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MOVIE REVIEW
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It (2021)
In the dim and distant past when your reviewer was a small girl living on an American military base in Japan, there was exactly one English-language television channel which had exactly four shows for kids: “Little House on the Prairie,” “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “Sesame Street,” and “The Electric Company.” One was historical, one was soothing, one was educational, and one was noisy, anarchic fun. The shows were behind the times, but in our isolation we had no way of knowing, especially since those shows were all the culture we had. It meant that the ordinary greeting on the playground was to holler “HEY YOU GUYS!!!!!” We were quoting Rita Moreno.
It’s hard to imagine how different the Hollywood of now is compared to what it was like when Ms. Moreno started out in 1950 with the total support of her mother. She had a small part in “Singin’ in the Rain,” but that was the very rare part where her ethnicity wasn’t a hindrance. As one of the few non-white and non-black working actors in Hollywood in the ’50s and ’60s she was given “ethnic” parts from all over the world – most notably Tuptim in “The King and I.” It might have taken until now, but finally Ms. Moreno is able to speak openly and frankly around how those roles were managed – including a very funny demonstration of the catch-all accent – and how playing all those barefoot peasants made her feel. She is very smart and very funny, and director-producer-editor Mariem Pérez Riera is clearly delighted to help Ms. Moreno settle more than a few scores.
Continue reading “Very Big Deal in America” »
Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Cusp (2021)
This is a really good movie about the fact that growing up takes forever, and the things you do the pass the time while it’s happening don’t matter much in the long run, except that nothing else in the world is more important. And the opening shot of the film makes it clear just how high the stakes are for the girls profiled in “Cusp”: two of them are lying on a swing, playing on their phones in their small (unidentified) Texas town, as a teenage boy of their acquaintance approaches to hang his machine gun from the branch of a tree.
“There is no normal in your teenage years,” is said early on, as a kind of motto for the film. But what directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt are trying to do is take their title literally. The girls – Brittney Marsh, Autumn Smalley, and Aaloni Cook – are 15 or 16, not quite able to take adult responsibility but able to make adult choices. There’s a lot of drinking and drugging, D.I.Y. piercing – thoughtfully filmed from the neck up, to focus on the pain instead of the body – and one extraordinary shot moments after Ms. Smalley has been dumped by her boyfriend, as she goes into shock, her whole body shaking, while she calls her dad.
Continue reading “Dixie Chicks” »
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MOVIE REVIEW
Cryptozoo (2021)
Right now there is a huge fear being expressed in indie American cinema about people’s imaginations being stolen and our capacity for original wonder being stifled under the jackboots of government or corporate forces. The naked stoner at the start of the film (Michael Cera) tells his girlfriend about the horrendous vision he had of an armed and angry mob storming the Capitol. Then he climbs a giant fence, convinces his equally naked girlfriend, Amber (Louisa Krause) to follow him, and is gored to death by a unicorn. Yes, really. You can do that when it’s animated.
Continue reading “Where the Wild Things Are” »
Daryl Wein/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
How it Ends (2021)
In New York, when the world is about to end (in “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World”), people have restaurant orgies and riot and get arrested. In Canada, when the world is about to end (in “Last Night”), people count their orgasms and tip over trollies and have rooftop arguments at gunpoint. In Los Angeles, when the world is about to end in “How It Ends,” the mental picture you keep of your younger self becomes visible to all and helps you get ready for a party at Mandy’s house. Talk about cultural differences.
Continue reading “Caught Up in the Rapture” »
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MOVIE REVIEW
Strawberry Mansion (2021)
If “Fight Club” and “Being John Malkovich” had a non-violent baby, it would look a lot like “Strawberry Mansion.” No one could ever say that Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney, who co-wrote and co-directed, were short of ideas or talent. The smallish budget does show, but is more than made up for a barnstorming concept and highly stylized production design (take a bow, Becca Brooks Morrin). It’s strange to be annoyed by a movie for having too many ideas, but these days it’s stranger still to watch a movie that bubbles like a stewpot instead of glistening like a bento box. The trouble with the final result, unfortunately, is all too human.
Continue reading “Internal Revenue” »
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MOVIE REVIEW
Ailey (2021)
This documentary about the life of choreographer Alvin Ailey, who created world-standard dance pieces while still in his 20s, combines archive footage, modern talking-head interviews and rehearsal room footage of the present Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancers at work to make clear the legacy he left behind. Masters of modern American dance, including Carmen De Lavallade and Bill T. Jones, explain the nature of his work, the impact it had on international audiences, including an overwhelming reception in Australia and a night of 30 curtain calls in Moscow. But Jamila Wignot’s film has two serious problems, one with the life and one with the work, that hamstring the film.
Continue reading “Cultural Movement” »
Tiffany Roohani/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Together Together (2021)
It is not a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a child. And yet Matt (Ed Helms) can’t help himself. He is the 40-something creator of a successful dating app which has given him the fortune to purchase not only the egg from an unnamed donor, but also the services of a surrogate. He chooses 26-year-old Anna (Patti Harrison) for reasons that shortly become clear: She is the only person in San Francisco lonelier than him.
Continue reading “Baby Mama Drama” »
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MOVIE REVIEW
Passing (2021)
The four main actors are some of the best-looking currently working, more importantly with the acting skill to render dialogue basically unnecessary, and yet “Passing” is a bore. It should have been a tense domestic horror, since the plot revolves around a life-threatening, decades-long lie. On a sweltering day in Irene (Tessa Thompson) escapes the New York City heat in a cool hotel lobby where she spots Claire (Ruth Negga), whom she hasn’t seen since high school. Claire brings her up to her room, where they order a teapot of whiskey – this is during Prohibition – and start chatting, until Claire’s husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) interrupts. Three things become immediately clear: Claire is living as a white woman, the proudly racist John has no idea that his wife is black, and while Irene doesn’t normally pass for white herself, she can should she so choose.
Continue reading “Under the Skin” »
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MOVIE REVIEW
Marvelous and the Black Hole (2021)
Teenage anger and teenage coping mechanisms finally get their due in this sensitive and charming film about how a girl learns how to live with her grief. There are no villains in the movie other than everyone’s pain. Thirteen-year-old Sammy (Miya Cech) is acting out so much about her mother’s death that by the end of the school year her father Angus (Leonardo Nam) has had it. To give her summer some focus, he forcibly enrolls Sammy in community college classes, through which she meets Margot (Rhea Perlman), a children’s magician and the Maude to Sammy’s Harold. The requirements of the course compel Sammy to seek out Margot’s help, and the relationship that slowly springs up between them is a blessing to them both.
Continue reading “Doing the Trick” »
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MOVIE REVIEW
Searchers (2021)
It’s such a good idea that you can’t believe no one thought of it before. People face the camera, looking at dating profiles on the app of their choice, and discuss them with the film crew who controls the scroll, a friend over their shoulder, or both. If messages are dictated, the crew type them and up and send them; if messages are received, they are analyzed together. The pandemic is apparent – “Searchers” was shot last summer in New York City, and the interviews are intercut with street scenes of P.D.A. by people wearing masks – but also not the point, since dating is impossible no matter where or when you are.
Continue reading “Social Distancing” »