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Review: ‘Epicentro,’ starring Leonelis Arango Salas, Annielys Pelladito Zaldivar, Oona Castilla Chaplin, Juan Padrón and Hans Helmut Ludwig

September 3, 2020

by Carla Hay

Pictured in from from left to right: Leonelis Arango Salas and Annielys Pelladito Zaldivar in “Epicentro” (Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

“Epicentro”

Directed by Hubert Sauper

Spanish and German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of Cuba, the documentary “Epicentro” features a group of Latino and white people from the working-class, middle-class and upper-class discussing Cuba’s past and present issues with colonialism and government rule.

Culture Clash: Most of the Cubans interviewed in the documentary have negative opinions of countries that have tried to take over and oppress the people of Cuba.

Culture Audience: “Epicentro” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind the type of documentaries that are more of a “snapshot” of a culture, rather than an in-depth investigation.

Leonelis Arango Salas in “Epicentro” (Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

The documentary “Epicentro” is exactly what it appears to be: director Huber Sauper went to Cuba for several days and interviewed Cuban residents and some tourists about what they think about Cuban history and Cuban culture. It’s not a definitive documentary on contemporary Cuba, but it’s a very good snapshot of the thoughts and feelings of a sampling of people who happened to be filmed for this documentary.

One of the aspects of “Epicentro” that is apparent from the beginning is that the documentary does not have the usual format of identifying interviewees by showing their names on the screen as they are being interviewed. The names of the documentary’s participants are listed in the end credits, but a lot of viewers who actually read the end credits might not know who is who, unless they paid attention to which of interviewees had their name called out to them by someone else.

By not identifying the interviewees by their names in the the typical documentary way, viewers will feel that a lot of the people they’re watching are anonymous. And that might annoy or intrigue people. It will annoy people who are curious to know that names of who’s speaking. It will intrigue people who don’t care to know the identities of the people speaking

For example, there’s a slightly drunk American tourist shown in a bar, as he rambles in a joking manner that planting an American flag somewhere doesn’t always mean that great things are going to happen there. He names the moon as example, by saying that the moon hasn’t been that great since the American flag was planted there. “We have to make the moon great again,” he snickers in an obvious nod to the “Make America Great Again” political slogan used by Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.

It’s a scene like this that will make people wonder: “Who is this guy? Why should we care what he thinks? Is he just some random tourist who’s just spouting gibberish in a drunken moment? And why is this in a documentary about Cuba, since what this guy is saying is really someone that anyone can spew after a few drinks at a bar?”

The more that “Epicentro” goes on, the more it becomes apparent that director Sauper doesn’t want viewers to think too much about the identities and personal backgrounds of the people interviewed in the documentary. The people who made it into the final cut of this film all have something to say, in one way or another, about colonialism and patriotism and how they lead to cultural conflicts when one country wants to rule over another.

Cuba has been a Communist/socialist country since 1959, and under the rule of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1965. The people of Cuba have experienced countries such and Spain, the United States and the former Soviet Union trying to dictate what type of government should rule in Cuba. And this political colonialism is still a very sore subject with Cubans.

In one of the first scenes in “Epicentro,” a man wearing a top hat and tuxedo is giving a video presentation to a roomful of about 50 Cuban children who are about 7 to 10 years old. In the video, Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders are shown arriving in Cuba to establish a “brotherhood” with the Cuban people. The video also shows the American flag is unfurled establish freedom in Cuba. The children scoff at the video and say that it’s all a lie.

There are two Cuban girls (about 9 or 10 years old) who are close friends and whose interviewed segments are shown throughout the film: Leonelis Arango Salas and Annielys Palladito Zaldivar. They both have a strong sense of Cuban history, as they speak out against racist colonialism and talk about how the Spaniards had black slaves in Cuba. “No one should be treated as if they’re trash,” says one of the girls.

Salas, the more extroverted friend, who wants to be an actress and singer. Both girls also have an interest in dancing, as they are shown participating in a tango class with other kids their age. The girls’ family backgrounds aren’t really explained or shown, although it’s obvious that they are underprivileged, based on how they can’t afford certain things (like family vacations or certain toys) that other kids can take for granted. It’s mentioned that Salas’ father has been absent from her life for the past three years.

Salas is also being mentored in her showbiz goals by actress Oona Castilla Chaplin, who is shown in the movie giving Salas advice and showing the Charlie Chaplin movies “The Great Dictator” and “The Gold Rush” to a group of young kids. Oona also rehearses a “mother/daughter” argument with Salas, including them slapping and hitting each other. It looks so realistic that it almost seems like like it’s not a rehearsal but something that was unscripted.

Oona is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and the great-granddaughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill. She is best known for playing Varang in the 2009 “Avatar” blockbuster movie and its sequels. What exactly was doing in Cuba and how did she end up involved with teaching kids about acting? “Epicentro” doesn’t say. It’s one of many examples of how the movie treats its subjects with a raw cinéma vérité style.

It’s as if the filmmakers took this approach to the people who are interviewed for the film: “We’re just passing through. We don’t need to know your life story. Just talk about what you want and we’ll film it.” “Epicentro” director Sauper took such a hands-off approach that when one young woman he interviews on the street can’t think of a word that knows, she ask him for helping in saying the word, but he can be heard off-camera saying that he doesn’t want to put words in her mouth.

The Cuban natives all express a sense of pride in their country, but they have mixed feelings about the United States. On the one hand, they love American culture. On the other hand, they have a real hatred for American politics and perceive the United States as a political bully to other countries. Donald Trump is mentioned often as someone who is intensely disliked by Cubans, no doubt because of his presidential administration’s embargo on Cuba. Even the little kids in the documentary don’t like Trump, who’s called “mean” and “racist” in the documentary. One of the little girls says, “Trump cares about nobody. He has no feelings.”

However, the Cubans in the documentary express a lot of admiration for American pop culture. An unidentified man says in the film: “Hollywood has won the cultural war.” An woman in her late 20s or early 30s says that her dream one day is to go to Disneyland. Why? She’s seen photos of Disneyland on Facebook and “everything looks beautiful … like in old fairytales. This is, for me, the American Dream.”

And the Cubans also express wistfulness or envy when it comes to all the new technology and freedom of speech that Americans get to have and take for granted. One woman interviewed on the street expresses some paranoia when a man who’s passing by asks her what she’s filming and what she’s discussing. She assures him that she’s saying nothing but good things about Cuba. When the man is out of hearing range, she half-jokingly says that if she’s not careful about what she says, she might get killed.

There’s also a lot of lingering and ongoing resentment that native Cubans have toward tourists. The documentary shows a Cuban man hanging out in a bar who says he grew up in a family who worked at a hotel and has this opinion of visitors who come to Cuba: “Tourists are human beings in their worst form … Tourism devours the future.” His perception of tourists is that they are usually loud, obnoxious and have a superior attitude toward Cubans.

The boundaries between the “haves” and “have nots” in Cuba are also defined by skin color, as the documentary shows that the dark-skinned people in Cuba tend to live in the worst poverty, while the wealthiest people in Cuba tend to be light-skinned Latinos or white. Meanwhile, the documentary shows that the tourists at luxury hotels in Cuba are almost always white. A taxi driver says on camera that the luxury hotels in Cuba were “created by the Mafia.”

There’s a scene in “Epicentro” when director Sauper (who does not appear on camera) breaks the wall of being an objective documentarian by staging some scenes for the movie. He brings Salas and one of her young male friends to the Parkhotel Central in Havana, so that they can swim in the pool. He also buys them dessert. The kids have never experienced this type of upscale hotel before, and it’s obvious that Sauper wanted to do something nice for them and put it in his documentary.

The young children who are interviewed (Sauper calls the children “little prophets” in the “Epicentro” production notes) have so much screen time in the documentary, that it’s obvious they were Sauper’s favorite people to film for the movie. There’s a scene in the movie where an American photographer is taking candid photos of a poor street kids (a boy who’s about 6 years old), who asks the photographer for something in return. The photographer gives him a pen, which the boy happily takes and starts playing with the pen as if it’s a toy.

The photographer comments on the poverty-stricken people in Cuba: “The conditions they have here are pretty tragic. But I guess under certain circumstances, you have no choice. It’s kind of crazy?”

There are also some random scenes in the movie. A man who appears to be in his 60s (who’s identified in the end credits as Hans Helmut Ludwig ) is shown tango dancing with a younger woman. Ludwig shows up later as a special guest instructor in the tango class of the young children.

Cuban animation director Juan Padrón is shown talking about how he did research on Roosevelt and the more he found out, the more he knew that the Rough Riders image was fake and a lot of the history that’s taught about Roosevelt’s relationship with Cuba was a myth. It’s widely perceived by the people in the documentary that the Spanish-American War in 1898 was under the guise of the U.S. trying to help liberate Cuba from Spain when the U.S. actually wanted to conquer Cuba.

The documentary was also filmed at least partially in November 2016, because “Epicentro” includes the breaking news about the death of Fidel Castro and the country’s subsequent mourning and tributes to Castro. The people interviewed in the documentary don’t express feelings one way or the other about how their lives might change is under post-Fidel Castro leadership. However, they do think that another event in November 2016 (the U.S. presidential election) has had more of a negative effect on their everyday lives.

“Epicentro” is not the kind of people will enjoy if they’re looking for a documentary that has a tightly focused story. Numerous unidentified people are interviewed in the movie and are not revisited. And the only real consistency is that the documentary keeps coming back to showing Cuban children. It’s as if the message of the movie seems to be: “Listen to what these kids are saying because they are the future of Cuba.”

If people are curious about what a relatively small sample of Cubans are thinking and what life is like in Cuba since the Trump-administration embargo against Cuba, then “Epicentro” is worth a look. There’s a lot of raw “shaky cam” footage, but some of the outdoor cinematography is stunning. “Epicentro” isn’t so much a wide-ranging documentary as it is a compilation of random individuals in Cuba who share their thoughts for this movie. What they have to say is much more revealing about Cuba than filtered news or a political speech.

Kino Lorber released “Epicentro” in select U.S. cinemas on August 28, 2020.

Review: ‘One Night in Bangkok,’ starring Mark Dacascos, Kane Kosugi and Vanida Golten

September 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

Mark Dacascos in “One Night in Bangkok” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“One Night in Bangkok”

Directed by Wych Kaosayananda

Culture Representation: This crime drama, which takes place in the Thailand capital of Bangkok, features a predominantly Asian cast (with a few white people) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A man on a deadly revenge mission hires an unsuspecting rideshare driver to take him to various places where he murders people.

Culture Audience: “One Night in Bangkok” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching dull, derivative and mindlessly violent movies.

Vanida Golten in “One Night in Bangkok” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

The crime drama “One Night in Bangkok” has nothing to do with Murray Head’s 1985 “Chess” musical song “One Night in Bangkok.” And unfortunately, logic and good storytelling had nothing do with this dreadful movie.

“One Night in Bangkok” is really just a vastly inferior ripoff of director Michael Mann’s 2004 thriller “Collateral,” starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise as a taxi driver and a hitman who are caught up in the hitman’s murder spree during the course of one night. Foxx earned an Oscar nomination for his role in “Collateral,” which was also Oscar-nominated for its film editing. The only distinction that “One Night in Bangkok” has is that it’s one movie in a long list of bad movies written and directed by Wych Kaosayananda, who also directed and co-wrote the notorious 2002 stinker “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever,” starring Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu.

“Collateral” was told from the point of view of the driver, but “One Night in Bangkok” shifts the point of view to the hitman. His name is Kai Khale (played by Mark Dacascos), an American who has traveled from Hawaii to Bangkok. When he arrives in Bangkok, he is picked up by an unidentified man on a motorbike. The mystery man gives Kai a duffel bag that contains cash, a mobile phone and a gun with a silencer. Kai’s demeanor is calm and measured, as if he knows where he’s going but he’s in no big rush to get there.

The next thing that Kai does is call a rideshare service. He books a ride with a driver named Vanida “Fha” Hoffstead (played by Vanida Golten). It’s now 8:10 p.m. Kai and Fha strike up a pleasant conversation on the way to his first destination, which is an insurance company. Kai says he’s going there to see a lawyer. It’s an unusual time to have an appointment at an insurance company, but Fha assumes that the lawyer must be working late.

Fha tells Kai a little bit about herself during their small talk. She says she prefers to be a rideshare driver at night because she has more time during night hours. But then Kai gets a little creepy and starts asking her some inappropriate personal questions, such as asking her how she deals with men who proposition her because she’s so pretty.

Kai also asks Fha, who tells him that she’s single, why she’s not married. “I never got around to it,” she replies. Kai is so polite when he makes these intrusive comments, and even apologizes in advance for being so nosy, that Fha openly answers his questions with no hesitation.

Fha also reveals a little bit of her background: She’s lived in Thailand for her entire life. Her father is British, and her mother is Thai. Fha also mentions that her brother has multiple sclerosis. Kai sympathetically replies that he used to be a field medic “a long time ago.”

