By: Henry J. Fromage –
Thanks to IDA, the dawning of the age of documentaries has arrived, but before going down that rabbit hole, first some bigger releases.
627. Flora and Son
John Carney has crafted another slightly corny yet laudably earnest paean to the power of music, this time focusing on a young Irish mother who discovers talents she didn’t know she had when taking online music lessons with a handsome American guitar player (Joseph Gordon Levitt), as well as a new and warmly effective way to connect with her teenage son. A perfectly nice film. Three Beers.
628. Next Goal Wins
Taika Waititi is always one for a good underdog story, especially if it’s one indigenous people at the periphery if at all present in most big budget entertainment. Yes, Michael Fassbender is our very white entry point into this story of a disgraced coach sent to American Samoa to coach the worst soccer team in the world to one goal… a goal. Literally they’ve never scored. Not Waititi’s most incisive stuff, but like Fassbender you’ll find yourself drawn in by these characters’ good-natured ways and beautifully optimistic outlook on life. Three Beers.
629. Dicks: The Musical
This is the kind of unclassifiable bizarrity that TIFF’s Midnight Madness was made for, where this unrepentantly, aggressively, perhaps even gloriously gay musical debuted. It’s about twin and totally hetero bros/actual brothers separated at birth who find each other and decide to Parent Trap their basket & closet case mother and unmistakably gay father (to them and to a pair of horrific puppets he’s affectionately dubbed “the Sewer Boys”). Megan Mullaly and Nathan Lane in those roles (and also, of course, those Sewer Boys) are the highlights, and I’d say at least a few laughs are guaranteed, although the perhaps only slightly insincere celebration of twincest may give you a clue just how far your mileage may vary otherwise. Four Beers.
630. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
The last film in absolute legend William Friedkin’s career before he passed earlier this year, this actor’s showcase based on the stageplay source and not directly on the also excellent 1954 film shows his considerable powers were undiminished until the end. To compound the sadness, this is also one of Lance Reddick’s last performances, but to not dwell overmuch on that the film itself maintains a taut pace and atmosphere based on dialogue alone, and does so without breaking a sweat, never feeling like a flat stageplay even as it barely leaves the courtroom. Bravo. Two Beers.
631. Pain Hustlers
Most critics were down on this American crime story told in the flashy vein of The Big Short or this year’s Dumb Money, but while David Yates is no Martin Scorcese or even Craig Gillespie, this is entertaining (and sobering) enough in its own right. Emily Blunt and Chris Evans are charismatic and conflicting as drug reps for an aerosol painkiller whose main ingredient is fentanyl, which really does wonders for certain kinds of cancer pain… in a vacuum. The scary thing is the thousands of stories of greed and addiction like this that have helped mire us all in this Opioid Crisis. Three Beers.
632. The Royal Hotel
Kitty Green and Julia Garner reunite after the superb The Assistant to tell a very different thriller entrenched in the horrors of sexism in this tale of a couple of American (“Canadian” to everyone else) backpackers who take a short term bartender gig for hire in a remote Australian mining town when they run out of cash. The miners and locals are scary in ways both predictable and not to Garner’s character, while her friend, played gamely by Jessica Henwick, is either more foolhardy or oblivious or both. The denouement is a bit pat and unimaginative, but it doesn’t ruin what’s been a terrifically tense film up until then. Two Beers.
633. Blue Jean
It took a bit for this British arthouse piece to make it stateside, but it’s easy to see how Rosy McEwan drew the acclaim she did last year in this portrayal of a high school gym teacher in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain who is put in a quandary when she sees a loner student of hers at the gay bar she frequents when off the clock. Georgia Oakley fills her debut with period detail and texture, and the character dynamics feel relatable if not always laudable, and perhaps even more so because of that. Three Beers.
634. Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain
I wasn’t sure how Please Don’t Destroy’s best part of SNL these days digital short schtick was going to translate from around 2 minutes to around 2 hours, and while it’s not a seamless leap, I’m happy to report these dudes are still as funny and absurd as ever in long format. The nothingburger of a slacker friends starting to drift apart go on an adventure plot is perfectly fine- I’m not one of those people that will tell you that comedies need to also be deliverers of life lessons like apparently somebody else is based on all of them trying to do that- and there are some compounding jokes that really pay off in the end. Sign me up for more (especially if Conan O’Brien gets an honorary Danny DeVito-esque place in the crew going forward). Three Beers.
635. Between Earth & Sky
Okay, it’s International Documentary Association time, membership in which just continues to be an utterly absurd value if you like a good documentary or 50 like I do. Let’s start with a short- this one is about rainforest ecologist Nalini Nadkarni, who’s effusive enthusiasm about her subject matter is infectious, even if it may be masking some tough life experiences that she has not let keep her down. Three Beers.
636. Stamped from the Beginning
I missed this at TIFF, but IDA has it! Anyway, this documentary examines Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s theories laid out in his National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas, in which he postulates that the very concepts of “Blackness” and “Whiteness” in the Western world arose out of the need to justify the Great Evil of Slavery. Director Roger Ross Williams takes a multifarious approach to illustrating this, which can have the unfortunate side effect of sacrificing depth for breadth, but there a lot of interesting ideas to consume here. Three Beers.
637. What These Walls Won’t Hold
This prison-set documentary touches on a lot of familiar topics of rehabilitation and the parallel imprisonments of the loved ones of the incarcerated at first- until you clock the dates and realize what is coming. Some of the most harrowing stories of the Pandemic occurred in prisons like San Quentin, where the disease spread like wildfire and officials had no solutions. Even more so than many documentaries about prisoners, this one really makes you question the limits of our current system. Two Beers.
