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< Back Down with the King emboldens us to prioritize our overall wellbeing Breaker, 2022 100 minutes Director/Writer: Diego Ongaro / Xabi Molia, Diego Ongaro, and Freddie Gibbs Reading Time: 5 minutes Down with the King Vision (FYEHZSWDP1BL4ENZ) 00:00 / 06:30 📷 : Used with permission, Netflix Sage: Movies and TV shows with low-key characters Honeybush: Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Reba Chaisson 2024-01-21 “Good to get some fresh air, you know. Kinda hit mute on everything.” Mercury "Money Merc" Maxwell Every once in a while, you scroll through the content tiles on your streaming offerings and your eyes land on what turns out to be a gem. This is what happened to me the other day as I was, coincidentally, looking for a gem on Netflix. I came across Down with the King and was disappointed to learn it was released in 2022. How could I have missed this? An old adage says it’s okay to talk to yourself as long as you don’t answer. In this case, I answered myself: Because there’s a lot of content Reba! That aside, I enjoyed this film about Mercury “Money Merc” Maxwell, a popular late 20s/early 30-something-year-old rapper who retreats from the limelight to live in a rural farming community. Although he is the only Black man around, he is friends with Bob, played by Bob Tarasuk ( American Thief ), a farmer who lives nearby, and he eventually becomes acquainted with the people who work at the local hardware store. Led by Freddie Gibbs, Down with the King feels like a documentary. The story begins in the middle of the protagonist’s retreat and never visually integrates his prior life. Because of this, the film doesn’t sufficiently contextualize Mercury’s story by answering the central question around the events that prompted him to leave his family, friends, and a successful music career. So, the film lacks a clear definition of the problem Mercury is dealing with. However, this doesn’t necessarily keep us from relating to the film as is. Mercury’s dilemma cannot be resolved by a vacation, something we take every so often to escape the stresses of work and family to relax and recharge. Instead, his struggle seems to warrant something more akin to what we do to figure things out and gain some clarity about what we really want for ourselves, something a week or two will not resolve. Mercury’s problem is less about getting the temporary decompression offered by a short getaway, but more about wellness — what he feels he needs to learn in order to better manage his life. Researchers emphasize that wellness is about “living life fully,” but add that it is “a personalized approach to living life in a way that… allows you to become the best kind of person that your potential, circumstances, and fate will allow.” Mercury retreats to this quiet, rural community for his overall wellbeing. Down with the King helps us appreciate what peace feels like through the film’s visual and auditory presentation. Scenes of wide-open land, tall trees with fresh powdered snow, a pond, and Mercury grilling food for himself outdoors in the cool temperatures give us the sense of his satisfaction in being alone without feeling lonely. We see that life is slower and offers a cadence as families gather for dinner and create their own entertainment with an acoustic guitar, piano, and popular folk songs. Such family bonding defines the culture of many rural communities, which is partly reinforced by the absence or unreliability of Internet and cable service that invite distractions like social media and television entertainment. While shaky connectivity benefits rural communities with respect to culture, it has some social disadvantages as well. Few pathways for information streamed through the Internet and TV compounded by the lack of access to people who are different buffers residents from alternative perspectives on a wide range of matters. These deficits contribute to a communal solidarity built around sameness and that is resistant to difference. We see this in the film when Mercury begins hanging out with Michaele, a young woman in the community played by Jamie Neumann ( The Deuce ). He returns home after a walk to find the windshield of his car shattered and the culprits speeding away. Even Michaele agrees with him that this is likely why his windshield was busted, and calmly adds, “I told you. This town is for the f***in birds. … it’s small town. Maybe somebody got pissed off. ... That’s why I want to get the f*** out of here.” During his time away, Mercury develops a close friendship with Bob and helps him on his farm. When Mercury makes a grave error preparing an animal for market, he apologizes and offers to compensate Bob for the loss and to purchase another animal to replace it. Upset, Bob tells Mercury that he doesn’t want his money, adding “And where are you getting that cow? And who the f***’s is it? And what food did it eat?” This exchange is quite telling of Bob’s pride in his farming and the tacit commitment he makes to his customers about the quality of his products. The scene is meant to be a statement about individual (not commercial) farmers in general: the physical labor, the tight budgets, and the deep sense of pride they have in their work. It also shows, though, that money alone doesn’t fix everything on a farm, even though it is all Mercury has to offer given his inexperience with farming. Thus, Bob’s expectation that he not make mistakes is unrealistic and unfair. The scene showing Mercury’s frustration with his mistake and Bob’s refusal to give him a way to make it right, is relatable for many members of marginalized groups who often feel the pressure to be perfect and are rarely given margin for errors. Throughout Mercury’s retreat, Paul, Mercury’s agent played by David Krumholtz ( Oppenheimer , The Deuce ), beckons him to return to his music career despite Mercury insisting he is not ready to do so. Paul ignores him, however, and it becomes clear that Mercury’s wellbeing and wishes are not of concern to the industry. What is of concern to the industry is Mercury’s ability to generate revenue for all involved. Throughout this film, he is essentially, tirelessly, inexhaustibly fighting for himself. Something I suppose we all have to do. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

River of Grass makes us consider the predicaments of young veterans < Back River of Grass makes us consider the predicaments of young veterans Skinny Lee Productions, 2024 17 minutes Director/Writer: Derek Magyar / Jon Bloch, Chad Christopher, and Derek Magyar Reading Time: 3 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Skinny Lee Productions River of Grass All that Remains (DMK19LKPHWVEQWLA) 00:00 / 04:25 Dandelion Movies/shows with heavy subjects Honeybush Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Derek Magyar 2024-08-22 There is a kneejerk tendency to decontextualize people’s lives. This can lead to rash uninformed judgments about some of the decisions they make. But it isn’t always apparent what folks are dealing with nor the level of support cradling them. When youth and limited social experience are layered in, it becomes even more difficult to appreciate the challenges they face. Derek Magyar’s short film, River of Grass , encourages us to critically consider the predicaments of young veterans and perhaps young people in general. Starring Dylan McTee of Roswell, Mexico fame, River of Grass presents 20-something year-old Larry Johnson, who arrives home in the Florida Everglades after serving in the Vietnam War. In reuniting with his family, Larry does not react to being called the usual nicknames, like “war hero” and “Golden Boy.” His older and hostile brother Robert, played by Victor Webster ( Mystery on Mistletoe Lane , Workin’ Moms ), teasingly but jealously tells him “You almost look like a man now.” These labels convey the commonsense idea that Larry is tougher as a result of experiencing war. But this is a superficial assessment based on Larry’s physical fitness and the significance of his uniform. While he looks more fit and upright than when he left, surely, he has been shaken to his core in ways that are not readily apparent. As I wrote in the review of Lonesome Soldier , I suspect the stirrings beneath the surface are, at least in part, veterans’ efforts to reconcile who they are with what they’ve done and seen. Compounding this for Larry is a family whose business is crime, and their explicit and tacit expectations that he rejoin their underground enterprise. Although other options are available to Larry given his veterans benefits, his freedom to exercise them is constrained by his circumstance. As if the weight of the family business isn’t heavy enough to bear, Larry is limited by his mother Betsy’s sentiments (Marceline