New and unusual movie reviews and recommendations

Thunder Road

8/3/2019

Every once in a while something really astonishing and fresh comes along and Thunder Road is both astonishing and fresh. It blew my mind! Jim Cummings deserves every accolade and more for this wonderful little micro-budget indie film.
I'm a sucker for a good movie about mental illness. If you add in an element about parent/child bonds, family, or parenting alone then you've got me and I'll watch that movie.
Thunder Road tackles loss, addiction, mental illness, masculinity, family bonds, and the stress of being a single-working parent, and yet somehow is a hilarious comedy. And it does all this without ever laughing at Officer Jim's mental breakdown. This film is filled with earnest love and pain and it balances all the feels and tackles tricky issues effortlessly. This is not a cringe comedy, it's all heart and soul.
5/5 MUST SEE!

To Dust

8/3/2019

After his wife passes away, a Hasidic cantor enlists the aide of a community college biology teacher when he becomes obsessed with determining how long it will take her body to return to the earth.
This movie is a very understated comedy. It's surprsingly clever and funny. It's wonderful to see Son of Saul's Geza Rohrig in something wacky and fresh. Matthew Broderick is absolutely hysterical. This is one zany buddy comedy!
5/5

2019, so far....

8/3/2019

I'm 300+ films into 2019. Here are some of my favorites, in absolutely no particular order..except the Thunder Road is #1..:
Thunder Road (US)
To Dust (US)
Mouthpiece (Canada)
The Dig (Ireland)
Gully Boy (India)
Kumbalangi Nights (India)
Falls Around Her (Canada)
Relaxer (US)
The Beach Bum (US)
Sir (US)
Wild Rose (US)
Monos (US)
High Life (France/UK)
Dark Lies the Island (Ireland)
Rafiki (Kenya)
Ask Dr Ruth (US)
10 Days Before the Wedding (Yemen)
Fall of the American Empire (Canada)
The Souvenir (UK)
Diamentino (Portugal)
Toy Story 4 (US)
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache (US)
A Colony/Une Colonie (Canada)
What the Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Canada)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (US)
The Farewell (US)
Booksmart (US)

Best of 2018

12/31/2018

Here, in no particular order, are my

Top 15 Best Films of 2018
Luk' luk'I (Wayne Wapeemukwa, Canada)
Ex'Libris: NYPL (Fredrick Wiseman, USA)
Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan)
Dogman (Matteo Garrone, Italy)
Unsane (Soderbergh, USA)
Leave No Trace (Debra Granik, USA)
Beyond the Clouds (Majid Majid, India)
Science Fair (Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster, USA)
Champion (Kim Yong-wan, South Korea)
We the Animals (Justin Torres, USA)
Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, USA)
Blaze (Ethan Hawke, USA)
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, USA)
American Animals (Bart Layton, USA)

special mentions for:
First Reformed (2017)
Foxtrot (2017)
Loveless (2017)
The Favourite
Sorry to Bother You
Won't You Be My Neighbour?
Burning
Borders
A Star is Born
Roma
RBG
Black Panther
Meditation Park
Never Steady, Never Still
Doob: No Bed of Roses
Blackkklansman
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Puzzle
Prospect
Tully
How Viktor ‘The Garlic’ took Alexy ‘The Stud’ to the Nursing Home
Beast
Fistful of Dirt
and, of course,
PADDINGTON 2!!!
(oh god! there are too many! it was a good year for cinema and i can't name them all)

Science Fair

12/22/2018

Science Fair is s pure joy. This is my favorite doc of 2018, and it was a GOOD year for docs!
Here we follow various high school students from around the world who hope to win "Best in Show" at an international high school-level science fair.
These kids are compelling and funny, and terrifyingly brilliant.
You really must see this one!
5/5

Meditation Park

12/22/2018

Meditation Park is Mina Shum's newest film. Here, she reunites with Double Happiness' Sandra Oh. (Double Happiness is also a great film!)
Meditation Park stars Cheng Pei-Pei as dutiful, shy, immigrant housewife/grandmother, Maria, who starts to come out of her shell and enjoy life when she suspects her husband is having an affair. Pei-Pei shines here in this comedic and compelling role. In fact, the entire case is so great!
Alannah Ong, Lilliam Lim, and Sharmain Yeoh play the hilarious group of ladies who befriend Maria and teach her how to sell illegal parking spots around their Vancouver neighbourhood. Don McKellar absolutely delights me every single time, so I was very happy to have him show up here in as Gabriel, a fragile neighbour who also befriends Maria. Veteran Hong Kong star Tzi Ma is great as Maria's stern husband, Bing, and Sandra Oh plays her daughter Ava.
This is a really lovely little film that is both funny and heartfelt.
5/5

