Review: Terrific and Amazing "ARMAGEDDON TIME" Doesn't Have Time for Sentimentality

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 15 of 2023 (No. 1904) by Leroy Douresseaux

Armageddon Time (2022)

Running time:  114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)

MPA – R for language and some drug use involving minors

WRITER/DIRECTOR:  James Gray

PRODUCERS:  Marc Butan, James Gray, Anthony Katagas, and Rodrigo Teixeira

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Darius Khondji

EDITOR:  Scott Morris

COMPOSER:  Christopher Spelman

DRAMA

Starring:  Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Sell, Andrew Polk, Tovah Feldshuh, Marcia Haufrecht, Teddy Coluca, Richard Bekins, Dane West, Landon James Forlenza, John Diehl, and Jessica Chastain

Armageddon Time is a 2022 coming-of-age drama film from writer-director James Gray.  The film is inspired by Gray's childhood experiences growing up in Queens, New York.  Armageddon Time is a coming-of-age story about family and about the American Dream and who can have it.

Armageddon Time opens in Queens, New York City, 1980.  It introduces Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), a Jewish-American boy who is entering sixth grade at Public School (P.S.) 173.  He befriends Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a rebellious African-American classmate.  Johnny was held back a year and gets harsher treatment from their teacher, a white man named Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk), when they both joke around in class.  Paul is interested in becoming an artist, and he often disassociates from his schoolwork and draws pictures instead.

Paul lives with his somewhat financially stable family of Jewish heritage.  His parents, mother Esther (Anne Hathaway), and father Irving Graff (Jeremy Strong), are well-meaning, but are strict.  His older brother, Ted (Ryan Sell), teases him.  Irving has a temper and is prone to hit his children, especially Paul, who exasperates him.  Esther and Irving discourage Paul's artistic ambitions, but his maternal grandfather, Aaron Rabinowitz (Anthony Hopkins), encourages him.

However, Paul begins to discover the harsh reality of life.  Aaron tells Paul of how his own mother escaped antisemitic persecution and pogroms in Ukraine, eventually landing in London before coming to the United States.  Paul gets into trouble with Johnny and ends up at the private school, Forest Manor Prep School, while Johnny quits school and deals with the foster care officials who are looking for him.  Although Paul lives in a world privilege, he is forced to confront family troubles and a world of inequality and privilege.

I am totally in love with Armageddon Time, although I'm not as in love with its title.  This is also the first film directed by James Gray that I have watched.  The film takes its title from a 1979 single by the British band, “The Clash,” entitled “Armagideon Time.”  It is a cover version of the same song by Jamaican reggae musician, William Williams, that was also released in 1979.  Armageddon Time also includes a few scenes featuring a fictional version of Fred J. Trump, Donald Trump's father, and one scene featuring Maryanne Trump, Donald's sister.  Character actor John Diehl plays Fred, who is a famous businessman and financier/patron of Forest Manor in this film, in all his real-life sleazy glory.

Jessica Chastain is superb in her one scene as Maryanne, who is portrayed in Armageddon Time as a United States Attorney and as one of Forest Manor's most famous alumni.  [In reality, Maryanne Trump was an Assistant United States Attorney in 1980 and would go on to be a United States federal judge from 1983 to 2019.]

James Gray's inclusion of the Trumps, who were part of the world in which Gray grew up, his unflinching desire that Armageddon Time not be nostalgic or sentimental.  Gray presents Paul Graff as a kid who lives inside a bubble – an idealized version of the world.  Paul's estimation of his family's worth and social position are larger and more grand than they really are.  The film's narrative acts not only to wise-up the naive Paul, but to also fill in the gaps of his knowledge of how the world operates – its unfair racial inequality and its propensity to hand out “raw deals.”

If Armageddon Time has a dominant theme, it is that one must survive to have a good life.  If this film has one big fault, it is that Paul's black friend, Johnny, flits through the story as if he were a ghost or a wraith, when it seems obvious that he is very important to the narrative, the plot, and the resolution.

Gray's cast is a big part of why this film really works.  First, Anne Hathaway is so beautiful that even as a harried mother and housewife and worried daughter, she is radiant.  Jeremy Strong is Oscar-worthy as a hard-working, beat-his-kids-asses, Jewish dad.  Ryan Sell strikes the right notes in a small role as Paul's brother, Ted.  Banks Repeta as Paul and Jaylin Webb as Johnny really sell a friendship that, on the surface, seems like it could not, would not, and should not work.  [I think this entire cast would soar even higher if this story were told as television series.]

I would be remiss if I did not mention Anthony Hopkins as Paul's grandfather, Aaron.  This film would not work without him.  Armageddon Time is one of the few coming-of-age films that I have seen that absolutely refuses to be sentimental and is zealously free of nostalgia.  In Aaron, Gray embodies the film's desire to eschew good and evil in favor of depicting survival versus unfairness, inequality, and callousness.  Hopkins conveys in Aaron the good sense that Paul lacks and must learn, which is to figure out when to fit in and when to fight.

I had not heard of Armageddon Time until I was perusing the “Charter on Demand” channel of my Spectrum cable account.  The trailer for this film that Charter was showing was quite convincing, and I felt as if I had to see Armageddon Time because it was made for me.  I hope that James Gray is able to go ahead with plans to direct a semi-sequel to this film, using much of the same cast.  Even if that does not happen, Armageddon Time is a gem, a blunt and genuine coming-of-age story that willingly embraces the truth that growing pains are indeed painful.

9 of 10

A+

★★★★+ out of 4 stars

Monday, March 27, 2023

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Review: "HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL." is Both Funny and Ruthless

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 2 of 2023 (No. 1891) by Leroy Douresseaux

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul (2022)

Running time:  102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)

MPA – R for language and some sexual content

DIRECTOR:  Adamma Ebo

WRITER: Adamma Ebo (based on her short film)

PRODUCERS:  Sterling K. Brown, Jessamine Burgum, Matthew R. Cooper, Amandla Crichlow, Kara Durrett, Adanne Ebo, Regina Hall, Daniel Kaluuya, and Rowan Riley

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alan Gwizdowski

EDITORS:  Ali Greer and Stacy Moon

COMPOSER:  Marcus Norris

COMEDY/RELIGION

Starring:  Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown, Nicole Beharie, Conphidance, Austin Crute, Dever Rogers, Robert Yatta, Greta Glenn, and Selah Kimbro Jones

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is a 2022 comedy-drama and mockumentary (mock documentary) film from writer-director Adamma Ebo.  The film is Ebo's directorial debut and is also a feature-length adaptation of Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul, her 2018 short film.  Oscar-winner Jordan Peele is one of the film's executive producers.  Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. the film focuses on the first lady of a megachurch as she attempts to help the pastor of the church rebuild his congregation in the wake of a scandal.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is largely set in and around Wander to Greater Paths Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.  The film introduces Pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife, the church's “First Lady,” Trinitie Childs (Regina Hall).  Lee-Curtis preaches the “prosperity gospel,” and he and his wife live a lavish lifestyle that is a big as their megachurch.

Once upon a time, Wander to Greater Paths (WGP) had about 25,000 congregants, but Pastor Lee-Curtis became embroiled in a notorious scandal that involves multiple sexual misconduct allegations.  Lee-Curtis and Trinitie were forced to close the church after backlash and a mass exodus of congregants.

Now, a year later, the Childs plan to reopen the church in one month on Easter Sunday.  They have also hired a documentary film crew to chronicle their lives and the preparation during the run-up to the reopening.  However, Trinitie finds the crew and its director, Anita Bonet, to be intrusive.  Also, the Childs struggle to get people interested in their return, so Lee-Curtis comes up with an idea for a roadside ministry, entitled “Honk for Jesus.”  Will that scheme save the church … and the couple's marriage?