Hugot) that college “[feeds] kids that liberal hippie crap.” So, Larry’s freedom to do what is right for him is suppressed due to the pressures exerted by his family. Adding in his young age, his ability to freely decide what is right for him becomes even more difficult. When we think of military veterans, we often imagine them as older adults, and the news largely portrays them as such. It is true that nearly three-fourths of military veterans are in this age group, but River of Grass has me wondering if younger veterans are being overlooked in the smaller but significant slice. In any case, responses to their predicaments cannot be simplistic, rectified with labels and platitudes to help them feel seen. There is a need to more fully appreciate the context of young veterans’ lives in order to understand how best to support them given their age and familial constraints. So, I am left wondering if the needs of younger veterans are perhaps more nuanced than those of their older counterparts, who have wider and deeper life experiences and are more likely to have families of their own providing unconditional comfort and affirming support. A Vietnam War-era piece, River of Grass is a dark story in a southern rural setting, where streetlights and landscape lighting typically do not exist. The effect of this is the film’s ominous tone, reminiscent of the 1986 feature length movie At Close Range , with Sean Penn as Brad Jr. and Christopher Walken as his father, Brad Sr. The elder Brad heads a violent crime business in rural Pennsylvania and is eventually joined by his unsuspecting son. Like River of Grass , At Close Range is shot mostly in the dark, and the subject matter is seedy and ominous. Note that River of Grass contains language of the period that some might find offensive. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Echo shines a light on the gifts of generations past < Back Echo shines a light on the gifts of generations past Marvel Studios, 2024 42 minutes Creator: Marion Dayre Reading Time: 9 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Rye Coleman https://www.instagram.com/coleman811/ Echo Afterpxrty 00:00 / 12:20 Coca Movies and TV shows about drugs or with disorienting presentations Masala Chai Movies and TV shows about toughness and athletic competition Reba Chaisson 2024-11-14 When my husband and I were dating, his family would regale me with stories of his childhood. Most of them were meant to be fun and funny, but there were some that carried a much more serious tone. They would always follow up the ones in the latter group with “He got that from his dad,” “Yeah, he’s just like Great Granddaddy,” or “That boy is just like his uncle was when he was that age.” It helps when older adults in the family are around to pass on these stories firsthand. You can see for yourself the joy they take in having played a part in their loved one’s make-up. They marvel at how their once very young child has evolved to define themselves as an extension of them. Ech o presents such a passing on of generational lore through Marvel’s story of Maya, a deaf and mute Choctaw girl in Tamaha, Oklahoma. The five-episode series opens with Maya who, at about 7-years-old, loses her mother in a tragic car accident and then struggles to find her center. The loss of Maya’s right leg in the crash only compounds her challenges, although this is depicted more as an inconvenience for her than a disability. For such a young child, she expresses no pain or wonderment about her missing leg and seems to take it all in stride. Chula, Maya’s grandmother, blames her son-in-law William (Zahn McClarnon) for her daughter’s death. So, soon after his daughter’s recovery, he and Maya move from their home in Tahama to New York City to start a new life. Shortly after settling in New York, William hands over Maya to someone off-camera for martial arts training, skills at which she becomes quite adept as she grows into a young woman. But when 20-something-year-old Maya, played by Alaqua Cox ( Hawkeye , Flash before the Bang ), arrives at William’s auto shop on her motorcycle one day and sees him killed by a masked man, she handles her grief by indulging in crimes like burglary and motor vehicle theft. It is then that we meet the man who calls himself her “uncle,” and with whom she had become close since moving to New York City and beginning her martial arts training. Kingpin Fisk is played by Vincent D’Onofrio, who is best known for his many seasons as Detective Bobby Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent . In his heart-to-heart talk with Maya, he tells her “Let me help you release this rage in a more constructive way. Take your hurt, loss, and pain. Make it into something useful.” Kingpin encourages Maya to use her fighting skills to shake down and often kill his enemies. But when she later learns Kingpin ordered her father’s death, she shoots him and flees back to Tahama on her black motorcycle. While Marvel’s crafting of the villains in this series are somewhat convincing, they are moreso entertaining. One of Kingpin’s cronies, Zane, played by Andrew Howard ( Banshee , Mayor of Kingstown ), is a small-framed British man who often wears sunglasses indoors and pants that are too short. Kingpin himself is a comical villain, a big bald man in a white suit with a raspy voice. While hulking and scary at times, he also has a sense of humor. At one point in the series, he brings Maya dinner, wine, and dessert. Not trusting him, she uncorks the wine and pours it into the sink when he isn’t looking. When they sit down, he unpacks the food and says, “Cookies from La Vane. Are they still your favorite?” She nods in the affirmative. He responds, “Let’s hope those don’t go the way of the wine.” Echo has an age-diverse cast, with actors from pre-adolescence to older adults. Tantoo Cardinal ( Wind River , Killers of the Flower Moon ) plays Maya’s crusty maternal grandmother, Chula, who avoids her, not realizing that she is punishing her granddaughter for the disdain she still carries for her deceased son-in-law. Through her, we learn that when we lose someone we love, as Chula did with her daughter, we sometimes blame others. Anyone in proximity to those blamed is often collateral damage. As he did in the movie Wind River , Graham Greene, who plays Maya’s granddad, Skully, injects humor and wisdom into the series. He flirts with Chula and imparts old-school knowledge to Maya to help her gain some empathy for her grandmother and some understanding of Choctaw culture. Echo is filled with an abundance of spiritual symbolism designed to tell the story of Maya’s ancestral origins. The embedded mini-films or historical pieces consume about ten percent of each episode, and their purpose is not made clear until the final segment. Because of this, watching the series can feel incongruous at times. These moments, however, are key to the series as they elucidate Maya’s struggles with understanding who she is and how she seems to have a special strength and courage, and a gift for combat that is typically reserved for Choctaw men. While some skills were taught to her, others were infused — passed on to her through five generations of Choctaw women who came before her. Despite the important generational depictions linking Maya to her ancestors, watching the show can still be frustrating with respect to the lack of translations for its language use. Choctaw, for instance, is sometimes used by the characters, but on-screen translations are not consistently provided so that audiences who don’t know the language can follow the dialog and story. The same occurs with the frequent signing in the series. Because Maya is deaf, mute, and unable to read lips, she communicates through ASL (American Sign Language). Some of the main characters are fluent in the language, such as her father’s former friend-in-crime, Henry, played by Chaske Spencer ( Blind Spot , Twilight Saga franchise), who also speaks as he signs. Her grandparents, Skully and Chula, know it somewhat and occasionally speak as they sign. Still, other main characters don’t know ASL at all, such as Kingpin, who eventually purchases an AI gadget that does the signing for him. The lack of electronics used in this mostly dark-lit, rural-situated series makes the sudden appearance of leading-edge technology feel like a time warp has been inserted in the middle of an episode and near the end of the series. It is as if the filmmakers decided this on a whim because they suddenly realized that Kingpin wouldn’t be able to communicate with Maya otherwise. The varying degrees of fluency in ASL among the characters, though, is not problematic. What is problematic is the failure of the filmmakers to consider that much of the audience is neither fluent in ASL nor Choctaw, and thus are unable to follow the