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Reviews
Allagash (2020)
Nearly Silent Hero, Loud Suffering, Excellent Film
I can't remember ever turning off a cable tv Saturday matinee out of boredom, but then looking for it on IMDB, streaming it, and finding it brilliant. "Blood and Money" is about old age, poverty, and a hostile, and in this case, snowy world. I am familiar with northern Maine; it's the perfect setting for a man-against-nature film.
"Blood and Money" attains a spellbinding loneliness almost as painful as "The Martian" because of the Allagash, yes, but foremost because of Jim Reed's (Tom Berenger's) forlorn life. The film made me think of "All is Lost" more than once, the snowbound setting is *that* desolate.
The most courageous decision by the screenwriter was not to start the plot until halfway through. It's a brilliant character study before that. Once you get to know Jim, you keep asking if he's a killer-and you can't be sure. It's because of the spot-on successful way Berenger plays the role as a quixotic Everyman. He smokes and spits up blood; he shoots deer badly; he breaks his AA faith.
But more than anything, he suffers-poverty, loneliness, and cold. One scene near the end of the film has him in a cave, freezing to death. I never felt as convinced by any other actor of what that sort of death is like.
I know I'll watch this again.
Missing Mom (2016)
Deserves Much Higher Ratings
I rely on Amazon Prime to introduce overlooked, under-publicized, and generally, darn fascinating true crime documentaries. At the conclusion of "Missing Mom," I couldn't have cared less about the things that seem to bother other reviewers here.
In fact, I was so sure that this was not a documentary, but rather a found-footage film, that I came to IMDB to see if I was right. It's a documentary all right--and, dang, do I give credit to these two brothers for undertaking the mission that they did.
What surprised me wasn't the question asked of Rob at the end: "Do you think this might create some disturbances you didn't anticipate when you set out?" It didn't surprise me because the ending kind of reveals who the judgmental souls were. And *that*, of course, will cause disturbances.
God bless Rob and Chris, and their new life.
De Gaulle (2020)
Available on YouTube Today (June 29), and It Is Fantastic
Dang, but did this film grab me. Lambert Wilson as De Gaulle--is he, as Churchill asks him at one point, a genius or a madman? There are SO many brilliant things about this film that I'll overlook the one other reviews seem to point out: the annoying concentration on the young daughter with Down's Syndrome. Nothing in the script establishes the influence such a child *must* have played on her father's will to save an entire nation; we must infer it.
Much, much more importantly to me as an American, the reason I cried so often during the film wasn't always because of how shoddily De Gaulle was treated by frikkin' everyone except his wife and family. Rather, this explains more than just emotions: the French simply don't make "manly man" films. The result is that other countries, no matter their language, often deride not only French cinema, but the French themselves for the testosterone-free movie reels.
"De Gaulle" mirrors "The Darkest Hour." Charles De Gaulle is as bull-headed and alpha male as Churchill. AND I LOVED IT. It was... real. Real French men are like this. The bad and hurtful jokes aimed the Hexagon's way are as hurtful as they are because they're not true--and yet France cinema seems to take pride in a neglect of manliness, old-school manliness.
Art direction is A+++. Pacing, the same. The problem is that Winston Churchill had at least five major films about him in the 90s and this century alone, and De Gaulle needs as many. Charles De Gaulle was not effete. He turned out to be his nation's savior. Maybe there's a connection between the two, making his life worth more manly-man film.
Superb.
Victim/Suspect (2023)
"Exoneration TV" at Its *Best*
A love-hate affair with the streaming channel "Victim/Suspect" is now offered on makes me subscribe, and then unsubscribe. Whether or not I'm the person who invented the term "exoneration tv," I know hands-down "Victim/Suspect" is among the best I've seen on the service... because it may be the first to focus on women.
Ms. De Leon, the reporter/narrator, is terse and excellent in helping several victims tell the horrors they experienced when they turned to the police for help after a rape. One victim is not present--because after a rape by a well-connected Southerner she was arrested for making a false report, and then committed suicide. In terms of grabbing the viewer's attention, the filmmakers made the right choice to include her story as early in the documentary as they did.
I wish so strongly Netflix would consider a subsidiary service for social conservatives who aren't heartless and who may perhaps know what the other side of the tracks are like. Shame, that I got notified of "Victim/Suspect's" availability before I cancel my subscription yet again.