Some of you, dear readers, are familiar Pentecostal televangelist (television evangelist), Jimmy Swaggart.  Beginning in 1988, a series of scandals, two of them involving Swaggart's relationship with prostitutes, caused him to lose a significant number of congregants at his megachurch, Family Worship Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  His Jimmy Swaggart Bible College also saw a drastic drop in enrollment, largely in part to his 1988 sex scandal.

A former coworker of mine was a devout Christian, and he considered Swaggart to be a hypocrite because of his scandals.  I told him that I did not quite see it that way.  I argued that the most successful evangelical preachers were probably intimately familiar with sin, especially related to sexual activity.  I said that what made Swaggart a hypocrite wasn't him sneaking around for some kind of sexual contact with a prostitute, but rather that he frequently condemned people who were engaged in sexual activity of which he did not approve.  He insisted that other sinners pay a price for sexual improprieties that he clearly did not expect to pay himself.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is not the greatest mockumentary (which is still This is Spinal Tap), but it is a very good comedy about characters that are difficult when laid bare.  Honk for Jesus. Save You Soul. makes it clear that the Childs, especially Pastor Lee-Curtis, are oblivious and lack self-awareness.  Lee-Curtis condemns those engaged in the same kind of sexual activity which brought him down, and his behavior is also predatory.  It is not just the nature of his sin; it is also that he betrayed the trust of the people who relied on him for help.

Sterling K. Brown shines as Pastor Lee-Curtis, depicting him not as evil, but as narcissistic, vain, and material.  His faith, God, the Bible, and his success are about himself and not about salvation or about “saving souls.”  He collects “saving souls” and congregants seemingly the same way he collects Italian suits and clothing, jewelry, and cars.  Brown deftly conveys to the audience that the reopening of Wander to Great Paths is all about shining on Lee-Curtis and not necessarily on God.

I think the film really turns on Regina Hall's performance, a mixture of comedy, drama, and pathos.  From start to finish, Hall's performance chronicles the difficulty that is Trinitie's mission to save their church.  Although she is known for comedy, Hall shows serious dramatic chops in conveying the ultimate futility of the couple's quest, especially in those painful scenes in which she faces either their detractors or Lee-Curtis' victims.

Mock or faux documentary films are generally comedies, although they have dramatic and poignant moments.  Writer-director Adamma Ebo pulls off the trick of producing a mockumentary that is more drama than comedy.  Getting a great performance from her cast, especially Regina Hall, is what makes Ebo's film highly original and even more substantive than mockumentary films generally are.  My take is that Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is both a portrayal of a corrupted megachurch pastor and first lady and also a commentary on the megachurches that pedal the prosperity gospel.

Mockumentary films generally always seem to be a tad bit longer than they need to be, and they are at their best in their first acts.  The best energy in Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is in its second half, especially its last act.

7 of 10

B+

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

The text is copyright © 2023 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: DOWNTON ABBEY: A New Era" Celebrates the New with the Old

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 43 of 2022 (No. 1855) by Leroy Douresseaux

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)
Running time: 124 minutes (2 hours, four minutes)
MPAA – PG for some suggestive references, language and thematic elements
DIRECTOR:  Simon Curtis
WRITER: Julian Fellowes (based on the television series created by Julian Fellowes)
PRODUCERS:  Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame, and Liz Trubridge
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Andrew Dunn (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Adam Recht
COMPOSER:  John Lunn

DRAMA/HISTORICAL

Starring:  Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Kevin Doyle, Michael Fox, Joanne Froggatt, Robert James-Collier, Allen Leech, Phyllis Logan, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Tuppence Middleton, Lesley Nicol, Harry Hadden-Paton, Maggie Smith, Imelda Staunton, and Penelope Wilton with Dominic West, Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Jonathan Coy, Jonathan Zaccai, and Nathalie Baye

Downton Abbey: A New Era is a 2022 historical drama film directed by Simon Curtis.  It is based on the British television series, “Downton Abbey” (ITV, 2010-15), which was created by Julian Fellowes, who also wrote the screenplay for this film.  A New Era is also a direct sequel to the 2019 film, Downton Abbey.  In A New Era, the Crawley family go on a grand journey to uncover the mysteries behind the dowager countess' recent inheritance, a villa in the south of France.

Downton Abbey: A New Era opens in 1928.  Tom Branson (Alan Leech), the son-in-law of Robert Crawley, Lord Grantham and 7th Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), is marrying Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton).  Lucy is the former maid and the recently-revealed daughter of Lady Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton), and she will become the heiress to Lady Bagshaw's extensive estate.

Returning from the wedding, the Crawley family experience two big surprises.  First, they learn that Lord Grantham's mother, Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith), has inherited a villa near Toulon, in the south of France, from a gentleman she knew in the 1860s, the Marquis de Montmirail.  He has recently died, and his son, the new Marquis (Jonathan Zaccai), has invited the Crawleys to visit the villa, named “La Villa des Colombes” (the Villa of the Doves).

Violet is not well enough to travel, but she is particularly anxious for Tom and Lucy to go, because she has decided to transfer ownership of the villa to Sybbie, Tom's daughter with the late Lady Sybil Crawley.  So Lord Grantham and his wife, Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern), lead a small group of family and servants to the south of France, where the late Maquis' wife, La Marquise, Madame Montmirail (Nathalie Baye), awaits them with a mind to challenge her late husband's will.

The second surprise is that a studio, British Lion, wishes to use Downton as a filming location for a silent film entitled, The Gambler.  Although Robert, Lord Grantham is initially opposed to the idea, his eldest daughter, Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), convinces him that the money from the film could be used to replace Downton Abbey's leaky roof.

So the film crew arrives.  The members of the staff at Downton Abbey are intrigued by the chance to see the stars of the film, the leading man, Guy Dexter (Dominic West), and the leading lady, Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock).  Lady Mary appears to make an impression on the film's director, Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy), and he soon needs her help.  The Gambler is being made just as a great change is occurring in the world of cinema, one that could prematurely end production of the film.

These are just a few of the dramas and melodramas, both large and small, that threaten to upend the lives of those upstairs and downstairs at Downton Abbey.

The original television series, Downton Abbey, began airing on the British television network, ITV, in 2010 and ended in 2015, after six seasons and 52 episodes.  It aired on the American broadcast network, PBS, as part of its “Masterpiece” series from 2011-20, before moving onto streaming services, Peacock and Netflix.  The final episode of “Downton Abbey” was set on New Year's Eve, 1925.  The first film, 2019's Downton Abbey, is set in 1927, 18 months after the TV series finale.  Downton Abbey: A New Era opens in the following year and picks up on some of the plot lines from the first film.

As I wrote in my review of the first film, when I first heard of “Downton Abbey,” I mostly ignored it, although I watched a few minutes here and there.  One Sunday afternoon, however, while channel surfing, I came across the show and recognized an actor (maybe American actress Elizabeth McGovern).  I decided to see what she was doing on the show and within a few minutes I was hooked.  It wasn't until two hours later I realized that I still had chores to do, but it was hard to pull myself away from the TV.  I found myself in the thrall of “Downton Abbey's” hypnotic powers.

I also found Downton Abbey the movie hypnotic, and a New Era was no less hypnotic, in large part because director Simon Curtis seems to have a grasp of all elements of the film, down to the details.  Both films offer many of the same ingredients of the television series that made it so popular and have since made it an enduring favorite.

One thing that A New Era does that the first film did not is offer a lot of change, including one monumental change.  Much of that change directly or indirectly involves the ailing dowager countess, Violet Crawley, as she settles her affairs and prepares the family for her eventual passing.  Series creator and screenwriter of both films, Julian Fellowes, specializes in historical ensemble dramas, such as Gosford Park (2001), and historical costume dramas, such as The Young Victoria (2009).  Fellowes spends much of this film introducing a sense of newness or of renewal in the lives of the denizens of Downton Abbey and of those connected to them.