dialog when the lines are not spoken or translations not made available on-screen. In addition to the images, language is needed to connect the audience to the characters and the story. Foreign films provide full subtitles in well over a dozen languages; Echo provides few for its Choctaw and ASL translations. It is as if a different crew member was assigned to this task every day of filming, and someone forgot to tell each person that they needed to do this. Or it’s as if someone neglected to tell the editor. Or perhaps the project simply ran out of budget. That someone signed off on Echo ’s release without performing appropriate quality assurance is problematic. Unfortunately, the result is a multimillion-dollar series that delivers a frustrating and off-putting cinematic experience for its audience. Music dynamics like mezzo forte , pianissimo , and crescendo give character to music by varying its highs, lows, and even tempo throughout a song. In doing this, dynamics help keep us engaged in the music — making our heads bob, our bodies sway, and even moving us to cry sometimes. Film, as well, should stir such emotional, seemingly natural variances in our responses. Audience members should feel something. Maya’s expressions throughout the series, however, remain unconvincing even when she witnesses her father’s death and gets her metal prosthesis jammed between two railroad cars. These should result in a seismic jolt that sends chills down the audience members’ spines or makes their eyes get big. Instead, each scene comes across as just another scene. As the protagonist in the series, Maya needs to keep the audience engaged in the story by varying the intensity of her facial expressions and body language as needed for the scene. This is especially crucial given her lack of oral speech. The audience can’t hear her frustration so that it has a chance of feeling it. I think, for example, about Marlee Matlin’s characters in shows like Children of a Lesser God and West Wing . The audience knows when her characters are happy, smitten, pissed-off, and even being playful. The comparison is not intended to pit one person who is deaf against another. It is to highlight the importance of being animated on-screen when hearing and speech are not available to you. I suppose it can be argued that these could indicate personality differences between actors. Perhaps. It is still necessary, though, for an actor - any actor, to find ways to engage the show’s audience or they will lose them. There are also happenings in the film that the protagonist can do nothing about. For instance, Henry owns a skating rink in Tamaha. He and Maya are kidnapped and held at the rink by criminal wannabes hoping to hand her over to Kingpin for a bounty. Maya has an opportunity to overtake the incompetent perpetrators, but instead, pushes them out of the room and locks herself back inside. This is confusing to me even after returning from yet another weird David Yurman commercial. Now, no one watching the series to this point is surprised about what happens to the criminal wannabes when Kingpin’s guys arrive. At any rate, Maya eventually escapes the room she could have left some time earlier, and beats six, seven, eight of Kingpin’s men in hand to hand to feet combat, that is, before yet another David Yurman commercial comes on! The writing for this series is perplexing, unconvincing, and frustrating. The problems with Echo notwithstanding, I think sometimes we forget that our strength and courage, while we often own them, are not flukes. Like an echo, much of who we are were passed to us as gifts from those who came across the generations before us. Unfortunately, this theme in the series is clouded by the show’s problems. I once read that Stevie Wonder spent ten years writing his hit song, “As.” He would work on it, walk away from it for a while, and come back to it later to work on it some more. “As” was finally released in 1976 and it was well worth the wait. While Echo didn’t necessarily require ten years, it did require similar nurturing, so that the audience could enjoy the experience and appreciate its themes. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back On the Count of Three see-saws between ephemeral highs and sobering lows Front Porch Pictures, 2021 86 minutes Director/Writer: Jerrod Carmichael / Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch Reading Time: 5 minutes On the Count of Three Be Like Water (PHTK8B5CD5KPCATX) 00:00 / 05:04 📷 : Used with permission, Izzy Aghahowa https://izzyaghahowa.co.uk/ Dandelion: Movies and TV shows with heavy subjects Chris Chaisson 2023-01-23 Every now and then, you come across a feel-good movie that leaves you positive and optimistic. You leave the theater (or your couch) and you cannot stop smiling as you recall the joyous moments the characters on screen just experienced. You may even find yourself wishing that your life was like that movie and strive to make it so. On the Count of Three is not one of those movies. Actor/comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s directorial debut centers around Val (Carmichael, Neighbors ) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ), two best friends in their early adulthoods who have lost the will to live. Kevin begins the film in a psychiatric ward after a failed suicide attempt, while Val works at a factory where he despises his co-workers. When quitting time hits, Val heads over to the mental hospital for a visit and breaks Kevin out. He suggests to Kevin that they form a suicide pact, and they decide to live out their last day together, tying up any loose ends they have left. The film’s grim premise leads you to believe that despite its comedy-leaning co-stars, it has no humor. Quite the reverse, On the Count of Three oscillates between hilarity and melodrama like a bedroom tower fan. One moment, Val and Kevin engage in a petty argument that you might hear in a high school slacker movie. The next, they find themselves in a dangerous confrontation of their own doing. For instance, not long after they nearly shoot each other early in the movie, they head to the gun range despite Kevin’s anti-gun stance. Kevin feels an adrenaline rush shooting a gun for the first time, but as he retrieves the target, we see that not one of the dozen shots he let off even connected with the giant piece of paper. While we sometimes see buddy comedies gradually get darker in tone, like The Banshees of Inisherin , many of those films stay heading in one direction or the other. On the Count of Three ’s teeter-totter act may strike the audience as unusual, but it ultimately holds together, largely due to its underlying theme (and maybe the short running time). No matter what happens in any given scene, the undertone of the two friends planning to take each other’s lives rests in the back of the audience’s minds as a sobering thought. This reality keeps the film from ever reaching wacky, slapstick status where we lose all concern for the well-being of the protagonists. On the Count of Three proves, like many other buddy comedies, that best friends do not necessarily look, talk, act or even think alike. Val and Kevin’s differences come out not only in the midst of conflict with others but also their seemingly aimless conversations as they drive around. Val hates Kevin’s taste in music and overall verbosity. For much of the movie, he acts as the devil on Kevin’s shoulder, pressuring him even in flippant comments to act on his angry impulses. As with many who play this role to their friends, Val seems surprised when Kevin goes over the edge and only tries to pull him back once he sees the damage being done. On the other hand, Kevin plays the empath in their friendship, vocalizing Val’s hardships and offering performative apologies for institutional racism. His dialogue often reads like that of a first semester African-American Studies major, annoying the emotionally unavailable Val. Just as one might expect, both friends have backstories of trauma and toxic relationships. The series of events they go through on this particular day largely boil down to getting revenge, or at least closure, on the people who have wronged them. Both start to waver in the sincerity of their suicide pact, but as the day’s events continue to escalate, it becomes clear that regardless of what they choose, their futures are forever damaged, just like their pasts. Not many films tackle suicide in the form of a buddy comedy; more often, films deal with a main character living out their bucket list in the wake of a terminal diagnosis. The Bucket List , starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, comes to mind, as well as a recent release entitled Living . On the Count of Three is a difficult project to find a comp for, except for another 2022 release, Next Exit . Delving more into sci-fi and straight drama, Next Exit revolves around two strangers thrust together in a rental car, traveling to the Bay Area to participate in a medical experiment that emulates suicide. While the two leads are very much at odds, they bond through their trauma, much like Val and Kevin. On the Count of Three is not for the faint of heart, but it will offer some chuckles and strong performances along the way. