Tag: SXSW

Review: ‘Fly’ (2024), starring Jimmy Pouchert, Marta Empinotti, Scotty Bob Morgan, Julia Botelho Morgan, Espen Fadnes and Amber Forte

September 3, 2024

by Carla Hay

Espen Fadnes and Julia Botelho in “Fly” (Photo courtesy of Reel Peak Films/National Geographic Documentary Films)

“Fly” (2024)

Directed by Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau

Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Europe, from 2019 to 2022, the documentary film “Fly” features a group of predominantly white people (and a few people of Asian/Pacific Islander heritage) who are connected in some way to the sport of BASE jumping, which is jumping off of very high, stationary places with usually only a parachute and/or wing suit for support equipment.

Culture Clash: Professional BASE jumpers experience personal rewards and refuse to have conventional lives, but the risk is very high that they will die or get seriously injured while BASE jumping.

Culture Audience: “Fly” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching documentaries about people whose lives revolve around extreme sports.

Scotty Bob Morgan and Espen Fadnes in “Fly” (Photo courtesy of Reel Peak Films/National Geographic Documentary Films)

With breathtaking cinematography and even more poignant human stories, “Fly” is an unforgettable documentary about the dangerous sport of BASE jumping. The documentary shows in unflinching ways how the sport can be as fulfilling as it is addicting. BASE is an acronym for the four possible types of stationary jumping-off points in BASE jumping: buildings, antennas, spans and earth. In “Fly,” the BASE jumpers are all seen jumping off from earth areas, usually cliffs.

“Fly” should be seen on the biggest screen possible. However, viewers who get vertigo from watching things filmed from extreme heights should be warned that “Fly” might induce dizziness and nausea in several scenes that show human flight at vertiginous heights and breakneck speeds. (The sound design for “Fly” is excellent in giving viewers a sense of the high-velocity speed involved in BASE jumping.) Beyond these scenes that will thrill many viewers and will make others feel a little sick, “Fly” has moments that are truly tearjerking because of what happens to some of the people featured in the movie.

Directed by Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau (who are also “Fly’s” main cinematographers), “Fly” was filmed from 2019 to 2022, in various parts of the United States and Europe, such as Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Switzerland, France, and Norway. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival before screening at 2024 edition Hot Docs and the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. Six BASE jumping people (three couples) are the focus of “Fly,” which explores the physical aspects of BASE jumping, along with the emotional toll that the sport takes on the lives of participants who devote most of their time to BASE jumping.

“Fly” might get some comparisons to “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” a 2024 documentary about a Russian couple engaging in rooftopping: a dangerous and usually illegal sport of climbing extremely high structures without ropes, nets or other safety measures. Unlike rooftopping, which almost always involves trespassing, BASE jumping is considered a legitimate sport, but not any less dangerous than rooftopping. Professional BASE jumpers can compete in international competitions and often get sponsors.

In “Fly,” the six BASE jumping people (three couples) who get the spotlight are:

  • Jimmy Pouchert and Marta Empinotti, a married couple who co-founded Apex BASE, a California-based company that sells BASE jumping equipment and gear, teaches BASE jumping classes, and hosts BASE jumping events. Pouchert and Empinotti—who were a childless couple in their 50s and living in Moab, Utah, when this documentary was filmed—started BASE jumping in their late teens or 20s. Pouchert (an American) is jovial and has a daredevil personality. Empinotti (originally from Brazil) is more pragmatic and cautious than Pouchert. They co-founded an annual get-together in Las Vegas for BASE jumpers (many of them current and former Apex BASE trainees) to let loose and party.
  • Scotty Bob Morgan and Julia Botelho Morgan (both in their 30s)—the biggest risk-taking couple in the documentary—were dating and got married during the course of making this documentary. Morgan (an American) is a former U.S. Marine who served in the Iraq War and overcame a troubled past to devote himself to professional BASE jumping. Botelho Morgan (originally from Brazil) was an attorney who quit the law profession to become a skydiver in the Brazilian Army and then became a professional BASE jumper. The spouses operate a California-based training course called Bob’s BASE Academy, although Apex BASE is the main focus of the BASE jumping training that is shown in “Fly.”
  • Espen Fadnes (in his 40s) and Amber Forte (in her 30s) are a married couple living in Norway, which is Fadnes’ native country. Forte is originally from the United Kingdom. Fadnes, who is considered a pioneer in wingsuit BASE jumping, is a former World Cup champ for the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI)/World Air Sports Federation. He has been featured in the Netflix documentary “Wingmen.” Just like the other couples featured in this documentary, this European BASE jumping couple say that they are lucky to have found each other because it’s rare to find a romantic partner who shares the same passion for BASE jumping. Fadnes is very open about how nothing is more important to him than BASE jumping, and he won’t stop BASE jumping, even if people close to him die from it. Forte says she’s less of a risk-taker than Fadnes and she gets more thrills from feeling like flying than feeling like she’s risking her life.

“Fly” begins wth a captioned quote from Leonardo da Vinci: “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.” It certainly describes how die-hard BASE jumpers feel about this sport that they say they can’t live without. Unlike many other sports where professional athletes are expected to retire by the time they’re in their 50s, the “Fly” BASE jumpers say that there really is no age limit for adults to continue BASE jumping.

Fadnes comments on what people get out of BASE jumping: “We feel enormous joy … We are dreamers. There is value in that.” Fadnes also express deep admiration for Morgan, whom Fadnes considers to be one of the best BASE jumpers in the world. Pouchert adds, “A lot of people have said that base jumping has saved their life. It’s a form of absolute bliss.”

On the flip side, Morgan and Fadnes are among the BASE jumpers who say more than once in the documentary that being a professional BASE jumper requires a lot of selfishness. Because of the sport’s high-risk demands, most professional BASE jumpers are obsessed with the sport and make BASE jumping more important than most relationships in their lives. Professional BASE jumpers also have to brush aside concerns from loved ones who are worried that the BASE jumpers will die from this sport.

Morgan says in a separate interview about why he became hooked on BASE jumping: “It was love at first jump.” Morgan adds that he BASE jumps every week. “It’s been good for me,” he states. “It’s therapeutic.” Morgan explains that BASE jumping has helped him with his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and got him through some rough patches in his life, such as when he had drug abuse issues and “ran into some legal trouble.”

Pouchert jokes, “I could be the only person in the world who was taught to jump by his wife.” Remarkably, Empinotti says she has never had a serious injury while BASE jumping. She later opens up about how she dealt with the trauma of a having a boyfriend who died from BASE jumping when she was in her late teens. She also confesses that Pouchert’s tendency to be a jokester in serious situations used to bother her but she grew to accept that was part of his personality.

In addition to putting their lives in danger, the BASE jumpers featured in “Fly” are candid in showing how people who make a commitment to this unconventional lifestyle usually have to lead nomadic existences without a steady income. Professional BASE jumpers often choose not to have children. They also have to accept the reality that many of their friends and/or family members who are BASE jumpers could most likely die from BASE jumping.

Issues of life and death are never far from the focus of the documentary. By the end of the documentary, one of the younger couples in this documentary will bring new life into world when they become parents. (The woman in the couple even BASE jumps when she’s at least six months pregnant.) Someone in another couple experiences near-fatal injuries while BASE jumping. And another couple has the worst possible outcome to the couple’s love story.

It’s impossible not to notice that most people involved in BASE jumping are of a certain demographic. The documentary doesn’t really offer an explanation for why BASE jumping is not a racially diverse or socioeconomically diverse sport, although the clues are there. It’s similar to why race car driving, tennis, golf and skiing are not racially diverse or socioeconomically diverse sports: Getting lessons and traveling in these sports have financial expenses that many people cannot afford. Participants who are not affluent have to make a lot of financial sacrifices to stay in the sport.

Most “daredevil” sports also tend to be dominated by men. “Fly” makes it clear that the women who co-star in the documentary were skilled BASE jumpers long before they met their male romantic partners. Forte explains her perspective of being a female in a sport where the majority of participants are male: “I never wanted to be a boy. I just wanted to be able to do what the boys could do.”

If there’s any shortcoming in “Fly,” it’s that the documentary could have had a little more variety by giving more screen time to professional BASE jumpers who aren’t in a committed relationship with a romantic partner. There’s a glimpse of how lonely this life can be, early in the documentary when Morgan says that he’s essentially homeless and sleeping on friends’ couches because he doesn’t see the point of paying rent for a place where he won’t be living for most of the year. Later, after Morgan and Botelho Morgan are married, he says that being married has changed his mind about putting down roots somewhere.

Morgan’s mother Julie Maxwell Morgan says she often gets asked if she’s worried about her son dying while BASE jumping. She says yes, but his happiness is more important to her. “I don’t think Scotty can be happy unless he can fly,” Maxwell Morgan comments. She also says she feels slightly envious that he’s found a passion for something in his life and has accomplished a lot with this passion, which is something that she was never able to do in her own life.

Also featured in the documentary are two scruffy BASE jumpers who are close friends of Pouchert and Marta Empinotti: Jason “Jay Mo” Moledzki is a native Canadian who is a co-founder and creative director of Flight-1, a Florida-based company that teaches canopy flight skills. Ben “Dicko” Dixon is a long-haired Australian native/Utah resident who looks like he could also be a bohemian surfer. Other BASE jumpers in the documentary are shown in fleeting moments, with nothing about their personal lives revealed. The movie has good use of its soundtrack songs, which includes Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” and Avicii’s “The Lights.”

“Fly” is the type of documentary that is as effective as it is because it was filmed over several years. There are moments of exhilaration and moments of agony that will stay with viewers after the movie is over. Regardless of how viewers feel about BASE jumping, “Fly” serves as an example of what it means to take bold and non-traditional risks. These risks in BASE jumping aren’t for everyone, but the risks are ultimately about living life to the fullest and being fortunate to have the privileged freedom to do so.

National Geographic Documentary Films released “Fly” in select U.S. IMAX cinemas for a limited engagement on September 2 and September 3, 2024. The movie will premiere on the National Geographic Channel on September 24, 2024.

