Till

 

Till

Till is a movie of love and hate. Love is the absolute love a mother has for her child alive or dead. Hate is the intractable bigotry and violence of segregated 1950’s Mississippi. The Emmitt Till story is well known. Till was a fourteen-year-old boy who went to visit his cousins in Money Mississippi. He was falsely accused of cat calling a white woman and she claimed he tried to grab her. Because of these false accusations he was abducted by the women’s husband and brother and taken to a shed where he was tortured, shot in the head and tossed into the Tallahassee River. Three days later his bloated body was recovered.

The director did not want to glorify the brutality visited on Till. Only a distant shed was shown, and muffled cries were heard. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley insisted on an open casket so the world could see the brutality of her son’s tortured body. This act spurred on the Civil Rights movement.

This basically is a two-actors movie with supporting performers. Danielle Deadwyler plays Mamie Till-Mobley, she inhabits the role. She gives a steely performance of a mother crushed by the murder of her son but not intimidated by fear. Deadwyler’s Mamie is controlled anger. Outwardly she was a smartly dressed colored woman in her pillbox hat, gloves and small bag but beneath the façade fury raged. Knowing there will be no justice in Mississippi she used the dead body of her son as indictment. Deadwyler should be an Oscar contender.

Jalyn Hall plays Emmitt Till. His nature is lighthearted and innocent. In his pork pie hat with an easy tooth gaped smile, he is out of his element in Mississippi. Raised in Chicago he does not clue into the mores of the south. His mother gave him the “talk” but like many children he is careless. Aside from his short appearance in the start of the movie he as seen as an apparition in later scenes.

Other characters have quick short appearances. Whoopie Goldberg play Mamie’s mother; Tosin Cole plays Medgar Evers and other actors as prominent civil rights leaders. Haley Bennett portrays Carolyn Bryant the shop keeper who falsely accused Till.

No one was convicted for the murder of Emmitt Till, they were acquitted. The Emmitt Till Anti Lynching Act was signed in March 2022, 67 years after his death. Carolyn Bryant is 88 years old and has never been charged with a crime.

Black Adam

 

Black Adam

Why did I see this movie? There is still part of a twelve-year-old boy rattling around in my brain. Sometimes he takes over and I give in.

This is probably one of the worst superhero movies I have seen. Eighty percent of the movie is just fights and battles. Black Adam does a lot of mayhem and killing. He is described as the superhero who kills people. Through out most of the movie Dwayne Johnson has a dower unsmiling face. The film lacks lighthearted banter which gives these types of films some comic relief. In part this is an origin story and starts in 2600 BC when he and his father were slaves toiling in the hills of the ancient kingdom of Kahndaq. The plot is convoluted, going back and forth from ancient times to the present.

Fighting Black Adam and then allying them selves with him are Justice League of America consisting of four superheroes. Pierce Bronson, sporting a distinguished grey goatee, is part of the JSA and he is the superhero Fate. Among other things Fate can see the future and he can see that he will not be part of the Black Adam sequel. Viola Davis is on screen for about one minute. The other actors do an adequate job but not anything remarkable. The film has a lot of CG but nothing outstanding. Mayhem is the signature of the movie, and it becomes boring and tedious.

Black Adam is critic proof. In four days, it has an international box office of $147 million and this does not include the lucrative Chinese market. With this revenue, the producers can tell Rotten Tomatoes, with a score of 38%, to go pound sand. DC will use this movie to launch a new franchise which guarantees sequels.

 

Tar

 

Tar

Lydia Tar is one of the greatest living composer/conductors, and the first-ever female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. Cate Blanchet, plays Tar, and delivers a brilliant performance.  She is intense and supremely confident which is another way of saying arrogant. She is a married lesbian with an adopted little girl, Petra. For her performance Blanchet learned phonic German, to play the piano and mastered the arduous task of conducting.

The film is a psychological drama. The first half hour is taken up by musicology peppered with French and German music terms. The movie then focusses on the turbulence of her career and private life. She is ruthless when dismissing staff and longtime colleagues. A dark side of Tar is revealed when she admonishes a girl who is bulling her daughter. Her rebuke is threatening and clearly shakes up the girl. The movie is a journey of the destruction of her career and marriage. The ending of the movie is brilliant and a counter point to her career.

There are some plot elements that do not easily connect. Who was crying in the forest? Who turned on the metronome? What does the death of an elderly neighbor signify? The movie needs to be watched carefully.

The cast is international and includes Mark Strong, as a competing composer, Nina Hoss as the wife, Noemie Merlant as the assistant and Mila Bogojevic as Petra.

Blanchet gives another brava performance which will be noticed during the awards season.

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The Woman King

 

The Woman King

In Doubt Viola Davis was a tearful distraught mother pleading for help from a stone hearted mother superior played by Merial Streep; Davis was nominated for an Oscar. In The Help Davis plays a maid in the segregated 1950’s south; she won an Oscar. So, playing a Ajojie virgin amazon general is no stretch for her. This is a very muscular role. She was fierce and did not smile once in the film. The film is a historical epic based on a story written by Maria Bello. The Ajojie were all-female warriors who protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey (present day Benin) during the 17th to 19th centuries. 

