Critic's Notebook

Second Fiddle

Anthony Courtney/Roadside Attractions

MOVIE REVIEW
Finding You (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

“Finding You” is “Wolfwalkers” for adults: a fable set in a magical place called Ireland, where a homeless nuisance can be a master fiddler and a soul-searching American girl can fall in love with a Hollywood heartthrob. Beyond all the tourism board-approved scenic views you’ll discover an abundance of folk music, dancing, high crosses, ales and town tasties – or scones rather.

Planet Bollywood

Courtesy photo

MOVIE REVIEW
Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

“Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai” adapts Kang Yoon-sung’s 2017 Korean film, “The Outlaws,” into a star vehicle for Salman Khan. As a turf war escalates between two rival gangs, a ruthless newcomer angles to take over. It’s up to the roguish cop, the titular Radhe (Mr. Khan), to restore peace. While the original was based on actual events that took place in 2004, the Bollywood remake seems so extravagant that few traces of reality remain. Both Radhe and the antagonist, Rana (Randeep Hooda), are utterly indestructible; this is precisely the kind of action flick that Takashi Miike had in mind when he made the cartoonish “Dead or Alive.”

Wedding Crashers

Golden Village Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW
My Love (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

A near carbon-copy Chinese remake of “On Your Wedding Day,” Lee Seok-geun’s 2018 Korean film, Han Tian’s “My Love” manages to bottle the lightning a second time: It earned the equivalent of $21 million U.S. on its opening day and won the highly competitive Chinese Labor Day holiday box office over Zhang Yimou’s “Cliff Walkers.” Sweet, sentimental and occasionally funny, it’s the kind of romance that Hollywood has seemingly forgotten how to make.

Working Girls

Alexander Bloom/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Hive (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

Based on a true story, “Hive” reveals how women are shunned by Kosovan society when they attempt to do virtually anything – work, drive, start a business etc. Some women’s lives are on hold as they endlessly await word on the fates of their men – husbands, fathers and sons – missing due to the war with Serbia and presumed lying dead in some undisclosed mass grave. Per end titles, about 1,600 people from Kosovo remain unaccounted for two decades postwar. Still, traditional values dictate that these women survive on the paltry 30 euros monthly handouts from the government, lest they bring shame on their families by trying to make ends meet when the soldiers are not officially dead.

Caught on Camera

Corey Hughes/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
All Light, Everywhere (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

“All Light, Everywhere” is an exposé on the police state that spotlights Axon, a company that offers a range of "public safety” products such as Tasers, police body cameras and drones. The documentary is so clinical in its depiction of the blind spots of surveillance that it sometimes recalls those unconscious-bias training videos some of your white colleagues love to complain about. But its revelations are nevertheless interesting, even if its approach is anything but.

Far Upper West Side Story

Warner Brothers Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW
In the Heights (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

Somewhere buried deep within the “In the Heights” movie adaptation is the story of a people who feel neither at home in America nor privy to the American dream. But you must look hard past the glossy, neon-lit music video treatment of the Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes.

The Transporter

Christopher Raphael/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW
Wrath of Man (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

After a seemingly endless series of retreads (“Sherlock Holmes” times two, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” and . . . “Aladdin”?!), Guy Ritchie returned to mining his own oeuvre with 2019’s “The Gentlemen.” His latest, “Wrath of Man,” directly recalls one of his lesser known offerings, 2005’s “Revolver,” with Jason Statham navigating through some twisty shenanigans. But since it’s a remake of Nicolas Boukhrief’s 2004 film, “Cash Truck,” it too qualifies as a retread.

A Great Season in Harlem

Mass Distraction Media/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Summer of Soul (. . . Or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised) (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

A documentary on the Harlem Cultural Festival in the summer of 1969 – when Woodstock took place upstate – “Summer of Soul” features previously unseen footage from this star-studded but mostly forgotten event, with performances from Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips and many more.

Hearing Aide

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
CODA (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

If “Sound of Metal” is about the hearing impaired learning to normalize the disability, then “CODA” is set in the utopia where that normalization is complete. “CODA” does indeed center on a hearing protagonist; its title is an acronym for child of deaf adults. Here, deafness is more of an inconvenience for the hearing, and our protagonist is torn between interpreting for her family’s thriving fishery business and pursuing her own musical talents.

Cross to Bear

BFI Flare

MOVIE REVIEW
Jump, Darling (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

Oscar Wilde once said that no man becomes like his mother, which is his tragedy. But what writer-director Phil Connell’s film presupposes, what if he becomes like his grandmother?

Russell (Thomas Duplessie) is a resting actor who refuses to work more than one shift a week in a Toronto drag bar called Peckers (devastatingly, this is not a real place). On his 31st birthday he receives a card from his grandmother Margaret (Cloris Leachman, in one of her final roles) offering him her car if he comes to Prince Edward Island to collect it. So when his partner Justin (Andrew Bushell) calls him an embarrassment and dumps him, Russell takes his last money and shows up on Margaret’s doorstep. Russell loses little time in writing himself a large check from his grandmother’s checkbook, but a mishap with the car shortly followed by a mishap of Margaret’s means he decides to stay with her a while.

And Then There Were None

BFI Flare

MOVIE REVIEW
Dramarama (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

What are five 18-year-old virgins to do their last night together before they depart for college? A night when they are entirely alone in a house that also has a swimming pool?

Well, whatever you’re thinking, they don’t do any of that. A lot of moms will be happy for this movie to be shown at a lot of theater-kid sleepovers, but it’s unclear if “Dramarama” wanted to be anything beyond a note-perfect nostalgia trip. On Twitter this critic routinely sees 20ish gay influencers, with complete sincerity, call anyone gay over 40 an “elder” and casually discuss how we’re still trapped in the closet since all our friends are dead from AIDS. Will anyone with that mindset actually care about how much things have changed since 1994, when “Dramarama” is set? Can someone who can’t believe gayness existed 27 years ago be able to sympathize with the struggles of someone in a world that can’t even see him in the first place, much less carefully sub-categorize him?