Archives for review

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

Philophobia (2019)

Unrated

Fablemaze

Deep longing permeates nearly ever scene of Guy Davies’ new film Philophobia. And why wouldn’t it? The drama details the coming-of-age of an assortment of teenagers in a small town in the English countryside. It’s well-trodden material that we expect to veer into either sex comedy, feel-good love tale or unexpected tragedy. We get a bit of all of that, but Davies’ velvet-hammer touch amplifies a raw, naturalistic depiction of withering adolescence; well-rounded, stirring performances further elevate the proceedings.

As the school year wanes, we follow several kids awaiting summer. Some, more than others, are ripe to escape not just the school year, but the provincial, listless town that’s squeezing the life out of them.

Kai (Joshua Glenister) certainly seems to have a bright future. He’s a writer with burgeoning talent, despite his fears of pushing through his insecurities. Kai hangs with and gets high with Sammy and Megsy. Sammy (Charlie Frances) drives a milk truck and initially seems to balance his dreams and reality. Megsy (Jack Gouldbourne) is the stereotypical foulmouthed, loud-speaking, trouble-seeker who seems to exist to constantly plunge his friends into unnecessary situations. It’s a testament to Gouldbourne’s performance that Megsy ultimately escapes the archetype foisted upon him.

The boys make up the heart of the film. There’s not a misstep in their performances. It’s interesting that each of the boys is being raised by single mothers. There are adult male influences—good and bad—to be found, including a fed-up policeman and a writing teacher who practices tough love with Kai.

The three main protagonists plug into a wider group of peers who are strategizing their senior prank. Despite various characters moving in and out of scenes, Davies connects us to them (and to a broader sense of longing youths) with strong dialogue and by resisting pushing them beyond their unfocused immature existences.

Into the mix tumbles Grace (Kim Spearman), a beautiful, pensive, mysterious girl who lives directly across the street from Kai. Of course he peeks at her through her window as she undresses. But it’s not simply lust. For quite some time Kai has loved Grace from a distance. She’s smart enough to be aware of his desire and talents, and insecure enough to be entangled in a relationship with the monstrous Kenner. Older, bigger, braver and crueler than the high schoolers around him, Kenner tears through the film like a bull in a teashop, leaving most scenes full of broken china by the time he’s done. Alexander Lincoln plays him with virtually no outward redeeming qualities. His relationship with Grace is one of dominance; with the boys one of neck-stomping Alpha-male humiliation. There’s some sad, distant longing within him, but Kenner’s not going to let us anywhere near it.

One other character is a stag. The majestic creature, usually only seen by Kai, shows up fleetingly at key junctures. I didn’t completely buy the intent of the stag; it seemed more a setup for a late scene of tragedy than providing any real connective tissue to the post-adolescence milieu so well constructed.

Otherwise, the film takes the characters through their paces—there’s a love triangle; a sociopath about to boil over; a make-or-break final exam; a school prank that’s constantly in flux; and a reckoning to grow up for each of the protagonists. We observe the youths at house parties, packed around lunch tables, scattered in classrooms; hiding out on rooftops, frolicking at the lake. All the while, the dialogue and performances pull us to invest in these gatherings. Davies has an ear for dialogue. I especially liked Kai’s moments of poetic voiceovers that speak not only to his worldview, but his knack for spinning words. His speaks to an inner boy who knows there’s a world waiting for the man he will soon become … if he can hold things together long enough to make it out of his town. He carries a dictionary with words underlined and his own notes scribbled in the margins.

Suspense comes in the form of afternoon getaway in which Megsy’s goaded into bringing along his deceased brother’s rifle, and when a senior prank seems to take a dark turn. Davies allows each scene to defy expectations by tweaking them with humor. The Kai-Grace love story is complex in the subtext of abuse, abandonment and self-loathing, but affecting in the outward attempts of the lovers to connect. We see possible redemptions for each of them in their coupling. Spearman and Glenister are excellent in all scenes together. We get a couple of dark turns in the finale I suppose we should have seen coming, but that ultimately reaffirms love and friendship.

We consider one of Kai words “philophobia,” the fear of falling in love. Late in the film we realize especially Kai and Grace, but most of the character, are locked in place by fear. The film seems to speak to the specific period of our youth when we confront and/or retreat from encroaching adulthood, knowing—as all teens do—that a better life awaits outside of our familiar spaces. If only we can summon the means to take the plunge.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

In a New York Minute (2019)

Unrated

A separate but interlocking tripartite exploration of loves and losses of Chinese and Chinese-American women in the big city, In a New York Minute works best when it draws us into the lives of it desperate characters. The plots themselves are warmed-over bowls of American rom-com soup. Thankfully, each tale, roughly 25 minutes each, lends most of its time to the development of the women, not the plot. And the three main actresses are more than up to the challenges of engaging the audience and carrying their stories.

