drama

Armand Assante: An Appreciation

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 02:45:39 +0000

Armand Assante: An Appreciation Chet Kozlowski November 5, 2024 - 21:45

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Allow me a brief appreciation of Armand Assante. The occasion calls for it: the release of Don Q, a new film in which he stars.

Few actors command the screen, like Armand Assante. I’d seen him first in 1978’s Paradise Alley as Sylvester Stallone’s brother. I’m a fan and have been since I saw him in I, The Jury, the 1982 version of the Mickey Spillane novel directed by Larry Cohen. His chiseled features (in his advanced age, he looks to be carved out of granite) and his naturalistic delivery brought Mike Hammer explosively to life.

Mr. Assante would go on to make a mark in TV, winning a Best Actor Emmy for his lead in 1996’s Gotti, and starring as Odysseus in an ambitious 1997 miniseries of The Odyssey. Other notable parts and awards followed, but to my mind he hasn’t attained the household-name and leading man status he deserves.

Which is odd, because he rose in the era of The Tough Guy. He was tough and he had soul. He played Gotti and Napolean and Nietzsche and was a mob boss in Hoffa. He was in American Gangster and The Mambo Kings and Private Benjamin. He’s the son of an artist and a poet. Despite his Italian (and Irish) heritage, he’s hasn’t appeared in a Martin Scorsese picture.

I don’t know the man. I only have my perceptions to go on, and he’s always struck me as an actor apart for his dynamism, which radiates off him. I saw him in a restaurant in the Village once, and even while relaxing, his presence was palpable.

Which brings me to Don Q. I’ve been thinking a lot about why certain movies are made. I know, I know: the profit motive. But there are easier ways to make money. Making movies is hard work: it takes a skill for organization, it’s subject to the whims of many, and it always ends up revealing something about the filmmaker, even if it’s only to ask why they took on the project in the first place.

In Don Q, Mr. Assante plays Al Quinto, a man full of bonhomie and goodwill. He considers himself the unofficial Don of New York’s Little Italy. Everybody knows him and hails him. He does good. He advises the owners of local businesses. He saves a Chinatown waitress from a sinister pimp. He cracks down on marauding skateboarders. He mentors a Mafia wannabee.

It comes around to the fact that Al Quinto is delusional. He’s not a Don at all, but a Walter Mitty type. Don Q. is Don Quixote. Which in the right hands could be an interesting premise. Think Brando in The Freshman. He pulled that off without tarnishing his image.

Don Q is a disjointed and amateurish film. It’s a parody of Mafia pictures and TV shows (The Soprano’s own Big Pussy, Vincent Pastore, appears in a thankless part) without understanding what makes them work. Don Q. pores over books of Mafia lore and has a voluminous library of DVDs and records which he plays on a vintage Victrola (?). He lives in a fantasy world and is advised by the ghosts of cartoonish gangsters dressed in Zoot suits (!) He instigates confrontations and says things like “Oh, you got balls?” and then walks away. Through much of it he seems harmless, so it’s incongruous when characters come to violent and bloody ends.

Don Q has the feel of a cut-and-paste just-pals production. Much of the film is improvised but lacks the skill and trust that convincing improvisation requires. It’s billed as a comedy but isn’t funny. The only comic element I see is the occasional Road Runner swoosh on quick pans.

So one wonders why, at this stage of his career, Mr. Assante goes along with all this, and even takes a producer credit. The early scenes of Don Q carousing Little Italy and Chinatown have a certain charm that is undone by what comes after.

I almost didn’t write this review. I have a rule: don’t review anything I can’t say something nice about. But I wanted to pay tribute to an actor I respect. And anticipate that more, better film roles await him in the future. Put Don Q behind us. Let’s toast a unique and strong actor who doesn’t seem to know his own strength.

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Don Q, Directed by Claudio Bellante. 2024. From Archstone Entertainment. Available on VOD. 84 minutes.

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Vulgar Ironies

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 01:17:16 +0000

Vulgar Ironies Chet Kozlowski October 20, 2024 - 21:17

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The man known as the Mayor of Aurora is a skinny, rumpled guy who looks like a vagrant but lives in a spacious mobile home. In the first scene of the documentary Sweetheart Deal, he sits on a park bench, lures in a pigeon, and captures it by hand. His name is Laughn Doescher, but he goes by his middle name, Elliott. He comes on as a sort of saint, affording comfort to a vulnerable population. Aurora is a section of Seattle, Washington, and is a center of drugs and prostitution, a sort of skid row of strip malls and neon signs.

