Tag: review

MOVIE REVIEW: The Florida Project

Brooklynn Prince is incredible.


The Landmark Theatres have some sort of electronic movie that I belong to. I was selected as a winner of an “admit-two” ticket for the Monday, October 23rd, 7:30 p.m. screening of THE FLORIDA PROJECT at Landmark’s Spectrum 8 Theatres.

Unfortunately, Monday night is the Daughter’s play rehearsal night, so it was impossible for both my wife and I to go. So I went with my friend Mary.

I had seen the trailer previously, which fortunately does not reveal too much. The film was directed by Sean Baker in a sort of a cinema verite. It was though the story, from a screenplay by Baker and Chris Bergoch, were a documentary.

It follows around Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince), a five-year-old leader of a group of kids – Valeria Cotto as Jancey, Christopher Rivera as Scooty – running relatively freely in these of extended-stay motels, probably once decent venues not far geographically, but miles away economically from Walt Disney World, which was originally dubbed The Florida Project.

Willem Dafoe is Bobby Hicks, the manager of The Magic Castle Motel – definitely not to be confused with The Magic Kingdom – just trying to do his job, collecting the rent, which is usually late, from Halley (Bria Vinaite), Moonee’s mom. But occasionally, he gets involved in his tenants’ lives, in spite of himself.

For a time, I wasn’t sure where the film was going, with its various vignettes. It only later occurred to me that the pastels of the housing units belie the difficult situation these folks find themselves in. By the end, the viewer will recognize the part of the population not often shown in film, as it “raises sobering questions about modern America.”

Dafoe, of course, is the name performer, and he is quite fine. But Brooklynn Prince is incredible in the lead. Check out the very positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (96%), though less so from the public (75%), who might be impatient that the narrative doesn’t “spell it out” more quickly.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Bill Murray has a very distinctive voice, even in animation.

Sometimes, there are movies that I really wanted to see at the time they came out but, for some reason, I don’t. This was certainly true of The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). It was well reviewed and had name stars (George Clooney voicing the title character, Meryl Streep as his wife).

Finally, this summer, it showed up at the nearby Madison Theatre, and the Wife and I attended one weekend afternoon. The premise is interesting: “An urbane fox cannot resist returning to his farm raiding ways and then must help his community survive the farmers’ retaliation.” The idea of fighting against one’s nature and take responsibility for his family versus the lure of one more series of thefts.

I liked the early part of the film well enough. When the farmers threaten the entire animal ecosystem, the film was more engaging. I enjoyed the stop-motion animation throughout, but the Daughter opted not to see the film because, just on the previews, the movie looked “creepy” to her.

Bill Murray has a very distinctive voice as Badger, even in animation (Jungle Book). Also solid: Jason Schwartzman as the mopey Ash Fox, Eric Chase Anderson as Ash’s cousin Kristofferson, Willem Dafoe as Rat (naturally) and Owen Wilson as Coach Skip.

Wes Anderson is a writer/director I either enjoy (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom) or not (The Royal Tenenbaums). I liked the film.

This was annoying, though: some rube sitting behind us, but on the other side of the aisle was periodically flashing a red pointer at the screen. I thought the guys sitting immediately in front of them were going to punch out the culprit.

And I Was more sad than angry because he was just encouraging people to stay home to watch on DVD or some streaming service rather than enjoying film in a more communal way. Given the fact the movie only cost us 35 cents apiece to watch – the first showing of the “family” film on Saturday is always a bargain, so you can spend more on the concessions – this joy sucker helps diminish the art form.

Here’s the trailer for The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

MOVIE REVIEW: An Inconvenient Sequel

If I thought it would do any good, I would recommend a certain party watch at least the Paris section.


The irony of our family seeing An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is that we drove about 40 miles to see it on Labor Day weekend. The movie came and went in the local theaters too quickly, so we trekked to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where my wife and I had been just the week before, and we noticed it would start playing there.

Image Cinema is a nonprofit entity in the town where Williams College is located. My daughter, on a school field trip, had visited there in the last year.

Matt Souza of Salon wrote: “Would I still recommend ‘An Inconvenient Sequel’? Sure, although I doubt there is much one could glean from this movie that couldn’t be obtained by rewatching ‘An Inconvenient Truth.'” I think that was my problem is that it was Al Gore forming groups of people to take on the fight, or occasionally reminiscing, and that it wasn’t quite enough…

Until the footage of the 2015 devastation from Typhoon Koppu, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Lando, that struck Luzon in October 2015. Somehow, the sheer enormity of the storm made me sit up. And soon thereafter, the movie showed recent (2015) storms in east Texas and Louisiana. Obviously they were not the storms from 2017, and THAT was the point.

