Feeds:
Posts
Comments

“AFTER THE WEDDING”: Uphill battle

August 29, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Michelle Williams

“AFTER THE WEDDING” My rating: C+

110 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“After the Wedding” offers the spectacle of fine performances in an uphill battle against melodramatic drek.

Written and directed by Bart Freundlich and based on the 2006  Danish film of the same name (part of the experimental Dogme 95 movement that eschewed studio filming and post-production dubbing…not even a musical score), this remake’s main claim to fame is that it changes the sex of the main characters.

Isabel (Michelle Williams) lives and works in India where she is devoting her life to that country’s countless orphans.  When word arrives that an American benefactor wants to give her operations millions of dollars, Isabel is both excited and suspicious.  Her charity desperately needs the money, but it will require a trip to New York City for a series of interviews — and Isabel is loathe to leave her young charges.

But it’s a deal too good to pass up, which is how she finds herself sitting across the table from Theresa (Julianne Moore), the fabulously successful owner and operator of a Manhattan media placement company.

Isabel arrives with tons of statistics about child prostitution in India and the country’s armies of abandoned children, but Theresa is distracted. Her daughter is getting married in a day or two and she’s preoccupied with last-minute decisions about the lavish soiree on the family’s posh Long Island estate.

Sorry, Theresa says.  Can’t concentrate on Indian orphans right now. Come to the wedding…we’ll talk on Monday.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“ONE CHILD NATION”: Dead babies

August 29, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

“ONE CHILD NATION” My rating: B+ (Now on Netflix)

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Americans — thoughtful ones, anyway — know all about collective guilt.

After all, under our belts we’ve got 200 years of slavery, the decimation of the continent’s aboriginal population, internment camps for loyal Japanese Americans…and President Donald J. Trump.

That’s just for starters.

But we’re given a run for our money by China, which for nearly 40 years enforced its one-child-per-family rule with millions of involuntary sterilizations and abortions.

The  moral weight of that experience is at the heart of “One Child Nation,” a devastating documentary that starts out as an examination of personal history and quickly becomes an indictment of an entire culture.

The film follows Nanfu Wang (who co-directs with Jialing Zhang) as she returns to her birthplace in China (she’s now a U.S. resident).  Visiting her native village in Jiangxi Province she interviews older citizens — including her schoolteacher mother and the burg’s former mayor — about the one-child policy that was in effect from 1979 to 2015.

At the time it was the largest example of social engineering in the world; the filmmakers display TV ads, posters, parades and songs designed to make the one-child effort as important as buying bonds during wartime.

Mostly Wang’s subjects toe the party line, declaring the policy a great success which prevented mass starvation and allowed China to slowly build itself into the economic powerhouse we see today. They’re proud to have done their duty and by doing so to have guaranteed the survival of their country.

But bit by bit horror stories come slithering out.  The former mayor talks about standing to one side, shamefully unable to act or to interfere when authorities arrested women found to be illegally pregnant.

A midwife sorrowfully estimates she was responsible for as many as 20,000 forced abortions — often involving weeping, pleading women who had to be tied down for the operation.  Many of those aborted fetuses were late-termers capable of surviving outside the womb. They were strangled. This same woman now devotes her life to good deeds, hoping to expunge the bad karma she has built up over decades.

At one point the filmmakers stumble across a dumpster filled with snapshots of aborted babies.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“HOT AIR”: Bellicosity

August 22, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Taylor Russell, Steve Coogan

“HOT AIR” My rating: C

99 minutes | No MPAA rating

Given our current political climate you’d expect a movie about a right-wing radio pundit to have at least a little bite.

“Hot Air,” though, is a particularly toothless affair.

Scripted by Will Reichel directed by Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer,” “The Waterboy”), this film offers the spectacle of Steve Coogan — perhaps our greatest portrayer of supercilious asshattery — as radio blowhard Lionel Macomb, a self-described “deliverer of hard truths” who daily takes on liberal women (“I prefer to go by only one last name”), immigrants (“I don’t think we should build a wall… a moat would be more effective”), climate change and socialized medicine.

He’s been pretty successful at this, as shown by his posh high-rise apartment and impeccably tailored wardrobe.

Of course, he is so hated in some quarters that Lionel can only walk to his car from his broadcast center flanked by a phalanx of bodyguards.

Into Lionel’s toxic world comes a breath of fresh air…his 16-year-old niece Tess (Taylor Russell) whom he has never met.  Tess’ mom, Lionel’s estranged sister, is an off-and-on druggie currently in rehab.  Young Tess pretty much blackmails Lionel into giving her a place to stay…it wouldn’t look good if a millionaire who rails constantly about welfare cheats throws his own flesh and blood into the welfare system.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON”: Fun on the run

August 22, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

“THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON” My rating: B

93 minutes | PG-13

So adept are the makers of “The Peanut Butter Falcon” at provoking laughter and tears that it may take a few hours for the rosy glow to wear off, at which point the viewer realizes he has fallen for a narrative con job.