The movie about Elliot starts out laudatory. He’s a character and smooth talker with his scraggly hair and pocked complexion. On good days, he’s a silver-tongued merry prankster. Then he turns evangelical—he calls addiction “the Monster” as he watches his charge writhe and whine in agony. Elliott is oddly endearing. We look past his filthy habitat, the grimy pans and scummy dishes, the butt-filled ashtrays, because he’s doing good. He’s not an addict himself, yet he takes in these poor souls, giving them a place to be, feeding them, and helping them kick.

Word about him spreads. A female newspaper reporter comes to interview him. He takes a shine to her. “No wonder you have a stalker,” he says. “Now you’ve got another one.”

The women he watches over include Kristine, who is a welder who found herself out of work and options. She has a scathing sense of humor, even at her worst. Then there’s Tammy, who pays her disabled parents’ expenses by turning tricks. Her invalid mother complains she’s out of cigarettes; Tammy nonchalantly drops that she’ll solve that by “sucking an extra dick.” Sara is “dopesick” and can’t shake even after her grown kids disown her. Amy is in the brutal throes of crack withdrawal; her animal wails from the back bedroom, barely sounding human. She’ll return to her parents and try to live up to the photos that hang in their home of her in high school, before her fall, when she was known as “Krista.”

These women are rough and resilient and, while self-sufficient, have come to rely on the guy in the RV on the corner and the haven he provides. Sara says she knows he’s a “slimy old man,” but she goes back to him anyway. She’s got nowhere else to go, and she needs a place to even out.

And through it all is Saint Elliott, unflappable and unassuming. He lives in a shithole, but for all intents and purposes, as they say, his heart appears to be pure. He just wants to help.

Sweetheart Deal was originally released in 2022, and its title was the more innocuous sounding Aurora Stories. This gives us a hint about how the project started as an omnibus of life on the streets. Directors Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller focus in on four sex workers, I’d guess not suspecting that Elliott was the real story. This is Ms. Levine’s first feature. Mr. Miller, who was the cinematographer, died in 2019 before the film’s release.

Sweetheart Deal is shot handheld verité style. The filmmakers are true flies on the wall. Their access to personal conversations is remarkable. Ms. Levine and Mr. Miller’s subjects trust them and are forthright. That they had a bank of footage for what looks to have been a conventional documentary, that they were there at all, was a career-making coincidence. They were ready and had scrupulously documented events when those events took a turn. That’s what makes Sweetheart Deal unforgettable.

The less you know about Sweetheart Deal going into it, the better. A trailer will necessarily steer the viewer. The film sometimes feels voyeuristic, encouraging an unhealthy interest in peoples’ pain (one of those “vulgar ironies” astutely referred to by a character). The narratives that come out of their surveillance are heartbreakingly observed. The proceedings that make up the last half hour seem only too inevitable and yet are riveting.

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Sweetheart Deal. Directed by Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller. 2022. From Abramorama. In theaters in limited release. 99 minutes.

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Woman Overboard

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 01:57:46 +0000

Woman Overboard Chet Kozlowski October 15, 2024 - 21:57

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In the new Turkish film Afloat, a family gathers for a cruise. Sister Zaynep flies in from America with her American husband, Stephen. Younger sister Yasemin is mopey and obstinate. Father Yusuf is a charismatic journalist who attracts fans wherever he goes. The cruise is his idea: while waiting to hear whether he will be jailed for his reporting, he wants the family together to take a relaxing trip "one last time."

It's anything but relaxing. Though they bask in sunshine and eat luscious food, tension roils under the surface. Yasemin envies her sister's lifestyle and that she moved away at all. Mom Alev remains cooly aloof. Zeynep gets little support for her nascent career as a documentary filmmaker. Stephen complains that she "likes the idea of being married more than the reality of it." Stephen's also concerned that his passport has been stolen and that his wife is off her meds.

