Tag: reviews

Review: ‘Together’ (2021), starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan

August 28, 2021

by Carla Hay

James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan in “Together” (Photo by Peter Mountain/Bleecker Street)

“Together” (2021) 

Directed by Stephen Daldry

Culture Representation: Taking place from March 2020 to March 2021, in an unnamed city in the United Kingdom, the comedy/drama “Together” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: An unmarried couple, who are opposites in many ways, confront issues in their love/hate relationship when they have to quarantine together during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Culture Audience: “Together” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted movies about love relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharon Horgan and James McAvoy in “Together” (Photo by Peter Mountain/Bleecker Street)

The comedy/drama “Together” is a very talkative relationship movie that could easily have been a stage play because the entire story takes place at one house. The movie’s appeal is largely dependent on the talent of co-stars James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan. They are two of the movie’s three cast members who speak. McAvoy and Horgan also have about 99% of the screen time and speaking lines in the movie. And much of it consists of conversations and monologues that are funny, rude, angry and sometimes poignant.

Fortunately, McAvoy and Horgan succeed in making their very flawed characters sizzle with a wide range of emotions that are realistic for a troubled couple navigating their way through a quarantine together during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Together” (directed by Stephen Daldry and written Dennis Kelly) takes place from March 24, 2020, to March 22, 2021, in an unnamed city in the United Kingdom. By the end of the movie, the unnamed, unmarried couple portrayed by McAvoy and Horgan have a reckoning about where their relationship is headed, and they decide if they are going to stay together or not.

The couple at the center of the story are only identified as He and She in the film’s credits. They are both opposites in many ways. He is a businessman who used to be a high-ranking corporate executive and has started his own tech consulting business that is failing when this story begins. He’s politically conservative and hates the idea of government welfare because he thinks people on welfare are lazy. He has a very arrogant and condescending view of people who are working-class and poor, even though he comes from a working-class background in Scotland.

She’s from England and politically liberal—someone whom a conservative would call a “bleeding heart” liberal, although she likes to think of herself as a moderate liberal. She comes from an upper-middle-class background (her late father was a dentist), and she believes that the government and society in general should do more to help poor and disenfranchised people. It’s why she works as a refugee coordinator.

This often-bickering couple has a son together named Arthur, nicknamed Artie (played by Samuel Logan), who’s about 11 or 12 years old. Artie stays in the background for most of the movie. Artie also doesn’t speak until the last third of the film, when the quarantine lockdown has lifted and the COVID-19 vaccination has become available. This family trio lives in a cluttered, upper-middle-class two-story house.

There are two scenes where Artie is briefly shown on a backyard trampoline. The movie quickly shows only person outside of the household: a boy who’s around the same age as Artie and who lives next door. This unnamed boy doesn’t speak in the movie, but he also has a backyard trampoline that he’s seen jumping on at the same time as Artie. Viewers will get the impression that even without a quarantine, Artie is a loner anyway because he and his parents never mention Artie not being able to hang out with any friends during the lockdown.

The beginning of “Together” doesn’t waste time in showing the volatile relationship between these on-again/off-again lovers. It’s the first day of the quarantine lockdown, and they’ve just come back from stocking up on food from a grocery store, where a lot of panic buying was going on. This argumentative couple—who talk to the camera, as if they’re filming video diaries for an audience—can’t even agree on the name their son should be called. He thinks their son should be called Artie, while she prefers Arthur.

He says to the camera, “The only thing keeping us together is our child.” He then says to her about how during quarantine, he’ll miss the routine of leaving the house. “Just saying goodbye to you [to go to work] is the best part of my day!” She snaps back and says to the camera, “Just being in the same room as him is like a sadness and a soul stink both mixed together.”

The insults don’t end there. He says to her, “I hate your face.” She replies, “When I look at you, I get the exact same feeling as my dead dad’s cancer.” They both trade these types of verbal barbs while looking at each other or acting as if the other person isn’t there and talking directly to the camera.