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Almost Certainly False drives home the risk of reductionist language < Back Almost Certainly False drives home the risk of reductionist language EKHO, 2025 20 minutes Director/Writer: Cansu Baydar Reading Time: 5 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Cansu Baydar Almost Certainly False Eastern Sunrise (L3G6QGJF4FNZRQBY) 00:00 / 06:23 Honeybush Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Ginger Thought-provoking movies/shows Reba Chaisson 2025-02-27 The thing about the word “refugee” is its reductive and objectifying connotation, reducing the person to an object and robbing them of their humanity. While not unique to the U.S., we are one of the biggest purveyors of language that dehumanizes people (e.g. slave, undocumented, illegal, foreigner, criminal). But for this talk, the focus is on “refugee,” which refers to a person fleeing dire circumstances in their home countries, circumstances like political retribution, religious persecution, climate change, famine, and of course, war. Several years ago, COTC published a review of the theatrical release, In Syria , which is about the plight of a family sticking it out in their bombed-out apartment building during the nascent stages of the Syrian War. During its 2025 festival in Utah, Sundance screened a short film that gives another perspective of this war. Rather than a look from the inside-out, Cansu Baydar’s Almost Certainly False gives a glimpse from the outside-in through the eyes of Hanna, a 20-something who fled Syria for the safety of Turkey with her adolescent brother, Nader (Isa Karatas), in tow. Now settled in Istanbul, Hanna, played by Rahaf Armanazi, has a one-bedroom apartment from which she makes a living doing manicures, as her restless little brother looks on. The two often have conflicting priorities. She needs to work when he wants to play with a ball in the small space, for example. Or he beckons her attention in some other way, but she is distracted with straightening up. Though they occasionally tussle when Nader gets frustrated, ultimately, the two hug it out as they learn to manage what has clearly been a difficult adjustment for them both. Hanna has a social life, which includes hanging out with her best friend, Esra ( Büşra Albayrak) , who is slightly younger than her and seemingly oblivious to the fact that Hanna is responsible for a younger brother. Still, the two manage to find time to talk and hang out socially. When Benjo arranges a blind double-date with her and her boyfriend, Hanna meets Ibo, a Turkish gentleman played by Ferhat Akgün. Ibo confirms with her what he seems to already know, that she is “a refugee.” He then persists in telling her that she doesn’t “look Syrian.” Throughout the evening, Ibo is obsessed with Hanna’s appearance, looking at her with a gaze of disbelief like she is something other-worldly. Again, he says, “You don’t look Syrian.” It is not clear if Ibo is smitten with Hanna’s looks or taken aback by how full of life she is or perhaps, that she is even human. It is as if he expects her to be or look like something or someone else. Hanna maintains a very strong sense of self despite enduring difficult circumstances in her short life. We see this as she confidently shares with Ibo her plans for the future. With a tone of disbelief, he wonders aloud how she is going to accomplish this. She retorts indignantly, “How do you think?” and “How else would anyone do it?” Ibo’s gaze and obsession with Hanna’s appearance reminds us of the rancor around the heavy European immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also brings to mind the more recent hostile sentiments expressed by political leaders hyper‑focused on people arriving from countries in North Africa, East Asia, and especially nations south of the U.S. border. The same can be seen and heard in Europe in recent decades, as evidenced by news stories on immigration and dramatized in films such as The Old Oak . Ken Loach’s 2023 film, The Old Oak , is centered on a working‑class Irish enclave in the UK, where struggling residents resist the settling of new Syrian immigrants in their community. They not only stare at them because of their difference in appearance, but they also view them as something other than human. This is evident in the harsh words they use and in their often-combative treatment of them. While Cansu Baydar’s Almost Certainly False avoids delving into nasty forms of rejection, Ibo’s objectification of Hanna is enough to give us hints about her experiences as a Syrian immigrant in Turkey. Interestingly, the film also conveys that xenophobia is not unique to countries in the West, but perhaps manifests quite differently. There is a tendency to objectify those who look different and paint them as something other than what they are. The problem with this is it runs the risk of locking them into concrete boxes stamped with words and meanings that not only fail to convey who they are, but they narrow the aperture through which they are viewed by others and limit what they can become. In Almost Certainly False , Ibo’s view of Hanna suggests this marginalization of her has already begun. She is viewed as this thing called a “refugee” who doesn’t look like who she claims to be and has no chance of achieving what she dreams to become. In The Old Oak , 20-something-year-old Yara, a Syrian immigrant played by Ebla Mari, asserts herself in the community and works to organize a regular meal at a local tavern for all to come, share, and get to know one another. In this sense, young Yara refuses to be objectified. The same can be said of Hanna. Fearlessly and forcefully pushing against the ideas and sentiments about her, we see in Almost Certainly False that Hanna is not a figment of anyone’s imagination. Like Yara, she is alive and real. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Divertimento exemplifies art imitating life < Back Divertimento exemplifies art imitating life Amitice, 2020 31 minutes Director/Writer: Keyvan Sheikhalishahi Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Amitice Divertimento Quiet Desperation Part 2 (4Y0FZPSB3YVBEXKX) 00:00 / 04:44 Ginseng Suspenseful and intense thrillers Coca Movies and TV shows about drugs or with disorienting presentations Reba Chaisson 2023-07-20 Unlike the video games from the early ‘90s, recent releases of games played on sophisticated, high tech, and dare I say high-cost platforms, contain more lifelike animations of artificial blood and guts than their predecessors. The characters aren’t real. But while research does not show that such games influence violent behavior, it does suggest that regular play of such games makes players less bothered by “violent or distressing images.” The burning question, then, is can games go too far in imitating real life? Keyvan Sheikhalishahi broaches this question in his 31-minute short, Divertimento , a story centered on the no-tech game of chess and solving a murder. Divertimento stars Kellan Lutz ( The Guardians of Justice (Will Save You) , The Twilight Saga - Breaking Down ) as Jonas Olsen, an uber-wealthy 40-something, who finds Cathy on a dark dirt road one night while riding in the back of his Rolls Royce. Played by Torry Devitto ( Chicago Med , Pretty Little Liars ), Cathy is well-dressed but disoriented and clueless about how she got there. Both, though, received invitations from Divertimento, a mysterious group, to join them at a castle to participate in a game to solve a murder. Jonas gets Cathy in the car, and they continue on the road to the event. The film opens ominously in the middle of a dark and eerie castle in France with about 30 “guests and souls.” All present at the event are serious and wealthy individuals in formal attire, who seemingly come together each year to challenge each other at chess. The women intently watch in support of their husbands as they compete against each other. In another instance of art imitating life, the scene reinforces the view of women as ardent supporters of their men, and of chess as a male-dominated activity . There is no dance or music at this gathering, only the occasional comment from an observer, making the space quiet, which allows for centering the chess match as the focal point. This is despite the invitation to spend the night playing a game to solve the killer of one of the