While this crew island-hops among blue skies, open water, and ruins, they trade barbs and pointed silences. Secrets are revealed. Feelings are hurt and betrayed. Father is the fulcrum, but Afloat belongs to its women and their struggle loving a "political freedom warrior." They pose and kvetch and rebuff their father's advice to just enjoy the time. "Is it only you whose mistakes have to be tolerated?" one asks.

Afloat's scenery is lovely, and its cast is attractive. Nihan Aker as Zaynep is model-elegant, while Elit Iscan's Yasemin is pretty and pouty. Serhat Ünaldi (the director's father), as Yusuf, is the picture of stability, even as everything falls apart around him. Oscar Pearce's Stephen is clearly incongruent with his pale complexion, red hair, and inexperience with the language. (The characters alternate between Turkish and English with acuity). Lila Gürmen plays reticent Alev with poise.

Writer/director Aslihan Unaldi was born in Turkey and is now based in Brooklyn. She teaches at Columbia University and NYU. She is also known for her previous feature, the environmental documentary Overdrive (2011). Not many films in Turkey are made from a woman's perspective. Ms. Unaldi seeks to rectify that.

Aslihan Unaldi lets the exotic locales and pretty people do the work. Granted, the deck of a boat doesn't offer many possibilities for camera angles unless the limited floor plan becomes claustrophobic. She manages to cull some stirring sequences: an interlude through island ruins, the sisters dancing to silent music in their earbuds, Yasemin biting ravenously into pomegranates.

As sumptuous and watchable as Afloat is, these characters don't learn much. If a narrative quest is structured to take characters through conflict and bring them self-knowledge, these folks remain predictably themselves. For all the potential built into these fictional (maybe autobiographical?) characters, they are pretty much the same at the end as when they cast off.

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Afloat. Directed by Aslihan Unaldi. 2024. 115 minutes

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Where The Heart Is

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Where The Heart Is Chet Kozlowski August 26, 2024 - 10:00

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The new film Know Your Place is set in a part of Seattle that's undergoing rapid gentrification. Money talks, those that don’t have walk. But where do you go if you are an immigrant to the U.S. and part of a vital community?

The community in question hails from Eritrea, one of Africa's poorest nations. Eritreans preserve their religion and their native language, difficult to do when you're being forced to scatter. Know Your Place centers on one family, the Hailes, and Robel, a 15-year-old Eritrean-American boy, in particular. Robel is known for keeping his feelings hidden. "You never say nothin', Bro," says his friend Fahmi on the basketball court. "What's on your mind?"

Robel wonders, simply, where he belongs. His father is dead; his mother struggles to keep the family afloat. His grandfather suffers from dementia and sleeps on the living room couch.

And then comes a plea from the parent's homeland: relatives are ailing, medical expenses are high, and they need financial help. Despite her family's own dire circumstances, Mother assembles clothes, money, and medicine to send over. Robel is tasked with delivering a large suitcase full of provisions across town to his aunts.

Writer/director Zia Mohajerjasbi turns this into a lyrical, profound quest, played out on city streets and light rail and buses. Of course, Robel and Fahmi encounter obstacles, but their comradery and street smarts make for a fascinating journey. Know Your Place is thick with Eritrean culture and interludes of quiet grace.

Seattle in autumn has rarely looked so bleak and beautiful. Mr. Mohajerjasbi counterpoints the drama of displacement by sending his camera to wander languidly amongst canopies of tree branches and street signs, segments of visual poetry. Buildings are being torn down. Residential streets are being decimated. Cranes loom over every horizon. Yet the gloom is often cut by pools of light, actual and symbolic. There's hope. The city becomes a living thing, aided by the fluid camera of Director of Photography Nicholas Wiesnet.

Match this with the naturalistic performances of Know Your Place's young protagonists. Joseph Smith's internal reserve as Robel is tweaked by Natnael Mebrahtu's brash Fahmi. Robel frets and Fahmi joshes. The pair make an engrossing odd couple, trekking across town with their literal McGuffin. Days after having watched the movie, I still feel the presence of these characters.

But the notion of "home" is the point. Where do you go when poverty undercuts your mobility yet forces you to keep moving? As Robel says in a moment of pique, "I wish everything would slow down so I can know where I'm supposed to be."

