Arts and Entertainment Archives – Page 251 of 344

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Leftover Women’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

"Leftover Women" — Qui Hua Mei in “Leftover Women” (Photo courtesy of Medalia Productions)

Directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia

Mandarin with subtitles

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

If you know any single women who complain about not being able to find a life partner, or if you know people who think ABC’s reality TV franchise “The Bachelor” is exploitative and sexist toward women, then they should watch the documentary “Leftover Women,” which is a scathing look at the indignities and scorn that single women over a certain age have to endure in China. The movie takes its title from the Chinese phrase “sheng nu,” which translates into “leftover women”—the unflattering term that Chinese people use to describe unmarried, childless women who are near or over the age of 30.

The documentary focuses on three of these women, all of whom have successful careers: Qui Hua Mei, a 34-year-old attorney; Xu Min, a 28-year-old radio employee; and Gai Qui, a 36-year-old assistant professor at Normal University in Beijing. They’re not the type of women to sit around and feel sorry for themselves because they’re single, even when so many people around them try to shame them for not finding a husband yet. (This is a heterosexual-only film, as LGBTQ people are not mentioned in this documentary.)

Hua Mei is the heart and soul of the film. She is easily the most compelling and empathetic person to watch in the movie, whose opening scene is of her in a meeting with a middle-aged female dating coach/matchmaker. The matchmaker, who is smug and cruelly judgmental, proceeds to demean Hua Mei by telling her that she’s too old and not pretty enough to be considered a realistic candidate for marriage. Even though Hua Mei is neither old nor unattractive—and she’s certainly more attractive than the mean-spirited matchmaker who’s written her off as a lost cause—Chinese culture dictates that Hua Mei respect her elders, so she just sits there, nods, and takes the insults as if she deserves to be degraded. It’s excruciating and infuriating watch.

Still, Hua Mei makes an effort to find “the one,” and we see her looking for love in nightclubs, going on awkward dates, and participating in government-sanctioned social events for marriage-minded singles. The documentary also shows that Hua Mei isn’t some sad-sack, desperate spinster: She’s a caring individual who has an emotionally fulfilling life with her friends and career, but it’s impossible for her to escape from the overwhelming disapproval that she gets from Chinese society over her marital status.

The matchmaker isn’t the only person to treat the accomplished and intelligent Hua Mei as a pathetic loser just because she isn’t married. The movie shows that Hua Mei’s own family members, who still live in the rural area where she was raised, are constantly pressuring her to find a husband. It’s clear that Hua Mei has an independent streak and won’t settle for any suitor who comes along. She’s also the most educated person in her family, but her parents think of her as “less accomplished” than her married siblings simply because she isn’t married yet. They also remind Hua Mei that even though they love her, they think she’s an embarrassing burden on her family because she’s not married. And they say this, even though she’s an attorney who’s helped out her family financially because she has the income to do it.

It’s no wonder that Hua Mei is afraid to reveal to the people closest to her that she doesn’t really want to have children. Based on the way her family reacts when she tells them, you’d think that she had just confessed to a horrible crime. When Hua Mei breaks down in tears at her family’s unrelenting criticism, it’s one of the most emotionally difficult moments to watch in the movie. But it also foreshadows a decision that she makes at the end of the film.

Min comes from a well-to-do family who has somewhat spoiled her with material possessions, and she’s somewhat whiny about still being single, but she has other issues that come out during the course of the movie. From a therapy session shown in the film, she reveals that her mother emotionally abused her as a child, by pretending to abandon her as a way of punishment. Min still has not healed from those emotional wounds, and when she has an inevitable argument with her parents about still being unmarried, their response shows that they think they are good parents because they provided her with material comforts all of her life. In another argument, this time when Min is alone with her mother, she confronts her mother about the past abuse, and her mother abruptly ends the conversation and calls Min “ungrateful.”

Qui’s story is the most incongruous, because early on in the movie, she’s shown getting married. The quick courtship that she had with her younger husband is not in the film, but it’s revealed that there’s somewhat of a stigma in their relationship because she makes more money than he does. Of the three women whose stories are told in the movie, Qui is shown the least, so there’s no real sense of her personality, and she doesn’t go through the same struggles as the other two women do in the movie.

It’s no surprise that a patriarchal, sexist culture would place more shame on women than men for being unmarried by a certain age. The older the woman, the more “undesirable” she becomes to society, which is a prejudice that is embedded even in the most “progressive” countries. It goes back to the issue of women, not men, having a biological clock when it comes to conceiving children. Men face their own issues when it comes to how they’re judged as potential spouses. In most societies, a man’s marriage desirability is primarily defined by his wealth/income, followed closely by his physical appearance. In that respect, the United States and other Western countries aren’t much different from China.

These kinds of superficial biases are repeatedly shown in “Leftover Women,” such as a scene with women selecting potential husbands on a dating website and discussing the standards they have for any man they might marry. Several men are automatically rejected based on their looks, height, income or because they live in a rural area. (It’s assumed in Chinese society that people from rural areas are less educated and have less money than those from more urban areas.) Even if it looks like women have more control when they go online to choose whom to date, the documentary shows that when women in China are in serious romantic relationships, they’re expected to let the men be the dominant partners in the relationships. China isn’t the only country in the world to have a society with this mentality, but “Leftover Women” shows that the humiliation and pressure that unmarried women in China have to go through to find a husband make “The Bachelor” look like a feminist paradise.