Review: ‘Oddity’ (2024), starring Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy, Caroline Menton, Jonathan French and Steve Wall

August 23, 2024

by Carla Hay

Caroline Menton, Ivan de Wergifosse and Carolyn Bracken in “Oddity” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Oddity” (2024)

Directed by Damian McCarthy

Culture Representation: Taking place in and around Cork, Ireland, the horror film “Oddity” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A psychic medium, who believes she can communicate with dead people, temporarily moves in with her sister’s widower to find out more information about the unsolved murder of her sister.  

Culture Audience: “Oddity” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of supernatural horror movies that are also murder mysteries.

Gwilym Lee in “Oddity” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

The horror film “Oddity” is better at delivering a creepy and foreboding atmosphere than a story that results in genuine surprises. It’s a competently made film about a psychic medium who wants to solve the murder of sister. The movie isn’t overpopulated with characters, but the characters could have been written better because they often come across as underdeveloped stereotypes.

Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, “Oddity” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie takes place in Ireland in and around the city of Cork. “Oddity” (which was filmed in Ireland) has a very uncomplicated plot but it has a somewhat slow start to get to the heart of the mystery.

The beginning of “Oddity” shows a facility were many of the residents have been diagnosed as criminally insane. Dr. Ted Timmins (played by Gwilym Lee) is a psychiatrist at this facility. He is often aided by a orderly named Ivan (played by Steve Wall), who has a gruff and stern personality.

Ted and his wife Dani Timmins (played by Carolyn Bracken) live in a remote rural house that they’ve been renovating. Dani tells Ted that she’s worried about her blind twin sister Darcy Odello (also played by Bracken), who’s supposed to have regular medical checkups. Ted tells Dan that Darcy is capable of taking care of herself.

One day, Dani is home alone when she gets an unexpected visit from a recently released resident of the facility named Olin Boole (played by Tadhg Murphy), who is wild-eyed and disheveled. Olin has been living in a halfway house since his release from the psychiatric facility. At first, Dani doesn’t open the door for Olin but talks to him through a sliding window peephole.

Olin is distressed. He tells Dani, “You’re in trouble.” Olin says that he saw someone go inside the house when Dani’s back was turned. Olin begs Dani to call for help because he doesn’t have a phone. Dani says, “If I open the door, what are you going to do?” Olin replies, “I’ll look around.” Dani then asks, “And if you don’t see anyone?” Declain responds, “I’ll leave.”

Just as Dani starts to open the door, the scene abruptly shifts to showing Olin’s housemate Declan Barrett (played by Jonathan French, also known as Johnny French) at the halfway house. Declan is an artist who likes to draw. He’s in the middle of drawing something when he looks startled.

Declan is hearing strange noises, such as animal-like screeches and heavy grunting. Declan goes in another room and is horrified to see a man’s body with a mutilated head. It’s soon revealed that the dead person is Olin.

What happened in between Dani opening the door for Olin, and then Olin being found murdered? That question is mostly answered by the end of the movie. The timeline jumping in “Oddity” will be confusing to some viewers.

“Oddity” then makes another abrupt shift in the timeline. It’s one year later. That’s when it’s revealed in the movie that Dani is also dead. She was murdered a year ago on the same day that she opened the door to her home to Olin, who is the last known person to have seen her alive. Dani’s murder is never seen or described in graphic detail.

One year after Dani’s murder, Ted is now living at the house with his girlfriend Yana (played by Caroline Menton), whose occupation is never mentioned in the movie. Yana has a generically nice personality. Olin had been the prime suspect in Dani’s murder. However, Olin was never arrested for the murder because he was also killed shortly after Dani was murdered. Both murders have remained unsolved.

A year after the murder, Ted and Yana get a visit from Darcy, who says she wants to use her psychic abilities to find out what Olin was thinking on the day that he was believed to have murdered Dani. “He took my sister’s life,” Darcy says. “I want to know what was going through his mind when he was dying.” Darcy is a little surprised by how quickly widower Ted has moved on to a serious relationship with another woman, but Darcy tries not to be judgmental.

Darcy owns a shop in Cork named Odello’s Oddities, which has a collection of “cursed” items, according to Darcy. Something that Darcy brings with her is a small silver tap bell, which she says is one of the cursed items from her shop. She shows Ted the bell and tells him this story: The bell used to be at a hotel, where an unpleasant bellhop was killed after being shoved down the stairs by a drunk guest. When a hotel receptionist used the bell to summon the new bellhop, the ghost of the dead bellhop appeared instead.

Ted tells Darcy he feels incredibly guilty for allowing Olin be released from the facility: “He should never have been discharged.” Darcy comforts Ted by telling Ted that it wasn’t his fault and that he couldn’t have known that Olin was going to kill Dani. To help Darcy with her psychic medium probe, Ted gives Darcy a handkerchief and tells her what’s in the handkerchief is all that’s left of Olin. Inside the handkerchief is the glass eye that Olin used to wear.

And what about Declan, the person who discovered Olin’s body? Declan died about a week before Darcy arrived. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is all going, which is why when the answer to the mystery is finally revealed, it’s not surprising at all.

Darcy is invited to stay with Ted and Yana during Darcy’s visit. Darcy has a trunk delivered to the house. And inside the trunk is an ominous, life-sized mannequin, which has the name Wooden Man (played by Ivan de Wergifosse) in the film’s end credits. Wooden Man is Darcy’s constant “companion” who sits at the same table when Darcy has her psychic sessions.

Soon after Darcy arrives, strange things start happening. Yana sees the ghost of Dani in a photo that Yana took a few days before. “Oddity” is very much a “things that go bump in the night” type of movie for many of its jump scares. The sound design for “Oddity” is excellent, even though a great deal of the film somewhat wanders, with mot much plot development beyond showing that the house now seems to be haunted. Is it the ghost of Dani, Olin, or something else?

“Oddity” can maintain viewer interest because of the murder mystery and some of the jump scares. The cast members’ acting is solid, with Bracken giving the obvious standout performance as the eccentric Darcy. Still, there’s so information about the characters in “Oddity” that is left unexplained. As a horror film, “Oddity” has an interesting concept that excels with the movie’s sound and visuals. However, “Oddity” comes up a bit short in developing the movie’s characters and could have made this murder mystery a lot harder to solve.

IFC Films released “Oddity” in U.S. cinemas on July 19, 2024. Shudder will premiere the movie on September 27, 2024.

Review: ‘Cuckoo’ (2024), starring Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick

August 5, 2024

by Carla Hay

Hunter Schafer in “Cuckoo” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Cuckoo” (2024)

Directed by Tilman Singer

Some language in German and French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, the sci-fi/horror film “Cuckoo” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with few Asian people and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A 17-year-old girl has nightmarish experiences and finds out that something sinister is going on at the vacation resort where her family is visiting. 

Culture Audience: “Cuckoo” will appeal primarily to the fans of the movie’s headlines and will appeal people who don’t mind watching horror movies that are better at having terrifying moments than having mostly appealing characters.

Dan Stevens in “Cuckoo” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

The erratic horror film “Cuckoo” isn’t as clever as it thinks it is, but Hunter Schafer’s lead performance and some genuinely unique terror scenes elevate the story when it starts to become conventional and repetitive. The movie’s ending will be divisive to many viewers.

Written and directed by Tilman Singer, “Cuckoo” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie uses a lot of formulaic stereotypes of horror film about family “stuck” in a remote area where something sinister is happening. However, “Cuckoo” has some imaginative scenes and scenarios that give “Cuckoo” enough to hold most viewers’ interest.

In “Cuckoo,” 17-year-old American girl Gretchen Vanderkurt (played by Hunter Schafer) has reluctantly traveled to the Bavarian Alps in Germany with her British-born father Luis (played by Márton Csókás); her American stepmother Beth (played by Jessica Henwick); and Gretchen’s 7-year-old mute half-sister Alma (played by Mila Lieu), who is the biological daughter of Luis and Beth. Gretchen’s biological mother is deceased. The family has been invited to a remote “nature preserve” resort by Luis’ mysterious and smirking boss Herr König (played by Dan Stevens), who is clearly up to no good from the moment that Herr König is seen on screen.

Luis and Beth want to build their own resort and are staying at Herr König’s resort for ideas and inspiration. Moody and pouty Gretchen is bored, so Herr König offers her a part-time job working as a front-desk receptionist at the resort. A friendly staffer named Beatrix, also known as Trixie (played by Greta Fernández), trains Gretchen in this new job. Beatrix has a lover named Erik (played by Konrad Singer), who’s a police officer.

It doesn’t take long for Gretchen to notice that the resort’s front-desk employees seem to disappear at around 10 p.m., with no explanation. She also notices that women show up in the resort lobby and vomit. And when a woman vomits in a movie, and she’s not drunk or intoxicated, there’s usually another predictable reason why.

Meanwhile, Gretchen starts having nightmarish visions when she’s asleep and when she’s awake. She has terrifying experiences of being stalked by a hooded woman (played by Kaylin Morrow), but no one seems to believe Gretchen. And so, the movie indulges in another horror cliché: the female who experiences terror but she is not believed by most people around her, and she’s deemed mentally ill.

Someone who believes Gretchen is Henry Landau (played by Jan Bluthardt), who tells Gretchen that he needs her help in finding the hooded woman, whom he says is wanted for murder. Early on in the movie, a resort neighbor named Dr. Bonomo (played by Proschat Madani) introduced herself to Gretchen. It should come as no surprise that Henry and Dr. Bonomo have secrets

There’s a not-very-interesting subplot about Gretchen getting romantically involved with a resort guest named Ed (played by Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey), who is in her 30s and has a sarcastic and rebellious personality. Some viewers of “Cuckoo” will think the age gap between Ed and Gretchen (who will soon turn 18) is very inappropriate. It should be noted that in many European countries, including Germany, the minimum age of sexual consent is 14. Although the age gap between Ed and Gretchen might be inappropriate to some viewers, it’s legal in this part of the world.

“Cuckoo” has very effective sound design and recurring close-ups of pulsating necks as a creepy visual motif. Gretchen also frequently listens to music, which makes a room vibrate in eerie ways that could be supernatural or part of Gretchen’s imagination. Grief is a big theme in “Cuckoo,” as Gretchen is very much in mourning over the death of her mother. There are multiple scenes where Gretchen is shown leaving messages on her dead mother’s voice mail.