Their path takes unexpected detours and is dotted with compelling characters, most notably Selamawit Gebresus as Robel's mother (who delivers a stunning monologue with the camera tight on her face), Esther Kibreab as Robel's striving sister, Haileselassie Kidane as gansta cousin Aboy, and Tirhas Haile as the cantankerous Auntie Hana. Aaron Sahle plays Uncle Yonas, a rowdy yellow cab philosopher who contends that America is "drowning in a sea of names," but deep down everyone is where they should be. Every member of this ensemble is a believable and welcome swatch in this heartfelt tapestry.

Zia Mohajerjasbi is a filmmaker to watch. He has a particular vision and, for a first-time writer/director, the discretion to make it come alive. He takes risks: despite the rigors of the inner-city milieu, Mr. Mohajerjasbi isn't afraid to stop the action to make a point. One breathtaking montage is of people, just people, in all their normal glory, caught still and facing the camera.

Know Your Place is a warm, rich, and affectionate portrait of an ancient culture unmoored in the modern world.

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Know Your Place. 2022. Directed by Zia Mohajerjasbi. Available on VOD and in select theaters. 118 minutes.

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Who’s the Little Man?

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 21:31:09 +0000

Who’s the Little Man? Chet Kozlowski August 18, 2024 - 17:31

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Domestic abuse is a provocative topic for drama. The control of one person over their significant other goes to our essential notion of individual freedom. So, it’s useful to think about how a French movie might treat the subject differently from one produced in the US.

The occasion for this is Valérie Donzelli’s entirely watchable new film Just the Two of Us. That’s not meant as faint praise: I was stuck to the screen for the whole runtime. But in the end, I felt a little…undernourished by what I’d been shown. This may be the difference between Gallic and American film expectations, but it also implies an acceptance of spousal dominance in polite society.

In Just the Two of Us, Blanche is an intelligent, accomplished woman and a teacher who happens to be unattached romantically when her twin Rose fixes her up with Grégoire. He remembers Blanche from school; she does not remember him. He comes on as a charming and ingratiating (if ordinary) fellow who dotes on her and wins her heart. They marry and start a family, but cracks show almost immediately. He wants Blanche to himself and convinces her to move away from her sister and mother. He puts her on a rigid schedule, calls repeatedly while she’s in class, and stalks her at work. He turns her life into “a complete wasteland,” devoid of personal agency. This toxicity continues until Blanche seeks some kind of recourse.

If this were a US film instead of a French one, one can imagine it lurid and violent. Americans expect violence to beget violence as a catharsis. In 1977’s The Burning Bed, Farrah Fawcett Majors literally sets Paul Le Mat (remember them?) on fire. In Enough (2002), Jennifer Lopez solves her trauma by kicking the shit out of her husband, Billy Campbell.

Just the Two of Us—original title L'amour et les forêts (Love and Forests)—plays down exploitation almost to blandness. Its attitude seems to be that this is just how some marriages evolve. Just the Two of Us is not a thriller, exactly. Comeuppance is in short supply. The film is compelling due to the performances of Virginie Efira, who plays both Blanche and Rose and Melvil Poupaud as Grégoire. His spousal control is portrayed as the obsession of a needy man caught between adolescence and adulthood; his psychosis plays down. Both actors are excellent and, as I’ve said, watchable.

Anyone who has had experience with domestic abuse will recognize the signs sooner than Blanche does (or chooses to), but they’re all there, including Grégoire’s refrains of “If you loved me a little, you’d have never let me treat you like that,” and “How can you love me and turn me into a monster?”

An intriguing scene has Grégoire acting out in front of a stranger and then attempting to stare that woman down. They recognize each other’s type. The woman is a stranger to him but no stranger to domestic abuse. When he’s gone, she wryly asks Blanche, “Who’s the little man?”

The device of Blanche and Rose being twins comes to little effect. The point is made that both siblings come from a strong mother and are not easily manipulated, but the narrative opportunities of twin-dom are not explored. Rose’s role in the plot could be accomplished by a sister of any status, a sympathetic friend, or, for that matter, no one at all. Ms. Efira does a valiant job of portraying both women, but the difference ultimately comes down to bangs or no bangs.

It’s directed by Valérie Donzelli, a prolific French actor, so much so that she plays herself in the Netflix series Call My Agent. She’s directed several shorts, TV episodes, and feature films, including Notre Dame (2019) and Nona et ses filles (2021).

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Just the Two of Us. Directed by Valérie Donzelli. 2023. From Music Box Films. 105 minutes. Streaming, on VOD, and DVD.

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Traffic-Jamming with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnso

Brandon Judell — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 19:50:38 +0000

Traffic-Jamming with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnso Brandon Judell August 14, 2024 - 15:50

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There are few cinema offerings nowadays I can personally hold forth on the veracity of. No chasing of tornados (Twisters), no imaginary friends (If), and no mortgaging of my home to finance a flop (Horizon) really ring a bell in my life. Daddio, an ode to grizzled cabbies and their perplexed passengers, is the exception.

Having recently cabbed from the Upper West Side to JFK and two weeks later from Convent Garden to Heathrow, I know what it is to be rubbernecked in traffic and chewing the fat for close two hours with drivers who admired my earliness in waving them down. No need to rush.

Yes, my Lisbon Air flight was in five hours. My American Airlines back home in four.

The two gents—one from Senegal, the other a young Brit, wed with a second child on the way—knew I would not tense up and start hollering obscenities as their motors slumbered due to the onslaught of stymied hybrids. Yes, our progress could often be measured in inches or centimeters

Now Christy Hall, who here directs Daddio from her stage play-cum-screenplay, has captured the . . . uh-hum . . . magic of two strangers, one sitting behind the other, connecting and possibly reconstructing each other’s outlooks on life even with the awareness they will never see each other ever again. And maybe just because of that.

Dakota Johnson is “Girlie,” a highly intelligent, sexually active, wounded romantic whose much older lover is married with children. When not putting his kids to sleep, her chap has a propensity for sending dick pics to her and asking her to photograph her private parts for him, even while she’s in a cab. This is the man she’s told, “I love you.” Oh, no!

Well, some background: Girlie, which is not her real moniker, has just arrived from visiting her sister in Oklahoma, and the taxi to midtown Manhattan she’s climbed into is driven by Clark (Sean Penn). She’s his last fare of the day.

Clark, as inhabited by Mr. Penn, is reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart at his gruffiest: macho with an initially unsavory but eventually addictive charm. There is a lamb hidden within this foul-mouthed, lone wolf.

Cabbing for twenty years, his wife whom Clark loved deeply in the not most respectful of ways is now deceased. As for his main talent, other than surviving mentally unscathed from Big-Apple traffic jams, is being a front-seat Freud for those unravelling, jet-lagged travelers who’ve hunkered down for what they thought was going to be a quiet ride home.

Let the banter begin: “Have you ever been a pig in the bedroom?” Clark asks.

Now if I were a young woman, even in my 30s or 40s, after a few verbal back-and-forths with this gent, I would have yelled, “Stop!” thrust open the door and ran for my life. To hell with my luggage! If not then, when Clark takes out a bottle and is ready to piss in front of me, that might have been the moment.

But Girlie’s no pushover: “I honestly hate you right now. You are everything that’s wrong with the world.”

“I like to push buttons,” Clark admits, adding he’s one of those awful men who can’t be trusted when it comes to women. In fact, no guy is actually trustworthy, he professes.

“There are good men out there,” Girlie retorts, but she also notes when she refuses to reveal her age, that “the moment [women] hit thirty our value is cut in half.”

The battle of the sexes here, which is actually less a battle and more like a raunchy therapy group, continues with more than several moving revelations along the way.

But with a 100-minute running time, the idea of being stuck on a highway with just two folks in a taxi combatting over sexual inequities and out-of-reach desires might not seem that inviting to some. Think again. With two superb performances by the leads, Hall’s sharp dialogue, plus award-worthy cinematography by Phedon Papamichael and editing by Lisa Zeno Churgin, Daddio is one cab ride you won’t mind leaving a 20 percent tip for.

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(Daddio is now available to buy or rent at such sites as AppleTV, Spectrum, Amazon, and Microsoft.)