UPDATE: PBS will premiere “Leftover Women” as part of the “Independent Lens” series on February 10, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Only’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Only”

Directed by Takashi Doscher

World premiere at Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

Does the world need another bleak post-apocalyptic movie? Not if it’s as disappointing as this one. The above-average performances of Leslie Odom Jr. (“Hamilton”) and Freida Pinto (“Slumdog Millionaire”) are the main reasons to see “Only,” a depressing drama with unrelenting emotional claustrophobia that can’t quite mask some of the film’s most glaring and annoying plot holes. Odom and Pinto play Will and Eva, two lovers who have quarantined themselves in an apartment in an unnamed U.S. city during a mysterious plague. From the opening scene, there’s a sense that Eva is somehow in danger: She frantically hides in a secret crawlspace in the apartment when men wearing hazmat suits suddenly enter the home to search it and interrogate Will, who lies to them by telling them that he lives alone.

In the film’s numerous flashbacks that might confuse some viewers, it’s revealed that the plague started when ash began to fall all over the world like a steady snowstorm, and females who are exposed to the ash develop a strange illness that makes them bleed near their ears, go into convulsions, then die within a matter of hours. Eva has managed to avoid this contagious disease by being in the apartment when the ash started to fall.

But in a major plot disconnect, a flashback scene shows her to be completely exposed in a hospital’s emergency ward, where Will and Eva have taken Eva’s roommate Carolyn (played by Tia Hendricks), who was caught outside when the ash started to fall. While at the hospital, which is filled with patients and their loved ones covered in the mysterious ash, Will figures out that only females are getting sick from the ash. In a “too good to be true” coincidence, he sees an “Authorized Personnel Only” door, which happens to contain two hazmat suits that he and Eva can wear when they flee the hospital to go back home and quarantine themselves. Never mind that Will and Eva have already been exposed to the deadly ash when they went outside to travel to the hospital while the ash is in the air, and they were in a hospital filled with people and things covered with the ash.

It’s not a spoiler to reveal this ludicrous part of the storyline because the entire movie relies on the premise that Eva has avoided exposure to the ash for at least 400 days, which contradicts the fact that she was exposed early on during the plague at the hospital. The entire hospital scene and the Carolyn character are completely unnecessary, since Will and Eva could have found out the cause of the plague and who was at risk by staying home and watching the news. It’s one of the movie’s several plot holes that will leave viewers shaking their heads in dismay at how “Only” writer/director Takashi Doscher sabotaged his own script.

Later in the movie, it’s revealed that because the plague has almost wiped out the world’s population of women and girls, and many of the surviving women who can get pregnant end up having miscarriages, the U.S. government has put up a $2 million bounty for anyone who can find a woman who can give birth to a child. However, since the government is doing scientific experiments on surviving women who are found, there’s little incentive for any of the remaining women like Eva to give themselves up.

The movie’s flashback scenes show that Will and Eva had a happy relationship before the plague. But after the plague, their relationship has become strained because Will has become so paranoid about Eva being discovered and getting infected, that he’s kept her a virtual prisoner in their home, and she has developed a simmering resentment over it. It’s a plot concept that could have been mined for some deep and emotional insight into male/female relationships and power struggles in society (something that “The Handmaid’s Tale” does so well), but “Only” jumps back and forth too much in the story’s timeline, which takes away from what could have been a more cohesive movie.

After Will and Eva have decided to quarantine themselves, the movie goes to great lengths to show us how Will dictates much of what Eva can and can’t do because he’s so afraid of Eva being discovered and getting infected. For example, he gets upset when she uses a cell phone or computer because he doesn’t want her technology activities to be traced. But then another part of the story reveals that Will allows Eva to communicate with the outside world in an Internet chat room with other female survivors, who also send email to the couple. Even though Eva is using an alias, we’re supposed to believe that paranoid Will doesn’t know that this type of Internet activity can still be traced. It’s a contradiction that’s almost laughable if this weren’t such a downbeat movie.

By the time viewers see that Eva (who’s disguised as a man) and Will have made a trip outside to get food, the story veers into a random fugitive thriller with Will and Eva trying to hide from a father and son (played by Jayson Warner Smith and Chandler Riggs), who are would-be bounty hunters. The problem is that the movie tries hard to convince viewers how Eva has been hidden for over a year, but Eva and Will make some decisions both in and outside their home that make it hard to believe that their secret hadn’t been discovered sooner. Their home is meticulously protected in a way that shows their long-term quarantine gave them plenty of time to think about ways to safeguard their home, yet Eva’s “disguise” as a man is so poorly thought-out that it’s a glaring contradiction. (It’s revealed in the last 15 minutes of the film why Eva is outside wearing unprotected clothes when she and Will leave their home to get food.)

Pinto and Odom have a few scenes where they adeptly show the emotional toll that the quarantine has taken on their relationship, but not even the best actors in the world can save this problematic and ultimately unsatisfying script.

UPDATE: Vertical Entertainment will release “Only” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on March 6, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Clementine’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Clementine”

Directed by Laura Jean Gallagher

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27, 2019.

