Review: ‘Hippo’ (2024), starring Kimball Farley, Lilla Kizlinger, Eliza Roberts, the voice of Eric Roberts and Jesse Pimentel

December 5, 2024

by Carla Hay

Kimball Farley and Lilla Kizlinger in “Hippo” (Photo courtesy of Kinematics)

“Hippo” (2024)

Directed by Mark H. Rapaport

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the comedy film “Hippo” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A sulky rebel, his adopted sister and their widowed mother have various conflicts over life issues.

Culture Audience: “Hippo” will appeal mainly to people who are open to watching strange comedies that have very eccentric characters.

Kimball Farley and Jesse Pimentel in “Hippo” (Photo courtesy of Kinematics)

The dark comedy of “Hippo” is bizarre, subversive, and isn’t meant to have massive appeal. Scratch beneath the surface of weirdness and you’ll find a clever allegories about Greek mythology and Judeo-Christian beliefs. Viewers should be warned though: The crude sexual jokes in the movie push the boundaries of what is considered offensive. “Hippo” has a way with dealing with the characters who are the worst offenders.

“Hippo” is the feature-film directorial debut of Mark H. Rapaport, who co-wrote the “Hippo” screenplay with “Hippo” star Kimball Farley. “Hippo” had its world premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival. This low-budget independent film is entirely in black and white, with a very small number of people in the cast.

Much of the comedy from “Hippo” comes from the deliberately pompous narration (voiced by Eric Roberts) of an unseen storyteller, who tells the tale of a very strange and isolated family, as if he’s describing an epic and fascinating family saga. The three people in this unconventional clan are two teenagers and their mother, who live in an unnamed U.S. city. The two teens have been homeschooled all of their lives and have no friends.

Adam (played by Farley), whose nickname is Hippo, is about 18 or 19 years old. His sister Boglárka (played by Lilla Kizlinger), who is nicknamed Buttercup, is 17 years old and was adopted from Hungary when she was 7 years old. Buttercup still has a Hungarian accent. The mother of Hippo and Buttercup is mild-mannered Ethel (played by Eliza Roberts, who is married in real life to Eric Roberts), who spends much of the story trying to make her children happy.

It’s mentioned early on in the movie that the things Hippo loves most in the world are video games and his mother’s cooking. He especially loves to eat sweets—unlike Buttercup, who has had an aversion to sweets ever since her adoptive father Barron body-shamed her for eating sweets. When the story begins, Barron has been dead for five years. The opening scene shows Hippo and Buttercup visiting his grave on the fifth anniversary of his death.

Hippo is rebellious, impulsive and egotistical. During a family dinner conversation, he asks Ethel if it’s possible that World War III could happen in his lifetime. Ethel says it’s possible, so Hippo announces that he wants a gun to protect himself. Ethel suggests a fake gun because Hippo is under the age of 21. Hippo ultimately settles for a crossbow as his weapon of choice. He has a habit of shooting balloons with the crossbow.

Buttercup, who is a virgin, has a different fixation: She wants to get pregnant and give birth to child, which she says would be an “heir” to their family dynasty. The problem is that she thinks Hippo would be the ideal person to father the child, but Hippo is repulsed by the idea. Buttercup tells Hippo that technically it wouldn’t be incest because she and Hippo are not biologically related. Much of the movie is about Hippo and Buttercup having conflicts with each other, with their mother Ethel sometimes trying to keep the peace between the two siblings.

Buttercup ends up going on Craigslist to find a man to impregnate her. (It’s mentioned in the film that Buttercup lives in a U.S. state where 17 years old is the minimum legal age of consent to have sex with an adult.) Buttercup’s search on Craigslist leads to her being in contact with a perverted creep named Darwin (played by Jesse Pimentel), who doesn’t hesitate to tell Buttercup about his kinky fantasies. Darwin eventually meets Buttercup, Hippo and Ethel in one of the most off-the-wall parts of the movie.

“Hippo” has some jokes that miss the mark and others that don’t. One of the tamer jokes in the movie is a dialogue between Hippo and Buttercup after Hippo dyes his hair platinum blonde. Buttercup says, “You look like Brad Pitt in ‘Thelma and Louise.'” Hippo replies angrily, “No, I don’t. I look like the agent in ‘Body Harvest!” (“Body Harvest” is the name of a Nintendo video game.)

Although the movie is named “Hippo,” Kizlinger steals the show as Buttercup and makes the biggest lasting impression. Her deadpan comedic delivery is near-perfect. Hippo is an obvious blowhard, whose narcissism and destructiveness become a bit one-note after a while. Buttercup is the more interesting character because she is both scheming and naïve—and therefore much more unpredictable than Hippo. Over time, it’s obvious that Buttercup has a determination to get what she wants that could equally match or surpass what domineering Hippo wants.

Farley is clearly having fun in portraying Hippo, which makes Hippo’s often-repulsive actions have the comedic edge that it needs. Eliza Roberts portrays Ethel and a well-meaning but quirky parent who is somewhat clueless about her kids’ activities. Pimentel plays the Darwin character to the hilt as a complete scumbag. Considering that elements of the biblical creation theory are peppered throughout the movie, it’s no coincidence that this character is named Darwin. But make no mistake: “Hippo” is not a faith-based movie.

“Hippo” has some references to Buttercup being like Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and sexuality. And there’s another part of “Hippo” that draws parallels to the creation story in the Book of Genesis. About 15 minutes into watching “Hippo,” a viewer will know if this is the type of movie that will be too weird to keep watching, or will be weird enough to make a viewer curious to see how the story is going to end. People who watch “Buttercup” until the very end will see how much of the nastiness in the movie ends up serving a purpose.

Kinematics released “Hippo” in select U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024.

Review: ‘Sallywood,’ starring Sally Kirkland, Tyler Steelman, Tom Connolly, Eric Roberts, Kay Lenz, Michael Lerner, Maria Conchita Alonso, Keith Carradine and Meg Tilly

November 14, 2024

by Carla Hay

Sally Kirkland and Tyler Steelman in “Sallywood” (Photo by Matthias Fain/Sneak Preview Entertainment)

“Sallywood”

Directed by Xaque Gruber

Culture Representation: Taking place in mostly in the Los Angeles area and briefly in Maine, the comedy film “Sallywood” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A superfan of actress Sally Kirkland moves from Maine to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker, and he ends up becoming Kirkland’s assistant, with various mishaps along the way.

Culture Audience: “Sallywood” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedic stories about how Hollywood treats elderly actresses.

Jennifer Tilly, Tyler Steelman and Lenny von Dohlen in “Sallywood” (Photo by Alexandra Weiss/Sneak Preview Entertainment)

Fan fiction meets semi-autobiography in the comedy film “Sallywood,” a charming but frequently awkward story about a Sally Kirkland superfan getting a job as her assistant. Writer/director Xaque Gruber mixes cornball comedy with witty satire about ageism. The movie gets a little too redundant when it keeps bringing up the same jokes, but “Sallywood” (which is Gruber’s feature-film directorial debut) also offers cutting observations about career obstacles faced by actresses who are over the age of 60.

“Sallywood” begins by showing archival footage of the real Kirkland during a highlight of her career, when she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama for the 1987 movie “Anna.” In real life, Kirkland also won an Independent Spirit Award and received an Oscar nomination for this role. And “Sallywood” never lets you forget it because these accomplishments are repeated enough times in the movie that it becomes somewhat irritating.

The movie’s protagonist/narrator is Zack (played by Tyler Steelman), an aspiring filmmaker who is originally from Maine. As a young adult, Zack decides to move to Los Angeles to pursue his filmmaker dreams. He ends up becoming an assistant to Sally Kirkland (who plays a version of herself in the movie), who is his all-time favorite actress. And because this movie is a comedy, various mishaps ensue.

In real life, Gruber really did move from Maine to Los Angeles and became Kirkland’s assistant. For the purposes of this review, the real Sally Kirkland will be referred to as Kirkland. The Sally Kirkland character in “Sallywood” will be referred to as Sally.

“Sallywood” begins with Zack saying in a voiceover: “In every humdrum life, there is a muse—someone who ignites inspiration. Matisse had the Cone sisters. Andrew Wyeth had Helga. And me? I had Sally Kirkland.”