Amy (Amy Chang) is an admired city food editor unable to eat in the wake of a devastating breakup. She skulks about her small apartment, goes through the motions of her job, which is admittedly more difficult now that she pukes anytime she tries to eat. She gets an unexpected opportunity to act on food-related television series and an unexpected suitor in a charming but relentless coworker. Despite his overbearing nature, Peter actually helps nurse Amy back to her appetite. He soon proposes, and poor Amy is so adrift she neglects to reject the offer. Chang’s performance is palpable. Her hangdog  Amy is crushed on the inside and Chang effectively plays her as a woman barely keeping herself together.

In the second story we met Angel (Yi Liu). Actually, we’ve already met her as she crossed paths with Amy in the first story—we just didn’t realize it at the time. Angel is an actress and wife of a much older American, Howard (Erik Lochtefeld), who seems to regard his Chinese wife and her culture as fascinating diversions, but doesn’t implore much effort to actually understand her or it. He nods through conversations while hardly looking up from his books. Note a key scene when Howard’s children from his previous marriage visit for dinner. Angel all but disappears amid their discussions about Japanese culture and cuisine. Liu is masterful at presenting Angel’s quiet devastation. In China, Angel had built a reputation as an actress. In New York, acting is a humiliating slog that Howard encourages mainly as a means to give his wife something to do with her time. It’s not hard to image why Angel turned to an affair with the young, handsome David (Ludi Lin), a writer. The lovers have afternoon and evening trysts at his apartment. Theirs are joyous couplings of sex and interesting dialogues and the unending possibilities of young love. Her time with David buoys her in her listless marriage, but Angel struggles to decide if she wants a future filled with love or security. Just as her acting opportunities pick up with a film that somewhat parallels her own life (and brings her in proximity of Amy), the results of a home pregnancy test threatens to derail all opportunities—marriage, affair and career.

Lastly, we meet Nina (Celia Au), an escort of sorts, whose services are bought by mostly older, moneyed men. She has eyes for Ian (Roger Yeh), a kind food-truck operator who dreams of opening his own restaurant, but can’t see a viable way forward in their relationship. Her father and stepmother run a small Pho restaurant (which also appears in Amy and Angel’s stories) and have paid a fortune to bring Nina to the U.S. She is indebted to the family that cares little about her life’s desires or opportunities. Au plays Nina as hard-edged, a survivor, who at first scoffs at the probability of real love, and later fights to embrace her chance at a life with Ian. In continuing the unnecessary crossover gimmick, two of Nina’s clients are Peter and David, from Amy and Angel’s stories respectively; worse is the home pregnancy test, which works its way into each tale, but is truly only important in Angel’s story.

Director Ximan Li, though, slyly allows moments of crossover—Amy lives in the same apartment building as David, Angel’s lover; while filming the TV series, Amy is surreptitiously replaced by Angel—then pulls the threads together in a final act that allows plotlines to converge. Amy’s story is the strongest, with her quietly flailing under the weight of grief; Angel’s, which navigates a marriage, an affair, an acting career and a pregnancy is the most complicated; Nina’s is the most heartbreaking, with her dogged efforts for a life of independence and love crumbling before her eyes.

While the plot approach of In a New York Minute is nothing new, Li’s film nevertheless, transcends its soapy America episodic structure and allows the Asian cast, crew and writers to provide a refreshing cultural take on the material. Mego Lin’s camera gloriously captures New York cityscapes and charming neighborhoods. Like chapters in a book, each story is given lengthy first acts to allow us to imbibe the rhythms of the lives of these Asian characters. There are minutes worth savoring.

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Film festival, Movies | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

3100: Run and Become (2018)

Unrated

Illumine Group

We meet Finnish runner Ashprihanal Aalto in his sparse home eating Ramon noodles right out of the pot. The 45-year-old paperboy is soon to compete in New York’s Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile race, the longest certified road race in the world. As the window for running such marathons is beginning to close for him, Aalto states his goal as using the race to become a better person. Indeed, the race is promoted as one that leaves its participants “changed.”

The man’s idol is famed Indian spiritualist and runner Sri Chinmoy, who saw “no barrier between spirituality and athletics.” The late Chinmoy founded the race, in its 20th year at the time of the filming.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SANJAY RAWAL

The participants are an array of accomplished runners from across the global. Aalto himself is a top-ranked runner who set the record at last year’s race. Now, about this race: the runners must run 60 miles a day, for as long as 52 days, around a half-mile loop in New York, totaling 3,100 miles.

We immediately become aware of the small number of competitors, a dozen, surely a sign of how daunting this run must be. What we aren’t aware of is how Run and Become will take us beyond these city blocks, beyond this race and on a more expansive journey.