“Clementine,” the first feature film from writer/director Lara Jean Gallagher, is a slow burn of a drama that is more of a psychological portrait than a psychological thriller. No one in the movie is named Clementine; the movie’s title comes from what clementine oranges mean to the central characters Karen (played by Otmara Marrero) and Lana (played by Sydney Sweeney). You’ll have to see the movie to find out how clementine oranges are mentioned, but we’re first introduced to Karen at the beginning of the film, when she breaks into a remote Oregon lake house owned by her older ex-girlfriend. The Karen character is supposed to be 29, but Marrero looks and acts much younger than a typical 29-year-old.

When there is a movie that takes place primarily in a secluded lake house in the woods, all sorts of sinister things usually ensue. But in the case of “Clementine,” don’t expect there to be any mysterious killer on the loose. Instead, the movie plays guessing games about who is trustworthy when it comes to matters of the heart.

It’s apparent early on that Karen’s breakup with her ex-girlfriend is recent and painful, because she broke into the house with the intent of taking back a dog without her ex-girlfriend’s knowledge. It’s unclear if Karen has rightful custody of the dog, but what is clear is that Karen feels that she deserves to have custody. When she finds out that the dog isn’t at the house, she decides to stay while she contemplates her next move. The only thing that viewers know about the ex-girlfriend, who’s named “D” (and is played in a cameo by Sonya Walger), is that “D” is a busy career woman who’s broken Karen’s heart, and Karen knows enough about her schedule to know when “D” won’t be at the lake house.

One evening, a teenager named Lana shows up at the house and asks Karen to help her look for her lost dog. Karen is a little reluctant to help at first, but she agrees, even though the sun is going down and it will soon get dark outside. They get in Karen’s car to search, and as the night wears on, they still haven’t found the dog. Karen’s skepticism grows, while she’s aware that she’s becoming sexually attracted to the mysterious Lana, who says she’s 19 and living with a boyfriend not too far from the lake house. Just when Karen is about to end the search because she thinks she’s being conned, Lana finds the dog, and Karen lets her guard down because she thinks Lana might be an honest person after all.

It isn’t long before they exchange phone numbers, and Karen invites Lana over for a late-night visit. Lana opens up to Karen and says she’s an aspiring actress, and the boyfriend she lives with is neglectful and someone who might be emotionally abusive. At first, Karen pretends that she lives in the lake house, but Lana quickly figures out the truth when Karen’s ex-girlfriend “D” unexpectedly calls on the house phone. It’s clear that the movie wants us to see that Karen projects a lot of her own experiences onto Lana as a way to bond with her: the idea of being seduced by an older woman, having unfulfilled dreams, and even searching for a beloved dog.

As Karen and Lana spend more time together at the house, Lana gives Karen subtle hints that she’s attracted to her, and Karen tries to decide if she’s going to initiate a romantic relationship with Lana. One day, the sexual tension between the two gets even more complicated when a young man aptly named Beau (played by Will Brittain), who does yard work and other maintenance for the house, shows up to do some work, and he openly flirts with Lana. Much to Karen’s dismay, Lana flirts back with Beau. Sensing Karen’s jealousy, Lana flirts with Beau even more whenever Karen is around.

All of this might turn into a suspenseful love triangle, but the movie takes somewhat of a ridiculous turn in the last 20 minutes when Karen commits an act of revenge that’s straight out of a Lifetime movie. The motivations for her to commit such a risky act don’t ring true, considering viewers know at that point in the movie if Karen and Lana have a future as a couple.

Marrero gives a solid performance as someone having inner morality conflicts over getting romantically involved with a teenager (even if the teen says she’s over the legal age of consent), but Sweeney has to carry the heavier acting load as someone who may or may not be a manipulative Lolita type. Unfortunately, the teen seductress role has been done so many times before in better-written movies that Sweeney often falls short of the challenge to create a fascinating and memorable character. The Lana character is certainly capable of inspiring lust, but Sweeney’s portrayal of Lana lacks the necessary charm that would make it believable that Lana would inspire true love. By the time secrets are revealed in the movie, the ending of “Clementine” is so anti-climactic that people won’t care much about what happens to the characters after the movie ends.

UPDATE: Oscilloscope Laboratories will release “Clementine” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on May 8, 2020. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is July 14, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘A Day in the Life of America’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“A Day in the Life of America”

Directed by Jared Leto

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto, who is also the lead singer/songwriter of the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars, has been steadily building a portfolio of interesting work as a director—beginning with Thirty Seconds to Mars videos, and progressing to the award-winning 2012 documentary feature “Artifact” (which chronicled the band’s fight to get out of its contract with EMI Music) and the non-fiction digital series “Beyond the Horizon” and “Great Wide Open.” The documentary “A Day in the Life of America” is his most ambitious directorial project so far. Inspired by National Geographic’s “A Day in the Life” book series, the documentary is a fascinating mosaic of people in the United States, all filmed on a single day: July 4, 2017. Leto solicited video footage from the public, but the majority of what made it into the final cut of the movie is footage that was professionally filmed by the 92 camera crews that Leto dispatched across the United States to capture everyday people on Independence Day. The documentary is also a companion piece to Thirty Seconds to Mars’ 2018 album “America.”