guests. Divertimento feels like a play with the dark ambience of an Agatha Christie novel, combined with the disorienting sense of the 2010 movie, Inception , starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Divertimento gradually pulls us from a story about a game of murder into the center of a high stakes chess game, and back again. The whiplash mystifies us, as we get settled into one storyline only to have it shift to another. What we come to realize is that the chess pieces are representations of the members of the group, and that the fate of the guests is tied to the moves made by the game’s players. For members of Divertimento, chess, then, is a game that costs lives. Since we have become invested in Jonas, we feel as if we have a stake in him winning his match, particularly since he has promised his wife that it will be his last time attending the group’s annual soiree on their wedding anniversary. He tells her that he wants to beat Gustav again, insisting, “Just one more game of chess and it’ll be over.” When the outcome is not what Jonas planned, he accuses Gustav, played by Ola Rapace ( Skyfall , Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ), of cheating. The normally tamed gathering is disrupted by Jonas’s break in convention, inadvertently leading to tragic events. But should a game ever go this far? What’s beautiful about Divertimento is it leaves us to ponder this question for ourselves. Most short films consist of a very small cast, typically no more than five actors. And the stories often serve as teasers for feature films or television series. While Divertimento has the makings for a feature film, it is a complete story with a cast of more than 30 people. Its shortcoming is its lack of racial/ethnic diversity, which speaks to the tendencies of wealthy people to gravitate to those who look like them and share their passions and perspectives on a range of matters – including competitive chess. For broader appeal, the film could have benefited from a more diverse cast. Nonetheless, Divertimento is intriguing as its mystique, darkness, and silence pulls us into the story, as if we are being invited to be a part of the games. If you think you can handle perplexity and the intense feeling of high stakes, go for it. But try to stay upright as you do! Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back Society of the Snow encourages us to be grateful by keeping it real El Arriero Films, 2024 164 minutes Director/Writer: J. A. Bayona / J. A. Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, and Jaime Marques Reading Time: 6 minutes Society of the Snow La Guitarra Triste (TVJ38JUQQ7JHHYAA) 00:00 / 07:42 📷 : Used with permission, Netflix Mint: Movies and TV shows in cold weather and blizzard conditions Ginseng Suspenseful and intense thrillers Reba Chaisson 2024-01-24 We are good at saying what we would or would never do. After all, we’ve been doing it since we were six years old. But I’m not sure we have a clue what we would do if we found ourselves in the most desperate and unimaginable circumstances. This is the situation a group of early 20-somethings set to attend law school, medical school, and with aspirations for other careers, find themselves in when their plane crashes into South America’s Andes Mountains, the highest mountain range outside of Asia. Society of the Snow is a true story based on the October 1972 plane crash, which stranded 29 members of the Uruguayan amateur rugby team and their family members in the snowy Andes Mountains. With excruciating detail, director J. A. Bayona depicts what happens to airline passengers when control of a plane is lost, and it nosedives into the earth. Fair warning that these scenes are intense. Numa Turcatti, a popular player on the team played by Enzo Vogrincic ( Christian , A Twelve-Year Night ), uses occasional narration to tell the story from his perspective. Numa explains how the survivors organized themselves as a community. But the film’s sounds and visuals pull no punches in depicting the group as being exposed to nothing short of brutal cold and harsh weather over the 72 days that they are stranded. Uruguay carries fall temperatures in the 55 to 70-degree range. However, nighttime on the mountain is especially difficult, as the temperatures drop below 25 degrees Fahrenheit. So, what the survivors feel is a bone-chilling, excruciating cold, as evidenced by people screaming throughout the night due to the weather’s impact on their bodies. Taking shelter in what remains of the plane’s fuselage, survivors pull out the seats and carefully remove the bodies of their family members and friends to make a temporary home that doubles as a hospital for those who are injured. Without gloves or shovels to help shift the snow to cover their loved ones’ bodies, the young men use their bare hands, pieces of broken metal from the plane, and whatever else they can find. They adapt suitcases and blankets as weather stripping to seal breaches in the fuselage to block the wind and blowing snow. This is something we think very little about when at home, since sealing windows and doors entail a simple walk or short drive to the local hardware store for supplies. The survivors’ efforts to create a semblance of secure shelter for themselves make us consider what life was like before modern shovels and ditch digging machines. Layers are important when it’s cold, so they put on whatever additional clothing they can find, and they get frustrated when viable shoes and boots don’t fit their feet. Each savors his lone cracker per day as if eating the perfect cut of filet mignon, escaping for just that sliver of a moment the thought that they must stretch the food supply until they are rescued. Many families in Western societies stretch food, but rarely if ever to this extreme, nor because of a real fear of starvation. The survivors’ self-rationing is not motivated by a need to save money. Rather, it is a conscious focus on literally surviving. Still, their numbers continue to dwindle from injuries and exposure. When they run out of food, their urine turns black, and reality sets in that their rescue is not imminent, the young men are faced with a decision that tests their lifelong commitment to their Christian faith. Should they eat the bodies of the dead for nourishment in order to survive? Society of the Snow reminds me of other films about people stranded on mountains after plane crashes. I think of Hany Abu-Assad’s 2017 movie, The Mountain Between Us , where a small plane crash-lands in Utah’s snowy Uinta Mountains. Starring Kate Winslet as Alex Martin and Idris Elba as Ben Bass, the story feels like one about the need for immediate survival, with several intense scenes of the pair fending off a mountain lion and desperately searching for a way out of the wilderness with one of them severely injured. Although the two travelers do not know one another, they come together to support and protect each other, bonding as they go along. Researchers who study disaster write extensively about this phenomenon of closeness and community that naturally develops out of disaster. Scientists, who have not made each other’s acquaintance, for instance, collaborated across oceans to develop a cure for COVID-19. Time and time again, everyday folks help pull people they don’t know from rubble left by hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Researchers explain that this is due to the need for social connection in times of disaster. It is true that the passengers on Uruguay flight 571 on October 13, 1972 already knew one another and enjoyed a sense of community, but their experiences together on the mountain became their shared connective tissue. Alex and Ben in The Mountain Between Us were strangers until that fateful day, and yet, from their disaster, a bond between them was forever forged. Unlike Society of the Snow , The Mountain Between Us is a fictional story, so other than the cold and the mountains, we wouldn’t think the films share anything significant, but they do. News media simply informs us that a plane has crashed and occasionally the reports are accompanied with distant images of the aftermath – the fuselage here, the tail there, a wheel found in a family’s backyard or a farmer’s cornfield. When possible, reporters interview survivors days, weeks, or months after the crash when they look no worse for wear. These limited (and dare I say selective) pieces convey the sense that while some lives were lost and some people suffered catastrophic injuries, everything turned out alright, as can be seen from the survivors they present to us. But after watching Society of the Snow , we realize that these news reports and images wash over what are actually horrific crashes and unfathomable experiences for the passengers – those who perished as well as those who survived. There are still some who say “yuk,” “blasphemy,” and “heathen” when they consider what some of these young men did to extend their lives for 72 days. Little is said, though, about the ingenuity of the men in sewing together pieces of insulation to create a sleeping bag. Or in their cooperation with one another in rationing their food supply so everyone had a chance. Or in Nando and Roberto (Agustín Pardella and Matías Recalt, respectively) enduring a days-long walk in the cold and snow with busted shoes on a quest to save themselves and their now extended family. None of us can fathom enduring the kinds of conditions that would lead us to the level of desperation that prompted these young men to do the things that they did. Let’s pray, hope, and pray again that we and our loved ones never have to find out what we'd do, firsthand. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Life After presents a short story with a big screen feel < Back Life After presents a short story with a big screen feel Evolve Studios, 2021 25 minutes Director/Writer: Jesse Edwards Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Evolve Studios Life After Pawnbroker 00:00 / 04:30 Ginseng Suspenseful and intense thrillers Ginger Thought-provoking movies/shows Reba Chaisson 2024-09-11 Life After is an aptly named film about Police Detective Ashley “Ash” Seger, who is struggling to cope after losing her partner and lover. Played by Torri Yates-Orr, Ash offers no response to her boss who tells her to get over it and move on, as if imposing a clock on grieving is realistic. Instead, Ash retreats to her Nashville apartment and takes her frustration out on her core by mad-crunching until she is called into a hostage situation sometime later. Right before heading to the scene, she reluctantly meets her new partner and lead hostage negotiator Detective Matthew Booker (Parker Bradwell of country music trio MAMADEAR). When they arrive on scene, Commander Dax (Mykie Fisher) informs them of a note on the warehouse door with a riddle, a phone number, and the names of three people presumably being held hostage. Perplexed but confident, Booker calls the number, and we are immediately introduced to the story’s complication as the voice on the other end sends chills up our spines. Kidnappers have a pretty monolithic portrayal — deranged, outraged, and out of control, but predictable. However, the male voice on the phone is best described as controlled, rational, and highly educated, far different from the bitter, revenge-driven ramblings of the captors often seen in hostage-taking dramas like Speed and Olympus Has Fallen . In Life After , we are suddenly set in the grips of this story and feel placed at the antagonist’s mercy. Despite the dozens of police, SWAT personnel, automatic weapons, and even a helicopter on scene, we quickly realize that the situation is dire, and the authorities no longer have control over it. Life After looks, feels, and sounds like a big-screen production. So much so that it brings to mind F. Gary Gray’s gritty theatrical release, The Negotiator . The 1998 film stars Samuel L. Jackson as the title character with a reputation for smoothly taking control of what are often volatile situations with lives at risk. What we learn from Jackson’s character is that the key to negotiating is the ability to establish a rapport with your counterpart. So, when Booker is unable to do this by first answering the morbid riddle posed by the kidnapper, Ash reticently and hurriedly interjects with the answer and is suddenly thrust into the middle of the negotiations. Her fragile emotional state suggests she is unprepared for such a heavy responsibility, but she is left with little choice. Her answer to his riddle resonates so strongly with him that he will have it no other way. Indeed, his riddle conveys the sense that he too is reeling from the loss of a loved one. But will this empathy, this connection, be enough to get everyone out of this situation safely? In addition to its sophisticated, big-screen cinematography, writer/director Jesse Edwards infuses the film with timely musical elements by composer Ryan Taubert that enhance the suspense and heighten the intensity of the scenes throughout its 25-minute runtime. At moments during the standoff, for example, the kidnapper imposes time limits on his demands. As the deadlines approach, the tempo and volume of the music rise, increasing the pounding of our hearts and immersing us more and more deeply into the dilemma unfolding on screen. The technique shifts us from the perspective of audience members to feeling like characters in the film, wanting to grab the shirt lapels of the police officers and scream “ANSWER HIM.” This tension also occurs when the authorities consider whether or not to acquiesce to the kidnapper’s demands. The rhythmically steady beats and deep sounds at these moments convey the seriousness of the situations. In an interview , Edwards notes that the film was written and shot in just four weeks. This timeframe is not unusual for short films. What is unusual is the big-screen look and feel of the film, and its use of music. Throughout the movie, I could not help but feel that this production could be lengthened and greenlit as a theatrical release. While the dilemma it presents is a bonus, though, the longer version might just require a resolution. Available on Apple TV Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back Fair Play is an adults-only story that considers the cost of over-investing in our work MRC Film, 2023 113 minutes Director/Writer: Chloe Domont Reading Time: 5 minutes Fair Play Rogue (00ND732RQNI7IRCI) 00:00 / 06:09 📷 : Used with permission, Netflix Dandelion: Movies and TV shows with heavy subjects Honeybush: Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Reba Chaisson 2023-10-11 Despite being culturally aware of women’s skills and abilities as being no less sharp and infinite than theirs, many men still struggle to accept it when the person they love most earns more and advances more readily in their careers than they do. Fair Play features Phoebe Dynevor ( Bridgerton , Younger ) and Alden Ehrenreich ( Oppenheimer , Brave New World ) as Emily and Luke, a mid 30-something couple passionately embroiled in a romantic relationship and recently engaged. Both are career climbers working at the same investment firm where stakes are high around billion-dollar deals and careers can be suddenly enhanced or derailed. This thrilling story of corporate gamesmanship and fierce lovemaking gives off an adrenaline rush that we normally experience with a good action movie. Fair Play , however, is an intense drama wrapped inside a compelling story. The issue is an old one, which is the degree to which men struggle to deal with the success of their female partners. The inciting incident is Emily’s promotion to the coveted position of portfolio manager (PM) where bonus checks are multi-six-figure rather than just five. She is reticent about sharing the news with Luke and displays a sense of guilt about being promoted over him given his high hopes for getting the position. When she finds the words to tell him, Luke takes the news well, responding in his sedate and charming demeanor, “That’s amazing.” Research doesn’t indicate that women feel guilty about being more successful than their male partners. Indeed, women’s promotions into executive ranks that hold decision-making power are rare, so such an advancement is received as a form of self-affirmation. Studies do show, however, that women’s guilt usually lies in them being less available to their children . But in Fair Play , Emily and Luke do not have children, which indicates that Emily’s sense of guilt is linked to Luke’s aspiration for the job and his disappointment for not getting it. While he is initially supportive of Emily, Luke will not celebrate with her and over time becomes resentful of her. The depths of his resentment become clear when he angrily tells Emily, “You took my job. It was mine and you took it.” Men’s identity is strongly linked to work, and their gender role is tied to being the family’s provider. Luke’s behavior indicates that he is struggling with this conflict between his identity as a man and a reality that doesn’t align with it. What is surprising is the degree to which his behavior toward the love of his life devolves over the course of the 113 minute film – even to the point where he can’t get excited enough to engage in sexual relations with her. Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan , Ray Donovan: The Movie ) plays Campbell, the uncompromising and staunch leader of the firm whose focus is on making money (even if it means demeaning his employees to do so). As we see in this film, being fired from Campbell’s firm is mortifying, as the experience makes people cry like babies, destroy company property, and even bring grown men to their knees. It is also a place where the employees are accustomed to witnessing such meltdowns. This reality is demonstrated when a group casually chooses to increase the volume on an obligatory ethics video rather than stop and stare at the performance of yet another colleague being humiliatingly terminated. Given all of this, it makes us think that while Luke self-destructs, he is perhaps not wrong in some of the stupor-ridden advice he imparts to Emily. One piece of his advice consists of making sure Campbell and others understand that she is not available to them 24/7. To ensure our careers do not overtake our identities, should we make it a point to draw boundaries between what we do and who we are? Are the extreme reactions to being fired from the firm indicative of the person’s inability to draw lines between their personal and professional lives? Writer/director Chloe Domont meticulously presents a complete story beginning with the couple’s enthrallment of each other through its gradual and sad fracturing. Her deliberate casting of Emily and Luke as unmarried and with no children elucidates the source of stress in their relationship as strictly work-related. It helps us zero in on the question of whether Emily’s new responsibilities at work change how she relates to Luke and vice versa. This is critically important for us to see in order to consider the power of socialization in shaping who we are as individuals and how we make sense of our place in the world. Fair Play is good and uniquely thrilling given its story and central themes. It would be interesting, though, to see such a story about same-sex partners. Do things get equally crazy in same-sex relationships or are they significantly different in some way? Fair Play reminds me of another film about a firm, the law firm depicted in the 1993 movie, The Firm . Starring Tom Cruise as Mitch, The Firm is about a recent graduate from Harvard Law School who lands a role at a prestigious firm in Memphis and realizes its rampant lack of ethics. In threatening to expose them, he puts both his career and his life in peril with his no-nonsense and corrupt bosses, played by Gene Hackman and Hal Holbrook. Like in Fair Play , the stakes at Mitch’s law firm are high and the concept of fair play is non-existent. You get on board fast or get out now because the firm’s priority is to make money – and lots of it. Damn equity, ethics, individual careers, personal feelings, and even the people we love. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Peter & the Wolf provides a goth-animated adaptation to a familiar fairy tale < Back Peter & the Wolf provides a goth-animated adaptation to a familiar fairy tale Blink Industries, 2023 33 minutes Director/Writer: Elliot Dear and Stephen McNally / Bono and Sergei Prokofiev Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Licensed from Shutterstock Peter & the Wolf Boo! (RESPVDYED21KBUR7) 00:00 / 04:02 Ginkgo Biloba Youthful, lighthearted, and fun movies and TV shows Jasmine Movies and TV shows with heart, positive vibes, and warm messages Chris Chaisson 2023-10-26 Peter & the Wolf tells the tale of a grieving 12-year-old boy sent to live with his grandfather in the forest after the death of a parent. While he wants to play outside, his grandfather tries to keep him close to the house and back inside early, as there is said to be a wolf on the prowl. However, Peter seeks out an encounter with the wolf with the help of a duck, a bird and his cat. He initially finds the wolf aggressive and predatory, but once he tames it, Peter attempts to protect it from capture at the hands of two hunters. Bono’s adaptation of a 1946 Disney animation (which itself was based on a classical composition by the same name) centers heavily around the idea of protection. Peter spends the entire short film trying to protect his animal friends from each other and from humans, while his father also tries to protect him from the wolf and the hunters. Peter uses several methods as means of protection, including his slingshot, trickery, and reasoning skills. His adventures allow him to transfer his angry energy about the loss of a parent into something productive, as he essentially makes a new family out of his animal friends. In stages of grief, we often need to withdraw from our routines in order to emotionally recover. Peter & the Wolf paints a different picture of processing grief, with its protagonist taking on the responsibility of caring for animals. The short also uses gothic animation to portray the good and bad, or innocence and guilt, in its characters. The wolf, initially in its predator state, is outlined in chalk with X’s for eyes, making it the clear villain. Once Peter has tamed it, the wolf’s outline goes away to reveal its fur and soft, round eyes, drawn the same as the other characters. Another example is the duck wearing a snorkel mask while it wades in the pond. Not only does it add a touch of humor, but it makes the duck seem more like a human. We see Peter’s animal friends experience the full emotional spectrum, from fearful to brave to playful to serious, and even annoyed (the cat jumps and glares at Peter for slamming down a book). Even more clever than the art is the way Peter & the Wolf uses music. The classical music accompanying this children’s story might even offer a nice reprieve for parents who still have Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” or the Hamilton soundtrack ringing in their ears. Accompanied by singer Gavin Friday’s narration, the short consists of similar music to the original, which contained compositions by Sergei Prokofiev. Each character (bird, duck, grandfather, wolf, Peter, and hunters) has their own instrument and musical theme. As with Prokofiev’s symphonic fairy tale first performed in 1936, the musical pace quickens to represent impending danger and the rush to safety, while the normal slow, bouncy tunes symbolize calm. The music, along with the character’s behavior, exhibits how violence begets violence, with the characters threatening each other’s safety one after the other before being subdued. Peter & the Wolf differs from a lot of children’s stories that tend to be about lost characters and their adventures in trying to find a way home. Rather, it depicts the need for safety and security of the most vulnerable creatures. There are few symphonic fairy tales available for a comparison; however, a recent one to shout out is the 2021 Merregnon: Land of Silence , about a wooden robot who must find his creator in a realm of eternal frost. Both projects offer adults a chance to introduce classical music to their children within the context of what is still a children’s story. Available on max Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back The Fabelmans reveals how life-changing it can be to discover your passion at an early age Amblin Entertainment, 2022 151 minutes Director/Writer: Steven Spielberg / Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner Reading Time: 6 minutes The Fabelmans Just A Dream (IP2HUBXOLYGHAIN2) 00:00 / 06:46 📷 : Used with permission, Edgar Ascensão https://edgarascensao.bigcartel.com/ Barley Movies and TV shows with a lot of dialog Jasmine Movies and TV shows with heart, positive vibes, and warm messages Reba Chaisson 2023-03-07 Some people might question if this film fits in the indie sector and should instead be viewed as a mainstream drama/biopic. This is fair I suppose, given that it was distributed in big theaters, shown on big screens, is connected to Steven Spielberg, and oh, is about Steven Spielberg himself – arguably one of the greatest film directors to ever grace a studio lot. Still though, I would argue that The Fabelmans is nonetheless a story; a small, tight, very personal story kneaded, molded, and lightly shaped, yet shaped perfectly in the indie tradition. This element, which is at the very center, the very origin of indie film’s birth about 30 years ago, makes The Fabelmans a quintessential indie film. The Fabelmans is the coming-of-age story about Sam “Sammy,” the oldest child and only boy in a family of four siblings, headed by Burt Fabelman, a brilliant and ambitious computer engineer, and Mitzi Fabelman, a talented but eccentric classical pianist. In addition to the family of six is the ever-present Benny Loewy, the seventh wheel played by Seth Rogen. Burt’s best friend and colleague, “Uncle Benny” joins the family for picnics, camping trips, and seemingly every dinner at the Fabelman home. After a while, I began to ask, why is he always there? Doesn’t he have a family? Amid raucous humor over dinner one night, even Grandma Fabelman chimes, “Natalie, he is not your uncle!” “He is only always here because he works