Jim McHugh/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir (2021)
Amy Tan, the original “pick me Asian” – an Asian expert at telling white people what they want to hear – may not have been one intentionally or consciously after all, at least per James Redford’s documentary “Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir.”
Author of bestseller “The Joy Luck Club,” Ms. Tan has inspired generations of pick-me Asians, both within and outside creative fields. But judging from the film, Ms. Tan would be more aptly characterized as a classic, but different, Asian archetype: the narcissist – an uncommonly melodramatic person who wallows in their own victimhood and thrives on the pity and attention they draw from others. They would readily open up about their sufferings to any random stranger who would listen. This is a trait she seems to share with her mother.
Continue reading “Tiger Mommie Dearest” »
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” »
Tyler Davis/Sundance Institute
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” »
Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
One for the Road (2021)
Although Thailand boasts a vibrant film scene, an American would never know it. It’s been a full decade since homegrown Thai box-office successes like “The Iron Ladies” and the Tony Jaa chopsocky reached cinemas on these shores. White gatekeeping on the festival circuit ensures that only filmmakers who shamelessly pander to Westerners will be let in, and architects behind the so-called Thai New Wave understand the gambit well.
Continue reading “Got the Routine” »
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” »
Jack Mitchell/Sundance Institute
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” »
Edu Grau/Sundance Institute
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” »
Nanu Segal/Sundance Institute
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” »
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” »