Because we’re living in an era where millions of people have put their video diaries on the Internet, one of the documentary’s biggest accomplishments is that it takes all of that type of noise and shapes it into an eclectic and riveting symphony of varied human perspectives. Not all of it is easy to digest. There are so many contrasting viewpoints expressed in the documentary, that people watching this film are bound to see things that will make them angry, sad, offended, entertained, hopeful and inspired. The movie’s top-notch editing, seamless cinematography and compelling Thirty Seconds to Mars music score all contribute to making “A Day in the Life of America” an engrossing cinematic journey. The movie does not interview political pundits or news commentators to give their distracting opinions. The people in the movie are not identified by name when we see them talk. It’s a wise decision, because what everyday people have to say in this movie is more important than the possibility that anyone could become a star by being in this film.

“A Day in the Life of America,” whose main scenes are shown in chronological order, begins with a pregnant woman going into labor during a home birth. During the course of the documentary, viewers hear from a wide variety of people from just about every region of the United States. In Arkansas, two drunk redneck men fire assault rifles in the air, and complain that white Americans are a dying breed. In California, a porn actress is shown working on the set of one of her movies and talks about how much she loves her job. In New York, a Hasidic trans woman shares her experiences of what it feels like to be discriminated against in and outside her religion. In West Virginia, a young, white single mother who’s addicted to meth smokes the drug on camera, and expresses shame and guilt for not being a good parent. In Texas, a gay black man at a skating rink expresses his thoughts on LGBTQ rights and the ongoing fight to be accepted in the same way as heterosexuals.

On the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C., people who are gathered at the Capitol Building range from Donald Trump supporters to anti-Trump protesters. Trump and wife Melania are shown greeting the crowd outside the White House. Speaking of Trump, his administration’s Muslim ban—and people’s contrasting views about it—are given notable screen time in this movie.

For many viewers, the most emotionally triggering aspect of “A Day in the Life of America” is the movie’s raw look at racism. In North Carolina, male and female members of the Ku Klux Klan are shown planning for a race war and spewing hatred against people who aren’t white and Christian. In Louisiana, African American adults talk about how there are two Americas: one that gives more privileges to whites and one where people who aren’t white still have to struggle to be accepted as equals. Meanwhile, the black kids in the Louisiana footage express more optimism about the future, saying that America represents freedom to them.

One of the movie’s effective devices is how contrasting viewpoints are edited right next to each other. After the KKK members from North Carolina are shown ranting that immigrants are ruining America, the next footage shows Native Americans in South Dakota celebrating their heritage. In another scene, there’s a ceremony where people are becoming U.S. citizens. The next scene is of white nationalist American Freedom Party members gathered for a meeting and talking about how they want their own country so they can have stricter laws against immigration. There’s a scene with people dressed as Revolutionary War-era Americans during a patriotic ceremony in Virginia. That footage is followed by a scene of a Muslim teenage girl in a boxing ring talking about how she won a hard-fought legal battle for her right to wear a hijab while boxing.

The documentary also takes a searing look at crime in America, particularly in how crime disproportionately affects black people. In Chicago, black residents in a working-class neighborhood express fear and sadness on the Fourth of July when they can’t tell if they’re hearing fireworks or gunshots. During filming, police arrive because a boy got shot. (The shooting is not in the movie.) In Detroit, young black residents on the streets are jaded and pessimistic about their future. In Oklahoma, a black man in prison (the details of his criminal record aren’t mentioned) talks about not getting justice and feeling like he’s invisible.

Health care is another big issue that’s covered in the movie. Tennis player Sebastien Jacques (who recovered from a life-threatening brain tumor) is shown in Kansas during his Walk Across America campaign to promote hope in dealing with health problems. That footage is in contrast to the next scene that shows a bed-ridden man dying from cancer.

Of course, it’s impossible for one movie to capture all the subcultures and issues that exist in the United States. For example, the wealthiest “one-percent” of people in America are noticeably absent from the film’s featured interviews. It would have been great to include the perspective of a self-made billionaire—not necessarily someone who’s famous, but someone who represents what is often described as the ultimate American Dream. Even though the super-wealthy aren’t really given a spotlight as a contrast to all the poor and middle-class people who highlighted are in the movie, “A Day in the Life of America” does a fairly comprehensive job of capturing a great deal of the contemporary diversity that exists in the United States. Simply put: “A Day in the Life of America” just might be the most honest documentary about the United States that could be released this year, because it’s the collective voices of people in America speaking their truths.

UPDATE: PBS’s “Independent Lens” series will premiere “A Day in the Life of America” on January 11, 2021.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Slay the Dragon’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Slay the Dragon”

Directed by Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

The political documentary “Slay the Dragon” is part history lesson, part wake-up call to U.S. voters. The movie focuses on gerrymandering, the longtime practice of manipulating and rezoning voting districts so that one political party has a disproportionately favorable advantage over others. The word “gerrymander” was inspired by Elbridge Gerry (the Massachusetts governor credited with inventing the practice in the early 19th century) and the word “salamander,” since one of his rezoned districts looked like a salamander.