One final comment: the women brave enough to participate in this documentary were pretty, bright, and connected in some way with higher education. Unfortunately, I don't have to wonder how women who aren't pretty, from a loving family, and unwilling to attach themselves to the success factory called "university" or "college" make out.
Air (2023)
Works on Many Levels
Excellent film. The 80s ambience explodes in the opening credits of this movie about two people's passion, Sonny Vaccaro's (Matt Damon) and Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis). There's so much *story* to this story that you forget it's about a tedious business deal. Every actor playing a Nike executive (Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck) loses himself in the unbridled enthusiasm of being alive and in business in that decade. Viola Davis steals the show in her showdown with Damon's Sonny, making the (real-life) tribute to her by the real Michael Jordan in the closing credits even more moving. Too bad the writers saw fit to add the profanity-intensive meltdown from Chris Messina. Otherwise, this film would almost be required family viewing.
Brilliant.
Missing: Dead or Alive? (2023)
Best Netflix Crime Series This Year
As of the date of this review, I'm number 10. Every other review resembles each other so closely as to the authenticity of some being a matter of doubt to me. But "Missing: Dead or Alive?" is excellent. You can safely watch this with sensitive viewers and be caught up in the writing, mystery, pacing, and recurring characters--two forty-something single white women, one forty-something black man. Netflix' characteristic reliance on violence to draw audiences isn't on display. (The other very low-ranking reviews may have been written by substantially younger people unaware of age bias.)
Four stories of missing people are told, all dealing with timely social issues: elder abuse; prejudice against fathers by family court judges; the unexpected risks of recreational drugs; and U. S. interstates as human trafficking conduits.
This series is "reality noir." If it matters, all but one of the stories ends very happily. At one point, a lead "character," Detective Rains, talks about the mental and emotional toll of working a missing persons unit: "You spend so much time getting to know people you're never going to meet." I wondered if the longest episode's shocking surprise ending left other viewers feeling as guilty as it did me: How awful a person you must be to have even a milli-second of regret when you finally *do* get to meet the "un-meetable?"
I binged this series, something I'm very happy to report I've done with two other Netflix offerings, "The Diplomat" and "Inside Man." Interestingly, these other, fiction-based series also focused on mature men and women, by which I mean over-forty. If Netflix continues to fill the crater formed when it pulled out all stops and sought viewers hungry for only social justice-preaching fantasy in Paris/Merry Old England, I'll continue to subscribe.
"Missing: Dead or Alive?" is Must See TV.
Lauchhammer - Tod in der Lausitz (2022)
Review Written after Episode 1
As a fan of what, now, I suppose must be old-school Belgian noir, I rejoined Netflix. That streaming channel's violence quotient renders almost everything--sometimes including documentaries--unwatchable for me. But since I love me some Belgian noir, I rejoined.
This is going to be a long review. Please skip if you're not into long reviews.
The gold-standard for Belgian Noir is 2017's "The Break" or (en francais) "Le Treve." It is so good, I have sometimes rejoined Netflix specifically to rewatch only it. I watch it in the original French. But I sometimes will listen to an English-audio version, as I did here with Lauchhammer. I wonder if I'm the only one in Netflix-land to wonder if the same male English dubber is used in absolutely every French/German production? I'm not whistling Dixie, and so, if you watch this in English, take my word that the material is much less theatrical and high-strung in the original.
I keep saying, "French." I assume this production was made in the Wallonia region. When I hit "Play," the language went directly to French with English subtitles, not German.
The noir genre requires--*requires*--esthetically appealing atmosphere. "The Break" had enough atmosphere for fifteen seasons. Not "Lauchhammer." Swamps and moors (moors? In Wallonie?) don't cut it. The noir genre also requires pacing that introduces additional suspects at a slow pace. Holy crow! We're introduced to everyone and his or her mother-in-law as a potential killer here.
"The Break's" use of homeless squatters with dreadlocks was kept to a minimum in both that series' seasons. Homeless squatters are like mustard--perhaps tasty if used sparingly, depressing as all hell when made the focus, or seeming focus, of the plot.
Lastly, "The Break" *entertained.* That's a horrible word to use about the murders of two extremely endearing main characters (Seasons 1 and 2). However, the victim here seems merely a sullen Millennial. Anyone who recalls the heartbreaking Driss Assani, the African immigrant from Season 1, will recall that Driss was anything but a sullen Millennial.