Schafer holds many scenes together with her authentic-looking performance. Stevens’ performance gets increasingly campy, which might irritate viewers into really disliking the movie. “Cuckoo” is not a great horror movie, but it might be considered good enough for people who want some freaky jump scares and a mystery that’s fairly easy to solve.

Neon will release “Cuckoo” in U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024.

Review: ‘Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande,’ starring Cymande

July 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

A 1970s archival photo of Cymande in “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande.” Pictured from left to right: Pablo Gonsales, Patrick Patterson, Mike “Bammi” Rose (half-kneeling, in front), Derrick Gibbs, Steve Scipio and Sam Kelly. (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande”

Directed by Tim MacKenzie-Smith

Culture Representation: The documentary “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” features a predominantly black group of people (with a few white people) discussing the career of the British R&B/funk band Cymande, which is best known for the band’s music that was released from 1972 to 1974.

Culture Clash: Cymande received critical acclaim for their music in the 1970s but was prevented from achieving major star status because the band was mostly ignored by radio stations and other media. 

Culture Audience: “Cymande” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries about underrated musicians.

A 1970s archival photo of Cymande in “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande.” Pictured from left to right: Patrick Patterson, Michael “Bammi” Rose, Steve Scipio, Sam Kelly, Derrick Gibbs and Pablo Gonsales. (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” takes viewers on a ride of highs, lows and everything in between when telling the story of the R&B/funk band Cymande, which is pronounced “sih-mahn-day.” If you want to know why the 1970s British band Cymande didn’t become as well-known as American counterparts such as Parliament-Funkadelic, this illuminating documentary tells a fascinating, heart-wrenching and informative story. The movie gives viewers who are unfamiliar with Cymande an exploration of the band’s music from different perspectives, including how Cymande’s music influenced later generations. The documentary has previously unreleased archival material, exclusive interviews filmed for the movie, and performance footage of Cymande’s reunited lineup.

Directed by Tim MacKenzie-Smith, “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film & TV Festival, followed by a U.K. premiere at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival. One of the reasons why many music fans have never heard of Cymande is because the band’s first incarnation lasted for only three years—from 1971 to 1974—which was the period of time when the Cymande made its most influential music. The band’s name comes from a calypso word for “dove.”

Cymande received critical acclaim for the band’s music but struggled to have a major breakthrough. Cymande disbanded in 1974, because the band members were broke and needed to get day jobs to financially survive and support their families. The band briefly reunited in 2006, before calling it quits again. Cymande reunited again in 2012 and was still together when this documentary was released.

In the 1970s, Cymande had a changing lineup, but there were six core members who remained consistent to the group: lead singer/guitarist Patrick Patterson, saxophonist/flautist Michael “Bammi” Rose, bassist Steve Scipio, drummer Sam Kelly, saxophonist Derrick Gibbs and percussionist Pablo Gonsales. All six of these members are interviewed in the documentary, which began filming in 2017. Gonsales died in 2020, at the age of 77. An epilogue title card mentions his death and says the documentary is dedicated to him. In the documentary, Gonsales is the band’s extroverted jokester, who also talks a lot of being in tune with nature.

Told in mostly chronological order, “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” gives cultural context to the band’s origins in South London, by discussing how all of the band’s core members came from families who immigrated from the Caribbean. Patterson (the unofficial leader of Cymande) comments on why their parents immigrated to England: “England was not simply the mother country; it was the place to go to maximize our potential.”

But what happens when that potential is blocked by racism? Patterson describes how his father was a trained baker in Jamaica, but in England, he was rejected for bakery jobs by racist employers who didn’t want black employees in baker positions. Unfortunately for Cymande, racism and xenophobia played a damaging role in preventing the band from getting the same type of exposure on radio stations and television that other music artists selling out the same sizes of venues usually got.

According to several the members of Cymande, the British media’s prejudice against Cymande was based on the band’s race and (ironically) the band’s nationality. Cymande couldn’t get radio airplay or bookings on British TV shows that showed preferential treatment to white artists. The few R&B bands that played their own instruments that did get those slots were almost always American. To this day, it’s still very difficult for a British R&B/funk band to achieve worldwide success.

Cymande was discovered by British music producer John Schroeder, who died in 2017, at the age of 82. Cymande signed to Schroeder’s record company Alaska Records in the United Kingdom, and Janus Records in the United States. Cymande released three albums in the 1970s: 1972’s “Cymande,” 1973’s “Second Time Round” and 1974’s “Promised Heights,” all produced by Schroeder.

The song “The Message,” from the band’s first album, was a minor hit, but could not get further momentum because it wasn’t getting a lot of radio airplay. This was during an era when radio airplay was essential for artists to have mainstream hits, and the Internet did not exist for artists to market themselves. Years later, when Cymande’s music became popular for sampling on other artists’ music, “The Message” was rediscovered when it was featured in Masta Ace’s 1990 hit “Me and the Biz.”

Even though the media in the United Kingdom mostly ignored Cymande, the band seemed to be on the verge of a major breakthrough in the United States when Cymande was selected to be the opening act for Al Green’s 1972 U.S. tour, which played at arenas. It was the first time that Cymande had ever toured in America. And performing in front of thousands of people a night was a heady experience.

In the documentary, several of the band members look back on this tour with great fondness and say they appreciate how fans in America were so welcoming to Cymande. But those are bittersweet memories, because after the tour with Green ended, Cymande went back to the United Kingdom, where they were still treated like “nobodies” by the media and the music industry.

After two more albums and still no breakthrough, Cymande called it quits in 1974. (Cymande’s 1981 studio album “Arrival” was a collection of throwaway tracks that were recorded in 1974.) By 1974, most of the band members had become husbands and fathers and needed more stable incomes than being musicians in debt.

Patterson, who became a lawyer, says that going from the cusp of music stardom to working in “normal” jobs was not necessarily an easy transition for the former Cymande members, but it had to be done. He explains, “We didn’t go off the road to go on the dole [British slang for government welfare]. We just found a different way of contributing to our community.”

Not all of the members of Cymande completely quit being professional musicians in the 1980s to 2000s. In the 1980s, saxophonist Rose was a backup musician for the reggae band Aswad and later for Paul Simon’s “Graceland” tour. He then formed a band called Jazz Warrior. And since 1999, Rose has been part of the studio band for the BBC music show “Later… with Jools Holland.”

The second half of the “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” focuses mostly on how Cymande music influenced various music artists who had their big breakthrough hits in the 1990s or 2000s. Cymande became one of those obscure bands that most people never heard of but was discovered and appreciated by true music aficionados. Those who are interviewed in the documentary include music producer Mark Ronson, Masta Ace, DJ/producer Louie Vega, Prince Paul, DJ/producer Cut Chemist, Ozomatli bassist Wil-Dog Abers; Jazzie B (of Soul II Soul fame) and former De La Soul member DJ Maseo.

Expect to hear a lot of gushing fan commentary from artists who admire Cymande’s music. Norman Jay, a nightclub/radio DJ, has this to say about Cymande: “They’re the first band that had come along that tapped all of my cultural buttons. Their music isn’t frivolous. It’s not throwaway. It’s thought-about, provokes reaction. It’s challenging. It confronts you and makes you dance.”

My Morning Jacket lead singer Jim James is seen in the beginning of the documentary giving his personal Cymande testimonial about how he discovered the band. James says that he loved the Fugees’ 1996 album “The Score,” especially the title track. Sometime in 2006, James says he found out that “The Score” song sampled Cymande’s song “Dove.”

After hearing “Dove,” James remembers: “I was forever changed. That song, to me, is so profoundly important, it almost eclipses everything. It’s like a magic spell.” Ronson adds his thoughts on “Dove” in a separate interview: “It really feels otherworldly, like it came down on a spaceship or something.”

In the documentary, Kool DJ Red Alert and DJ Hollywood say in separate interviews that the Cymande song “Bra” was very influential to them. Also giving Cymande praise in the documentary are DJ/club promoter Nicky Siano; skateboarder/musician Tommy Guerrero; DJ/producer Peanut Butter Wolf; radio DJ Deb Grant; Collen “Cosmo” Murphy, curator of Classic Album Sundays; rapper Loyle Carner; Khruangbin members Mark Speer, Laura Lee and Donald “DJ” Johnson Jr.; Ruthless Rap Assassins members Anderson Hinds, Carson Hinds and Kermit Leveridge; and Ruthless Rap Assassins producer Greg Wilson.

Perhaps the most inspirational part of the documentary is seeing that even though Cymande didn’t get the mainstream success that the band had hoped for in the 1970s, it didn’t kill the band members’ desire to still make and perform music at ages when most people have retired. Cymande released the reunion album “A Simple Act of Faith” in 2015, and has been performing concerts on a regular basis since the reunion. The documentary includes footage of Cymande performing at music festivals in 2019, including WOMAD.

“Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” is partly a tribute to the band and partly an interesting music history lesson, especially for people who have never heard of Cymande, a band that is underrated but not forgotten. It’s a story of a band that reunited after decades of the band members being apart—but this time around, the band doesn’t feel the pressure to have big hits on the charts and is playing music for the pure joy of it. And that might be the biggest lesson of all that this documentary has to offer: Music is an art form that doesn’t have to be segregated by age, race or nationality and can change people lives in impactful ways.

Abramorama released “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” in New York City on July 26, 2024, will release the movie in the Los Angeles area on August 7, 2024.

Review: ‘MoviePass, MovieCrash,’ starring Stacy Spikes, Hamet Watt, Mitch Lowe, Chris Kelly, Nathan McAlone, Jason Guerrasio and Daniel Kaufman

June 2, 2024

by Carla Hay

Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt in “MoviePass, MovieCrash” (Photo courtesy of Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images/HBO)

“MoviePass, Movie Crash”

Directed by Muta’Ali

Culture Representation: The documentary film “MoviePass, MovieCrash” features a predominantly white group of people (with some black people) discussing the rise, the fall and the attempted comeback of MoviePass, a subscription service for movie tickets.