Early in the movie, there are flashback scenes showing 9-year-old Zack (played by Lucas Krystek), as the adult Zack explains in a voiceover what led him to become obsessed with Kirkland: “It all began when our video store in Maine closed down when a moose jumped through a window, killing the owner.” As a result, all the VHS tapes in the store got sold at discounted prices.

Zack’s mild-mannered father Dave (played by Lenny von Dohlen) bought “about a dozen” of these tapes, which were tapes that no one else wanted. Among these tapes was the movie “Anna.” The adult Zack says in a voiceover: “Even at 9 years old, I knew a great performance when I saw it. I couldn’t get enough of it. I had no idea my life would change over a wayward moose.”

When Zack is old enough to move out of his parents’ home, he announces that he’s moving to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker. Zack’s overprotective mother Joann (played by Jennifer Tilly) doesn’t want him to go. She warns Zack that Los Angeles is a “terrible place” of “drugs, fires, earthquakes, Kardashians and porn.” By contrast, Zack’s father Dave is supportive of Zack’s move to Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, Zack ends up with a roommate named Tom Dodgson (played by Tom Connolly), a British immigrant who spent time in prison for stealing money from bank machines. Tom currently makes money as a medical volunteer for spinal tap experiments and as a driver for porn actresses. A recurring joke in the movie is that Tom hangs out with two porn actresses—Bibi (played by Nikki Tuazon) and Poundcake (played by Angeline-Rose Troy)—who are frequently at the apartment shared by Zack and Tom. At one point in the movie, Zack mentions that he’s a virgin.

Zack meets Sally Kirkland by chance when he finds out that she’s a regular customer at a diner where he’s having a meal. Zack sees her get in her car in the parking lot and follows her to a gallery where she has an art exhibit. Zack approaches Sally, predictably gushes over her, and says he would love to work with her. Sally hires him on the spot to be her assistant.

And what a coincidence: Tom is an aspiring filmmaker too. He’s the writer and director of a movie called “Outer Space Zombie Chicks in Prison.” Tom wants Sally to star in the movie. Zack advises Sally against it, but she does the movie because she says she needs the money.

Various characters show up and make side commentaries in footage that is mostly supposed to look like interviews. Venetia Boyd (played by Maria Conchita Alonso) is a “Hollywood scammer.” George Corrigan (played by Keith Carradine) and Kathryn Corrigan (played by Kay Lenz) are famous directors and ex-spouses who give cynical advice about the filmmaking industry. Clem (played by Eric Roberts) is Sally’s longtime on-again/off-again agent, whom she keeps firing and re-hiring.

The movie’s repeated joke about Sally being mistaken for actress Sally Kellerman is a bit over-used. And a joke that grows tiresome very quickly is Sally wanting people to know that she had a lot of famous lovers when she was younger, including Bob Dylan, Dennis Hopper and Ted Koppel. For example, Sally asks Zack to write her obituary, and she gets upset when her celebrity sexual conquests aren’t mentioned in the obituary. “Sallywood” loses some of its way with a tedious subplot about Sally having a past love affair with George.

“Sallywood” also walks a fine line at poking fun at the ageism and sexism that Sally experiences and poking fun at her too. The acting performances in “Sallywood” are uneven: Kirkland’s performance is the best thing about the movie, Steelman is adequate in his role, and almost all the other cast members play their characters in a broad and exaggerated manner. Even with the movie’s flaws, “Sallywood” has enough amusing satire about entertainment industry prejudices and Hollywood filmmaking that should maintain most viewers’ attention if people are interested in these topics.

Sneak Preview Entertainment released “Sallywood” in Los Angeles on November 8, 2024.

Review: ‘The Firing Squad’ (2024), starring James Barrington, Kevin Sorbo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Tupua Ainu’u, Madeline Anderson, Edmund Kwan and Eric Roberts

August 4, 2024

by Carla Hay

James Barrington (far left), Kevin Sorbo (second from left) and Tupua Ainu’u (third from left) in “The Firing Squad” (Photo courtesy of Epoch Studios)

“The Firing Squad” (2024)

Directed by Timothy Chey

Culture Representation: Taking place mainly in Indonesia (with flashbacks to scenes in various parts of the world over an approximately 10-year period), the faith-based dramatic film “The Firing Squad” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A convicted drug dealer, who is in prison in Indonesia and will soon face execution by a firing squad, meets various people who have opinions about Christianity and salvation. 

Culture Audience: “The Firing Squad” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in preachy faith-based films, even if the filmmaking is very low-quality.

Edmund Kwan, Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Barrington in “The Firing Squad” (Photo courtesy of Epoch Studios)

“The Firing Squad” absolutely murders any chance of being a well-made film. This atrocious faith-based drama (which is mainly set at a prison in Djakarta, Indonesia) has an onslaught of terrible acting, fake-looking scenarios and cringeworthy dialogue. “The Firing Squad” is one of those tone-deaf movies that has no self-awareness of how bad it is because it’s too caught up in bombastically awkward preaching that the only people who can be “saved” are those who believe in Christianity.

Written and directed by Timothy Chey, “The Firing Squad” is such a sloppy display of horrible filmmaking, it seems to be almost like a parody of awful movies, except “The Firing Squad” obviously takes itself way too seriously to be a satire. The movie’s story is supposed to be mostly in Indonesia, but “The Firing Squad” was actually filmed in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Vero Beach, Florida. Almost everything about this movie looks as phony as an American rupiah.

“The Firing Squad” begins by explaining that the main character is Peter Lone (played by James Barrington), a drug-dealer-turned-actor who has been arrested for drug smuggling in Indonesia and will be executed by a firing squad in the near future. Peter’s backstory is very jumbled because of substandard screenwriting. He’s a Brit who was based in Los Angeles at the time he was arrested. A TV news report says he was an actor, but Peter has told people he’s a director of TV commercials.

Flashbacks to 2013 show Peter’s globe-trotting, luxurious lifestyle as a drug dealer. His best friend/sidekick is Morgan Davis (played by Chase Garland), who doesn’t do much but stand around looking like a model and uttering some ridiculous lines. Peter and Morgan have been drug dealers since 2008. It’s shown repeatedly in many clumsily staged scenes that Peter is a staunch atheist, while Morgan (who was raised as a Christian) is starting to question his purpose in life and is feeling guilty about being a criminal.

Peter, Morgan and Peter’s fiancée Karen Armstrong (played by Nadia Maximova) are constant travel companions who often travel by private jet. Karen is depicted as clueless about what Peter really does for money. She believes Peter’s lie that he directs TV commercials for a living. Maximova’s wooden acting is among the worst in a movie filled with dreadful performances.

It’s revealed in flashbacks that Peter and Morgan were busted in Indonesia for seven kilos of cocaine and have ended up in separate prisons. The interrogation scenes are laughable for how unrealistic they are. Karen is never investigated and she’s easily let go just because she says she doesn’t know anything about Peter being a drug dealer. She’s advised by the authorities not to contact Peter again. Karen doesn’t need anyone to give her that advice because Peter’s lies and betrayal are enough for her to be done with him.

The chief interrogator is a snarling official named Captain Tanu (played by Tupua Ainu’u), who also happens to be the chief warden of the prison where Peter is incarcerated. (In other words, the filmmakers of “The Firing Squad” were too cheap or too stupid to hire different actors for two very different jobs.) Later, it’s pounded into viewers’ heads repeatedly in several scenes that Captain Tanu is a cruel sadist who is also an atheist.

In the interrogation room, Peter denies that he’s a drug dealer. He’s shocked to find out that Karen has dumped him so quickly. Captain Tanu’s response is to smirk at Peter and tell him it’s just like the Michael Jackson song “She’s Out of My Life.” And then, Captain Tanu begins to sing the song off-key to Peter. Yes, the movie really is this idiotic.

Even worse than the interrogation scene is the courtroom scene where Peter is convicted without a trial, even though he planned to plead not guilty. A defense attorney named Adam Markman (played by Eric Roberts), who has supposedly been sent by the U.S. consulate in Indonesia, is representing Peter. After Adam tells Judge Samudra (played by Anthony Wong) that Peter is not guilty, the judge sentences Peter to death literally within two minutes after the courtroom hearing started, with no witnesses called and no evidence presented. It’s not a trial. It’s a legal fiasco.