There are new relationships and changes in employment, including the promise of another wedding and of two acquaintances becoming a couple.  Individuals assume new positions in the Crawley family, and even members of the film crew get new leases on their careers and in their personal relationships.  Downton Abbey: A New Era is truly the dawning of a new era in this world, and while this film does indeed have two primary settings, its story feels a bit more focused than the first film's story.

If you liked the television series, you will like this second film, to some degree, because it is more Downton Abbey.  Honestly, as with the first film, I love it and want more.  Downton Abbey: A New Era makes me happy, and I look forward to what is next...

8 of 10
A
★★★★ out of 4 stars

Saturday, July 16, 2022


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Review: First "DOWNTON ABBEY" Movie Brought Me a Little Happiness

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 32 of 2022 (No. 1844) by Leroy Douresseaux

Downton Abbey (2019)
Running time: 122 minutes (2 hours, 2 minutes)
MPAA – PG for thematic elements, some suggestive material, and language
DIRECTOR:  Michael Engler
WRITER: Julian Fellowes (based on the television series created by Julian Fellowes)
PRODUCERS:  Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame, and Liz Trubridge
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Ben Smithard
EDITOR:  Mark Day
COMPOSER:  John Lunn

DRAMA/HISTORICAL

Starring:  Hugh Bonneville, Mark Addy, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Michael Fox, Matthew Goode, Geraldine James, Robert James-Collier, Simon Jones, Allen Leech, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Tuppence Middleton, Stephen Campbell Moore, Lesley Nicol, Maggie Smith, Imelda Staunton, and Penelope Wilton

Downton Abbey is a 2019 historical drama film directed by Michael Engler.  It is based on the British television series, “Downton Abbey” (ITV, 2010-15), which was created by Julian Fellowes, who also wrote the screenplay for this film.  Downton Abbey the movie continues the story of the Crawley family as they prepare the family estate for a royal visit.

Downton Abbey opens in 1927, eighteen months after the end of the television series.  Robert Crawley, Lord Grantham and 7th Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), receives word that King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) intend to visit Downton Abbey during their royal Yorkshire tour.  Downton is the Crawley family's large estate in the English countryside of Yorkshire (County of York).  Both the family and the staff of Downton Abbey are excited by the news.

Lord Grantham puts his daughter, Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), in charge of the preparations for the visit.  Lady Mary feels that the current head butler, Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), is ill-equipped to manage such an important event.  Thus, she recruits retired head butler, Charles Carson (Jim Carter), to briefly return from retirement in order to assist her, much to Barrow's chagrin.  However, once members of the royal staff begin to arrive at Downton in advance of the King and Queen themselves, they act rudely towards the Downton staff and make it clear that they will supplant them for the duration of the royal visit.

Meanwhile, a feud brews between Lord Grantham's mother, Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith), and Maud, Lady Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton), the Queen's lady-in-waiting and a relative of the Crawleys.  Lord Grantham is Maud's first cousin once removed, so he should inherit Maud's estate.  However, Maud has plans regarding her maid, Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), who has a mysteriously close relationship with Maud.  Meanwhile, Tom Branson (Alan Leech) meets Lucy, and they strike up a friendship.

These are just a few of the dramas and melodramas, both large and small, that brew as a royal visit threatens to upend the lives of those upstairs and downstairs at Downton Abbey.

The original television series, Downton Abbey, began airing on the British television network, ITV, in 2010 and ended in 2015, after six seasons and 52 episodes.  It aired on the American broadcast network, PBS, as part of its “Masterpiece” series from 2011-20, before moving onto streaming services, Peacock and Netflix.  The final episode of “Downton Abbey” was set on New Year's Eve, 1925, and the movie is set 18 months after the TV series finale, according to an interview the writer and director gave to the Hollywood film site, The Wrap.  The King George V depicted in this film reigned from 1910 to 1936.  He was also the father of the next king, Edward VIII, who abdicated a few months into his reign.  Thus, George V's second son, Prince Albert, Duke of York, became King George VI, who was also the father of the current Queen Elizabeth II.

When I first heard of “Downton Abbey,” I mostly ignored it, although I watched a few minutes here and there.  One Sunday afternoon, however, while channel surfing, I came across the show and recognized an actor (maybe American actress Elizabeth McGovern).  I decided to see what she was doing on the show and within a few minutes I was hooked.  It wasn't until two hours later I realized that I still had chores to do, but it was hard to pull myself away from the TV.  I found myself in the thrall of “Downton Abbey's” hypnotic powers.

I also found Downton Abbey the movie hypnotic.  It offers many of the same ingredients of the television series that made it so popular and have since made it an enduring favorite.  The film both expands and extracts those elements, as needed, for the main plot – the royal visit.  Actually, creator Julian Fellowes' screenplay allows all the regular members of the TV cast to do what is expected of their respective characters, while allowing them to shine in the small moments of this film.  New characters, such as Imelda Staunton as Cousin Maud and Tuppence Middleton as her maid, Lucy, who shine in their respective supporting roles.

Some of the subplots here could work as story lines for an entire season of the television series.  That includes an assassination subplot and a first gay romantic experience, the former seeming forced and unauthentic and the latter being something beautiful, but woefully underdeveloped.

If you liked the television series, you will like this, to some degree, because it is more Downton Abbey.  Or you will be disappointed, to some degree, because it does not meet your expectations of what more Downton Abbey should be.  Honestly, I loved it, and I wanted more.  Downton Abbey the movie made me happy, and I look forward to the soon to be released sequel, Downton Abbey: A New Era.

8 of 10
A
★★★★ out of 4 stars

Wednesday, May 18, 2022


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Review: "NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS" is Timely, Could Be Timeless

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 52 of 2021 (No. 1790) by Leroy Douresseaux

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Running time: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for disturbing/mature thematic content, language, some sexual references and teen drinking
WRITER-DIRECTOR:  Eliza Hittman
PRODUCERS:  Adele Romanski and Sara Murphy
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Hélène Louvart
EDITOR:  Scott Cummings
COMPOSER:  Julia Holter

DRAMA

Starring:  Sidney Flanigan, Talia Ryder, and Théodore Pellerin

[The Texas six-week abortion ban, SB8, went into effect today, as I write this (Wed., September 1, 2021), and that makes Eliza Hittman's acclaimed film, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” timely 20 months after its debut at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.]

Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a 2020 British-American drama from writer-director Eliza Hittman.  The film focuses on a rural Pennsylvania teenager who, seeking an abortion, embarks on a fraught journey to New York City in order to get one.  Oscar-winning filmmaker, Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), is one of the film's executive producers.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always introduces 17-year-old Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan), who lives with her family in rural Ellensboro, Pennsylvania.  Autumn suspects that she is pregnant and goes to the Ellensboro Women's Clinic.  There, she takes a test that confirms that she is pregnant – 10 weeks pregnant according to a woman who works at the clinic.

After learning that she is unable to get an abortion in Pennsylvania without parental consent, Autumn confides in her cousin, Skylar (Talia Ryder), that she is pregnant.  Autumn and Skylar buy two bus tickets and travel to New York City where Autumn can have an abortion with parental consent.   The journey, however, is fraught with complications, including the fact that the girls have little cash and have no place to stay in the city.  And getting an abortion is not as easy, nor will it be as quick, as Autumn thought.

Roe v. Wade (1973) is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision.  The Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction, and, in the process, struck down many U.S. federal and state abortion laws.  However, beginning with Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court essentially began allowing states to impose restrictions and regulations on a woman's right to have an abortion.  In the ensuing four decades, some of the restrictions placed by states can rightly be called “excessive,” to one extent or another.