The documentary dispenses helpful factoids via screen text: volunteers provide food and medical assistance; runners must consume more than 10,000 calories daily; the race course is open from 6 a.m. to midnight each day. Chinmoy’s legacy is on vivid display. His portrait and posters can’t be missed. He’s quoted in voiceover throughout the film. Meditation is encouraged as much as staying hydrated. A volunteer choir along the route sings of “give and take,” “never quitting,” and “being brave.”

The film is essentially a day-by-day diary for some runners and a peek into some of their lives. Running’s presented as more than a hobby for these folks. It’s more of a deep dive within themselves, a meditation. Runners are seeking meaning and connection, it seems. “Pray through your feet, your breath,” they are told.

Director Sanjay Rawal’s film utilizes wonderful camera movement at ground level, sometimes in lockstep with the runners. The summer days in the city’s concrete jungle are brightly captured: trees between the sidewalks, fenced-in basketball courts, caution barricades and parked cars and buses. Later we’ll see equally impressive camerawork (by Sean Kirby) on African plains, in a Japanese temple and mountains and across exquisite Arizona deserts. Michael A. Levine’s music is understated and blends wonderfully with crosscutting between various locales; it puts the film on a grander scale.

Run and Become invites us to see the Great Good of running as the film reveals its impact across the globe.

In Africa, original tribes ran to hunt, in other words, they ran for their very survival. Bushmen connect hunting and running and spirituality. Once hunting is banned in their indigenous lands, it triggers a conflict for their way of life. Now the Bushmen feel forced to rely upon the government for survival. This is a blow not only to a way of life, but to a sense of sovereignty and dignity.

In Japan, Buddhist monks circle a mountain in search of enlightenment, undertaking a task not unlike the Self-Transcendence runners. Miles and miles of movement and prayer, totaling a seven-year challenge for monks like Ajari Mitsunaga. For Mitsunaga, the path was chosen, the hardships accepted and now he hands his wisdom down to others.

On an Arizona Navajo reservation, we learn of how thousands of Native American children were forced to attend government boarding schools. The children were taught America history that was not their own and not allow to speak their native language. A Navajo descendant Shaun Martin undertakes a ceremonial run from the school to his family’s ancestral home 110 miles away. The run honors his father and others who tried to escape the school. Again, we see a link between running and spiritually as Martin prays for strength and guidance before he proceeds.

Our star, Aalto, is a titan in an unassuming package. He looks plain, he speaks and acts plainly. It is running that defines him. He is described by an admirer as a “bird,” “tiny,” but “physically and mentally” the best for such a task. The film offers a brief and sweet moment between Aalto and his sister in which we come to understand the runner’s motivations.

The hazards of Self-Transcendence are real. We are concerned for Austrian cellist Shamita, who is known for pushing herself beyond her limits. Years ago, she barely survived a difficult marathon. Her daughter worries about the Self-Transcendence. Rightfully so. It’s difficult to watch the effects of the run overwhelm her physical—if not mental—capabilities. We see how the run takes its toll on other participants. Too exhausted to eat, physically rundown, emotionally broken. We are impressed by their commitment and concerned about what they’re doing to their bodies and minds. But they seem driven by a purpose higher than physical worries.

A masterful montage sequence links images of Japanese countryside, an African sunset and Martin’s run through the sprawling Arizona desert (drone photography is especially captivating here), while the soundtrack is filled with Shamita’s perfect cello.

A bit of suspense arrives during the final laps of the race as the gap between the top two runners narrows to a single mile. In the end there is no prize money; of course not. No one runs Self-Transcendence for financial rewards.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Film festival, Movies, Politics | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

Capturing the Flag (2018)

Unrated

Volunteer voter protection worker, Brooklyn-based entertainment lawyer and producer of Capturing the Flag, Laverne Berry. Photo credit: Nelson Walker III

New York attorney Laverne Berry, saw something at an election polling site years ago that jolted her from her comfortable contribution of driving people to the polls. When one of her charges had trouble walking, a janitor on site took it upon himself to use a pushcart and chair to get the woman to the polling booth.

“If he could do that on a day when that’s not his job,” Berry determined, “I can take some time off every election to do something.”

In Capturing the Flag, Berry and three other “voter protection volunteers” are documented during the lead-up to and through the 2016 election from their on-the-ground perspective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, polling districts. Director Anne de Mare’s fascinating and sober documentary fights an undercurrent of foregone conclusion, but provides pointed insights into our election system and the soldiers who take up the challenges of making votes count.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ANNE DE MARE

De Mare and her cast navigate subject matter that should be important to not simply those still distraught about the results of the 2016 election; setting aside partisanship to fairly critique our voting process should matter to every citizen.

Joining Berry on her quest is volunteer Steven Miller, an attorney and longtime friend. Miller, a white man, and Berry, a black woman, communicate with an ease certainly found in lifelong friends. En route to North Carolina we meet volunteer Claire Wright, an attorney and recent naturalized citizen. This is her first U.S. election and her first visit to North Carolina. Writer Trista Delamere Mitchell eagerly joins the group on the ground.