While he’s in prison, Peter meets a fellow prisoner named Pastor Lynbrook (played by Kevin Sorbo), who’s incarcerated for murder and is also scheduled to be executed by a firing squad in the near future. Pastor Lynbrook is a born-again Christian and self-made preacher, who tries to get Peter to become a believer too. Peter gruffly refuses. Maybe it’s because Pastor Lynbrook makes comments like, “Eternity is forever.” But somehow, Peter changes his mind when he gets a crush on a pretty blonde named Miriam Rosenbaum (played by Madeline Anderson), who visits the prison with her church group to pray for and pray with the prisoners.

Peter and Captain Tanu actually have something in common: They both don’t believe in God or any religion because each of them had someone they loved who died of cancer. For Peter, it was his brother who had this untimely death. For Captain Tanu, it was his wife, and she died when they were married for only two years. Captain Tanu (who has an American accent) shouts things at prisoners such as, “There is no God! In this prison, I am your God!”

“The Firing Squad” is extremely careless with details. This Indonesian prison looks very phony because most of the people working in the prison are white. The prison employees who speak have American accents. Did this prison in “Indonesia” import a bunch of employees from a country where most people are white? That’s the type of fakery that “The Firing Squad” wants viewers to believe or not notice at all.

Death row prisoners are supposed to have maximum security incarceration. And yet, in this prison shown in “The Firing Squad,” death row prisoners get to have unrealistic privileges, such as visitors inside their jail cells. Prisoners in this movie are also allowed to roam around as if they don’t have surveillance cameras that could catch them doing something wrong. The movie never shows metal detectors or various checkpoints that are standard for any prison that has death row inmates.

Peter’s conversion to Christianity is not spoiler information because it’s already revealed in “The Firing Squad” trailer, which shows about 85% of the movie’s putrid plot. Peter finds out that one of his drug connections named Liu Fat (played by Edmund Kwan) is in the same prison. Peter and Liu meet another prisoner named Samuel Wilson (played by a raspy-voiced Cuba Gooding Jr.), who says he has a plan for the three of them to escape from prison: They will disguise themselves as media reporters.

Samuel says he can get access to business suits as disguises. It leads to one of the worst parts of the movie: Peter, Liu and Samuel are actually allowed to walk out of this joke of a prison by telling a guard that they’re media journalists (they use aliases), and they left their IDs behind. And somehow, as the movie explains unrealistically, Samuel was able to make the same arrangements for Morgan to escape from Morgan’s prison too.

“The Firing Squad” trailer already reveals that Peter was at least one of the prison escapees who was caught. What the trailer doesn’t reveal is that Captain Tanu punishes Peter by putting him into solitary confinement for four days without food and water, which is basically attempted murder. Considering the medical fact that human beings can survive for only three days without liquids, are we supposed to assume that Peter drank his own urine since he was deprived of water?

The movie’s marketing materials say that “The Firing Squad” is based on a true story. However, the movie’s epilogue shows that “The Firing Squad” isn’t a biography of anyone specific but is actually inspired by people in Indonesian prisons who became Christians. Peter’s “solitary confinement” is putting him in a wire fence cage in an open field. It’s far better punishment than having to sit through the utter garbage of “The Firing Squad” and how it relentlessly insults viewers’ intelligence.

Epoch Studios released “The Firing Squad” in U.S. cinemas on August 2, 2024.

Review: ‘Lumina’ (2024), starring Eric Roberts, Ken Lawson, Emily Hall, Rupert Lazarus, Eleanor Williams, Andrea Tivadar and Sidney Nicole Rogers

July 19, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ken Lawson, Rupert Lazarus, Sidney Nicole Rogers and Andrea Tivadar in “Lumina” (Photo courtesy of Goldove Entertainment)

“Lumina” (2024)

Directed by Gino J.H. McKoy

Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Morocco, the sci-fi/horror film “Lumina” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A man and three of his friends look for his missing girlfriend, who disappeared from his home under mysterious circumstances. 

Culture Audience: “Lumina” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching extremely low-quality movies.

Eric Roberts and Rupert Lazarus in “Lumina” (Photo courtesy of Goldove Entertainment)

The sci-fi horror flop “Lumina” is a pathetic mess of sloppy filmmaking and cringeworthy acting. This incoherent story, which is about a woman’s disappearance that is linked to outer space, gets worse as the movie sinks into a void of irredeemable idiocy. “Lumina” is the type of stinker that’s destined to end up in shows or lists that make fun of terrible sci-fi movies or the worst movies of the year.

Written and directed by Gino J.H. McKoy, “Lumina” is his feature-film directorial debut. It’s the type of movie that was made because the director and some the director’s family members paid to get it made. The producers of this dreck movie are Gino J.H. McKoy, Lynda McKoy, Hudson McKoy and David Seychell. It’s hard to imagine real movie producers with credibility wanting to get involved in this hopelessly amateur-looking junk.

“Lumina” has more science fiction than horror. The horror part of the movie doesn’t really kick in until the last third of the film. By then, it’s a lost cause. The visual effects in “Lumina” are so cheap-looking and tacky, it makes a lot of no-budget YouTube videos look like masterpieces in comparison.

“Lumina” actually starts off looking like a boring soap opera instead of a sci-fi horror thriller. The opening scene shows a man in a space suit walking around on what appears to be another planet. Who is this person? Where is he? And why? The movie answers those questions in the last third of the story. In the meantime, it’s a slog to get there with many scenes being absolutely unnecessary or making no sense.

After the scene with the spacesuit man, the movie then abruptly shifts to six months earlier. At a Los Angeles mansion, wealthy trust-fund heir Alex (played by Rupert Lazarus) is having a house party. It’s mentioned later in the movie that Alex doesn’t have a job. He just lives off of his trust fund. (“Lumina” was actually filmed in Morocco.)

Alex and his attractive blonde girlfriend Tatiana (played by Eleanor Williams) are in love and happy with each other. However, because Alex has the personality of a slug, you have to wonder what Tatiana sees in him. It must be his money. But there’s trouble in a paradise for this couple because of a jealous person in a love triangle.

Alex has a platonic friend named Deliah (played by Andrea Tivada), who is in love with Alex and wants him for herself. Alex has a hanger-on living with him named Patricia (played by Sidney Nicole Rogers), who doesn’t have a job either. Patricia is a platonic friend of Alex’s, but it’s unclear what led to Patricia living with Alex. It’s implied that she’s a freeloader.

Patricia is a close friend of Delilah, who asks Patricia to help her in spying on Alex and Tatiana. Don’t expect to find out what any of these so-called friends do with their lives or how they met. None of that information is mentioned in this poorly written movie.

At the house party, Patricia tells Delilah will just have to “learn how to share” Alex because Alex won’t break up with Tatiana. Delilah won’t accept that advice. Delilah says to Patricia: “He thinks he loves her, but he doesn’t. He’ll be better off without her. Actually, I know he’ll be happier.”

Almost all of the dialogue in this movie sounds like it was spit out by a third-rate artificial intelligence program. The stiff and unnatural acting in “Lumina” isn’t much better. There are robots that could be more believable than the human cast members who show a sorry display of acting in “Lumina.”

As the party ends and the guests have departed, something strange happens in the living room where Delilah and Patricia are sitting on a couch: Liquid in drinking glasses starts to float in the air. Tatiana is outside near the swimming pool when there’s a huge flash of light. Suddenly, Tatiana has disappeared.

A frantic Alex looks everywhere for Tatiana but can’t find her. And so, Alex calls police to report her as a missing person. Here’s how bad the “Lumina” screenplay is: When a cop shows up to interview Alex and asks him to describe Tatiana, Alex only gives this vague description: “5’8″, 130 [pounds], long hair, beautiful eyes.”

Alex doesn’t mention Tatiana’s hair color or eye color. And the cop never asks. The cop doesn’t ask for a photo of Tatiana, nor does Alex mention giving a photo of Tatiana to help with the search for her. The stupidity doesn’t end there.

While all of this turmoil over Tatiana’s disappearance is going on, Delilah and Patricia are still sitting on the couch. Alex walks into the room right at the moment that Delilah can be heard listening to a recording she made on her phone where Delilah says repeatedly, “I wish that bitch would disappear.”

