Just Mercy

If you don't know Michael B. Jordan, you should. He is that young man who plays young Adonis Creed in Creed. I first saw him in Parenthood and thought he was marvelous. Well here he is again, playing real life lawyer, Bryan Stevenson. Bryan Stevenson graduated from Harvard and decided to do something important with his law degree, namely go help some folks sitting on death row.
We have seen variations on this movie before, The Hurricane, Rectify (one of my favourite TV shows of all time), Dead Man Walking, The Green Mile, etc. So why do we need another wrongly accused/jail house story? Because they keep putting innocent people to death, that's why! Jamie Foxx plays Walter McMillian, the man falsely convicted of killing a young white girl. Foxx and Jordan play their parts well, but it's the supporting role of jailhouse snitch, played by actor Tim Blake Nelson, that made this movie truly special. He is great in this role and you can't take your eyes off of him when he's on the screen. At the end of the film, there is a message that for every nine people put to death, one person has been exonerated. That's a staggering statistic. This movie is about racism, injustice, and the spirit to keep fighting a system which at its core is morally bankrupt and in deep need of change. The US needs this film more than ever. Catch it in theatres now or on streaming services shortly.

Cheer

When someone says "cheerleader" most people still think of those girls on the sidelines of football games with pompoms, short skirts, kicking their legs high in the air. Fair enough, that's how this whole business started. However cheerleading has grown into it's own competitive sport. If you combined the best of gymnastics tumbling, Cirque du Soleil stunting, Broadway dance, and dressed all the girls like they were in a JonBenét Ramsey beauty pageant and dressed all the boys like they were figure skaters, you have contemporary cheerleading. My daughter has been doing competitive cheerleading for seven years now. I know this world well; she has been a flyer, a tumbler, a back spot, and a front spot. I'm well aware of the stinky sneaker smell of the gym, the relentless practices, the conditioning, the tumbling, the fake eyelashes, the hairspray, the concussions, the broken toes, the broken fingers, and the sprained ankles. We have done our time at C.H.E.O. She does what is known as club or all star cheer and this year her team is going to Worlds. It's one of the highest ranking competitive cheerleading competitions in, well, the world. The equivalent level for college cheerleading is the NCA & NDA Collegiate National Championship, which happens every year in Daytona Beach, Florida. This is cheerleading at the college level. The best cheerleading college in the US is Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. It is the focus of Netflix's documentary, Cheer. The documentary focuses on Navarro's team leading up to the big competition in Daytona. It's six part series, each about an hour and the lens stays tightly focused on about eight kids and their coach, Monica Aldama. The woman is a machine. This series brought me to tears a few times as some on the kids' stories are heartbreaking. This series is about cheerleading, but what makes it great is the focus it puts on Monica and these group of kids. Catch it on Netflix.

Doctor Sleep

A sequel to the The Shining? Are you kidding me? It came out in 1980. Doctor Sleep was released in 2019. Quick math, that's 39 years later. I will say it again, are you kidding me?
I don't remember when I saw The Shining exactly, but I was a teenager and it scared the shit out of me. Between it and 2001: A Space Odyssey, I became a huge Stanley Kubrick fan. Stephen King apparently was not a fan. I never understood King's beef with Kubrick, because it was the greatest film based on his work until Misery came along and then The Shawshank Redemption. Anyway, if you are a fan of King's work or a fan of Kubrick's, Doctor Sleep might surprise you. It certainly did for me. What's it all about? Remember the little kid in The Shining, Dan Torrance, little Danny? Well he grew up and PTSDed into an alcoholic - his father tried to murder him and his mother with an axe, so it's understandable. Dan (Ewan McGregor) also has the gift of telepathy, although he calls it shining. There are a bunch of others out there like Dan where their powers merge into telekinesis. There is a bad bunch of them who go around like vampires and suck the shine out of others of their kind. They do this so they can live an extra long time. Does it sound ridiculous? Yes it does and it is. But here is the thing, it's really well crafted and it sucked me in. This film looks great and there are little homage bits to Kubrick all over the place, including some of the haunting musical score from the original. There are just so many wonderful visuals in this film. Anyway, back to the story. These vampire shiners, they sense a presence out there of a super powerful shiner, a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran) and they want to eat her, consume her shine. Well Abra and Dan are friends as they have been communicating telepathically through Dan's chalkboard wall. I know, it's ridiculous, but I'm telling you, I got sucked in. Dan won't let them eat Abra and well I don't think I will tell you anymore. Doctor Sleep shines. Catch it on Streaming Services.

Brittany Runs a Marathon

So I think it would be reasonable to put Brittany Runs a Marathon into the category of a Rom-Com. However I'm not really sure that's were it belongs. What's it all about? It's about Brittany (Jillian Bell) who lives in New York and she is 27. She is a bit of a party animal. She is also out of shape, badly. She has always been the chubby girl and she doesn't like herself because of it. Brittany has a lot of body image issues and the film tackles these with a honesty that is refreshing. Amy Schumer did something similar in Trainwreck, but Brittany Runs a Marathon seems a lot less Hollywood. Anyway, after Brittany is told by her doctor that she needs to lose weight, she tries to join a gym but realizes she can't afford it; instead she dons a pair of Converse and takes up the frugal sport of jogging. Brittany and her skinny bitch roommate always make fun of Shannon, a woman who lives in their building who they believe has the perfect life. Turns out Shannon is going through more than a rough patch and invites Brittany to join her running club. A new friendship is forged and the goal of running the New York City marathon soon becomes their final quest. The romance aspect of the film comes from her fellow dog-house sitter; they share the job and end up squatting in this rich couple's apartment. It's all very amusing. This came out last summer and I finally got around to watching it. I'm so glad I did. Catch it on Amazon.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

My relationship with Star Wars, like many people of my Gen-X generation, is a rather profound one. It may have shaped my moral compass. For sure it was one of the first films where I fell in love with all the characters. It was magical. And the toys! I collected all the cards, action fictions, posters, and books. It was schoolyard conversation. Star Wars was a huge chunk of my childhood. Return of the Jedi was released in 1983; I was thirteen years old. Then I grew up.