How did these two miserable people end up together? They tell their “love story” in bits and pieces, during their conversations and monologues. Like many romances that turn sour, things started out wonderfully. They had an “opposites attract” relationship where their differences seemed charming to each other in the beginning. And they definitely fell in love.

However, even early on in their relationship, they disagreed and argued over fundamental things. A turning point in their courtship happened when a hipster friend of theirs named Nathan convinced the couple to go on a New Age type of rustic retreat with Nathan and some other people. During this retreat, the participants were required to get up early one morning to harvest mushrooms.

The male partner in the couple got food poisoning from eating the mushrooms. His food poisoning was so severe that he needed hospital treatment. And describing it all these years later, he says it felt like a near-death experience. Because of this health scare, the couple decided to have a child together.

Artie or Arthur is a fairly quiet child who can occasionally be seen eavesdropping on some of his parents’ arguments. They seem to be aware that he listens in on them talking because they sometimes lower their voice when they say things they don’t want their son to hear. And the man in the couple thinks that Artie is a little strange, but when he talks about it with his partner, this father often over-compensates by raising his voice to praise Artie in case the child can hear nearby.

In the beginning of the movie, the man tells his partner about a recent trip to a grocery store, where he wanted to buy aubergines to cook for their son. He saw a grocery store employee with a large stock of aubergines and asked her if any were available to buy. She says no, because another employee who recently got infected with COVID-19 could have handled this produce, and the store is investigating to find out if the aubergines would be safe to sell.

The man in the relationship practically brags with glee about how he verbally abused this grocery store employee when she declined to take £1,000 that he offered to get her to give him one of the aubergines. He says that he called this employee a “big-nosed prick” and a “fucking loser.” And to further demean her, he also said: “This is the reason why you’re stuck in this shitty job, and I’ve got an E-Class [Mercedes] Benz waiting for me outside!” He also said that he dropped all of his groceries on the floor and then walked out.

The man’s partner is so horrified and disgusted by hearing this story that she walks away. It’s meant to demonstrate how callous and condescending he can be. But over time, things happen during the pandemic that teach him some humility and appreciation for people and things that he took for granted. The man in this relationship has a more transformative arc than the woman during the pandemic lockdown.

Throughout this one-year period that’s depicted in “Together,” the couple experiences more ups and downs, including news that a few people they know have been infected with COVID-19. They argue some more, make up, and then argue again. It seems to be a pattern in their relationship that gives them a lot of stress, but it’s something that they’re oddly comfortable with because that’s all they know in how to communicate with each other.

Artie has only one grandparent: his mother’s widowed mother. The parents of Artie’s father are deceased. Artie is very close to his maternal grandmother, who needs nursing care and cannot visit during the quarantine lockdown. Artie’s mother is very worried about what will happen to her mother, who has another daughter who also lives in the United Kingdom. A decision is made on whether or not the grandmother should continue to receive care at home or should be moved to a nursing care facility.

Although none of this couple’s relatives is seen in the movie, the types of relationships that Artie’s mother has with her sister and mother have a deep emotional effect on her. It’s not stated if the man in the relationship has any living relatives. This movie’s lack of a family background for the male protagonsist is a minor screenplay flaw that can easily be forgiven because his character’s personality is so vivid (as unlikable as he can be) and very realistic to how a lot of insecure people behave.

The woman in the relationship isn’t a saint either, since she and her partner say some awful, hateful things to each other. Her main personality flaw is that she doesn’t like to show vulnerabilities and puts up a front that she can handle anything at any time. And that “stiff upper lip” façade might come crashing down on her.

One of the criticisms that “Together” might get is how the couple’s son is mostly in the background during this story of a family that’s supposed to be in lockdown together. The parents do seem self-absorbed, but they are not neglectful, since there are scenes where they interact lovingly with their son. However, it’s easy to see why the filmmakers didn’t want Artie/Arthur to say or do much in this story, because the movie’s focus is on how these squabbling parents are dealing with their own issues that have nothing to do with their son.