Ex-Libris: The New York Public Library

12/17/2018

It's hard to convince people that they should check out a 197 minute (3hours 17mins) documentary about a library but you really should. You won't regret it.
Ex-Libris: The New York Public Library is one of Fredrick Wiseman's newest docs (2018). If you've never seen a Wiseman, do it. The 88 year old documentarian has 47 credits to his name, and shows no sign of stopping. His films focus on facets of American institutions such as health care, welfare, law and order, justice, education, government...
Ex-Libris focuses on the daily life and goings-on of NYPL--visiting branches in all five boroughs, showing various collections, events, meetings, classes and workshops, exhibits, as well as different departments such as reference, photography, children's collections, and so on. And, I will go to bat for even the segments that take place during policy-focused board meetings.
Here there are no interviews, no talking heads, no narration, just fly-on-the-wall observation focused on all aspects of NYPL.
This film is RIVETING.
5/5

Blaze

12/16/2018

I'm a huge fan of the late country singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. I could listen to him everyday, all day. A lot of people I know appreciate Townes, but they tell me he's too sad to listen to for very long...I disagree. Well, if you love Townes, or even just appreciate him, or if you are interested in country music, or specifically the Texas Outlaw Country scene of the 1970s and 80s, you will probably quite enjoy Blaze.
Blaze is a new film from actor/director Ethan Hawke. It's about the late country singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, a lesser known contemporary and close friend of Townes.
Not a heck of a lot is known about Blaze so the film only loosely considers itself a "sort-of" biopic. It's really just creates a feeling and gives an impression that is rich and authentic.
To achieve this, a good deal of the film is devoted to telling stories about Blaze, rarely allowing the audience in on Blaze's own perspective. The film dedicates itself to blatant myth building, using the spot-on incredible Charlie Sexton as Townes spinning yarns as Townes was well-known to do. It's explicit that we're being told about Blaze and Blaze is not speaking for himself. The film leaves large gaps instead of trying to fill in every aspect of Blaze's life, history, and experience. We tend to be always watching him while he's often making a spectacle of himself.
A word on the casting: Hawke did very well here, using real musicians who are not actors in two of the three lead roles. Musician Ben Dickey is absolutely astonishing in his first role, as Blaze. I heard him explain in an online interview that he for the role he learned Blaze's entire 60-ish song catalogue and indeed played live on set throughout the film--most notably in the sections devoted to the entire performance and recording of Live At The Austin Outhouse album, including all the banter.
Meanwhile, musician Charlie Sexton is incredible as Townes. It's uncanny; he nails Marie, and it is so exactly perfectly Townes. Alia Shawkat is terrific and rounds out and grounds the film as Sybil Rosen, Blaze's one known, longtime girlfriend whose memoir 'Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley' inspired a large portion of the film.
I highly recommend this raw, beautiful sort-of, kind-of biopic.
5/5

Sridevi

2/25/2018

I only recently became acquainted with the iconic, beautiful, and compelling Indian actress Sridevi--who was in nearly 300 films. She has now suddenly passed away at the only 54. This is a terrible loss, so I'm taking this moment to recommend both Mom and English Vinglish, two of her more recent films.

Mom is a rape-revenge thriller, released in 2017.
After her step-daughter is brutally assaulted by a gang of men, step-mom Devki takes matters into her own hands.
Mom is pretty great, while not for those easily triggered by brutal violence. This is a tight thriller.
4/5

English Vinglish is a little older, released in 2012. In English Vinglish, Sridevi plays the matriarch to a family who underestimates and takes her for granted. Being the only one in her family to not speak any English, Shashi decides to secretly take English classes.
This film is so lovely and wonderful. If you don't feel great after watching English Vinglish, I don't know what's wrong with you!
5/5

Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum

1/15/2018

This past year I was introduced to Mollywood (Malayalam cinema) and was quite delighted to watch several excellent little films (Angamaly Diaries and Take Off were both excellent offerings).
I also discovered that there are 2 kinds of Mollywood films: There are the really terrific little arthouse indies, and there are the mainstream action/drama/comedies that feature one, Mohanlal, who's celebrity I will never ever understand. Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum is a Malayalam indie gem that falls in the 1st category.
This is a dark comedy about a newly married young lower-middle class couple who, on their way to their new home after getting married, find that the bride's new wedding necklace is stolen by the man seated behind them on the bus, who chooses to swallow the necklace to hide his crime.
That's literally what this whole movie is about. Did he steal it? Will they get it back? Watch and find out!
5/5