When The Phantom Menace was released in 1999, I was twenty nine. I had watched Pulp Fiction, Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, Seven, Jurassic Park, and Good Will Hunting. I was an adult (well my wife might disagree) watching adult movies. Star Wars was happy memory for me. So when I watched The Phantom Menace, not only was it boring, but it was designed for children. It wasn't how I wanted it or I remembered it. The fun seemed to be sucked out of it. And let me tell you, I wanted to love it. I wanted to love it so much and I didn't. I waited like everyone else for the next two films; saw them on opening day. They weren't much better. Fast forward to 2015 and I'm now forty five years old with two kids who I inflicted my love of the original films on. The Force Awakens was the film I had been waiting for since I was thirteen. I thought it was really good. Not great, but good. There was hope. Then The Last Jedi came out. It crushed my love of Star Wars all over again. I hated it. I was done with Star Wars for good. Thought about selling all my toys and moving on with my life.

I read the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for The Rise of Skywalker and they were pretty awful. Many people told me, oh, if you didn't like the last one, you won't like this one. I put off going. I had always gone on opening day. I waited weeks before going to see it. I guess I was dreading putting the final nail into my Star Wars coffin. I took my son, who is now thirteen (the same age I was when I watched Return of the Jedi). We were two of four people in the theatre. The words came across the the screen, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. . . " It pulled at my heart strings. I waited to be crushed. 

I'm very, very happy to report, The Rise of Skywalker is my favourite Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi. It has everything you want. It has the childhood fun I remember. It's nostalgic, it's fresh, it has magic. And it's got a new droid, Cone Head, or as I call him, Squeaky Wheel. This is the Star Wars film I've been waiting for, for thirty six years. My son loved it too. Go see it in theatres now. 

Unbelievable

This is a Netflix miniseries. It stars Kaitlyn Dever, Merritt Wever, and Toni Collette. It's based on a true story of a serial rapist and a young girl, Marie (Kaitlyn Dever), who has been through the American foster care system and has been badly let down. We begin with Marie's rape and her eventual recanting of her ordeal to the police. In parallel, we have Detective Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever) and Detective Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette) who are on the lookout for a rapist at large. Soon enough these two women release they are looking for the same man and begin working the case together. This is riveting stuff. It reminded me of Mindhunter, another Netflix show I love. The main differences being, this is an investigation driven by women, about the abuse of women, within the context of a male centric police world; this alone makes it fascinating to watch. But what might be the most compelling thing about Unbelievable is Kaitlyn Dever's performance as Marie, her PTSD post rape and they way she conveys her repressed and highly complex emotional state. When the police question her and she recants her story, it's a remarkable piece of acting. Even the cop pressing her (Eric Lange) does a fabulous job.
This is not easy material to wade through but it's important and incredibly well told. Catch it on Netflix.  

Uncut Gems

My favourite film of 2017 was Good Time. Uncut Gems is the second feature film by the same dynamic duo, the Safdie brothers. Uncut Gems stars Adam Sandler. Hold on, don't stop reading. I like Adam Sandler, I by no means love Adam Sandler. He has made lots of bad films (Jack and Jill, Murder Mystery), a few funny ones (The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates), and some good ones (The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Funny People, and Spanglish) but Sandler has never been in a great film; until now. Uncut Gems ranks as Sandler's best work. I loved this movie. What's it about? Sandler plays a jeweler who is looking for the big payoff. He is up to ears in debt, has a gambling problem, a mistress on the side, and his life is falling apart. He has a chance to turn it all around with one magical rock full of uncut gems. He has to get it sold before the mobsters close in and beat the living shit out of him. It's riveting.  
Let me take a moment and talk about John Cassavetes. If you only watch two Cassavetes films, make sure to watch A Woman Under the Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Cassavetes was an independent film maker and his influence can be felt in so many films. Watch the scene in A Woman Under the Influence where Peter Falk brings his work crew home and they sit around the dinner room eating spaghetti and then watch the scene in Ridley Scott's Alien where the crew are all sitting around eating after they have come out of hypersleep - Scott is a fan of Cassavetes. Or watch the chase scene at the end of Blade Runner and then compare it to the The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
So why have I digressed into this Cassavetes rambling, you might ask? Because Uncut Gems is almost the modern version of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. There is so much I loved about Uncut Gems, the retro 70s and 80s zeitgeist of independent film, the music, the lighting, the overlapping dialogue - it's like it was made in a different time. And yet it's completely contemporary; it even has a cameo by the Canadian group, The Weekend.
It's playing this week in Ottawa at the Mayfair. Go watch it.