He won’t say much else about himself, except when he rambles later in the conversation about how much he loves fishing. (You can bet that there’s a reason why fishing is brought up in the story.) Fha says that she studied English in college, but she’s still trying to learn to speak English better, which she does mostly by watching movies and YouTube videos.

Kai then continues with his nosy questions, by asking Fha what she makes as a rideshare driver on a typical Friday night. She tells him that she can make $1,000 to $1,200 on a good Friday night. Kai then tells her that after he leaves the insurance company, he has to make four more stops at four different places: a police station, a nightclub, a hospital and a house.

Kai offers Fha $5,000 in cash if she drives him to all of the stops on his journey. He says that he can give her $1,000 as an up-front deposit, and that she’s free to end the trip at any time. Fha will get the remaining $4,000 if she drives Kai to all of the places that he requested that night.

At this point, anyone with street smarts would suspect that there’s an illegal reason for this unusual offer. Why else would the payment be so high for the simple task of driving someone to more than one destination? However, Fha seems to be easily fooled because Kai is wearing a business suit and has a smooth and polite demeanor.

Fha asks him why he needs to make these stops, and Kai replies that it’s about a case involving his daughter and her family. Kai also says he needs to “repay” the people involved in the case. Kai also tells Fha that she can ask him any questions, but she can’t look in his duffel bag. Instead of seeing these “red flag” warning signs that she’s about to mixed up in something illegal if she says yes, Fha agrees to the deal and foolishly mentions that it’s because she needs the money.

Of course, Kai isn’t in Bangkok on legal business. He has a vendetta that he’s going to carry out by murdering at every stop that he makes. The reason for this killing spree is revealed in the last third of the movie. There’s also a surprise “twist” which isn’t that shocking, considering everything that happened up to this point had signs indicating that there would be this “twist.”

Kai kills the people on his hit list in a methodical way and by making no attempt to disguise himself. One of the victims fights back, and the brawl leaves Kai with a big bloody gash on his bald head. When Fha sees the wound, Kai gives a flimsy excuse that he fell down somewhere. Fha’s reaction is to treat his head wound as if she’s the friendly neighborhood rideshare nurse and then she continues on the journey with him. Little by little, Kai tells Fha the real reason for his trip to Bangkok.

Meanwhile, a dumb movie like this has to operate under the premise that a big city like Bangkok only has a few bungling cops who are investigating this alarming shooting spree that’s taking place in a short period of time. (The whole story is supposed to take place within a six-hour period.) It’s the kind of movie where the cops show up too late at a crime scene and don’t make good use of surveillance video to figure out quicker who’s the killer.

The lead police investigator is named Dom (played by Michael S. New), whose cop partner is named Korn (played by Prinya Intachai), and their handling of the investigation is amateurish at best. Dom is so incompetent that he has to call his cop wife, who’s on maternity leave at home, to ask her to do some of his computer work for him. There’s also an unnamed Japanese fixer (played by Kane Kosugi) who’s part of the story.

The biggest problem with “One Night in Bangkok” (besides the terrible acting) is that for a movie that’s supposed to be a thriller, the pacing is too slow. The actors often speak at a sluggish and wooden pace. And there’s not much suspense to the story.

Kai goes from one murder to another with empty-headed Fha, who hasn’t figured out that whatever money she’s being offered by this stranger, it isn’t worth becoming an accomplice to murder. Surveillance cameras and eyewitnesses would be able to identify her as the getaway driver, since her car is being used in this killing spree.

It’s not a spoiler to say that Fha eventually finds out that Kai is killing people. And the reason why she stays with him is as pathetic as this movie: “You’re the first man in my life who’s showed me respect,” Fha says to Kai when she tells him why she won’t abandon him during his murder spree.

Fha’s complacency is probably the biggest difference between “One Night in Bangkok” and “Collateral,” which derived much of its suspense from the driver wanting to get away from the hitman. There is no such tension in “One Night in Bangkok,” which gets worse as the killings go on, because Kai gets messier and more brazen with each killing, and Fha does nothing to stop him. The worst scene is in the hospital, which ridiculously has no staffers and visitors when Kai does what he does there.

Sometimes a poorly written movie with terrible acting can be watchable if there’s enough action and suspense. Because “One Night in Bangkok” falls short in all of these areas, what’s left are a lot of bloody scenes, characters people won’t care about, and viewers’ sinking feeling that they could’ve spent 105 minutes of their time in a much better way than watching this boring dreck.

Lionsgate released “One Night in Bangkok” on digital, DVD and VOD on August 25, 2020.

Review: ‘Children of the Sea,’ a magical adventure from Japan

September 9, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Children of the Sea” (Image courtesy of GKIDS)

“Children of the Sea”

Directed by Ayumu Watanabe

Available in the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) or in a dubbed English-language version.

Culture Representation: This Japanese animated fantasy film takes place primarily in an unnamed Japanese city, with teenagers as the lead characters and adults as supporting characters, representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A teenage girl, whose scientist parents work at a local aquarium, encounters two mysterious aquatic teenage boys who were found at sea and who want to get away from the scientific experiments that have forced on them.

Culture Audience: “Children of the Sea” is a family-friendly film that will appeal mostly to fans of Japanese anime and animated adventure films.

“Children of the Sea” (Image courtesy of GKIDS)

The gorgeous Japanese animated film “Children of the Sea” immerses viewers into a fantasy world that compares and contrasts life on land and life underwater, but there’s a very “real world” environmental message that is present throughout the story. Directed with both enchanting whimsy and technical prowess by Ayumu Watanabe, “Children of the Sea” has some eye-popping animated visuals that deserve to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Daisuke Igarashi wrote the “Children of the Sea” adapted screenplay from his manga of the same title.

The story, which takes place in an unnamed Japanese city. is told from the point of view of a teenage girl named Ruka Azumi (who’s about 15 or 16 years old) during her summer break from regular school sessions. Her vacation gets off to a rocky start when Ruka, who is a rugby player for her school, is wrongfully accused of starting a fight with a fellow student during rugby practice. The other student, who was playing on the opposing team, was the one who was the physical aggressor, because she deliberately tripped Ruka during the game. 

A supervising teacher calls Ruka into his office and scolds her for being a “troublemaker.” He doesn’t want to hear Ruka’s excuse that the bullying student was the one who started the fight. And he tells Ruka that if she won’t apologize to the other student, then Ruka shouldn’t bother coming to practice anymore.

Feeling dejected and misunderstood, Ruka decides to go to Enokura Aquarium where her father Masaki works as a scientist. Ruka has happy memories of spending her childhood at the aquarium. One of these memories, which is shown at the beginning of the movie, is when Ruka saw a ghost in the aquarium. Her father is one of the aquarium’s scientists who evaluate aquatic life and do experiments, such as seeing how dolphins respond to certain sounds. 

While at the aquarium, Ruka discovers a friendly teenage boy in a back room. He’s about the same age as Ruka, and his name is Umi. He shows Yuka that he has an extraordinary ability to swim and float underwater for long periods of time without any breathing equipment. Ruka is very intrigued by Umi and wants to become his friend.

Ruka’s father tells her that Umi was found 10 years ago with another boy off of the shores of the Philippines. Scientists discovered that Umi and the other boy (who is slightly older than Umi) were raised primarily underwater by dugongs. The boys, who are apparently orphaned and raised as brothers by the dugongs, were kept at the aquarium for research.

One evening, Umi invites Ruka to go with him to see a will o’ the wisp at the beach. Ruka is surprised to see what she thinks is a comet or shooting star, but Ruka insists that it’s a will o’ the wisp. He also tells Ruka that animals shine when they want to be found.

While at the beach, Ruka sees the teenager who is described as Umi’s adoptive older brother: His name is Sora, whose skin is so pale that at first Ruka thinks that Sora is a ghost. Sora has blonde hair and blue eyes, which implies that he’s of European descent, while Umi has the appearance of being Filipino. It’s never explained in the movie how Umi and Sora ended up being stranded at sea together, since both boys don’t seem to have any memories of their human families.

Unlike the amicable reaction that Ruka got from Umi when they first met, the first time she meets Sora, he’s rude to her. Sora tells Ruka that she’s “boring.” He adds, “Umi has me. He’s not interested in you.” It also becomes clear as the story unfolds that Sora is more rebellious and more impulsive than Umi.

Sora is growing tired of being a research subject and wants to spend less time away from the aquarium. This restlessness is one of the main reasons why Sora, Umi and Ruka end up taking a joyride on a boat. It isn’t until they’re in the middle of the sea and that Sora admits he doesn’t know how to sail the boat and he was just winging it as they went along. And so, when the boat’s engine mysteriously stalls, the three teens don’t know how to fix it.

It’s during this fateful boat ride that Ruka discovers Umi’s and Sora’s seemingly magical powers to communicate with the aquatic creatures. She also gets to experience underwater life for the first time in some of the movie’s most visually stunning sequences, including seeing whale shark creatures. Sora eventually warms up to Ruka, but he still feels leery about anyone he thinks might try to break his brotherly bond with Umi.

It’s implied that Ruka has special powers too, but she isn’t fully aware of them yet. Meanwhile, Umi and Sora tells her that numerous creatures in the ocean will be gathering for a Birth Festival underwater and are looking for festival guests. Sora says he’s been traveling the world with a scientist named Jim to research the festival’s connection to Umi and Sora.

The trio makes it back to shore, but it won’t be the last time Ruka, Umi and Sora go out to sea together and experience dangerous situations. There’s a boat they use called the Rwa Bhineda that is a key part of their adventures together. One of the people they encounter near the boat is Angurâdo, a young man who wants to be Jim’s assistant.

There’s also an aquarium scientist named Anglade, who wants to keep Umi and Somi at the aquarium for research, even though it’s becoming obvious that the teenagers are growing into young men and want more independence. And there’s a town eccentric named Dehdeh, an elderly woman with apparent psychic abilities.

Ruka is close to her father, but she has a tense relationship with her mother Kanako, a scientist who also works at the aquarium but is on a leave of absence. The reason is because she’s an alcoholic, which is a secret that has brought shame to the family and has caused Ruka to have resentful feelings toward her mother. Kanako’s work colleagues describe her as “brilliant,” but Ruka doesn’t have much respect for her mother because of how Kanako’s alcoholism has negatively affected the family. It’s one of the reasons why Ruka doesn’t like to spend much time at home.

“Children of the Sea” has subtle and not-so-subtle environmental messages about the world being destroyed by humans’ recklessness and greed. Climate change and how it’s affecting the environment are on display when a megamouth shark and hundreds of fish wash up dead on near the aquarium. A typhoon suddenly occurs during one part of the story. And the movie has constant themes of urgent messages that aquatic animals are trying to communicate with humans.

STUDIO4°C, the animation studio behind “Children of the Sea,” infuses this story of teen rebellion meets environmentalism with a lot of reverential images of aquatic life. Creatures such as dolphins and whales are portrayed as just as intelligent (and sometimes smarter) than humans. And underwater life, although certainly not a utopia, is presented as a lot more harmonious and tranquil than the land inhabited by destructive humans.

The animation also takes risks by having some truly psychedelic imagery toward the end of the movie. Joe Hisaishi’s musical score perfectly complements the mood of each scene. And even though “Children of the Sea” is longer than a typical animated film (the total running time is 111 minutes), director Watanabe makes it a well-paced story. Some of the characters are more layered than others, so viewers will want to keep watching to see what it all means in the end. (There’s also an end credits scene that shows an epilogue to the story.)

The voices of the “Children of the Sea” characters are portrayed by different actors, depending on the version of “Children of the Sea.” The original Japanese version (with English subtitles) has Mana Ashida as Ruka, Hiiro Ishibashi as Umi, Seishu Uragami as Sora, Win Morisaki as Anglade, Goro Inagaki as Masaki Azumi, Yu Aoi as Kanako Azumi, Toru Watanabe as The Teacher, Min Tanaka as Jim and Sumiko Fuji as Dehdeh. There’s also a U.S. version, with the dialogue dubbed in English, that has Anjali Gauld as Ruka, Lynden Prosser as Umi, Benjamin Niewood/Benjamin Niedens as Sora, Beau Bridgland as Anglade, as Marc Thompson as Masaki Azumi, Karen Strassman as Kanako Azumi, Wally Wingert as The Teacher, Michael Sorich as Jim and Denise Lee as Dehdeh.

Some adults might think that animation is mostly for kids, but “Children of the Sea” is a great example of an animated film that can tell an intriguing story that’s relatable to people of any generation. It’s clear that the movie has a viewpoint that if aquatic animals could talk, they would be begging humans to treat the underwater world with more respect because how underwater life is treated affects us all. The movie’s environmental message isn’t preachy, but it shows how people on land are connected to the life that’s underwater and how lessons learned from the past can shape the future. 

GKIDS released “Children of the Sea” on digital, Blu-ray, DVD and Netflix on September 1, 2020.