Culture Clash: MoviePass struggled for years to become a popular company, until a controversial management team took over and made radical business decisions that rapidly increased subscribers, but the company crashed and burned due to overspending and extreme financial losses.

Culture Audience: “MoviePass, MovieCrash” will appeal primarily to people who are moviegoers, entrepreneurs or business investors and are interested in watching documentaries about how greed and arrogance can ruin businesses.

Stacy Spikes and Ted Farnsworth in “MoviePass, MovieCrash” (Photo courtesy of MoviePass/HBO)

The documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash” (directed by Muta’Ali, also known as Muta’Ali Muhammad) offers some interesting behind-the-scenes perspectives of the rise, fall and attempted comeback of MoviePass, the first popular subscription service for movie tickets in the United States. The film editing brings some comedic touches to a harsh business story. Because so much of what happened to MoviePass has been widely reported elsewhere, not much is surprising in this documentary, and there are glaring omissions.

For example, “MoviePass, MovieCrash” does not mention AMC Theatres’ subscription service AMC Stubs A-List, which launched in June 2018 as an extension of the already existing AMC Stubs rewards program. AMC Stubs A-List was one of the biggest factors in the downfall of MoviePass in 2018. And although “MoviePass, MovieCrash” gives some commentary on the apparent racism behind white executives sidelining and eventually ousting MoviePass co-founders Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt (who are both African American), there’s no mention of the obvious sexism at MoviePass. At the peak of MoviePass’ popularity, all of the company’s top executives and board of directors consisted of men. “MoviePass, MovieCrash” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival.

“MoviePass, MovieCrash” tells the company’s story in mostly chronological order, featuring interviews with Spikes and many of the company’s former employees, investors and subscribers. Headquartered in New York City, MoviePass was founded in 2011 and didn’t become a profitable company until 2023. Before co-founding MoviePass, Spikes (who was born and raised in Houston) had experiences in the 1990s as a marketing executive at Miramax and as a product manager at Motown Records. In 1997, Spikes founded the Urbanworld Film Festival as a showcase for filmmakers of color. Watt’s previous experience was as an entrepreneur of various small businesses.

According to what Spikes says in the documentary, MoviePass was originally conceived as a subscription service version of the Urbanworld Film Festival. The idea for MoviePass morphed from not just being limited to one film festival but to being a nationwide service for movie ticketing at corporate-owned and independently owned movie theaters. These movie theaters would get a cut of the revenue from tickets purchased through MoviePass.

The MoviePass business model was that subscribers would pay a monthly fee to watch a certain number of movies per month at a wide selection of movie theaters. One of the original MoviePass subscription plans was $39.95 for 30 movies a month, with a limit of one movie per day. Tickets could be booked on a MoviePass app, and a MoviePass card that operated like a debit card would redeem the tickets at participating movie theaters.

However, it was difficult for this business model to be profitable, as long as numerous subscribers were frequent moviegoers and paying only a fraction of what they would pay for tickets without this MoviePass subscription. In other words, MoviePass was losing money from all the ticket discounts that MoviePass subscribers were getting from these subscriptions. MoviePass did not have any other source of sales revenue to offset these financial losses, and the company had to rely on investors to keep MoviePass in business.

From 2011 to 2016, Spikes was the CEO of MoviePass, while Watt was the board chairman who mostly dealt with finding investors. The company’s biggest problem during this time period was that the subscriber base stalled somewhere around 20,000 subscribers. Another big setback was that MoviePass temporarily lost a business deal with Movietickets.com (partially owned by AMC Theatres) in 2015, when Adam Aron replaced Gerry Lopez as CEO of AMC Theatres. Lopez is interviewed in the documentary, while Aron is not. Lopez says that MoviePass was beneficial to AMC Theatres in the early-to-mid-2010s.

One of the original major investors in MoviePass was Chris Kelly, a former Facebook executive who briefly dabbled in politics. (In 2010, Kelly lost the California district attorney’s Democratic primary to Kamala Harris.) As a major investor in MoviePass, Kelly also became a member of MoviePass’ board of directors. Because he invested so much money in MoviePass, Kelly was eventually given two seats on the board. Kelly, who is interviewed in the documentary, says that there came a point in time when he had no more money that he could invest in MoviePass, so he urged Spikes and Watt to find other big-money investors.

Mitch Lowe, a former executive for Redbox and Netflix, joined MoviePass in 2016 as CEO and as a board member. Spikes was made chief operating officer (COO) under this new management structure, while Watt began to be sidelined. In the documentary, Lowe openly admits that he didn’t think Watt was as valuable as Spikes to MoviePass at the time.

On the recommendation of Lowe, a big-talking executive named Ted Farnsworth (who was CEO of analytics firm Helios and Matheson at the time) was brought to MoviePass as a chief investor. Farnsworth had a background in finance, public relations and marketing with several start-up companies. Farnsworth told the MoviePass executives that MoviePass couldn’t be profitable until MoviePass had at least 1 million subscribers. Spikes says in the documentary that he constantly raised concerns to Lowe, Farnsworth and other MoviePass board members about the sustainability of this goal.

Spikes says Farnsworth and Lowe repeatedly dismissed Spikes’ warnings that MoviePass’ financial losses would become too large to handle with more than 1 million subscribers, unless MoviePass figured out a way for the company to become profitable. There was also the issue of MoviePass being understaffed and unable to keep up with any rapid increase in subscribers. Lowe’s reaction was to act like Spikes was being negative and difficult: “He was not being a constructive member of the team,” Lowe says in the documentary about Spikes.

In the documentary, Spikes uses an airplane analogy to explain MoviePass’ rapid growth plans: “We’re kind of learning to build the plane mid-flight. And changing it from a crop duster to a 747 that can handle large volumes of people. We were not prepared to keep running at that pace.” Spikes says his recommendation to “put the brakes” on MoviePass’ plan for rapid growth was often ignored.

Lowe wanted MoviePass to quickly reach the goal of 1 million subscribers and get a lot of media attention for it. Lowe takes full credit in the documentary for coming up with the idea of reducing the MoviePass subscription price to $9.95 per month, which would still give subscribers a “pass” to see one movie every day at participating theaters. And sure enough, MoviePass had a meteoric increase in subscribers and got a lot of media attention from late 2017 through all of 2018. By then, Spikes and Watt had been pushed out of the company.

In August 2017, Helios and Matheson bought a majority stake in MoviePass. Spikes and Watt were removed from MoviePass’ board of directors and forced out of the company. Spikes and Watt got to keep their stock shares in MoviePass after they were fired from the company. However, under the terms of their exit deal, Spikes and Watt could not buy or sell these shares for a 12-month period after being dismissed from MoviePass. According to Spikes, his shares in MoviePass were worth about $80 million when he was ousted from MoviePass in 2017. A year later, those shares would essentially be worthless.

MoviePass’ rapid rise and fall have been well-documented in the media and elsewhere. By December 2017, MoviePass had 1 million subscribers. By February 2018, MoviePass had 2 million subscribers. By June 2018, MoviePass had 3 million subscribers. Lowe and Farnsworth became the new faces of MoviePass, with many media outlets incorrectly identifying Lowe and Farnsworth as the founders of MoviePass. Lowe and Farnsworth soaked up all the publicity they were getting for being “visionary” leaders of a “hot” company that was a popular choice for stock investors.

Still, the question remained: How was MoviePass going to actually become profitable? In media interviews, Farnsworth and Lowe kept saying that MoviePass was planning to sell its customer data to movie studios. However, they avoided answering questions on how much this data was actually worth to make up for the hundreds of millions of dollars that MoviePass was losing.

Meanwhile, MoviePass went on a spending spree. The company spent millions on promoting MoviePass at major film festivals and other events. According to the documentary, MoviePass reportedly spent $1 million at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and hired mismatched spokespeople—such as former basketball star Dennis Rodman and social media influencer OK Bunny—to promote MoviePass at the festival. OK Bunny is interviewed in the documentary, and she still seems a little confused by what MoviePass was doing at Coachella and why she was paired with Rodman.

There were other ill-conceived business decisions, such as MoviePass Ventures and production company MoviePass Films, which invested heavily in the 2018 flop biopic “Gotti,” starring John Travolta as notorious Mafia boss John Gotti. Lowe says that MoviePass thought that its subscriber base would be the most likely to buy tickets to any movies that MoviePass produced. The failure of “Gotti” proved that business theory wrong. MoviePass also purchased the outdated Moviefone, a financially declining company for movie tickets and showtimes.

There were helicopters and private jets bearing the MoviePass logo. And several people in the documentary say that Lowe and especially Farnsworth were caught up in acting like “rock star” executives who wanted to party with celebrities. Lowe doesn’t deny any of it and makes this excuse for why he and other high-ranking MoviePass executives got the biggest perks from the spending sprees, while the lower-level employees were overworked and understaffed: “Not all roles get to party.”

Farnsworth is not interviewed in “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” which depicts Farnsworth as the story’s biggest villain and a prime example of callous corporate greed. There is no mention in the documentary if the “MoviePass, Movie Crash” filmmakers attempted to interview him, or if Farnsworth declined any requests for comment. It’s mentioned in the documentary that Farnsworth abused his power at MoviePass to make nepotism hires of family members and friends who were inexperienced or unqualified.

One of these nepotism hires was Robert “Bob” Ellis (Diana Ross’ first ex-husband), who is mentioned but not interviewed in the documentary. Ellis, who was put on MoviePass’ payroll as a marketing consultant, is described as a Hollywood hanger-on, photographer and close friend of Farnsworth. He was part of the MoviePass executive clique that went on luxury trips that were paid for by the company.

Also mentioned but not interviewed in the documentary is Khalid Itum, an inexperienced MoviePass employee who quickly rose through the company ranks and eventually became MoviePass’ vice president of business development. Itum is named as one of the biggest offenders in the wild spending sprees at MoviePass. The documentary includes some audio clips of recordings of MoviePass staff meetings. In these recordings, Itum and Lowe seem to be willfully in denial about how their overspending was very damaging to MoviePass.

