - Chapman
A kind of a cheesy, horror film where an emotionally fragile young woman inherits an old vaudeville theater and begins renovating it and turning it into some jazzy nightclub, taking her first (do or die) steps in the big bad world. A troubled ghost roaming the hallways and making things go bump in the night may come from the venue’s last incarnation, when it was an underground sex-club.
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) - Litvak
An invalid heiress uses her psychosomatic illness to control the people around her (she bounces around perfectly in the bed when she is preoccupied) but has to remember to get into character and grab her crutches when she climbs out of it. Her husband’s debts in this talky Film Noir have become so massive he opts for her life insurance as the answer to all his financial problems. When the walls begin to close in, it’s kind of evocative she could simply jump up and skedaddle at any time. This was blown-up from a 30 minute radio play.
Irina Palm (2005) - Garbarski
Her dying grandson gets a last chance on life when he is offered an experimental treatment in Australia free of charge. The only hitch is this working class family has to raise the money themselves for the airplane tickets and the hotels. A middle aged widow, with no employment history needs desperately to find a job in order to save her grandson’s life. The film oscillates between a “gripping” drama and a black comedy.
Hemel ( 2012) - Polak
This Father and daughter are super intimate. He has been a serial dater since high school and falls head over heels in love for the first time late in his life. The emotional stuff was their exclusive thing and when all this goes to some bimbo, this causes a serious rift in their relationship. It’s kind of funny that if he had had a son; there would be no drama here. A hungry lion cutting a large swath through club land wouldn’t be as interesting as a ravenous lioness on the stalk. She is essentially a carbon copy of her father.
★★★
One Week (1920) - Keaton & Cline
Buster gets a pre-fab, do it yourself home kit as a wedding gift from his uncle in this 25 minute short. A sore loser re-numbers some of the crates as a last act of revenge on him, resulting in a great, lop-sided contraption of a house. This was Keaton’s second film in the can, although first one to be released after having graduating from being Fatty Arbuckle’s side kick. Buster’s screen persona is fully formed from the beginning; the great stone face; the inventive visual gags; and his stunts-—done with precise mathematical calculations and obvious physical danger.
The Damned don’t Cry (1950) - Sherman
A kind of re-telling of the Bugsy Siegal story (he started Las Vegas) refitted with the meaty part going to Joan Crawford. She claws her way up from tragic poverty. She holds tight to the arm of her current business partner, trashing his opponents, bucking her man up, pointing him towards the scams, then casting them aside after each step up the social ladder. Only to realize at the end, that there is a price to be paid for always taking the easy money.
Three Identical Strangers (2018) - Wardle
A nature vs nurture experiment with human guinea pigs with the CIA holding the purse strings in the shadows—who else would fund this nut-bag research? The two best characters have bit parts in the film; the two intellectually superior eggheads. In one scene, Brainiac puts his hands behind his head and leans back in his chair and blows hard about how totally clueless the parents were. He could never simply tell them how damaging certain behaviors were for their children or point them to the path to better parenting. He was merely paid to observe the folly. The other scientist who knew about the experiment from the water cooler talk in the office has a trophy table in her condo crowded with vanity photographs to remind herself daily of her importance: she simply spills the beans, the study won’t be released until after all the participants have croaked.
Leave no Trace (2018) - Granik
The film concentrates on a young woman’s coming of age; interacting with the strange outside world that she has no real contact with, but also no fear of. After being told that honey bee stings are rare, there is a nice shot of her grabbing a handful and letting them dance around on her hand. Her curiosity ranges everywhere. Her father is on an opposite tack. He is shutting down emotionally and beginning to push her away in subtle ways. He can no longer hitch hike on the highways. She has to function as a go-between and convince the truckers he is harmless enough for him to be even allowed inside the cab. We get a foreshadow of the title of the film, he has to be mobile in the PTSD forest and one day a minor slip will be the death of him.