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Squatters Rites

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:51:19 +0000

Squatters Rites Chet Kozlowski July 25, 2024 - 12:51

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The two bears of the title are a woman and a man, 30-something backpackers, first seen walking out of a shopping mall. The man barters with a little girl peering out of a car, trades a copy of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil for French fries. The pair then goes to an apartment building, where they work the lock of one unit, and enter to find the place barren, no furniture except for a big bed with a pristine, unmade mattress. They strip down in individual bathrooms and shower, the woman languishing, the man screaming as if burned. They fall asleep on the mattress, the man getting up to lay out cardboard to sleep on.

“Goldilocks” is the owner of the apartment. She arrives to find the two bears there, asleep. Hence, Goldilocks and the Two Bears.

The women hit it off. The squatter, Ingrid, is tall and brunette. The owner, Ivy, is shorter and blonde. They retreat to a park so as not to wake the man, Ian, and exchange anecdotes. Ingrid, Ivy, Ian. Later we’ll meet Irena. Sense a pattern? Who is the I, the I, the I?

What could easily turn into an indie gabfest takes on nuance. The tales Ivy and Ingrid tell are by turns trite, provocative, and fantastical. Their chat is fueled by Ivy’s growing fascination with the more bohemian Ingrid. The women talk and bond, Ian wakes up and speaks in riddles. The squatters claim that as soon as Grandma arrives (it’s really her apartment), they’ll depart and squat somewhere else.

Tones and locations will change. Blackouts end scenes at the most beguiling juncture, always a surprise. Characters suddenly break the fourth wall and address the viewer. But it’s not showy. It’s part of a subtle and intricate tapestry that leads us back around to the stories Ingrid and Ivy tell each other.

This film shouldn’t work but it does. Goldilocks and the Two Bears (more about that title in a second) is the work of independent writer/director Jeff Lipsky. Mr. Lipsky cites as his inspiration Covid (isolation and separation), and his move from NYC to Las Vegas (culture mindfuck). G&TTB is set in Vegas, 2016.

I’m tempted to tell more of the plot, but its strength is the guilelessness with which it unspools. The actors’ skills make it work. They are relatively new faces, and they sell their characters without a hint of indie self-consciousness. Serra Naiman (Ingrid) exudes a vagabond’s free spirit yet seethes underneath. We presume Claire Milligan (Ivy) to be naive, but her shrewd cat’s eyes betray her growing infatuation with these two “broke junkies.” Bryan Mittelstadt is stoic as Ian, boyish, a self-styled sage who becomes cold and sinister. He uses Nietzsche’s phrase “Truth is a Woman” like a password of trust. None of the actors have appeared in major films but here show disarming confidence.

Mr. Lipsky has a keen sensibility and an eye for detail. Painting the bare walls of the apartment invites a shift in mood. Ian’s homemade bookshelf is stocked with worn copies of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Joseph Heller’s Something Happened, Dorothy Parker’s collected works, and Men and Menstruation. Phobias abound. Ivy welcomes the intruders because she fears being alone. Ingrid fears dogs, specifically getting scratched by them. On a trip to the Strat Tower the trio encounters and woman who asks them to take her daughter up because she herself is scared of heights.

Jeff Lipsky has other films to his credit—including The Last Nazi (2019) and Mad Women (2015)—and if they are half as well-realized as this one, I have a new auteur’s works to anticipate.

But that title. Goldilocks and the Two Bears is a serious film and one to be admired. That title implies a facile satire of a popular fairytale. This movie is more than that, and the title might just misdirect people and keep them away. Mr. Lipsky, consider renaming it before it goes into wide release. Maybe something like “Squatters Rites”?

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Goldilocks and the Two Bears. Directed by Jeff Lipsky. 2024. In theaters. 136 minutes.

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Lukewarm for Teacher

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 01:32:35 +0000

Lukewarm for Teacher Chet Kozlowski July 14, 2024 - 21:32

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Movies about a teacher hooking up with a student are almost always about forbidden sex. Titles like The English Teacher, The French Teacher, Dirty Teacher, and My Teacher My Obsession; IMDb lists dozens of films and TV episodes titled after Van Halen's single, "Hot for Teacher." Add to the mix that the teacher is married and the student is underage and you have a flat-out exploitation.

