Review: ‘Emilia Pérez,’ starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez

January 5, 2025

by Carla Hay

Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoe Saldaña in “Emilia Pérez” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Emilia Pérez”

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2018 to 2023, mostly in Mexico (and briefly in Thailand, England, Israel, and Switzerland), the musical film “Emilia Pérez” (based on the operetta of the ame name) features a predominantly Latin cast of characters (with some black people and white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A ruthless drug cartel leader enlists the help of an attorney to get gender affirmation surgery as a woman named Emilia Pérez, but things get complicated when she has her unsuspecting former wife and kids live with her.

Culture Audience: “Emilia Pérez” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and unconventional movie musicals that have better performances than songs or screenplays.

Selena Gomez in “Emilia Pérez” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Emilia Pérez” (about a transgender former drug trafficker) is a musical but it’s more like an artsy telenova. The performances are the main reason to watch this uneven movie that has a messy screenplay and mediocre songs. “Emilia Pérez” is not even close to being the masterpiece might be hyped up to be some of the movie’s biggest fans. However, the dramatic parts of the film are watchable enough for viewers who are curious to see how the story is going to end.

Written and directed by Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez” is based on Audiard’s operetta of the same name, which was inspired by Boris Razon’s 2018 novel “Écoute.” The word “écoute” means “listen” in French. “Emilia Pérez” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Grand Jury Prize (the equivalent of second place); Best Soundtrack; and Best Actress, with the prize shared by “Emilia Pérez” co-stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. “Emilia Pérez” is also France’s official entry for consideration for Best International Feature Film for the 2025 Academy Awards.

“Emilia Pérez” (which takes place mostly in Mexico) begins in 2018, by showing a 36-year-old defense attorney named Rita Mora Castro (played by Zoe Saldaña), who was born in the Dominican Republic but has been living in Mexico for years because she was educated in Mexico. Rita is having conflicted feelings as she prepares for a murder trial in Mexico City. Her client Gabriel Mendoza (played by Emiliano Hasan) is accused of murdering his wife. Rita suspects he is guilty, but her supervisor/lead defense attorney Berlinger (played by Eduardo Aladro) has decided that their strategy is to say that Gabriel is not guilty because Gabriel’s wife committed suicide. Gabriel ends up being found not guilty by a jury.

Rita is feeling unfulfilled in her life. In the musical number “Todo y nada” (which means “everything and nothing” in Spanish), Rita mentions she’s becoming disillusioned with her work, and she’s tired of people asking her why she’s not married and has no children. Rita also wants to start her own law firm, but she doesn’t have the money and thinks she’ll experience obstacles because of her race. (She identifies as Afro-Latina.)

Shortly after this verdict, Rita is in a courthouse restroom when she gets a strange phone call from an unidentified man, who tells her if she wants to become rich, she needs to go to a nearby newsstand in 10 minutes. It’s under these circumstances that a curious Rita goes to the newsstand. She is kidnapped on the street while waiting at the newsstand. Rita is taken in a van, where she meets her kidnapper while she has a hood over her head.

The kidnapper is a drug cartel boss named Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (played by Karla Sofía Gascón), who has a very unusual request. Manitas has been living as a man, but Manitas really identifies as a transgender female and has felt this way since childhood. Manitas wants Rita’s help to find a safe place to get gender-affirming surgery, and then fake Manitas’ death, so that Manitas can start a new life living openly as a woman with a new name.

Rita knows about Manitas’ reputation for being a ruthless criminal. However, she relates to Manitas feeling “stuck” and wanting a drastic life change. The money that Manitas wants to pay Rita would also make her a millionaire, so she accepts this offer with little hesitation. Of course, being kidnapped and pressured into this taking this offer is a big reason why Rita says yes to Manitas.

Manitas has a wife named Jessi (played by Gomez) and two sons: Diego (played by Lucas Varoclier) and Angel (played by Théo Guarin, who are about 4 and 6 years old at the time of Rita’s kidnapping. Jessi (whose full name is Jessica) was born in the United States and still has several family members living there. Jessi is a loving parent to the children, but she remains a bit of a hollow enigma throughout the story.

Manitas plans to have Jessi, Diego and Angel live in Switzerland, where Jessi doesn’t really know anyone. Rita has been tasked with telling Jessi that Jessi and the children have to go into hiding in Switzerland because Manitas’ criminal enemies want to harm them. Manitas death will then be faked, so that Manitas can start a new life as a woman.

“Emilia Pérez” (which has a total running time of 132 minutes) takes an awfully long time before Manitas gets gender affirmation surgery, which doesn’t happen until about 40 minutes into the movie. Before that, there are some very contrived-looking scenes of Rita going to the Thai city of Bangkok and the Israeli city of Tel Aviv to find the place that will give the surgery. She decides to choose a surgeon named Dr. Wasserman (played by Mark Ivanir) in Israel to give Manitas the procedure. The musical scenes for this search for a surgeon have the weakest songs in the movie.

After the surgery, Manitas has been reinvented as a bachelorette named Emilia Pérez (also played by Gascón), although she uses the title Señora (Mrs.) for her name. Four years later, Emilia and Rita see each other again at a dinner party in a London restaurant. Rita is surprised to see Emilia there but soon finds out that Emilia planned for Rita to be there.

Emilia wants Rita’s help again: This time, Emilia wants Rita to bring Jessi, Diego and Angel over from Switzerland to live with Emilia in Mexico. (Gaël Murguia-Fur has the role of older Angel. Tirso Rangel Pietriga has the role of older Diego.) Emilia explains that she misses her children and she wants Rita’s assistance in telling Jessi, Diego and Angel that Emilia is a distant cousin of Manitas, who gave her some inheritance money to take care of them financially.

For a while, the plan works. At first, Jessi is a little suspicious over how Emilia is overly affectionate with Diego and Angel. And at times, Emilia slips up when she describes Dego and Angel as her kids. (The children call her Auntie.) Overall, the family is harmonious but this wouldn’t be telenova-type of story if things continued to go smoothly.

Because Manitas is supposed to be dead, Emilia doesn’t mind that Jessi has a lover named Gustavo Brun (played by Edgar Ramírez), whose occupation is unclear. However, it’s implied that whatever he does for money is suspicious. What Emilia doesn’t know is that Jessi and Gustavo were secret lovers when Jessi and Manitas were married. Although Jessi says that she loved Manitas, she apparently married Manitas when they were very young, and she wasn’t sure if Manitas still loved her.

Emilia feels guilty about all the murders she was responsible for when she was a drug cartel boss, so she reinvents herself as a philanthropist who has started a nonprofit charity to find missing people whose disapperances are believed to be related to drug cartels. Rita works as Emilia’s attorney for this charity and is morally conflicted when Emilia solicits donations from rich criminals. It’s during this charity work that Emilia meets Epifanía Flores (played by Paz), whose missing husband’s body was found by Emilia’s workers. Emilia and Epifanía have an instant attraction and become intimately involved with each other.

“Emilia Pérez” has moments that are thoroughly engaging, especially in the scenes where Emilia and Rita are interacting with each other. But the first third of the movie is somewhat confusing because it looks more like Rita’s story. For a movie called “Emilia Pérez,” it’s a bit of creative misstep that the title character appears so late in the movie.

Another flaw in the movie is the relationship between Jessi and Gustavo is not shown enough for viewers to understand what Jessi sees in him. All that viewers will see about the romantic part of their relationship is that Jessi likes to talk dirty to him over the phone, they’re definitely in lust, and they like to have sexy dances with each other when they go out to a nightclub. Gomez is adequate in her role as Jessi, who is an underdeveloped character.

“Emilia Pérez” is also sketchy with details over why Emilia has so much financial control over Jessi and the kids. As the “widow” of Manitas, Jessi would be entitled to a lot more that what she gets, in terms of an inheritance and financial independence. Viewers can only conclude that Jessi must be less-than-smart if she believes everything that Rita tells her and willingly goes to live with a “cousin-in-law” whom Jessi has never met before and knows almost nothing about. Jessi’s financial dependence on Emilia is crucial to a major plot development in the last third of the film.