Even though “Slay the Dragon” mentions that Democrats and Republicans are guilty of gerrymandering, “Slay the Dragon” portrays Republicans as being more ruthless and more corrupt when putting gerrymandering into practice. The 2016 election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, as well as the Republican party’s dominance of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate elections that year, can be considered the flashpoint for much of the grass-roots activism that gets the spotlight in this movie.

“Slay the Dragon” co-director Barak Goodman says that this documentary was largely inspired by David Daley’s 2016 nonfiction book “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” which details how gerrymandering was taken to new levels of corruption by Republicans, in response to the 2008 U.S. presidential election of Barack Obama and Democrats who dominated Congress during Obama’s first term. Daley, who is interviewed in the film, is also a consultant for the documentary. Also interviewed in the film are Mother Jones senior reporter Ari Berman and Republican State Leadership Committee chief Chris Jankowski, a political strategist who is often credited with the Republicans’ dominance of the 2016 elections.

But the film’s real star is Katie Fahey, founder of the Michigan-based grassroots organization Voters Not Politicians. Fahey, an upbeat activist in her 20s, had no political experience when she started Voters Not Politicians. Against the odds and predictions of naysayers, Voters Not Politicians managed to get the state of Michigan to create an independent commission to oversee voter redistricting. Voters Not Politicians is supposed to be a non-partisan group, but it’s clear that most of the group members are left-leaning voters who are more alarmed by Republicans taking over their districts than Democrats.

“Slay the Dragon” also examines the racism behind gerrymandering, which usually targets blacks and Latinos as groups to manipulate when reshaping voting districts. The 2014 Supreme Court case McCutcheon et al. v. Federal Election Commission, which eliminated limits on campaign donations for federal elections, is considered one of the main reasons why gerrymandering has placed even more political control in the hands of the wealthy. “Slay the Dragon” gives hope to those who believe that voters who aren’t wealthy have a real chance of making a difference if they band together to fight corruption.

UPDATE: Magnolia Pictures will release “Slay the Dragon” on digital and VOD on April 3, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ’17 Blocks’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“17 Blocks”

Directed by Davy Rothbart

World premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

It might be easy to write off “17 Blocks” as just another movie that shows black people struggling in a ghetto neighborhood plagued by drugs and crime. The struggle has been depicted in too many movies and TV shows to count, and it can become a tiresome stereotype, especially when law-abiding, middle-class black families are under-represented on screen—and when these role-model black families are portrayed on screen, it’s usually in the context of a comedy. But the documentary “17 Blocks,” which was filmed in the span of nearly 20 years, beginning in 1999, is so deeply personal and emotionally moving that it doesn’t feel like blaxploitation.

“17 Blocks” director Davy Rothbart (who happens to be white) got the idea for the movie after seeing a 9-year-old black boy named Emmanuel Sanford-Durant using a home-video camera to film himself and his family in their rough Washington, D.C., neighborhood that’s only 17 blocks from the U.S. Capitol building. Rothbart met and befriended Emmanuel and his older brother Smurf while playing basketball near the brothers’ apartment. The filmmaker, who never lived in the neighborhood, became close to the Sanford-Durant family and began documenting their lives over the years. The result is this movie.

Much of the early footage in “17 Blocks” was filmed by Emmanuel, a bright and thoughtful child who later had goals to become a firefighter. He’s almost the polar opposite of Smurf (who is six years older than Emmanuel), a drug dealer and addict with multiple arrests related to his criminal lifestyle. Middle child Denice (who is three years older than Emmanuel) doesn’t lead a life of crime, but she becomes a teenage mother and school dropout, which slows down her career prospects. As Denice becomes an adult, she has aspirations to become a security guard.

Meanwhile, the kids’ mother, Cheryl, spends many years raising them as a single parent (her marital status over the years remains a murky mystery in the film), but she struggles with an addiction to cocaine that leaves her children often feeling emotionally abandoned and resentful. The father or fathers of Cheryl’s three kids are not in the movie, and there’s no indication that the kids were raised by their father(s). It’s revealed in the movie that Cheryl came from a solid middle-class home where she was raised by her two parents and once aspired to be an actress. But her cocaine addiction often hampered her ability to be a responsible parent. It’s hinted in the movie that Cheryl’s parents sometimes had to help raise her children when she was in the throes of addiction.

Emmanuel is the family’s “golden child,” the one with the most potential and talent to become a success. He’s the only one of Cheryl’s children to graduate from high school. (Unfortunately, due to her addiction, Cheryl missed Emmanuel’s high-school graduation ceremony, which is one of the many regrets that she expresses in the film.) Emmanuel has a bright future ahead of him after he graduates from high school, and he’s looking forward to begin training as a firefighter. Unlike his siblings, who became parents as teenagers, and have children from broken relationships, Emmanuel hasn’t become a teen father. He’s in a solid and loving relationship with a neighborhood girl named Carmen Payne, who also has career goals, and they eventually plan to marry.

But a tragedy changes the Sanford-Durant family forever, and the second half of the movie documents how they cope with that tragedy. “17 Blocks” will not be an easy film to watch for many people because it might trigger feelings of sadness and/or anger for all the families who’ve experienced similar tragedies—regardless of race or socioeconomic status. “17 Blocks” is a wake-up call that might also inspire people to reach out to those in their communities who are hurting. And it’s also a reminder that it’s never too late to learn from our mistakes, and make our lives better for ourselves and other people.

UPDATE: MTV Documentary Films will release “17 Blocks” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on February 19, 2021.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

Linda Ronstadt: Sound of My Voice — Linda Ronstadt in 1968. The singer’s life story is told in “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” (Photo by Henry Diltz)

“Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice”

Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, 2019.

Back in the days when VH1 embraced nostalgia and classic rock artists, the documentary series “Behind the Music”—which focused on a different artist per episode—became one of the network’s flagship shows. Grammy-winning singer Linda Ronstadt never did a “Behind the Music” episode, but the documentary film “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” looks like it could’ve been part of that series.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the early years of “Behind the Music” had had some fascinating and thoroughly researched episodes before the series became a watered-down publicity showcase. “Behind the Music” required the participation of the artist (or artist’s estate if the artist was deceased) and the use of the artist’s music. The artist’s story was told in chronological order, and followed a familiar formula of describing the artist’s rise to fame, having successful hits, struggling with various personal issues while at the top of their game, and (depending on the artist) either overcoming those issues, succumbing to personal demons, or trying to stage a comeback. The story is told through new interviews with the artist and people close to the artist, as well as archival footage, music videos and personal behind-the-scenes footage.

“Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” is a very traditional documentary in that sense, except that for most of the movie, her new interviews are in voiceover. Ronstadt, who retired from performing in 2009, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012, and she rarely does interviews these days. The other people who have new interviews for this movie include Jackson Browne; J.D. Souther (who dated Ronstadt in the 1970s); Don Henley (who was her drummer before co-founding the Eagles); Ry Cooder; music-journalist-turned-filmmaker Cameron Crowe; John Boylan (Ronstadt’s longtime producer); Peter Asher (Ronstadt’s former manager); David Geffen (whose Asylum Records released Ronstadt’s earliest solo albums); former Warner Bros. Records chief Joe Smith (who worked with Ronstadt at the height of her fame); Kevin Kline (her “Pirates of Penzance” leading man on Broadway); and Ronstadt’s Trio band mates Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton.

All of them appear on camera, and speak highly of Ronstadt. There are vivid descriptions of Ronstadt being a supportive friend and collaborator, with a tendency to be a perfectionist when it came to her music. Several of interviewees mention that she was plagued with a life-long insecurity about her voice “not being good enough,” and she had anxiety over doing live performances. The movie also has a good archival selection of Ronstadt performing. Some of her biggest hits featured in the documentary include “When Will I Be Loved,” “You’re No Good” and “Blue Bayou.”

“Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” chronicles her entire life story, from her childhood in Arizona to her early singing career as the lead singer of the California folk-rock trio the Stone Poneys (whose biggest hit song was “Different Drum”) to her solo career where she became the best-selling female rock star of the 1970s to her later years where she branched out into other forms of music. One of the documentary’s best achievements is reminding people of Ronstadt’s extraordinary musical versatility, as she proved to be talented in big band music (the “What’s New” album with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra), Broadway music (she received a Tony nomination for “The Pirates of Penzance”), Latin music (her “Canciones de Mi Padre” album, which was a nod to her Mexican roots), country music (her work with Trio) and adult-contemporary pop, including the smash hit “Don’t Know Much,” her ballad duet with Aaron Neville.

As for her personal struggles—besides having self-confidence issues about her talent—at the height of her fame, “Linda’s thing was diet pills,” according to Geffen, who says she took diet pills and speed to keep her weight down and to have enough energy for her grueling schedule. In retrospect, Ronstadt says that her drug use at the time caused paranoia that affected her personal relationships and her ability to communicate well.

Ronstadt also talks openly in new interviews and in archival footage about the sexism she and other female rock artists experienced in the male-dominated music business. Her romance with politician Jerry Brown is also mentioned—she says their breakup was mainly caused by their busy schedules keeping them apart—but as her former boyfriend Souther puts it, “Neither one of us is built for marriage or long-term relationships.” (Ronstadt, who has never married, has an adopted son and daughter, who are now adults. Her children are not mentioned in the movie.)

In the documentary, Ronstadt is calmly accepting about having Parkinson’s disease, which she says has given her a new perspective about not focusing on death but how she’s going to live before she dies. In the movie, her Trio band mate Harris begins to cry when she says that although Ronstadt doesn’t miss doing concerts, “I think she misses singing with her friends.”

Just when you think that you’re not going to see the present-day Ronstadt on camera and are never going to hear her sing again, in true “Behind the Music” fashion, she appears on camera during the last 15 minutes of the film, where she’s shown singing in Spanish with her nephew Peter Ronstadt accompanying her on guitar. The footage was filmed in 2019, according to a caption shown in the movie. Ronstadt says because she’s singing in harmony, and not singing lead vocals, she doesn’t consider it “real singing.” Still, the movie has what might be one of the last publicly released performances of Ronstadt singing after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

In February 2019, Ronstadt’s “Live in Hollywood” album (a recording of a concert she did in 1980) became her first live album ever to be officially released. “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” is essential viewing for any of her fans, and it’s worth seeing for anyone who appreciates knowing more about a very talented and unique singer.