De Mare, along with animator Sean Donnelly, use visual aids to provide an “election day” sense of urgency to the documentary. A graphic counter along the bottom of the frame tick off months, then days, then hours before election results.

Almost immediately the team runs into an ongoing controversy at an early voting site in Fayetteville. The local NAACP has accused the state board and three county election boards of illegally removing thousands of people from voter rolls. The purge, they say, is primarily affecting voters of color.

Berry laments the inconsistent voting rules and methods from state to state. It makes protecting voter rights “daunting.”

A 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidated Shelby County v. Holder, a provision of the Voter Rights Act of 1965. That 2013 decision limited supervision by the Justice Department over states that had demonstrated relentless efforts to curtail black people from voting. Within weeks of the ruling, several states began establishing new voting restrictions—more stringent photo ID laws, limits on third-party voter registration, limited rights for those with past criminal convictions, shuttering polling locations across states. The very day of the decision, Texas began efforts to redraw boundaries for congressional and state house districts.

We watch as Berry bravely heads alone into the breach—a polling site in an all-white community littered with yard signs for Republican candidates. Yet, she reminds herself that her mission is to insure fair voting, regardless of party affiliation. She is regarded with caution at first, but her eagerness to help, earnestness and time pushes her through resistance. Miller, at different polling site, faces similar challenges from black people.

For a time, then, the film becomes a microcosm of the passions, absurdities and contradictions of the U.S. election system. A young polling judge at a precinct is initially curt and forceful with Miller, who’s assisting folks outside the polling site. The young man regards the older one as an outsider, a troublemaker. But as the day goes on, and both men doggedly undertake their responsibilities, they seem to accept each other’s roles. The strident young judge in fact, is revealed to may have overreacted due to the stresses of heading up a polling site for the first time. In the end, Miller joins him inside the now-closed precinct as polling officials search for an errant ballot.

The team’s journey is intercut with efforts from the local branch of the NAACP, including a press conference by chapter President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Barber and others are pushing back against subtle and blatant attempts to suppress the minority vote.

Amid these early voting machinations, President Obama visits Fayetteville for a rally that for me stood as a contrast to the divisive rallies that have sadly become the norm. When an elderly man wearing a military uniform riles up the crowd with his Trump sign, Obama playfully admonishes the agitated crowd and reminds it that, 1) free speech should be respected in the U.S., 2) veterans deserve our respect, 3) elderly people should be respected as well. He famously concludes: “Don’t boo, vote!”

Meanwhile, foreign-born Wright registers disappointment, having recalled practicing law in post- Apartheid South Africa when that country’s courts looked to U.S. law precedents as a guide to building South Africa’s new constitution. “I thought that the U.S now, after the civil rights movement, was an egalitarian society,” she says. “Living here has made me realize it is not at all.” It is crushing to watch Wright trying to help an African-American woman, having been referred to a third precinct and still not able to cast a ballot, who throws up her hands and says she has to get back to work instead.

I like that de Mare allows her subjects to display their professional and ethical commitment to their tasks, while reminding us that they are also citizens, party affiliates, who care not just about voters but the outcome of the election. Since we already know the fateful outcome of the 2016 race, it’s with some dread (or joy, if Trump was your guy) that we relive the day while Berry and the team face it for the first time: the certainty that the math is in Hillary Clinton’s favor, the surprise that Donald Trump is doing better than predicted, the rising suspicion that the calculus was wrong, that working-class sentiment was misjudged; the shock and disbelief of the results.

We’ve walked with Miller as he remained level-headed and professional throughout the day. Not until the night of election results, when he explodes into anger, confusion and disappointment, do we see the partisan side he’d left off the field while attending to his duties.

De Mare, an award-winning director (The Homestretch, 2014), has taken us back to a fateful moment in U.S. history to allow us to relive it at the ground level and in personal terms. With cases before the courts (including our top court) on issues of gerrymandering, alleged attempts to manipulate the upcoming census, as well as looming critical midterm elections, de Mare’s film couldn’t be timelier.

Capturing the Flag has its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2018.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Film festival, Movies | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

Maynard (2017)

Unrated

Auburn Avenue Films

On the night Barack Obama was elected president of United State of America I remember looking at my sleeping infant daughter while processing my unique place in time where I stood at an exact moment of before and after. The morning before, I awoke in a country in which it was improbable to think the 44th person elected to the highest position in the land could be anything but white and male. The morning after, my daughter and I awoke in a country that would be lead for the next eight years by someone who looked like us.

I thought of this moment as I watched Maynard, a documentary of the first black mayor of a major southern city. The parallel of Maynard Jackson’s and Barack Obama’s moments certainly isn’t lost to history or the filmmakers.

