Good and Evil in K-POP DEMON HUNTERS

Co-writer/co-director Maggie Kang whose experience as story artist in various animated productions (Kung Fu Panda 3) has led to this original film, K-Pop Demon Hunters, a universally entertaining, animated adventure musical that honors her Korean heritage. 

Girl group Huntrix (with members Rumi, Mira ad Zoey) is wildly popular with legions of fans worldwide. A closely guarded secret is that they are warriors or demon hunters against the evil Gwi-Ma whose demons suck the souls from living humans. In order to prevent this, Huntrix has maintained a protective shield called Honmoon, a task that previous groups have guarded over time. Attempting to achieve Gold Honmoon will ensure the permanent blockage of Gwi-Ma, but before they can do this, a mysterious boy band, Saja Boys appears and takes audiences by storm threatening to supplant the girls. Further, the Saja Boys are really demons sent by Gwi-Ma to undermine Huntrix. Unbeknownst to all, Rumi discovers she is part demon and must hide her secret from fans and her friends even as she loses her voice on the eve of a major performance.  When the lead singer of Saja Boys reveals himself as Jinu, there is a bond that forms between him and Rumi. Can Rumi overcome her affliction, and can she and Huntrix save humanity?

Filled with catchy pop songs, this film propels at a fast pace from start to finish in barely over 90 minutes. It will appeal to young viewers and charm adults. The only thing it lacks is great depth except when Rumi must overcome personal hardship and accept who and what she is. For an original feature length production, this is indeed quite an accomplishment and signals the possibility of more original stories and likely sequels to come.

**** of *****stars   Netflix

 

A Convoluted Life in THE SECRET AGENT

Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent, a tense drama, covers a pivotal time in Brazilian politics and features a strong performance by its lead, Wagner Moura. 

It’s 1977 somewhere in Brazil, the government is authoritarian and a mysterious man named Armando (Moura) arrives and assumes the identity of Marcello. He comes to see his young son, Fernando and settles with friendly townspeople in a seemingly idyllic life. Armando, whose background is slowly revealed, is widowed and assigned to the identity card office, when there is news of a human leg found in a shark which shocks the community. Things get more complicated and dangerous with a corrupt police force and two assassins on his trail as he has a price on his head.  Years later, a female journalist reviews his life and interviews a grown Fernando, now a doctor, about his father.   

The movie title might be a bit misleading in that the film has nothing to do with espionage and spies but functions as a political thriller.  Divided into several chapters, it has an almost raw documentary feel in the way it is shot not unlike a film from the 1970s. In addition to signs of an oppressive regime, there is an immediacy that lends a stark reality to every scene (similar to City of God). It also has a slow build up and may appear to be somewhat confusing in its narrative structure with its edits that flash forward and back in the timeline.

This Brazilian film is heavy on atmosphere and authenticity with Moura registering as a man trying to escape his past and rekindle the relationship with his son.  Expect bigger things in the future from both he and Filho. 

**** of ***** stars   Amazon Prime

 

Tortured Soul in BLUE MOON

A snapshot of a song writer is the basis for Blue Moon, a character study brought to life with an impeccable performance by Ethan Hawke. 

The life of lyricist Lorenz Hart is examined one evening in 1943 during an opening night performance of Oklahoma! which is the first musical of his musical partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Oscar Hammerstein. An alcoholic, Hart yearns to continue his partnership with Rodgers which produced some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century +also flirts with his protégé, Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), and commiserates with bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannivale).  As the show ends and the flowing reviews emerge, Hart must face a world at war whose musical tastes are changing. 

Robert Kaplow’s witty screenplay captures a bittersweet moment in Hart’s life, a turning point where his career is in decline and his health sabotaged by his own vices. He is portrayed as a man with a huge ego who could be carefree and at times reckless whose yearnings and self-destructive behavior are at odds. With a strong supporting cast, there are amusing ‘Easter eggs’ with author E. B. White and a boy named Steve who can only be Stephen Sondheim!

