Unfiltered regrets, debated wisdom, and long-held dreams replace the microphone soundbites and the picket signs. Those scenes carry genuinely serene and affecting moments of reflection. They may be shot to look whimsical, but they reach to gild exposed and admitted personal flaws within the central figure. Call this respectful hero worship and the most traditional or packaged film Taymor’s ever made if you must. However, what’s left (political pun intended) is well-earned pride.
Read MoreNot if, but when, you watch The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix, know that, like all movies based on historical events, what you’re watching is a cherry-picked and tidy two-hour dramatization of legal proceedings that lasted just short of 150 days. Normally when that happens, the dramatic license to make an entertaining product has added any number of embellishments for showmanship’s sake. Folks love the challenge, especially in a courtroom movie, of sniffing out the sugarcoating to wonder “did that really happen?” up and down every narrative peak and valley. The crazy thing is the exact opposite is happening here from Aaron Sorkin.
Read Moreby Kurt Waller
There are times when you search for great documentaries, but in the end, what you find are movies based on true stories that have enough in them to be called a documentary or be recorded as one but aren’t. These movies re-live those things that happened in real life over someone’s life. It could also be a global catastrophe or some other event, and they are amazing to watch.
Read MoreWhen it comes to Cuties, if you don’t like what you see of these errant kids left to their own wiles and devices, your gut is accurate and working. If its imagery bothers you, it’s supposed to. Check your gaze and your privilege. Now, look past the fictional take and target the very valid and present potential problem in our own settings and lives off the Netflix couch. If you don’t want that, prevent it with education. If you don’t want those sexualized elements to be goals, don’t make them so appealing and desirable to the uninformed. Adjust those expectations or create better ones. Shake your head, change your stance to empathy and honesty, and act accordingly to our daughters and children. Get there and you have made it precisely to the point that is being hammered home.
Read MoreIs there brilliance in the indecipherable within this adaptation of Iain Reed’s horror fiction? That’s both the knock and modus operandi of Charlie Kaufman. That’s where peculiarity pisses on a good piece of art. His abstract creations are wholly unique, yet aimless and tedious to the nth degree. For every poetic word, cinematic moment, or striking idea that ignites a challenging neuron in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a triple helping of something obscure destroys momentum and snuffs any flicker. When he’s right, lucidity outshines the oddity, but that is not this film.
Read MoreEvery braided shoestring of DIY indie filmmaking on Lake Michigan Monsters swings a proverbial kitchen sink of derring-do flair on the end of it. Editor and animator Mike Cheslik of Netflix’s The Get Down (the MVP of this film) splashes buoyant pacing and endless layers of light visual effects that have creativity and energy to spare. Each sink of eye-popping detail is wielded like a medieval flail used to dispatch dragons of snobbery and doubt. Never ever look down on this class of movie because this is where you find true commitment.
Read MoreFor anyone over the age of five-years-old who doesn’t have “The Gravel Foot” anymore, we know not all natural surfaces are easy and lush. The sensation of each pace toughens and prepares the heels and toes for the next one. Such is life as well. The literal and figurative barefoot steps of the characters from Tim Winton’s celebrated novel have tread over the hard grounds of loss and regret. The developed calluses mix with the ever-present dirt for messy lifestyles. Any songs present croon to that lamentation. Alas, the titular melodies advertised to break down the melodrama blow away weakly with the wind.
Read MoreCharlize would be the one to tell Queen to take their romantic sweetness and shove it with harshness. That tone and timbre works just fine for the Academy Award winner who has been cementing this attitudinal career niche for the better part of a decade. Based on Greg Rucka’s 2017 Image Comics graphic novel featuring the art of Leandro Fernandez, The Old Guard combines its own brew of created legends intersecting modern settings and compulsions. Like its lead, The Old Guard has a toughness completely devoid of anything trite. The narrative screws might not be the tightest, but its aim is deadly enough to draw you in.
Read MoreThere’s something to be said for a film that can constantly exude tautness. Some films will have stress and pressure, but not convey those traits with true tension. An element or two will have general solidity, but not have legitimate, durable steadiness. Like every battened down hatch on a warship cutting through its rough seas, the thrilling course of the new Apple+ Tom Hanks vehicle Greyhound throbs with tightness. Stutter, stumble or hesitate and a punctuating torpedo detonates your lack of focus.
Read MoreDocumentaries often carry a sharp specificity by design. The backers and filmmakers have zeroed in on a pointed topic or singular issue they feel needs a spotlight or, even stronger, a public wake up call. Sometimes, they downright demand it. The challenge of an exemplary documentary is to convince next to its natural aim to inform. Their demands need worth, especially if the subject is too narrow to the point that it is inconsequential. That’s where the documentary No Small Matter lives up to its title. The demand matches the worth.
Read MoreWith several regions of America starting to re-open (including my own state of Illinois and city of Chicago), it was time to get on the stump and arm the cannons. I put some of what follows into spoken word recently on an episode of Mike Crowley’s “You’’ll Probably Agree” podcast, but the issue has grown since then. Click into the multitude of links in the lessons for the deeper referenced stories. They are well worth their reads and your attention. The theme of this all can be summarized as cautiously optimistic.
Read MoreJon Stewart’s new film Irresistible holds a broad and powerful mirror up to the lies and guises of America’s election economy. Right when you think an outspoken personality like the beloved former host of The Daily Show is going to shout from his now-taller cinematic pontiff a chosen side or favorite, he remarkably doesn’t. This is an even-handed farce of finger-pointing where both political sides have dirty hands and the media in the middle is wholly and equally complicit. Stewart unleashes this cringing astonishment in a surprising movie that pulls your leg and also very rug right out from underneath you.
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