Tag: review

Movie review: Janet Planet

the Berkshires

After seeing a rather endearing trailer, my wife and I went to the Spectrum 8 Theatre in Albany to see the movie Janet Planet on a Tuesday evening.

It’s weird. After we shared our impressions afterward, we pointed out some interesting things about what the movie set out to do in depicting a single mom (the title character played by Juliana Nicholson) and her tween daughter Lacy (Zoey Ziegler) in 1991.

Yet, seeing the film in real-time, the revelations unfolded too slowly and possibly obliquely for our taste.

Early during the movie, an older gentleman in the audience pulled out his phone. I thought it strange until I realized that he was turning up his hearing aid. The first section, the one featuring Janet’s brusque boyfriend Wayne  (Will Patton), was almost all long shots and difficult to hear.

The next section involved the troupe of performers, which was interesting enough, as Janet reconnects with old friend Regina (Sophie Okonedo). This section is at least slightly more interesting. The third act involves that group – is it a cult? – Guru, Avi  (Elias Koteas).

Lacy, meanwhile, is largely observing her mother’s life, making sometimes pointed comments. But mostly, she is alone in her thoughts except for her increasingly interesting doll house characters. She has no friends except, briefly, one. Her piano lessons seem a chore for both the student and her instructor.

Reviews

The Rotten Tomatoes critics’ reviews were 84% positive. One compared it favorably with the mother/daughter piece Lady Bird. I LIKED Lady Bird.

One negative review by Rich Cline reflected our thoughts: “The mannered approach means that story only comes to life in brief spurts of insight, especially as the excellent cast adds details to characters who are somewhat undefined. But much of the film involves watching nothing happen at all.”

I generally agreed with the audience reviews, which were only 40% positive. While I don’t think it was “pointless” or “the worst film in decades,” which I read more than once, “this is a very, very slow film in which little happens. If the characters were the least bit engaging, this might have worked.”

I was bored and impatient, and my wife wished she had not gone.

It does have some nice western Massachusetts scenery, which we were familiar with. The story is by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. It supposedly “captures a child’s experience of time passing, and the ineffability of a daughter falling out of love with her mother, in this singularly sublime film debut.”

It just didn’t work for us.

Also, the title kept reminding me of Van Morrison’s first wife. 

Movie review: Daddio

two people in a taxi

The movie Daddio is about two people driving around and talking. More specifically, a young woman (Dakota Johnson) arrives at the airport and gets into the back seat of a yellow taxi. The cab driver (Sean Penn) heads towards Manhattan, and they talk. That’s pretty much it.

The cabbie, Clark, or whoever he wanted to be, is a fairly astute judge of people. As he generates conversation with his last fare of the night, she’s willing to put away her cell phone for a few moments in response. They discuss the nature of romantic relationships, sometimes as a competition.

The critics like it, 77% positive, and the audience response is 86% thumbs up. wrote: “The pair’s conversation only grows in unexpected specificity and fiery intensity from there… While I never fully bought that the two characters would engage as intimately as they do, their conversation still kept me glued to my seat…” While I agree with the latter half, I found strangers in a taxi talking entirely credible. When I used to take the train to Charlotte, NC, and elsewhere regularly, I was initially shocked at what total strangers would share with me.

The cabbie’s motives

Fetters also notes: “Is Clark attracted to her? Does he look at the woman as a daughter? Is he bored and just happy to have someone in his cab willing to chat with him? As for her, does she need this conversation right now? Does Clark spark something inside her that makes her willing to open up to a complete stranger about so many ins and outs happening in her life at the moment?”

But Rex Reed’s negative assessment is NOT wrong. “Every woman I’ve ever known would start looking for an escape from a cabbie who turns as embarrassingly intimate as this one does.” 

This is Christy Hall’s directorial debut and also her first script for the cinema. Dakota Johnson was an executive producer.

In some ways, I wondered how this would play out as a two-person play. It would require something to display what she is surreptitiously texting.  

I think it is a good but not great film. My wife and I saw it on a Tuesday night at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. 

Movie review: Ghostlight

Mallen Kupferer

My wife and I saw the movie Ghostlight at the Spectrum Theatre during a Saturday matinee. It’s an excellent film. The New York Times describes the title. “‘Ghostlight’ [is] named for the single bulb often left burning in a theater when all the rest of the lights are shut off, keeping it from total darkness. If that sounds like a metaphor, it is.” This is not to be confused with a 2018 movie with, unfortunately, the same name.

But I’m concerned that the viewer won’t give it a chance, particularly if they are watching it on a streaming service. From the  RogerEbert.com three-and-a-half-star review:  “Some viewers will be irritated by one of the qualities I found most intriguing about ‘Ghostlight’: you don’t really know what this family’s ‘deal’ is, so to speak, until fairly deep in the film.”  This is true.

In other words, it’s an “onion” movie, where you must peel off the layers. The payoff, however, is gripping and moving, and quite worthwhile.