The film does feel restricted in its limited setting mostly at a bar and relying on Hawke who features in every scene, but he carries the film admirably. Seemingly adapted from a play, conceivably, it could easily transition to the stage. This marks the ninth collaboration between Hawke and director Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Before Sunrise), and it shows no sign of slowing down.  Like Rodgers and Hart, they make great music together.

****1/2 of ***** stars   Netflix

 

An Actor's Actor

Actor Robert Duvall has passed at 95. This veteran of stage, screen, and TV for seven decades achieved status as an actor's actor. He guest starred in numerous TV shows including The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and the classic miniseries, Lonesome Dove. Nominated five times for Emmy Awards, he won twice. Yet it is his career as a screen actor that he is most known starting with his turn as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, Frank Burns in M*A*S*H, Tom Hagen in The  Godfather and The Godfather Part II, and Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. He starred in other major films like Network, The Seven Percent Solution, The Great Santini, The Natural, Open Range, and Tender Mercies for which he won an Oscar as Best Actor. He had been recognized for six other Academy Award nominations. This producer/director/writer had a career linking past and present Hollywood that encompassed George Lucas' first film THX 1138 through Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation to Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher.

 

The Best Pure Passer

Former quarterback Sonny Jurgensen has passed at 91. In his prime, he was part of the Washington Redskins resurgence in the 1970s with Vince Lombardi and especially George Allen.  The year the Redskins played in their first Super Bowl, he previously tore his achilles tendon and did not play. Could he have made a difference in the Super Bowl against the undefeated Dolphins in 1973? Maybe not, but in my heart, how could he not?! I remember the rematch with Miami the following year in the regular season when he rallied the team to beat them 20-17. I'll never forget the thrill! 

In his later, playing years he called most of his own plays almost as if it were a sandlot game. He was old school and perhaps the best pure passer of all time. He played 18 NFL seasons with Philadelphia and then The Redskins and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983 after setting many passing records and making five Pro Bowls setting the alltime passer rating in the Dead Ball era. 

He went on to become a beloved sports reporter and commentator at WRC TV and had a knack for prescient analysis during Redskin games at WMAL radio as part of a glorious broadcasting team with Sam Huff and Frank Herzog.  I went to my first Redskin game in the middle 1980s and the Redskins beat The Forty Niners. Sonny noted the crowd was subdued and asked on air if anyone was awake? I was listening on a small radio in the stadium and waved my arms, and Sonny responded "There is one!" Now it could have been anyone in that sold out stadium, but I'd like to think he saw me.

What memories. What a quarterback. Thank you Sonny.

TRAIN DREAMS for the Senses

With an ethereal feel in its imagery and strong performances, Train Dreams is a memorable tale that engages through sight and sound as pure cinema.

At the start of the twentieth century, Robert Grainier is born and grows up in the Northwest observing the world around him.  As an adult (Joel Edgerton is superb), he finds seasonal, hard work in the burgeoning railroad and logging industries where death can happen by accident or from vendetta.  A decent, thoughtful man, he meets a woman named Gladys (Felicity Jones), and they become a couple who build a cabin and form a family together when they welcome their daughter Kate.  Frequently called away by transient work, Robert plans to build a saw mill so he can be closer to his family.  When disaster strikes, his world is altered forever.

The film’s structure follows a loose plotline as depicted in various events and reactions from Robert’s point-of-view. Through his travels he befriends and sometimes loses various people in his life including a logger (a stellar William H. Macy) and a forest ranger (Kerry Condon).  At times feeling guilt and regret, he witnesses incidents of racism and violence that expose the good and bad in others as he is haunted by visions and hallucinations from his past.    

Directed and co-written by Clint Bentley (Sing Sing), there is a strong comparison with director Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven) with the natural, visual splendor (beautifully filmed) in successive vignettes that not only give a sense of time and place, but of mood and feeling. It’s a collection of memories and relationships shot almost in documentary style and brought to life with talented actors. This memorable, sensory experience about one man’s simple, yet complicated life will linger long after the ending. 