Gascón (who is a transgender woman in real life) and Saldaña are the obvious standouts with their committed performances. Saldaña’s song-and-dance number of “El Mal” during a charity event is a highlight of the movie. Gascón also excels in her dual roles as Emilia and Manitas. “Emilia Pérez” blends romance, action and drama into a poutpourri that isn’t thoroughly appealing because of some plot holes, unanswered questions, and songs that are underwhelming. However, the personalities of Emilia and Rita are interesting enough to keep viewers engaged in story that isn’t often seen on screen.

Netflix released “Emilia Pérez” in select U.S. cinemas on November 1, 2024. Netflix premiered the movie for streaming on November 13, 2024.

Review: ‘Oh, Canada’ (2024), starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli and Jacob Elordi

December 19, 2024

by Carla Hay

Richard Gere and Uma Thurman in “Oh, Canada” (Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

“Oh, Canada” (2024)

Directed by Paul Schrader

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2023 in Montreal, with flashbacks in the U.S. and Canada from the 1960s to the 1990s, the dramatic film “Oh, Canada” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A famous documentary filmmaker, who is terminally ill with cancer, confesses his past misdeeds during a documentary interview conducted by two of his former students.

Culture Audience: “Oh, Canada” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Paul Schrader and meditative dramas about people looking back on their lives.

Jacob Elordi in “Oh, Canada” (Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

“Oh, Canada” doesn’t reach its intended impact as an important movie from filmmaker Paul Schrader. However, this drama about a flawed documentarian looking back on his life has interesting performances from the cast members. This is the type of movie that isn’t horrible, but viewers should not expect “Oh, Canada” to be among the best films from Schrader or the main stars of the movie.

Written and directed by Schrader, “Oh, Canada” is based on Russell Banks’ 2021 novel “Foregone.” “Oh, Canada” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and also screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2024 New York Film Festival. The movie takes place in Montreal, on December 23, 2023, but the story’s protagonist tells memories (seen in flashbacks) that go back to the 1960s.

“Oh, Canada” begins by showing three documentarians setting up a library/study room for an interview in the Montreal home of acclaimed documentarian Leonard “Leo” Fife (played by Richad Gere), who is terminally ill with cancer. (The movie never says what type of cancer he has.) The interview is for a CBC documentary about Leo’s life. Leo says he wants to give final confessions about his life for this interview.

The people conducting the interview are two of Leo’s former students, who are also successful documentarians on their own: Malcolm (played by Michael Imperioli) and his wife Diana (played by Victoria Hill), whom Leo jokingly says are the “Mr. and Mrs. Ken Burns of Canada.” Malcolm and Diana are accompanied by their 24-year-old assistant Sloan Ambrose (played by Penelope Mitchell), who is star-struck by Leo.

Also present during this interview are Leo’s wife/producing partner Emma (Uma Thurman) and Leo’s nursing assistant Rene (played by Caroline Dhavernas), who are there to observe and to make sure that Leo doesn’t overexert himself during this interview. Emma was a student of Leo’s at the same time as when Malcolm and Diana were Leo’s students. Although Leo’s voice can be heard for the movie’s narration of his internal and external thoughts, another narrator can be heard in the movie: Leo’s adult son Cornel (played by Zach Shaffer), whom Leo abandoned in 1968, when Cornel was abut 4 or 5 years old.

The year 1968 was a pivotal year in Leo’s life. It was the year that he became a draft dodger during the Vietnam War by moving permanently from his native United States to Canada. Jacob Elordi portrays the young Leo in flashback scenes. Because Leo’s story is told from his perspective, viewers can speculate that he is an unreliable narrator. Leo makes unflattering confessions about himself that he knows will upset Emma, but he seems to want to ease his conscience before he dies.

“Oh, Canada” jumps around a lot in the timeline, but viewers essentially find out that Leo abandoned his first two wives and children. His first wife Amy (also played by Hill) was 18 years old when she had an unplanned pregnancy. She and Leo apparently had a quickie marriage, she gave birth to a daughter named Heidi, and the marriage ended in divorce after Leo abandoned them.

In the interview, Leo would rather talk about his time with his second wife Alicia Fife (played by Kristine Froseth), the mother of Cornel. Alicia was pregnant with another child in 1968. Alica and Leo were visiting Alicia’s wealthy parents in Richmond, Virginia, and were planning to buy a home in Vermont, where Leo had been offered a teaching position at a university. Flashback memories show that Leo and Alicia were excited about her pregnancy and about their planned move to Vermont.

However, during this visit, Alicia’s businessman father Benjamin “Ben” Chapman (played by Peter Hans Benson) and Ben’s brother Jackson Chapman (played by Scott Jaeck) offered Leo a job as CEO of the family business, which would require Leo to remain in Virginia. Ben and Jackson tell Leo that they want to keep their business in the family. They think Leo is the only suitable candidate because Ben’s and Jackson’s other children (all daughters) are married to men who “aren’t fit to run a lemonade stand.” Leo asks for a few weeks to think about this job offer.

Meanwhile, flashbacks of Leo’s memories reveal that he is a serial seducer of women and committed infidelity for some of these seductions. In 1968, he became a documentarian as a “fluke,” when he was working at a trucking farm in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, and he filmed crop duster planes dispensing chemicals on the farm crops. This chemical turned out to be Agent Orange. Leo’s footage was used for his breakthrough 1970 documentary “In the Mist,” which established Leo as a documentarian with a specialty in exposing corruption.

“Oh, Canada” shows snippets from Leo’s other documentaries, but “Oh, Canada” is more concerned with Leo exposing his own personal corruption. The movie shows the events leading up to Leo deciding to permanently move to Canada as a draft dodger. Although Sloan tells Leo that she thinks he’s a “hero” for being a draft dodger to protest the Vietnam War, Leo’s confessions reveal that his reasons for dodging the draft were actually selfish motivations to abandon his family and to start over with a new life.

Emma knew that Leo was previously married with children, but it upsets her to hear the candid details about just how much Leo hurt other people with his self-centered and reckless actions. At various points during the interview, Emma wants the interview to stop because she claims Leo is “confused” because of his medication and his illness. However, Leo wants to continue and finish the interview.

“Oh, Canada” has a narrative that is purposely disjointed, as if to depict the hazy memories of a terminally ill cancer patient. During some of the re-enactments, Leo sees himself in his youthful memories either as his youthful self or as his current elderly self. Leo also remembers Sloan as looking like Alicia. And memories of time that he spent in 1968 with an artist painter acquaintance named Stanley Reinhart (played by Jake Weary) and Stanley’s wife Gloria (also played by Thurman) are also fuzzy. Leo remembers Gloria (one his sexual conquests) as looking like Emma.

“Oh, Canada” uses these twists of memory and perception in a way that might be considered artistic or might be considered off-putting to viewers. A flashback scene with Leo, Emma and an adult Cornel suggests that Emma already knew that Leo was a deadbeat dad, but Emma just doesn’t want Leo to make confessions about it on camera for a documentary about his life. There are also interpersonal dynamics at play between Malcolm, Diana and Sloan that affect what happens in the story.

“Oh, Canada” doesn’t have any major surprises, but the cast members give performances that are compelling enough if viewers to want to know how the movie ends. Gere is quite skillful at portraying a world-weary, jaded person who is coming to terms with his shortcomings as a form of self-reflection and perhaps to seek a little bit of redemption. Elordi, Thurman and the other cast members capably handle their roles in “Oh, Canada,” but don’t do anything outstanding that takes the movie to a higher level of quality.

“Oh, Canada” makes astute observations about how fame affects what famous people choose to convey about themselves for public perception and how the private reality might be very different. There is also some irony toward the end of the movie about documentary ethics and Leo as a “role model” for the type of exposé filmmaking that made him famous. “Oh, Canada” effectively shows how this documentary filmmaker tells his life story when he knows his life will soon end, but he still can’t resist the urge to make selective edits.

Kino Lorber released “Oh, Canada” in select U.S. cinemas on December 6, 2024.