In July 2018, during the weekend that “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” was released in theaters, MoviePass crashed and burned when the MoviePass app stopped working or had limitations for most of its customers. MoviePass frequently switched its terms of service without giving customers proper notice. Subscribers complained of not getting responses from MoviePass customer service representatives. These problems continued for the next several months. The widespread customer complaints and several lawsuits against MoviePass led to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigating MoviePass for fraud.

Daniel Kaufman, the former FTC director who was involved in these MoviePass investigations, describes Farnsworth as a con man who didn’t really know how to operate a business but only knew how to promote a business. Journalists/reporters Nathan McAlone and Jason Guerrasio, who both covered the MoviePass saga for the website Business Insider, also describe Farnsworth as the worse person in the toxic duo of Farnsworth and Lowe. Business Insider is listed in the documentary’s end credits as a production collaborator for “MoviePass, MovieCrash.”

As for Lowe, he doesn’t take much personal responsibility for MoviePass’ downfall. Lowe shifts almost all of the blame on bad advice that he got from Farnsworth. In the documentary, Lowe says that when things came crashing down for MoviePass, Farnsworth told Lowe: “Just keep going and the money will come.” MoviePass’ bankruptcy and closure in 2019, as well as MoviePass’ revival by Spikes (who bought back the rights to MoviePass in 2021 and returned to the company as CEO), are briefly mentioned toward the end of the documentary. The MoviePass legal problems of Lowe, Farnsworth and Itum are in the documentary’s epilogue.

“MoviePass, MovieCrash” has interviews with former MoviePass customer service employees Sydney Weinshel, Emmanuel Freeman and Ezekiel Sansing; former MoviePass engineer Oscar Miscar; former MoviePass social media manager Drew Taylor; former Helios and Matheson public relations executive Mark Havener; former Urbanworld Film Festival director Gabrielle Glore; and former MoviePass subscribers Mat Levy, Jose Rolden and James Simermeyer. Also interviewed are several investors (some of whom were MoviePass investors, while some were not), such as Mark Gomes, John Fitchthorn, Ken Gardner, Ben Rabizadeh, Daymond John and Guy Primus.

The former MoviePass employees describe feeling optimistic and excited when they first joined the company, but that excitement soon turned to dread and discontent when they saw how things were being grossly mismanaged. Lower-lever staffers were overwhelmed with customer complaints, while MoviePass’ upper-level executives were living lavish lifestyles and denying that big problems existed at MoviePass. Miscar is the former MoviePass employee who is the most candid in the documentary interviews and is the only former MoviePass employee to call out the problematic racial issues in how Spikes and Watt were pushed out of MoviePass by an all-white team of executives.

Spikes and Watt are diplomatic when talking about their humiliating exits from MoviePass. Watt emphatically states that MoviePass is in his past, and he’s happy to have moved on to other things. (He’s an investor consultant.) By contrast, Spikes is still very clearly haunted by the demise of MoviePass from 2018 to 2019, and he is determined to make the company even bigger and better than it ever was. Spikes mentions he was partially inspired to revive MoviePass by how Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell were ousted from the companies they founded and made big comebacks when they returned to those companies.

“MoviePass, Movie Crash” uses a lot of clips from movies and TV shows as ways to put an emphasis on the emotions and reactions being described in the documentary. This editing brings some amusing entertainment to an otherwise infuriating story about corporate corruption. Spikes mentions that if he and Watt had been running MoviePass in the same the way that Lowe and Farnsworth ran the company into the ground, then Spikes and Watt would’ve gotten quicker and harsher legal consequences.

There is some mention in the documentary about these racial inequalities for entrepreneurs, with the obvious fact that white men get the vast majority of investment money. Watt says in the documentary that a start-up company such as MoviePass needed this factor to take the company to the next level: “If you have a white man with more gray hair that could inspire other white males with white hair to be more comfortable investing. It’s a factor we considered through the entire entrepreneurial journey.”

Lowe and Farnsworth certainly took MoviePass to the “next level,” but at what cost? The MoviePass brand name and reputation became permanently tarnished. Millions of dollars were lost. Untold numbers of people felt ripped off and cheated by MoviePass. And certain people got into big legal trouble over how MoviePass was mishandled.

The racial implications of MoviePass’ history are certainly acknowledged in the documentary. However, there’s no good reason for the noticeably low number of women interviewed for this documentary. Studies from the Motion Picture Association and other sources have shown for years that women are about 51% of the movie ticket buyers in the United States, and females are about 51% of moviegoers. And yet, there are no female MoviePass subscribers interviewed in this documentary. (A social media clip of a random female former MoviePass subscriber talking about MoviePass is not the same thing as an interview.)

The very real problem of sexism is completely ignored in “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” which comes across as very much like a “boys’ club” documentary without including the realities of how women have a big impact on movie ticket buying. The “MoviePass, MovieCrash” filmmakers also never question why women were excluded from being MoviePass’ highest-ranking leaders. The documentary’s biggest flaw is failing to mention these issues regarding gender and sexism. However, “MoviePass, MovieCrash” does a sufficient job of answering this question for anyone who is curious: “Whatever happened to MoviePass?”

HBO premiered “MoviePass, MovieCrash” on May 29, 2024.

Review: ‘The Long Game’ (2024), starring Jay Hernandez, Julian Works, Jaina Lee Ortiz, Oscar Nuñez, Paulina Chávez, Cheech Marin and Dennis Quaid

May 20, 2024

by Carla Hay

José Julián (seated, second from left), Jay Hernandez (standing, at left) and Dennis Quaid (standing, at right) in “The Long Game” (Photo courtesy of Mucho Mas Media)

“The Long Game” (2024)

Directed by Julio Quintana

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in Texas, in 1956, the dramatic film “The Long Game” (based on true events) features a Latin and white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A former military man, who works as a high school superintendent, takes a group of five teens from the high school and helps transform them into the first all-Hispanic golfing team to compete in a U.S. national golf tournament for high schoolers. 

Culture Audience: “The Long Game” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, sports underdog stories, and historical drama about race relations in America.

Miguel Angel Garcia, Christian Gallegos, Gregory Diaz IV, Julian Works and José Julián in “The Long Game” (Photo by Anita Gallón/Mucho Mas Media)

“The Long Game” follows a familiar formula of sports underdog movies based on true stories, but the cast’s admirable performances make this inspirational drama worth watching. Many viewers will learn something about the Mustangs golf team that broke racial barriers.

Directed by Julio Quintana, “The Long Game” was written by Quintana, Jennifer C. Stetson and Paco Farias. The movie’s adapted screenplay is based on Humberto G. Garcia’s 2010 non-fiction book “Mustang Miracle.” “The Long Game” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival, where it won the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award.

“The Long Game” begins by showing the mentor who’s the story’s main protagonist. It’s 1956, and upstanding JB Peña (played by Jay Hernandez), a former infantry soldier in the U.S. Marines, has moved with his loving and supportive wife Lucy Peña (played by Jaina Lee Ortiz) to the small city of Del Rio, Texas. Like many residents of Texas, JB is of Mexican American heritage. He was born in the United States. JB has taken a job as a superintendent at San Felipe High School.

But the real reason why JB (who is an avid golfer) wants to live in Del Rio is so he can join the prestigious Del Rio Golf Club, which is considered one of the best private golf clubs in Texas. The problem for JB is that this is a country club that has white members only, and they don’t want to let anyone who isn’t white join the club. Like many places that have racist policies, no one who’s responsible for those policies comes right and out and admits that they’re racist.

When JB inquires with club leader Don Glenn (played by Richard Robichaux) about joining the club, Don tells JB what JB’s chances are of being accepted into the club: “I have to consider other members, and they’re just not used to seeing a Mexican on the golf course.” The only people who aren’t white who are allowed on the golf course for this racist club are those who are in subservient roles doing low-paying menial jobs, such as caddies, food servers and sanitation workers.

One of these caddies is a teenager named Joe Treviño (played by Julian Works), the rebellious and unpredictable leader of a tight-knit group of five friends who are all Latino. An early scene in the movie shows Joe in a street alley, chasing off three white teenage boys and throwing a fence picket at them because the white teenagers were harassing him.

Joe’s friends see the commotion when they arrive at the scene. Joe tells his pals about the fleeing teenage bullies: “They didn’t call me a wetback. They didn’t call me anything, but I bet they were thinking it.”

The other four teens in Joe’s circle of friends are dependable Lupe Felan (played by José Julián); obedient Gene Vasquez (played by Gregory Diaz IV); friendly Mario Lomas (played by Christian Gallegos); and easygoing Felipe Romero (played by Miguel Angel Garcia). Gene is the one in the group who is the most likely to follow rules and is the most nervous about getting into trouble.

Later, while Joe is working at the club’s golf course, Joe notices that a young white man, whose father is a club member, has kept the cash that was meant to be a tip for one of the Hispanic caddies. As revenge, Joe urinates on the privileged family’s car when the father and son aren’t looking.

JB first sees Joe and his pals under less-than-ideal circumstances on the day that JB is driving to meet with Don Glenn for the first time at the Del Rio Golf Club. Joe and his friends are practicing golf on a field when Joe hits a golf ball that accidentally smashes JB’s car window and causes a minor cut on JB’s face. The teens run away when they see the damage that was caused. JB decides to keep his appointment with Don Glenn anyway, despite JB’s noticeable bleeding injury. This is the meeting where JB gets rejected to join the Del Rio Golf Club.

JB has an ally in the meeting: Frank Mitchell (played by Dennis Quaid), who served in the same U.S. Marines infantry as JB. Frank is a member of the Del Rio Golf Club and is the one who set up the meeting with JB and Don. Frank’s girlfriend Gayle Baker (played by Gillian Vigman) works as a secretary at this country club. Frank is disappointed that JB won’t be accepted into the country club. However, there’s nothing Frank can do about it except voice his disapproval about this racism, in an era when the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not exist yet, and it was legal for businesses to discriminate based on race.

After the window-breaking incident, JB sees Joe and his friends again at a school assembly, where JB is introduced as the new superintendent. That’s how JB finds out these teens are students at the same school where he works. JB confronts the five teens, who don’t deny that they were involved in this accidental vandalism.