But it’s such an effective con that most of us will shrug off any flickers of resentment in order to prolong the experience’s many satisfactions.

This feature debut from the writing/directing team of Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz opens in a retirement home where one resident stands out.

Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is 22-year-old with Downs syndrome.  Recently orphaned and deemed incapable of caring for himself, this unfortunate ward of the state (in this case, Georgia) has been warehoused among  dementia-plagued seniors.

Sounds grim, but the screenplay and direction immediately announce that it’s okay to laugh. Early on Zak elicits the cooperation of his fellow “inmates” to stage a jail break.  It’s short lived because even running at top speed Zak is hopelessly slow.

Meanwhile Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) mans a one-man fishing boat working the Outer Banks. He’s a bearded outcast not above raiding the crab pots of other fishermen; after starting a fire that destroys a rival’s precious equipment, Tyler finds himself on the lam.

“…Falcon” throws together  Zak — who has run away wearing only a pair of tidy whities and dreams of becoming a professional wrestler  — and the fugitive Tyler, who slowly warms to his new companion’s hilarious innocence.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“MIKE WALLACE IS HERE”: Hard questions

August 15, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

“MIKE WALLACE IS HERE” My rating: B 

90 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Mike Wallace was the take-no-bullshit TV newsman who asked the questions that made his subjects — and sometimes his audience — squirm in discomfort.

Early in “Mike Wallace Is Here” we see some old studio footage of Wallace being “interviewed’ by his “60  Minutes” colleague Morley Safer.

“Mike,” Safer asks, “why are you such a prick?”

Questioned about his borderline brutal methodology, Wallace would say he was motivated by a search for the truth.

But as Avi Belkin’s documentary makes painfully clear, much of Wallace’s bulldog style was born of insecurity, of a sense of unworthiness.

Indeed, the first 20 or so minutes are crammed with cringeworthy examples of the things an acne-ravaged young Mike Wallace did to survive in the early days of television. He took acting gigs. Even more dubious, given his future calling as a journalist, he was a glib pitchman, a shill, a soulless talking head for products ranging from cigarettes to kitchen gadgets.

Small wonder that during his early years at CBS Wallace’s newsroom colleagues speculated that he was only portraying a journalist.

It’s pretty clear that Wallace was himself hung up on that question.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

“BLINDED BY THE LIGHT”: E Street transcendence

August 13, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Viveik Kalra

“BLINDED BY THE LIGHT” My rating: B+

117 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“Blinded by the Light” is a valentine to Bruce Springsteen and his music.

But it’s a whole lot more.

Based on Sarfraz Manor’s memoir of growing up in provincial Britain, the latest from director Gurinder Chadha (“Bend It Like Beckham”) is infused with the Boss’s art and ethos, but it is also a surprisingly moving coming-of-age story.

And in newcomer Viveik Kalra the film has a sweet, absolutely huggable hero whose dreams and travails become our own.

Life sucks for Javed (Kalra), whose immigrant Pakistani family lives in a characterless burg outside London.

His domineering, traditionalist father, Malik (Gulvinder Ghir), works in an auto plant; his mother Noor (Meera Ganatra) operates a tailoring shop out of the home. Jared’s two sisters glumly await the day their father will pick a husband for them.

At school Javed is viewed as a nerd hardly worthy of contempt…even so he finds himself subjected to the roiling anti-immigrant hatred brewing on the streets of Thatcher-era Britain (the setting is the mid-1980s).

In short, Javed is ripe for a major transformation when his equally uncool Sikh buddy Roops (Aaron Phagura) hands over to him two Springsteen tapes (“Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “The River”) with the admonition that Javed’s life is about to change.

No shit.

Ben Smithery’s camera zeroes in on Javed’s features as he gets his first listen to the Boss, and what passes across Kalra’s face can only be described as religious ecstacy. Springsteen’s music speaks directly to our man; songs about being an outsider, about the desperate need to escape a suffocating present, about finding redemption in cars and girls and rock ‘n’ roll.

Chadha ups the ante with a fantastic visual fillip: The actual song lyrics appear on the screen, enveloping Javed like a halo of words.  And throughout “Blinded…” she employs projections of Boss lyrics on walls, clouds…what had once been dreary slice of working-class England now seems charged with possibilities.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“BRIAN BANKS”: Freedom

August 8, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Aldis Hodge

“BRIAN BANKS” My rating: B 

99 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

With “Brian Banks” a familiar story is told in unfamiliar fashion.

Tom Shadyak’s drama follows the true-life saga of Brian Banks, a promising football star who at age 16 was accused of rape, plead no contest to avoid a long prison sentence, and nevertheless spent six years behind bars before being released into a parole system which — because he was now a convicted sex offender — was its own sort of hellish imprisonment.