Alex immediately has a meltdown because he knows Delilah is talking about Tatiana. He yells at Delilah: “Why would you say that?” He then shouts at Delilah: “This friendship is over! Get out of my house!” Of course, this won’t be the last time that Alex and Delilah see each other.

An unspecified period of time has passed when the movie then abruptly cuts to the next scene, which shows a forlorn Alex with a very shaggy beard. Alex mopes around his house and stares off into space a lot because he’s depressed about Tatiana, who’s still missing. A talkative and hyper acquaintance of Alex’s named George (played by Ken Lawson) shows up at the house and immediately starts spouting conspiracy theories about alien abductions. Alex starts to believe him.

George is friendly with Alex but apparently doesn’t know Alex very well, because when George arrives at the house, he’s surprised that it’s a mansion. George is a nerdy creep who often makes inappropriate comments. He’s immediately attracted to Patricia and lets her know it. This is George’s idea of flirting with Patricia: He tells Patricia within minutes of meeting her to take off her clothes. George means it as a joke, but it’s still a boorish thing to say. Patricia lets George know that she thinks he’s kind of repulsive.

The rest of “Lumina” stumbles around from scene to scene, as Alex, Patricia, George and Delilah (who convinces Alex to let her hang out with him again) search for Tatiana. The scenes get weirder more irritating. Some characters show up in the movie but have no real purpose or bearing on the plot before they go away and are never seen again.

George introduces the three pals to another conspiracy theorist named Thom (played by Eric Roberts), who hangs out in a cave-like structure with some control board equipment that looks like throwaway props from an outdated sci-fi movie. Roberts gets top billing in “Lumina,” but he’s in this two-hour movie for less than 15 minutes. Roberts’ mumbling performance is the very definition of “phoning it in,” because he looks like he could care less about embarrassing hmself in this terrible movie.

There’s a part of the story where Alex and his pals go to Morocco to visit Tatiana’s parents Teresa (played by Rachael Mellen) and Martin (played by Collin Goodwin), who have some information about Tatiana to tell Alex. Why did Alex have to go all the way to Morocco to get this information? The parents insist that they can only tell Alex this information in person.

One of the most mind-boggling and time-wasting scenes in “Lumina” is when Alex, George, Patricia and Delilah encounter a couple named Sonny (played by Mohamed Nmila) and Chere (played by Emily Hall) at night in a remote area with a shallow pond near some rocks. (Don’t ask.) Chere strips down to her underwear and wades in the pond. She takes Alex by the hand and gets him to also remove his outer clothing and go in the pond with her.

Chere tells Alex, “You need to be invited, like we were invited.” Delilah predictably gets jealous and call Chere a “bitch,” which seems to be Delilah’s go-to word for a woman she sees as competition for Alex’s attention. Delilah and Chere almost have a catfight as Delilah pulls Alex away from this “temptress.” Don’t expect this scene to explain anything.

It’s at this point in the movie when you know that the “Lumina” filmmakers absolutely did not care about having an entertaining story and just threw some stupid ideas together and called it a plot. “Lumina” just exists to fulfill some people’s misguided fantasy of making a sci-fi horror movie that actually turned out to be an unintentional comedy because of how laughably bad everything is. Many viewers won’t be laughing though. The joke is on anyone who thinks “Lumina” is a good movie.

Goldove Entertainment released “Lumina” in U.S. cinemas on July 12, 2024.

Review: ‘Sweetwater’ (2023), starring Everett Osborne, Cary Elwes, Jeremy Piven, Richard Dreyfuss and Kevin Pollak

April 17, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jeremy Piven, Cary Elwes and Everett Osborne in “Sweetwater” (Photo by Tony Rivetti Jr. SMPSP/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Sweetwater” (2023)

Directed by Martin Guigui

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, mostly in 1949 and 1950, the dramatic film “Sweetwater” (based on true events) features an African American and white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton experiences racism and other obstacles on his way to becoming one of the first African American basketball players in the National Basketball Association. 

Culture Audience: “Sweetwater” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of basketball and sports biopics, but viewers should not expect an engaging or realistic-looking story in “Sweetwater.”

Everett Osborne in “Sweetwater” (Photo by Ian Fisher/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Sweetwater” could have been an inspirational biopic about a groundbreaking basketball player. Instead, the movie is a stale cesspool of awful dialogue, corny scenarios and problematic racial condescension that depicts greedy basketball racists as heroes. People who don’t know anything about Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton (the second African American basketball player to play in the National Basketball Association) before seeing this sorry excuse for a biopic won’t learn much about him from the shallow way that he is presented in this film.

For starters, “Sweetwater” inaccurately depicts him as the first African American to play in the NBA, when in fact that achievement was accomplished that same year (1950) by Earl Lloyd, who was a player with the Washington Capitols. Harold Hunter of the Washington Capitols (who was cut from the team before ever playing in the NBA) and Clifton both signed contracts with the NBA in 1950, but there have been historical disputes over whether Hunter or Clifton should get credit as the first African American to sign a player contract with the NBA. In 1990, Clifton died in relative obscurity in Chicago. He was 67. In the last years of his life, Clifton was working as a taxi driver. Just like the business people who exploited Clifton in real life, the “Sweetwater” movie uses him as a pawn to make money off of his talent, and to present a self-congratulatory image of looking racially progressive.

“Sweetwater” (written and directed by Martin Guigui) doesn’t care about portraying Clifton as a whole person in this movie, because he is mainly presented in the context of what white people wanted to get from Sweetwater (played by Everett Osborne) as a commodity. (For the purposes of this review, the real Clifton is referred to as Clifton, while the movie’s Sweetwater character is referred to as Sweetwater.) The “Sweetwater” movie barely shows anything about Sweetwater’s loved ones in the African American community. The movie also doesn’t care to give much importance to his inner thoughts and feelings.

The closest that the movie shows of Sweetwater’s family background and connection to his family are a few, very brief flashback scenes that last for a combined total of less than 10 minutes of this 114-minute movie. In one scene, his mother (played by Ashani Roberts) gives 7-year-old Sweetwater (played by Ca’Ron Jaden Coleman) some sugar water, which was her way of cheering him up, and it became his favorite drink as a child in Arkansas. (Hence, the nickname Sweetwater.)

In another scene, Sweetwater is shown mournfully saying goodbye to his mother because his father Joe Nathaniel (played by Clifton Nathaniel) had decided to relocate with Sweetwater to Chicago, in search of better job opportunities in Jim Crow-plagued America. It’s in this scene that his mother says that Sweetwater needs to change his name from Clifton Nathaniel (which was his birth name) to his new name of Nathaniel Clifton. The movie gives no explanation for why his mother told Sweetwater to reverse his first and last names.

And (cringe alert) the movie makes a point of having a closeup of the cotton being picked in the field by Sweetwater and his father before they move away from Arkansas. The palms of Sweetwater’s hands have small cuts from the cotton thorns, so his mother gives him some sugar water, to help him with his discomfort. As a child, Sweetwater stares at the palms of his hands when he gets these cotton thorn cuts. And several times in the film, when Sweetwater is an adult, he stares at the palms of his hands in the same way, as if he’s remembering that he literally used to be a cotton-picking kid. It’s filmmaking that goes beyond being trite and plummets right into the depths of being racially tone-deaf.

Viewers of “Sweetwater” never get to see vivid details about what inspired him to start playing basketball and who were his earliest coaches. Instead, the movie erases that part of his life to focus on showing how white people in the basketball industry “discovered” Sweetwater and “rescued” him from a life of poverty. In other words, they wanted a piece of him so they could make money for themselves and get credit for being “visionaries.”

This “rescuing” part of the movie is shown almost immediately. The first scene of Sweetwater playing basketball is when he’s a 27-year-old underpaid player with the Harlem Globetrotters in 1949. At the time, professional basketball in the United States was segregated by race. Only white players were allowed in the NBA. And needless to say, the white basketball players, even the semi-pros, were making a lot more money than professional basketball players who weren’t white.