Because these two adult characters are front and center for the entire movie, viewer enjoyment of “Together” will be affected by how much someone is willing to spend 92 minutes going on a talkative roller coaster ride of a couple whose relationship always seems on the verge of collapse. Fortunately, Kelly’s witty screenplay gives McAvoy and Horgan an ideal platform to showcase their considerable acting chops. It’s a ride that is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes amusing, but it’s definitely not boring.

Bleecker Street released “Together” in select U.S. cinemas on August 27, 2021. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD on September 17, 2021. BBC iPlayer premiered the movie in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2021.

Review: ‘Escape From Mogadishu,’ starring Kim Yoon-seok, Zo In-sung and Huh Joon-ho

August 27, 2021

by Carla Hay

Joung Man-sik, Kim So-jin and Kim Yoon-seok in “Escape From Mogadishu” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Escape From Mogadishu”

Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan

Korean, Somali and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from November 1990 to January 1991, primarily in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and briefly in Kenya, the dramatic film “Escape From Mogadishu” features a cast of primarily Asian and African people (with a few white people) representing Korean government officials, their families and Somalis caught up in Somalia’s civil war.

Culture Clash: Government officials and diplomats from rival North Korea and South Korea are trapped in Mogadishu during a violent civil war outbreak, and the Koreans must decide if they should put aside their North Korean/South Korean conflicts to work together to escape from Mogadishu.

Culture Audience: “Escape From Mogadishu” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching tense political thrillers about international relations stories that are rarely told on screen.

A scene from in “Escape From Mogadishu” with Huh Joon-ho, pictured in front, second from left. (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

In the dramatic film “Escape From Mogadishu,” there are two types of political conflicts going on—a civil war in Somalia and a feud between North Korea and South Korea. This compelling and action-filled movie shows what happens with Koreans who are caught in the middle of these two conflicts. “Escape From Mogadishu” (directed by Ryoo Seung-wan) is fictional, but it could easily have been inspired by real events.

The beginning the movie —which takes place from November 1990 to January 1991—has a captioned statement explaining the tension that will be depicted. During this time, South Korea (a democratic country) and North Korea (a Communist country) had not been approved for United Nations membership. Somalia was a crucial deciding nation on the vote to approve membership. North Korea had been lobbying for Somalia’s United Nations membership vote since the early 1970s, while South Korea didn’t send any diplomats to Somalia until 1987.

In “Escape From Mogadishu,” two diplomatic leaders for South Korea and North Korea are bitter competitors, who are jockeying for power and influence with Somali government officials while Somalia is in the midst of a civil war. But when a violent outbreak in Mogadishu traps the two diplomats, their colleagues and their families, it forces the diplomats to decide if their North Korean/South Korean feuding can be overcome to work together for an escape, or if they should remain enemies and only concern themselves with helping their fellow citizens.

“Escape From Mogadishu” spends the first half of the movie establishing the main characters and showing how the North Korean/South Korean diplomat rivalry unfolds and becomes increasingly hostile. The movie is told mainly from the perspective of the South Koreans—chiefly, Ambassador Han Shin-sung (Kim Yoon-seok), a somewhat nervous and by-the-book diplomat, who arrives in Mogadishu with high hopes but some trepidation. Ambassador Han is accompanied by Secretary Gong Soo-chul (played by Joung Man-sik), a somewhat goofy and bumbling lackey.

The two diplomats meet up with Counselor Kang Dae-jin (played by Zo In-sung), an arrogant lawyer who will do whatever it takes to seal the United Nations deal for South Korea. For their lodging, they are all staying at a South Korean-owned diplomat building, along with Ambassador Han’s wife Kim Myung-hee (played by Kim So-jin), Clerk Jo Soo-jin (played by Kim Jae-hwa) and Clerk Park Ji-eun (played by Park Gyeong-hye). Because the building is owned by South Korea, this property ownership plays a role in what happens later in the movie, when it comes to who can be legally protected in the building.