638. Farewell Mr. Haffman
This French drama stars Daniel Auteuil as a Jewish jeweler in Paris who leaves his home and business to his assistant (Gilles Lellouche) and his girlfriend (Sara Girardeau) as the Nazis encroach, only to find himself trapped and needing to rely on them to hide him when he leaves too late and is cut off from his family. What ensues is a terrific three-hander as the characters evolve in unexpected ways under the weight of Nazi occupation. Klaus Kinski’s kid Nikolai plays the most sniveling of the Nazis, as well as you’d hope. Two Beers.
639. The Adults
This somewhat odd familial drama from Dustin Guy Defa stars Michael Cera, Sophia Lillis, and Hannah Gross as siblings with the kind of grating in-jokes and callbacks that we all have, but that are clearly only actually amusing to each other. Cera’s character is trying to visit his hometown as quickly as possible, but finds himself stuck and getting pulled back into familial dramas he’s in no small part responsible for himself as he stays. There’s some truths to be found here among all the embarrassing childish voices and emotional stuntedness. Three Beers.
640. Sound of the Police
This superb documentary seeks to trace the fraught history of the relationship between Black Americans and law enforcement, and shows docs like Stamped From the Beginning how to do it, presenting a clear thesis and then bolstering it with a preponderance of facts and perspectives that all speak to and magnify it. If there’s a seed of hope here, even if its no bigger than a mustard seed, but the history and deep rot of our institutions are raw and undeniable. Two Beers.
641. Surrounded
Letitia Wright continues to get and deliver on varied and intriguing roles, as she does here as a young black woman in the West content to leave assumptions she’s a boy uncorrected. She gets drawn into a life or death situation when the stagecoach she’s riding is robbed by a merciless brigand (Jamie Bell) before the tables are turned and she needs to guard him. Not necessarily anything you haven’t seen in the genre, but well delivered, with an additional unmissable element in one of Michael K. Williams’ final performances as a mysterious interloper. Three Beers.
642. Unseen
This IDA doc profiles Pedro, a young man who has two massive obstacles to overcome in his quest to complete his college degree and establish himself as a care worker- he’s legally blind, and he’s an undocumented immigrant. It does a good job of helping the audience experience both of these perspectives, presented in an unvarnished and, perhaps because of that, still inspiring manner. Three Beers.
643. We Have Just Begun
Another excellent documentary about the Black experience in America, this one has a much tighter focus than the other two I saw this week, honing in on the story of the 1919 Elaine Massacre, one of several shameful historical events of that Red Summer, when racial tensions flared into conflict across the country between entitled Whites and confident and capable Black men returning victorious from the trenches of WWI. This doc lays the stage before recounting what many believe may be the deadliest twin racial and labor confrontation in U.S. history. Two Beers.
644. When Spring Came to Bucha
Spring came to Bucha after the Russians did, and you probably remember the horrific images splashed across the news when Ukrainian forces and their cameras first entered after taking it back- the inhumane disrespect of bodies of civilians left where they were shot down in the streets and the moonscape of bombed out apartment buildings around them. This documentary tells the harrowing experiences of its residents from their own mouths, a historical record that cannot be denied. Two Beers.
645. Everybody Wants to be Loved
This German drama stars Anne Ratte-Polle as a woman who’s about to be pushed over the edge, be it from her disrespectful teenage daughter, selfish boyfriend, aggressive psychiatry patients, or nightmare of a demanding mother about to have a birthday party. It doesn’t help that her doctor’s office won’t give her her results over the phone. A tightly escalating cesspool of anxiety that’s perfectly calibrated to make you yearn for the relief this woman clearly needs. Two Beers.
646. Relighting Candles: The Tim Sullivan Story
This documentary short profiles Los Angeles candleshop owner and LGBTQ advocate Tim Sullivan, a gentle and lovely man who built a candle empire that’s brought him into the orbit of many a star, while also giving him an opportunity to give back, particularly to gay men who’ve fallen on hard times themselves and need a helping hand. Three Beers.
647. The Insurrectionist Next Door
Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra has made a career for herself as a documentarian interested in stories on both sides of the American political spectrum, and here she interviews several people who were convicted for entering the Capitol on January 6th to see how their experiences since then have shaped them. A few see Trump as having abandoned them, and others take full responsibility for their actions, but a shocking number, even among the responsibility crowd, still support him. A special mention to her ball-busting rapport with several- she really seems like a character herself. Three Beers.
648. No Accident
This illuminating documentary runs down the prosecution of the instigators of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally that resulted in an incident of shocking but tragically predictable, and as the lawyers and this documentary lay out, essentially premeditated violence. Frankly, “very fine people” should be enough of a disqualifier to prevent Trump from ever having any form of power again. Two Beers.
649. Savior Complex
Another HBO documentary series, this one examines the case of often shockingly unoverseen faith-based charity work via the case of Renee Bach, a well-intentioned young woman who believes she found her heavenly calling running a clinic for malnourished children in Uganda. She has no medical training, which introduces grave doubts about her methods, even if lawsuits brought later on seem to have the opposite effect of exonerating her from the worst accusations of her critics. No good intentions may go unpunished, yes, but good intentions alone are no way to run a medical facility. Three Beers.
650. The Stronghold
This French police drama on Netflix is about a team of three street-level cops who are not afraid to get their hands a little dirty, particularly when pushed for results without being given the means to achieve them. There’s a bit of a reactionary vein to the politics here, but the catch 22 of this job is well-communicated and their sense of betrayal becomes yours. Three Beers.
651. Cousins
This New Zealand-set film tells the intertwining stories of 3 Maori cousins across decades of tumultuous life, as they’re separated and reunite, sharing the difficulties and joys of their lives that are intertwined with their heritage and their society’s evolving attitudes towards and understanding of it. The drama and production values play a little TV movie at times, but it’s an important story to tell. Four Beers.