JB is impressed enough with Joe’s powerful golf swing to ask Joe and his friends to let JB watch them play golf. Joe is the best golfer in the group. When JB sees that the five pals have raw, untapped talent as golfers, JB comes up with an idea to make up for the teens being involved in breaking his car window: The teens can either mow his lawn on Saturdays, or they can become the first members of the San Felipe High School golf team, which will be called the Mustangs.

At first, all of the pals except for Joe choose the golf option. That’s because Joe’s father Adelio Treviño (played by Jimmy Gonzales) thinks golf is a game for pampered wimps. Adelio expects Joe to follow in his footsteps and skip college to have a working-class job. Later, Adelio does something extreme to show Joe how much Adelio disapproves of Joe wanting to play golf.

Joe changes his mind about joining the golf team after JB has a heart-to-heart talk with Joe and asks Joe what Joe really wants to do with his life. Joe joins the team, but he keeps it a secret from hs father Adelio. Joe later starts dating a classmate named Daniela (played by Paulina Chávez), who wants to become a writer and join a university writing program in Austin, Texas. Daniela thinks that Joe should get a college education in Austin too.

San Felipe High School doesn’t have the money to fund the new golf team; any coach of the team will have to be an unpaid volunteer. JB can’t quit his full-time superintendent job because he needs the money, and he doesn’t have time to be the golf team’s coach. And so, JB asks retired Frank to be the team’s coach. Frank agrees. JB is the school’s team sponsor and essentially has the role of assistant coach. Joe has a volatile temper, so Lupe is made the team’s captain.

The Mustangs play against all-white teams. JB and the Mustangs experience the expected racism, including racist comments and blatant exclusion or unfair treatment based on race. At one of the Mustangs’ first golf games, a white official reacts with surprise when he sees JB in person and says JB looks different than the official expected because JB sounded “American” on the phone. JB politely tells this racist that JB is American because he was born in the United States. Other racist reactions to JB and the team are much more hostile.

JB is fully aware that the Mustangs will be treated as outsiders by racists, so he advises the team members to assimilate when they’re in places where they will encounter racism: “I don’t want to hear Spanish on the [golf] course,” JB says. “We’ve got to look and act like we belong here.”

Frank is a white ally who sticks up for the team as much as possible. Later in the story, a law official named Judge Milton Cox (played by Brett Cullen) makes a huge decision that affects the Mustangs. JB also has to make some important decisions that will decide the fate of the team.

San Felipe High School’s Principal Guerra (played by Oscar Nuñez) is supportive and mostly stays out of the team’s way. Principal Guerra likes to appear tougher than he really is to the students. In an amusing scene, he tells JB that he doesn’t want the students to see him smile because the students are less likely to take the principal seriously if he’s seen smiling or laughing.

JB is also friendly with a Del Rio Golf Club groundskeeper named Pollo (played by Cheech Marin), who secretly lets the Mustangs practice on the property during off-hours when no one will catch them. Most of the movie’s comic relief come from Pollo and his wisecracks. JB and Pollo (and Frank, to a certain extent) treat the Mustangs as their surrogate sons. Because of the racism issues, JB and Pollo are able to speak to the team with more knowledge and experience about being Hispanic/Latino in places dominated by white people who are often racist.

“The Long Game” has some very good scenes that show an appreciation for the sport of golf. However, viewers shouldn’t expect absolute accuracy in all of the golf scenes, since the movie’s actors aren’t professional golfers, and the Mustangs are still supposed to be learning how to play golf. It’s a sports movie that’s not just about learning the game but also about learning life lessons.

The movie’s performances (with Hernandez and Works as the standouts) give “The Long Game” an emotional credibility and that makes it a solid movie, even if viewers know exactly how the story is going to end. (There are very few surprises along the way.) It’s not a groundbreaking movie, but “The Long Game” is a worthy tribute to the real-life golfers who overcame big obstacles. These are stories that need to be told and stand as examples of what perseverance and courage can be accomplish.

Mucho Mas Media released “The Long Game” in U.S. cinemas on April 12, 2024.

Review: ‘Babes” (2024), starring Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau

May 16, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau in “Babes” (Photo by Gwen Capistran/Neon)

“Babes” (2024)

Directed by Pamela Adlon

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, from 2019 to 2020, the comedy film “Babes” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, African American and Asian) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two longtime best friends go through very different experiences when they get pregnant and give birth within a year-and-a-half of each other. 

Culture Audience: “Babes” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, director Pamela Adlon and female-focused movies that have adult-oriented comedy.

Michelle Buteau and Ilana Glazer in “Babes” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Babes” won’t be considered a major classic for films about childbirth and motherhood, but it’s entertaining enough for viewers who can tolerate crude jokes. The movie tries too hard to be raunchy, but the jokes are more hit than miss. Some of the situations in the movie are unrealistically absurd (and not in a good way), but the realistic female friendship depicted in “Babes” is the heart and soul of the movie.

Directed by Pamela Adlon, “Babes” was written by llana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz. “Babes” takes place in New York City (where the movie was filmed on location), from 2019 to 2020. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. It’s a movie that has frank and frequently vulgar talk about pregnancy, sex, childbirth, body parts and bodily functions. It also shows the nuances of female friendships when two friends are at different stages of emotional maturity and personal responsibilities

“Babes” (which is told in chronological order) begins with a scene taking place at a movie theater sometime around Thanksgiving in 2019. Two longtime best friends—neurotic Eden (played by Glazer) and sassy Dawn (played by Michelle Buteau)—have had a tradition for the past 27 years to see the same unnamed movie around Thanksgiving time. This particular movie happens to be playing in a theater, although in real life, there is no movie theater in New York City that has played the same movie during Thanksgiving from 1992 to 2019.

Eden (a self-employed yoga teacher who works from home) arrives at the theater feeling a little flustered because she had to travel 115 minutes and take four subway trains to meet Dawn (who is a dentist) at this theater in New York City’s Manhattan borough. That’s because Eden lives in Astoria (in New York City’s Queens borough), and Dawn lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Eden and Dawn used to live near each other in Astoria. Eden (who is a never-married bachelorette) is a little bitter that Dawn and her emotionally supportive husband Marty (played by Hasan Minhaj) have moved several miles away from Eden. Marty works for an unnamed business.

Dawn is pregnant with her second child and is due to give birth in two weeks. When Dawn and Eden go inside the screening room, Dawn notices that every seat she sits in is wet. And then, Dawn realizes that water is leaking from her vagina—or, as Dawn put it, she has “pussy drizzle.” Dawn begins to wonder if she’s in labor, so she asks Eden to see what her vagina looks like, right there in the nearly empty screening room. Eden confirms that Dawn’s vagina looks like it’s dilated, so Dawn calls her OB/GYN doctor, who says she’s probably in labor.

Instead of going to a hospital right away, Dawn and Eden decide to go to a restaurant and have an eating binge, since Dawn thinks she shouldn’t be eating this much after Dawn gives birth. At the restaurant, Eden looks at Dawn’s vagina again in public to check on the dilation size. When their waiter finds out that Dawn is in labor and starts to give unsolicited advice, Dawn snaps at him: “What are you? The Gordon Ramsay of my pussy?”

The trip to the hospital is chaotic. Dawn is in too much pain to walk, and she won’t sit down in a wheelchair, so she crawls to the delivery room. (It’s a very unrealistic scenario.) Eden and Marty are there in the delivery room, where Eden is nauseated by what she sees and is shocked to find out that someone can defecate while giving birth. You can easily predict how Eden will react to seeing an umbilical cord and placenta up close for the first time. If these types of scenes don’t sound like something you want to see in a comedy, then “Babes” is not the movie for you.

Dawn gives birth to a baby girl named Melanie and is on maternity leave. Dawn and Marty’s first child is 4-year-old Thomas, nicknamed Tommy (played by Caleb Mermelstein-Knox), who has some arrested development because he still wears diapers and still drinks from a baby bottle. During the course of the movie, Dawn stars to feel the pressure and stress of taking care of two children under the age of 5.

At the hospital where Dawn gave birth, Eden is shocked and annoyed that the hospital charged her nearly $500 for sushi that she ordered from hospital room service. Eden takes the sushi with her on the subway and starts to eat it inside the subway car. Sitting across from her is an actor named Claude (played by Stephan James), who is in a waiter uniform. She strikes up a conversation with Claude by offering to share some of her sushi with him. Claude tells her that he’s in costume because he’s an extra in a Martin Scorsese movie.

Eden and Claude have an immediate attraction to each other. They talk some more and find out that they share the same enthusiasm for the video game “Street Fighter,” so they go to her place to play “Street Fighter” together. Eden and Claude also reveal that they’ve never had unprotected sex with other partners. One thing leads to another, and Eden and Claude agree to have unprotected sex with each other. Eden tells Claude that she’s currently menstruating, but he doesn’t mind.

There are indications throughout the movie that although Eden is in her late 30s, she often still has the mindset of a child. For example, she thinks she can’t get pregnant while she’s menstruating. As already revealed in the “Babes” trailer, Eden does get pregnant. She decides to keep the child.

For reasons that are explained in the movie (but won’t be revealed in this review), Claude is unable to be in the child’s life. Dawn’s OB/GYN (obstetrics/gynecology) doctor Dr. Morris (played by John Carroll Lynch) becomes Eden’s OB/GYN doctor too. A running joke in the movie is how Dr. Morris handles his receding hairline and bald spots.

Eden is very emotionally co-dependent on Dawn and expects her friendship with Dawn to be the same as it was before they both became parents. It leads to the expected conflicts and arguments. There’s also a subplot about Dawn and Marty trying to rekindle their sex life, which has gone stagnant because they’re so exhausted from their jobs and taking care of their kids.

Glazer and Buteau are believable as best friends, but some of the jokes they’re given in “Babes” fall very flat. Some viewers might be offended by a scene where Dawn is worried that her breasts are not producing milk to breastfeed her newborn child, and Dawn takes illegal drugs anyway. In this scene, Eden (who doesn’t know yet that she’s pregnant) and Dawn decide to take psychedelic mushrooms together.