There’s some comic relief in the beginning of the film when Ambassador Han expresses disapproval at the haphazard way that Counselor Kang has arranged South Korea’s gifts to Somali government officials. Counselor Kang has thrown together as gifts some random items in a suitcase, including some liquor and a VHS video of the 1988 Olympics ceremony in Seoul. Ambassador Han scolds Counselor Kang because the gifts are unwrapped, which Ambassador Han thinks makes the gifts look even tackier. Ambassador Han is also annoyed that liquor is one of the gifts, because he thinks it might be insensitive or offensive to Muslim culture that discourages drinking of alcohol.

The North Korean chief diplomat in this story is Ambassador Rim Yong-su (played by Huh Joon-ho), whose right-hand person is Counselor Tae Joon-ki (played by Koo Kyo-hwan). In stark contrast to nervous and emotional Ambassador Han, the demeanor of Ambassador Rim Yong-su can be described as cold, calculating and ruthless. Ambassador Han wants to make ethical deals, while Ambassador Rim Yong-su seems to have dubious ethics. The two men have inevitable arguments.

It doesn’t take long for a violent act to occur. Soon after Ambassador Han and Secretary Gong Soo-chul have met up with Counselor Kang, the three of them are riding in a rented car on the way to an important meeting with a Somali government official. They get stopped and robbed at gunpoint by four Somali rebel soldiers, who oddly don’t want the car or any money. Instead, the robbers steal the suitcase containing the diplomatic gifts.

This theft immediately makes Ambassador Han suspicious. He suspects that Counselor Kang leaked the information and set up this robbery. Counselor Kang denies it, but trust has been broken. Ambassador Han decides that Counselor Kang will not be part of the meeting and that only Ambassador Han and Secretary Gong Soo-chul will go to the meeting, for which they are already running late because of the robbery.

It’s a race against time for Ambassador Han and Secretary Gong Soo-chul to make it to the meeting, but they are 15 minutes late. To their crushing disappointment, they find out that because they were tardy, the Somali government official has already moved on to his next appointment. And the appointment is with North Korean rival Ambassador Rim Yong-su.

As a consolation, Ambassador Han is told he can meet with an aide/speechwriter of the Somali official. Ambassador Han has an uncomfortable meeting with the aide, who essentially tells Ambassador Han that he can influence his boss to vote for South Korea, if the aide is given a hefty bribe. He asks for $50,000, because he wants $25,000 for each of his two sons’ tuition because his sons will be studying industrial technology in the United States.

The aide says that the bribe can be laundered as a donation labeled as money for a “training fellowship.” Ambassador Han balks at this suggestion. But the ambassador begins to wonder if he will fail in his mission to secure Somalia’s United Nations vote for South Korea, when the aide tells him that North Korea will most likely agree to the bribe.

Ambassador Han will have bigger things to worry about than deciding if he should bribe a government aide. Mogadishu soon comes under attack from a massive rebel insurrection. There’s mad rush to get back to the South Korean diplomat building, which isn’t easy because chaos quickly descends throughout the city. And it soon becomes apparent that it’s too unsafe to stay in Mogadishu.

While trying to figure out how to get his small group of South Korean citizens out of Mogadishu, Ambassador Han comes across a major dilemma: Ambassador Rim Yong-su asks for Ambassador Han’s help in sheltering Ambassador Rim Yong-su and the approximately 15 or 16 North Koreans, including some underage children, who are with Ambassador Rim Yong-su. A decision will also have to be made about which group of Koreans will have to renounce their citizenship and pretend to be part of the other group, in order to be rescued.

“Escape From Mogadishu” (which was actually filmed in Morocco, not Somalia) has plenty of pulse-pounding and suspenseful moments that accelerate to a very dramatic conclusion. There’s realistic violence in the movie, but it’s not over-the-top gratutitous. The movie also depicts in some heartbreaking ways how child soldiers are trained to kill. But fortunately for very sensitive viewers, there are no scenes of children actually killing other people. But the potential is there, and there’s a moment where someone has a very close call with two child soldiers.