Review: ‘All In: The Fight for Democracy,’ starring Stacey Abrams, Carol Anderson, Andrew Young, Debo Adegbile, Sean J. Young and Ari Berman

September 9, 2020

by Carla Hay

Stacey Abrams in “All In: The Fight for Democracy” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

“All In: The Fight for Democracy”

Directed by Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, the political documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy” features a racially diverse group of people (African American, white, Latino, Asian and Native American) discussing past and present issues in U.S. citizens’ right to vote.

Culture Clash: The consensus of people interviewed in the documentary is that voting inequalities, such as voter suppression and gerrymandering, stem from party politics and bigotry issues against people of color, young people and people who are economically disadvantaged.

Culture Audience: “All In: The Fight for Democracy” will appeal primarily to people who have liberal-leaning beliefs, since conservative lawmakers are portrayed as the chief villains who want to suppress people’s votes. 

A scene from “All In: The Fight for Democracy” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

The political documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy” (directed by Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés) examines the history of voting rights in the United States and how those rights have been violated. It’s a subject that’s theoretically supposed to be a non-partisan issue, but the documentary doesn’t try and hide that it’s biased heavily toward liberal politics and the Democratic Party, which is portrayed as the political party that’s taking the most action to include more U.S. citizens in the voting process. When it comes to modern-day voter suppression and the push to exclude people from the voting process, the documentary puts the blame primarily on Republican politicians and other lawmakers who have conservative-leaning political beliefs.

Democratic politician Stacey Abrams is one of the producers of “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” so it’s no surprise that she’s the main star of the movie, which uses her highly contested 2018 political campaign for governor of Georgia as an example of voter suppression. Her opponent in that campaign was Republican politician Brian Kemp, who was Georgia’s secretary of state in charge of overseeing the voting process in Georgia while he was campaigning for governor. Overseeing the voting process in his own election was an obvious conflict of interest, but Kemp refused to step down from his secretary of state position during his gubernatorial campaign because it was legal in Georgia for him to keep that position while he was campaigning for another office.

In the end, after 10 days of the election results being contested, Kemp was declared the winner with 50% of the votes, while it was announced that Abrams received 49% of the votes. The controversial election resulted in Abrams and her political group Fair Fight filing lawsuits and investigating reports of widespread voter suppression and other tactics to prevent thousands of people in Georgia from voting. The accusations are that this voter suppression has disproportionately affected districts with voters who are registered Democrats and/or people of color. The racial elements of this election could not be ignored, since Abrams would have been the first African American woman to be a state governor in the U.S. if she had won the election.

Critics of Abrams have called her a “sore loser,” but there is a valid argument in wondering what the outcome of that election would have been if thousands of voter registrations hadn’t been mysteriously purged from computer systems. There were also confirmed reports of thousands of voter registrations not being processed in time for the election, mostly in areas of Georgia where there is a high percentage of people of color and/or registered Democrats. It also looked suspicious that most of the voting sites that were permanently shut down in Georgia were in districts with a high percentage of people of color and Democrats.

Even though Abrams gets the most screen time in this documentary, the entire film isn’t “The Stacey Abrams Show,” because most of the film is about the history of U.S. citizens’ right to vote and some of the recurring problems in the U.S. voting process. Abrams’ family background is mentioned (she’s the second-oldest of six kids, raised primarily in Mississippi and Georgia), and her parents Robert and Carolyn Abrams (who are both ministers) are interviewed in the film. The documentary also includes the 1993 footage of Abrams (when she was a 19-year-old student at Spelman College) speaking at the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington. Coming from a family that placed a high value on education, religion, voting and public service, it’s no wonder that she wanted to go into politics.

The first half of “All In: The Fight for Democracy” takes a look at the long history of voter exclusion and suppression in the United States, before the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, and how certain groups of people have constantly had to fight for their right to vote. The second half of the documentary focuses primarily on U.S. voting rights during and after the 1960s civil-rights movement. As historian/author Carol Anderson comments in the documentary: “Past is prologue. Those forces that are systemically determined to keep American citizens from voting, they have been laying the seeds over time.”

It’s mentioned in the documentary that when George Washington was elected the first president of the United States in 1789, only 6% of U.S. citizens had the right to vote. These citizens were white male property owners. The documentary does an excellent job of retracing how laws gradually changed for voting to open up to more U.S. citizens, so that property ownership wasn’t a requirement to vote and U.S. citizens who weren’t white men got the right to vote. The 15th Amendment (which, in 1870, gave U.S. citizens the right to vote regardless of their race, color or previous condition of servitude), the 19th Amendment (which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920) and the Voting Rights Act (originally signed into law in 1965) are three of the most important legislations to make these voting rights possible.

The documentary reiterates that the biggest injustices in voting often stem from racism. After the slaves were freed, the U.S. experienced the Reconstruction period when, for the first time in U.S. history, African American men began to own property and held elected offices on the federal and state levels. But, as “Give Us the Ballot” author Ari Berman says in the documentary: “The greatest moments of progress are followed by the most intense periods of retrenchment.”

In other words, when people of color are perceived as advancing too far in American society, there’s political backlash. The Reconstruction period led to the shameful Jim Crow period, particularly in Southern states, which passed racial segregation laws making it more difficult for people of color to access the same levels of education and resources as white people. Poll taxes and literacy tests became requirements to vote and were used as a way to weed out poor and uneducated people, who were disproportionately people of color. Black men in particular were singled out for arrests for minor crimes (such as loitering), and these arrest records were used as reasons to prevent them from voting in certain states.

The Florida felony disenfranchisement law of 1868 created a trend of felons being barred from voting. The U.S. is currently the only democracy that doesn’t allow convicted felons to vote. Critics of this voter exclusion law say that it’s inherently racist because people of color are more likely to be convicted of the same felonies that white people are accused of committing. Efforts to repeal the “felons can’t vote” laws are mentioned in the documentary, which includes an interview with Desmond Meade of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

The documentary also mentions that before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, it could be dangerous and sometimes deadly for African Americans and other people of color who voted. African Americans and other people of color could get fired for voting if they had a racist employer. Depending on the area, African Americans and other people of color would be the targets of violence if they voted. And even registering to vote could be an ordeal, since it was common in certain areas for intimidation tactics to be used on people of color during voter registration.

The documentary names Maceo Snipes (an African American military veteran) as an example: In 1946, Snipes was murdered because he defied segregation laws and was the only African American to vote in Georgia’s Democratic primary election. Abrams shares a story that her grandmother Wilter “Bill” Abrams told her about being terrified the first time that she voted, because Wilter was afraid that she would be attacked by white racists at the voting site. Wilter was eventually persuaded to vote by her husband, who reminded her of the people who sacrificed their lives to give people of color the right to vote in America.

“All In” also details how other racial groups have been the targets of voter exclusion in U.S. history. In its early years, California resisted laws to allow Chinese people and other Asians to vote. States near the Mexican border, particularly Arizona and Texas, have a long history of trying to exclude Latinos and Native Americans from voting. In many situations, people were kept from voting if English was not their first language. The United States does not have an official language, and there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says U.S. residents and U.S. voters are required to speak English.

According to several people in the documentary, the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections of Democratic politician Barack Obama (the first African American president of the United States) sparked a backlash that led to an increased push by conservative lawmakers to erode the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, a conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the Shelby County v. Holder case that voting laws could revert back to the individual U.S. states. This Supreme Court ruling opened up a floodgate of states (usually in the South and Midwest) that revised their voting laws that critics say make it easier for these states to allow voter suppression.

Historian/author Anderson doesn’t mince words about these revised voting laws that began in the 2010s: “It’s Jim Crow 2.0.” Gerrymandering and voter suppression are described in the documentary as two sides of the same coin. The documentary reiterates the warning that voter manipulation usually targets people of color, poor people and young people. And because most people of color who are U.S. citizens tend to be Democrats, the documentary implies that corrupt Republicans are behind a lot of the voter suppression when it comes to people of color.

Voter suppression comes in three main forms: strict voter ID laws, voting roll purges and permanent closing of voting sites. Critics say that voter ID laws are designed to exclude poor and uneducated U.S. citizens who might not have government-issued IDs. Voting roll purges (eliminating voter registrations) are often done without voters’ knowledge and permission, and are usually because the eliminated voters haven’t voted for a number of years or for other random reasons. And permanent closures of voting sites have been found to occur mostly in economically disadvantaged areas where there’s a large percentage of people of color.

In many cases, even if a voter has a government-issued ID, the voter can be turned away at the voting site if the voter’s signature is not an exact match to the signature that the voter has on file with the board of elections office. In the documentary, Sean J. Young of ACLU Georgia says signatures that don’t match are big issues with Asian immigrants, who often have an Asian first name and an American first name. Barb Semans and OJ Semans of Four Directions (a voting-rights group for Native Americans) mention that North Dakota’s voting law requiring a residential address for registration excludes numerous Native Americans who have to use post-office boxes because they live on reservations without residential addresses.

Alejandra Gomez and Alexis Delgado Garcia of Lucha (a voting-rights groups for Latinos) are featured in the documentary. Garcia is seen approaching different people in Latino communities with voter registration information and encouragement to vote. The results are mixed. Some of the people aren’t U.S. citizens and therefore aren’t eligible to vote, while the U.S. citizens are either interested in registering and plan to vote, or are reluctant to register because they don’t like or trust politicians. Gomez comments, “The most important part of voter registration is that human connection and being able to understand why that person does not trust.”

Abrams says in the documentary: “When entire communities become convinced that the process is not for them, we lose their participation in our nation’s future. And that’s dangerous to everyone.” Eric Holder, who was U.S. attorney general in the Obama administration, comments: “Too many Americans take for granted the right to vote and don’t understand that unless we fight for the right to vote, unless we try to include as many people as possible, our democracy is put at risk.”

Other people interviewed in the documentary include Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice; historian/author Eric Foner; civil-rights leader Andrew Young; civil-rights attorney Debo Adegbile; Kristen Clarke of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; David Pepper, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party; Lauren Goh-Wargo, Abrams’ former campaign manager; Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of former U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Voters Right Act into law; Ohio U.S. Representative Marcia Fudge; and student activists Michael Parsons (from Dartmouth College) and Jayla Allen (of Prairie View A&M University).

This documentary is obviously stacked with people who are open with their politically liberal beliefs and who are known Democrats. There’s some attempt to present conservative points of view, but not much. One of the conservative-leaning people interviewed in the documentary is attorney Bert Rein, who represented Shelby County, Alabama, in the Shelby County v. Holder case. He doesn’t say much except that he thought that the case was legally compelling enough for him to want to represent Shelby County.

Hans Von Spakovsky of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which is a major advocate of voter ID laws, is also interviewed in the documentary. He says that the “vast majority” of people in the United States believe in voter ID laws, although he doesn’t list any sources or details as the basis for this statement. Considering that the documentary describes voter suppression and gerrymandering as being perpetrated mostly by corrupt Republicans, it’s not too surprising that a documentary with a Democratic politician (Abrams) as one of the producers is not going to give much of a voice to the opposition.

Even with this blatant bias, “All In” could have done a better job at looking at other cases of suspected voter suppression besides Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial election campaign. Because the documentary presents Abrams’ case as the only major example of suspected voter suppression, it undermines the documentary’s message that voter suppression is a widespread problem. A skeptic could easily say that the Abrams/Kemp campaign controversy was a rare fluke. It also would have been interesting to see more of what Fair Fight is doing behind the scenes to prevent voter suppression.

And there could have been more of an exploration of how votes are manipulated in ways other than voter suppression. For example, there’s no mention in the documentary about how computer hacking affects voting machines that process data via computers. (The excellent HBO documentary “Kill Chain: The Cyber War Over America’s Elections” examines this cyberhacking topic in depth.) And there is growing concern over how governments from outside the U.S. could be corrupting the U.S. electoral system to influence the votes of U.S. citizens.

The documentary also should have had more interviews with people who work on the “front lines” of voting, such as polling workers and officials who work for boards of elections. There’s a definite “liberal elitism” tone to this documentary, because of the numerous Democratic politicians and liberal attorneys who are interviewed. And during the end credits of the film, several celebrities who are outspoken liberals (such as Gloria Steinem, Constance Wu, Jonathan Van Ness, Gabourey Sidibe, the Jonas Brothers and Yara Shahidi) give soundbites telling people their voting rights.

“All In” makes its liberal bias abundantly clear, but people of any political persuasion can appreciate that the documentary has a superb overview of the history of voting in the U.S. and explains how people can be more informed voters. The documentary doesn’t sugarcoat that there are massive inequalities in people’s voting experiences in the U.S., and many of the problems are rooted in racism and other prejudices. It’s this history lesson and encouragement of more awareness for voter rights—rather than the partisan posturing and finger-pointing—where “All In” shines the most.

Amazon Studios released “All In: The Fight for Democracy” in select U.S. cinemas on September 9, 2020. Amazon Prime Video will premiere the movie on September 18, 2020.