After a mock championship game where the Globetrotters defeated the Minneapolis Lakers (an all-white team), Sweetwater is approached by New York Knickerbockers coach Joe Lapchick (played by Jeremy Piven), who tells Sweetwater that he wants Sweetwater to play for the Knickbockers. (The Knickerbockers would later shorten their name to the Knicks.) Sweetwater, like most of the characters in the movie, thinks it’s impossible for anyone who isn’t white to play in the NBA.

But Joe, who is presented as a crusading “hero,” is determined to prove all the naysayers wrong. “I think you can help make the change,” Joe tells Sweetwater about breaking racial barriers at the NBA, even though throughout the movie, Joe wants to take all the credit for making the change. “You can be the first,” Joe adds, even though the movie wants to forget all about Lloyd of the Washington Capitols.

Joe attends a meeting with the NBA board of directors (who are all white men) and gets a mixed-to-negative reaction when Joe brings up the idea of recruiting Sweetwater for the Knickerbockers. Some of the board members support the idea, but they are outvoted by a majority who want to keep the NBA an all-white group. New York Knickerbockers owner Ned Irish (played by Cary Elwes) is one of the most adamant opponents to racial integration of the NBA, and he makes racist comments to prove it. NBA commissioner Maurice Podoloff (played by Richard Dreyfuss) is open to the idea of racial integration of the NBA, but he will only go with what the majority of the NBA board wants.

One of the worst scenes in the movie is when Joe’s wife (played by Dahlia Waingort Guigui), gives a pep talk to Joe when he thinks he’s failing to convince the necessary people to let Sweetwater join the NBA via the Knickerbockers. Joe keeps rambling about the wall of racism that Sweetwater can’t break through in order to get in the NBA. Joe mentions this “wall” several times in the movie.

Joe’s wife tells him, as if he’s pioneering civil rights activist: “You are Joe Lapchick! You don’t need to break through a wall. You just go get Sweetwater and you climb over that wall with him!” If slogan T-shirts were popular during this time period, then Joe and his wife would be wearing T-shirts that say, “We Are White Saviors.”

Meanwhile, Harlem Globetrotters coach/manager Abe Saperstein (played by Kevin Pollak) has put the Harlem Globetrotters on the basketball equivalent of the “chitlin circuit.” The overworked Globetrotters go on grueling tours to entertain audiences of different races. But because of racial segregation laws, the Globetrotters are treated like second-class citizens and denied entry or service at “whites only” places. The Globetrotters are paid a pittance, while Abe keeps much of the Globetrotters’ earnings for himself.

At times, “Sweetwater” tries to make it look like Abe is an ally to these black Globetrotters whom he is exploiting. When the Globetrotters are denied lodging at a hotel that has an unofficial “whites only” policy, the front desk clerk defensively says, “I don’t make the rules.” Abe puts on a big show of indignation and replies, “Yeah, like Nuremberg,” in reference to the excuse that Nazi officials made while on trial for World War II crimes in Nuremberg, Germany.

But Abe’s “outrage” about racism is really fake allyship. In a later scene on a tour bus, Sweetwater is the first person on the team to openly question Abe about the low payments for the Globetrotters (who win most of their games), compared to the white people (including Abe) who get considerably more money for being involved the same basketball games. When Sweetwater points out this inequality, Abe angrily snaps at him: “I’m the reason this team exists! … Just stick to playing basketball!”

And not long after Abe figures out that Sweetwater is questioning Abe’s exploitative business practices, Abe sells off Sweetwater like cattle to New York Knickerbockers owner Ned. Even though Ned is blatantly racist, he’s changed his mind about Sweetwater joining the team when Ned finally admits (after much pestering from Joe) that Sweetwater can help the team win games and sell more tickets. In other words, it all comes back to not really caring about the racial inequality that Sweetwater and other black basketball players experience. It’s about making more money for the white men in power positions, who want the money and the bragging rights about how “visionary” they are.

Most of the acting in “Sweetwater” is terribly unconvincing. Osborne’s performance is very stiff. Piven hams it up too much. Elwes acts like a robotic wax dummy. Pollak tries to be comedic, but it comes across as annoying. Dreyfuss looks emotionally disconnected, like he just signed up to be in this movie for the paycheck. Eric Roberts has a useless cameo as a racist gas station owner named Judd. Jim Caviezel has a very hokey cameo in the movie, as a sports journalist who meets Sweetwater in 1990, by being a passenger in Sweetwater’s taxi.

The movie’s dialogue is mind-numbingly horrible. Joe treats Sweetwater more like a freakishly tall money-making machine than as a human being. Early in the movie, Joe smugly comments that the size of Sweetwater’s hands “makes the [basket]ball look like a grapefruit.” Two radio announcers named Howard (played by Frank Buckley) and Marty (played by Todd Ant) at the Knickbockers basketball games give exposition-heavy play-by-plays about what was already shown in a scene, as if viewers are complete idiots and don’t understand what was already shown a few seconds earlier.

Forget about seeing anything in the movie about any friendships that Sweetwater might have developed with any of his fellow basketball players on any team. None of that meaningful camaraderie is in this dreadful biopic, which makes almost all the other basketball players nameless and generic. The basketball playing scenes in “Sweetwater” are disappointingly predictable and mostly dull. The movie reduces and downplays the racist blackash that Sweetwater got in real life after joining the NBA and instead makes it look like the worst thing that happened to him was a racist referee singling him out for unfair foul penalties.

The closest thing that the movie shows to what Sweetwater is like outside of basketball is when he begins courting a white singer named Jeanne Staples (played by Emmaline), whom he immediately asks out on a date when they meet after one of her nightclub performances. Jeanne sings jazz, but she’s a big fan of blues music, so Sweetwater takes her to a blues club on their first date. Real-life blues singer/musician Gary Clark Jr. has a cameo as in “Sweetwater” as a blues singer/musician named T-Bone, who is an acquaintance of Sweetwater’s.

“Sweetwater” shows this interracial romance, but none of the realistic conversations that would be a part of this romance. No one in Sweetwater’s inner circle makes any comments about this interracial relationship. (Jeanne’s friends are never shown.) Although a few white people glare with disapproval when they see Sweetwater and Jeanne together in public, neither Sweetwater nor Jeanne expresses any concern for their own safety for being in an interracial relationship, even though it would definitely be a concern in real life during this time period. In America in the 1940s and the 1950s, a black man would be in physical danger for dating a white woman, even in states where racial integration was legal.

But you’d never know it from watching this movie, which erases that type of historical context. What makes this erasure look so phony and inconsistent in “Sweetwater” is that the movie has many scenes where racism is a big problem for Sweetwater and his fellow Globetrotters when it’s related to their basketball work, but the movie tries to make it look like racism doesn’t exist when Sweetwater decides to date a white woman. (The movie never shows him romantically interested in any other women.) It’s another example of how the “Sweetwater” filmmakers have huge blind spots because of how they mishandle realistic depictions of race relations when telling this story. And in this male-dominated movie, it looks very sexist that Jeanne is the only female character who is given a name.

By removing so many authentic details about the real Clifton’s life, “Sweetwater” is ultimately a fake-looking, watered-down biopic. Fascinating aspects of Sweetwater’s life before he became a pro basketball player (such as serving in the U.S. Army during World War II) are barely mentioned or not mentioned at all. And the filmmakers of “Sweetwater” should be ashamed that they made his entire existence look like it only mattered in the context of how he elevated the status of the white men who used him for their own benefit.

Briarcliff Entertainment released “Sweetwater” in U.S. cinemas on April 14, 2023.

Review: ‘Babylon’ (2022), starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li

December 16, 2022

by Carla Hay

Margot Robbie and Diego Calva in “Babylon” (Photo by Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures)

“Babylon” (2022)

Directed by Damien Chazelle

Some language in Spanish and French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, from 1926 to 1952, the dramatic film “Babylon” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos, African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy who are connected in some way to the movie industry.

Culture Clash: A Mexican immigrant finds himself in various entanglements—including a volatile relationship with an ambitious actress—when he goes from being a service employee to a high-ranking executive at a movie studio. 

Culture Audience: “Babylon” will appeal primarily to fans of writer/director Damien Chazelle; stars Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie; and repetitive, overly long movies about people behaving badly that don’t have much else to say.