All of the principal cast members give solid performances, with Kim Yoon-seok doing an admirable job as the flawed but sincere ambassador who finds out that he’s braver than he thought he was. “Escape From Mogadishu” effectively shows how quickly life in a war-torn country can take a turn for so many innocent people caught in the middle of an insurrection. The movie is also a riveting look at North Korean and South Korean identities. And it’s a memorable depiction of what people will or will not do to hold on to patriotic allegiances when there are life-or-death decisions to be made.

Well Go USA released “Escape From Mogadishu” in select U.S. cinemas on August 6, 2021. The movie was released in Korea on July 28, 2021. “Escape From Mogadishu” will be released on digital on October 19, 2021. The movie’s release on Blu-Ray and DVD is on January 18, 2022.

Review: ‘Annette,’ starring Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard and Simon Helberg

August 27, 2020

by Carla Hay

Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard in “Annette” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

“Annette”

Directed by Leos Carax

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles and various other parts of the world, the musical “Annette” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the wealthy and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A seemingly mismatched stand-up comedian and an opera singer have a passionate romance, get married, and have a daughter named Annette, but then a major tragedy changes their lives forever.

Culture Audience: “Annette” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Sparks, Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, as well as people who like to indulge in pretentious musicals with a weak plot.

Cast members of “Annette,” including front row, from left to right, Simon Helberg, Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver; and second row, Russell Mael (behind Cotillard) and Ron Mael, pictured at far right. (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

Don’t believe the hype. The musical “Annette” is one of those annoying, self-indulgent movies that some people will automatically praise just because it looks European and artsy. Underneath the pretentious sheen is a boring and ludicrous story with forgettable songs and a baby that’s really an animatronic doll that looks like a cleaned-up sister of Chucky from the “Child’s Play” horror franchise.

Directed by Leos Carax, “Annette” has an abysmal screenplay and disappointing music written by brothers Russell Mael and Ron Mael, also known as the experimental pop duo Sparks. The Mael brothers have brief cameos in the movie because they’re not very good actors. Visually, the movie looks better than the actual material because the filmmakers had the budget to build some elaborate set pieces and film the movie in Los Angeles, Belgium and Germany.

Here’s how you know if a musical is good or not: Are at least half of the songs memorable? Do the songs fit well with the story? And do the actors look convincing when they perform the songs? If the answer is no to any of these questions, then the musical isn’t very good and could be downright lousy. A lot of people who don’t care about going along with pseudo-hipster groupthink are going to say “no” to “Annette.”

Some credit should be given to Carax for directing “Annette” with gusto and for choosing some noteworthy designs in production and costumes. But so much of “Annette” looks and sounds like a tacky regional theater production that ended up being made into a movie because the filmmakers convinced people with deep pockets to throw money at this train wreck. Just because a movie tries very hard to be “avant-garde” doesn’t automatically mean it’s supposed to be good art.

“Annette” starts out promising in the first half of the movie when it’s about the romance between edgy stand-up comedian Henry McHenry (played by Adam Driver) and elegant opera diva Ann Defrasnoux (played by Marion Cotillard), who live in Los Angeles and are both big stars in their respective careers. But it all goes downhill in the second half of the movie, when themes of death and greed are monotonously repeated until “Annette” ends with a whimper instead of a bang. Simon Helberg, who looks very uncomfortable and out-of-place in this musical, depicts an unnamed supporting character who goes from being an accompanist for Ann to being the conductor of an orchestra.

The best parts of “Annette” are seeing Henry perform on stage. Henry’s stand-up act can best be described as if Mitch Hedberg and the late David Foster Wallace decided to collaborate on a stand-up comedy routine and hire some backup singers. Henry’s material is both self-deprecating and condescending to the audience members, who do group chants and or indivdual shouting in response to what Henry says during his act. However, he has full command of the stage and is utterly fascinating to watch. Ann (who is French, just like Cotillard is in real life) is somewhat of a generic opera singer. No one will be be winning any major awards for acting or singing in this movie.