Review: ‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,’ starring Matilda Fleming, Maria Dizzia, Ben Shenkman, Francesca Scorsese, Elsie Fisher, Lev Cameron, Sawyer Spielberg, Gregg Turkington and Michael Cera

December 14, 2024

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left: Leo Chan, John Trischetti Jr., Brittany Hughes, Maria Dizzia, Sean Carr, Tony Savino, Mary Reistetter, JoJo Cincinnati, Laura Robards, Ben Shenkman, Francesca Scorsese, Jordan Barringer and Matilda Fleming in “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point”

Directed by Tyler Taormina

Culture Representation: Taking place on an early 2000s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, a fictional city on New York’s Long Island, the comedy/drama film “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Various people of different generations gather for a Christmas Eve dinner party at a family home, where there is some adult bickering and teenage rebellion.

Culture Audience: “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching Christmas holiday movies that don’t have a real plot.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Matilda Fleming, Francesca Scorsese, Leo Hervey and Ava Francesca Renne in “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is a movie that doesn’t have a point with a story that’s aimless drivel. It’s nothing but a dull compilation of mindless drama and unfunny comedy scenes with forgettable characters during a Christmas Eve night on New York’s Long Island. By the end of this time-wasting film, you probably won’t be able to describe anything that’s consistently compelling about the movie.

Directed by Tyler Taormina, “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” was co-written by Taormina and Eric Berger. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, which might be why some people might be fooled into thinking this is a good film. The reality is that the Cannes Film Festival has had plenty of bad movies. “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is one of them.

“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” (which takes place in in the early 2000s, in the fictional Long Island city of Miller’s Point) begins by showing a family of four driving to the home of the children’s grandmother for a large family gathering. (“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” was filmed on location in Suffolk County, Long Island.) In the car are spouses Lenny (played by Ben Shenkman) and Kathleen (played by Maria Dizzia) and their two children: teenage Emily (played by Matilda Fleming) and pre-teen Andrew, nicknamed Andy (played by Justin Long), who’s about 10 or 11 years old. Emily is about 15 or 16 years old.

Lenny is a mostly attentive father who seems to get along with everyone, but he has a tendency to be bossy and preachy. Kathleen is a neurotic worrier. Emily is a teenage rebellion stage and often gets into arguments with Kathleen. Andy doesn’t have much of a personality and is barely seen in the movie.

The Christmas Eve family gathering is being held at the home of Kathleen’s widowed mother Antonia (played by Mary Reistetter), who doesn’t say much in the movie either. Kathleen’s siblings are also at this Christmas Eve dinner party: gossipy Elyse (played by Maria Carucci), macho Uncle Ray (played by Tony Savino), outspoken Matthew (played by John Trischetti Jr.) and “average guy” Uncle Ronald (played by Steve Alleva), who thinks he’s the most talented cook in the family. Ray likes to brag that he’s an aspiring author. No one cares.

One of the biggest problems with “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is that it’s overstuffed with characters where almost nothing is told about these characters. Too many characters come and go in the story, with no effort to let these characters stay long enough for viewers to get to know them. Some people seated at the main dinner table are never identified by how they know Antonia and her family. About 80% of “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” consists of very boring conversations that go nowhere. The movie goes from one scenario to the next with no real purpose.

You won’t learn much about the family at the center of the story. Ronald wants to put Antonia in a nursing home, while Ray is vehemently against the idea. Ray offers to have Antonia live with him, while his siblings are skeptical that Ray is capable of taking care of their mother. There’s also some family disagreement over whether or not Antonia’s house should be sold after she dies.

Meanwhile, Emily sneaks out of the house to drive around with some of her friends, including Michelle (played by Francesca Scorsese) and Sasha (played by Ava Francesca Renne), while an unwelcome pest named Craig Salwen (played by Leo Hervey) tags along. The highlight of their excursion is being able to illegally buy alcoholic drinks at a liquor store. Michelle, who is slightly older (about 19 or 20) than the teens she hangs out with, has a brief flirtation with a retail worker named Lynn (played by Elsie Fisher), who is in the movie for less than 10 minutes.

There are other scenes that are completely useless, such as an early scene of adolescents playing a video game in a room. A kid named Plati (played by Keon Mosley) suddenly goes into a dark storage room in the house and emerges from the room holding an iguana. And then, the movie abruptly cuts to another scene. This bizarre scene with the iguana is not mentioned or referenced in the movie again.

“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” occasionally shows two law enforcement officers on patrol: Officer Gibson (played by Michael Cera, one of the producers of “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point”) and Sergeant Brooks (played by Gregg Turkington), who are both weirdos. They like to flash their squad car headlights whenever they think anyone is speeding, even if these two cops don’t necessarily pull anyone over for speeding. These two cops who don’t say much until a strange and very unamusing part of the movie where they both talk in deadpan voices about acting on sexual feelings for a co-worker.

The acting performances in “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” are mediocre to awful, with no character in the movie having a personality that could be considered interesting. “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is so slow-paced and inert, it’s like watching a snow plow stuck in a rut. Instead of shoveling snow, “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is like a snow plow that just shovels a lot of crap.

IFC Films released “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” in select U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on December 3, 2024. AMC+ premiered “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” on December 6, 2024.

Review: ‘Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,’ starring Leslie Matlaisane and the voice of LaKeith Stanfield

December 8, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ernest Cole in “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”

Directed by Raoul Peck

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” examines the life and work of South African photographer Ernest Cole, told mostly through archival footage and narration from American actor LaKeith Stanfield.

Culture Clash: Ernest Cole (who died of pancreatic cancer in 1990, when he was 49) became an exile in the United States because of his anti-apartheid work, and he fell on hard times while living in the U.S.

Culture Audience: “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about notable photographers and/or South African history.

A photo taken by Ernest Cole in 1960s South Africa in “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” is a meaningful tribute to South African photographer Ernest Cole. However, it would’ve been a better documentary if it investigated how 60,000 negatives of Cole’s photos were secretly hidden in a Swiss bank for decades. This intriguing mystery is a big unanswered question that the documentary doesn’t bother to answer, even though many of these previously unpublished photos are the basis for much of the documentary.

Directed by Raoul Peck, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the L’Œil d’or prize for best documentary in a tie with “The Brink of Dreams,” directed by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir. “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” also made the rounds at other film festivals in 2024, including the Toronto International Film Festival and DOC NYC. It’s a documentary that wants viewers to feel immersed in Cole’s mind, even if many of Cole’s “thoughts” are speculation created for the movie.

“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” is really a visual compilation of Cole’s work, with narration by American actor LaKeith Stanfield portraying Cole in words written by Cole and written by Peck. The documentary doesn’t have a clear distinction of which are Cole’s own words (mostly from his journals) and which were written by Peck for this documentary. However, there are moments when it’s obvious that the narration is not from Cole’s words because it talks about Cole’s death from pancreatic cancer in February 1990 (when he was 49) and things that happened after his death, such as the end of apartheid in South Africa in May 1990.

“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” begins with this caption: “In 1967, the South African photographer Ernest Cole published his iconic book ‘House of Bondage.’ It revealed to the world the horror of apartheid. Fifty years later, in 2017, 60,000 unknown negatives were found in a Swedish bank vault. This is the story of what happened between those dates, as told by Ernest Cole himself.”

Cole was born on March 21, 1940, in Eersterust, Pretoria, South Africa. “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” does not discuss his childhood or his personal life when he was an adult. There’s also no information in the documentary about what sparked his interest in photography and when he started taking photos. And don’t expect “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” to give details about what Cole (a bachelor who didn’t have children) liked to do in his free time and who were his greatest loves. Those details aren’t in the documentary either.

“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” is mostly a compilation of Cole’s still photos with Stanfield’s emotionally stirring narration telling Cole’s real or imagined thoughts during his time period. There is some archival film footage too, including clips of an interview that Cole did for the 1969 documentary “Bilder för Miljoner,” directed by Rune Hassner. Cole’s specialty was photographing everyday people, mostly outdoors.