That is the context in which Never Rarely Sometimes Always exists.  Autumn and Skylar embark on a fraught journey from small town Pennsylvania to New York City, knowing no one, not having a place to stay, and lacking adequate money so that Autumn can have an abortion.  And Autumn must face having this serious medical procedure as a minor, unsure of what support that she would get from her mother and (apparent) stepfather.

What hangs over this powerful drama is that Autumn is exposing herself and Skylar to danger because the state in which she lives, Pennsylvania, can place multiple restrictions on what is supposed to be a Constitutionally guaranteed right.  In theory, Autumn should have relatively easy access to safe medical care in her home state, yet what she does have in her home town is access to medical care, in which the facility's agenda takes priority over her health and well being and her choices.

In Never Rarely Sometimes Always, writer-director Eliza Hittman is advocating for abortion rights and access, yet she does all her preaching in a film that essentially has two parts.  The first is the story of a teenage girl facing a crisis, and the second part is a kind of dark New York adventure in which the young heroes must, by hook or crook, stay safe in order to enjoy a triumph – even if they cannot really celebrate such a triumph – Autumn getting her abortion.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always takes its title from the multiple choice answers that Autumn can give to a series of questions about her sex life asked by an abortion counselor.  It is in that moment, when Autumn struggles to answer, that Hittman depicts the reality that there is complexity behind a woman or girl's decision to seek an abortion.  It isn't simply about having an “abortion-on-demand.”

Suddenly, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is not so much an argument between anti-choice and pro-choice, nor is it simply about the states and their varying degrees of access to a safe and legal abortion.  Never Rarely Sometimes Always is, at that moment, a story about a teenage girl who faces alone the trouble she did not create by herself.

9 of 10
A+

Wednesday, September 1, 2021


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Review: "PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN" Rocked Me Like a Hurricane

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 of 2021 (No. 1767) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Promising Young Woman (2020)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence including sexual assault, language throughout, some sexual material and drug use
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Emerald Fennell
PRODUCERS:  Tom Ackerley, Ben Browning, Emerald Fennell, Ashley Fox, Josey McNamara, and Margot Robbie
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Benjamin Cracun (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Frederic Thoraval
COMPOSER:  Anthony Willis
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/COMEDY/THRILLER

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Chris Lowell, Connie Britton, Adam Brody, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Sam Richardson, Alfred Molina, and Molly Shannon

Promising Young Woman is a 2020 black comedy and suspense thriller film from director Emerald Fennell.  The film focuses on a young woman who takes revenge for a traumatic event in her past on the unwary young men who cross her path.

Promising Young Woman introduces Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas (Carey Mulligan), a 30 year-old medical school dropout who lives with her parents, Susan (Jennifer Coolidge) and Stanley Thomas (Clancy Brown), in Ohio.  Seven years earlier, something terrible happened to Cassie's best friend, Nina Fisher, at a party, and it led to both Cassie and Nina leaving the medical school they attended, Forrest University.

Now, Cassie spends her nights feigning drunkenness in clubs, and allowing men to take her to their homes.  Then, she bluntly and forcefully reveals her sobriety when these men try to take advantage of her by having sexual relations with a woman who is too inebriated to give consent.  Things begin to change when Cassie is reunited with a former classmate, Dr. Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a pediatrician.  When another classmate reveals a lurid secret, Cassie resumes her mission of revenge, but can she survive her own mission.

Of the many shocking things about Promising Young Woman, one of them is actress Carey Mulligan.  She completely buries herself in this role, and the waif-like persona she adopted in some of her early films disappears in the storm of the force of nature that is Cassie.  Mulligan's performance as Cassie recalls classic Clint Eastwood movie characters like “Dirty” Harry Callahan and “Preacher” (from 1985's Pale Rider).  I also have to give a shout out to Promising Young Woman's makeup department for its work in creating Cassie's look, which, spiritually, recalls the those vengeful dead girls in such Japanese horror films as Ringu (1998) and Ju-On: The Grudge (2002).

I can't help but be impressed by the debut directorial effort of writer-director Emerald Fennell.  Her film is straight to the point.  Fennell is not being allegorical, metaphorical, or symbolic.  Fennell delivers stunning entertainment that is both a timely message movie and a timeless cinematic film, a mainstream spin of the spirit of The Last House on the Left (1972) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978).  She may or may not be talking to you, sir, but there is no doubt about what Fennell is saying.

In a way, Promising Young Woman is the Get Out of 2020.  Like Jordan Peele's Oscar-winning film, Promising Young Woman is a game changer.  Whereas Peele's Get Out was a revelation in its message about white people's violence against African-American bodies, Fennell's Promising Young Woman is the clarion call to the reckoning for the way men objectify and enact sexual violence on the bodies of women.  Hopefully, Fennell's film is the cinematic earthquake that leads to a Hollywood tsunami.

And yes, Promising Young Woman is entertaining.  It simply manages to also blow your mind, chill your blood … and make some men reflexively cover their jewels.

9 of 10
A+

Monday, March 22, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Original Screenplay” (Emerald Fennell); 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell, and Josey McNamara), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Carey Mulligan), “Best Achievement in Directing” (Emerald Fennell), and “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (Frédéric Thoraval)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  4 nominations: “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Emerald Fennell), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Carey Mulligan), “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Emerald Fennell), “Best Motion Picture - Drama”

2021 BAFTA Awards:  2 wins: “Best Screenplay-Original” (Emerald Fennell) and “Outstanding British Film of the Year” (Emerald Fennell, Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, and Josey McNamara); 4 nominations: “Best Film” (Ben Browning, Emerald Fennell, Ashley Fox, and Josey McNamara), “Best Editing” (Frédéric Thoraval), “Original Score” (Anthony Willis), and “Best Casting” (Lindsay Graham and Mary Vernieu)


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#28DaysofBlack Review: "HARRIET" and Cynthia Erivo Are Magnificent

[A powerful historical Black woman deserves to have her story told powerfully.  Harriet Tubman, the face of the Underground Railroad, gets that in director Kasi Lemmons' 2019 film, “Harriet.”]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 21 of 2021 (No. 1759) by Leroy Douresseaux

Harriet (2019)
Running time:  125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for thematic content throughout, violent material and language including racial epithets
DIRECTOR:  Kasi Lemmons
WRITERS:  Gregory Allen Howard and Kasi Lemmons; based on a story by Gregory Allen Howard
PRODUCERS:  Debra Martin Chase, Gregory Allen Howard, and Daniela Taplin Lundberg
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  John Toll
EDITOR:  Wyatt Smith
COMPOSER:  Terence Blanchard
Academy Award nominee

BIOPIC/DRAMA/ACTION/HISTORICAL

Starring:  Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn, Clarke Peters, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Jennifer Nettles, Janelle Monáe, Omar Dorsey, Tim Guinee, Zackary Momoh, Henry Hunter Hall, Deborah Olayinka Ayorinde, and Rakeem Laws

Harriet is a 2019 biographical film and historical drama from director Kasi Lemmons.  The film is a fictional depiction of the life and work of Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), a black woman who was an American abolitionist, a suffragette, and the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.  Harriet the movie tells the story of the runaway slave who transformed herself into one of America's greatest heroes by helping to free other slaves.

Harriet opens in Bucktown, Maryland, the year 1849.  A black female slave named Araminta “Minty” Ross (Cynthia Erivo) is newly married to a freedman, John Tubman (Zackary Momoh).  Minty is a slave on the farm of Edward Brodess, along with her mother, Rit (Vanessa Bell Calloway), and her sister, Rachel (Deborah Olayinka Ayorinde).  Minty's father, a freedman named Ben Ross (Clarke Peters), approaches Edward Brodess about gaining freedom for Rit and the children she bore based on an agreement made by Brodess' father, but Brodess rudely declines.