BlacKkKlansman (2018) - Lee
The best thing in the film were the asides to the audience during the story drawing the direct comparisons to contemporary politics, although if you weren’t paying attention during the entire film, the director spells everything out for the audience in the epilogue. There is a nice moment when he goes undercover at the radical meeting, and you can see his mind boggling: in what parallel universe is this talk construed as violent extremism? And how in hell is he going to make a mountain out of this wee molehill to his superiors?
The Last Suit (2017) - Solarz
His daughters are about to sell off his home out from under him and ship this retired tailor and Tarsus (his pet name for his bum leg) off to the old folk’s home. Seeing the end is near, he decides to make a run for it—flying solo from Argentina to his hometown in Europe to keep a sacred promise he made 70 years ago. Being frail and close to 90 years old, he is not going to complete this odyssey by himself and needs a whole host of accomplices willing to help him achieve his goal, especially when the trip begins to throw beanballs at him.
A touch of Spring (2017) - Xiaodan He
This is an open ended character study of a Chinese immigrant returning home after ten years for a visit. In this large, extended clan (a reunion takes up an entire room in a community center), she is known simply as Auntie Canada (not that she has anything nasty to say against Justin Trudeau land) Best scene is when she meets the black (she has abandoned the care of her daughter to her mother) sheep of the family at a café and she decides puts on a little mascara and a leather jacket. The camera then pans to not to the unlucky girl but herself sitting opposite her. The great success story and the tale of misfortune and unhappiness in the family are mirror images of one other. When she returns to home after the trip, she simply starts cleaning up the mess in her life.
Puzzle (2018) - Turtletaub
This is an introspective film about a housewife discovering passion in the form of jigsaw puzzles. This slowly enlarges and bursts the narrow perimeters of her life forcing all the people around her grow with her changes or be left behind. Her puzzle mentor believes everything happens completely at random with no rhyme or reason and his great love of puzzles comes from the moment when the last piece fits and everything comes becomes serene and ordered for a brief moment.
12 and Holding (2005) - Cuesta
A single blind spot in their parenting could be doing irreparable damage to three children as the parents (who know best) impose their own agenda’s onto them with the kids resisting these mistakes with varying degrees of success and failure. Strangely, these children seem to be much more perceptive at seeing the world around them than the adults, but that is not going to spare some of them from tragedy.
The Son of Joseph (2016) - Green
The film has a very specific tone. There is a great wooden, theatrical delivery of the lines. At times, the actors look into or address directly the camera. A mother has always told her son that he has no father, and he has never given this a second thought until now: now he sets out to find why his father abandoned him. There is a hidden humour that would be laugh out loud hilarious in any other film. One of his school mates offers him a dream job; one which most teen-aged boys would kill to have. The man he is searching for may be a card carrying, dyed-in-the-wool Satanist. Although the film uses Christian mythology, one could go with the profane interpretation of the film, that of a young man seeking not “the holy father”, but “a” father figure to help him maturate into adulthood.
★★★˝
Longford (2006) - Hooper
This is a nice mediation on redemption. The waiting room of forgiveness is filled with jay-walkers where forgiveness is merely a rote gesture and sprinkle of water, but what if someone truly wicked entered that room and took a number for the next flight to heaven: would they be forgiven for their heinous crimes? Elder statesman Longford has visited prisoners all his life as part of his faith. There’s wonderful acting in this subtle mouse and cat game of Longford coaxing a prisoner towards spirituality, and a completely damaged human being latching onto whatever options she has and exploiting them. The first time we see the Medusa, she sits with her back to the main room so the lip readers the tabloids have sent in can’t decipher her conversation. She is going to be hounded to her grave. As Longford heads off on another one of his crusades; he is an easy target for the reactionary press playing to the mob, but the film reminds us that moral principles are always held up by a unbreakable backbone of steel.
Oasis (2002) - Chang-dong Lee
The star-crossed couple here are equally matched in their disabilities; she has Cerebral palsy and he is an ex-con with a distinctive lack of cognition—he is a menace to himself and everyone around him simply because he is incapable of thinking things all the way through. There is a formidable obstacle in the film in the depiction of the abuse and exploitation of the disabled— totally at the mercy of their caretakers. If you can power over that hurdle, you may find a film that has a few moments of magic realism, poetry and beauty.