The pile-on of characters, potential motives, possible baddies in just one episode proved too much for me. I intended to follow the series, because Juri was clearly the "Kevin" ("The Break") character here. The thing is that every blessed character in "The Break" was fascinating in his or her mixture of good and evil.
If the writers/producers of Lauchhammer were thinking to appeal to die-hard fans of "La Treve," oh, dear, as of Episode 1, you have gotten so many things wrong--including the politically correct, sparring female-male detective team. Annalena is SO not the beloved "Marjo" ("The Break").
Maybe I'll continue with it, maybe I won't. I do not need Sullen Millennial Cinema. Maybe that's what Netflix should rename itself: Sullen Millennial Cinema... in the Multiverse!
The Plot Against the President (2020)
Guides Average Overwhelmed American Through the (First) Maze
I don't watch political theatrical films, let alone documentaries. When The Plot Against the President appeared in my YouTube algorithm in spring, 2023, I was perplexed. Why hadn't it appeared when the documentary was released? I rented it and watched it three times in twenty-four hours.
To be apolitical, when I watch equable videos or news stories about the existence of UFOs--or of ghosts, or of "certain" signs our environment is about to kill us all--I judge on the basis of 1) the intelligence or sincerity of the people interviewed; and 2) the *number* of intelligent or sincere people interviewed. "The Plot Against the President" was so impressive. Hate or love President Trump, the battalion of experienced, high-ranking politicians, military, security agency personnel, or embattled conservative media can't fail to impress the viewer.
More to the point, the writing was not only incisive, but charitable. Not all of us have the time to be familiar with Beltway crazies, but the screenwriter (if it wasn't the author on whose work the documentary is based) realized most of us needed time to digest who meant what to whom and when and where. It was important to understand animosities that sprang full-blown from the heads of troubled and dangerous men and women. It won't take fifty years to look back on this documentary and be as appalled by it as filled with disbelief. Me? I thought of zealots like Oliver Cromwell and England's seventeenth-century Interregnum. But that was the seventeenth century; this film starts in 2016.
Admiration for everyone involved--the cinematography is impeccable, the single-camera interviews neither too short or long, the terrifying maze the American public led into after the witch-hunt for Lt. General Michael Flynn.
I've seen some scary fictional films this year. This true story put knots in my stomach.
Poker Face (2023)
First Episode Pure Gold Brilliance, But Then--TOO Much Violence
"Poker Face" reminds me of "Tulsa King": funny, brilliant writing in the premiere episode, equal parts comedy and drama. I was ready to binge-watch Natasha Lyonne just as eagerly as Sylvester Stallone. Benjamin Bratt and Adrien Brody turn in great performances in the premiere too.
But in this premiere episode, the violence is limited to silhouettes in the dark and gunshots. So when the second episode started--hooey! I was not prepared either for the bad writing or for the level of unnecessary violence. It's hard, after a while, to reconcile such a comic, charming character as Charlie (Lyonne) with such chronic evil. I felt the same way about Stallone's "Dwight."
When episode 3 started off with the apparently requisitely quirky psychopathic characters, I just turned it off. I *LOVE* Paramount+; it has become my go-to streaming channel. However, unless these otherwise genius series tone down the graphic cruelty, the needlessly jarring sound effects of human pain... I won't be watching.
Old-Growth Murder (2022)
Dismayed but Not Surprised Mine is the First Review Here
I found "Old-Growth Murder" accidentally, trolling Amazon Prime Video. Because I speak French, I watched it. Do I wish I could say that the heartbreaking story of Alain Malessard's death had had wider coverage by the American media in 1987. Not even Unsolved Mysteries covered it.
There are most likely several very important reasons why "Old-Growth Murder" has been highly rated here on IMDB while not being reviewed. First, the title: This two-hour-plus documentary left me wondering what the heck the title meant. It's not catchy; it's not a summary of Alain's naive faith in his little vacation; it's not nothing. Second, the documentary's length. At two-plus-hours, it loses viewer's interest for a highly unsavory reason: political correctness. Crimes against indigenous people both here in the United States and in Canada deserve as much documentary coverage as possible. But to promise an audience you will be following the development--or lack thereof--of a respectful investigation into a foreigner's murder--only to drop that murder entirely halfway... No, it disrespects Alain.