Lukas Haas (far left), Margot Robbie (second from right) and Brad Pitt (far right) in “Babylon” (Photo by Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures)

“Babylon” is cinematic vomit wrapped up in a pretty package. This movie stinks of being a phony, self-indulgent mess, but because of the pretty package, some people will insist that it’s great. And with a total running time of 189 minutes, “Babylon” wears out its welcome long before those three-plus hours are over. What’s even more irritating about “Babylon” is that it has a pretentious tone that it’s some kind of groundbreaking film. It’s not groundbreaking at all. It’s just a miscalculated, big-budget dud with awards aspirations but with a second-rate plot of a trashy B-movie.

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle (the Oscar-winning director of 2016’s “La La Land”), “Babylon” is being marketed as an “exposé” of the dark side of Hollywood, particularly from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s, when most of the movie takes place. (The entire time range of “Babylon” spans from 1926 to 1952.) This long-winded train wreck is actually just a series of scenes showing hollow people acting vain and stupid, while indulging in promiscuous sex, illegal drugs and unrelenting shallowness. It is decadence that looks overly staged, not natural, and certainly not fascinating. And that’s one of the biggest problems with “Babylon.”

An example of how “Babylon” looks too contrived is shown early in the movie, in a scene that is supposed to depict a sex orgy at a mansion in Bel Air, California. Everything about the sex looks too choreographed and fake, which automatically makes this scene lose any sex appeal that it intended to have. The scene is supposed make “Babylon” viewers feel like voyeurs, but all it does is make viewers think that what the cast members are doing in these sex scenes are too precise and perfectly timed to look convincing.

“Babylon” also overuses cheap and tawdry gimmicks of showing bodily functions—defecating, urinating and vomiting—with the type of juvenile glee of someone who tells not-very-funny vulgar jokes, just to try to shock people, when it’s actually not very shocking at all. The bodily functions aren’t offensive on their own, but they’re cynically used in the movie as an obvious ploy to get people to think that Chazelle is being “bold” and “daring,” just because he’s never had these types of scenes in his previous films. When these kinds of crass, “gross-out” scenes are in “Jackass” movies, at least they’re usually funny, and they aren’t pretending to be prestigious art. “Babylon” takes itself way too seriously to even be a good dark comedy.

“Babylon” begins in 1926, by showing service employee Manuel “Manny” Torres (played by Diego Calva), a Mexican immigrant who wants to break into showbiz, with two of his co-workers (played by J.C. Currais and Jimmy Ortega) while making a delivery in Bel Air. They are driving a truck that’s towing an elephant in an open cart that’s tied by rope to the truck. The elephant is being transported to a Bel Air mansion, where rich movie-studio mogul Don Wallach (played by Jeff Garlin) is having a party later that night. The elephant is supposed to be at the party, simply as a way for the party host to show off that he has the money to bring an elephant to his home.

The rope on the truck breaks while the truck is on a steep incline. The workers try frantically to prevent the cart containing the elephant from sliding down the incline. And for their efforts, the elephant defecates all over them, with everything shown in graphic detail. What the elephant does to these workers is kind of like what “Babylon” does to viewers who have the fortitude to sit through this asinine dump of a movie.

The party is where viewers first see the other main characters in “Babylon.” Most of these characters have very few redeeming qualities, as if it’s Chazelle’s way of saying that Hollywood in the 1920s attracted mostly corrupt and morally bankrupt people. People with a strong sense of personal ethics don’t last long in this story. “Babylon” is not interested in showing the reality that Hollywood has always attracted a wide variety of people, not just people who are heinous. “Babylon” only wants to give the most screen time and a narrow view to the ones that care the most about clawing their way to the top and possibly destroying the competition.

Movie star Jack Conrad (played by Brad Pitt), a sex symbol in silent films, thinks he’s at the top of his game. But his career has been fading and will soon be damaged by the arrival of talking pictures (movies with sound, also known as talkies) in the late 1920s. Jack is dropped off at the party by his soon-to-be ex-wife Ina Conrad (played by Olivia Wilde, making quick cameo in the movie), who is furious with Jack because he’s been openly cheating on her. Jack and Ina have a hostile conversation in their car, where she berates him for his infidelity and for speaking with a fake Italian accent to people he wants to impress. Before she speeds away in anger, Ina yells that she wants a divorce.

Nellie LaRoy (played by Margot Robbie) is a crude, fame-hungry aspiring actress, who literally crashes the party by crashing her car into another car in full view of the security guards outside. (It’s a minor fender bender.) And then, she argues with the security guards, who prevent an uninvited Nellie into the party. Expect to see Nellie doing a lot more yelling throughout “Babylon,” because her nasty temper is the epitome of her limited personality.

Manny, who witnesses this spectacle when it happens, is immediately infatuated with Nellie because of her physical beauty. And so, Manny lies when he tells the security guards that Nellie is an important person who’s been invited to the party. It’s the beginning of a dysfunctional relationship between Manny and Nellie, where she uses him to get her out of messes and help her in her career, while Manny hopes that Nellie will fall in love with him.

Elinor St. John (played by Jean Smart) is a very jaded and influential gossip columnist, who uses her lofty media position to give and take away clout, in regards to how people want their public images to be perceived. Not long after Manny arrives at the party as a “jack of all trades” service worker, Elinor makes a sexual advance at him, but he politely declines. Elinor is at the party mainly as an observer. She considers herself to be much smarter and tougher than the average Hollywood power player.

Sidney Palmer (played by Jovan Adepo) is a trumpet player in a jazz band where Sidney is considered the star. Sidney and his band have been hired to perform at this mansion party. Later, they get a chance to star in feature films, during the early years of talking pictures, and when it was trendy to have jazz stars perform their music in these movies.

Lady Fay Zhu (played by Li Jun Li) is an androgynous, openly queer or lesbian entertainer, who is described in the “Babylon” production notes as “Marlene Dietrich by way of Anna May Wong.” Fay develops an infatuation with Nellie, but Fay finds out the hard way that Fay’s sexuality is not as accepted by Hollywood star makers as it is when she goes to private parties or performs in nightclubs.

Some of the other “Babylon” characters, who have varying degrees of importance to the overall story include movie producer George Munn (played by Lukas Haas), who is Jack’s best friend, enabler and producing partner; Estelle Conrad (played by Katherine Waterston), Jack’s haughty next wife, a Broadway actress who looks down on people in the movie industry; and James McKay (played by Tobey Maguire), a wealthy, perverted and sadistic businessman who loans money to Nellie and threatens her life when she doesn’t pay him back.

Some of the industry players depicted in “Babylon” include movie producer Irving Thalberg (played by Max Minghella), who is based on the real Thalberg, but is a very bland and generic character in “Babylon,” when he shouldn’t be; media mogul William Randolph Hearst (played by Pat Skipper); and movie director Ruth Adler (played by Olivia Hamilton), a rare woman who helms major studio films. Hamilton is one of the producers of “Babylon” and is also Chazelle’s real-life wife, so it’s perhaps no coincidence that she was cast as one of the few women who has any real power in the movie.

Operating on the fringes of the Hollywood elite are Bob Levine (played by Flea), a sleazy “fixer” hired by movies studios to conceal scandals; Robert Roy (played by Eric Roberts), Nellie’s unsophisticated and domineering father/manager, who is not respected by many of the power players; The Count (played by Rory Scovel), a wannabe actor who supplies drugs to people in the movie industry; Max (played by P.J. Byrne), Ruth Adler’s ill-tempered and antisemitic assistant director; Wilson (played by Ethan Suplee), one of James McKay’s sycophant employees; and Constance Moore (played by Samara Weaving), a silent-film star whom Nellie sees as a rival.

Expect to see a lot of cocaine-fueled debauchery and nonsense in “Babylon,” as Nellie predictably becomes not only a silent-film starlet but also a self-destructive drug addict. Manny, with Jack’s help, breaks into the movie industry and ends up becoming a high-ranking production executive at a movie studio, but Manny keeps letting Nellie’s problems become his problems too. Meanwhile, Jack struggles with maintaining his status as a movie star when talking pictures literally make him a laughingstock with movie audiences.

“Babylon” can’t even be very original when it comes to the “scandals” in the story. Early on in the movie, a young, aspiring actress named Jane Thornton (played by Phoebe Tonkin) meets an untimely death during the party at the Wallach mansion in Bel Air. Before she dies, Jane is shown having a drug-induced, kinky sexual encounter with an older, wealthy man named Orville Pickwick (played by Troy Metcalf), who is overweight and wants Jane to call him “daddy” while she urinates on him.