“House of Bondage,” a photo book that is mentioned frequently in the documentary, was groundbreaking for how it documented and showed the vile racism of apartheid. Cole was inspired to do this photo book after seeing Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photo book “The People of Moscow.” The “House of Bondage” photos included the destruction caused by the South African apartheid government destroying homes in what the government called a “black spot”: an African township where black people lived and was “marked for obliteration if it occupies an area into which whites want to expand, ” says the documentary’s narration.

“House of Bondage” resulted in critical acclaim for Cole, but he became an enemy of the apartheid-controlled South African government. “House of Bondage” was banned in South Africa, and Cole went into exile in the United States, where he lived mostly in New York City. In the U.S., Cole also chronicled racism and racial inequality in his photos. But he also didn’t want to pigeonholed as a photographer who only documented “people’s misery.”

Cole traveled outside of New York, such as Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., to take many of the photos seen in the documentary. The narration says: “In the [U.S.] South, I was more scared than I was in South Africa.” The narration further explains that in South Africa, he was afraid of being arrested. In the U.S. South, he was afraid of being shot. It’s unclear in the documentary if Cole really wrote those narration words, or if those words were fabricated for the documentary.

Stanfield (as Cole) says in the narration about how “House of Bondage” affected Cole: “It made me famous … But why do I feel a sense of betrayal? The world didn’t want a book about just humans, about the human condition. It was more than a political pamphlet. It was not conceived as an anti-apartheid political crusade. It was about my life in South Africa and the lives of millions of others.”

The documentary also makes a point of blaming Cole’s career decline in the U.S. on racist gatekeepers being offended that Cole made comparisons to racism in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa. By the time Cole became a celebrated photographer in the late 1960s, racial segregation was illegal in the U.S., due to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But from Cole’s perspective, unofficial racial segregation still remained in many parts of the U.S., while racial inequalities and racial injustices were still rampant everywhere in the U.S.

“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” also mentions Cole’s immigration problems and includes a 1968 letter that he wrote to the alien commissioner of the Norwegian government explaining his plight of not being able to get his passport renewed at the time but he might be able to get an emergency travel certificate. Cole had a few mentors early in his career—such as German-born South African photographer Jürgen Schadeberg and Joseph Lelyveld of The New York Times—but his career opportunities dried up, and he eventually faded into obscurity.

It’s mentioned that there was a period in Cole’s life when he became so disillusioned with being a photographer, he didn’t take any photos for eight years. During much of his later years, Cole was homeless. The narration says that Cole’s relocation to New York City was a “descent into hell,” and he went from being a “world-famous photographer” to “being homeless at the 34th Street train station.” The documentary briefly mentions that Cole spent some time in Sweden before he returned to New York City, where he lived until his death.

The only person interviewed for “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” is Leslie Matlaisane, who is Ernest Cole’s nephew and the head of the Ernest Cole Family Trust. There is 2017 footage of Matlaisane going through Cole’s photography files that were secretly hidden and locked away at SEB Bank in Switzerland. It’s mentioned in the documentary that it’s still a mystery how this secret stash got to the bank and who paid for this stash to be kept at the bank for more than 40 years.

The bank refuses to give that information or say why it chose to reveal this secret stash many decades after it was put in a bank vault and chose to return this stash to the Ernest Cole Family Trust. It’s a mystery that’s worth investigating, but the documentary doesn’t do that type of research and investigation. In the production notes for “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Peck explains, “I was more curious to see those pictures than to learn how they were discovered.”

Peck also says of the 504 vintage prints of Cole photos that have a dispute over ownership: “Just recently (on May 7, 2024), the Hasselblad Foundation published a press release that says they will give back all the pictures, including the 504 vintage prints I mention at the film’s end in title cards. Those vintage prints are the other big scandal. I did not give too much detail about them in the film on purpose and I hope that the journalists will work on that. Ernest himself printed those pictures.” It’s another missed opportunity for the documentary to have more substance beyond being a retrospective tribute.

As for not interviewing anyone except Matlaisane for the documentary, Peck comments in the production notes: “I wasn’t going to tell this story through talking heads—that would have been a totally different story, like a biography. And I don’t do biography, I tell stories.”

Unfortunately, the interview with Matlaisane is fairly generic and doesn’t offer any fascinating information about Cole—unless you think it’s fascinating that Matlaisane says that Cole invited a young Matlaisane to visit Cole in the U.S., but Matlaisane declined the invitation because Matlaisane’s mother disapproved of Matlaisane taking this type of trip. “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” is very watchable, despite some uneven film editing and pacing that occasionally drags. As it stands, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” serves as a interesting but incomplete overview of Cole’s life and his talented work, with his real and imagined thoughts as the narration.

Magnolia Pictures released “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” in New York City on November 22, 2024, and in Los Angeles on November 29, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities in subsequent weeks.

Review: ‘All We Imagine as Light,’ starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam and Hridhu Haroon

November 28, 2024

by Carla Hay

Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha in “All We Imagine as Light” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow/Janus Films)

“All We Imagine as Light”

Directed by Payal Kapadia

Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam and Bhojpuri with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the dramatic film “All We Imagine as Light” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Three female friends, who are hospital co-workers, navigate various challenges in their lives.

Culture Audience: “All We Imagine as Light” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in drama about the lives of everyday people.

Chhaya Kadam and Kani Kusruti in “All We Imagine as Light” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow/Janus Films)

“All We Imagine as Light” offers a mood journey more than an obvious plot. It’s an introspective drama about relationships and hope from female viewpoints. However, the movie’s nearly two-hour running time is excessive for what this movie actually conveys. At least 30 minutes of the movie is unneccessary and could’ve been edited out without diminishing the overall plot. The movie’s slow pacing might also cause some viewers to lose interest in the story.

Written and directed by Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine as Light” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Grand Prix, the equivalent of second place in the festival’s main competition. “All We Imagine as Light” subsequently screened at numerous other film festivals in 2024, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. It’s a movie about people who live unassuming lives and whose dreams are muted by society’s oppressions and prejudices.

“All We Imagine as Light” focuses on three female friends, who are all co-workers at the same hospital in Mumbai, India. Prabha (played by Kani Kusruti) and Anu (played by Divya Prabha) are nurses and roommates with opposite personalities and lifestyles. Prabha is introverted and traditional. Anu is extroverted and free-spirited. Their friend Parvaty (played by Chhaya Kadam) works as a cook at the hospital.

Prabha is married, but her husband is away because he works at a factory in Germany, but he hasn’t kept in contact with her, so Prabha assumes that he has abandoned her. A physician at the hospital named Dr. Manoj (played by Azees Nedumangad) shows a romantic interest in Prabha, but she rejects his advances because she wants to remain loyal to her husband. Prabha feels lonely but she tries to suppress her feelings by focusing on her work and helping her friends.

Anu’s parents are pressuring her to find a husband through an arranged marriage. Anu is secretly dating a man named Shiaz (played by Hridhu Haroon), who would not be approved of by her parents because Shiaz is Muslim, and Anu is Hindu. Anu doesn’t feel like she’s ready for marriage, but she know she wants to marry for love, not because it’s an arranged marriage. Shiaz is a passionate suitor who wants Anu to live with him.

Parvaty, who has a personality filled with determination, is having problems with her living situation because the owner of the building where she lives wants to demolish the building to make way for a high-rise complex. Her electricity has been cut off. And she’s told by an attorney that she doesn’t have any proof that she lived there, so it’s very likely she will be evicted.

All three of the women’s problems are somehow intertwined with each other. A catalyst for something happening is when Prabha gets a rice cooker delivered to her as a gift by an anonymous sender. Prabha also helps Parvaty when Parvaty has to make a decision about her housing problem.

“All We Imagine as Light” patiently shows how Prabha, Anu and Parvaty deal with their personal issues while going about their everyday lives. Therefore, the movie has many scenes of the women at work or doing things that are quite mundane, such as traveling by bus. The “forbidden” romance of Anu and Shiaz brings some sizzle to a plot that sometimes stalls without much progress.

Interspersed with the lives of these three women are occasional scenes where the camera pans across the streets of Mumbai, as viewers hear snippets of conversations from people on the streets. “All We Imagine as Light” capably shows how many people come to Mumbai from small villages because there are more work opportunities in Mumbai. And they find that life in the big city can be overwhelming and lonely at the same time.