Helmed by editor-turned-director Sam Pollard, Maynard is refreshingly uncluttered, a straight through-line depicting Jackson’s early academic successes; his civil rights linage (his grandfather was famed movement leader John Wesley Dobbs); his foray into law and politics; his rise; his retirement; his comeback and untimely death. To be sure, we get standard archival footage, still photographs, newspaper headlines and talking heads, but the film vibrates with a sense of the era—its roiling racial politics, its music, the clothes.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SAM POLLARD

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr., tall and broad, uses carefully chosen words, commands audiences with his articulate speeches and forthright assertions. Sound familiar? He graduated from Morehouse Collage at 18 and eventually earned a law degree. Although he was delivered an early election defeat in his run for the U.S. Senate, Jackson dusted himself off and become vice mayor of Atlanta, eventually repositioning himself for a mayoral run. Maynard offers a unique look into southern politics. As vice mayor, Jackson’s run for mayor pit him against incumbent and colleague Sam Massell. It was a bruising affair that ended with Jackson’s election as mayor of Atlanta. That Massell is still alive and Pollard gets him on camera to relitigate the race is astonishing. Some resentment bubbles up right before our eyes.

There’s fantastic footage of a portly Jackson in the ring with Muhammad Ali for a promotional boxing match. News footage and interviews of the Atlanta child murders that rocked Jackson’s second term remain potent. And Jackson’s legacy-burnishing renovation of the Atlanta airport into an international hub truly speaks to his lasting accomplishments.

Of course the path to legend can be littered with sacrifices: a divorce, a seeming disconnect from his only son, health issues and political disillusionment.

The documentary brings in heavyweights to tell the tale—famed mayors Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin, civil rights authorities Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, former President Bill Clinton and attorney Vernon Jordan—but it’s the voices of Jackson’s family that wring true intimacy from the proceedings. The Jackson family brought the project to Pollard and is well-represented here. Daughters Elizabeth, Brooke, Valerie and Alexandra, son Maynard III, widow Valerie and former wife Burnella all add layers to Maynard’s portrayal.

Son Maynard III is presented with sad dignity; we infer a boy trying to exist in the shadows of a mythic-like father, and a man who has fought his demons to arrive as a proud survivor. Jackson’s daughters, beautiful each, project strength and intelligence and yet, sweet vulnerability as daddy’s girls. The women who were married to Jackson provide a dignity that elucidates their critical roles in supporting Jackson’s destiny.

When we arrive at the details of Jackson’s final hours, the documentary gains power. The scene in which the news of Maynard’s untimely death reaches each of his family members is masterfully filmed and edited.

In a time of political calculations of what a legacy means and of whether it can be undone by successors, Pollard’s film assuredly reminds us that the true caretakers of a legacy can keep the flame burning.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

bwoy (2016)

Rated R

Breaking Glass Pictures

 

While press materials describes it as “a slow-burning LGBT thriller,” bwoy is more of a heartbreaking character study, a psychodrama really, with brief touches of suspense. Nevertheless, it’s purposefully challenging, skillfully understated and gets a mighty boost from its lead actors.

We open with shots of a beautiful little boy heading into a beautiful swimming pool. We think we know where things are going, and we’re pretty much on target, but director John G. Young (Parallel Sons, 1995) effectively establishes a timeless dread which looms over his story entire.

Anthony Rapp (“Star Trek: Discovery,” Rent) is Brad, an early-forties employee whose call-center day job drains joy from him and he drifts through his after-hours life like a ghost. Young’s camera and pacing are sly in the early-going. We can’t immediately connect Brad with a solemn black woman (De’Adre Aziza) quietly intercut into his daily routine. Slowly, we come to realize Brad, who we’ve taken as gay and single, is actually married to the woman, Marcia. We take him as gay and single because he spends his evenings (and eventually, days) on a dating website seeking buff black men.

Brad isn’t having any luck on the website until he spices up his profile, grabbing the interest of Yenny (Jimmy Brooks), a young, humorous and handsome Jamaican. Yenny comes on strong, but Brad is bowled over by the attention. Indeed Yenny has the gift of gab, a high-watt smile, six-pack abs and, let’s face it, who isn’t won over by a Jamaican accent? Yenny brings color to Brad’s gray life—literally: Young contrasts lush Jamaican landscapes and photos with the muted palette of Brad’s limbo life in Schenectady, New York.

Online chatting begets iPhone texting, which begets photo-sharing, which begets video conversations, which begets cyber sex. The progression is not unexpected. Befitting this era of social media excesses, much of the film consists of screenshots—phone and computers. Things are clearly presented through Brad’s point of view; when he’s offline, so is Yenny. Rapp never falters in building bland Brad out of quiet desperation. Stoic behind thin-framed glasses and a locked jaw, Brad often seems on the verge of tears or about to implode with embarrassment, convincing both in his willful naivety and risk-taking. Brad stereotypically targets muscular black men, has a black wife and yet his cultural examination seems to begin and end with search-engine image lookups and a CD of generic Jamaican jams. Is it pure lust, or revived hope that drives him forward, even as he begins to doubt Yenny’s intentions?