Jane and Orville are just lazily written caricatures of real-life actress Virginia Rappe and actor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, who went on trial for (and was later acquitted of) Rappe’s death, after she passed away in 1921, during a party they both attended in San Francisco. In “Babylon,” when Jane’s death is discovered in the Wallach mansion, there’s a frantic rush to cover it up. “Babylon” changes the outcome of this real-life scandal, but viewers who know about the stars of the silent-film era will immediately notice that Orville and Jane are based on Arbuckle and Rappe.

“Babylon” has eye-catching cinematography and production design to make everything look dazzling. The costume design, hairstyling and makeup are mostly adequate but also very questionable, since Nellie sometimes looks like she’s from the 1970s, not the 1920s. And the film editing in “Babylon” cannot be praised for a movie this bloated and unwieldy.

The “Babylon” cast members, particularly Robbie, give performances where they look like they want to be noticed and rewarded with industry prizes. Ironically, in a movie that overloads on empty excess, the best and most realistic scene in “Babylon” is a simple but well-acted conversation between Elinor and Jack in Elinor’s office, when Elinor explains to Jack why he’s becoming a has-been.

Elinor is one of many underdeveloped characters in “Babylon,” which puts most of the emphasis on the antics of Nellie and Jack. Manny gets sidelined for a great deal of the movie and only becomes a big part of the story again when Manny is needed to help Nellie. Manny’s meteoric rise in the movie industry, which could have been shown in riveting details, instead is merely a backdrop to whatever reactions that Manny has to the drug-addled hedonism that is going on around him and in which he sometimes participates.

“Babylon” tries to make “social statements” about Hollywood’s mistreatment of queer people and people of color during this time period. However, those statements reek of glib tokenism. Fay is never presented as a whole person but only as a fetish for people who want to see a woman kiss other women, or as an Asian woman whose purpose is to satisfy white people’s sexual fantasies about Asian women.

Similarly, “Babylon” also treats Sidney as a token, because his biggest scene is a humiliating racist experience that he has on a movie set: Sidney is ordered to put blackened makeup on his face so that his skin will look as dark as his bandmates. “Babylon” has no interest in presenting Sidney as a fully formed human being. The movie does not care to reveal anything about his personal life or backstory, whereas the personal lives and backstories of other characters are on full (and sometimes disgusting) display.

“Babylon” is also insulting in how it wants audiences to spend a little more than three hours watching a movie overstuffed with scenes where it’s just a lot of people shouting at each other, doing drugs, and being paranoid about their careers—and somewhere in between, a few movies get made. The snake wrestling scene with Nellie is particularly idiotic, as anyone with basic medical knowledge of poisonous snake bites can tell you. All of these superficial and time-wasting shenanigans don’t add up to much of a cohesive story, but are really just a lot of scenes strung together like a pointless, rambling essay.

Nellie will be the most talked-about character in “Babylon,” but she isn’t even that compelling, because she comes across as a dime-a-dozen Hollywood starlet, not a true star. (The Nellie character is partially based on the real-life Clara Bow.) “Babylon” never shows Nellie having any actual talent as an actress or having a charismatic personality, which would be two of the main reasons why people would root for this air-headed egomaniac. Nellie berates and degrades people who try to help her, she’s a pathetic drug addict, and she only turns on the charm when she wants something from someone.

The character of Jack is presented as having some empathy for other people, such as in scenes where he treats service employees very well, and when he helps Manny get his first big break in the movie industry. But the way Jack is written in “Babylon” is that he’s essentially a stereotypical Hollywood “bad boy” who parties too much and is chronically unfaithful to his wife/partner. There’s a very “been there, done that” attitude that Jack seems to have, but the same could be said about how this entire character is portrayed in “Babylon.”

Pitt in “Babylon” is really just doing a 1920s version of what was already seen in writer/director Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which was set in 1969. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which also co-starred Pitt and Robbie, was about fictional has-been actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double/best friend Cliff Booth (played by Pitt, in an Oscar-winning role), as they encounter members of Charles Manson’s cult, with Robbie in the role of real-life bombshell starlet Sharon Tate. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Babylon” both have themes about what the quest for fame will do to people in Hollywood and how changing trends in Hollywood can affect people’s careers. It’s easy for anyone to see which is the better movie.

Chazelle has a devoted fan base of people who think he can do no wrong. Many of those people are likely to heap rapturous praise on the soulless “Babylon,” just because Chazelle wrote and directed it and got some big-name stars to be in the movie. People who aren’t as susceptible to getting blinded by celebrity names can see “Babylon” for what it is: A vanity project created by filmmakers with enough money to throw around at a movie that’s just a series of scenes of people being obnoxious, with not much else to say. A very pretentious montage near the end of “Babylon” tries to look like an artsy tribute to filmmaking, but it just looks out-of-place in a film that’s already immersed in a lot of tackiness and storytelling muck.

There are plenty of artfully made and entertaining films about people doing very bad things. Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese has made a career out of doing these kinds of movies. Simply put: “Babylon” is Chazelle’s ambitious but failed attempt to make a movie like Scorsese makes movies.

The reason why so many Scorsese films are classics, while “Babylon” will be known as a very expensive misfire, comes down to the believability of the characters and the story. People watching “Babylon” will feel like they’re watching privileged actors and actresses playing dress-up instead of truly embodying their characters. If the purpose of “Babylon” is to show how Hollywood can squander talent with overpriced and aimless movies, then that is perhaps the only area where “Babylon” truly succeeds.

Paramount Pictures will release “Babylon” in U.S. cinemas on December 23, 2022. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on January 31, 2023. “Babylon” will be released on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD on March 21, 2023.

Review: ‘Hard Luck Love Song,’ starring Michael Dorman, Sophia Bush, Dermot Mulroney, RZA, Brian Sacca, Melora Walters and Eric Roberts

October 26, 2021

by Carla Hay

Sophia Bush and Michael Dorman in “Hard Luck Love Song” (Photo by Andrea Giacomini/Roadside Attractions)

“Hard Luck Love Song”

Directed by Justin Corsbie

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed Texas city, the dramatic film “Hard Luck Love Song” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos, one African American and one person of Indian heritage) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An aspiring singer/songwriter, who is also a drug-addicted drifter, hustles for money by playing pool and has a volatile reunion with an ex-girlfriend. 

Culture Audience: “Hard Luck Love Song” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Sophia Bush (even though she isn’t in most of the movie) and to viewers who don’t mind watching unremarkable movies about self-destructive drifters with broken dreams.

Dermot Mulroney in “Hard Luck Love Song” (Photo by Jas Shelton/Roadside Attractions)

“Hard Luck Love Song” wants viewers to believe it’s a gritty and realistic portrait of an American drifter, but the movie falls apart in the last 30 minutes, with one unrealistic scenario after another. Sophia Bush, who shares top billing in the movie, doesn’t even appear on screen in “Hard Luck Love Song” until 44 minutes into this 104-minute film. Expect to see a lot of pointless footage of aimless main character Jesse Richardson (played by Michael Dorman), as he lives out of a motel and tries to figures out a way to get easy cash.

This is a movie that would’ve been better as a short film. Maybe that’s because “Hard Luck Love Song” (the feature-film directorial debut of Justin Corsbie) was inspired by a song: 2006’s “Just Like Old Times” by Americana singer/songwriter Todd Snider. It’s an interesting but somewhat gimmicky story for how this movie was conceived. Unfortunately, the “Hard Luck Love Song” screenplay (written by Corsbie and Craig Ugoretz) doesn’t live up to the potential of being a compelling tale of people who don’t have much hope in their lives while living on the fringes of society.

Jesse (who is in his late 30s) is one of those people who seems to be down on their luck, but the movie slowly reveals that his “bad luck” is actually the culmination of his bad decisions in life. A native of Texas, Jesse has been struggling with addictions to drugs and alcohol for years. Jesse has also been trying for years to make it in the music business as a singer/songwriter (he performs country-ish Americana music), but he remains unknown and broke. And now, Jesse is homeless and trying to find ways to make enough cash to get through any given week.