Review: ‘Apocalypse ’45,’ starring Thomas Vaucher, Harold Wheatley, Ittsei Nakagawa, William Braddock Jr., Maurice Hubert, Nazareth Sinanian and Kenneth Erger

September 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

A “Taps” ceremony in “Apocalypse ’45” (Photo courtesy of Discovery)

“Apocalypse ’45”

Directed by Erik Nelson

Culture Representation: The documentary “Apocalypse ’45” interviews an almost all-white group of American former military men (and one Japanese American man) about their World War II experiences when the United States was at war with Japan.

Culture Clash: Several of the men say that their military training included being taught to hate Japanese people, and the cultural differences between Japanese and American military are pointed out in the documentary.

Culture Audience: “Apocalypse ’45” will appeal primarily to World War II buffs and other people who are interested in war documentaries from an American perspective.

World War II veterans in “Apocalypse ’45” (Photo courtesy of Discovery)

Does the world really need another movie about World War II? The documentary “Apocalypse ’45” sets itself apart from the rest because the movie has previously unreleased and digitally restored (to 4K) color footage that was taken during the war, mostly in combat zones in or near the Pacific Ocean. The footage came from more than 700 reels provided by the National Archives. The documentary also includes “long lost” footage from director John Ford that shows the ruins of the Pacific Fleet and the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack that promoted the war against Japan.

The main reason to see “Apocalypse ’45” is this previously unreleased footage, which is some of the crispest color World War II footage that you might ever see. Most of the footage is from 1944 and 1945, filmed in locations that include the island of Saipan in Japan and the Japanese capital of Tokyo. There are numerous combat scenes on land and sea.

There’s also 1945 footage of an atomic bomb testing site in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The aftermath of a bomb test is shown. And so is the bomb-proof, sphere-shaped container with Purple Heart medals which were warehoused at the site. The documentary notes: “This stockpile of Purple Hearts has been enough to supply every subsequent war.”

However, very sensitive viewers should be warned: “Apocalypse ’45” shows the brutalities of war in an unflinching manner that will be disturbing to some people. Although no one is seen being murdered, some of the footage is very graphic and uncensored. In addition to showing a lot of bloody war injuries (including people with missing limbs), the movie has several scenes of dead bodies of American and Japanese people.

It’s mentioned in the movie that many Japanese people committed suicide because they didn’t want to become prisoners of war. Mothers would jump off cliffs with their babies in their arms. (The movie includes footage of dead babies in the water.)

The documentary also shows a Japanese woman by herself, leaping to her death off of a cliff. In another scene, a Japanese girl who’s about 8 or 9 years old is shown with a missing foot. A note held up by someone on the film crew says that the girl’s foot was cut off because she refused to go back with the retreating Japanese.

And later in the movie, there’s March 1946 footage showing the wreckage of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are scenes of some Japanese civilian survivors with severe burns and other injuries. It’s a sobering contrast to the VJ Day celebrations celebrating the U.S. victory over Japan.

Not all of “Apocalypse ’45” is gloom and doom. The movie has a few humorous moments, with footage of the military men relaxing and goofing around in their free time. There’s a scene where several men are sunbathing on a ship. And there’s a poignant scene of a military man eagerly opening a letter and taking in a deep whiff to get the scent of the loved one who sent the letter.

The movie has voiceover commentary from 24 former U.S. military men who fought in World War II. The expected “war is hell” stories are told. There was a lot of fear and a lot of bravery. Some of the veterans who are interviewed express some remorse over the killing that they did in combat, while others say that don’t have any regrets.

“Apocalypse ’45” director Erik Nelson made the artistic decision to keep their interview comments as audio only, so that viewers wouldn’t be distracted if the movie kept cutting back and forth between showing the interviewees and the archival footage. The main down side to this method is that the movie doesn’t identity the people by their names during the voiceover narration.

It isn’t until the end of the film that viewers find out the names of the men who were interviewed and what they look like. They say their names individually and what their military job was during World War II. During the end credits, a World War II-era photo of each man is shown and it fades into a photo of what they looked like at the time of the interviews.

The only exception to this interview format is when the movie opens with an introduction by Hiroshima bombing survivor Ittsei Nakagawa, a Japanese American who was 15 years old and on a family trip when the atomic bomb was set off in Hiroshima, Japan. He isn’t seen again in the movie until near the end. Nakagawa is the only person interviewed in the movie who is of Japanese descent. Everyone else who’s interviewed is someone who fought in the U.S. military during the World War II.

“Apocalypse ’45” begins with footage in Hawaii and other parts of the United States on VJ Day (also known as Victory Over Japan Day), which happened on August 15, 1945. The victorious celebrations over Japan’s surrender and the war being over are almost palpable when watching them on screen. The story then goes back to the deadly bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, which led to the U.S. and Japan declaring war on each other the next day. Most of the movie, which is obviously told from an American perspective, focuses on what happened on the battlegrounds and on the ships during U.S.-Japanese conflicts during World War II.

Interspersed during the footage are titles card of printed text, with each having a basic summary of events that happened during the U.S.-Japanese battles. World War II history buffs won’t learn anything new from what’s on these title cards, but the title cards provide adequate historical context for the visuals that are on screen. The commentary from the World War II veterans provide the emotional context of what was going on with them at the time. Some of them begin to cry, as they relive the war when telling their stories.

According to the movie’s production notes, here are the American World War II veterans who were interviewed for the documentary. The ages listed are the ages they were at the time they were interviewed:

  • Captain Abner Aust, 98, of Frostproof, Florida. He flew P-51 Mustangs for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Aust passed away in 2020.
  • Corporal James Blaine, 95, of Denver, Colorado. He fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima and he was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds received in that battle.
  • Sergeant Major George Boutwell, 96, of Pell City, Alabama. He fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima. During the occupation, he was briefly station at Nagasaki where he saw the devastation first-hand.
  • Corporal William Braddock Jr., 98, of Pensacola, Florida. He fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima. He was serving with the Marines before WWII and was a witness to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.
  • Fire Controlman Third Class Kenneth Erger, 94, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He served with the U.S. Navy as a fire control operator on the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid.
  • 1st Lieutenant Bill Eversole, 95, of Gainesville, Florida. At the age of 20, Eversole piloted a P-51 Mustang for the U.S. Army Air Corps. He flew missions over Iwo Jima and mainland Japan.
  • Sergeant Ivan Hammond, 93, of Santa Fe, Texas. He was a Marine at Iwo Jima with the signal corps.  He witnessed the aftermath of destruction at Nagasaki while serving with the Occupation Forces.
  • Pharmacists First Mate Maurice Hubert, 96, of Spotsylvania, Virginia. He a was corpsman with the United States Navy. He did five landings during World War II, including the first wave at Iwo Jima where he tended the wounded and dying, including war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who died in Hubert’s arms.
  • Private First Class Al Nelson, 94, of Burlington, Iowa. He was a member of a tank crew and fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima.
  • Corporal Monroe Ozment, 94, of Virginia Beach, Virginia. He fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima and was wounded by rifle fire during the first day of battle.  Ozment passed away in 2020.
  • Private First Class Johnnie Page Jr., 94, of Decatur, Georgia. He served with the U.S. Army at Okinawa.  Though he arrived after the main battle, booby traps and snipers still presented mortal danger to him and his company.
  • Seaman First Class George Puterbaugh, 95, of Lake Oswego, Oregon. He crewed on the USS San Juan with the United States Navy.  His ship was at Iwo Jima where he witnessed several kamikaze attacks.
  • Lt. Commander Charles Schlag, 97, of West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was a carrier pilot with the United States Navy. He flew multiple missions over Okinawa. Schlag passed away in 2020.
  • Private Ralph C. Simoneau, 95, of Germantown, Wisconsin. He served with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima. It was his first and only battle.
  • Sergeant Nazareth Sinanian, 94, of Staten Island, New York. He served with the US Army Air Corps in charge of central fire control on B-29 bomber. He participated in the firebombing of Tokyo.
  • Major Richard Spooner, 93, of Quantico, Virginia. He fought as a private first class with the U.S. Marine Corps at Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa. At Saipan he was briefly taken as a prison of war by the Japanese.
  • Private First Class Delbert Treichler, 96, of Germantown, Wisconsin. He fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima. As part of the occupation forces, he later witnessed the aftermath of the atomic bombing at Nagasaki.
  • Private First Class Duane Tunnyhill, 94, of Omaha, Nebraska. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps when he was 17. He fought with the 5th Marines at Iwo Jima. He was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained on his 36th day of combat.
  • Seaman First Class George Vouros, 94, of Natick, Massachusetts. He was a ship’s gunner for the U.S. Navy who defended against Kamikazes in the Battle for the Philippines and Iwo Jima. Vouros passed away in 2020.
  • Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Vaucher, 101, of Bridgewater, New Jersey. He served as a pilot and wing commander with the U.S. Army Air Corps, and was an aide to General Curtis Lemay. Vaucher led the ceremonial victory flyover at Tokyo during the formal surrender of Japan.
  • Private Harold Wheatley, 93, of Savoy, Illinois. He was a combat soldier who fought with the U.S. Army at Okinawa. He personally witnessed the mass suicides on the island as well as seeing Kamikazes attacking the ships anchored off the island.
  • Corporal Hershal “Woody” Williams, 96, of Ona, West Virginia. He was a U.S. Marine who fought with a flamethrower at Iwo Jima.  Due to his gallantry in action, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, and is the last surviving Marine from World War II to hold this honor.
  • Sergeant Joseph Win, 95, of Bridgewater, New Jersey. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a gunner on a B-29 bomber based on Tinian. Wing flew several missions over Japan, and ironically lives just a mile away from Vaucher.

Many of the men describe being programmed to think of the Japanese, even the civilians, not as people but as “the enemy.” Williams comments on his military training and what he was told about Japanese culture: “They told us that they [the Japanese] were very vicious people, that for them to die was an honor, they were not going to give up. So, it made them very tenacious people because even if they died, they’re going to be rewarded for that. And we were just the opposite. You know, the American people, we Marines would do almost anything to preserve a life.”

The U.S. military men also went into combat with a “kill or be killed” mentality, according to several people interviewed in the documentary. There was fear, but there was also bravery. Nelson comments, “We were thinking about saving our asses. That’s true. Because boy, it scared us. It scared us tremendously.”

Tunnyhill says, “I was dumb. I didn’t think too much about it. When you’re young like that, you’re not going to get killed. How are they going to kill you? I guess that’s what really carried a lot of us through the battle, the thinking that we weren’t going to get killed.”

Simoneau adds, “Thank God that I didn’t have to stare somebody in the face and kill them. I’m a Christian and I believe in the Ten Commandments. This morning I was starting to cry because I did something that’s not me, because my belief in the Ten Commandments says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ And I don’t know of any exception to that. It just says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.'”

Braddock has a different perspective of the killing he did while in combat: “Well, it didn’t bother me to shoot them, because if I didn’t shoot them, they were going to shoot me. And being ‘country,’ so, eye for an eye, you know.”

Voucher has this memory of his World War II superior Commander Curtis LeMay: “Curtis LeMay had no reservations about killing crews. LeMay’s position was, and I’ve heard him say this: ‘Wars don’t end until enough people are killed.’ He said, ‘This thing will end when we kill enough Japanese.’”  

Sinanian comments, “Later on you find out as you get older that the bad guys were not bad, they were just doing what they had to do. Somebody told them that they had to do it. The guys above me, they tell me what I have to do. So, I guess maybe all Japanese were nice people too. They just had to do what the idiots that started the war told them to do.”

Several of the military veterans say in the documentary that the smell of death is something they’ll never forget and seeing the dead bodies will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Hubert, who word as a combat medic, says that things got to so bad that he couldn’t remember what his name was because people kept calling him “Doc.” He adds. “A lot of kids, a lot of casualties. I never like to remember any of those things. I always try to put it behind me. But I managed to survive. The good Lord was on my shoulder.”

Although it’s admirable that “Apocalypse ’45” got the perspectives of several American veterans of World War II, the movie would have set itself apart even more from most other World War II documentaries by having more Japanese perspectives included. Surely, the filmmakers could have found at least one other Hiroshima or Nagasaki civilian survivor besides Nakagawa.

Nakagawa gives a chilling description of what it was like to experience the Hiroshima bombing, which happened on August 6, 1945: “Everything went black. You couldn’t see or hear anything. Nobody knew what it was.” Anyone who had the misfortune of being outside in the immediate vicinity of the bomb either died or was severely injured. And even the people who were inside weren’t safe, since the bomb destroyed buildings.

Boutwell shares this memory of seeing firsthand the atomic bombing Nagasaki, Japan, which happened on August 9, 1945: “There was one thing standing, a big long chimney going up in the air that it must have been 200 feet high.”

Nakagawa comments in the documentary: “I met Frank Oppenheimer, who is the brother of Bob Oppenheimer, the designer for the Manhattan Project for the development of the atomic bomb. ‘Do you know the story of Genie in the Bottle?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I sort of remember that story. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘the genie’s out of the bottle. There is no way that you can get that guy in a bottle.'”

As for the lessons they learned in World War II, some of the veterans say that war will be declared by politicians who send other people to do the dirty work of fighting the war. Wheatley comments, “You can talk to any veteran you want to and they don’t understand at all. Why? ‘Cause most divisiveness going on in our country between politics, it’s crazy.”

