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! |
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Mad is about a recently divorced bipolar woman who has a breakdown and ends up in the hospital. Meanwhile, her two daughters are rather selfish and self-centered and unsure of what to do with the mother they are kinda ashamed of, mad at, and a little scared of. This is one of the better psychward movies I've seen. Mad does a really good job at representing mental illness as something people live and deal with everyday, but that it can be a real struggle no matter how "weird" you think a person is. The performances are understated and lovely. I appreciated the care taken with this little gem. Maryann Plunkett is wonderful as mom, Mel. 4/5 Bright Lights is a documentary from Fisher Stevens about the incredible mother-daughter relationship between Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. This doc provides unprecedented access to the behind the scenes lives of the two screen legends as Debbie battles some health issues in her old age. Carrie Fisher is my idol -- for her books and being a brave face of Bipolar disorder and less for Star Wars, though Leia is a legendary badass -- so this was very exciting for me to see Carrie in action after reading all of her books. One aspect that I knew very little about was Carrie as a singer and part of her mothers nightclub act. Fascinating, entertaining, touching, fun, and funny! 5/5 If I could rename Wakefield, I'd call it A Selfish Man. It's been a month and I still do not know what to think of Wakefield. I was very tired, which didn't help. I admittedly watched a portion of this film through one barely open eye. That said, this was the world premiere of the film and I don't think anyone knew quite what to do with it. No one really laughed, and I feel like this is one of those films where experience hinges on audience reaction. It was adapted for the screen by Robin Swicord, who also directed the film, from a short story of the same name by E.L. Doctorow. The film was largely produced and financed by women, and this makes it a curious beast. The film's premise is that a married business man lives out a midlife crisis turned psychotic break, festering in resentment, when he suddenly decides that instead of returning home one night he'd spy on his family from the attic of the adjacent garage. The film has little dialog and is, instead, comprised mainly of voiceover narration. The result is disturbing, problematic, and bizarre. 3/5 Beware the Slenderman is a very intense new documentary from HBO. It was was shot over the course of 18 months after a 12 year old girl was stabbed 19 times by her two classmates who were trying to please Slenderman. This film is terrifying. Not because "Slenderman" is scary, he's really just your average modern day boogie man; he's basic folklore. He's the Pied Piper... This film is terrifying because 1- teenage girls are just about the scariest creatures out there and 2- mental illness. This film gets 'real' very quickly. Beware the Slenderman follows the year long court case in which in would be determined if the two accused 12 year olds would be tried as adults or children. So, watching this as the mother of a teen girl I was simultaneously reminded I'm already somewhat living in a horror movie and that I would hate to see anything bad happen to my daughter or worse, because of her. Terror, indeed. Secondly, as a person with mental illness this documentary terrified me because of how we treat and deal with mental illness and criminality. This film sorta punched me in the guts in a way I was not expecting...at all. 5/5 The Lady in the Van is quite remarkable. This film is adapted from the play by British playwright Alan Bennett. It's weird and delightful, surprising and curious, and fascinating, and it's mostly true. Oh, and it's meta in all the right places. This is the story of an odd-couple relationship between Bennett and an eccentric homeless elderly woman, Margaret Shepard, who lives for 15 years squatting in a van parked in Bennett's driveway. Maggie Smith is incredible, of course. Smith previously portrayed Margaret in the stage play in 1999 and the radio play in 2009. Alex Jennings is terrific pulling double duty as two Bennetts. 5/5 Touched with Fire is the newest entry in one of my favorite niche genres, the Mental Patient movie. Touched with Fire is about two bipolar people who meet and fall in love in the psychiatric hospital. It stars Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby. This is a sort-of romantic drama. It's quite purposely uneven and excessive. The film acts as a metaphor for the addictive manic state and its antithesis, crippling depression. While I appreciated the film, I found the pro-med anti-having kids stance was a bit heavy-handed. Or maybe I'm just a bit sensitive to this kind of preachy feeling statement on mental health. The film form forces the viewers to reckon with the disorienting manic state. At times it works, at other times, as I mentioned, it's a tad excessive...but then, mania is all about excess. 3.5/5 Crazy Moon is a mid-80s NFB/Canadian Teen Romantic Comedy starring a very young Kiefer Sutherland. This movie is pretty charming and I remember loving it as a kid when it first made its rounds on TV. Crazy Moon is about Brooks, an offbeat young guy from a rich family who has his eccentricities--such as dressing from the 1930s and only listening to big band jazz, riding his motorcycle with a mannequin in the side car, and photographing dog shit (read: he's manic depressive)--who meets and falls in love with a deaf girl Anne. Anne is played by a young Vanessa Vaugh who is actually deaf. Other than seeing Crazy Moon on Canadian TV it's been pretty hard to find, I was delighted to catch it on the Sundance channel. Copies are now readily via Amazon and through the NFB itself. I'm not saying this is an earth shattering film, but it is a very charming Harold-and-Maudesque coming-of-age romantic comedy. 3.5/5 I'm always up for a good biographical documentary, particularly about obscure, lesser known, often critically acclaimed outsiders artists. Those who though critically acclaimed, never really broke into the mainstream. The Harry Nilsson, Daniel Johnston, and Townes Van Zandt docs are fantastic. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is that kind of a doc, and the doc Big Star deserves. Now both deceased, there is a bit more attention paid to Alex Chilton's genius, and his lengthy and prolific career. There is also due respect to paid Chris Bell, as well as to the band's lasting influence and musical legacy. If you don't know Big Star, you aren't alone. Check this out. 5/5 This is a delightful film. I'm partial to, and have a personal interest in, movies about mental illness particularly bipolar/manic depression. This was of particular interest to me because it is about a parent with bipolar and about the kids of a bipolar parent. These movies tend to focus on young single people, so this was refreshing and different. Infinitely Polar Bear is a family drama about a sorta single bipolar dad struggling to raise his two daughters while his sorta wife earns her MBA in New York City. The film is set in Boston in the late 1970s and told mainly from the perspective of the two daughters. Mark Ruffalo is the heart and soul of the film, and the girls are excellent. I love Zoe Saldana, so really, this little film is stacked. I would have like the film to be a little bit longer and slower, it could have taken its time but at the same time its manic pace was more than well-suited overall. Ruffalo manages to play the manic panics, the frantic desperation, and the rages with mastery. This is not easy to pull off without veering into overly melodramatic "danger" and "violent" territory. I liked that it focused on the mania and not so much the depression. I was also so pleased to not be really scared at any point during the film. There are some reckless events, but nothing too dire and I appreciate that. That said, the film could have dug in a bit more and fleshed some things out especially in terms of race and poverty. I also highly recommend Mr. Jones starring Richard Gere as another stellar rendering of manic depression. It's quite remarkable. 4/5 |
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