During this psychedelic experience, Dawn finds out that she is, in fact, lactating. The expected “breast squirting” scene ensues. During the hallucinations, Dawn’s breasts also talk to her. Whoopi Goldberg is the voice of Dawn’s breasts.

Nothing is shown or told about Dawn’s parents, but Eden’s widower father Bernie (played by Oliver Platt) is in a few scenes in the movie. (Eden’s mother died when Eden was 3 years old.) Bernie is described by Eden as someone who is a “hoarder” with mental health issues. Eden and Bernie are not close, but they don’t hate each other. Their best scene in the movie happens when Eden tells Bernie that she’s pregnant.

“Babes” has some rough spots where the movie drags, the dialogue is kind of stupid, and the comedic timing isn’t very good. However, the bright spots outshine the movie’s flaws. Viewers who don’t mind watching movies with a lot of explicit adult language might be charmed by how the friendship of Dawn and Eden authentically evolves. The ending of “Babes” is undeniably sappy, but it puts a sweet finishing touch on a comedy that is often very salty and deliberately distasteful.

Neon will release “Babes” in select U.S. cinemas on May 17, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on May 24, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was held in U.S. cinemas on May 13, 2024.

Review: ‘I Saw the TV Glow,’ starring Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Fred Durst and Danielle Deadwyler

May 3, 2024

by Carla Hay

Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine in “I Saw the TV Glow” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“I Saw the TV Glow”

Directed by Jane Schoenbrun

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1996 to 2004, in an unnamed U.S. state, the dramatic film “I Saw the TV Glow” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A lonely teenage boy befriends a teenage girl, who gets him hooked on a fantasy TV series starring young people battling a villain named Mr. Melancholy, and the show affects what happens to them as they get older. 

Culture Audience: “I Saw the TV Glow” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and are interested in watching symbolic-heavy movies about depression and queerness.

Ian Foreman in “I Saw the TV Glow” (Photo by Spencer Pazer/A24)

“I Saw the TV Glow” isn’t as scary as it seems, but it’s a very original film about obsessive escapism and denial of one’s true identity. The plot has more mystery than suspense. Viewers must be willing to interpret the movie’s LGBTQ symbolism. “I Saw the TV Glow” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and later screened at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, “I Saw the TV Glow” explores themes about depression and queerness that are presented in ways that might be too abstract for viewers. “I Saw the TV Glow” has been described as a horror movie, but it’s really a psychological drama. There are a few brief horror-like images, in addition to one scene where someone has a mental breakdown. That does not make it a horror movie.

“I Saw the TV Glow,” which is told in chronological order, takes place from 1996 to 2004, in an unnamed U.S. state. (The movie was actually filmed in New Jersey.) “I Saw the TV Glow” begins by showing clips from a U.S. TV network called the Young Adult Network, which has a combination of original and acquired programming. One of the network’s more popular original shows is a weekly fantasy series called “The Pink Opaque,” which is set in America in whatever year that the show is on the air. “I Saw the TV Glow” pokes some fun at 1990s television, music and fashion in clips of “The Pink Opaque.”

It’s later explained in the movie that “The Pink Opaque” (and the show’s title characters) are two American teenage best friends named Isabel (played by Helena Howard) and Tara (played by Lindsey Jordan), who live in a typical suburban area but live secret lives where they battle a demonic force called Mr. Melancholy (played by Emma Portner), the show’s chief villain who gives Isabel and Tara an obstacle in each episode. Isabel is the more prominent person of this teenage duo. She is described as an “expert in demonology.”

In “I Saw the TV Glow,” the protagonist and narrator is shy and quiet Owen (played by Justice Smith), who narrates the movie in hindsight as an older teenager and as an adult. Sometimes, he talks directly to the camera during his narration. Sometimes, Owen’s narration is a voiceover. The movie also has captions spelled out in handwritten pink letters.

When Owen is first seen in the movie, he is a seventh grader (about 12 or 13 years old) and played by Ian Foreman. It’s during this period of time that Owen meets someone who will change his life. Seventh grader Owen is shown accompanying his mother Brenda (played by Danielle Deadwyler) to a polling place on Election Day. The polling station is in a gym of a local high school where Owen will be a student in two years. Brenda takes Owen into the voting booth with her and shows him how to vote.

It’s at this gym where Owen meets sarcastic Maddie Wilson (played by Brigette Lundy-Paine), who is a ninth grader (freshman), about 14 years old, at the high school. Maddie is sitting on the gym floor, reading a book about episodes of “The Pink Opaque.” Owen soon finds out that Maddie is an obsessive fan of “The Pink Opaque,” which airs on Tuesdays from 10:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the time zone where Maddie and Owen live.

Owen and Maddie start talking about “The Pink Opaque,” a show that Owen has not seen at this point because he’s not allowed to stay up past 10 p.m., especially on a school night. Owen (who is an only child) lives with his married parents in a stable, loving and middle-class home. His father Frank (played by Fred Durst) is not as close to Owen as Brenda is.

Maddie tells Owen that she and her best friend Amanda (also played by Portner) watch “The Pink Opaque” together at Maddie’s place. Maddie invites Owen to join them and suggests that Owen lie to his parents by saying he’s spending the night at a male friend’s house. Owen takes that advice and sneaks over to Maddie’s place to watch “The Pink Opaque” for the first time (in a basement room), as Maddie explains the complex world building that the show has. Maddie later tells Owen, “Sometimes, ‘The Pink Opaque’ feels more real than real life.”

Maddie’s parents are never shown in the movie. However, Maddie mentions that her parents “don’t give a crap” when she goes to bed. She also says that she has an abusive stepfather. When Owen spends the night at Maddie’s place for the first time, he has to sleep in the basement. Maddie tells Owen that Owen has to leave by dawn because if Maddie’s stepfather sees Owen there, “he’ll break my nose again.”

After Amanda has left for the night, Maddie also tells Owen that Maddie thinks Isabel from “The Pink Opaque” is “super-hot,” and Maddie “likes girls.” Owen doesn’t have any reaction to Maddie telling him that she’s a lesbian, but he does get confused when she asks him if he likes boys or girls. He tells her he doesn’t know but he knows he likes “The Pink Opaque.” When Owen is a teenager, he mentions “The Pink Opaque” to his father Frank, who replies, “Isn’t that a girl’s show?”

Owen explains in a voiceover that over the next two years, Maddie gave VHS tapes of “The Pink Opaque” episodes to Owen so he could watch the show without having to stay up past his bedtime. However, Owen and Maddie don’t become close friends until 1998, when Owen (played by Smith) is a freshman (about 14 years old) in the same high school where Maddie is now a junior (about 16 years old) and is now a loner at the school.

Maddie and Owen reconnect at her place to watch “The Pink Opaque” together. It’s during this reconnection that Owen finds out that Maddie and Amanda stopped being friends about two years earlier because Amanda told people that Maddie touched Amanda’s breast without Amanda’s consent. Maddie denies this sexual harassment happened but she was then shunned by many people because Maddie was “outed” as a lesbian. Maddie is still bitter over how the friendship ended and also seems angry that Amanda would rather spend time on the cheerleader squad than watch “The Pink Opaque.”

The rest of “I Saw the TV Glow” is about how Owen’s friendship with Maddie and how their fixation with “The Pink Opaque” affects their lives. Without giving away too much information, the movie is full of metaphors and symbolism of Owen’s self-discovery of his sexuality, even though he is not shown dating anyone in the movie. There’s a scene early on in the film of seventh grader Owen in an inflatable planetarium that has colors reminiscent of the LGBTQ Pride flag.

“I Can See the TV Glow” has some scenes that go on for a little too long. For example, there’s a nightclub sequence that starts to look like a music video because it shows the full song performance of rock band Sloppy Jane. Better editing was needed for this scene because it doesn’t fit the flow of a conversation that Owen and Maddie are having in a nearby room at the nightclub.

“I Saw the TV Glow” might get some comparisons to Schoenbrun’s 2022 feature-film debut “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” another psychological drama (with some horror elements) about a teenage loner who gets caught up in something on screen that becomes dangerous. “I Saw the TV Glow” obviously has a bigger production budget and a larger, more well-known cast than “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” However, “I Saw the TV Glow” has a more abstract plot than “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” Some viewers will be puzzled over what “I Saw the TV Glow” is trying to say.

In the role of Owen, Smith is once again doing a character who is whiny, insecure and often looking like he’s confused or about to cry. Owen is not a bad person, but he can be annoying. Lundy-Paine gives a better performance as Maddie, but there comes a point in the movie where Maddie’s personality becomes almost numb, so the movie loses a lot of Maddie’s initial spark and charisma. “I Saw the TV Glow” can be recommended to people who don’t mind watching offbeat movies with a unique vision and a heavily symbolic story about how secrets and lies can kill a soul.

A24 released “I Saw the TV Glow” in select U.S. cinemas on May 3, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on May 17, 2024.

Review: ‘The Fall Guy’ (2024), starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt

April 30, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in “The Fall Guy” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“The Fall Guy” (2024)

Directed by David Leitch

Culture Representation: Taking place in Sydney and briefly in Los Angeles, the action comedy film “The Fall Guy” (based loosely on the 1981 to 1986 TV series of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A stunt double gets involved in a crime mystery while he tries to rekindle a romance that he had with the director of his current movie. 

Culture Audience: “The Fall Guy” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and over-the-top action comedies that are predictable but have entertaining performances.

Teresa Palmer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in “The Fall Guy” (Photo by Eric Laciste/Universal Pictures)

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are a great comedic duo and should have had more scenes together in “The Fall Guy.” Their collaborative scenes are the best parts of this uneven action comedy that is over-the-top but doesn’t take itself too seriously. The movie has a crime mystery that often gets overshadowed by the silly and bombastic stunt scenes in the film that don’t have much suspense. However, “The Fall Guy” doesn’t pretend to be anything but breezy entertainment with cartoonish violence and a little bit of an amusing romance.