The movie is action packed. Most of the combat is hand to hand fighting with swords and spears. I am not certain, but I hope Davis used a body double for the grueling battles. The film is more complex than a simple action movie, it has layers. A main theme is the slave trade. Benin was an incubator for deporting slaves. That is where the infamous Gates of No Return were located. In the film warring tribes supplied war captives as slaves. One epic battle was to free the slaves. Against her strong military discipline Davis forms a bond with a young recruit, Nawi. Nevertheless, training is brutal (there are no tears on Dahomey boot camp). There is also palace intrigue. Davis is at odds with king’s harem and a power play with the queen ensues.

Another subplot was a budding romantic entanglement with a Brazilian slaver and young Nawi. The slaver himself was part Brazilian and part Dahomey. He is conflicted about slavery and helps Nawi escape.

The supporting cast were wonderful. Theuso Mbedu plays Nawi the young recruit. She is fearless but does not follow orders. Davis has loyal lieutenants, Lashana Lynch and Shelia Atim  were outstanding. John Boyega plays a regal King Ghezo.

If you like action movies this one is unique. It also gives an historical depiction of the slave trade.

 

 

Blonde

 

Blonde (Netflix)

This movie is not what I expected. Marilyn Monroe was a tragic figure, but this film is sad and in some parts disturbing. Ana de Amras’ performance was hampered by the script and overwrought direction. Physically de Amras struck a good resemble to Monroe with a pouty face, her distinctive beauty mark and Monroe’s trademark hushed voice. Monroe was tormented by the tragic events of Norma Jean’s life, from the orphanage home to her absent father. Some life events of Monroe are well known, her marriage to Joe DiMaggio and to Arthur Miller and her affair with Kennedy. This is not a biography, but some scenes are bizarre and muddle the character.

Under the circumstances de Armas did the best she could. She played Monroe with fragility and damaged from an unstable mother and an absent father. I think some of the scenes must have been uncomfortable for her. Any depiction of Monroe focuses on her sexuality; it could be subtle or crude. The Kennedy scene was just prurient and in bad taste. Her miscarriage and abortions were unnecessarily graphic.

Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio and Adrian Brodie as Arthur Miller gave good performances. The script is faulty. With DiMaggio her marriage ends in divorce but with Miller he just disappears (they did divorce). Not mentioning her last performance in The Misfits neglects her growth to a maturing actress.

This film gives a one-sided depiction of Monroe as just a sex object. There are some hints of her intelligence when she quotes Chekhov and Dostoevsky or insightfully interprets one on Miller’s characters, but these are dismissed as out of character. No mention is made of her befriending Ella Fitzgerald when it was not acceptable to do so or that she founded her own production company Pacific Standard. There is too much ugly added and too much good left out of this film. The one redeeming feature the film is free on Netflix.

 

Bullet Train

 

Bullet Train

The film is disheveled. It is one long stream of fights, stabbing, gun shots and an occasional snake bite. The story in convoluted and a Wikipedia cheat sheet is advised. Characters get killed or you think they get killed. There are divergent story lines of different periods. Revenge is an undercurrent of the film. Flashbacks strain to give the movie coherence. Mayhem is the main ingredient.

The film is packed with stars, some long lived other not. Brad Pitt is Ladybug an unlucky mercenary. Brad Pitt is his usual cool self but a bit neurotic. His character wants be easy going but he is also constantly attacked and has to brutally kill a few people. The supporting cast are innumerable. There are feature actors and actors with brief appearances. Bad Bunny (for the Medicare crowd that is his stage name) a Mexican assassin with a stained white suit. Lemon and Tangerine are brothers from a different mother (one black the other white) who are Brad Pitt’s main nemesis. There are other nemesis. One is a faux schoolgirl, the Prince, played by Joey King who has more longevity than the other killers and lasts to the end. Then there are the quickies. Ryan Reynolds shows up for five seconds. Channon Tatum is a train passenger with three short scenes. Sandra Bullock is Pitt’s handler and before her brief appearance was the voice on his phone. Michael Shannon is White Death and hard to recognize wearing a mop of hair.

Some of the scenes are incredulous . You can not hang on to the outside of a speeding bullet train unless you have a big S on your chest. With train cars packed like sardines in Japan it is difficult to believe they found two empty cars. There was some levity in the movie but not enough to validate the advertisements. The script tried to mesh various story lines but it tied itself in a knot.

Nope

 

Nope

Not sure if Nope is a yup. Flying saucer (UFOs) movies have been around for decades from War of the Worlds (the original) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nope is more like the former, sinister. After an intriguing start the middle of the film loses steam and in later scenes the main action unfolds. The film is partitioned in different scenes. I though one scene involving a chimp was in left field and I didn’t get it. As opposed to Peele’s film, Get Out, Nope does not have brooding tension. The big reveal of seeing the flying saucer comes towards the end but getting there is a slow walk. Parts of the movie have to be inferred and their purpose is opaque. For example when the horses get spooked and run away what happens to them? The most original part of the movie is the flying saucer itself. It is like nothing before.

Danial Kaluuya gives a subdued performance as OJ a wrangler who provides horses for film and TV commercials. His hyperactive sister played by Keke Palmer is loud and funny. Angel ,played by Brandon Perea, is the electronic sales rep who is a UFO believer and sets up camera’s at OJ’s ranch. Steven Yuen is an entrepreneur who runs a side show. Yuen has an unfortunate close encounter.

UFO movies are either benevolent or malevolent; the either or takes away from the tension. The eventual encounter is the driving force. A clearer purpose of why a UFO would fly  billions of light years to earth would have sharpened the focus. Rotten Tomato gave the film an 82%. I am sure a bunch of you are younger than 70 so I encourage you to see the film and draw your own conclusion.