Erger adds, “When you think in terms of all that money that we could use for medicines, we have people that have all the diseases that we could accomplish and conquer and they just aren’t doing it. All that money gone to waste and all these guys that cause the war, how can they justify all that? Just let them fight amongst themselves and see how long it would last.”

However, Vouros comments: “If I could do it again, I would, for this country. I would do anything for this country. I love this country. I’m getting teared up.”

“Apocalypse ’45” is undoubtedly a very patriotic American film that gives almost all of the perspective to U.S. military veterans who did combat during World War II. Some viewers might have a problem with not enough perspective being given to Japanese survivors of the war. However, since the documentary’s rare footage was filmed by Americans from the perspective of the U.S. military, it arguably made sense to have most of the documentary interviews be from the American military veterans who served in World War II.

U.S. military troops were still segregated during World War II, with white men making up the vast majority of U.S. military fighters in combat against Japan in the war, which might explain why only white military veterans are interviewed for the documentary. However, it would have been great if the filmmakers made the extra effort to include any people of color who were World War II military veterans and who did combat in Japan.

War is an ugly fact of life that “Apocalypse ’45” underscores with stark footage and frank commentary from people who lived through this brutal experience. Even though the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings helped end World War II, the documentary notes that the decisions to drop the bombs are still being debated today. Because the footage in “Apocalypse ’45” is in well-preserved color (when most World War II footage is in black and white), it makes the documentary seem more like modern-day news footage rather than footage from a black-and-white film era. For Hollywood’s version of World War II, watch “Saving Private Ryan.” For the reality of World War II, watch “Apocalypse ’45.”

Abramorama released “Apocalypse ’45” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on August 14, 2020. Discovery premiered the movie on September 5, 2020.

Review: ‘Critical Thinking,’ starring John Leguizamo, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Angel Bismark Curiel, Corwin Tuggles, Will Hochman, Rachel Bay Jones and Michael Kenneth Williams

September 5, 2020

by Carla Hay

Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Corwin Tuggles, Angel Bismark Curiel, Will Hochman and John Leguizamo in “Critical Thinking” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Critical Thinking”

Directed by John Leguizamo

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Miami in 1998, the drama “Critical Thinking” has a racially diverse cast (Latino, African American and white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A dedicated teacher in a tough Miami school encourages his students to learn how to play chess to boost their learning skills, even though they live in an area where some people pressure the students to become school dropouts and criminals. 

Culture Audience: “Critical Thinking” will appeal primarily to people who like feel-good stories about people who overcome obstacles, despite having the odds stacked against them.

Angel Bismark Curiel, Corwin Tuggles and Jeffry Batista in “Critical Thinking” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

There have been many movies about underestimated students, led by an inspirational teacher, who go on to achieve a certain goal together. In these movies, the students are usually underprivileged or disadvantaged in some way when they go up against people who are more privileged and have more advantages than the “underdogs” have. “Critical Thinking” (which is a very bland title for a movie that’s actually quite good) takes this concept and makes a slightly above-average movie, even though it hits a lot of familiar tonal beats that lead to a very predictable ending.

John Leguizamo not only stars in “Critical Thinking,” but he also makes his theatrical-release feature-film directorial debut with the movie, which is based on true events about a group of underprivileged students who competed in a national chess championship. Under his solid direction, “Critical Thinking” has some moments that are less cliché than others. Dito Montiel’s screenplay for “Critical Thinking” doesn’t clutter the movie with too many backstories, although it leaves the impression that the teacher gave higher priority and more attention to the male students than the female students.

In “Critical Thinking,” which takes primarily in place in Miami, it’s 1998 at Miami Jackson High School, where many students are from financially deprived homes in crime-ridden neighborhoods. Mario Martinez (played by Leguizamo) is a teacher for an elective class called Critical Thinking. Mario knows his class is often a dumping ground where delinquent students are sent, but that doesn’t stop him from fighting for the type of respect (and budget) that the financially strapped school gives to regular classes.

Mario’s boss is school principal Ms. Kestel (played by Rachel Bay Jones), a hard-nosed cynic who has an air of racial condescension about her when she deals with Mario and the school’s students, who are mostly people of color. Ms. Kestel comes across as someone who wants everyone to think she’s doing her part to help underprivileged kids, but she’s the type that thinks she’s too good to actually mix with people of color in her personal life.

The threat of violence is always a danger to many of the school’s students. A Spanish-speaking immigrant student who is transferred into Mario’s class doesn’t attend the class for very long, because he gets shot and killed on the street by a local gangster over a petty misunderstanding. Ms. Kestel has this reaction when she and Mario talk about the murder: “While unfortunate, it’s not a total shock anymore.” This police investigation into the murder becomes a subplot to the movie, since one of Mario’s students witnessed the crime, but he doesn’t want to snitch on the gangster.

Meanwhile, life has to go on in Mario’s class, where he teaches a hodgepodge of topics, including art, literature, history and philosophy. The favorite thing he likes to teach is chess. He encourages his students to “dig deeper than your dusty old Britannica encyclopedia” and find things that aren’t taught in textbooks.

He’s not shy about telling his students that influential people of color have often been erased from history because white men were in charge of writing history books for centuries. Mario is aware he could get in trouble for this kind of talk in the classroom, so he peeks outside the classroom door first to make sure that a white co-worker such as Ms. Kestel isn’t lurking nearby to possibly overhear him. On the subject of chess, Mario tells his students, “How come we don’t know that chess was invented in India, perfected in Persia and modernized by a [Puerto Rican] guy named Maura?”

Mario shows the students how chess can help in all aspects of life because it involves the skill of thinking ahead and strategizing. Although he has about 30 students in his classroom on any given day, there are four (and then later five) students who end up being the focus of the story, since they’re the chosen ones for the school’s chess team.

Sedrick Roundtree (played by Corwin Tuggles) is the unofficial student leader of the chess team and the one most likely to encourage the others when they feel defeated. Even before he took Mario’s class, Sedrick was an avid chess player. Sedrick has an unassuming confidence about himself that most people respect.

Oelmy “Ito” Paniagua (played by Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) has a big rebellious streak and is Sedrick’s closest friend. Ito doesn’t really think chess is cool until Sedrick convinces him to join the school’s chess team. Ito is also the student in this chess group who’s most likely to be tempted into joining a gang or becoming a drug dealer. It’s hinted at, but not shown, that Ito comes from an abusive home.

Rodelay “Roddy” Medina (played by Angel Bismark Curiel) is the group’s jokester. He dislikes confrontation and arguments, and he gets easily hurt if he thinks his friends are disloyal. Just like Sedrick, Roddy has a passion for chess and is highly competitive when it comes to the game.

Gil Luna (played by Will Hochman) is the quietest and most mellow member of the group. Although he has a Latino name, he can easily pass for being white. His apparent “whiteness” makes him the target of some teasing by the darker-skinned members of the group, but the teasing is never mean-spirited. All of the members of the group end up getting teased or taunted by one another at some point.

Much later in the story, a fifth student joins the chess team. His name is Marcel Martinez (played by Jeffry Batista), a Cuban immigrant who doesn’t know much English. Sedrick recruited Marcel to enroll in the school and join the chess team, after Sedrick and Roddy were playing some chess in Domino Park, invited some local people to pay chess with them, and were blown away by Marcel’s extraordinary talent. There’s a scene in the movie where Marcel can play chess with multiple people at a time, with his back turned to them and without looking at the chessboard, and by calling out the moves that he wants to play.

Sedrick is also the only student whose unhappy home life is shown in the movie. He lives with his alcoholic widower father (played by Michael Kenneth Williams), whose first name is never revealed in the movie. Sedrick father, when he’s not passed out drunk, frequently gets angry and picks fights with Sedrick.

The only time that Sedrick and his father bond is when they play chess together, but his father is a sore loser. Sedrick’s mother was killed by a hit-and-run accident that Sedrick witnessed when he was 6 years old. It’s obvious that he and his father haven’t been able to grieve or talk about her death in a way that can help them heal from the trauma of their loss.

When Sedrick’s father hears about Sedrick being on the school’s chess team, he scoffs at Sedrick and tells him it’s a waste of time because chess isn’t the kind of thing that most people can do as a job. And his father gets even more irritated when Sedrick’s chess team starts competing with other schools’ chess teams. Although it’s never said out loud, it’s clear that Sedrick’s father didn’t have an opportunity to be part of a school chess team that got to travel to different competitions, and he’s jealous and resentful that Sedrick is doing what he never got to do.

Although “Critical Thinking” has some heavy issues, such as gang violence, alcoholism and abusive homes, the movie also has some humor—namely, the camaraderie that the boys have with each other, especially when Roddy is around. And in a rarity for a movie about high-school students, dating isn’t really the cause of any of the angst or conflict in the story, because the boys are so focused on chess. Sedrick is the only one in the group who has a girlfriend. Her name is Chanayah (played by Zora Casebere), and she attends the same school, but she’s written as a fairly minor character.

In fact, the movie’s biggest flaw is how the female students in the movie are essentially written as background characters, with the implication being that the female students weren’t good enough to be on Mario’s chosen chess team. It’s not clear if the girls in his class aren’t interested in chess or if Mario didn’t think they were worth encouraging as much as he encourages the male students to be on the chess team.

Whatever the case, there’s definitely more than a whiff of sexism about how this chess team was assembled—and the gender imbalance is all the more noticeable when Miami Jackson High School’s chess team competes against other schools who have plenty of girls on their chess teams. That’s not to say that the movie needed to rewrite history and put girls on the Miami Jackson team, which was apparently an all-male team in real life in 1998. But the screenplay should have at least addressed why none of the girls in Mario’s class ended up on the team.

Another big question left unanswered in the movie is: “What is Mario’s own background and why did he want to become a teacher?” In one of his many “tough love” lectures to his chosen chess students when they get discouraged or act too rowdy, Mario hints that he also comes from a troubled and tough background like they do. But that’s as far as it goes. No further details are given about what kind of man Mario is when he’s not working as a teacher. There’s no “home life” shown for any of the movie’s characters except for Sedrick.

“Critical Thinking” is not a disappointing movie, but parts of the story could have done more to fill in some blanks. For example, something happens to Ito toward the end of the film and the outcome is never fully explained. If not for the acting of the main cast members, several parts of “Critical Thinking” would be quite boring to watch. Leguizamo’s fast-talking, sometime wisecracking persona serves him well in this role, since Mario is supposed to be an unconventional teacher who can relate to his students.

Lendeborg (as Ito) and Curiel (as Roddy) also stand out in their roles. Ito is a tough guy who doesn’t want to show his vulnerabilities, while Roddy is a vulnerable guy who doesn’t want to be so tough that he alienates his friends. Both portrayals are nuanced and worth watching, since these two characters are more than just generic roles.

Tuggles (as Sedrick) also does a commendable performance, particularly in some emotionally raw scenes that Sedrick has with his father. Williams is a very good actor, but he’s had many roles in movies and TV shows where he’s a guy with a mean streak/bad temper, so there’s really nothing new or noteworthy that Williams does in this movie.

“Critical Thinking” is worth a look for people who want to see a real-life inspirational story portrayed in a familiar way. The believable performances from most of the cast go a long way in preventing the movie from sinking into forgettable mediocrity. With “Critical Thinking,” Leguizamo also has proved that he can do well as a director who makes very good casting choices and who has a knack for telling a crowd-pleasing story.

Vertical Entertainment released “Critical Thinking” in select U.S. virtual cinemas, on digital and on VOD on September 4, 2020.

Review: ‘You Cannot Kill David Arquette,’ starring David Arquette, Christina McLarty Arquette, Courteney Cox, Patricia Arquette, RJ City, Eric Bischoff and Jerry Kubik

September 5, 2020

by Carla Hay

David Arquette in “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” (Photo courtesy of Super LTD)

“You Cannot Kill David Arquette”

Directed by David Darg and Price James

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States and in Mexico, the documentary film “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” has a predominantly white group of people (with some Latinos and a few African Americans and Asians) representing the middle-class and upper-class.

Culture Clash: Hollywood actor David Arquette confronts his controversial past as a former world heavyweight wrestling champ by deciding to train and compete as a professional wrestler, despite his age and health problems.

Culture Audience: “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” will appeal primarily to wrestling fans and people who don’t mind seeing an often-comedic documentary with numerous obviously staged scenes. 

David Arquette (in green pants) in “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” (Photo courtesy of Super LTD)

If you’re a somewhat famous actor whose best career days are behind you, including a controversial win of a World Championship Wrestling (WCW) title back in the year 2000, what do you do if you’re desperate for attention? If you’re David Arquette, you decide to temporarily get back into professional wrestling and make a documentary about it. “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” just like the actor who’s the star of this documentary, doesn’t take life too seriously and has an attitude that can be funny and pathetic but mostly entertaining to watch. Your tolerance in watching this film will depend on your tolerance of watching a middle-aged man who repeatedly says and shows in the movie that he doesn’t really want to grow up.