All of the cast members portray their characters with enough authenticity that it’s easy to perceive “All We Imagine as Light” as being inspired by any number of real people. The cinematography by Ranabir Das has elements of artistic realism that can keep viewers engaged, even when not much is happening in the story. The title of the movie is explained in the film’s last 15 minutes, which show the power of people helping each other during tough times.

Sideshow/Janus Films released “All We Imagine as Light” in select U.S. cinemas on November 15, 2024.

Review: ‘Flow’ (2024), an artful and gorgeous animated film about animals surviving an apocalypse

November 10, 2024

by Carla Hay

A scene from “Flow” (Image courtesy of Sideshow/Janus Films)

“Flow” (2024)

Directed by Gints Zilbalodis

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed part of Earth, animated film “Flow” features a various animals and no speaking.

Culture Clash: A group of different animals end up working together to survive an apocalypse.

Culture Audience: “Flow” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching unique anmated films about animals.

A scene from “Flow” (Image courtesy of Sideshow/Janus Films)

“Flow” is one of the best animated films of the year. In this emotionally moving and gorgeously filmed story that has no speaking, various animals find themselves surviving an apocalypse together. It’s impressive for an animated film to have no spoken words and yet convey so much.

Directed by Gints Zilbalodis (who co-wrote the screenplay with Matiss Kaza), “Flow” is Latvia’s official entry for the 2025 Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. “Flow” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and its Canadian premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The animal characters in this movie do not have names. There are also no humans in the movie, which takes place in an unnamed part of Earth.

The origins of this apocalypse is never explained, but it has caused massive flooding. During the course of a story, a cat, capybara, a lemur, a secretarybird, and a dog navigate a boat while looking for dry land and learn to rely on each other. There are also some other animals in the movie, including a whale, which has one of the best scenes in “Flow.”

“Flow” might sound like it has a very simple plot. However, this is a movie of substance that can’t be described without revealing how the story unfolds. “Flow” is a movie that has to be experienced by watching it to fully understand how special it is.

One of the best things about “Flow” is how it beautifully depicts many of the nature scenes. Scenes in the woods and underwater have an authentic quality that will make viewers feel fully immersed. There are also some stunning-looking outdoor scenes (such as when the cat encounters a giant cat statue) that can be considered among the visual highlights.

Although there is no talking in “Flow,” the animals show distinct personalities and characteristics. The cat is intelligent and resourceful. The dog (a Labrador retriever that is first seen with a pack of other dogs) is playful and affectionate. The lemur is a bit of a pack rat that likes to collect abandoned trinkets. The capybara is laid-back and friendly. The secretarybird seems to be an enemy at first but ends up being a protective friend.

There are a few things that aren’t realistic, such as a group of lemurs acting more like humans than the other animals. An amusing scene shows how the somewhat-vain lemurs do when they discover a mirror. However, the cat (who is the main protagonist) and most of the other animals are portrayed very realistically. In a world where almost all animated films about animals have them talking like humans, it’s refreshing to see an animated film that shows and respects animals for how they really are.

Sideshow/Janus Films will release “Flow” in select U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2024. The movie was released in Latvia on August 28, 2024.

Review: ‘The Substance,’ starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid

October 27, 2024

by Carla Hay

Demi Moore in “The Substance” (Photo courtesy of MUBI)

“The Substance”

Directed by Coralie Fargeat

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the horror film “The Substance” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A famous TV aerobics instructor injects herself with an anti-aging liquid called The Substance, which creates a spliced younger woman from her DNA, and things go horribly wrong.

Culture Audience: “The Substance” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in provocative horror movies that have a lot to say about the extreme things that people can do to hold on to youth and beauty.

Margaret Qualley (pictured at far left) and Dennis Quaid (pictured second from left) in “The Substance” (Photo courtesy of MUBI)

The sci-fi horror movie “The Substance” is both a gruesome portrayal and a dark satire of vanity and insecurity about aging and society’s beauty ideals. The movie’s extremely gory and chaotic ending could’ve been better, but the performances are riveting. The visual imagery in “The Substance” is deliberately unsettling and might be downright nauseating for some viewers.

Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Screenplay. At the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, “The Substance” won the Midnight Madness Audience Award. Most people who like “The Substance” will admire its bold and risk-taking approach in depicting how society’s beauty standards can be toxic and cause destructive self-loathing. People who dislike “The Substance” will mostly be repulsed by the movie’s body horror, which (it cannot be said enough times) will be too disturbing for some viewers.

“The Substance” takes place in the Los Angeles area, but the movie was actually filmed in France. The opening scene shows an unidentified person wearing black gloves injecting something into an egg yolk. The egg yolk then self-duplicates. This scientific procedure is a foreshadowing of what happens to the main character in the story. “The Substance” invites viewers to think about what decisions they would make if they were in the same circumstances as this protagonist.

The movie’s protagonist is Elisabeth Sparkles (played by Demi Moore), a successful aerobics instructor on TV with a show called “Sparkle Your Life.” Elisabeth (a bachelorette with no children) is famous enough to have gotten her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. However, during a montage showing people walking on Elisabeth’s star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, it’s mentioned that Elisabeth has become a semi-forgotten has-been. A man accidentally drops a ketchup-covered hamburger on the star. This imagery of the Walk of Fame in the beginning of “The Substance” is referenced at the end of the movie.

What happened to Elisabeth? A flashback shows Elisabeth leading an enthusiastic workout to an admiring class for one of her TV episodes. And this day happens to be her birthday. Elisabeth is in her 60s, but she looks 20 to 25 years younger than her real age. Elisabeth doesn’t know it yet, but her career is about to go on a downward spiral.

Elisabeth is feeling upbeat and cheerful. She graciously thanks her colleagues in the TV studio when they wish her a happy birthday. The women’s restroom is out of order, so Elisabeth decides to use the men’s room. While she’s in a toilet stall, she overhears her boss Harvey (played by Dennis Quaid) enter the restroom and have a private phone conversation that is degrading to women.

Harvey—a high-ranking TV executive with an unknown title—is very egotistical, sleazy and sexist. He is verbally abusive and callous to his subordinates. Harvey values female employees only if they are young, conventionally beautiful, and can make money for him. Harvey openly tells people that a woman’s expiration date is the age of 50. And you know what that means for Elisabeth.

Elisabeth is driving down a street when she gets distracted by the sight of a billboard of herself getting replaced. Because of this distraction, Elisabeth gets into a major car accident where a truck crashes into her car. Elisabeth ends up in a hospital, where a doctor (played by Tom Morton) tells her that she is lucky not to have any serious injuries. A creepy male nurse (played by Robin Greer) feels Elisabeth’s spine and says to her, “You’re a good candidate.”

Not long after Elisabeth is released from the hospital, she gets an unusual delivery at her home: a flash drive wrapped in paper. The flash drive is labeled The Substance. And the paper is a hand-written note with a phone number and this message: “It changed my life.”

Elisabeth is curious, so she inserts the flash drive into a computer and sees a video presentation for The Substance. A voiceover for the presentation says, “Have you ever dreamt of being a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect. One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division that will release another version of yourself.”

The presentation further explains: “The two versions have to co-exist. The one and only thing not to forget: You are one. You cannot escape yourself.”

Elisabeth decides to try The Substance and places an order for it. She gets a package with a key card, a hypodermic needle and a small bottle containing lime green liquid. The number 503 is on the key card. Elisabeth later finds out that 503 is the customer number that she has been assigned.

When Elisabeth calls the customer service phone number that she was given, an unidentified male voice reminds her that if she injects The Substance (the green liquid), then whatever person is created from Elisabeth will always be part of Elisabeth. “You are the matrix,” the voice tells her. “Everything comes from you. And everything is you. This is simply a better version of yourself.”

Elisabeth is also given instructions that she and the spliced person who will be created from The Substance have to equally split their time in the real world every week. If exceptions are made, there are consequences. Elisabeth and her spliced alter ego being cannot be seen in public together at the same time. When one of them is active, the other has to remain unconscious.