More than anything, the ominous opening lines of this work from several older law enforcement officers and crime writers--all male--emphasize the brutality and (this word is used constantly) "creepy" nature of the murder. I won't go into details, but it's not spoiling anything to say that the murder occurred in a campground understandably deserted for the season (the crime was committed either on Thanksgiving Day, 1987, or the day after). One after another, the lead investigator and other contemporaries talk about how horrific the scene was, how they will never forget it, and how the atmosphere of the exact spot is imprinted on their memories due to its "creepiness" and brutality.
"Over-Growth Murder" will sadly probably never get the viewership it somewhat deserved. If the totally unnecessary minutiae about suspects in the desecration of Indian burial ground thefts had been omitted--nearly a full hour of footage--I could recommend this. One virtue the documentary has in spades is a totally soundtrack-free, old-school-style, single-camera interview narrative from *many* men involved in both the discovery and the removal of Alain's unidentified body during Thanksgiving night.
That this story should have been featured LONG ago on some other true-crime show is an additional reason it deserves respect. My advice would be to fast forward through the entirely unrelated crimes against indigenous lands about one-hour into the documentary, watch for the arrival in the U. S. of Alain's non-English-speaking French parents, and give Alain the respect he deserves. Whoever killed him, whatever the killer or killers hoped to accomplish, "Old -Growth Murder" makes clear they did it in spades.
What you'll recall is the loneliness of how easily the U. S. government forgets obscene crimes of this magnitude. Both Alain's parents died before their son's killer was ever discovered--but that of course implies that any investigation of merit and tenacity by the federal government was ever undertaken before they became elderly. This was a federal crime, committed on federal land. It is unbelievable that no genetic technology has thus far been used in bringing a killer or killers to justice.
Armageddon Time (2022)
Was This a Vanity Production?
The young actor Banks Repeta has a PreRaphelite face. It is capable of expressing the most sorrowful moods. I kept waiting for this film to be about something--about *anything*--because his face is that riveting.
Instead... What exactly was Armageddon Time's message? That racism is only natural? That beautiful preteen white boys who dream of being famous painters are capable of being eternally moody? That such boys' ability to make moral decisions dies after severe trauma?
Like, what about Johnny (Jaylin Webb)? Loved that kid. I thought this movie would be a redemption story, and Johnny and Paul (Rebeta) would be like Voigt and Hoffman heading to Florida on a Greyhound. Instead, you get at least five non-starter subplots and unnecessary characters, the most important of which is the entirely undeveloped older brother (Ryan Sell).
This movie annoyed the hell out of me, particularly when Anthony Hopkins' character does an about-face on issues of justice and equality. I rarely rate films mid-range (4--6) and gave this film a 5 only because I felt so damn sorry for Johnny.
Tár (2022)
My "Pretentiousness-nome" Broke!
There's really not much more to say... or names to drop... or cruel-shoes artiste stereotypes to plunder. The arrogant two-hour-plus script is grand guignol. At times I asked myself if I was watching a parody. Then I realized this is why I hate big cities. But poor Berlin! What did its fictional symphony do to deserve such a nothing-burger?
Oh ha ha ha, this stunk so badly, it made me nostalgic for Being John Malkovich and early-millennium "filme." At least it has a grotesquely offensive Eastern European stereotype cellist who wolfs down veal and (according to Nina Hoss) looks like she's climaxing when she plays an Elgar concerto. Oh, wait! It also has a protracted and racist and mind-numbing musical chant choir to open the oeuvre. And-- Yep, a lot of recessed lighting and chrome and great tailoring.
Jezum Crow. Respect yourself and nearly every other specimen of humanity and skip this trash.
Never Seen Again (2022)
YES!
For reasons of this review, it's important at least to me to state that I'm an older white U. S. citizen. I follow series that document two specific kinds of crime: 1) unjust convictions; and 2) disappearances under unexplained circumstances. I've watched every episode of "Disappeared" multiple times. Forums? Subreddits? Public demonstrations (and more)? Done, and done.
NO disappearances have ever enraged me more than those of Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos. I had read a while back that Tyler Perry shared this rage for Terrance Williams. I was so happy, briefly. I thought people who knew--and there ARE people who know--would come forward because of Mr. Perry's celebrity.
Nope.
"Never Seen Again" is A+ for production values. Not a penny is spared. The cinematography (yes, drones and God-shots) is too "2020's" for me, too Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix). Other than that, the soundtrack, the narration, the scripting, the excerpts from recorded interviews--the quality is brilliant. The journalists and investigators who appear single-camera, as on "Disappeared" and "Unsolved Mysteries" (Netflix), are passionate about finally, please God, finally giving Terrance's family and Felipe's family the peace they deserve.