Marcia is key to the backstory. Broken and guilt-ridden into shocking submission, the deeply sad character is deserving of her own story. I’m of two minds concerning the handling of this subplot: the sparse development and dialogue between her and Brad speak to their devastating loss; it also seems undercooked, repetitiously vague. How much of this could Marcia really accept? Nevertheless, her quiet despair is devastating. Aziza is powerful in her final scenes with Rapp.

As the tragic past finally comes into focus, story proper has methodically guided us toward the inevitable in-person meeting between the online lovers. Now we flirt with suspense as Brad cuts free of the past that binds him and goes all-in for love. I expected a twist of “Catfish” proportions, but must admit I didn’t see a softer denouement coming. It certainly points us back to an understated theme of the potent pull of parenting.

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

Get Out (2017)

Rated R

Blumhouse Productions

Get Out has the suspense, creepiness, violence and jumps scares one would want from a good horror film. Written and directed by Jordan Peele (half of the “Key & Peele” sketch comedy duo), the film’s also insidious with its coiling use of racial themes to enhance its effect.

A chilling opening sequence evokes the Trayvon Martin tragedy as we watch a young black man walking lost in the suburbs at nightfall. Peele immediately establishes a knack for tone and subtext. A character walking alone in the dark is a horror film trope, but certainly the specificity of a lone black man in a white neighborhood adds another dimension of dread to the scene. Notice, in quick, quiet cellphone dialogue, that the man knows how he looks and where he’s at invites danger.

Next, we’re introduced to engaging interracial couple Chris and Rose (Daniel Kaluuya, “Black Mirror,” and Allison Williams, “Girls”) preparing for a weekend trip to Rose’s parent’s palatial estate deep in the exurbs. Rose seems nonplused that her mom and dad are unaware Chris is black; Chris is obviously more concerned about the oversight. Peele plays with racial notions of Rose’s privilege vs. Chris’ realistic concerns here, and in a later scene on the road when they are visited by a police officer. Rose doesn’t hesitate to cut into the officer for what she perceives is racist treatment of Chris, while Chris simply wants to deescalate a situation he’s likely experienced on more than an occasion. The opening sequence, police encounter and an accident en route cleverly set the viewer on edge even before the anticipated visit with the parents.

Said parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) are welcoming in their liberal righteousness. Rose’s father, a successful neurosurgeon, declares he’d vote for Barack Obama for a third term if he could. Her hypnotherapist mother says all the right things but they land with a disingenuousness not lost on Chris. And what to make of Rose’s brother (Caleb Landry Jones, Antiviral), a disheveled rich kid quaking uneasily, speaking inappropriately, like he’s always on the verge of blurting out spoilers?

Back home, Chris’ best friend Rod (LilRel Howery), a TSA officer, is a Greek chorus of sorts, humorously braying about Chris’ naivety of race relations. But Chris—and the audience—isn’t naïve, simply hopeful for the best while laughing at Rod’s over-the-top rantings. You see, Rod says all the things black movie-goers say about white horror movies. He can smell a setup a mile away. Peele, working so effectively as a director of horror, here reminds us he made his bones in comedy.

Over the course of the weekend, Peele quietly but assuredly reels the viewer into a delicious web of paranoia. Suddenly, there’s an annual gathering of friends and family. The winding driveway his lined with black, expensive SUVs, the expansive lawn is a sea of gawking white faces. Chris’ and our time in exurbia grows curiouser and curiouser. His solo trips around the huge house and vast grounds bring unease. The way he’s regarded and how he reacts as the lone black man amongst throngs of old-money white people is a master’s class on how black folks navigate—sometimes moment to moment—competing worlds of racial divide. Chris’ intriguing hypnosis session with Rose’s mom—fantastically visualized as Chris floating in the cosmos with the real world hovering on a big screen TV just out of reach—sets the plot on a course not fully understood until the finale.

Most interesting is the portrayal of the other black faces Chris meets at the house. Every time he talks with or bumps into Stepford-like persons of color, Peele intrigues with the interactions—are they friends or foes, captives or themselves commanding some scheme? In this cauldron of supposed post-racial ennui, we nervously and giddily wait for the shoe to drop. Does Peele’s mixed-race heritage inform the proceedings? Perhaps. The film, in my view, knowingly winks at both sides of the racial coin. What an assured directorial debut!

If there’s a wobbly spot in an otherwise outstanding film, it’s a half-realized backstory concerning the death of Chris’ mother. The moment seems to exist mostly to justify an unlikely act of kindness late in the movie.

In the finale, with the curtains pulled back, the film burst with absurd conflict and straight-up horror and humor. The dangers are far afield from where we would have imagined, and yet with clever insight Peele suggests cultural appropriation is always hiding in plain sight.