Elisabeth injects The Substance for the first time while she’s naked in her bathroom. And the effects are almost immediate. Elisabeth collapses on the floor as a new person emerges from her spine. This newly created person is Sue (played by Margaret Qualley), a perky woman in her 20s. The movie has a fixation on showing extreme close-ups of Sue’s body parts, especially her rear end.

Sue is not a clone of Elisabeth. Rather, Sue looks like she could be a younger biological family member of Elisabeth. If Sue or Elisabeth starts to feel run down when her time is running out and it’s time for the other person to “take over,” the person who is feeling run down gets a nosebleed. The Substance can be injected to rejuvenate whoever gets injected.

Harvey seems to forget all about Elisabeth (whose show he was going to cancel anyway), and he gives Sue her own exercise show called “Pump It Up,” which becomes an instant hit. Problems arise when Sue gets addicted to her newfound fame and fortune and doesn’t keep her end of the bargain to split her public time with Elisabeth. It should come as no surprise that Sue essentially wants to take over Elisabeth’s life and keep Elisabeth hidden for as long as possible. The consequences are quite grisly.

“The Substance” doesn’t do a very good job of explaining how Elisabeth’s “disappearances” during the week aren’t noticed by many people in her life. Even if Elisabeth had no family and no friends, someone on Elisabeth’s level of fame would have people working for her who would notice that her disappearances keep getting longer. Perhaps it’s the movie’s not-so-subtle way of stating that women of a certain age become more “invisible” and less noticeable as they get older.

However, “The Substance” does hit the mark in its commentary on how people can be conflicted over how much youth and beauty (or lack thereof) can have profound effects on people’s lives because of how society judges people based on physical appearances. Many people act like these prejudices don’t affect them, but the reality is that these prejudices affect everyone, whether people want to admit it or not. This reality is never far from the sci-fi surrealism of “The Substance.”

Elisabeth and Sue are supposed to be the same person, but Sue’s eventual greediness in not wanting to give equal time for Elisabeth to live is an example of the self-sabotage that people can engage in for short-term pleasure. On a different level, “The Substance” can also be considered a scathing criticism of the plastic surgery that people get to look younger, but the plastic surgery (if not done correctly) can actually make them look deformed or unnatural. Although “The Substance” has been described as a feminist movie, “The Substance” shows that women aren’t the only people with the desire to hold on to youth and good looks.

Moore is perfectly cast as self-conscious and complicated Elisabeth, who goes through a form of torture when the shallow and ambitious Sue decides to take over Elisabeth’s life. Qualley also gives a standout performance as Sue, who never seems to be completely human. That’s because Sue was created as a fully formed adult only when it comes to her physical appearance, instead of going through the human psychological/emotional experiences of maturing from childhood to adulthood. Without the character-shaping experiences of maturing from childhood to adulthood, Sue can only be described as somewhat soulless with an underdeveloped personality.

What happens to Elisabeth during the course of the story is more than a “be careful what you wish for” warning. It’s also the movie’s way of saying that going to extreme lengths to hold on to youth and beauty doesn’t just harm the person who goes to those extremes. It also harms society because it’s a part of a system that profits from making people feel insecure about natural aging, in order to sell products and services aimed at making people look younger. The real horror in “The Substance” isn’t just in the bloody gore but the fact many people in real life would make the same choices that Elisabeth makes to look young and beautiful at any cost and regardless of any damage it causes.

MUBI released “The Substance” in U.S. cinemas on September 20, 2024. MUBI’s streaming service will premiere “The Substance” on October 31, 2024.

Review: ‘Megalopolis’ (2024), starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight and Jason Schwartzman

October 7, 2024

by Carla Hay

Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in “Megalopolis” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Megalopolis” (2024)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of New Rome, the sci-fi drama film “Megalopolis” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A property mogul causes controversy over his development of an urban mega-complex, as he juggles various problems in his personal life.

Culture Audience: “Megalopolis” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and many of the movie’s headliners, but celebrity name recognition does not save this disastrous and ill-conceived movie.

Aubrey Plaza in “Megalopolis” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Megaflopolis” is a more accurate title for the bloated and idiotic “Megalopolis,” which is drunk on its own pretension and fails miserably to tell a coherent and interesting story. A star-studded cast can’t save this mess. This is the type of movie that can only be described as a giant waste on many levels: production budget, talent and a potentially intriguing concept.

Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, “Megalopolis” has been an idea of Coppola’s since 1977. The movie’s production budget was reportedly $120 million to $136 million, much of which was independently financed by Coppola, whose best work is still considered to be his Oscar-winning films from the 1970s, such as 1972’s “The Godfather,” 1974’s “The Godfather Part II” and 1979’s “Apocalypse Now.” Coppola has been coasting on his reputation for being an “auteur,” so “Megalopolis” came with a certain standard of expectations. “Megalopolis” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Unfortunately, the end result of all the years and money it took to make “Megalopolis” (which takes place in a futuristic fictional city of New Rome, inspired by New York City) is a movie that looks like a hack job on an over-inflated budget. This 138-minute catastrophe has a lot to show but doesn’t have much to say. Here’s the gist of the plot: An ambitious and frequently dour property mogul named Cesar Catilina (played by Adam Driver), who prefers to be called Catilina, causes controversy because of his high-priced plans to build a mega-complex called Megalopolis in the middle of the city. Meanwhile, Catilina gets involved in a love triangle, he has struggles with “mother issues” because his mother dislikes him, and he deals with various other people who come in and out of his orbit.

Catilina is getting a lot of criticism for displacing low-income people from their housing because of his development of Megalopolis, which includes business buildings, a shopping center and a giant recreational park. Years ago, Catilina went on trial for murder after he was accused of poisoning his wife. He was acquitted of the charges, but the scandal still affects his reputation.

One of Catilina’s biggest enemies is Mayor Franklyn Cicero (played by Giancarlo Esposito), who was the prosecuting district attorney in the murder trial. Mayor Cicero still thinks Catilina is guilty. Catilina calls Mayor Cicero “the chief slum lord” and doesn’t understand why the mayor is opposed to Catilina’s plan to “beautify” the city with Megalopolis. Another person who doesn’t get along well with Mayor Cicero is his hard-partying, sexually fluid daughter Julia Cicero (played by Nathalie Emmanuel), a medical school dropout, who is frequently in the tabloid media for her antics. Teresa Cicero (played by Kathryn Hunter), who is Mayor Cicero’s wife/Julia’s mother, is the calm counterpoint to Mayor Cicero’s fiery personality.

“Megalopolis” opens with a captioned statement in Latin (with subtitles): “Our American republic is not that much different from Old Rome … Will we fall victim, like Old Rome, to the insatiable appetite for power from a few men?” All this means is that “Megalopolis” has a lot of people looking ridiculous as they wear togas and other clothing that are supposed to be inspired by Old Rome. But then, the movies bizarrely drops in some references to William Shakespeare, such as in an early scene in “Megalopolis” when Catilina utters the famous line “To be or not to be” from “Hamlet.”

In the beginning of the story, Catilina has been having a casual fling with a TV talk show host named Wow Platinum (played by Aubrey Plaza), who has grown frustrated that Catilina won’t commit to a more serious relationship. In a TV interview, Wow Platinum asks him: “What’s it like to be rich?” Catilina answers, “You can scare people.” Get used to the cringeworthy dialogue, because “Megalopolis” is full of it.

Wow tells Catilina that she’s “bored” with being his casual lover and declares that she wants to be “one-half of a power couple.” She’s tired of waiting around for Catilina to propose marriage to her. And so, gold digger Wow has a quickie wedding with elderly billionaire Hamilton Crassus III (played by Jon Voight), who is Catilina’s uncle and who obviously has a lot of influence in the city. Hamilton’s sister is Cesar Catilina’s widowed mother: Constance Crassus Catilina (played by Talia Shire), who doesn’t hide her disdain for Cesar. Constance openly tells Cesar that she wish he had been born a girl.