If you expect that the documentary will have a lot of very contrived and staged moments (just like wrestling), then this movie will be a lot easier to watch. Anyone expecting to see the inner workings of a major wrestling team will be very disappointed, since Arquette sticks to the minor leagues of independent wrestling to try to make a comeback into the public spotlight. This documentary is undoubtedly a vanity project that’s not only a look into the psyche of someone who’s having a mid-life crisis but also someone who’s a product of his showbiz upbringing. Arquette makes it clear throughout the movie that his entire identity and self-esteem are wrapped up in how much adoration and attention he gets from the public.

In case people don’t know who Arquette is, the movie gives a brief introduction to his career and family background. Born in 1971, David comes from a family of actors: His father Lewis Arquette (who died in 2001) was a character actor. Lewis Arquette’s father was comedic actor Cliff Arquette, who died in 1974. All of David’s older siblings (David is the youngest of five children) have some level of fame as actors: Patricia (an Oscar winner and Emmy winner), Rosanna, Richmond and the late Alexis, a transgender woman who died in 2016.

Patricia, Rosanna and Richmond are all interviewed in the documentary. The siblings describe their family as being unconventional (they spent part of their childhood living in a Virginia commune), and their mother Brenda (who died in 1997) as being sometimes physically abusive because she would choke or hit her children. David, who describes his father as his idol, says he’s had lifelong issues of wanting to be a people-pleaser, which stem from how he was raised as a child.

David is probably best known for his role as bumbling cop Dwight “Dewey” Riley from the “Scream” horror movies. It was through the “Scream” franchise that Arquette met his first wife, “Friends” co-star Courteney Cox, who co-starred in the “Scream” movies as the abrasive and ambitious TV reporter Gale Weathers. David and Cox were married from 1999 to 2013, and they have a daughter together named Coco, who was born in 2004.

Coco Arquette and Cox are both in the documentary. As Cox says of her relationship with her ex-husband David: “We met on ‘Scream,’ hated each other on ‘Scream 2,’ we got married at ‘Scream 3’ and got divorced in ‘Scream 4.'” When she finds out that David wants to go back into wrestling, she can’t really look at his “comeback” wrestling footage without cringing.

David’s marriage to second wife Christina McLarty Arquette (whom he married in 2015) seems to be very different from his first marriage, although McLarty Arquette and Cox look very physically similar to each other. McLarty Arquette used to be a TV journalist (with stints in local news and on “Inside Edition” and “Entertainment Tonight”), but she’s now mostly a homemaker and occasional movie producer. She and David have two sons together: Charlie (born in 2014) and Gus (born in 2017), plus the family’s three Bassett Hounds, who are all in the documentary. McLarty Arquette says that she has never seen “Scream” because “I hate scary movies.”

She might get squeamish about horror flicks, but McLarty Arquette seems to have a high tolerance for seeing people getting bloodied and hurt at wrestling matches, since there are multiple scenes in the documentary where she’s shown cheering David on at his wrestling matches. McLarty Arquette is a producer of “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” (which was filmed mostly in 2018 and 2019), so she had a vested interest in seeing David go through with this wrestling “comeback,” despite all the risks to his health.

What kind of health risks were there? Even though David’s intense training for his wrestling “comeback” resulted in him losing weight and having a toned physique, he had a heart attack the year before he decided to go back into wrestling. He has stents in his heart to prevent blood clots. The documentary includes footage of appointments that David had with cardiologist Dr. PK Shah, who gave the clearance for David to go back into wrestling.

David has also publicly admitted to being an alcoholic. He had a well-publicized stint in rehab in 2011. The documentary has footage of David’s appointments with psychiatrist Dr. Michael Mamoun, who worries that the physical pain in wrestling will trigger David into relapsing back into alcoholism. Although the movie probably cut out a lot of the worst unflattering footage, that relapse did happen at least twice during the course of filming the documentary. David admits it too, especially when he is obviously drunk on camera. There are also many scenes where he might not be completely drunk, but he’s slurring his words.

And he isn’t entirely drug-free, since there’s some footage of him lighting up a joint (presumably marijuana) while he’s riding on a horse. And there’s also a bizarre scene were Dr. Mamoun injects David with ketamine during a doctor’s visit, resulting in David hallucinating and being incoherent. He had to be restrained by several people, including his wife and Dr. Mamoun, to calm him down. There are some moments where McLarty Arquette says on camera that she’s afraid that David’s wrestling comeback will result in him dying. But she wasn’t fearful enough to stop production of the film.

Based on what’s shown in this movie, no one could have convinced David to give up his obsession to win back the respect of the wrestling world. This insecurity over not being accepted by the wrestling world started after he won the WCW world heavyweight title (when he weighed only about 150 pounds), and he was the target of hatred from a lot of professional wrestlers and their fans. The documentary includes archival and new footage of wrestling fans expressing their disdain for David.

Even though it’s common knowledge that wrestling matches are rigged and the outcome is already rehearsed by the wrestlers involved, David’s “outsider” victory was widely perceived as unearned and an insult to pro wrestlers and their fans. David’s WCW title was essentially a publicity stunt to promote his 2000 wrestling comedy movie “Ready to Rumble.” It was a stunt that backfired for a lot of people involved.

In the documentary, Eric Bischoff (who was WCW’s president back in 2000) is interviewed next to David in David’s home and takes full responsibility for this debacle. Bischoff says of the wrestling industry: “There were certain rules. One of them was ‘Don’t let celebrities take advantage of wrestling. Don’t expose the business to make it look like anybody—celebrity or non-celebrity—could come off the street and actually beat a wrestler.'”

Bischoff says to David about David’s controversial WCW world heavyweight title win: “That wasn’t your fault. That was my fault for letting it happen.” Bischoff also says that the idea for David to win the title originally came from Vince Russo, who was WCW’s head writer at the time. Russo isn’t interviewed in the documentary, but there’s archival footage of a TV interview where Russo admits that he “killed the business forever” by coming up with the idea of David Arquette to win a WCW championship.

David is still haunted by this wrestling fiasco too. He says that it hurt his credibility as an actor, and his acting career was never the same. David also talks about how the past 10 years of his life have been a series of auditions and rejections. A lot of viewers might have trouble feeling much sympathy for him, as he moans about his problems while sitting around in his big house with a beautiful wife and family. It’s one of the reasons why many people despise Hollywood celebrities for being out of touch with problems in the real world.

David’s wife is on his pity party train too. She laments that David is often sad because his career isn’t as big as some of the actors who shared the cover with him for Vanity Fair’s 1996 Hollywood issue. She names Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey and Will Smith, who were on that Vanity Fair cover, as examples of the actors who have the careers that David should have had.

What she forgot to mention is that DiCaprio, McConaughey and Smith’s talent is on a different level than what David Arquette has. And she also didn’t mention that Skeet Ulrich, Stephen Dorff, Johnathon Schaech and Michael Rapaport were on that Vanity Fair cover too. They’re not exactly A-list actors either. The other two actors on that Vanity Fair cover were Benicio del Toro and Tim Roth, who aren’t A-listers but they’ve carved out long careers as highly respected actors. Not everyone can be superstars.

Throughout the documentary, David keeps repeating that he wants to win back the respect of the wrestling industry not just for career reasons but also for personal reasons, since he’s a huge fan of wrestling. He says that some of his favorite childhood memories were watching wrestling matches with his father, who happened to be the voice of Superfly Jimmy Snuka in the 1985-1986 TV series “Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling.”

David comments in the documentary about why he wants to make a wrestling comeback: “I don’t care about being a champ or anything like that. I care about respect.” And he says of wrestling: “I want to figure out this world.” His journey back into the wrestling world is volatile, painful and sometimes humiliating, but also has some moments of joy and triumph.

Of course, there are plenty of skeptics (including David’s ex-wife and his daughter) about his foray back into wrestling. Also weighing in with his opinion in a separate interview is wrestling legend Ric Flair, who’s shown commenting at the beginning of the documentary. Flair describes David as a “gentleman” who has his blessing as a person. But when Flair is asked if he would give his blessing to David as a wrestler, Flair replies: “Let’s not get carried away here.” Flair then adds with a smile, “He’s my hero when I look at his wife.”

A few of David’s low points in this film might or might not have been staged. David gets into a fist fight with wrestler Brian Knobbs of Legends of Wrestling when they argue about his idea to get back into wrestling. In another scene, David and his male friend Stacey Souther get some of his old wrestling costumes out of storage to so that he can pose for publicity photos that he plans to autograph at an upcoming wrestling fan convention. But when he gets to the wrestling fan convention, most of the fans there ignore him, and David is shown looking forlorn and embarrassed at his table where has no one lined up to see him.

There’s also a scene where David ends up practicing in a backyard with some wannabe male wrestlers he doesn’t know who are in their late teens and early 20s. It’s a scene that was meant to show that David is so humbled that he’ll wrestle anywhere he’s been invited, even if it’s in some obscure backyard with strangers. What the filmmakers and David probably didn’t expect was for David to get so injured and bloodied during this rowdy meet-up. The young guys who put him through the ringer say on camera that it’s a small example of the reality that’s in store when David goes out on the road as a professional wrestler.

There’s literally a lot of blood, sweat and tears from David in this documentary, which tries to push the narrative that he’s sort of an underdog, aging Rocky Balboa-like figure who’s going to make one last attempt at athletic glory. Before he starts competing as an independent wrestler, he trains at RC’s Wrestling School in Virginia. He also goes to Mexico to gets some training with some lucha libre pros.

One of the stunts that they do in Mexico is impromptu wrestling matches in the middle of streets during traffic jams, so people in their cars have no choice but to sit and watch the wrestling shenanigans. They try to do as many outrageous physical tricks as possible during these “traffic jam” matches and then collect money from people in the cars who want to pay them. At first, David doesn’t do too well, but then he gets the hang of it and actually starts to have fun and gets some small change out of it from people watching in the cars.

Some of the wrestlers who help David along the way include Rick Kelly, Peter Avalon, Tyler Bateman, Nick Gage and RJ City. (David is shown choreographing and planning his match with RJ City in a scene that pulls back the proverbial curtain on how these matches are rigged in advance.) David’s best friend Jerry Kubik is also along for much of the ride and offers a lot of emotional support.

And there’s a Death Match scene in which David gets severely injured and it’s definitely not a joke. David’s actor friend Luke Perry was there during that Death Match and helped David out of the venue to get medical treatment. Sadly, Perry died of a stroke in 2019. There’s a touching scene in the film when David pays tribute to Perry when talking with Luke Perry’s son Jack Perry, the professional wrestler who goes by the name Jungle Boy.

“You Cannot Kill David Arquette” directors David Darg and Price James are obviously fans of David Arquette and probably chose not to put a lot of the true low points of David’s life in this movie. But even they know that he often stoops to such levels of buffoonery that are too funny and should be put in a movie. David acknowledges that he can be the butt of people’s jokes, but he says he tries to be in on the joke as much as possible.

Although David is seen briefly in a moment of despair during his relapse where he wails that his life is messed up, for the most part, he comes across as a clown who’s desperate for people to pay attention to him. He says he lives for the connection he can make through personal interactions with wrestling fans. David says that even when he gets boos or insults from wrestling fans, it’s still better than nothing.

It’s a problem that a lot of celebrities have with their egos and self-esteem: Their need for public attention is like a bottomless pit, and they’ll never be satisfied. A lot of people watching this documentary will get some laughs and then won’t think much about David Arquette again. Since he’s made it clear that his acting career has become a disappointment to him, it might be a matter of time before he cooks up another scheme to get attention.

Super LTD released “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” in select U.S. cinemas on August 21, 2020, and on digital and VOD on August 28, 2020.

Review: ‘The Lawyer,’ starring Eimutis Kvoščiauskas, Doğaç Yıldız and Darya Ekamasova

September 5, 2020

by Carla Hay

Eimutis Kvoščiauskas and Doğaç Yildic in “The Lawyer” (Photo courtesy of TLA Releasing)

“The Lawyer”

Directed by Romas Zabarauskas

Some language in Lithuanian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Lithuania and Serbia, the drama “The Lawyer” features a mostly white European cast (with a few Middle Eastern people) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An openly gay lawyer, who falls for a male webcam model, finds out that his new love interest is a Syrian refugee in Serbia, and the lawyer tries to get him asylum in another country.

Culture Audience: “The Lawyer” will appeal primarily to people who like stylishly made independent dramas with realistic scenarios and storylines about the LGBTQ community and immigration issues.

Eimutis Kvoščiauskas and Doğaç Yildic in “The Lawyer” (Photo courtesy of TLA Releasing)

LGBTQ rights and immigration issues collide in the drama “The Lawyer,” a quietly effective drama that shines a light on how the sexuality of LGBTQ war refugees might affect their immigration status. Written, directed and produced by Romas Zabarauskas, “The Lawyer” takes its time (the first third of the film) to get to the heart of the story, which is viewed from the perspective of a protagonist named Marius (played by Eimutis Kvoščiauskas), an openly gay Lithuanian attorney in his 40s who lives alone but he has an active social life.