The movie (which takes place in an unnamed Texas city) opens with Jesse driving in his car and heading to wherever he can find a cheap place to stay and a job that doesn’t care about doing background checks. (Jesse has a prison record.) Jesse checks into a motel and peruses the want ads in a newspaper. He ends up driving to a bunch of seedy-looking bars in the area and applies for jobs where they’re looking to hire people.

In the meantime, Jesse needs cash fast. Luckily for him, he has other skills besides playing the guitar and writing songs, since he can’t find work as a musician. Jesse is also a very talented pool player. And so, the first hour of the movie is about Jesse winning money in pool games at one dive bar after another. (He wins more than he loses.)

During one of these pool games, Jesse finds out about an informal pool tournament that happens every first Saturday of the month at a bar called Broadway Social. At this tournament, Jesse excels and wins $3,000 as the grand prize. However, one of the people he defeated in the tournament takes the loss very hard and decides he’s going to get his money back from Jesse any way that he can.

This sore loser is a thug named Rollo (played by Dermot Mulroney), who has two sidekick goons: a short, weaselly character named Pete (played by Zac Badasci) and a hulking brute named Bump (played by Randal Reedner), who no doubt got his nickname because he likes to snort “bumps” of cocaine. Rollo, Pete and Bump surround Jesse and pressure him to play another game of pool with Rollo, with the obvious intention of getting the prize money from Jesse.

Jesse has enough street smarts to know that this forced pool game will not end well for him. And so, there’s a somewhat suspenseful sequence showing how Jesse deals with this situation. One of the movie’s flaws is that it seems like it wants to be two different stories about the same character. One story is about Jesse’s struggles to get money. That story then gets abandoned and segues to the other story, which is about Jesse’s drama-filled reunion with an ex-girlfriend.

The first 60% of the movie is about Jesse and his search for ways to make some easy cash. He’s never seen working at an actual job. It seems to be a longtime pattern for him that he’s incapable of keeping steady employment. This part of the movie is just scene after scene of chain-smoking Jesse wandering from bar to bar and playing pool.

When he’s in his motel alone, Jesse plays his guitar and chain smokes some more. Dorman does his own singing in the movie, including an original song (“I’ll Be Your Honky Tonk”) that the wrote. He’s a good singer, but not great.

After winning the $3,000 in the pool tournament, Jesse’s first action indicates that he’d rather spend the money on some indulgences instead of saving the money or spending it on necessary expenses. One of the first things he does is look in a local rag newspaper’s back pages, where escorts are advertising their services. (Jesse is so broke, he doesn’t seem to have a smartphone, which explans why he relies on printed newspapers to read ads.)

Jesse calls one of the women who’s in these escort ads. Her alias is Cottontail, but her real name is Carla (played by Bush). When Jesse calls her, she seems to be surprised to hear from him. He invites Carla over for drinks. At first she’s reluctant, but then she agrees. While he talks to her on the phone, tears roll down his face. And that’s the first big clue that Jesse and Carla have some unfinished business.

At a nearby convenience store, Jesse has made the acquaintance of a store clerk named Benny (played by Taylor Gray), who notices that Jesse seems to be in a very good mood when Jesse comes up to the cash register to buy liquor. Benny can tell that Jesse likes to party, so Benny asks Jesse if he wants to be hooked up with something stronger than alcohol. Jesse says yes. And after Jesse assures Benny that he wasn’t a cop wearing any surveillance equipment (Jesse lifts up his shirt as proof), Benny sells Jesse some cocaine.

Jesse’s plan is to party with Carla by drinking and doing cocaine with her. And when she shows up at the motel, it’s obvious that this type of partying is familiar activity for both of them, even though they haven’t seen each other in years. Carla is initially reluctant to do cocaine with Jesse, but eventually she does.

What’s the story with Carla? She is Jesse’s ex-girlfriend from high school. They’ve known each other since before they were in high school. And they’ve had a dysfunctional, on-again/off-again relationship for years. Lately, because of Jesse’s drug problems and prison time, the relationship has been most definitely “off.”

However, Carla showed up for this rendezvous for a reason. Does she want to get back together with Jesse, or is she just paying him a visit out of curiosity? And is she a prostitute? Jesse wants answers to those questions and he gets them, even though he isn’t completely honest with Carla at first.

Jess lies to Carla by saying he’s an in-demand songwriter. He flashes her some of the cash he won and tells her it’s some of the payment he’s gotten for songwriting. Carla is no fool though, because she can see that the dumpy motel where Jesse is staying is an obvious sign that he’s struggling financially. At first Carla and Jesse’s reunion is filled with awkward tension, but they loosen up a lot when they get drunk and high together.

During this night of partying, Carla takes Jesse to a bar where she says that she works. It’s here that Jesse meets Carla’s bar boss Skip (played by Eric Roberts), who tells Jesse that he’s very protective of Carla because she’s a good person. Carla’s best friend at the bar is named Gypsy Sally (played by Melora Walters), who knows about Carla’s turbulent history with Jesse and warns her to be careful about getting involved with him again.

The main problem with “Hard Luck Love Song” is that at several points in the movie, viewers will ask themselves, “Where is this story going?” There’s a rambling style to the film that’s filled with a lot of generic dialogue. Dorman and Bush are perfectly adequate in their roles (Jesse and Carla are both emotionally damaged in their own ways), but these actors’ performances aren’t enough to make this plodding story more compelling.

“Hard Luck Love Song” goes from mediocre to bad with the mishandling of two particular characters. One is a cop named Officer Zach (played by Brian Sacca), who shows up at Jesse’s motel room when Carla is there. (Carla and Jesse predictably scramble to hide the cocaine.) Officer Zach is there in response to noise complaints because apparently Jesse and Carla were being too loud in playing music and laughing during their coke-and-alcohol-fueled party.

The first clue that Officer Zach is unrealistically written is that he shows up with no cop partner for backup. It might be excused if this is a small town with a small police force, but it’s still unrealistic. And then, Officer Zach tells Jesse that he wouldn’t mind partying with Jesse if he could, but he can’t because he’s on duty. What kind of cop on duty says that to a stranger he just met in response to a noise complaint? It’s possible but still far-fetched.

It gets worse with the other badly written character. When Carla arrived at the motel, Jesse looked out the window and saw a man lurking and watching Carla as she went to Jesse’s room. Jesse eventually finds out that this stranger’s name is Louis (played by RZA), and Jesse’s first impression of Louis is that Louis is Carla’s pimp. Without giving away any spoiler information, it’s enough to say that Louis does know Carla. The nature of their relationship is revealed in the last 15 minutes of the movie.

One of the worst things about “Hard Luck Love Song” is that it has some negative racial stereotyping that could be considered offensive to African Americans. The reason why is because there’s only one black person with a noticeable speaking role in this movie, and it’s a role that is problematic and filled with terrible clichés. There’s a racially tinged conflict in the story which has someone showing up out of the blue in an “only in a movie” moment that will have viewers rolling their eyes or cringing at how stupid this scene is.

After having a “slice of life” tone for most of the movie, the tone abruptly shifts to melodrama and moronically staged violence toward the end of the movie. It’s a very clumsy transition, even though this violence is foreshadowed with a brief flash in the beginning of the film. The aftermath of some gun violence in the movie is handled in a completely ludicrous way. And the movie’s last scene is jarringly out-of-touch and phony, compared to the rest of the film. How everything ends feels tacked-on and completely dilutes the edginess that the movie intended to convey throughout most of the story.

“Hard Luck Love Song” is not a movie with much purpose, except to show the main characters trying to forget about all their bad decisions while they make more bad decisions. Just because Jesse sheds tears of regret doesn’t mean that viewers will have a lot of sympathy for him. Because the pivotal character of Carla arrives so late in the film, “Hard Luck Love Song” is mostly a tedious slog showing a loner whose life is on a wasted repeat loop. This movie’s lack of substance isn’t too surprising because it’s a 104-minute film based on a four-minute song. And the song is better than this movie.

Roadside Attractions released “Hard Luck Love Song” in U.S. cinemas on October 15, 2021. The movie’s premium video on demand (PVOD) release date is November 9, 2021. Lionsgate Home Entertainment will release “Hard Luck Love Song” on digital and VOD on December 21, 2021.

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