Henry and Ann’s relationship is breathlessly followed by the tabloid media. Ann and Henry get engaged, then married, and then they become parents to a daughter named Annette. And seriously: This baby-turned-toddler is depicted by a creepy-looking animatronic doll with terrible visual effects. It will get some laughs at first, but after a while, this unnatural-looking doll is just an awful distraction.

The last half of the movie has too much spoiler information to describe, but it’s enough to say that the movie gets a lot worse and reaches the point of no return from stupidity when Henry quits stand-up comedy to become a “stage dad” manager to Annette. There are some tragic crimes and a continual pile-on of horrifically bad dialogue. Not even the acting talent of Driver and Cotillard can save this overrated mess of a movie. Driver is also one of the producers of “Annette,” so he bears more responsibility than the other cast members for how this move turned out to be a disappointing slog of irritating and egocentric posturing.

During the latter half of the movie, Driver and Helberg barely even sing. What a ripoff. By the end of the movie, most viewers might remember one or two songs. There are some musicals that have plots and conversations that are mediocre, but the music is so great, it transcends the dialogue and resonates with audiences to the point where people are recommending the soundtrack to others. That’s not the case with “Annette,” which will find a specific audience, but none of the songs from this movie will have a major cultural impact.

You know a musical is bad when the two lead actors (Driver and Cotillard) are respected talents who should elevate the material, but hardly anyone in pop culture is raving about the songs in “Annette,” except the predictable niche audience of Sparks fans. None of the “Annette” filmmakers should pretend that they didn’t want this musical movie to be popular. If they wanted this movie to be underground, they wouldn’t have had corporate behemoth Amazon pay for it, and they wouldn’t have had a splashy world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Simply put: “Annette” looks and sounds like a musical experiment that ultimately stumbles artistically, but some people will still love it because they’re star-struck by the famous people involved in making this movie.

Amazon Studios released “Annette” in select U.S. cinemas on August 6, 2021. Prime Video premiered the movie on August 20, 2021.

Review: ‘Candyman’ (2021), starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Colman Domingo

August 25, 2021

by Carla Hay

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in “Candyman” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Candyman” (2021)

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Culture Representation: Taking place in Chicago, the horror film “Candyman” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people and a few Asians) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: An up-and-coming conceptual artist (whose latest art exhibition explores themes of racism against black people) experiences the horror of Candyman, a legendary African American ghost representing black people who have been the targets of violent racism.

Culture Audience: “Candyman” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the 1992 “Candyman” movie, filmmaker Jordan Peele and horror movies that have themes of racial inequalities and social justice.

Teyonah Parris and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in “Candyman” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

The 2021 movie “Candyman” is not a remake/reboot of the 1992 horror movie “Candyman” It’s a very worthy sequel that takes a more creative and more socially conscious approach to race relations and racist violence than the first “Candyman” movie. The 2021 “Candyman” somewhat sputters out toward the end, almost like the filmmakers ran out of ideas of how the story should conclude. But most of the movie strikes the right balance of paying homage to the original “Candyman” while coming up with its own clever sequel story.

The fact that the 2021 “Candyman” movie is a sequel, not a remake/reboot, is hinted at in the movie’s first trailer, which briefly features Vanessa Estelle Williams, who was a cast member of the original “Candyman” movie. She makes a non-flashback cameo in the 2021 “Candyman” that is memorable and not too surprising, considering her character’s story line in 1992’s “Candyman.” And there’s another non-flashback cameo from another original “Candyman” cast member that is supposed to be a sudden plot twist, but this person’s appearance is not really a surprise. It would only be a surprise if this person wasn’t in this sequel.