So glad to see the Calkins' interview broadcast. No one can say the (presumably white) interrogator went easy on him; and this footage should have been public long ago. Tyler Perry states early in the first episode that "Never Seen Again" is the first time the interviews have been public. Why? WHY?
If "Never Seen Again" maintains quality as good as it does on the most enraging missing persons' cases in this millennium, Paramount+ will have done a public service to the missing.
Den skyldige (2018)
2023 Review of a Film About Helplessness
I saw "The Guilty" "very early in 2023 and couldn't take my eyes off it. It's a one-man show, with Jakob Cedergren in the role of the "911" dispatcher. Although other reviews are spot-on in regard to his excellent performance and the unexpected plot-twist, I found myself reacting to the feeling of powerlessness Asger (Cedergren) conveys from opening scene to dark silhouette ending.
The film's statement about modern human powerlessness, just as we have so much all-powerful technology, is disturbing and brilliant. We know that at any of the many obstacles thrown in Asger's way, were this situation to have occurred in the twentieth century, his specific character would have taken matters into his own hands. Whether the horrific events he recounts to colleagues fall on indifferent ears, whether arbitrary jurisdictional authority is also indifferent--whether people simply don't care at all anymore about human suffering, "The Guilty" offers two conflicting truths.
First: It is increasingly difficult to remain human when the buck can be passed to technology and technocracy. Second, to have even one soul at the end of a telephone (Rashid, Asger's partner) willing to put in an extra five minutes to save a child's life... is increasingly rare. Asger is illuminated in red light after too many cold shoulders make him lose it and he smashes lots of technology. That was my favorite scene--him smashing the technology that makes everyone pass the buck.
Rashid stays with him if only at the other end of a telephone wire. The telephone is a good thing. It's also very cruel.
Brilliant film I wish I had seen when it was released.
Strike (2017)
Begins Magnificently with Two Great Leads, But Quickly Disintegrates
Couldn't find two more attractive leads than Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger. They're gorgeous to look at. As with *all* Love Triangle/Unrequited Love series, viewer interest is revved up to see which lover, if any, will emerge victorious.
A strange thing happened for me with "C. B. Strike." I was astonished by the degree of violence and degradation the series descended to immediately after the first three-part episode about the Beverly Johnson look-alike fashion model, Lula. To have a very strong and effective romantic element side by side with perverse characters... This actually upset me. And this tendency didn't subside.
The best to hope for with Unrequited Love series is the gold-standards, "The Avengers" (Dame Rigg, Patrick Macnee) or America's "Perry Mason" (Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale). In other words, drop the repressed love stuff entirely. "C. B. Strike's" very poorly written, violent, and byzantine second season seems to drop the "love stuff," only to bring it back gangbusters at the end.
I stopped watching. And that's a shame. The two leads have such chemistry, and pairing a hero war amputee with a sweet former temp worker was timely. The series lost its focus, however, as soon as its first season. Viewers who tune in to Unrequited Repressed Love Stories usually aren't the crowd who get into things like branding with hot irons and disemboweling.
Inside Man (2022)
Unfortunately Brilliant
If a concept can be too brilliant, "Inside Man" illustrates that enviable problem. I don't like the series' creators and avoided it until a day when I said, How wrong can you go with David Tennant and Stanley Tucci?
The spiritual torture Vicar Harry (Tennant) goes through reminded me of the trials Will Ferrell's "Marty" endures in Apple's "The Shrink Next Door." It's hard to portray real, grinding, incessant, unending spiritual torment in a way that will keep viewers' attention and interest. Most people exposed to matter this dark, whatever their religious faith if any, will call religious dark matter crazy or senseless, dumb or worse. "Inside Man" is from the first minute to the closing credits (literally) about a Dark Night of the Soul. The Night ends very happily for one person and very badly for others.
Unlike "The Shrink Next Door," the spiritual darkness is offset by comic relief in the guise of a fetching young lass (Lydia West) who does the bidding of death-row inmate in the manner of Sherlock Holmes. Jefferson Grieff's (Tucci) execution-scheduling is part of the plot. For once, Dylan Baker gets a reprieve from playing smarmy Uriah Heep knock-offs and does a fantastic job as Tucci's compassionate prison warden. Atkins Estimond (Dillon) as a Watson to Tucci's Holmes is respected as a comic Dahmer-type. This part of the story takes place in the arid American desert.