Shortly afterwards, Brodess dies, and his son, Gideon Brodess (Joe Alwyn), decides to sell Minty down the river, which mean down into the deep south, the worst place for a slave.  Minty suffers “spells” since being struck in the head as a child, but they are also visions from God.  The spell that Minty suffers after Gideon decides to sell her is the vision that Minty believes is telling her to run away before she is taken to the slave auction.

Fearing that she could endanger her husband and family, she leaves them behind and, after a long journey, makes her way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  A year later, Minty has renamed herself Harriet Tubman and makes her first journey back to Maryland.  There, she will either take her first steps to free other slaves, or she will be returned to a cruel fate at the hands of an evil owner.

In Harriet, writers Gregory Allen Howard and Kasi Lemmons fashioned a story that captures the horrors of slavery in a manner similar to that of the 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave.  However, 12 Years a Slave is the tale of a free black man trapped in hell of chattel slavery who is determined to survive until a miracle arrives.  Harriet is the tale of a black woman born into slavery who takes her fate into her own hands and runs through a hell's gauntlet to find freedom.

To that end, Kasi Lemmons as director creates a film that moves that narrative via action and opportunity.  Characters take action and take advantage of the opportunity to gain freedom.  As Harriet says at one point in the film – “God was watching me but my feet were my own.”  Harriet's lead character is a pistol-packing, action movie heroine every bit as stalwart as Captain America and as ruthless as actor Clint Eastwood's most famous roles in Westerns.

Actress Cynthia Erivo, as Harriet Tubman, is the center of this film's holy trinity.  Erivo's Harriet is a force of nature and the wrath of God against slavery.  In the film's quiet moments, Erivo presents Harriet as thoughtful and contemplative, but she maintains the roiling storm within, the elemental forces that drive her to return to the land of slavery time and again to free other slaves.  Erivo seems to transform Harriet's spells and visions into a living thing that devours fear and cowardice and the evil that is slavery.  One can believe that this Harriet was the star of the Underground Railroad, the network of secret routes and safe houses in the United States used by enslaved black people to escape from slave states and into free states and Canada.

Erivo's almighty performance earned her an Oscar nomination for “Best Actress.”  It is a shame that she did not win, and it is a shame that Harriet did not receive more Academy Award nominations than it did.  This film has good supporting performances, an excellent musical score, and costume design that created costumes for the cast that look like the real deal.  However, it is Gregory Allen Howard, Kasi Lemmons, and Cynthia Erivo that drive Harriet into being what may be the best film of 2019.

10 of 10

Wednesday, February 24, 2021


NOTE:
2020 Academy Awards, USA:  2 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Cynthia Erivo) and “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures-Original Song” (Cynthia Erivo and Joshuah Brian Campbell for the song “Stand Up”)

2020 Golden Globes, USA:  2 nominations:  “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Cynthia Erivo) and “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Joshuah Brian Campbell music/lyrics and Cynthia Erivo-music/lyrics for the song “Stand Up”)

2020 Black Reel Awards:  6 nominations: “Outstanding Actress, Motion Picture” (Cynthia Erivo), “Outstanding Director, Motion Picture” (Kasi Lemmons), “Outstanding Supporting Actress, Motion Picture” (Janelle Monáe), “Outstanding Cinematography” (John Toll), “Outstanding Costume Design” (Paul Tazewell), and “Outstanding Production Design” (Warren Alan Young)

2020 Image Awards (NAACP):  7 nominations:  “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Cynthia Erivo), “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” (Leslie Odom Jr.), “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Janelle Monáe), “Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in a Motion Picture: (Cynthia Erivo), “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture-Film” (Kasi Lemmons), and “Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture-Film” (Kasi Lemmons and Gregory Allen Howard)


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: McConaughey Super Sells "Dallas Buyers Club"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 36 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Running time:  117 minutes (1 hour, 57 minutes)
MPAA – R for pervasive language, some strong sexual content, nudity and drug use
DIRECTOR:  Jean-Marc Vallée
WRITERS:  Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack
PRODUCERS:  Robbie Brenner and Rachel Winter
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Yves Bélanger (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Martin Pensa and John Mac McMurphy (Jean-Marc Vallée)
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/BIOPIC with elements of a historical

Starring:  Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, Denis O’Hare, Steve Zahn, Michael O’Neill, Dallas Roberts, Griffin Dunne, Kevin Rankin, Donna Duplantier, Deneen D. Tyler, J.D. Evermore, and Bradford Cox

Dallas Buyers Club is a 2013 biographical drama from director Jean-Marc Vallée.  The film is a dramatization about real-life AIDS patient, Ron Woodroof.  He discovered unapproved pharmaceutical drugs that would help his disease symptoms and then, later smuggled those drugs into Texas to help fellow AIDS patients.  The film was critically acclaimed and won three Oscars, including a best actor win for Matthew McConaughey and a best supporting actor win for Jared Leto.

Dallas Buyers Club opens in 1985 in Dallas.  Electrician, hustler, and rodeo cowboy, Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) falls ill and is diagnosed with HIV.  He is given 30 days to live.  Ron initially refuses to accept the diagnosis, but quickly finds himself ostracized by friends and coworkers.  Ron learns from the kindly Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner) about the experimental drug AZT, which is supposed to help with symptoms of AIDS.  Ron is able to obtain some without having a prescription.  However, he not only abuses AZT, but he also continues to abuse illegal narcotics.

Ron develops full-blown AIDS.  As he fights to live, he begins to study and research AIDS and learns that outside the United States there are pharmaceutical drugs used to fight the symptoms of AIDS.  However, they are unapproved for use in the U.S. by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).  Ron begins to smuggle large quantities of these drugs into Dallas.  With the help of Rayon (Jared Leto), a sassy cross-dressing man/transgender, Ron opens the “Dallas Buyers Club” to sell these unapproved drugs to HIV-positive and AIDS patients, but Ron’s efforts draw the attention of people who want to shut him down.

I have seen many films that are elevated by a great performance.  Raging Bull is memorable for Robert De Niro’s legendary turn as boxer Jake La Motta.  Russell Crowe gives the most nuanced performance of his career in A Beautiful Mind.  Helen Mirren rules The Queen.  In fact, all three of these movies would be little more than made-for-television films without the celebrated performances given by their respective lead actors.

Dallas Buyers Club tells a story that needed to be told and needs to be remembered, but without Matthew McConaughey’s performance, this film would be a well-meaning TV movie or an indie film that would have been lost in the art film ghetto.  McConaughey risked his health in order to lose weight to play the emaciated Ron Woodroof, but what really makes his performance so distinguished is that McConaughey takes on Woodruff’s cause and suffering as if his own life depended upon it.

McConaughey is a good actor and has given some excellent performance.  However, in recent years, he has finally showcased his talent and skill in character study films that require putting out the effort to create fully-realized fictional characters.  Anyone who is a fan of McConaughey or has seen some of his films must see Dallas Buyers Club.

Both Jared Leto’s transformation into Rayon and his performance are impressive.  Leto was indeed Oscar worthy, but Rayon is mostly unnecessary to this story.  Although Rayon was not a real-life figure and was created specifically for this movie, he could have been replaced with just about any other character.  Leto is magnificent in a film in which the filmmakers didn’t seem to know what to do with his character other than to play him as a stereotype – the tragic mulatto version of drag queen.  Jennifer Garner’s Dr. Saks is also wasted, although not nearly as badly as Rayon is.