****1/2 of ***** stars   Netflix

 

FRANKENSTEIN and the Power of Obsession

 Writer/director Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) realizes his dream project of adapting Frankenstein, and the result is a masterful, atmospheric horror drama with a soul and featuring some stellar performances.

In the mid-19^th century near the Arctic north, a ship encounters Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) on the ice being pursued by a mysterious, powerful figure.  The story behind this starts in Frankenstein’s traumatic youth with his strict surgeon father and fragile mother. As an adult, Victor is obsessed with life and death to the point he wants to create life from dead human remains. Branded a heretic, he finds an ally (Christoph Waltz) who finances his experiments which culminate in the creation of a living man/creature (Jacob Elordi), one who Victor attempts to communicate and study. When his brother William visits with his fiancée, Elizabeth (Mia Goth) it complicates matters.  Victor is torn for his feelings for Elizabeth and the disposition of his creature, who is virtually invulnerable. What follows is a harrowing odyssey of survival for the creature and Victor whose paths must cross.

It’s a fascinating take on the classic novel told in bold strokes as flashbacks and divided into chapters. The story unfolds in such a grand style that almost distracts from the narrative. The cast is led by Isaac and especially Elordi who must physically emote the tortured creature, pantomiming as wordless, childlike, then intelligent who slowly develops into a sympathetic character full of pathos.

Everything in this production exudes a gothic style superbly mounted in set design and costumes all gorgeously filmed as expected from the creator of Pan’s Labyrinth.  Comparing favorably with The Bride of Frankenstein and TV’s Frankenstein: The True Story, it’s one of del Toro’s best films and a triumph of cinematic vision.

****1/2 of ***** stars   Netflix

Consumate Comedian

 

Actress Catherine O'Hara has passed at 71. This multifaceted comedian and two time Emmy Award winner started in the legendary Second City Television troupe that included John Candy, Eugene Levy, Martin Short and more. She transitioned ro films seamlessly in such projects as Home Alone, Best in Show (as part of a repertory group in this, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind  etc), Beetlejuice, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. She also did well-received TV series as Schitt's Creek and The Last of Us.  Her range as an actress grew from her comedic mimicry in SCTV to dramatic roles as a consumate performer.

 

NO OTHER CHOICE and Its Lethal Conscience

Director/co-writer Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) has made a fascinating thriller/drama that combines various genres with devastating results in No Other Choice, a convoluted exercise in auteur cinema.

Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is a manager at a paper plant leading an idyllic life with a loving wife and two children. When he is laid off after a corporate merger and must scramble to pay his bills and mortgage, he is faced with the possibility of an uncertain future. Desperate and at his wits’ end, Yoo centers on a possible job opening at another paper plant, but with  other candidates vying for his precious job, he decides to eliminate his competition.  With each targeted executive, the situation gets more precarious and outrageous, and when the police begin questioning and his wife suspects something is wrong, what will he do?

The film asks, “What lengths will a man go to ensure his family’s well-being?”  There are Hitchcockian influences in Chan-wook’s ability to make his audience complicit in a crime with a morbid sense of humor.  The film borders on dark satire with Yoo’s bumbling attempts to commit murder which alternate from suspense to perverse comedy.  And yet the audience follows and even watches with a guilty fascination at his horrible plans, on the one hand hoping he can be successful and still feeling a sense of revulsion before, during and after a murder.  Byung-hun is triumphant in a challenging role, displaying a distressed husband and father who will stop at nothing to protect his family despite his ineptitude.

Shot with stunning imagery, those who are new to Chan-wook will find a master filmmaker spinning a tale about questionable morals that entertains and questions at the same time.  (The film works even in Korean with English subtitles.)

****1/2 of ***** stars

 

The Edge of Sanity in 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE

The apocalyptic series (beginning with 28 Days Later) has another installment, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which takes the franchise in a new direction with a horrifying yet intriguing premise.

