Melissa Lukenbaugh/A24
MOVIE REVIEW
Minari (2021)
When the trailer of “Minari” telegraphs the tragedy that will eventually befall a Korean immigrant family taking root in 1980s rural Arkansas, the specter of racism flashes across the mind. It just makes too much sense in that setting, even if it’s also decidedly trite. Fortunately, the dreaded bigotry in this semiautobiography of writer-director Lee Isaac Chung only rears its ugly head in the form of borderline microaggressive ignorance.
The story of one man’s stubborn pursuit of the American dream, exemplified by Jacob (Steven Yeun) growing Korean produce in the Ozarks with the naïve hope of supplying ethnic grocers in Texas, also emanates contrivance despite the fresh Asian-American angle. Thankfully, “Minari” isn’t entirely about that, either.
Continue reading “Misbegotten Identity” »
Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
In the Same Breath (2021)
Wang Nanfu’s “In the Same Breath” succeeds only as a bracing critique of Chinese censorship, because it spectacularly fails as a documentary on its purported subject, Covid-19. The film puts so much emphasis on the Chinese government’s initial denial and subsequent iron-fisted management of the pandemic, that its juxtapositions with the West’s misinformation and lack of response and containment feel like a disingenuous afterthought.
Continue reading “2020 Hindsight” »
Glen Wilson/Warner Brothers
MOVIE REVIEW
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
“Judas and the Black Messiah” – which retells F.B.I. informant Bill O’Neal’s (LaKeith Stanfield) ascension within the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968 leading up to the bureau’s assassination of chapter chairman, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the following year – often feels like a companion piece to Spike Lee’s 2018 “BlacKkKlansman.”
Continue reading “People to the Power” »
Daniel Power/Focus Features
MOVIE REVIEW
Land (2021)
In her directorial debut/Oscar showcase, “Land,” Robin Wright plays Edee, a woman grieving the losses of her husband and son. She leaves everything and civilization behind to rough it out in the Wyoming Rockies in a ramshackle wood cabin without electricity or plumbing. While Edee is in the outhouse, an ursine visitor stops by and ransacks the cabin and months’ worth of canned goods therein. She is in bad shape when Miguel (Demián Bichir) and Alawa (Sarah Dawn Pledge) find her after becoming alarmed by smoke no longer rising from her chimney in the dead of winter. Edee refuses to go to a hospital, so Miguel volunteers to care for her and eventually imparts some essential survival skills along with an ’80s hit song.
Continue reading “The Pioneer Widow” »
Matt Glass/Magnet Releasing
MOVIE REVIEW
12 Hour Shift (2020)
In “12 Hour Shift,” Angela Bettis plays Mandy, a surly small-town Arkansas hospital nurse with a drug habit who moonlights as a supplier in the organ black market. The plot of course centers on her worst day ever, when everything that could possibly go wrong indeed does. Stuck with a double shift, Mandy tasks her stereotypically dumb blonde cousin Regina (Chloe Farnworth) with transporting a kidney to a garage where unlicensed transplants are performed. Regina of courses loses the kidney, and must replace it or surrender one of her own to the menacing criminals.
Continue reading “Operation Dumbo Drop” »
Sean Price Williams and Takeshi Fukunaga/Tribeca Film Festival
MOVIE REVIEW
Ainu Mosir (2020)
“Ainu Mosir” tells the coming-of-age tale of an indigenous Japanese teenager shouldering the weight of preserving a way of life. Kanto (Kanto Shimokura) lives with his widowed mother (Emi Shimokura) in a tourist-trappy northern Japan tribal reserve, where residents run souvenir shops and delight visitors with ritual ceremonies performed with clockwork precision. No spoilers, but Kanto has a very personal stake in a controversial village tradition. His coming-of-age isn’t the typical rite of passage for indigenous youngsters. Instead of his survival skills being put to the test, Kanto is confronted with an adult decision pitting his personal values against communal responsibilities.
Continue reading “Ritual Sacrifice” »
Daniella Nowitz/Tribeca Film Festival
MOVIE REVIEW
Asia (2020)
The Israeli entry to the Academy Awards, “Asia” often feels like a Lifetime movie gone wrong. It’s got all the trappings: dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, irresponsible mother, rebellious daughter, disability and terminal illness. Russian nurse Asia (Alena Yiv) is too busy to attend to her sick teenage daughter, Vika (Shira Haas), but she manages to find time to lure her married doctor colleague to come out to the car for a quickie. Meanwhile, Asia deploys fellow nurse Gabi (Tamir Mula), a Palestinian who can’t get enough shifts at the hospital, to care for Vika.
Continue reading “Soliciting Sexual Healing” »
Patti Perret/Universal Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
The Hunt (2020)
After President Donald Trump personally “canceled” it in a tweet, “The Hunt” was abruptly bumped from its Sept. 27, 2019, release date indefinitely — until now. Its premise involves a group of “woke” “libtards” declaring open season on “deplorables” and kidnapping a dozen of them. That’s basically its plot: The "elites” pick off the conspiritards one by one in gory detail over a bogus conspiracy dubbed “Manorgate” until a few escape and strike back in similarly gory detail. The end.
Continue reading “Disinfo Wars” »
Michael Gibson/STXfilms
MOVIE REVIEW
My Spy (2020)
In “My Spy,” former wrestler-mixed martial artist Dave Bautista plays J. J., a nails-for-breakfast war veteran-turned-C.I.A. operative on assignment staking out newly widowed Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley) and her 9-year-old daughter, Sophie (Chloe Coleman), who have recently fled Paris and are struggling to adjust to their new life in Chicago. The clever Sophie is quickly on to J. J. and threatens to blow his cover if he doesn’t take her ice skating, participate in her special person’s day at school and train her to become a spy, all so that her new classmates will no longer ostracize her.
Continue reading “The Spy Who Bugged Me” »
Bernard Walsh/Paramount Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
The Rhythm Section (2020)
The Broccolis, whose Eon Productions holds film rights to Ian Fleming’s lucrative James Bond franchise, are probably keen on turning Mark Burnell’s Stephanie Patrick novels into their next cash cow, but “The Rhythm Section” plays out more like “La Femme Nikita” than “Dr. No.” Blake Lively channels Anne Parillaud as Stephanie Patrick, a junkie prostitute trained into a deadly assassin under the Tchéky Karyo-esque hard-bitten Jude Law. She then trots the globe to hunt in exotic locales replete with sand roads and teal walls and colorful parrots chirping for the terrorists responsible for murdering her entire family.
Continue reading “La même Nikita” »