for my son.” Initially set in New Jersey, the movie opens with Burt and Mitzi cajoling 7-year-old Sammy into going into the movie theater with them, insisting he will love it and that the movie is not real but just “photographs that move past faster than your brain can let go of them [tricking] us into believing the motionless pictures are moving.” Sammy relents and he is both mesmerized by what he sees and forever hooked. Played by Gabriel LaBelle ( Dead Shack , The Predator ), Sammy, now a teenager, makes movies with his friends in period clothing on authentic-looking sets, and presents the films at school functions. He is serious about movie-making and aspires to do it for a career. Sammy is very close to his non-traditional but sometimes quirky mother, played by Michelle Williams ( Manchester by the Sea , My Week with Marilyn ). A warm and loving mother, Mitzi is always seemingly starving to be the center of attention. She dances for them on camping trips, gets a monkey for a pet, and serves nightly dinner on paper plates with plastic utensils atop a paper tablecloth. There is a method to her madness though, and what seems like eccentricity is not necessarily so. Burt, played by Paul Dano ( There Will Be Blood , Love & Mercy ), views Sammy’s movie-making as a hobby and lovingly insists he should focus on doing “real work” that leads to a “real career,” like becoming an engineer. It is not uncommon for parents to impose their own career aspirations on their kids or to want their kids to follow in their footsteps. Unless encouraged to do so, children who go their own way are often viewed as being selfish. Indeed, when Mitzi loses a loved one, Burt asks Sammy to put off his “hobby” to make a film that would make his mother happy. The 16-year-old pushes back on this, “Dad, I have 40 people coming tomorrow …” Calling him “selfish,” Burt insists and then pleads for his help in making his mother happy. This, however, proves to be a mistake. As Sammy relents and splices clips for a movie that will “make his mother happy,” he stumbles on a pattern of scenes he did not want to see that tell a story he did not want to know. Together, they turn his peace of mind and sense of security on their heads, shifting the teenager’s world as if tectonic plates are suddenly moving underneath his feet. For someone who takes such joy in putting together a film for other people’s enjoyment, he was faced for the first time with making a movie he could not even enjoy himself. He is forced to tell a story that fits an occasion but leaves out the truth. The Fabelmans shows how Sammy uses his moviemaking to communicate and connect. Despite the antisemitic bullying he experiences in his Arizona high school, he uses his camera to show his fellow students who they were and what they looked like, as if perhaps seeing themselves could affect a change within them. In this way, the film hints at the transformative power of motion pictures. That how we see ourselves represented on screen, including our interactions with one another, teaches us something about who we are, who we can — or what we want to be. In The Fabelmans , Sammy’s film softens stances, enhances understanding, and breaks down barriers – but not in every case. When he is confronted by a guilt-ridden bully, he says “All I did was hold the camera and it saw what it saw,” while another bully simply wanted to beat the hell out of him. ‘Filming only what the camera saw’ is an oversimplification though. As was revealed in the movie for his mother, a film tells whatever story the filmmaker wants to tell, must tell to fit a moment or an occasion. A cinematic presentation does not just appear on its own; it does indeed have a subjective component. Having said this though, clips of unguarded moments captured on film can reveal a deep, authentic story. And The Fabelmans is a deeply personal one that must have been very difficult to tell. The Fabelmans spans the early-1950s through late 1960s and covers the family’s move from the East Coast to the West Coast; yet, I was challenged to stumble upon any anachronisms in this 2 ½ hour-long movie. Apart from the men’s shoe-length rather than ankle-length pants, the colors, the furniture, the clocks, and even the style of the appliances were consistent with the period. For a quintessential and exquisitely developed indie film that might take you back — way back, and long for the old days, you might want to curl up to this one. 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A Good Day Will Come sheds light on a real-life tragedy < Back A Good Day Will Come sheds light on a real-life tragedy Zargara Productions, 2024 25 minutes Director/Writer: Amir Zargara Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Amir Zargara A Good Day Will Come Just A Dream 00:00 / 04:24 Dandelion Movies/shows with heavy subjects Honeybush Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Chris Chaisson 2024-10-19 If you follow sports even in the slightest, you are probably aware of the times that they have notoriously intersected with politics. From a historical standpoint, incidents like John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their fists on the Olympic podium or Muhammad Ali refusing to fight in the Vietnam War stand out. More recently, we’ve seen Colin Kaepernick and numerous others protest against police violence. A less well-known example is decorated WNBA player Maya Moore abruptly retiring to focus on reform in the justice system. The most common pushback is to point out the privilege of famous athletes and suggest that they stick to what they know best. One political commentator famously told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble.” Though reductive and dismissive, the statement does highlight the quandary that gifted public figures find themselves in. Do they put everything they’ve worked for their entire life on the line for a just cause? Or do they decide that activism is best left to others? Inspired by the true story of Navid Afkari, A Good Day Will Come examines this quandary in the setting of an even more tumultuous political climate. Sia Alipour plays Arash, a talented wrestler with hopes of competing in the Olympics. However, in his home country of Iran, turbulent protests against the human rights violations by the current regime persist. While his wrestling coach initially dissuades him from getting involved or speaking on the matter, the issue becomes more personal for Arash in the blink of an eye. After brief comments to the press and the donning of a T-shirt, he decides to put his own safety on the line and attend a protest. Seeing the tide turning towards potential violence, he must decide whether to hang back or step to the forefront and use his celebrity to save lives. A Good Day Will Come brings us a very heavy re-telling of a recent tragedy, but it also shows us what change and activism looks like through a character arc. Arash is not just soft-spoken on the current political issues; he is generally very bashful for the first half of the short film. His skill for wrestling stands out immediately through the depiction of his matches, but he does not initially come off as brash as Muhammad Ali or as open as Arthur Ashe. Rather, he is tunnel-visioned and keeps his head low, looking to his coach for guidance. As the short progresses, he speaks more, initiates more and makes decisions without looking for someone else’s instructions. Short film protagonists may not always display the character arc that Arash does, but being forced into such precarious positions causes one to either change very quickly or pass the buck. The short film also shows the initial pushback to Arash’s decision to get involved. At one point, a group of agitators at a protest try to shoo him away when he discourages their behavior. They say, “All you’ve done is wear a T-shirt!” Their words echo the frustration of many activists at what they perceive to be performative measures. Often, public figures gain praise for what are symbolic gestures that do not necessarily contribute to a cause in any practical way. This allows them to gain adoration without any sacrifice. The exchange forces Arash to go a step further and put his safety even more on the line. Driven people with sky-high personal goals do not tend to put their own happiness aside quickly. It is often a gradual process as they learn the severity of many social issues. The timeline can often shrink significantly when they are personally affected. Nonetheless, it is a lot to ask of anyone to halt the pursuit of the one thing they’ve aspired to be all their life. What differentiates “real” activism from performative shtick? The answer is very subjective. A Good Day Will Come may make you reflect on your own perspective. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!