UPDATE: Greenwich Entertainment will release “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” on September 2, 2019.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘The Place of No Words’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“The Place of No Words”

Directed by Mark Webber

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

If you want to sit through a 95-minute family home movie with the production values of a drama-student program and artsy pretensions about death, then step right up and get ready to experience “The Place of No Words” from writer/director/star Mark Webber. The movie goes back and forth between parallel worlds—one world takes place in the present day, while the other is a fantasy realm inhabited by creatures that look like rejects from Spike Jonze’s 2009 movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” as well as fairies, witches and knights.

The film’s story centers on a family, played by Webber, his real-life wife (Australian actress Teresa Palmer) and their eldest child (Bodhi Palmer). All of their characters in the movie’s modern-day world have the same first names. In the movie’s fantasy world, Mark and son Bodhi (who’s 3 years old in the movie) are supposed to be Vikings of some sort, and they spend a lot of time walking together through woods, where they occasionally encounter the aforementioned mystical creatures. The fantasy world isn’t completely in the dark ages because Viking Mark uses his smartphone to take photos after a fairy named Esmerelda (played by Nicole Elizabeth Berger) leads him and Bodhi into a scenic area in the woods. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Bodhi is an angelic-looking child, whose long blonde hair gives him a deliberately androgynous look. (Webber and Palmer have told the media that they’re raising their children as gender-neutral.) Bodhi is curious, intelligent and a little rebellious, and he adeptly handles what appears to be a lot of improvised dialogue. But when the movie’s press notes describe Bodhi as giving a “tour-de-force performance” in the film, that’s a sign that perhaps Webber is being too much a proud stage dad to notice that this movie is a self-indulgent bore that was obviously made to showcase his family instead of offering quality entertainment.

“The Place of No Words” attempts to answer a question that Bodhi asks in the beginning of the film: “Where do we go when we die?” It’s eventually revealed that modern-day Mark in the movie is a father who has the kind of illness (which is not named in the film) that requires him to be in a hospital bed with an IV tube stuck in his arm. There are enough scenes in the movie to signal that his illness is terminal, and everyone in the family is going through various emotions because of it.

The fantasy sequences are clearly a reflection of the way the real-world characters are coping with his illness. This might be a high concept, but the film’s cheesy production values (including 1980s-level visual effects and the fantasy-world costumes that look like they were borrowed from a high school) are distinctly lowbrow even for an average low-budget film. The film’s sloppy-cheap look might have been a deliberate choice since the movie tries really hard to be the type of cool-ironic indie film that will be praised as “edgy.” Instead, the “edgy” humor that the movie attempts sometimes goes into “Jackass” territory, such as a sequence whose details are too gross to mention here, but it involves farting, excrement and the use of the word “Uranus” as a pun.

Disgusting anus gimmicks aside, “The Place of No Words” has Mark and Bodhi’s relationship at the heart of the movie. Wife/mother Teresa is almost there as a sidekick to either play with Bodhi or comfort her husband. The supporting characters are somewhat forgettable, but that might be because the cheap costumes they have to wear are very distracting from what they say in the movie, which isn’t anything substantial. The aforementioned “Where the Wild Things Are” wannabe gnome-like creatures are a father-and-son team that some might interpret as being a weird monster manifestation of Mark and Bodhi as adults.

“The Place of No Words” isn’t the worst movie you could ever see, but its intentions to make a thoughtful commentary on death are so badly handled that it’s disappointing and might be offensive to some people. Any messages that the movie had about dying are overshadowed by the real intention of the movie, which seems to be director Webber casting his adorable son in the film to make him a star.

UPDATE: Gravitas Ventures will release “The Place of No Words” on digital and VOD on October 23, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Aamis’

April 26, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Aamis”

Directed by Bhaskar Hazarika

Assamese with subtitles

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, 2019.

[Editor’s note: After this movie premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, the movie’s title was changed from “Aamis” to “Ravening.”]

A married mother is seduced into an emotional love affair by a good-looking younger man—and things take a dark turn. It sounds like the plot of a Lifetime movie, but “Aamis” is not a predictable TV movie of the week—far from it. The twist in “Aamis” is so disturbing that it would be too freaky for Lifetime. It’s best for anyone seeing this movie to be blissfully unaware of the spoiler information that’s revealed in the second half of the story.

“Aamis,” which is set in modern-day India, is the first Assamese-language film to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. What can be told without any spoilers is that the secretive love affair in the movie starts out innocently enough. Nirmali “Niri” Saikia (played by Lima Das) is a successful pediatrician who’s in a fairly uneventful marriage to another doctor. Niri’s husband Dilip (played by Manash Das) is a workaholic who is frequently away from home on business, leaving Niri to raise their young son mostly on her own. There’s no indication that Dilip is a bad husband and father. He’s just become inattentive to Niri, and it’s led to stagnancy and boredom that Niri feels not just about her marriage about also about her life.

When she meets grad student Sumon Boruah (played by Arghadeep Baruah), Niri is ready for something new and exciting in her life. Sumon, who is a long-haired bohemian type, has an obvious crush on Niri, who initially plays it cool and basks in the attention that the younger man gives her. Sumon is researching food habits—specifically meat eating—as part of his Ph.D. studies. It’s an excuse for him to arrange foodie dates with Niri so that they can sample unusual types of meat. Sumon encourages Niri to be more adventurous in what she eats, and he makes the bold claim that any animal can be eaten under the right circumstances.