Hamilton is a lot like dying prey, with vultures circling to wait until he can die and fight over his fortune. These vultures include his heirs and his new wife Wow. Hamilton has four grandchildren who are all spoiled siblings: Clodia Pulcher (played by Chloe Fineman), Clodio Pulcher (played by Shia LaBeouf), Claudine Pulcher (played by Isabelle Kusman) and Claudette Pulcher (played by Madeleine Gardella). Claudine is a party girl who is a lover of Julia, the mayor’s “wild child” daughter.

Supporting characters drift in an out of the story, some with more purpose than others. A pop music superstar named Vesta Sweetwater (played by Grace VanderWaal), who has an image of being a teenage virgin, performs at the wedding reception for Hamilton and Wow. Fundi Romaine (played by Laurence Fishburne) is Catilina’s loyal driver/butler/flunky. Nush “The Fixer” Berman (played by Dustin Hoffman) briefly scurries in and out of the movie like a rat scrounging for scraps. Nush is opposed to Megalopolis because he says it’s built on a waste foundation. Jason Zanderz (played by Jason Schwartzman) is a “yes man” in Mayor Cicero’s entourage.

It should come as no surprise that Julia (because she’s got “daddy issues”) decides to work for Catilina, her father’s biggest enemy. One thing leads to another, and Julia and Catilina become lovers, much to the horror of Mayor Cicero. “Megalopolis” has a tired, catty subplot of a jealous Wow trying to break up the relationship between Julia and Catilina (even though Wow is now married to Hamilton) because Wow can’t stand to see Catilina be in love with another woman.

“Megalopolis” lurches from scene to scene and puts forth some not-very-original futuristic ideas (such as cars that travel by air) that are clumsily plopped into the story but never fully developed. Many of the scenes are mind-numbingly bad and embarrassing for the people in these scenes, as well as for Coppola, because of all the substandard acting and terrible dialogue. If you waited your whole life to see disgraced actor LaBeouf in drag as he says, “Revenge tastes best when wearing a dress,” then “Megalopolis” is the movie for you. For people with good taste in cinema, “Megalopolis” should definitely be left off of the menu.

Lionsgate released “Megalopolis” in U.S. cinemas on September 27, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on September 23, 2024.

Review: ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig,’ starring Misagh Zareh, Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki and Niousha Akhshi

September 23, 2024

by Carla Hay

Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki in “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”

Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

Persian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Iran, the dramatic film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” features an all-Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A newly promoted investigating judge has conflicts over political unrest in Iranian society and dissension in his own household with his wife and two teenage daughters.

Culture Audience: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and movies that show how societal changes can affect an individual family.

Misagh Zareh and Soheila Golestani in “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is a little long-winded in showing how political unrest can have profound effects on a family. However, this well-acted drama has a very suspenseful last 30 minutes that make it worth the wait. With a total running time of 167 minutes, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” might test the patience of some viewers with some of the movie’s repetitive scenarios. Fortunately, the plot isn’t overstuffed, and there’s a small number of people in the movie’s cast, which gives the movie an intimate urgency that it deserves.

Written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won a special jury prize. The movie made the rounds at other film festivals in 2024, including the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” takes place in Iran, mostly in the capital city of Tehran. It’s the city where a family of four live during a tumultous time of political unrest in Iran, where activists (many of them young people) protest on the street against government oppressions.

The family of four who are at the center of the story are:

  • Iman (played by Missagh Zareh), the family religious patriarch, who has recently been promoted to being an investigating judge for the Iranian government.
  • Najmeh (played by Soheila Golestani), Iman’s wife, the family matriarch who is very pro-government and in favor of strict traditional values until certain events give her a different perspective.
  • Rezvan (played by Mahsa Rostami), the older daughter of Iman and Najmeh, who’s about 17 or 18 years old.
  • Sana (played by Setareh Maleki), the younger daughter Iman and Najmeh, who’s about 15 or 16 years old.

Rezvan is more outspoken than Sana, who is quieter and more obedient. Iman’s promotion comes with some problems. A colleague named Ghaderi (played by Reza Akhlaghi) tells Iman that Iman’s promotion was somewhat controversial because a colleague wanted his own man to get the job. Iman is also getting pressured to give a death indictment to a political prisoner when Iman hasn’t even looked at this prisoner’s file yet.

As part of Iman’s job, he has been given a service gun, which he tells Najmeh to hide in their home. Around the same time, Rezvan pleads with Najmeh to give a teenage friend named Sadaf (played by Niousha Akhshi) a place to stay for a few nights because Sadaf’s college dorm room isn’t available yet. Rezvan reluctantly agrees.

What happens next is a series of events causing increasing turmoil within this family. The catalyst for the most tension-filled aspects of the story have to do with Iman’s reactions when he finds out that his gun has gone missing. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” has solid acting performances and gripping cinematography that make this movie compelling enough for viewers who want to see how it will end.

Neon will release “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in select U.S. cinemas on November 27, 2024.

Review: ‘Jim Henson Idea Man,’ starring Frank Oz, Lisa Henson, Heather Henson, Cheryl Henson and Brian Henson

July 21, 2024

by Carla Hay

A 1950s archival photo of Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog in “Jim Henson Idea Man” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Jim Henson Idea Man”

Directed by Ron Howard

Culture Representation: The documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man” features a predominantly white group of people (with one Latina) discussing the life and career of puppeteer/filmmaker Jim Henson, who is best known for creating several Muppets characters.

Culture Clash: Henson, who was known as a generous, creative and fun-loving person, was also a workaholic who often preferred being at work instead of being with his family. 

Culture Audience: “Jim Henson Idea Man” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Henson, the Muppets and biographical documentaries about pioneering entertainers.

A 1970s archival photo of Jim Henson (front row, center) and members of “The Muppet Show” team, including Jane Henson (front row, far right) and Frank Oz (second row, far right) in “Jim Henson Idea Man” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Jim Henson Idea Man” could’ve easily been just a nostalgia trip of Jim Henson’s successes. However, this candid documentary gives an illuminating look at the ups and downs of his life without glossing over how his flaws affected his personal relationships. “Jim Henson Idea Man” also has an impressive collection of previously unreleased archival footage that gives further insight into his creativity. In 1990, Henson died of toxic shock syndrome caused by Group A streptococcal infection. He was 53.

Directed by Ron Howard, “Jim Henson Idea Man” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The documentary has since been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Although other documentaries (such as the 2021 “Sesame Street” documentary “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street”) have shown how the Emmy-winning Henson has been the most influential and commercially successful puppeteer in history, those other documentaries only told part of his story. “Jim Henson Idea Man” is the first truly comprehensive documentary on Henson and has the added benefit of including many of his personal home videos and other memorabilia, provided by his family member.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” wisely does not overstuff the movie with too many people commenting on Henson. All of the people interviewed for the documentary are family members or those who worked with closely with Henson. The cultural impact of Henson’s work on “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show” is already common knowledge, so this documentary didn’t need to have plethora of celebrities and entertainment industry experts to talk about how Henson’s work was groundbreaking and profoundly influential to many people.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” gives a brief summary of Henson’s childhood and teenage years, which were relatively happy and stable, by all accounts. He was born as James Maury Henson in 1936, in Greenville, Mississippi. He was raised in Mississippi and Maryland. Jim didn’t play with puppets in his pre-teen childhood. Television was Jim’s biggest childhood influence on wanting to become an entertainer.

His parents Paul (an agronomist) and Betty were Christian Scientists, although Jim is described in the documentary as not belonging to any particular religion in his adulthood. It’s mentioned that Jim was more spiritual than religious. He believed in some Buddhist teachings, such as transcendental meditation and the concept that life and death are on the same continuum.

Jim’s only sibling was his older brother Paul Henson Jr. (born in 1932), who is described as Jim’s best friend until Paul’s tragic death in a car accident in 1956, at the age of 24. Paul Jr.’s death had a profound effect on Jim, says Jim’s son Brian: “It was a huge shock to my family. It absolutely shattered my dad’s world.”