But the British part of the story is so relentlessly painful, it's inevitable certain viewers will recast it in ways that allow them to disdain it. Anyone who says the producers can't write female characters are mistaken. Dolly Wells as Janice Fife and Lyndsey Marshal as Mary, Vicar Harry's wife, are magnificent. Marshal especially is terrifying as a suburban wife and mother who segues in and out of being her own evil twin. (Tennant does this kind of thing so well, it's kind of not surprising that he's brilliant as a tortured soul. It's his schtick.)
Just as "The Shrink Next Door" gives the viewer the unpleasant opportunity to sit through grueling amounts of spiritual pain--to teach lessons few Americans get drummed into them during religious services--"Inside Man" gives the viewer the even more unpleasant opportunity to sit through the ordeal of a woman trapped by utter coincidence in the hands of sane people situationally compromised. Marty triumphs in "The Shrink Next Door" at the cost of his entire life. Harry triumphs in "Inside Man" at the cost of his.
I didn't even make popcorn. I sat through four episodes straight. Jefferson's (Tucci's) observation that all required to make a murderer is a bad day and bad timing... Ten stars.
My Daughter's Killer (2022)
Closing Line Says it All
I paused "My Daughter's Killer" only once--it is that riveting.
I watched it in its original language and was particularly moved by the (ultimately) international grassroots cooperation responsible for bringing to justice a monster.
Anyone who would judge Mr. Bamberski--such as incredibly offensive review on this site--as being "forever in grief" clearly hasn't suffered the life-altering murder of a loved one. Shame on that reviewer.
Mr. Bamberski himself gives a very ambiguous benediction to his own actions. A few of us will understand exactly what his closing line means. For those few, his confirmation of the road's loneliness to justice is intensely felt.
This is a magnificent documentary.
Unsolved Mysteries: Mystery at Mile Marker 45 (2022)
Unsolved Mysteries is Becoming an Idol with Feet of Clay
Other subject-matter choices in the revived Unsolved Mysteries from seasons past have made me ask if Cosgrove Productions is the twenty-first century equivalent of a vanity press. The first episode of this season felt like an infomercial.
The word "mystery" implies that the audience will be mystified in some manner by the story. The Ray Rivera episode, which launched the series' Netflix reboot, mystified most viewers with the logistics of Rivera's trajectory.
From the opening minutes of the third season premiere, there was a feeling of being fed an advertisement by people with sufficient money to finance a production. You don't mention something as significant as the deceased being accused of theft--and then drop it forever. Additionally, the incredibly gruesome manner of death is physically disturbing.
Raymond & Ray (2022)
"Quirk" Factor Very Elevated
Either you like movies jammed with quirky factoids about protagonists, living or dead, or you don't. McGregor and Hawke try to infuse this script with... I couldn't tell. Humor? Pain? Painful humor? Scripts overly full of kooky nutty yawn-able stuff are probably best enjoyed by people with great quantities of time to waste.
As a white person, I found this movie so throwback 80s, to the kooky nutty yawn-able movies and stage plays people flocked to about quirky southern women. But this eminently white genre is not renovated by changing the sex of its eccentrics. And one each of a minority--please stop. Please.
Girl in the Picture (2022)
Proof the Foulest Degradation Can Be Portrayed with Grace
I'm reviewing "Girl in the Picture," rating it 10 because I can't rate it 20, after a "2" for a fictionalized version of a similar Netflix documentary. I didn't know a thing about the video or Suzanne's story before watching it and agree that it makes you question whatever religious faith you may have. If it doesn't make you doubt your faith, it should.
Girl in the Picture proves the most sordid pain can be presented in a way that honors everyone involved in the story's telling. I considered turning it off when the story became just too hard to endure, the pain for Suzanne too intense, and the shocks sensational.
But shocks of the type endured by this lovely young woman were obscene. Unlike other documentaries and especially docudramas, the point of telling her story isn't to titillate for titillation sake. It's to show how this sorry world can provide victims dignity even after death and to honor the too few among us committed to ensure the work is done.
I will *never* forget Suzanne or this film.
Not ever.