It’s shown in the beginning of the film that Marius (who lives and works as a corporate attorney in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius) has a reassuring way with people where he likes to help solve their problems. The opening scene is of Marius at his law office, calming down a demanding socialite friend of his named Darya Ivanova (played by Darya Ekamasova), who has stormed into the office because she’s upset that a gossip website has made a less-than-flattering remark about an outfit that she wore to an event.

Darya had worn a shirt with a large print of the insignia that was on the flag of former Soviet Union. The website’s published a photo of Darya in the outfit, with the headline: “Darya Ivanova’s Shocking Out: Nostalgia for the Soviet Occupation?” Darya is so offended that she wants to sue the website and she’s already been browbeating an unwitting receptionist at Marius’ law firm to get someone at the law firm to do something about this “problem.”

Even though Marius reminds Daria that his law firm does corporate law and wouldn’t be able to take the case, he tells her he’ll see what he can do. “How can we refuse to work with Madame Darya?” he tells her. Darya thanks him effusively and leaves before she can further berate any more employees. Marius’ ability to diffuse the situation is the first indication that Marius likes to see himself as a “fixer” of people’s problems. And this personality trait explains much of what he does later in the movie.

Marius, who is single and doesn’t have any children, has a circle of friends in the LGBTQ community. During a house party dinner with some of these friends, it’s revealed that Marius has a reputation for being promiscuous, although he insists that he would be in a serious, monogamous relationship if he could find true love. Marius laments, “I’m an old poof in homophobic Lithuania.”

At this dinner, Marius has been somewhat set up on a blind date with a bisexual transgender man named Pranas (played by Danilas Pavilionis), who works as a sculptor. After the dinner, when Marius and Pranas are alone together, they talk some more and find out they’re not very compatible. Pranas (who’s about 15 to 20 years younger than Marius) calls Marius a “privileged corporate lawyer.” When Marius asks Pranas if he would make a sculpture of Marius if Marius commissioned it, Pranas replies that Marius wouldn’t have the money for it. Oh, snap. That’s the end of that date.

Marius’ attorney salary has given him a very comfortable upscale life (and the sleekly modern apartment to prove it), but he’s not as wealthy as his friend Darya. As for his love life, Marius’ promiscuity is hinted at in the movie, but it’s not really shown, except for later in the story when he randomly picks up a guy. It’s hinted that Marius can have a tendency to be self-absorbed. When he talks to his friends who set him up on the blind date with Pranas, they are dismayed to find out that that Marius didn’t recognize Pranas, who was featured in a LGBTQ “coming out” public service announcement that was co-sponsored by Marius’ law firm.

Marius and Paranas didn’t have a love connection, perhaps because Marius’ attention has been on his favorite webcam model, a handsome man who calls himself Ron. After some mutual flirting through their webcam chats, Marius persuades the model to give him his personal phone number, which is against the rules.

Marius and the model continue their conversations privately, and the model reveals that his real name is Ali (played by Doğaç Yildiz), and that he’s a Syrian refugee living in Belgrade, Serbia. Ali also tells Marius that he’s gotten suspended from the webcam service because another use reported him for giving out his personal phone number to a customer.

Meanwhile, Marius gets his own bad news: His mother calls to tell him that his father has died. When he goes back to his hometown to attend the funeral, his mother (played by Neringa Bulotaitė) tells Marius that Marius’ father was sorry for the way things went. It’s not stated outright, but it’s implied that Marius and his father were estranged at the time of his death, but it’s not stated why they were estranged. Marius’ earlier comment about Lithuania being “homophobic” certainly suggests that he’s experienced bigotry or hatred about his sexuality, perhaps from his father. The movie doesn’t go into details about how long Marius has been openly gay.

A turning point in Marius and Ali’s relationship happens when Marius tells Ali about his father’s death, and Ali comforts him in a very compassionate and sincere way. It’s the first sign that they will have more than a superficial online relationship because there’s an unspoken bond they now share over grief and loss. Marius decides to visit Ali in Serbia, where Marius will be for a week.

Marius and Ali’s first date is very casual: They go jogging. Ali doesn’t want them to become lovers right away, but Marius reminds him that he’s only going to be in Serbia for a week. Ali opens up a little more about his refugee situation and he insists that he doesn’t want to be thought of as a victim. “You’re too handsome to be a victim,” Marius tells Ali. Ali responds, “You’re too handsome to be a lawyer.” Yes, it’s that kind of movie with corny romantic dialogue.

However, since Marius is an attorney, Ali asks Marius if there is any way that Marius can help. Marius tells Ali that he’s a corporate attorney and doesn’t know anything about immigration law Marius is also hurt because he thinks that Ali isn’t interested in dating him and just wanted to use him for his legal services. They agree that perhaps there was a misunderstanding and they should part ways.

But since Marius has a “savior” complex, he changes his mind and tracks down Ali at the refugee camp in Krnjaca, where Ali lives. Ali is very surprised and somewhat embarrassed to see Marius there, but he agrees to accept Marius’ help. Marius insist that Ali spent the rest of the week with him at Marius’ hotel. Ali tells Marius that he’s bisexual and that he’s not fully “out of the closet” yet.

At first Marius tries to keep things platonic, but one thing leads to another and they become lovers. Ali, who is originally from the Syrian capital of Damascus, tells Marius about some painful losses he’s experienced because of the Syrian war. Ali says he wants to move to another country, but he doesn’t want to be openly identify as a member of the LGBTQ community, which would give him a better chance of being out in a “protected” status with immigration. Ali also says he hasn’t been the victim of a homophobic hate crime, so that makes it even more difficult for him to apply for refugee status.

What happens to Ali and Marius and their new romance is shown in the rest of the movie, which takes great care to depict this love story in a touching and sometimes humorous way. Viewers will want to root for this couple as they navigate the complications of international law and immigrant refugee policies. One of the biggest obstacles to Ali and Marius living together is that Lithuania does not have an immigration policy for Syrian refugees that is as open and friendly as other countries’ policies. And Marius has no intention of moving to Serbia, since Ali doesn’t want to stay in Serbia either.

“The Lawyer” writer/director/producer Zabarauskas made the right decision to have the story told from Marius’ point of view because Marius represents the “privileged blind spot” that many people have when they hear about war refugees but don’t really think much about refugees until a refugee problem affects them directly. The people who are most likely to watch “The Lawyer” are those who probably have this “privileged blind spot” too, and it might make these viewers think of the fallout of the Syrian war in more human terms.

The movie’s stylish cinematography (by Narvydas Naujalis) plays with color palettes in a meaningful way. When Marius is feeling lust or love, he’s shaded in red. The morning after Ali and Marius become lovers, they wake up in their hotel in a scene that is shot in black and white, recalling the romance of old European movies.

Where “The Lawyer” falls a little short at times is in its writing and acting. The dialogue can be a bit hokey. For example, in the scene where Ali asks Marius for help with his immigration status, Marius tells Ali: “You may be Cinderella, but I’m no Prince Charming.” The spoiled socialite character of Darya is also unnecessary to the story, although there’s a scene in her art gallery that’s visually compelling because of the oversized photos on the walls and how they are filmed.

Kvoščiauskas can be a little wooden as an actor. But to be fair, his stiff demeanor could also be interpreted as Marius being somewhat closed off from his emotions until he falls for Ali. Yildiz has a more natural, more believable style to his acting. The movie definitely gets better in the second half, when Marius and Ali’s relationship starts to develop.

Although the movie’s screenwriting and acting have minor flaws, “The Lawyer” is worth watching for the overall story. The emotions of the characters are depicted in an authentic way. And the movie makes an unforgettable point of showing how the negative effects of a war reach far beyond the borders of the country at war.

TLA Releasing released “The Lawyer” on DVD on August 18, 2020. Dekkoo premiered the movie on August 20, 2020.

Review: ‘The Garden Left Behind,’ starring Carlie Guevara, Michael Madsen, Ed Asner, Danny Flaherty, Alex Kruz, Tamara Williams and Miriam Cruz

September 4, 2020

by Carla Hay

Carlie Guevara in “The Garden Left Behind” (Photo courtesy of Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures)

“The Garden Left Behind”

Directed by Flavio Alves

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “The Garden Left Behind” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Latinos, African Americas, white people and Asians) of transgender and cisgender people representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A young transgender woman who is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico experiences hateful discrimination and personal struggles during her quest to get medical treatment for her transition.

Culture Audience: “The Garden Left Behind” will mostly appeal to people interested in transgender female issues that are portrayed realistically in a scripted movie. 

Miriam Cruz in “The Garden Left Behind” (Photo courtesy of Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures)

The struggles of undocumented immigrants in America are rarely told in movies from the perspective of a transgender woman, but the drama “The Garden Left Behind” admirably and authentically gives a voice to this often-overlooked community. Directed by Flavio Alves (who co-wrote the screenplay with John Rotondo), “The Garden Left Behind” is anchored by an impressive performance by Carlie Guevara, who makes her feature-film debut in the movie.

Alves and Rotondo are cisgender men, so they did a lot of research before making “The Garden Left Behind,” a movie that was partially crowdfunded through eBay. Alves says in comments that are in the movie’s production notes: “In order to do the story justice, we met with more than 30 trans-led organizations, with hopes of including their concerns about the fictional story we were building. John and I wrote this story because we care deeply about the transgender community, and shortly after starting our research, we understood that it would require us to do a lot more homework in order to develop authentic characters.”

The filmmakers also made the decision to casting only transgender people in the transgender roles. And they had several transgender people in the behind-the scenes film crew. According to what Alves says in the movie’s production notes: “We were lucky enough to have the Trans Filmmakers Project join the production team of our film, providing us with a large pool of transgender representation behind the camera, so that they could gain experience making media, that will eventually help them to develop stories of their own. In addition to TFP, a long list of other fantastic organizations helped support the film, including GLAAD, who took us under their wing and provided special trainings for our crew of actors, advocates, and allies.”

It’s important to mention all of this information about the movie because all of that authenticity shows in “The Garden Left Behind,” which takes viewers on an emotionally powerful journey of one woman’s experiences in trying to overcome obstacles and discrimination from bigots who want to mistreat transgender people as outcasts. And the filmmakers should be commended for having real transgender representation on screen and off screen for the movie, because many movies about transgender people still don’t cast transgender people in transgender roles, and they shut out transgender people from being on the film crew.

The story of “The Garden Left Behind” takes an intimate look into a few months in the life of Tina Carerra (played by Guevara), a vibrant transgender woman in her early 20s whose goal is to make a complete medical transition into the female gender. She lives with her loving grandmother Eliana (played by Miriam Cruz) in New York City’s Bronx borough, and Tina is the one who’s responsible for earning the household income. Tina (whose birth name is Antonio) has been living in the United States with her grandmother (who only speaks Spanish and is also undocumented) since Tina was 5 years old. Tina’s parents are not mentioned or seen in the movie.

The obstacles to Tina’s life goal are very daunting: Tina is barely able to pay the household bills on her salary as a rideshare diver. As an undocumented immigrant without a college education, her career options are also limited. And she’s too proud to ask for help from people she knows, including her boyfriend Jason (played by Alex Kruz), an older businessman whom she’s been dating for the past two years.

Tina and Jason’s relationship is a lot like how romances are between trans women and straight men: The men often want to keep the relationship as secret as possible. This secrecy is starting to irritate Tina, but Jason is taking small steps toward making their relationship more public when he takes Tina out to dinner for the first time. However, it bothers Tina that Jason, who works in a corporate office job, still won’t introduce her to his family and friends.

Eliana is aware that Tina has been dating Jason, who sometimes comes over to the apartment for late-night trysts with Tina, but Tina hasn’t introduced Jason to Eliana, and it’s implied that Eliana doesn’t even know his name. The morning after one of these trysts, Eliana tells her that Jason is welcome to sleep over on the couch, but Tina brushes off the subject of her love life in a defensive way. Eliana sheepishly responds by saying that she won’t try to pry in Tina’s personal life. Tina also doesn’t know how to talk to her grandmother about her goal to transition into a fully biological female.

However, Tina gets emotional support about the transition from her transgender female friends. They include Tina’s outspoken and sassy best friend Carol (played by Tamara Williams), plus Amanda (played by Ivana Black) and Briana (played by Lea Nyeli). Carol is the one who recommended that Tina see a doctor in the city who has worked with transgender people for years and is someone who can sign off on the psychiatric clearance that Tina needs to be eligible for her medical transition.

Tina has already told Dr. Cleary (played by Ed Asner) about her family situation by mentioning that her grandmother is “the only family I have. We’re very close. Let’s just say she has my back.” During the therapy sessions, Tina also says that her grandmother often talks about certain fond memories that she has of Mexico, such as the food, their former family home and the garden that was at the home. The stories of the garden are so influential to Tina that she has become an avid gardener in a small lot in the Bronx.