However, Matthew McConaughey is so good that he makes you overlook Dallas Buyers Club’s warts.  His character, Ron Woodroof, is a charming rogue with electrifying swagger.  It is as if McConaughey and Woodroof are two separate beings occupying the same space, and they are why Dallas Buyers Club earned a best picture Oscar nomination.  And that best picture Oscar nod made what would have been just an AIDS movie into something special.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

NOTES:
2014 Academy Awards, USA:  3 wins: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Matthew McConaughey), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Jared Leto), “Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling” (Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews); 3 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Robbie Brenner and Rachel Winter), “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (Jean-Marc Vallée and Martin Pensa), “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack)

2014 Golden Globes, USA:  2 wins: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Matthew McConaughey) and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Jared Leto)

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "Cry_Wolf" Worthy of Attention

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 149 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Cry_Wolf (2005)
Running time:  90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for violence, terror, disturbing images, language, sexuality, and a brief drug reference
DIRECTOR:  Jeff Wadlow
WRITERS:  Jeff Wadlow and Beau Bauman
PRODUCER:  Beau Bauman
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Romeo Tirone
EDITOR:  Seth Gordon
COMPOSER:  Michael Wandmacher

HORROR/THRILLER/MYSTERY

Starring:  Julian Morris, Lindy Booth, Jared Padalecki, Jon Bon Jovi, Sandra McCoy, Kristy Wu, Jane Beard, Gary Cole, Jesse Janzen, Paul James, Ethan Cohn, and Michael Kennedy

The subject of this movie review is Cry_Wolf, a 2005 horror film and murder mystery from the team of Jeff Wadlow and Beau Bauman.  The film focuses on eight high school seniors at a posh boarding school whose lies catch up with them after they create a fake serial killer prank.

Tossed out of his old school, Owen Matthews (Julian Morris) arrives at prestigious Westlake Prep where he falls in with the school’s unofficial and self-appointed “liar’s club.”  Playing on the fear caused by a young woman recently found murdered in the woods, the friends decide to expand the reach of their game beyond campus.

They create an online rumor that the girl’s slaying is just the latest in a long line of killings by a serial killer known as “The Wolf.”  Owen and Dodger (Lindy Booth), a female student that he likes, even create an M.O. for The Wolf and describe the kind of victims he prefers to murder after his initial kill, in this case, the girl he supposedly murdered in the nearby woods.  However, the club bases the victims on the people they know – each other.

After journalism teacher Rich Walker (Jon Bon Jovi) admonishes him about the dangers of online predators and spreading fear on the Internet, Owen regrets personally sending the initial Wolf rumor into cyberspace.  Worse still, someone calling himself “The Wolf” starts sending Owen threats via email and one of the liar’s club turns up missing.  Owen and his friends don’t know where their lies end and the truth begins.  However, campus officials consider the eight friends to be troublemakers, with Owen the ringleader and the one destined for expulsion.  So when the gang cries for help, everyone else views the distress as another hoax perpetrated by bad youths.  Nobody believes a liar, even when they’re telling the truth – perhaps, the real Wolf is stalking them.

Co-writer/producer Beau Bauman and co-writer/director Jeff Wadlow’s offbeat horror flick, Cry_Wolf, creates a novel twist on slasher films.  The atmosphere is good – occasionally creepy and will sometimes put you on the edge of your seat.  A quirky suspense thriller, Cry_Wolf has so many interesting twists and turns, quiet a few of which would make sense in the real world.

The film’s major problem is, of course, Bauman and Wadlow’s script.  They try something different and their concept is good.  One thing that works is the dialogue and interpersonal dynamics between the high school age characters; it’s sharp, witty, blistering, and dead-on.  However, the tense relationship between Owen and his father (played by Gary Cole with a bad English accent) is treated like stock footage.

The script’s big slip up is on the characters themselves, all of which come across as limp or wispy.  Some, like Owen and Dodger, are very interesting, but the screenplay is so focused on genre trappings and putting a unique spin on said genre that it doesn’t have time for the kind of rich character play Owen and Dodger both need and deserve.  The rest of the participants are intriguing, but are ultimately (or technically, as it turns out) just body count fodder.

That makes Cry_Wolf like so many other scary movies, soft on script even when the story concept is exciting.  Still, there is something to be said for trying something new.  At the end of the day, Cry_Wolf says that there is something scarier that the unknown killer in the dark.  It’s the people we think we know, people with something to hide and scores to settle for the wrongs they think their friends, colleagues, and associates have done them.  How far they willing to go and whom they’re willing to manipulate to balance the accounts can chill to the bones.

6 of 10
B

Updated:  Sunday, February 09, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

2013 Oscar Nominations: "Best Animated Feature Film of the Year"

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year:

Nominated film: director(s)

Brave: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

Frankenweenie: Tim Burton

ParaNorman: Sam Fell, Chris Butler

The Pirates! Band of Misfits: Peter Lord

Wreck-It Ralph: Rich Moore  

Review: "ParaNorman" Thankfully Not Normal

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 2 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

ParaNorman (2012)
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
MPAA – PG for scary action and images, thematic elements, some rude humor and language
DIRECTORS: Chris Butler and Sam Fell
WRITER: Chris Butler
PRODUCERS: Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tristan Oliver
EDITORS: Christopher Murrie
COMPOSERS: Jon Brion

ANIMATION/FANTASY/COMEDY/HORROR/FAMILY

Starring: (voices) Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, Jodelle Ferland, Tempestt Bledsoe, Alex Borstein, and John Goodman

ParaNorman is a 2012 American, 3D, stop-motion animated, comic-horror film. The film is a production of Laika, the stop-motion animation studio behind the 2009 film, Coraline. ParaNorman focuses on a misunderstood boy, who talks to ghosts, and his quest to save his town from a centuries-old curse.

Not many people in the town of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts seem to understand or even like 11-year-old Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee), except his dear mother, Sandra (Leslie Mann), of course. Norman can talk to ghosts. This claim infuriates his father, Perry (Jeff Garlin), because he thinks his son is too weird, and it annoys his sister, Courtney (Anna Kendrick), who is embarrassed by her brother. Norman even has a classmate dedicated to bullying him, the break dancer wannabe, Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Norman does have one friend, a chubby, eccentric kid named Neil Downe (Tucker Albrizzi).

Oh, there is one other person interested in Norman. That would be the town crazy, Mr. Prenderghast (John Goodman), who is also Norman’s uncle. He claims that Norman is the only person who can save the town from a centuries-old curse put upon it three hundred years ago by a vengeful witch. Pursued by zombies, Norman races to stop the curse with only Neil, a reluctant Courtney, and Mitch (Casey Affleck), Neil’s brother, by his side. But stopping the curse means having the right information/the real story, and Norman is having trouble getting that.

ParaNorman is not only one of the best animated films of the year, but it is also one of 2012’s best movies. This film looks like a Tim Burton movie, but is darker and less whimsical than most of Burton’s movies; ParaNorman is probably more in line and closer in tone with Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999).

One of my college professors said that books which contained controversial ideas often ended up in the children’s literature section, To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies, being examples she used. ParaNorman is kind of like that; in fact, it is like one of those children’s classics (film or storybook) with something to say. It runs the gamut of themes and ideas: the destruction of revenge, bullying, parental acceptance, the cycle in which parents pass on their fears and prejudices to their children or even project those onto their children, the fear of being different, how easy it is for a person to isolate himself because he is persecuted for being different, the mob mentality, the quest for redemption, etc. ParaNorman has so many ideas and themes that I lost count. It does not aspire to be more than a kid’s movie; it just wants to be more than the average children’s movie.

The film is such a feast of dark colors and fantastic visual elements that it is easy to miss the substance. The stop-motion animation and production values in ParaNorman exceed Coraline; it’s not even close. The character design alone is way ahead in terms of imagination and diversity than many animated feature films. The characters are caricatures of real-life human body types, but in an amusing way that celebrates all the big hips, thunder thighs, scrawny necks, big butts, fat bodies, etc. without being cruel for the sake of cheap laughs.