The father, Dan (Keith Kupferer), is a construction worker, impatient and occasionally volcanic. His wife Sharon (Tara Mullen) is stoic, trying to keep the family together. Their daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) is an intelligent, but belligerent teenager.

Dan meets Rita (Dolly De Leon), an actor in a very much ragtag theatrical troupe, and he’s invited to join in a production of Romeo and Juliet. And theater, much to his amazement, turns out to be what he needs.

Family Affair

The reviews are very positive, 100% with the critics and 97% with the audience. The biggest complaint is that it’s too “on the nose,” but even so, the acting and the direction by Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan made it all work.

Did I mention the family in the movie is an actual family? Here’s an interview with directors Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan, as well as another with the directors and actors. 

The soundtrack’s musical choices are interesting, including three songs from Oklahoma that somehow work. I was curious that the movie had subtitles—the script is in English, after all—but occasionally, in scenes involving outdoor traffic, I appreciated them.

Movie review: Thelma

families are complicated

My wife and I saw the new movie Thelma at the Spectrum  8 Theatre in Albany on a Thursday afternoon. This is the first starring role for nonagenarian Jane Squibb, who I first remember seeing in the 2013 film Nebraska, for which she was rightly nominated for an Oscar.

The story was written by director Josh Margolin, who based the story on his own mother, also named Thelma. IRL, some folks tried to scam Margolin’s mom with a fake call from her “grandson” who was in “trouble,” but she didn’t fall for it.

The cinematic Thelma adores her 24-year-old grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger), and the feeling is mutual, as he gives her help with her computer, and she offers him confidence. A phony telephone ploy takes her in. Once she realizes that Daniel is all right, she plans to get her money back.

This is complicated by Daniel’s parents, Thelma’s daughter Gail (Parker Posey), and Alan (Clark Gregg, who you may recognize from oodles of Marvel movies). They believe the older woman is experiencing cognitive decline since being widowed a couple of years earlier and may need to move into assisted living.

Our protagonist is having none of this. She borrows a vehicle from her old friend Ben (the late Richard Roundtree), who somewhat reluctantly comes along for the adventure.

Review

There were only ten people in the theater, none of them under 50, I surmise. There were laugh-out-loud segments, and not just by my measure.  One particular action cliche is particularly funny.

A lot of truth is here about listening to what older people say, especially about their own lives. Daniel’s parents learn things about their son’s skill set.

Josh Margolis has already won some minor awards, including at the Desertscape International Film Festival, where he was the 2024 festival award winner for Best Action Movie. Seriously.

Professional reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes were 99% positive. Kylie Bolter of the Chicago notes: “This action-comedy leaves room for plenty of nuance about aging and autonomy.” The audience score was 83% positive, with the most common complaint being that it was “boring.” No. Just no.

Movie review: Inside Out 2

perceptive

For Father’s Day, my wife, daughter, and I went to a matinee of the new Pixar film Inside Out 2 at the Spectrum Theatre. This marks one of the few times I’ve gone to a movie on the opening weekend. My family saw the original film in 2015 and I was a big fan. 

Things are going swimmingly for the now-13-year-old Riley, who is playing hockey with her two besties. Then they attend a specialized camp at the same time she hits PUBERTY. Her existing emotions don’t realize the significance until Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Paul Walter Hauser (Embarrassment), and especially Anxiety (Maya Hawke) arrive, turning the OG emotions’ well-oiled machine upside down. 

I enjoyed it a lot. Moreover, only recently having been the parent of a teenager, it rang true. It was also quite funny, especially the appearance of a fifth emotion, and two other characters who show up.

More than that, I note that Pixar took great care in getting the emotions correct by using consultants in the field. From TIME: “Dr. Dacher Keltner is a Stanford grad, Berkeley professor, and co-director of the Greater Good Science Centre, with a sweet side gig as part of the Inside Out consulting team, alongside psychologists Paul Ekman and Lisa Damour.”

Reviews

The critics, who were 91% positive, tended to complain that it wasn’t as good as the original. In this camp are a few who thought it was too much of an educational endeavor. I think that was precisely the point, helping teens and their parents negotiate new terrain without being preachy.

I get the feeling that some of these folks have forgotten how difficult puberty is, and it’s certainly more so than when they (and I) were growing up. Sequels are more difficult beasts, but I thought it was very impressive.

This piece from Variety is spot on. “‘Inside Out 2’ is a transporting fable about the desire to fit in, to be validated by the Cool Culture that is, more and more, our collective seal of approval and success. And while the movie is an enchanting animated ride of the spirit…, it may also be the most perceptive tale of the conundrums of early adolescence since ‘Eighth Grade,’” another movie I enjoyed.

“The film isn’t always as uproariously funny as the first ‘Inside Out,’ because it lacks that primal surprise factor. Yet it’s full of moments of delicious effrontery. “

Recommended. And it did boffo box office.

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