Tina confides in Carol that Dr. Cleary is sometimes frustrating because he keeps asking the same questions. But in the therapy sessions, it’s shown that Dr. Cleary keeps asking the same questions because Tina is reluctant to answer the questions clearly. She either won’t answer or gives vague answers that are not enough for Dr. Cleary to give a full evaluation.

“We’re on the same team,” Dr. Cleary tells Tina, “but I need to know more so I can evaluate you.” One of the questions that Tina seems to have trouble answering is: “Why are you here?” It’s another question that Dr. Cleary asks Tina that finally breaks the ice and gets them to open up to each other: “Are you happy?”

Tina asks Dr. Cleary what the definition of happy is and asks him to tell her what makes him happy. He says that what makes him happy is waking up to his wife, seeing his children and grandchildren succeed, and doing his job. After Dr. Cleary shows himself in a more human light, it improves Tina’s ability to have candid conversations with him. Dr. Cleary eventually diagnoses Tina with having gender dysphoria, which is the diagnosis she needs to start getting medical treatment for her transition.

But Tina experiences major obstacles because she doesn’t have health insurance and she can’t afford the out-of-pocket costs that she would have to pay to continue the medical treatment. She also begins breathing and voice-exercise therapy to have a more feminine-sounding voice. In order to pay for some to these costs, Tina makes a decision to sell her car, which means she can no longer be a rideshare driver.

Luckily, she finds another job as a bartender at a local bar where she and Jason have been customers. Tina and Jason have had a friendly relationship with the bar’s owner/manager Kevin (played by Michael Madsen), who hires Tina on the spot when he sees that she has good bartending skills. Because she’s an undocumented immigrant, Tina ends up paying for a fake resident alien card (or green card) so that she can work at the bar.

Meanwhile, Tina has a passing but polite acquaintance with a young man in his late teens named Chris (played by Anthony Abdo), whom Tina encounters sometimes while he’s working at his cashier job at a local convenience store where she’s a regular customer. Chris is very quiet and shy, but he hangs out with a trio of rowdy, homophobic teenagers who are his teammates on a local baseball team.

Chris’ bigoted pals are group leader Oscar (played by Danny Flaherty), Adrien (Sidiki Fofana) and Leo (played by Will Kirsanda), who have no qualms about showing how much they hate anything to do with the LGBTQ community. On the night that Tina and Jason have their first dinner together at a restaurant, they are walking and cuddling on the street after they leave the restaurant. Oscar, Adrien and Leo happen on the same street, and when they see Tina and Jason together, the troublemaking trio starts yelling transphobic insults. The harassment brings Tina to tears, but Jason comforts her with a passionate kiss before they go into his place.

Unfortunately, it won’t be the last time that Tina and other people in her transgender community are the targets of hate. Shortly after Tina experiences this harassment, Carol’s close friend Rosie gets beaten up by police officers for being transgender, but the cops haven’t been held accountable. This hate crime sparks Carol to organize Trans Lives Matter protests, and Tina becomes part of the movement too. The protests and media coverage set off a chain of events that have profound effects on Tina’s life in ways that are both inspiring and horrifying.

“The Garden Left Behind” is not always an easy film to watch if people aren’t prepared to see the hatred and inhumane way that other human beings are mistreated in life. But it’s a harsh reality that is experienced by many transgender people who are often overlooked and treated as undeserving as the same rights as everyone else. The movie shows Tina’s political awakening when she begins to understand that by staying silent and doing nothing, she is indirectly helping the bigotry and hate crimes to thrive.

Although a lot of people can’t or won’t sympathize with Tina being an undocumented immigrant, her story is one shared by millions of undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children, through no choice of their own, because they were brought by adults who were also undocumented immigrants. Tina, like most of these Dreamers, is not a “charity case” who doesn’t want to work. She wants to be a productive member of society, but she also has the additional and costly challenge that cisgender people do not have: transitioning into the gender she should have had when she was born.

Perhaps by coincidence, “The Garden Left Behind” was released the same week as filmmaker/actress Isabel Sandoval’s dramatic movie “Lingua Franca,” which is also about a transgender woman who’s an undocumented immigrant in New York City. Whereas Sandoval’s character in “Lingua Franca” is at a stage in her life where she’s ready to get married, Tina has barely begun her adult life and is still learning about what it’s like to try to find a life partner as a transgender woman.

Although what ultimately ends up happening to Tina is easy to predict, that doesn’t lessen the emotional impact of the story. The way that Alves skillfully crafts the story shows that Tina, more often than not, lives a life that is very much like other young people who are financially struggling and worried about their futures. She just happens to be transgender and an undocumented Mexican immigrant, and therefore she has to deal with all the discrimination that comes with being in these identity groups. “The Garden Left Behind” should be essential viewing for people who want to see what it’s like for a transgender woman to find her voice and stand up for who she is, even if other people want to punish her for it.

Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures released “The Garden Left Behind” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on August 28, 2020. The movie’s VOD release date is September 8, 2020.

Review: ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things,’ starring Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette and David Thewlis

September 4, 2020

by Carla Hay

Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette and David Thewlis in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” (Photo by Mary Cybulski/Netflix)

“I’m Thinking of Ending Things”

Directed by Charlie Kaufman

Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed parts of the U.S., the drama “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” has an all-white cast representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A man and a woman, who have been dating each other for six weeks, go on a road trip to meet his parents, but the trip turns out to be more than meets the eye, as they experience arguments, family conflicts and secrets from the past.

Culture Audience: “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of writer/director Charlie Kaufman’s unconventional style of filmmaking.

Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” (Photo by Mary Cybulski/Netflix)

People who aren’t familiar with the work of writer/director Charlie Kaufman won’t be fully prepared for the eccentric head trip that is his dramatic film “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.” Kaufman won an Oscar for co-writing the original screenplay for 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (which is probably his most famous movie), and he wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplays for 1999’s “Being John Malkovich” and 2002’s “Adaptation.” He also wrote and directed the 2014 animated film “Anomalisa” and 2008’s “Synecdoche, New York.” What all of these movies have in common is that they defy convention and are often about characters that spend a lot of time inside their heads. People who hate Kaufman’s movies usually think the movies are too weird.

Therefore, anyone who watches “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” (which Kaufman adapted from Iain Reid’s novel of the same name) should know in advance that it won’t be a story told in a straightforward way, and people are doing to say and do things in a bizarre manner. The movie starts out by giving the impression that it’s going to be told from the perspective of one character, but then it ends up being the story of another character. In other words, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” can only be recommended to people who are up for a ride that isn’t really supposed to be logical but it’s more about conveying atmosphere, capturing moods and presenting themes in an often-abstract way.

The foundation of the story is a road trip during heavy snowfall that could turn into a storm. Jake (played by Jesse Plemons) and his girlfriend (played by Jessie Buckley) are an American couple who are both in their late 20s. Jake is driving them to his parents’ farmhouse, where his girlfriend will be meeting his parents for the first time. Jake and his girlfriend have been dating each other for about six weeks. They plan to have dinner with Jake’s parents before leaving to go back on the road that night, since his girlfriend has to get up early the next morning for work.

The girlfriend doesn’t officially have a name in the story, but throughout the movie, she is called different names that start with the letter “L” (such as Louisa, Lucia and Lucy), which is bound to confuse people watching this film. And, at different times in the movie, she is described as having different professions, such as artist painter, gerontology student or waitress. The parents don’t have names either, but Jake’s mother (played by Toni Collette) is American, while Jake’s father (played by David Thewlis) is British. The movie also doesn’t mention where in the United States this story takes place.

Before, during and after this dinner, Jake’s girlfriend contemplates the pros and cons of staying in this relationship with Jake. Her inner thoughts are heard in voiceover narration. And throughout the movie, she keeps repeating “I’m thinking of ending things,” every time she mulls over whether it’s better to break up with Jake before the relationship turns bad or if it’s worth sticking with him to see if things will improve between them. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Jake is more infatuated with his girlfriend than she is with him.

She’s already starting to doubt that they’re compatible, and she figures that meeting his parents will give her a better idea what kind of family she’ll have to deal with if her relationship with Jake becomes more serious. She says in one of her inner thoughts, “Jake’s not going anywhere. People tend to stay in relationships past their expiration date.”

While driving to the farmhouse, the girlfriend thinks, “I should be more excited, but I’m not.” On the other hand, she admits to herself why she would want to stay in this relationship with Jake: “It feels like I’ve known Jake longer than I have … We have a very real connection.”

During the ride, Jake and his girlfriend talk mostly about music and poetry. She is surprised to find out that Jake is a big fan of musical theater, and “Oklahoma!” is his favorite musical. (There are several references to the “Oklahoma!” musical in this movie.) Jake also mentions poet William Wordsworth and his “Lucy” poems. When his girlfriend recites a poem that she wrote, Jake assumes he was the inspiration for that poem, and she’s annoyed by the assumption. Jake comments, “That’s why I like road trips. It’s good to remind you that the world is bigger than outside your head.”

Jake seems nervous about his girlfriend meeting his parents. When Jake and his girlfriend arrive at their destination, he insists on giving her a short tour of the property before heading into the main house. They go to a barn, where a few sheep have frozen to death. The girlfriend is slightly horrified, but Jake nonchalantly says that the sheep’s bodies are too frozen to move and the bodies will be moved when the bodies become naturally thawed out. Jake also mentioned that the pig sty in the barn was where a pig was found being eaten alive by maggots. Life can be cruel on a farm, Jake says.

Inside the house, Jake’s parents don’t appear right away. Jake’s girlfriend looks uncomfortable until she sees the family’s friendly Border Collie, because she likes dogs. She also notices that the basement door has dark scratch marks all the way up to the top of the door. When she asks Jake what caused those scratches, he says it was the dog, but that answer isn’t believable at all, because the dog wouldn’t be able to reach that high. Jake also says, “I hate the basement.” The secret of the basement is revealed in bits and pieces during the rest of the movie.

And viewers soon see why Jake was so nervous about his girlfriend meeting his parents. When Jake’s parents finally appear, they start out as very friendly and effusive to his girlfriend. But as they sit down for dinner, his parents say inappropriate things and at times act mentally unbalanced. His mother cackles and snorts loudly at the wrong moments and at her own jokes that only she thinks are funny. Jake’s father is overly critical and thinks he is always correct.

For example, Jake’s girlfriend mentions that she is an artist who likes to paint landscape portraits. She shows Jake’s parents some photos of her paintings that are on her phone. When she mentions that she hopes to convey certain emotions with these paintings, Jake’s father vehemently disagrees and tells her that the only way emotions can be expressed in a painting is by having a human being in the painting. Jake’s girlfriend shares her opposite point of view, but out of politeness she chooses not to get into an argument with Jake’s father about it.

Meanwhile, Jake’s parents are very argumentative with each other. Jake tries to hold back and not get involved in taking sides, but at one point he snaps and tells his parents to stop being so obnoxious. The more time that Jake’s girlfriend spends at the family home, the more she sees that Jake has had long-simmering tensions with his parents that seem to go all the way back to Jake’s childhood.

One of the recurring themes of the movie is that Jake’s girlfriend is anxious to go back home, but Jake keeps thinking of reasons to delay this return trip. Meanwhile, the snowfall outside is getting worse and Jake’s girlfriend doesn’t want to be stuck in a snowstorm. Jake and his girlfriend get into arguments that start to escalate.

While some of this relationship drama is going on, the movie cuts back and forth between scenes of an elderly janitor (played by Guy Boyd), who works at a high school. (The janitor’s relevance to the rest of the story is explained later, but not in a straightforward manner.) There are also various choreographed dance scenes from “Oklahoma!” and other musical numbers at the high school and elsewhere. Jake breaks out into song at one point in the movie. And there are scenes involving diners and waitresses that won’t make much sense until toward the end of the film.

In one of these scenes, the janitor watches a movie on a TV monitor at the high school where he works. The movie he’s watching is of a man surprising his waitress girlfriend at the diner with an elaborate show of adoration, but it’s disruptive to the customers, and she ends up getting fired. The movie that the janitor is watching then cuts to the end credits to show that it was directed by Robert Zemeckis. It’s an example of the type of quirky comedic touches in the story that are best appreciated by movie aficionados who might get some inside jokes.

Even if people find this movie’s storyline hard to take, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is still compelling to watch for the performances by the main actors in the cast. Collette is wonderfully unhinged as Jake’s mother, while Buckley gives some impressive monologues during the movie. Plemons’ Jake character is the most complex because it’s hinted at throughout the story that he has some secrets hidden underneath his mild-mannered exterior. Thewlis plays a self-righteous and arrogant character as Jake’s father, but he’s never boring to watch.

At 134 minutes, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a little too long and could have used some fine-tuning in its editing. The movie is actually written and structured more like a play than a traditional narrative film. But it’s the kind of movie that, if people like it enough, it’s probably better experienced after a repeat watching, to pick up on things that might have been missed on the first viewing. However, “I’m a Thinking of Ending Things” is a perfect example of why Kaufman’s filmmaking is definitely an acquired taste and not everyone will want to go back for a second helping.

Netflix premiered “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” on September 4, 2020.

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