There is a lot more to say, but I don’t want to run on (longer than I usually do). This hand-crafted movie is a miracle. It celebrates being different, but also enjoying being different from other people. There is a surprise reveal about one of the characters near the end of the film that makes ParaNorman extra, extra-special.

9 of 10
A+

Friday, January 04, 2013

"Moonrise Kingdom" is Best Picture Winner at 2012 Gotham Awards

The first "best picture" winner of the 2012-13 movie award season is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.  The romance film about a preteen couple caught in the intense throes of young love picked up the top prize at last night's ceremony (Monday, November 26, 2012) for the 2012 Gotham Awards.

The Gotham Awards is an annual film awards ceremony that honors independent films. The Gotham Awards are part of The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers. The Gotham Awards also signal the kick-off to the film awards season.

Nominees are selected by groups of distinguished film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. Separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors and others directly involved in making films determine the final Gotham Award recipients.

22nd Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Winners:

Best Feature:
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Focus Features)

Best Documentary:
How to Survive a Plague
David France, director; Howard Gertler, David France, producers (Sundance Selects)

Best Ensemble Performance:
Your Sister’s Sister
Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass (IFC Films)

Breakthrough Director:
Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Breakthrough Actor:
Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You:
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Terence Nance, director; Terence Nance, Andrew Corkin, James Bartlett, producers

The Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ grant is a $25,000 cash award for an alumna of IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Labs. This grant aims to further the careers of emerging women directors by supporting the completion, distribution and audience engagement strategies of their first feature film.

Stacie Passon, director, Concussion WINNER

The 3rd Annual Gotham Independent Film Audience Award:
Voted on by an independent film community of 230,000 film fans worldwide. To be eligible, a U.S. film must have won an audience award at one of the top 50 U.S. or Canadian film festivals from November 2011 through October 2012. The nominees were announced November 5th, and the winner revealed at the Gotham Awards ceremony.

Winner:
ARTIFACT
Directed by Bartholomew Cubbins
Produced by Jared Leto and Emma Ludbrook

Nominees:
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Producers: Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Josh Penn

BURN: ONE YEAR ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE BATTLE TO SAVE DETROIT
Directors: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam
Producers: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam

THE INVISIBLE WAR
Director: Kirby Dick
Producers: Amy Ziering, Tanner King Barklow

ONCE IN A LULLABY: THE PS 22 CHORUS STORY
Director: Jonathan Kalafer
Producers: Steve Kalafer, Jonathan Kalafer, Bao Nguyen

The Bingham Ray Award (The recipient of this award was chosen by a close group of Bingham’s friends and colleagues.):

BENH ZEITLIN, director of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Review: Wes Anderson's "MOONRISE KINGDOM" is Simply Fantastic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 90 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Running time: 94 minutes (1 hour, 34 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexuality content and smoking
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson
WRITERS: Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson
PRODUCERS: Wes Anderson, Jeremy Dawson, Steven M. Rales and Scott Rudin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert D. Yeoman (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Andrew Weisblum
COMPOSER: Alexandre Desplat

ROMANCE/COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Marianna Bassham, Charlie Kilgore, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, and Bob Balaban

Moonrise Kingdom is a 2011 romance film from director Wes Anderson. Co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, the film follows a pair of young lovers on the run from the local search parties out to find them.

Moonrise Kingdom opens in the late summer of 1965 and is set on the idyllic New England locale of New Penzance Island. Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) is a 12-year-old orphan attending a “Khaki Scout” summer camp. Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is a local girl who lives with her parents, Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura Bishop (Frances McDormand), and her three younger brothers. After meeting during a local church play, Sam and Suzy run away together.

Captain Duffy Sharp (Bruce Willis) of the Island Police and Khaki Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) launch a search for the missing children. However, adult dysfunction and the approaching Hurricane Mabeline constantly hamper the various search efforts. Meanwhile, young love remains storm-proof.

When I reviewed the Coen Bros. remake of True Grit about two years ago, I said (more or less) that the film, while quite good, seemed like an exercise of the filmmaking brothers’ directorial trademarks and flourishes. I pretty much think the same of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. This movie is the quirky style and visual eccentricities of Anderson distilled into a fragrant essence that will entice his admirers, both old and new, for ages.

It’s all here. The primary colors have never been this primary, and the deliberate, methodical cinematography captures the intensity of those colors with such clarity that it could leave the viewer in a stupor (which it did to me early on in the movie). Anderson gets good performances that take the screenplay’s flat, one-dimensional characters and transforms them into poignant humans – flawed, but graceful.

Regardless of how quirky it all seems, Moonrise Kingdom is a love story like no other. Rarely do films capture stubborn youth in love as well as this film does. Jared Gilman as Sam and Kara Hayward as Suzy give inimitable performances, and without them, this movie would be nothing but an oddity that was shot in vivid color. Instead, Moonrise Kingdom is a rare romance in which the romantic comedy and drama elements cannot hide the fact that this is a pure love story.

8 of 10
A

Monday, November 26, 2012

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Review: Adepero Oduye is Spectacular in Dee Rees' "Pariah"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

Pariah (2011)
Running time: 86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)
MPAA – R for sexual content and language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Dee Rees
PRODUCER: Nekisa Cooper
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bradford Young
EDITOR: Mako Kamitsuna

DRAMA

Starring: Adepero Oduye, Pernell Walker, Kim Wayans, Charles Parnell, Sahra Mellesse, and Aasha Davis

Pariah is a 2011 independent film from director Dee Rees. This contemporary drama is a coming of age story about a Brooklyn teen discovering her sexual identity, while negotiating her way through the very different worlds of the lesbian club scene and of her conservative family. Filmmaker Spike Lee is one of the film’s executive producers.

The film centers on Alike Freeman (Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African-American teenager who lives in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. She lives with her family: her religious mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans); her policeman father, Arthur (Charles Parnell); and her younger sister, Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse).

Alike is gradually embracing her identity as a lesbian, with her openly gay friend, Laura (Pernell Walker), as her guide and support. At home, however, her parents’ marriage has reached a breaking point, and the tension grows whenever her parents discuss her development as a person. When she begins to socialize with Bina (Aasha Davis), a young woman who attends her high school, Alike starts to feel better about her identity, but her family and her social life only grow more complicated.

The easy way out of this review is to say that Pariah is an amazing film, because, y’all, it surely is. I cannot think of a film that deals with the black gay teen experience as well as Pariah does, and if there is one, all the better. The comic actress, Kim Wayans, as other members of the Wayans clan have done, takes a moment to show the range and scope of her talent with a dramatic turn as Alike’s mother, Audrey, that is rich in pathos.

If this movie is a revelation (and it is), then, it is all the more a surprise because Adepero Oduye as Alike Freeman is an illumination casting much needed light on the corporate product landscape that is the American film industry. As Alike blossoms, as a young adult and as a young artist, Adepero grows onscreen before our eyes. The joy we see in Alike as she becomes more confident and assured in the choices that she makes, the more Adepero seizes command of this film.