The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022)
A Movie that Made a "Generation Jones" Rethink the War
I'll say this is the best film about the Viet Nam war I have ever seen. I detested "love children" like Chickie's sister and other anti-war protesters in 1967. I was nine and agreed with Bill Murray's (excellent) character about sending our boys the wrong message.
Films that preach never changed my opinion. "MASH" didn't; "Apocalypse Now" didn't. I always saw an agenda, not real concern. I saw politics, not the actual cause. But "The Greatest Beer Run Ever" succeeded fifty years on.
This film's genius lay in its picaresque comedy--interspersed with stomach-churning jokes about counting dead bodies while eating spaghetti in officers' clubs, or scorpions crawling up arms, or the great sound effects of flying bullets. More than anything else, the Vietnamese characters--bartender with the French accent, the man thrown out of the helicopter, and most of all, "Oklahoma"--
In later life, I got to know two Oklahomas who evacuated and spent their lives in my hometown. They always laughed but never recovered from the war and never stopped missing Vietnam. Watching this film, I didn't feel as if I had to be depressed or oppressed; I wasn't watching Walken in "Deerhunter." "The Greatest Beer Run Ever" was like my two Oklahomas; they were just normal guys--as normal as Chickie.
The best way to change minds isn't to make people feel guilty or obligated to agree the "conflict" was caused by Ugly Americans. The best way to change minds is to show, as Russell Crowe's freelancer says, "War is mass murder."
This film, through its restraint and humor, showed that truth better than any "deep" film and changed my fifty-year-old resentment. The dead bodies here, mixed with beer and jokes, made me want to vomit.
I finished it and immediately started watching again. Zac Efron, *great* job. Great cast all around. Bravo.
A Friend of the Family (2022)
Made Me Feel Like a Voyeur
I get that the Mormon religion is this year's acceptable target in regard to streaming entertainment. (I am not Mormon.) I also get that protracted, prurient, way-way-way too lingering views of "Seventies Sadism" are also popular ("Candy"). But "Under the Banner of Heaven" had plot lines in addition to institutionalized misogyny, and "Candy" wasn't nine episodes.
Two-and-a-half episodes into "A Friend of the Family," I feel as if it's the 70s again, all right, and I'm in the back of some "Adult cinema." (I was writing this review while episode three neared its end, and when "pleasuring" an adult male included Colin Hanks' character, I turned it off.)
Pornography doesn't always have to show naked bodies and private parts. This series is pornographic. If the Apple+ "The Shrink Next Door" also becomes emotionally pornographic, its underlying theme is not to titillate by showing how yet another (yawn) psychopath destroys an innocent human being, but to show how an innocent human being's innocence can be attacked on different levels. "A Friend of the Family" shows only how an innocent family is perverted by a pervert.
Yeah, no. This is not entertainment. This is sick.
The Banker (2020)
Why Didn't I Know About This Film When It Was Released?
Man, I'm late to the party and not to blame. I wasted the spring of 2020 watching the over-hyped "Defending Jacob," another rich-white-angst Apple+ series I hated. Checking the release dates, I realized that no algorithm apparently was utilized by Apple in making suggestions to me; I canceled a *free* year's subscription because Apple+ and I don't agree; rich-white-angst doesn't blend well with social justice preaching. Had Apple+ used any data readily available about me as an ITunes customer, "The Banker" would have been in the top spot. My 1) age demographic; 2) interest in non-violent adult drama; and 3) music as well as film rental and purchase history would AT LEAST have had "The Banker" in my radar. Yet I had to literally stumble across it in the midst of another endless search (in another free Apple+ subscription period) for titles of interest.
This film was excellent. Disjointed in tone, with a jarring segue into comedy with an uninteresting white character, it ultimately belonged to Anthony Mackie despite all the detours thrown in his way. As an older white viewer, I asked myself if "The Banker" succeeded rather than failed by refusing to get angry. That, in fact, is advice given to Bernard Garrett (Mackie) directly by Samuel L. Jackson's fantastic older, worldly, L. A.-based mentor, Joe Morris: Don't get waste your time on anger, just distrust everyone, white or black.
The financial matter necessary to the script went way over my head but in a way not unlike the kinds of genius trash-talking white heroes from Data in Star Trek to Hugh Laurie in House to Cumberbatch in Sherlock have indulged in for decades. Garrett is an arrogant genius who has to efface himself in order to make a kind of Good Will Hunting star out of Nicholas Hoult's white janitor boy, so that Matt Steiner (Hoult) can gain entry to financial and social situations Garrett and all blacks, no matter how brilliant, were excluded from.