Maybe it’s because I’m a poli sci geek, but my favorite part of the film, near the end, involves getting India to agree to more solar power in some sausage-making horse trading for the Paris climate accord. And then, just before the end credits, the news that the US was pulling OUT of said accord, which I knew, of course, but it still ticked me off. (If I thought it would do any good, I would recommend a certain party watch at least the Paris section.)

It’s sometimes difficult to connect the dots, and we treat each rain event, massive fire, and drought as unconnected from each other. In the Weekly Sift piece Houston, New Orleans, and the Long Descent, the author noted that while “President Obama had at least managed to include climate change in the federal government’s own building plans,” his successor has – foolishly, to my mind – reversed that policy.

I found An Inconvenient Truth compelling movie making, and the sequel not so much, although I happen to like it when Al Gore gets angry occasionally. Still, the Daughter had not seen the original movie, so An Inconvenient Sequel was an instructive enough use of our time.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Glass Castle

Woody Harrelson is Rex, who is forever promising to design and build the titular structure.

Three or four years ago, someone recommended to my wife that she read The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls about her unconventional growing up with her two sister and a brother. So she was anxious to see the movie in which “a young girl comes of age in a dysfunctional family of nonconformist nomads with a mother who’s an eccentric artist and an alcoholic father who would stir the children’s imagination with hope as a distraction to their poverty.”

The good news is that, in all the story jumping back and forth in time, I always knew when we were in the narrative, even with three sets of children. Movie magic at its best. For instance, Jeanette was played by Chandler Head as the youngest iteration, the one who suffers a defining accident in the movie. My wife says that in the book, the child was even younger, three or four.

Then the growing up Jeanette, who ends up in the deep end of the pool, was played by Ella Anderson, who, heaven help me, I recognize from the Daughter watching the annoying show Henry Danger. Both the younger iterations were quite good.

Jeanette as an adult was played by Brie Larson, who was so good in the movie Room that she won an Oscar. Here she plays one note for a long time, a fairly blank facial expression. I suppose she’s supposed to be showing how closed off she’s become by her upbringing. But it isn’t until an arm wrestling match between her fiance David (Max Greenfield) and her father (Woody Harrelson) that she shows much emotion at all.

Harrelson as Rex, who is forever promising to design and build the titular structure, is very good as an maddeningly intelligent dreamer, whose views on the economic system are not entirely wrong. (You see the REAL Rex at the end of the film.) Naomi Watts as the mom, Rose Mary, has less to do, but is fine.

I guess the problem is the disjointed storytelling made me feel that 127 minutes. Perhaps if with a different linear flow, and some judicious editing, it worked better for me and the critics.

But The Wife and The Daughter evidently enjoyed The Glass Castle more than I.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Wedding Plan

The wedding Plan is an interesting meditation on faith

The Wedding Plan is, as the LA Times put it, “not your mother’s rom-com, even if it may start out that way.

“Michal (Noa Koler) is a 32-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman in Jerusalem whose fiancé, Gidi (Erez Drigues), announces that he doesn’t love her. Crushed, yet bound and determined to get married anyway, the lonely Michal decides to keep her planned wedding date (22 days away, on the eighth night of Hanukkah); pay up with Shimi (Amos Tamam), the bemused and dashing owner of the banquet hall she’s already reserved; send out invitations, and put her faith in God that a suitable groom will appear in time.”

I note that on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics are 84% positive, but only 65% the general public enjoyed it. I suspect that the audience expected that it would be funny in a more familiar and obvious manner, the way a movie such as The Wedding Planner (2001), the film with Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey, presumably was supposed to be. (I’ve seen only bits and pieces of that one.)

I will admit that The Wedding Plan really started getting interesting as we get closer to the established betrothal date, especially after she meets cute/odd with Yos (Oz Zehavi), the international pop star who couldn’t possibly be interested in her, could he?

Michal has an interesting group of cohorts, including her mother (Irit Sheleg), who is not so secretly mortified by this public embarrassment, her not-happily married sister, and her friend/partner in a mobile petting zoo business.

As you can see from the trailer, the film is in Hebrew with English subtitles. Of course, I saw it at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, during its last week of its run. I was uncharacteristically alone, since my wife was resting after her foot surgery.

If nothing else, it’s an interesting meditation on faith. If you don’t expect to be falling out of your seats with laughter, you may enjoy it.

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