One the main differences in the 2021 “Candyman” movie and the 1992 “Candyman” movie is that the latter film now has diversity in the race and gender of the writers, producers and directors. The 1992 “Candyman” had only white men as the director, writer and producers. Meanwhile, 2021’s “Candyman” has an African American woman as the director/co-writer (Nia DaCosta) and an African American man (Jordan Peele) as a co-writer/producer.

DaCosta and Peele co-wrote the 2021 “Candyman” screenplay with Win Rosenfeld, who is one of the producers of the film. Ian Cooper is the other producer of 2021’s “Candyman.” Peele was the first black person to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay; it was for his 2017 horror film “Get Out.” He has said in many interviews that he wants the horror movies that he writes and produces to explore themes of racism and race relations.

Peele was originally going to direct this “Candyman” sequel, but instead handed over the directorial reins to DaCosta. “Candyman” is her second feature film, and it shows that she has immense talent, especially when it comes to crafting visuals that are perfectly suited for the story. It’s rare for a horror movie directed by a woman of color to be released worldwide by a major studio. Let’s hope that “Candyman” is a step in the right direction for more opportunities to be opened up to talented and qualified women of color directors for horror movies, a genre that is overwhelmingly dominated by white male directors.

People don’t need to see the 1992 “Candyman” to understand the 2021 “Candyman” movie, which does an excellent job of recapping and explaining the original “Candyman” film. Candyman is a mysterious and vengeful ghost of an African American man who died because of racist violence. Both movies takes place in Chicago, but the themes in both films speak to universal and ugly truths about how racism is usually the reason why black people are harmed by people of other races.

In the 1992 “Candyman” movie, Candyman’s real name was Daniel Robitaille (played by Tony Todd), an artist/slave’s son who was murdered by a racist white mob in 1890. Why was he murdered? He and Caroline Sullivan, the daughter of a white aristocrat, fell in love with each other, and she got pregnant. Daniel met Caroline because her father had hired Daniel to paint her portrait.

Before he was murdered, right-handed Daniel’s right hand was amputated. As a ghost, he now has a hook where his right hand was. The angry mob of people who killed Daniel covered him in honey and unloaded a swarm of bees onto him. The ghost of Candyman is supposed to appear when someone looks in a mirror and chants “Candyman” five times. If there are bees nearby, that means Candyman could be somewhere close.

In the 1992 “Candyman” movie, university graduate student Helen Lyle (played by Virginia Madsen) is researching the Candyman legend for a doctorate thesis. Candyman is summoned, and he ends up wreaking havoc in Helen’s life, as she is blamed for murders that Candyman committed. In the movie, Williams portrays a single mother named Anne-Marie McCoy, whose baby son was kidnapped. Anne-Marie lives in Chicago’s low-income Cabrini-Green area, where many of the African American residents believe that Candyman is real.

One of the criticisms that the original “Candyman” got was how a movie that was supposed to be about an African American ghost haunted by racist trauma instead centered the story on a white woman who was being blamed for a black man’s crimes. In addition, there was a sexual component to why Candyman specifically targeted Helen (it’s explained why in the movie), as if Candyman’s main priority was to go after a white woman as a sexual conquest. It played into the same racist stereotypes that got Candyman murdered.

The 2021 “Candyman” movie attempts to remedy some of these problematic racial depictions, by making toxic people the targets of Candyman’s wrath. There’s a middle-aged boss who abuses his power by sleeping with his willing young adult female interns, because he implies that he’ll give them career rewards if they sleep with him. There’s a racially condescending art critic who has no problem exploiting black people’s pain in art if it means she’ll get some glory from writing about it. There’s a small group of “mean girls” in high school who bully an African American female student. And, not surprisingly, racist white cops are the biggest villains in the story.

In the 2021 “Candyman,” up-and-coming conceptual artist Anthony McCoy (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) decides to make the Candyman legend the theme for an art installation that is part of a gallery display. Anthony’s live-in girlfriend Brianna Cartwright (played by Teyonah Parris) is a curator at the gallery, which is owned by her boss Clive Privler (played by Mike Davis), who is very impressed with Anthony’s talent. Anthony hasn’t been able to make money as an artist for quite some time, so this gallery exhibit is a big career boost for him.