Spike (Alfie Williams), from the previous film has been pressed into a gang of young survivors led by the fanatical Jimmy (Jack O’Connell), preying on other survivors of the plague.  Spike is desperate to escape from the murderous thugs when they come upon Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes repeats his fine work) who is working to make contact with an alpha male who is infected with the rage virus.  Is it possible to get through to his subject, dubbed Sampson, and what will happen when the doctor and the gang cross paths?

With minimal zombies this time, the film, well directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman) from a script by long time writer Alex Garland links directly with 28 Years Later and focuses on two subplots, the marauding gang and the doctor’s self-sufficient existence.  The gang members conduct ritualistic, one-on-one battles to the death and show no mercy to their victims.  Spike is our surrogate protagonist caught up in this vicious circle and horrified by the vicious, merciless acts.  Meanwhile the good doctor’s efforts to find a way to communicate with Sampson prove fascinating and offers a glimpse at possibly dealing with the infection.  It offers hope for an uncertain future especially with its revealing, touching ending.  There is also a nice callback that sets the stage for the next film.

Beautifully shot with memorable vignettes and tone of the Mad Max films, this is a better film than its predecessor and looks to steer the series to a more promising story arc.    

 **** of ***** stars (for purists)

 

Chalamet Supreme in MARTY SUPREME

Loosely based on a true story, Timothée Chalamet soars as a ruthless competitor in Marty Supreme, a high strung drama that reaches lofty heights before coming down to earth.

In New York, 1952, Marty Mauser is a frustrated table tennis star in the making who wants to be world champion. Selling women’s shoes and hustling all the time, he struggles to get resources to fly overseas for championship competition. Traversing the globe, he advances from semifinals to finals as he battles top players.  When the next championship is hosted in Japan, Marty is desperate to attend.  Resisting calls to commercialize or ‘sell out’, he begins to understand that the realities of his sport sometimes mean humbling himself and swallowing his pride.  Just as he realizes what is truly important in his life, can he find redemption and prove his worth?

Directed and co-written with gusto and frenetic energy by Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems), the film never slows down in its 2 ½ hour runtime. The sharp screenplay is intelligent and full of memorable moments.  Imaginative, fluid camerawork with handheld shots heighten the immediacy and excitement.  The music score and use of period songs are in perfect synch with the story’s accurate, period setting.

Bold and brash, Marty has big dreams and is portrayed as a loyal, at times reckless person constantly living on the edge. He’s a complicated guy, at times a walking contradiction and not always likable.  There are numerous scenes where he barely gets out of tough jams only to end up in another crisis. 

Supported by an excellent cast led by Gwyneth Paltrow and Odessa A’zion, this is Chalamet’s film all the way, and he gives it his all in a powerhouse role destined for Oscar glory.

****1/2 of ***** stars (a must for Chalamet fans)

 

Art Imitates Life in SENTIMENTAL VALUE

Sensitively told and boasting excellent performances, Sentimental Value is a very personal film about a fractured family coming together as it experiences love and pain from the past. 

In Oslo, an old house serves as the setting for a family specifically the childhood home for two sisters. Nora (Renate Reinsve), a local stage actress, and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), a wife and mother, are reconciling life without their deceased mother, and soon they are visited by their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a famous film director, who has a special script for his next film that he has offered to American star, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning).  With casting taking shape, through a series of flashbacks and remembrances, it becomes apparent that it tells a story that is very personal even autobiographical. As he tries to make his film, he and Nora are inexorably linked by his script which serves as a metaphor and catalyst moving forward.  

The film deals with familial bonds, suicide, reconciliation, end of life, and the choices we make in life.  It also serves as a multigenerational mystery going as far back as World War II that slowly explores pieces of lives torn apart and rearranged. Reinsve is excellent as she embodies a complex character who suffers from stage fright, has an affair, and is still struggling with the past especially her animosity toward her father whose absence has hardened her.  Veteran Skarsgård has his best role in years, while Fanning makes a strong impression in her limited screen time.

A Norwegian film partly in English, this deliberately paced film is always searching for the truth and emotion of the moment.  It’s a tale that transcends language barriers and speaks universally of the relationship between father and daughter.

**** of *****