That dubious dynamic is at the heart of the Hong Kong film July Rhapsody. It handles the situation differently than in the West. Instead of seduction and torrid sex, the film’s approach is gracefully understated and lightly humorous. Hong Kong is different than you and me. July Rhapsody takes place at an elite private girls' school, which prepares students for a life of emotional curiosity. It's part of the curriculum.

Lam is a middle-aged professor of classic Chinese literature. He is a mild soul and an unlikely object of affection. Wu is his precocious student. She can name the exact moment she fell in love with him. A colleague warns Lam to be careful ("All her classmates know"), but an infatuation like this is accepted, even expected.

But that’s also not all July Rhapsody is about. Lam is in a midlife crisis, reconsidering the past and weighing the present. He’s led an ordinary life until now. He goes by the book, has raised a family, and insists on paying his own way, even when a wealthy friend offers to treat him. "Everybody leads his own life," he tells his wife Ching. A strict translation of the film's Chinese title is Man, 40, and that gets closer to the theme.

Jacky Cheung plays Lam with an affable John Garfield quality, a somewhat rugged exterior masking vulnerability. Unspoken emotions flit across his face, and every so often, he lets out a crazy giggle. As Wu, Karena Lam has a dewy charm, a young woman confident in her nascent sexual allure. She teases and flirts but is forthright about her desire. She informs her elder, "I always get what I want." When Lam drunkenly ruminates about the propriety of their affair, she says, "People must have forced you to self-reflect when you were young. As for me? I never doubt myself."

Anita Mui plays Ching, Lam’s wife. Her own trauma, revealed as the film goes on, counterbalances her husband's. Ms. Mui was a popular singer in Hong Kong until her untimely death in 2003 (from cancer at age 40). She's known in the US mostly for her roles in Jackie Chan's HK movies, like Drunken Master II and Rumble in the Bronx. This is her final film.

July Rhapsody is directed by Ana Hui, whose style is subtle and psychologically rich. Her movie has the gentle energy of, say, Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation. She keeps on a steady narrative path but allows herself some playful innuendo—students frolicking, spraying each other with Coca-Cola, followed by a portentous fade to black; a domestic discussion about gluing a faulty toilet: "It's all dried up!" A trip Lam and Ching plan on the Yangtze River becomes a metaphor for much more. Along with an impressive filmography, Ms. Hui is the recipient of the British MBE. She directs from Ivy Ho's literate script.

July Rhapsody was made in 2022, and its release is long overdue. It's a touching depiction of generations in their joy, passion, and imperfection.

_____________________________________________July Rhapsody. Directed by Anna Hui. From Cheng Cheng Films. 2023. On DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD. 103 minutes.

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If You Go Chasing Rabbits

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 20:36:38 +0000

If You Go Chasing Rabbits Chet Kozlowski July 3, 2024 - 16:36

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Grief and self-absorption are at odds in the poignant new film Cottontail. A widower comes to grips with his wife’s death at the expense of his relationship with his son.

When we first meet Kenzaburo he appears to be a vagrant, trawling the city, trading favors. But we come to find out, he has lived with his son Toshi's family since his wife Akiko's death. Amongst her effects Kenzaburo finds a letter from her that reads, "Please don’t suffer anymore." She asks that he scatter her ashes at the site of their romantic idyl in England, Lake Windermere. Toshi wants to go. At her funeral, he tells his father, "It's the kind of thing you do with family." Kenzaburo evades Toshi to travel alone through the English countryside to complete her request.

Akiko and Kenzaburo's story is told in flashbacks. We see their shy courtship through their quarrelsome marriage. Kenzaburo is a failed author disgruntled with his life. Akiko is vibrant and wants a family. Toshi is born despite Kenzaburo's apparent disinterest and becomes the ongoing conflict between them ("I was busy. My work was important." "I wanted to be in your world, too.") As father makes his way, his wife's ashes in a tea can, while son Toshi strives to claim his place in his mother's passage and in his father's heart.

A film like Cottontail depends on the acting. Irish director Patrick Dickinson is fortunate to have a fine cast to navigate the emotional terrain. Lily Franky, a go-to for director Hirokazu Koreeda (Little Sister, Shoplifters) employs his woeful expression to great effect as Kenzaburo. Audiences may have trouble relating to a man who doesn't want children and resents them. Franky goes beyond words; he finds subtle shadings in his character. His eyes wander. He looks at some point away during important conversations, rather than at the speaker. Kosei Kudo plays Kenzaburo as a young man.

As Toshi, Ryo Nishikido shows a heartbreaking need to connect. Yuri Tsunematsu and Tae Kimura portray young and old Akiko respectively. And Rin Takanashi gives a wonderfully understated performance as Toshi's wife Satsuki.

The presence of Irish actor Ciarán Hinds (Game of Thrones) as a gruff farmer named John seems obligatory; his talents are underused. Aoife Hinds (Ciarán's actual daughter) is touching as John's daughter Mary, who takes pity on Kenzaburo and aids his journey.

Patrick Dickinson has directed shorts and Netflix docu-series. Cottontail is his first full length film and shows great restraint. He does not emphasize the fish-out-of-water aspects of a Japanese man traversing the English countryside. We've seen the scattering of ashes before as a narrative device, and it can become precious, an easy tug at heartstrings. Sequences like Kenzaburo proving incapable of dealing with Akiko's deterioration, where Toshi instinctively takes over, are harrowing and astutely character-driven (Mr. Dickinson also wrote the script).

The term "cottontail" refers to Beatrix Potter's classic book The Tale of Peter Rabbit. While this, too, could become a facile symbol, Mr. Dickinson uses it subtly, and makes it a wonderful bridge between East and West, father and son, life and death.
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Cottontail. Directed by Patrick Dickinson. 2024. From Level 33 Entertainment. In theaters and on VOD. 94 minutes.

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Found. Now what?

Chet Kozlowski — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Found. Now what? Chet Kozlowski June 22, 2024 - 10:00

Topics

Film Review

Tags

drama

Tony Greene is an NBA superstar who, at the height of his career, comes home to find his house ransacked and his wife murdered. He leaves the game, dedicates himself to heavy drinking, and pretty much gives up. Years pass, and Tony, having been arrested for a DUI, is offered a chance at reduced probation if he coaches a women’s junior college basketball team.

That all happens in the first 15 minutes.

The team is a collection of misfits who need to be whupped into shape. A young woman named Destiny is a basketball prodigy who stands out not only for her ability but also for her attitude. She has a big chip on her shoulder and refuses to try out for the team, and when Tony attempts to get to the heart of the problem and recruit her, she snaps, “Stop caring.”

The team is made up of bright new actors, including Preet Kaur, Isabelle Almoyan, Hope Jordan, Antionette Howard, and Rayven Symone Ferrell. Brook Sill, of Netflix’s Cobra Kai and Stranger Things, also impresses as Destiny’s sidekick Kayley.

Stephen Bishop, as Tony, has a serenely athletic presence. He is a retired basketball player whose acting credits include Moneyball and Safe House. Raquel Justice, as Destiny, is effectively obstinate as his foil. She’s been seen in the TV reboots of Quantum Leap and Netflix’s One Day at a Time. Both actors are convincing and watchable, but their transformations from surliness to acceptance happen too abruptly.

In the best tradition of sports movies, alliances are formed, lives are restored, and individuals learn to work together. The team thrives. This sort of movie is an easy layup. The problem is that finding Tony makes it a complicated play and starts missing shots.

Writer/director Raven Magwood Goodson wants to tackle a compelling story in her script, but her direction is uneven and too reliant on clichés. Her court sequences lack excitement—she often puts her camera in a place that reveals her limited budget—and she resorts to clunky montages of pop music, newspaper headlines, and team hugs to convey progress.

Finding Tony is built on trauma. Not just Tony’s, but trauma upon trauma. Tony has his grief and drinking problem. Destiny is in an abusive foster home after being abandoned by her birth mother. And every so often, we get glimpses, set in the past, of a distraught sex worker who ultimately holds the key to redemption.

Ms. Goodson just has too many balls in the air. Her script makes it hard to tell whose story this is. Three-quarters of the way through the film, an attempt to tie all the stories together, comes to an absurd conclusion. Had she concentrated on one plot line, say Tony bonding with the team and taking them to victory, rather than going off in so many other directions, she’d have an enjoyable genre picture.

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Finding Tony. Directed by Raven Magwood Goodson. 2024. From Level 33 Entertainment. Available on VOD. 106 minutes.