One of the recurring themes in Jim Henson’s life was that he never felt like he had enough tme to do all the things he wanted to do in life. The documentary includes rare footage of Jim’s 1965 short film “Time Piece,” which features Jim in multiple roles (such as a hospital patient and as a doctor) that has several references to running out of time before dying. Brian says in the documentary about his father Jim’s preoccupation with work had a lot to do with Jim feeling that he needed to make a lot of his dreams come true to fulfill a larger purpose. “The idea that time could run out, I’m sure came with the death of his brother,” Bran comments.

From an early age, Jim wanted to become a filmmaker. He particularly loved making weird experimental films. But he first became famous as a puppeteer. Jim started doing puppet shows while he was in high school. By the time he was in college, Henson was doing puppet shows for local TV stations in the Washington, D.C., area, such as “Sam and Friends” on WRC-TV.

It was during this time in 1955 that Jim created his most famous Muppet character: Kermit the Frog, a green creature with a gentle, fun-loving personality. Kermit was considered an alter ego of Jim’s, although he described Kermit as much more extroverted and adventurous than Jim was in real life.

While he was a student at the University of Maryland in College Park, Henson began a puppeteer collaboration with classmate Jane Nebel. They got married in 1959 and had five children: Lisa, Cheryl, Heather, John and Brian. All of the children ended up working with their father as puppeteers and/or as producers. All of the children except John are interviewed in this documentary.

Jane Nebel Henson (who died in 2013) co-founded Muppets Inc. (later renamed the Jim Henson Company) with Jim. At first, she had 40% ownership of the company, while Jim had 60% ownership. Jane (who is described by her children as being very independent and free thinker) eventually scaled back her ownership and involvement in the company as she spent more time raising the couple’s children.

After Jane reduced her involvement in the company work, Henson’s main creative partners then became Frank Oz, who worked with Jim since Oz was 17; writer Jerry Juhl, who died at age 67 in 2005; and puppet designer Don Sahlin, who died of a heart atatck at age 49 in 1978. Also instrumental to Henson’s TV success was “Sesame Street” director Jon Stone, who died at age 65 in 1997. Jim did not create all of the Muppet characters, but created or co-created several of the most iconic, including Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, Ernie, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

Oz, who is interviewed in “Jim Henson Idea Man,” says he and Jim had opposite personalities (Jim was playful, Oz describes himself as “uptight”), which actually was a benefit to how they worked together when creatng personalities for their puppets. This “opposites attract” dynamic could be seen in the relationships between two of the most famous duos in Muppet history: roommates Ernie (voiced by Jim Henson) and Bert (voiced by Oz)—Ernie is optimist; Bert is pessimistic—and bickering couple Kermit the Frog (voiced by Jim Henson) and Miss Piggy (voiced by Oz), who is prissy and vain.

In “Jim Henson Idea Man,” Oz says: “I met Jim when I was about 17. It took about 10 years to where we could sense each other’s rhythms. He was a very rare creature. He was so internal and quiet, his inner life must have been sparkling. He had so many ideas and so many things he wanted to do. And so, the idea of time, I think, was very much on Jim’s mind, always.”

Oz says his relationship with Jim evolved from seeing Jim as a father figure/mentor to being more fraternal. “We really were like brothers,” Oz comments. And although Jim was technically Oz’s boss when they worked together, Oz says he felt he had an equal creative partnership with Jim. Oz made his feature-film directorial debut as a co-director with Jim on 1982’s “The Dark Crystal,” a fantasy film with life-sized puppets. Oz says he was surprised and flattered that Jim asked Oz to co-direct the movie with him.

According the Henson kids who are interviewed in the documentary, the marriage of Jim and Jane ran into major problems because the spouses often disagreed on Jim’s career priorities and goals. When Jim was offered a job on “Sesame Street” in 1969 (the year the TV series launched), he was reluctant to take it to because he didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a children’s entertainer. By contrast, Jane encouraged Jim to join “Sesame Street” and thought he should stay focused on children’s entertainment.

As Jim began to become rich and famous, he got more wrapped up in his work and wouldn’t be at home with his family for weeks or months at a time. His children say that even when Jim would go on family vacations, he would still be working.

Jim’s workaholic ways eventually caused Jim and Jane to lead separate lives. They officially separated in 1986 but never divorced because Jane didn’t believe in divorce. “Jim Henson Idea Man” includes clips of some archival interviews that Jane did where she talks about the her life with Jim. Brian says that during the separation, Jim dated women but never wanted these other relationships to get too serious.

Even though Jane stepped away from much of the couple’s day-to-day work at the family business, the business was very much on her mind. Brian says in the documentary that during family meals when the kids were underage, Jim would ask the kids about how they were doing in school, while Jane would mainly want to talk about business. The couple’s children say that Jane was a loving parent but didn’t want to be a traditional mother, whereas Jim expected her to conform to traditional gender roles when it came to parenting.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” also shows that even with the success of “Sesame Street,” Jim was rejected by all the U.S. TV networks at the time to launch “The Muppet Show,” which eventually found a home on the British TV network ATV. Jim created “The Muppet Show” so he could have more creative control than he had on “Sesame Street,” a show he didn’t create. It was the first major nationally televised variety series where the characters were all puppets, with human celebrities as guest stars.

Only after “The Muppet Show” was a smash hit in the United Kingdom that U.S. networks became interested, but the show was sold into U.S. syndication instead of being on one specific U.S. TV network. “The Muppet Show” inevitably spawned feature films that were hits. In 1980, Jim ended “The Muppet Show” after five years because he wanted to move on to other projects.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” also includes discussions of Jim’s post-“Muppet Show” work, most notably his directing of the fantasy feature films “The Dark Crystal” and 1986’s “Labyrinth,” which als featured life-sized puppets. “The Dark Crystal” ran into all sorts of problems with script rewrites demanded by the movie studio. “Labyrinth” was a flop with audiences and critics when it was released in theaters, although the movie has since become a cult classic. Jim took the so-called failure of “Labyrinth” very hard because he considered it one of his most creatively fulfilling projects. Labyrinth” co-star Jennifer Connelly, says of making the film: “It was like being in a dream world.”

One dream that Jim had that never came to fruition when he was alive was to do a Broadway puppet show. “Jim Henson Idea Man” has rare footage of a workshop for one of his Broadway show ideas. The documentary breezes through mentions of two of his last puppet TV series—”Fraggle Rock” (1983 to 1987) and “The StoryTeller” (1987 to 1989)—but doesn’t mention 1989’s “The Jim Henson Hour,” which was canceled before airing all of its first-season episodes. The documenaty goes into some details over his decision to buy the rights to “The Muppet Show” and related intellectual property, only to sell the Jim Henson Company to Disney in 1989.

Other people interviewed in the documentary include puppeteers Dave Goelz, Fran Brill and Bonnie Erickson; Alex Rockwell, who was Jim’s creative assistant from 1988 to 1990; Michael Frith, former executive vice-president and creative director of the Jim Henson Company; and former “Muppet Show” guest Rita Moreno, who tells a behind-the-scenes story about they had to do several takes when she was filming her performance of Peggy Lee’s “Fever” (wth the Muppet “wild drummer” character Animal) because she had a hard time trying not to laugh.

Muppets are of different races and species and came along at a time when racial integration was still very controversial in the United States. Moreno says of this Muppet diversity: “Jim never really thought of color. Jim never thought of nationality. Jim simply thought of characters.” Kermit’s signature song “It’s Not Easy Being Green” is mentioned as a song that resonated with many people who felt “invisible” because of looking different from everyone else, but the song’s real impact is because it has a message of self-acceptance, even when experiencing prejudice.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” has excellent editing when telling the story of this highly creative pioneer. Whether or not someone grew up watching “Sesame Street” or “The Muppet Show,” these shows broke cultural barriers while still being highly entertaining. “Jim Henson Idea Man” is undoubtedly a tribute to Jim Henson but it’s also an inspirational film for anyone who has ideas that people say won’t work when those ideas might actually change the world in some way.

Disney+ released “Jim Henson Idea Man” in select U.S. cinemas on May 24, 2024. The movie premiered on Disney+ on May 31, 2024.

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