Most movies would approach the subject chronologically. Doug Atchison’s screenplay cleverly starts in the middle with Banks (Aldis Hodge) already on parole. His history, though, means he cannot find anyone willing to employ him.  Just as bad, a new California law requires him and all sex offenders to wear an ankle monitor and remain within their neighborhoods…meaning he must give up  his place on a local college football team.

We cringe to see the humiliations Brian is subjected to. On the bright side are a handful of individuals upon whom he depends, like his ever-faithful mother (Sherri Shepherd), his new girlfriend (Melanie Liburd) and a prison mentor (an uncredited Morgan Freeman, seen only in flashbacks) who saves his life by emphasizing the need for a mental overhaul if you’re going to survive behind bars.

Somewhat less sympathetic is his by-the-rulebook parole officer (Dorian Missick).

And then Brian gets wind of the California Innocence Project, the brainchild of law professor Justin Brooks (Greg Kinnear), who with a staff of unpaid law students seeks to free the unjustly imprisoned.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“THEM THAT FOLLOW”: Nest of vipers

August 8, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

 

“THEM THAT FOLLOW” My rating: C+

98 minutes | MPAA rating: R

An obscure corner of American culture — a snake-handling  religious sect — provides the setting for “Them that Follow,” Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s unconventional coming-of-age drama.

Mara (Alice Englert) has grown up in the rural church where her widowed Bible-thumping father, Lemuel (Walton Goggins), is the preacher. A typical ceremony finds the menfolk of the congregation so moved by the Holy Spirit that they reach into a wooden box and withdraw hissing  rattlesnakes.

They’re fulfilling a Biblical prophecy that if they are truly saved, they can handle poisonous serpents and God will protect them.

The snake handling doesn’t freak out Mara.  What does give her sleepless nights is the baby growing inside her. It’s the result of an affair with her childhood friend Augie (Thomas Mann), the son of one of the church’s most steadfast members (Olivia Colman).

But Augie has been drifting from the religious community. He’s talking about moving away to find work and, presumably, himself.

Which leaves Mara…where? Her father has approved her betrothal to Garrett (Lewis Pullman), who has no misgivings about the faith; but how’s that going to play when Garrett learns of her condition?

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“MAIDEN”: “You’ll die”

August 8, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Tracy Edwards (left), skipper of The Maiden

“MAIDEN” My rating: B

97 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Grab your daughters and granddaughters and make a family outing of “Maiden,” an awe-inspiring documentary about a bunch of young women who defied institutional sexism to risk their lives in an around-the-world sailing competition.

For that matter, bring along your sons and grandsons. They could probably use what “Maiden” is selling.

Alex Holmes’ film centers on Tracy Edwards, a young English woman who out of sheer chutzpah raised the money to buy a yacht, assembled an all-woman crew and entered the 1989 Whitbread Around the World Race, a harrowing and life-threatening enterprise executed in five distinct legs for a total of more than 30,000 miles.

“You have to be a bit crazy,” one interview subject observes of the long-distance sailors.

Amazing, old home movie footage going back to Edwards’ childhood exists, and among her Whitbread crew was a woman who kept a film record of the epic voyage. This means that Holmes is able to tell this story cinematically using archival sources, with regular digressions to talking-head interviews of the women today.

Profoundly affected by the death of her father and her mother’s futile struggle to maintain control of his hi-fi business — not to mention Mom’s second marriage to an alcoholic —  Edwards left home early.

Long a lover of the sea and ships, she got a gig crewing on a luxury rental yacht.  One of the boat’s customers was King Hussein of Jordan, who befriended the young woman and, learning of her fascination with sailing, got her a job as a cook on an otherwise all-male boat.

In fact, the yachting world was one big boy’s club, at best patronizing, at worst openly hostile. While she doesn’t report any overt sexual harassment, Edwards says she was clearly an unwelcome outsider. That’s when she came up with the idea of an all-female Whitbread crew.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“SWORD OF TRUST”: “Antiques Roadshow” for racists

August 1, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Marc Maron, Jon Bass

“SWORD OF TRUST” My rating: B

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Lynn Shelton’s “Sword of Trust” is marvelously funny descent into the wacko fringes of modern America, enacted by a superb cast of players who work the material for every droll moment.

Reportedly built on extensive improvisations (the Christopher Guest model) the film opens in a Birmingham pawn shop overseen by Mel (Marc Maron), a morose, cynical guy whose greatest pleasure is buying exotic merchandise on the cheap.

His constant companion is Nathaniel (John Bass), a slack-jawed assistant who wastes most of the business day chortling over Internet videos.

One day they are visited by a lesbian couple, Mary and Cynthia (Michaela Watkins, Jillian Bell) who are interested in selling a Civil War-era sword found in the home of Cynthia’s late grandfather.

The old man left behind an envelope crammed with “documentation” allegedly proving that the sword was surrendered by Gen. Phil Sheridan to one of Cynthia’s rebel forebears.

According to the old man’s scribblings, the sword is proof that the Union lost the War of Northern Aggression.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »