Drama
Find Me
FIND ME Find Me – the 2018 Indie drama – is more than just a wonderful travelogue movie through a few National Parks (Zion, Death Valley & Yosemite). Written, directed and starring, Joe Huang, Find Me is about expanding your horizons and dealing with hardships. Joe (Joe Huang, Why Am I Doing This?) is an…
- 2018
- Drama
The Farewell
THE FAREWELL I had high expectations for The Farewell, a comedy drama about dying. High expectations sometimes ruin the experience. High expectations lessened my enjoyment of The Farewell. It’s not me – it’s those expectations. Billi (Awkwafina) lives in New York City studying to be a writer. She learns from her parents Jian (Diana Lin)…
The Cranes Are Flying
THE CRANES ARE FLYING The Cranes Are Flying is an obscure but incredible Soviet/Russian film from 1957. This film won the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) which was the highest prize awarded at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. Stealing a phrase from a YouTube commenter where the trailer for this film can be found, “This is…
Hustlers
HUSTLERS Jennifer Lopez – her first scene in Hustlers – is an amazing scene to behold. J.Lo is the main reason to see this movie. Hustlers is a comedy crime drama movie about strippers; strippers that never strip but make “more money than a brain surgeon.” Dorothy (Constance Wu), aka Destiny, a new dancer, is…
First Man
FIRST MAN With all the craziness in the 1960’s – the Vietnam War & the protests, the Pill, the Cold War, Civil Rights Act & riots, the assassinations, and the music – it is pretty amazing that the US orbits, then walks on the moon flying in analog space capsules filled with buttons, switches and…
A Private War
A PRIVATE WAR A Private War is a dramatization of the American journalist Marie Colvin’s life from 2001 to 2012 while she was working for the British national newspaper, The Sunday Times. Rosamund Pike (Hostiles, Gone Girl, Hector and the Search for Happiness) is superb as the war time journalist Marie Colvin. This film is…
Rocketman
ROCKETMAN Rocketman is an excellent biopic of Elton John’s life during the 1970’s & 80’s – not a linear story – instead, it is a musical. This musical shows the most significant events in Elton’s life during that time – not just what happened – but how he felt and how he survived those crazy…
The Mustang
THE MUSTANG Wild Mustangs are rounded up each year to control the almost 100,000 feral Mustang population in the western United States. A small number of these Mustangs are given to prisons for the inmates to tame, and auction off. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, French actress, producer, writer, and director, learned about this program – studied…
- 2019
- Drama
Life Itself
LIFE ITSELF If you ever feel like reading a long epic novel but don’t have the right book at hand. Watch this Amazon Studios produced – and a bit sappy drama – Life Itself. Five Chapters tell the story of Life Itself. Each chapter has different characters and a different feel. Chapter 1 is the…
Welcome to Marwen
WELCOME TO MARWEN Welcome to Marwen is the animated/live action dramatization of the 2010 documentary Marwencol. The documentary Marwencol received mostly positive reviews. Welcome to Marwen is not received as well; in fact it is one of the biggest money losers in 2018. Director: Robert Zemeckis directed Welcome to Marwen and it seemed to be…
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots A beautifully, well crafted, but historically inaccurate drama about the tense relationship between Queen Elizabeth I of England (Margo Robbie, I, Tonya) and Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland (Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird, The Lovely Bones). Both women vie for the right to rule both England and Scotland. Both women have a…
Cold War
COLD WAR Cold War’s beginning sets an interesting premise for this black & white Polish art-house drama set in the political upheaval period after WWII (1949 to 1964). The interesting part has Wiktor Warski (Tomas Kot), Irena Bielecka (Agata Kulesza), and the Manager Lech Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc) traveling through Poland. Traveling to find young adults…
Alpha
ALPHA I’m a sucker for films set in the Stone Age, and Alpha is a very good coming of age action/adventure movie during the last Ice Age. This film is similar to 10,000 Years BC, Quest for Fire, or The Clan of the Cave Bear all films set in the paleolithic age (500,000 years ago…
Kodachrome
KODACHROME Kodachrome 64, the once ubiquitous 35 mm Kodak film for color slides, is being discontinued in 2009 and the last lab in the world to develop this film is located in Parsons, Kansas. A well-know fictitious photographer Ben Ryder (Ed Harris) finds 4 rolls shot long ago. Ben needs to travel from Boston…
MoWgli: Legend of the Jungle
MOWGLI: LEGEND OF THE JUNGLE The last review I wrote about Mowgli in a movie was in 2016 about the remake of the Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book, aptly called The Jungle Book. That 2016 remake followed the same story-line as all the previous The Jungle Book remakes. I believe I started the review by…
Blackkklansman
BLACKKKLANSMAN This is a Spike Lee movie loosely based upon real world events that is a well executed suspenseful crime story about Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, Ballers, Denzel’s oldest kid) – a rookie cop in the Colorado Springs Police Department – infiltrating the Klu Klux Klan in the 1970’s. BlackkKlansman is also a pivot…
The Lobster
THE LOBSTER Almost gave up on The Lobster since it is so offbeat, quirky and purposely oddly acted. But this is a piece of art co-written and directed by the typically offbeat Yorgos Lanthimos. Mr. Lanthimos most likely invested years worth of effort into writing, planning and directing this film so the least I can…
- 2015
- Thriller, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction
First Reformed
FIRST REFORMED Paul Schrader wrote and directed the drama First Reformed when he was 71 years old. Mr. Schrader’s earlier successful screenplays were Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), both directed by Martin Scorsese. For First Reformed Paul Schrader both wrote and directed this movie, and he gets dark. First Reformed’s protagonist, Reverend Toller,…
- 2018
- Drama
Outlaw King
OUTLAW KING FREEEEDOM!!! Screamed William Wallace (Mel Gibson) before he was drawn & quartered by the English in the 1995 Oscar-winning movie Braveheart (do not google drawn & quartered you don’t need to be horrified just yet, but you will learn about hanged and drawn later in Outlaw King). Outlaw King begins a couple of years before…
Tag
TAG Someone asks you to write a screenplay about a group of guys who have been playing Tag for 30 years (base upon an article in the newspaper). You say, sure I can do that. You put together a good script and hire a bunch of actors (there are over thirty actors in this movie)….