The refusal to get angry is "The Banker's" triumph in the way it throws into even more stark relief the repulsive racism of the South in the 50s and 60s. I wish the film had focused exclusively on Bernard and treated the white simpleton-turned-savant as a means to Bernard's end. I wish we had seen more of Bernard's wife Eunice (Nia Long).
Nevertheless, the film's evil, its conclusion, is a sucker-punch that will remain in the consciences of whites like me who go out of our way to avoid films of unbearable racist violence. "The Banker" made me mad as hell. I'm even more angry, two years after its release, that Apple+ buried it in a spring when, considering the national crisis of 2020, films of perseverance--not rich-white-angst--would have inspired and encouraged an audience. "The Banker" is an excellent movie Apple+ threw under the bus.
Vengeance (2022)
Pioneering
"Vengeance" was my first Peacock-original watch. Holy crap, was it a great choice. Four prejudices made me hesitate: 1) the B. J. Novak persona I'm familiar with; 2) the probability it would preach social justice; 3) its very off-putting opening scene, cheap laughs about promiscuity; but, most importantly, 4) the idea "Vengeance" would lampoon Dateline NBC. (It's by the same producers who made a comedy of "The Thing About Pam," which, if you aren't familiar with the sickening backstory, involves at least two gratuitous murders, one of a disabled adult man.)
But "Vengeance" preaches only to true-crime addicts who need to be taught a lesson about voyeurism. While Novak's "Ben" and Texas (and the Texan family he stays with) are broad stereotypes, this film is *not* about cultural or political stereotypes. Actually, it's shocking, its real subject; I'd go so far as to compare it to "Psycho" in the sharp genre curve it takes.
Ashton Kutcher's character Quentin, a small-town record producer, gets the lion's share of brilliant dialogue. He's the film's only non-stereotype. In the very unsettling last act, he shows that all his velvety prose used to seduce aspiring musicians actually has addressed the us, the audience, liberals and conservatives alike, too easily seduced by films about Dead White Girls. That a film starting with outdated "Mindy Show" sex jokes ends with gut-punches to true-crime addicts-- Ha. It's what anyone obsessed with "recordings, not human beings" deserves. That, and "regret."
The Shrink Next Door (2021)
You Need to Be Old to Respect This Series
You need to be old to appreciate "The Shrink Next Door." Viewers and reviewers who dismiss it as too disturbing or upsetting just haven't arrived at the right age. This eight-part series' subject is soul-murder. Killing someone's soul requires time, lots of it, years. Ike's narcissism and sadism disregards this one form of wealth that can't be replaced; and Ike pays, but with the Time of too many innocents.
So if you haven't looked the Devil in your own life in the eye yet, as Will Ferrell's Marty finally does, you're likely young enough to believe in second acts. Maybe that's why the most sickening episodes occur fairly early. I ran through the first three unable to take my eyes off Ferrell or Paul Rudd, both brilliant. Only by the third episode did I start feeling queasy, suspecting I'd been lured into a twenty-first century redo of Madame Bovary or Jude the Obscure. "The Shrink Next Door" is not funny and is not meant to be funny. It's spiritually gruesome, hard to stomach and watch.
That Marty cracks a few nebbish jokes doesn't make this a comedy, even a dark comedy, like the film "Bernie," which it has a great deal in common with. The most gut-wrenching scene takes place near the end at the house in the Hamptons. Marty's dead-looking eyes while he is surrounded not only by long-lost, forgiving family, but the recaptured ambiance of the past-it's the hell of realizing what he allowed to have stolen from him and how he trashed the Time of people he owed his love.
This is one of the most spiritually significant series I've ever seen. The young grow old, hearts get broken a little more every day, and Time is squandered like family finances Marty finally learns to respect. William Blake said in Proverbs of Hell: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Sometimes it does, if you don't mind waking up at fifty or sixty or seventy realizing you destroyed your truest self when it was young and at its strongest, and now youth is gone for good. But unlike his soul-killer, Marty gets to expunge the guilt. He may get the chance to get rid of at least some of the death in his eyes. As I said, "The Shrink Next Door" is not a comedy, not remotely.
I'm not Jewish but consider "The Shrink Next Door" as the most instructive religious production of this millennium.