Directed by David Leitch and written by Drew Pearce, “The Fall Guy” is based loosely on the 1981 to 1986 TV series of the same name. The TV series was an action drama, starring Lee Majors as the title character: a heroic stuntman. “The Fall Guy” movie released in 2024 is very much a tongue-in-cheek comedy that pokes fun at the movie industry and celebrity culture. “The Fall Guy” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

The movie’s title character is Colt Seavers (played by Gosling), an insecure and sensitive stuntman. For years, Colt has worked as a stunt double for an arrogant actor named Tom Ryder (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who takes Colt for granted. Colt’s career and personal life become derailed after a stunt he was responsible for went very wrong on a movie starring Tom. An ashamed Colt then quit the movie business and then went to work as a parking valet at a restaurant in his hometown of Los Angeles.

Colt has another reason to be miserable: He is sad because of the end of an intense fling he had on the movie set with a sarcastically witty camera operator named Jody Moreno (played by Blunt), who seemed to have strong romantic feelings for him too. However, after Colt’s embarrassing stunt mishap that resulted in Colt quitting the movie business, he abruptly cut off contact with Jody. She interpreted it as Colt harshly dumping her.

One day, Colt gets an urgent call from fast-talking movie producer Gail Meyer (played by Hannah Waddingham), who insists that Colt go back to work as a stuntman for a sci-fi action movie called “Metalstorm,” starring Tom as a character named Space Cowboy. Tom’s real-life lover Iggy Starr (played by Teresa Palmer) has the role of Space Cowboy’s love interest in the movie. “Metalstorm” (which is being filmed in Sydney, Australia) also happens to be Jody’s feature-film directorial debut.

Gail says that Jody requested Colt for this job. But when Colt arrives on the “Metalstorm” movie set, he finds out that this request was a lie. Needless to say, Jody is very upset that Colt will be Tom’s stunt double for “Metalstorm.” Jody huffs to Gail about Colt: “I didn’t approve him!” Jody demands that they find someone else to replace Colt. Gail responds, “We literally have no one else.”

Also on the “Metalstorm” movie set is Dan Tucker (played by Winston Duke), who is Colt’s stunt coordinator and best friend. Dan becomes Colt’s sidekick in a lot of shenanigans that happen in the movie. When Tom goes missing, Colt is ordered by Gail to find Tom. Stephanie Hsu has a small and somewhat thankless role as Tom’s personal assistant Alma Milan. Colt also meets Tom’s drug dealer Doone (played by Matuse), who gives an unwitting Colt a drink spiked with a hallucinogenic drug. Colt hallucinates unicorns in a comedy gag that goes on for a bit too long.

During the search for Tom, Colt goes to Tom’s hotel room and finds a dead man in an ice-filled bathtub, The rest of “The Fall Guy” is a combination of a crime mystery and exaggerated action scenes, with plenty of explosions, car chases and violent fights. Colt and Jody have the expected love/hate banter, where they both don’t want to fully admit how much their breakup hurt them. Their relationship goes exactly where you expect it to go. (Watch the end credits for some “surprise” cameos.)

“The Fall Guy” can get a bit annoying at how it seems to be a little too enamored with its stunt scenes, at the expense of developing the more interesting relationship between Colt and Jody. Colt and Jody trade snappy quips, but the movie isn’t completely convincing when it comes to showing how this would-be couple’s feelings are supposed to evolve over time. The jokes in “The Fall Guy” are hit and miss and elevated by the headlining stars’ comedic talent. It’s the type of movie that could have been better but also could have been a whole lot worse.

Universal Pictures will release “The Fall Guy” in U.S. cinemas on May 3, 2024.

Review: ‘Late Night With the Devil,’ starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Haig and Josh Quong Tart

April 17, 2024

by Carla Hay

A scene from “Late Night With the Devil.” Pictured in front, from left to right: Ingrid Torelli, David Dastmalchian and Laura Gordon. Pictured in back, from left to right: Rhys Auteri and Ian Bliss. (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Late Night With the Devil”

Directed by Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily during a “found footage” tape made in New York City, on October 31, 1977, the horror film “Late Night With the Devil” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A late-night talk show host, who is desperate to boost his ratings, does a live seance on his show to summon the devil that reportedly possesses a 13-year-old girl. 

Culture Audience: “Late Night With the Devil” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star David Dastmalchian and well-made supernatural horror movies taking place in the 1970s.

Laura Gordon, Ingrid Torelli, David Dastmalchian and Ian Bliss in “Late Night With the Devil” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Late Night With the Devil” hooks the senses with sinister suspense that might give nightmares to some viewers. This “found footage” horror flick taking place in 1977 shows parallels between devil possession and ruthless ambition. It’s an impressively made original horror movie that is an instant classic.

Written and directed by Australian brothers Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes, “Late Night With the Devil” takes place in New York City, but was actually filmed in Melbourne, Australia. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival. “Late Night With the Devil” does a superb job of recreating the late 1970s in every way, such as the production design, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling.

“Late Night With the Devil” begins with a voiceover narrator (Michael Ironside) with a fairly extensive backstory (shown in a montage) about the late-night talk/variety show host at the center of the movie. Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian) was a popular radio host in Chicago when he was chosen to host and produce a national TV talk show called “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” (based in New York City) on the fictional UBC network. The first episode of “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” was on April 4, 1971.

Over the years, “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” had mediocre success, with the show always coming in second place to “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” Johnny Carson had A-list celebrity guests. The guests on “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” were considered less than A-list, often with tabloid-like fame. Still, Jack earned enough respect in the industry to get an Emmy nomination for the show.

Jack is a member of all-male private club called The Grove, whose members are influential and powerful. The Grove’s secretive activities have been the subject of a lot of speculation. In November 1972, UBC owner Walter Bedford (played by John O’May) signed Jack to a five-year deal for Jack to continue to host and produce “Night Owls With Jack Delroy,” a show that is filmed before a live studio audience.

Jack’s personal life was also going fairly well: He married an actress named Madeleine Piper (played by Georgina Haig), who is described as Jack’s “muse and confidante.” Jack and Madeleine became known as a well-liked “power couple.” However, tragedy struck when Madeleine (a non-smoker) was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In October 1976, she did an emotional interview on “Night Owls With Jack Delroy.” It was the highest-rated episode in the show’s history. Madeleine died soon after filming this episode.

After Madeleine died, Jack took a hiatus and “disappeared” for about a month. He returned to doing the show in December 1976. However, the show’s ratings went on a downward spiral. By the time “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” did its Halloween episode on October 31, 1977, Jack’s contract was up for renewal (or cancellation), and he was feeling enormous pressure. Jack and his fast-talking and ambitious producer Leo Fiske (played by Josh Quong Tart) were desperate to boost the show’s ratings, so they planned a Halloween episode that they wanted to get a lot of publicity.

Things went horribly wrong, of course. The rest of “Late Night With the Devil” shows the master tape from this episode, as well as previously unreleased footage. The show’s guests on this fateful episode were a famous self-proclaimed psychic named Christou (played by Fayssal Bazzi); Carmichael Haig (played by Ian Bliss), a former magician who became world-renowned skeptic of all things supernatural; “Conversations With the Devil” non-fiction book author Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (played by Laura Gordon); the book’s subject, a 13-year-old girl named Lilly (played by Ingrid Torelli), who was said to be possessed by the devil; and jazz singer Cleo James (played by Nicole Chapman), who actually never performed in the episode, due to all the chaos that ensued.

in the production notes for “Late Night With the Devil,” Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes both say that Australia’s “The Don Lane Show” (which was on the air from 1975 to 1983) was a big inspiration for the concept of this movie. The character of Carmichael was inspired by the real-life James Randi, whose magician name was the Amazing Randi. And the character Lilly could be seen as inspired by Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil character in the 1973 Oscar-winning horror classic “The Exorcist.” In “Late Night With the Devil,” Lilly is the only survivor of a cult that was ordered by cult leader Szandor D’Abo (played by Steve Mouzakis) to set themselves on fire.

Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes also had experience working in TV studios and saw firsthand the intense stress that workers can experience when filming episodes. That’s why the “Late Night With the Devil” scenes (especially those take place during commercial breaks) are convincing and why the movie is so effective in showing an increasingly tension-filled environment.

After Madeleine died, Jack took a hiatus and “disappeared” for about a month. He returned to doing the show in December 1976. However, the show’s ratings went on a downward spiral. By the time “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” did its Halloween episode on October 31, 1977, Jack’s contract was up for renewal (or cancellation), and he was feeling enormous pressure. Jack and his fast-talking and ambitious producer Leo Fiske (played by Josh Quong Tart) were desperate to boost the show’s ratings, so they planned a Halloween episode that they wanted to get a lot of publicity.

“Night Owls With Jack Delroy” has an amiable band leader named Gus McConnell (played by Rhys Auteri), who is like many band leaders on late-night talk shows: He’s there to be a sidekick who laughs at the host’s jokes. As things spiral out of control, Gus’ conscience starts to bother him about decisions that are made to increase the show’s TV audience. When Gus expresses his concerns, the response he gets is entirely realistic in the cutthroat world of television. Subordinates are often told that if they don’t do what they’re told, they’ll be fired, and there are plenty of people who are ready to replace them.

The screenplay and direction for “Late Night With the Devil” expertly build the ominous tension throughout the story. The movie stumbles during one particular gruesome scene where the in-studio audience members stay, despite the horror they just witnessed. In real life, most people in this type of audience would leave the studio in fear or disgust. It’s a minor but noticeable flaw in the otherwise realistic-looking way that the audience is portrayed in the movie. And to be clear: “Late Night With the Devil” gets very graphic and does not leave a lot of the horror up to the imagination.

Dastmalchian and Torelli give the movie’s standout performances. As Jack, Dastmalchian has an uneasy desperation that becomes increasingly dangerous as he pushes the boundaries of what’s acceptable to put on television. Torelli does an excellent job of balancing the “innocent-looking” and “demonic” sides to Lilly, the mysterious girl who never seems entirely “normal.” Thanks to horrific scenarios and a knockout ending, “Late Night With the Devil” is a memorably disturbing scary movie. Some viewers might never look at TV talk shows in the same way again.

IFC Films released “Late Night With the Devil” in U.S. cinemas on March 22, 2024. Shudder will premiere the movie on April 19, 2024.

Copyright 2017-2024 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX