“My Happy Family,” April 13, 2021 (2017), Netflix (Georgian with English subtitles.) I really liked this well-acted Georgian film written and directed by Nana Ekytimishvili.. It provides an engaging and informative look at the creaking process of change and movement in this developing Caucasian nation. 52-year old Manana (Ia Shugliashvili), a teacher of Georgian…
Promising Young Woman
“Promising Young Woman,” April 10, 2021 (2020), DVD. Nominated for Best Picture. I’m not a big one for thrillers; I mostly don’t enjoy the stress they induce. This, however, is a very interesting film, and I would recommend it. It is the first feature from actress Emerald Fennel (“The Crown” and “Call the Midwife.”) …
Tokyo Story
“Tokyo Story,” April 5, 2021 (1953), DVD. I had never seen this brilliant, quiet, black-and-white classic from Japanese master Yasujiru Ozu, but this Criterion release is a special presentation of his genius. It’s 1953, and Japan is reindustrializing after its defeat and losses in World War II. You see the building but it is…
Collective
”Collective,” April 4, 2021 (2020), DVD. Stellar Romanian documentary up for both Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Oscars. I don’t have a clue as to how they managed to construct this in real time, except for the willingness of certain journalists and officials to 1) know what they had and document the process;…
Deadwood: The Movie
“Deadwood—The Movie,” March 28, 2021 (2019), DVD. We both really liked this return to the incredibly vulgar, obscene, corrupt and immoral world of Deadwood, South Dakota in its mining days. It featured the entire cast of the original series and was written by but not directed by David Milch, who did the three season…
“Sound of Metal”
“Sound of Metal,” March 21, 2021, Amazon Prime. Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor nominations are, deservedly, in on this one. Ruben (Riz Ahmed and Oscar nomination) and Lou (Olivia Cooke) are an up-and-coming heavy metal duo and couple in this excellent film written and directed by Darius Marder. She sings and plays guitar; he’s…
The White Tiger
“The White Tiger,” March 20, 2021, Netflix. Adapted by Ramin Bahrani from the 2008 Booker Prize winning novel of the same name by Aravind Adiga, this Indian/American, Hindi/English hybrid looks at the new and old India clashing in the era of globalization. This India is one of political corruption and payoffs, of brutally repressive…
Olive Kitteridge
“Olive Kitteridge,” March, 2021 (2014), DVD. We both very much liked this four-part series excepted from Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. Starring Frances McDormand as the remarkably difficult and often unpleasant title character (she co-produced with Tom Hanks), she’s a high school math teacher with a heart of coal. …
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
“El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,” March 13, 2021 (2019), Netflix. We’ve not seen “Breaking Bad” for several years and maybe it’s time to again as some of the references here probably got lost on us. Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) is on the run after escaping from the fascist sociopaths of The Brotherhood during…
Nomadland
“Nomadland,” March 12, 2021 (2020), HULU. Oscar Nominated. Our Francis McDormand mini-festival continued with this new and contemplative look at an unusual American population. Fern (McDormand) loses everything when the U.S. Gypsum plant she and her late-husband worked in closed and the town, Empire, Nevada essentially disappears. She outfits a van for living and…
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” February 27, 2021 (2018), Netflix. I had hoped for more from this film, based on the novel of the same name. In the end, however, while the film satisfied in some ways by telling an interesting story, it felt overly romanticized for my taste. It gives…
“The Dig”
“The Dig,” February 14, 2021, Netflix. I enjoyed this film based on a novel about a true historical event. It’s a story of mismatches and class on the eve of WWII England, this is a very studied, very British film. Ralph Fiennes excels as Basil Brown, a local, archeologist/digger whose knowledge comes from working…
One Night in Miami
“One Night in Miami,” January 25,2021, Netflix. Imagine Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown hanging out and talking about work, life, politics, race, identity and meaning and you’re a fly on the wall. Director Regina King has given us a likely scenario via Kemp Powers’ screenplay modification of his theatrical work…
Education
“Education,” Episode 5 of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, January 19, 2021, Amazon Prime. Formal education is the theme here. Kingsley (Kenyah Sandy) is an energetic 12-year old from a ‘solid’ Afro-Caribbean British working-class family in about 1975. He loves rockets, wants to be an astronaut, and can’t read. He’s targeted by teachers at his…
Alex Wheatle
“Alex Wheatle,” Episode 4 of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, January 15, 2021, Amazon Prime. This has not been a particularly well-received episode in this series first season, but I really liked it a lot. It is somewhat more fragmented and impressionistic, but it is an excellent look at one of the central questions of the…
Natalie Palamides: Nate–A One Man Show
“Natalie Palamides: Nate—A One Man Show,” December 31, 2020, Netflix. This comedic/serio filming of a live stage show is an exploration of sexual relations between men and women as presented by NP in drag. That is to say, it’s done by her as her alter-ego, Nate Palamino, a hairy, bare-chested, macho, posturing stereotype who…
Red, White and Blue
“Red, White and Blue,” Episode 3 of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe (season 1) December 29, 2020, Amazon Prime. It’s the early 1980s, and Leroy Logan (John Boyega) is the British-born son of Afro-Caribbean migrants in this based-on-a-true-story film from Steve McQueen. He grew up in a profoundly proper working-class home with a strict, hardworking,…
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” December 22, 2020, Netflix. We both really liked and recommend this exceptional adaptation of August Wilson’s first major Broadway show. The late Chadwick Boseman (too soon, too young) and Viola Davis lead a stellar cast in this story of racism and culture in the 1920s. “Mother of the Blues” so-called, Ma…
Lovers Rock
“Lovers Rock,” Episode 2 of “Small Axe,” December 14, 2020, Netflix. Welcome to the party. Steve McQueen shakes up the structure with a video snapshot in lieu of an ‘historical arc.’ Yet the purpose is the same: to take you inside a cultural milieu in the process of creating itself in the face of racism…
Mangrove
“Mangrove,” Episode 1 of “Small Axe,” December 10, 2020, Netflix. The first piece in Steve McQueen’s history of the Post-War Anglo-Caribbean experience in London. He wrote and directed these, he said, for the community itself. This introductory piece, is very much a primer for youth today, showing the travail their elders experienced. It looks…
Mank
“Mank,” December 5, 2020, Netflix. Who really did write Citizen Kane? Was it Orson Welles, boy genius? Or his fellow original screenplay Oscar winner, quick-witted, alcoholic playwright and screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz? Or was it a true collaboration? Mankiewicz, or “Mank,” (an excellent, boozy, and burned-out Gary Oldman) is certainly director David Fincher and his…
The Lady Vanishes
“The Lady Vanishes,” November 20, 2020 (1937), DVD. This comic-thriller from Alfred Hitchcock is generally regarded as one of the greatest British films of the 20th century. What am I missing? It’s not that I disliked it entirely. Rather, while a few of the bits were funny in their slapstick way and Michael Redgrave…
The Battle of Algiers
“The Battle of Algiers,” November 17, 2020 (1966), DVD. This brilliant 1966 film by Gillo Pontecorvo examines the growth of the first years of the Algerian revolution in Algiers. Filmed in the grainy style of a newsreel, this is entirely post-revolutionary, staged footage. It is remarkable and there are reasons this is considered one…
My Octopus Teacher
“My Octopus Teacher,” November 10, 2020, documentary, Netflix. First a brief prologue. When I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, I never knew people ate octopuses. My only contact with the beasts was at the aquarium or in bad sci-fi movies. When we moved to New Jersey when I was 16, I only slowly came…
The Queen’s Gambit
“The Queens Gambit,” November, 2020, Netflix Limited Series. Several folks asked that I do a review of this limited TV series. It is very hard to do without numerous spoilers, but I’ll try. I very much enjoyed this 7-episode drama about a young woman chess prodigy during the 1950s into the 1960s. It…