This is the second “black” film in a row I’ve seen that, while presenting pointed issues on race, nevertheless with topical, effective storytelling and capable acting and directing taps into American commonality and manages to connect more broadly. Like Hidden Figures, this film seems to have admirers across the board.

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies, Politics | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

The Age of Consequences (2016)

Unrated

 

PF Films

We’ve seen climate change documentaries that present us with the unnerving prospects of global environmental dangers, real and theorized, pushing our ecosystem past a bleak point of no return. Have we seen one arguing that a cluster of catastrophes—international conflicts, migration, scarcity of resources, even terrorism—emanate out from the epicenter of a man-made ground zero: global warming?

I might be slightly exaggerating when I say The Age of Consequences edges into the realm of a horror film.

The new documentary, professional and smartly directed by Jared P. Scott from PF Films, arrives Jan. 27 in an intense political season that either amplifies the stakes of its dire message, or will work against the film just as its call for cultural and legislative action is needed most. You know where you stand on the issue of climate change.

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SOPHIE ROBINSON

Age works to tilt viewers away from partisan perspectives, hoping that fact-of-the-matter, up-to-moment catastrophes will speak louder than political talking points. The doc gets a big lift by featuring military experts speaking convincingly of their beliefs and, more importantly, experiences in the real cause-and-effect of environmental destruction. We’ve heard environmentalists and left-leaning politicians’ pleas for action, but Scott’s film mostly looks to admirals, generals, veterans to bolster an overarching theme that environmental abuses/neglect can cascade into civil conflict, migration catastrophes, food shortages, terrorism recruitment, and overwhelm humanitarian efforts.

What was once laughed off as “tree-hugger” hyperbole has been termed in some corners of the military as a “threat multiplier.” The film follows the dominoes as they fall: Climate change exacerbated one of the worst droughts in Syrian history. The three-year drought begun at the end of 2006 ultimately triggered 1.5 million Syrian men to leave their farmlands and move to city locations, seeking jobs and food. Additionally, Iraqi refugees were at the time migrating into Syria. These two factors alone spurred a 30 percent population growth in urban areas, which in turn drove up food and apartment prices, as well as drained the health-care system. Such strife is cited by officials in the film as a factor giving rise to civil war. Broken social structures leave openings for terrorist recruitment. The film suggests climate-change hazards will increase such migrations and their consequences.

And look at the threat multiplier from a financial perspective: A 2010 Russia-China drought, the film states, lead to wheat shortages in those countries. The countries responded by purchasing wheat on the global food market, which drove up prices across the planet, spurring economic chaos.

And from a humanitarian perspective: When global warming wreaks havoc on populated regions, getting aid to displaced millions increasingly is becoming a logistical nightmare, and soon, the film suggests, an unsustainable effort. The U.S. military alone spends increasing amounts of time exclusively on humanitarian and recovery efforts. It would take but a small cluster of these catastrophes occurring simultaneously to break the back a nation or create a devastating domino effect across the globe.

Scott and his cameraman Michael McSweeney keep the film moving by using sharp visuals. A reoccurring radar chart graphic works well as a visual interpretation of the tangled arms of environmental and social threats across the globe. The film makes good use of archival footage from current conflicts and catastrophes. Hurricane Katrina footage still chills to the bone. A technique of placing a subject center frame and at a distance (to highlight beautiful corridors and staterooms of power) subvert the common method of using standard shots of talking heads.

The Age of Consequences left me wrung out and the solutions belatedly offered—better stewardship of the planet, alternative resources, a more aggressive timeline to confront environmental hazards—are of the stripe we’ve heard before and don’t completely mitigate all the dread it previously piled on. Perhaps they can’t. Maybe the film hopes to shock the viewer out of complacency. What remains to be seen is how it lands in an era in which those in seats of power and their supporters don’t exactly seem like cheerleaders for climate-change activism.

 

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

 

 

 

Quick Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | Comments Off on Quick Flix Hit

Apparition Hill (2016)

Rated PG-13

apparition-hill

Stella Mar Films

Apparition Hill, the site where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared before six local youths in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, is without doubt a place of inspiration. Is it also a place of healing, enlightenment and miracles? Well, every year, thousands seeking those rewards trek up a jagged hillside in the village of Medjugorje to the spot marked with a statue of the Blessed Mary.

Director Sean Bloomfield joined seven strangers on a two-week trip to Medjugorje and up so-called Apparition Hill to document experiences filled with urgency and desperation, curiosity and skepticism, hope and joy—ultimately providing the cast, and possibly viewers, with multiple levels of insight.