Adepero has a winning, Tom Cruise-like smile. Dee Rees has made a winning film that will make you smile like Tom Cruise. This film promises a lot in terms of Rees talent. If by chance she doesn’t live up to it that will be understandable. Pariah is a fine film and will certainly be a hard act to follow.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2012 Black Reel Awards: 1 win: “Best Breakthrough Performance” (Adepero Oduye); 8 nominations: “Best Actress” (Adepero Oduye), “Best Breakthrough Performance” (Kim Wayans), “Best Director” (Dee Rees), “Best Ensemble” (Kim Wayans, Adepero Oduye, Charles Parnell, Sahra Mellesse, Aasha Davis, Pernell Walker), “Best Film” (Nekisa Cooper), “Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted” (Dee Rees), “Outstanding Supporting Actress” (Kim Wayans), and “Outstanding Supporting Actress” (Pernell Walker)

2012 Image Awards: 1 win: “Outstanding Independent Motion Picture;” 6 nominations: "Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture" (Adepero Oduye), “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture-Theatrical or Television” (Dee Rees), “Outstanding Motion Picture,” “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” (Charles Parnell), “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Kim Wayans), and “Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture-Theatrical or Television” (Dee Rees)

Monday, May 28, 2012

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Review: "The Debt" is Good, But Unfocused

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 21 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Debt (2011)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for some violence and language
DIRECTOR: John Madden
WRITERS: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, and Peter Straughan (based on the film, Ha-Hov, by Assaf Bernstein and Ido Rosenblum)
PRODUCERS: Eitan Evan, Eduardo Rossoff, Kris Thykier, and Matthew Vaughn
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ben Davis
EDITORS: Alexander Berner
COMPOSER: Thomas Newman

DRAMA/HISTORICAL/THRILLER

Starring: Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciarán Hinds, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Martin Csokas, Jesper Christensen, Romi Aboulafia, and István Goz

The Debt is a 2011 drama and espionage thriller from director John Madden. It is a remake of a 2007 film (directed by Assaf Bernstein) of the same name from Israel. In the 2011 film, a former Mossad intelligence agent relives a 1965 mission in which she and two other agents pursued a Nazi war criminal. At times quite riveting, The Debt often comes across as a broken movie because it tries to be different things at different times in the story.

In 1997, Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren), a former Mossad agent, and her ex-husband, Stefan Gold (Tom Wilkinson), who is still a Mossad agent, are celebrating a new book written by their daughter, Sarah Gold (Romi Aboulafia). Sarah’s book recounts a 1965 mission in which Rachel, Stefan, and another former Mossad agent, David Peretz (Ciarán Hinds), pursued a notorious Nazi war criminal. The trio targeted Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), infamously known as “the Surgeon of Birkenau,” believed to be living in East Berlin.

The story flashes back to 1965 where we meet the younger versions of the trio: Rachel (Jessica Chastain), Stefan (Martin Csokas), and David (Sam Worthington). They find Vogel living as “Doktor Bernhardt” and operating an obstetrics and gynecology clinic in East Berlin. The team’s mission was eventually accomplished, or was it? Rachel must confront her past when two figures from it reemerge.

The Debt takes place across two different time periods, which I think inhibits the movie from sustaining suspense or building character relationships with any traction. The Debt certainly has potent moments, and the last act is a killer suspense thriller. Of course, any movie starring Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson would, at least, be interesting. I’m down to see anything with Mirren, and she doesn’t disappoint – once again, I mention that last act of this movie.

I see The Debt as a broken movie because it is really two films – one that takes place in 1965 and the other in 1997 – instead of being one complete narrative. That is what can happen to a movie that has so many flashbacks that it seems as if they are half the film. The Debt is good, but it would have better by focusing on 1965 or 1997 – not both.

5 of 10
B-

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

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"Pariah" Gets GLAAD Media Award Nomination

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) promotes the image of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people in media. The GLAAD Media Awards recognize and honor media for their accurate representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

GLAAD just announced the nominations for the 23rd Annual Media Awards. There are 116 nominees in 25 English-language categories, and 35 Spanish-language nominees in 10 categories. For a full list of nominees, go here.

The GLAAD Media Awards ceremonies will be held in New York on March 24, 2012 at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square; in Los Angeles on April 21 at the Westin Bonaventure; and in San Francisco on June 2 at San Francisco Marriott Marquis.

Here are the nominees in the two film categories:

OUTSTANDING FILM – WIDE RELEASE
Albert Nobbs (Roadside Attractions)
Beginners (Focus Features)
J. Edgar (Warner Bros. Pictures)

OUTSTANDING FILM – LIMITED RELEASE
Circumstance (Roadside Attractions)
Gun Hill Road (Motion Film Group)
Pariah (Focus Features)
Tomboy (Rocket Releasing)
Weekend (Sundance Selects)

http://www.glaad.org/

 

2011 Gotham Awards Chooses "Beginners" and "The Tree of Life"

The Gotham Awards were handed out Monday night, November 28th. The Gotham Awards honor independent films:

21st Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Winners and Nominees:

Best Feature (tie)
WINNER: Beginners (Focus Features)
Mike Mills – director
Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Miranda de Pencier, Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen - producers

WINNER: The Tree of Life (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Terrence Malick - director
Sarah Green, Bill Pohlad, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Grant Hill – producers

Nominees:
The Descendants
Alexander Payne, director; Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, producers (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Meek’s Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt, director; Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia, producers (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Take Shelter
Jeff Nichols, director; Tyler Davidson, Sophia Lin, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Documentary
WINNER: Better This World (Loteria Films, Picturebox, Motto Pictures and Passion Pictures; ITVS in association with American Documentary
POV)
Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega –directors
Katie Galloway, Kelly Duane de la Vega, Mike Nicholson – producers

Nominees:
Bill Cunningham New York
Richard Press, director; Philip Gefter, producer (Zeitgeist Films)

Hell and Back Again
Danfung Dennis, director; Mike Lerner, Martin Herring, producers (Docurama Films)

The Interrupters
Steve James, director; Alex Kotlowitz, Steve James, producers (The Cinema Guild)

The Woodmans
C. Scott Willis, director; Neil Barrett, Jeff Werner, C. Scott Willis, producers (Lorber Films; Kino Lorber, Inc.)

Best Ensemble Performance
WINNERS: Beginners (Focus Features)
Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic, Kai Lennox, Mary Page Keller, Keegan Boos

Nominees:
The Descendants
George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Nick Krause, Amara Miller, Mary Birdsong, Rob Huebel (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Margin Call
Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Aasif Mandvi (Roadside Attractions)

Martha Marcy May Marlene
Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzia, Julia Garner, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Take Shelter
Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Tova Stewart, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, Kathy Baker, Ray McKinnon, Lisagay Hamilton, Robert Longstreet (Sony Pictures Classics)

Breakthrough Director
WINNER: Dee Rees for Pariah (Focus Features)

Nominees:
Mike Cahill for Another Earth (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Sean Durkin for Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Vera Farmiga for Higher Ground (Sony Pictures Classics)
Evan Glodell for Bellflower (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Breakthrough Actor
WINNER: Felicity Jones for Like Crazy (Paramount Vantage)

Nominees:
Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Harmony Santana in Gun Hill Road (Motion Film Group)
Shailene Woodley in The Descendants (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Jacob Wysocki in Terri (ATO Pictures)

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
WINNER: Scenes of a Crime
Blue Hadaegh, Grover Babcock - director-producers

Nominees:
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
Madeleine Olnek, director; Laura Terruso, Madeleine Olnek, producers

Green
Sophia Takal, director; Lawrence Michael Levine, producer

The Redemption of General Butt Naked
Eric Strauss, Daniele Anastasion, directors and producers

Without
Mark Jackson, director; Mark Jackson, Jessica Dimmock, Michael Requa, Jaime Keeling, producers

Second Annual Gotham Independent Film Audience Award
WINNER: Girlfriend
Justin Lerner - director-producer
Jerad Anderson, Kristina Lauren Anderson, Shaun O’Banion - producers

New this year is the Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ grant. It is a $25,000 cash award for an alumnus of IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Labs, which aims to further the careers of emerging women directors by supporting the completion, distribution and audience engagement strategies of their first feature film.

WINNER: Lucy Mulloy, director, UNA NOCHE

Nominees:
Jenny Deller, director, FUTURE WEATHER
Rola Nashef, director, DETROIT UNLEADED