Niri, who has a prim and proper image, makes it clear to Sumon and others who ask about their relationship that she wants to keep it strictly platonic. But her lingering glances with Sumon and her increasing anticipation for their next meet-up tell otherwise. It isn’t long before Sumon and Niri open up to each other emotionally, but Niri won’t let Sumon cross the line for them to become lovers. Meanwhile, Sumon becomes increasingly uncomfortable with suppressing his growing feelings for Niri, and it no longer becomes enough for him to take her to restaurants. He begins giving her gifts—artfully made gourmet meals that he has prepared himself.

The gourmet food gifts are a turning point in Sumon and Niri’s relationship. And when Sumon tells Niri what he did to prepare the meals, their relationship reaches the point of no return. The last 15 minutes of “Aamis” deliver a knockout punch that will leave viewers feeling both nauseated and emotionally haunted over the choices made in the name of love.

UPDATE: Kamakhya Films released “Ravening” (formerly titled “Aamis”) in India on November 22, 2019.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Scheme Birds’

April 26, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Scheme Birds”

Directed by Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, 2019.

This bleak documentary about lower-class Scottish teens takes its title from the term used to describe females who are always on the hustle. At the center of the story is the film’s narrator, Gemma, a pretty blonde rebel who lives a rough-and-tumble lifestyle where she predicts she’ll either get “knocked up or locked up.” She lives in the steel town of Motherwell, Scotland, which was thriving in previous generations, but the manufacturing jobs have all but disappeared, and the community has been an economic downward spiral ever since. Gemma’s close circle of juvenile-delinquent confidants are her boyfriend Pat; her best friend, Amy; and Amy’s boyfriend JP. All of them are school dropouts who spend their days and nights not doing much but making mischief, partying, and sometimes getting into gang fights. Their accents are so thick and filled with so much slang that the movie has subtitles.

The most important adult in Gemma’s life is her paternal grandfather Joseph, who has essentially raised Gemma with his wife. Gemma has no relationship with her biological parents. As it’s described in the movie, her mother is a drug addict who abandoned Gemma as a baby, and her father passed on the responsibility of raising Gemma to his parents. Joseph has a hobby of raising pigeons and selling them to the locals. He also works at a boxing gym, and he tries to get Gemma interested in boxing and/or his side business of raising pigeons, but she’d rather continue her ambition-less existence in the council flats (the United Kingdom equivalent of public housing) where she and her family and friends live.

After being introduced in the first third of the movie, Joseph essentially isn’t seen again, as Gemma’s life undergoes a major change when she gets pregnant with Pat’s child. The documentary follows Gemma through her pregnancy and the birth of their son. Becoming a mother changes Gemma’s priorities dramatically, and her hard edge softens as her maternal instinct gives her a different perspective on life. She and Pat seem ready to settle down, and they try to become responsible parents by giving up their hard-partying lifestyle.

But life isn’t a fairy tale, especially in Gemma’s world, where expectations are low, ambition is discouraged, and people don’t have much motivation to get out of their rut of disenfranchisement. When it’s easier for unskilled young people in that world to get money by committing crimes or living on welfare than it is by getting a job, it’s no wonder that many are tempted to take the easier ways to get money. When a tragedy hits someone in Gemma’s social circle, it has long-lasting and damaging effects. That tragedy is the most emotionally riveting part of the movie.

Even though Gemma and her friends have what many people consider to be depressing lives, it’s hard to feel too sorry for them because many of their problems are of their own doing. They don’t have “third world” poverty because they are fortunate to live in a country where financially disadvantaged people can live off of government assistance. They also have access to birth control, unlike many people in truly impoverished areas of the world, so there’s really not much of an excuse for the rampant teen pregnancy in their community. The same places where chain-smoking, hard-drinking Gemma and her friends get their cigarettes and booze are the same places where they can get condoms. Birth control is obviously a low priority for people in this movie.

Even when Gemma becomes a mother, decides to sober up, and looks for a job, things come fairly easily to her. After she applies for a low-paying job at a local café by filling out an application online, even though she has no experience, she gets the job just by calling up the manager and saying that she’s a responsible person. Even the most low-paying café jobs nowadays still require applicants to meet the hiring manager in person, so it’s an uncommon stroke of luck that Gemma gets the job just by having a brief conversation with a stranger over the phone.

“Scheme Birds” was directed by Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin, two filmmakers from Sweden, a country that is considered one of the most advanced in the world when it comes to how it takes care of its financially disadvantaged citizens. Perhaps Fiske and Hallin thought this documentary would be more compelling if it focused on someone who looks like the girls who star in the MTV reality show “Teen Mom.” Unfortunately, Gemma’s story is not unusual enough to have a lasting impact on viewers, and the fact that she takes for granted so many privileges that she has makes her even less sympathetic. There are millions of impoverished teenage mothers who face even more obstacles and challenges because of the color of their skin or because they live in a third-world country. But those aren’t the kind of girls who get cast on reality shows or have tabloid stories written about them, so it’s not a surprise that a lot of documentary filmmakers don’t want to tell their stories.