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SEAN BLOOMFIELD

Bloomfield selects his cast from a potpourri of video submissions: two atheists, Pete, who prefers finding life’s meaning in science and logic, and Mark, who craves knowledge beyond understanding but can’t get there through spirituality; Rich, a widowed father of nine; Jill, a Catholic latecomer needing to strengthen her weakening belief; Holly, a terminally ill wife and mother whose husband Matt decides to join her on the trip; and Ryan, a sad on-off drug abuser who’s been in and out of prison. There’s an eighth participant, Darryl, who suffers from ALS. His condition confines him to a wheelchair, necessitating a separate, earlier journey to Medjugorje for him that serves as a side story in the documentary. He has a video chat with the rest of the gang to express his views on the journey he’s taken as it prepares to trace his steps.

Along the way we meet Ben, a former addict who now resides in the community, and Miki Musa, a local guide who was featured in a previous Bloomfield documentary.

We take several pilgrimages with the cast—to the weeping Statue of the Risen Christ that resides behind the town’s St. James Church, to the Blue Cross at the base of Apparition Hill, to the sacred spot itself and still further up to the hilltop where we find a holy site honoring Christ Himself—and we learn more about each along the way. The members seem to approach the experience with open minds, I must note. Certainly, our attention is drawn to the two atheists and Holly, who has Stage 4 cancer.

We regard Pete and Mark closely because we sense if they change, if they believe, there is something powerful going on here. They’re both presented as skeptical but fair-minded enough to give the pilgrimage a chance. We regard Molly, who comes dangerously close to missing the trip due to her health, as the ultimate test case for these proceedings because of her bright smile, because of her relentless optimism, because she seems to be a wonderful wife and a loving mother. With her, as she smile through tears, we truly hope for miracles (even as Holly claims she’s seeking only peace and enlightenment). Her struggle gives the film an undercurrent of suspense and sadness that might not have been the director’s intentions.

The documentary attempts to take a nonjudgmental look at the cast and the community, but it’s a hard sell. Peeking into these lives is personal, and you just can’t move through Medjugorje without being swept along on its spiritual current. Catholicism runs deeply in this village. The cast attends Mass repeatedly, prayers are spoken, rosaries are counted, novenas are undertaken.

Of the six Herzegovinian children who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in 1981, the documentary focuses most on Mirjana Soldo. Sixteen at the time of her visitation, Soldo has basically devoted her life to her pilgrimages where she communes with Mary. We watch this visionary immerse herself in prayer and are simultaneously perplexed and moved. She is in a place beyond us as tears stream down her cheeks, her eyes look through this world and a knowing smile overtakes her. And yet, she later expresses what she sees, hears and feels is not beyond us.

The film’s ending, powerful and raw, brings a journey to its inevitable conclusion, then Bloomfield tags on a sweet coda as a salve.

Lives have been challenged and changed, and clearly, the film hopes, not just for the cast we’ve observed.

blog-see_it

 

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Quik Flix Hit

Letters from Baghdad (2016)

Unrated

letters-from-baghdad

Between the Rivers Productions

Gertrude Bell, unknown by me, was an English writer, traveler, spy and archaeologist who seemingly conquered the Middle East at a time when women were hardly seen fit to gain higher education.

 Letters from Baghdad details her remarkable movements though the Mideast, growing in legend as she did so, culminating in her taking a vital role in establishing the modern state of Iraq. That’s right, a British woman of the 1900s blazed a trail through Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia while many woman of her age and upbringing were married, raising children and defined by their husbands.

toonMarvinBlogThe documentary, codirected by Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum, is presented in an epistolary format in an effort to squeeze history and texture from Bell’s actual letters. The method is further supported though cinematic techniques: as Bell speaks (voiced by actors Rose Leslie as a girl and Tilda Swinton as a woman) her missives are brought to life via filmstock-aging effects, vistas rendered in sepia tone and still photos given the Ken Burns effect. The film’s like an ancient postcard brought to life. Actor reenactments and spectacular archival footage round out the illusion we’re watching a documentary of the day.

Since her early years, Bell seemed to possess not only a thirst for knowledge, but an obsession with the otherworldliness of the Middle East—its people and culture, landscapes and, eventually, politics. Very quickly her twin passions are evident: the foreign culture she couldn’t shake and her accommodating father Sir Hugh Bell. Gertrude seemed to cleave closer to her father after the death of her mother when she was but 3 years old. She wasn’t without a woman’s touch, however. Her eventual stepmother Florence Bell, an author and progressive woman in her own right, pushed her to expand her mind.

As Bell spent increasingly more time in the Middle East, with guides in tow, she traversed sandy nations as a cartologist and documentarian; her writings, photography and maps would become assets during World War I. She became a British spy and an outspoken critic and enemy of the Ottoman Empire.

That modern-day Iraq and its strife has connection-points to her long-ago adventures is startling, a reminder in this uncertain election season that an individual dabbling on the world stage can trigger long-reaching consequences in the geo-political theater. Hear that, Mr. Trump?

Letters is certainly palatable to history buffs and Arabophiles, but those with a malfunctioning attention-span gene might not find this diverting enough to join Bell on her journey.

blog-see_it

 

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

← Older posts