Before he creates the art installation, Anthony does more research into the Candyman legend by going to the places in the area formerly known as Cabrini-Green, where Candyman was known to haunt. In real life, the Cabrini-Green housing project’s buildings were torn down from 1995 to 2011, to make way for gentrification. While in the former Cabrini-Green area, Anthony gets stung by a bee on his right hand.

Anthony also meets someone named William Burke (played by Colman Domingo), who claims to have seen Candyman. It happened when William was about 11 or 12 years old. Back then, William went by the name Billy (played by Rodney L. Jones III), who grew up in Cabrini-Green.

Billy first saw this man named Sherman Fields (played by Michael Hargrove) literally come out of a hole in the wall of public laundry room to offer William some candy. (It’s one of the creepier scenes in the movie.) At the time, someone was going around the neighborhood giving kids candy that had razor blades hidden in the candy.

Did Sherman do the same thing to Billy? That question is answered in the movie. But it’s enough to say that a sketch of Sherman is on a “Wanted” poster that the cops have posted in the neighborhood. Billy is frightened by this stranger and sees him as Candyman. Billy yells for help. Some patrol officers who were staked out in their car nearby storm into the room to rescue Billy and arrest Sherman. Things do not end well for Sherman, an unarmed black man surrounded by white police officers.

It’s not spoiler information to say that the 2021 “Candyman” movie takes the approach that several black men who were murdered by angry and racist white people could become Candyman. William says in the movie: “Candyman is how we deal with the fact that it’s happened—that it’s still happening.” At another point in the movie, William says, “Candyman ain’t a ‘he.’ Candyman’s the whole damn hive.”

“Candyman” also has plenty of social commentary on gentrification. Cabrini-Green has been renamed the North Side, which is the home of upscale residential buildings that were developed as low-income people were priced out of the neighborhood, and higher-income people (usually white) moved in. Anthony and Brianna live in one of these upscale high-rise buildings.

Brianna comes from a cultured and educated family, so her background is very different from Anthony’s background. But that doesn’t mean she had a perfect childhood, because she’s haunted by a childhood tragedy that’s revealed in this movie. Brianna’s openly gay and sassy younger brother Troy (played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) provides much of the comic relief and “real talk” in the movie. He has a new-ish boyfriend named Grady (played by Kyle Kaminsky), who is as laid-back as Troy is energetic.

Troy is the one who actually tells Brianna and Anthony the legend of Candyman. It’s in an early scene in the film where Anthony and Brianna have invited Troy and Grady over to dinner for a small housewarming celebration, since Anthony and Brianna have recently moved into this loft apartment. Brianna scoffs at the idea of believing in ghosts, while Anthony is intrigued. Once he hears about Candyman and looks further into Candyman stories, he’s inspired to make it a theme for his current art installation. And it’s about time that Anthony gets paid for his work, because Troy is starting to disapprove of Anthony being constantly broke while Brianna has to pay all of the couple’s bills.

Brianna, Troy and some of the black people who interact with them at the art gallery represent the educated African Americans who too often are overlooked or underrepresented in American-made movies. The 1992 “Candyman” movie had some of this representation with Helen’s best friend Bernadette “Bernie” Walsh (played by Kasi Lemmons), who was also Helen’s partner in writing their doctoral thesis. However, the rest of the black people in the first “Candyman” movie were working-class or poor people from the ghetto.

Brianna and Troy are immersed in the art world. Their late father Gil Cartwright (seen in a flashback and played by Cedric Mays) was an artist. Brianna also mentions at one point in the movie that up until Troy started dating Grady, Troy had a pattern of dating European artists. The movie shows what often happens when black people have to navigate in an industry dominated by white people, some who are often racially condescending, racially insensitive or downright racist when it comes to judging people who aren’t white.

The snooty art critic Finley Stephens (played by Rebecca Spence) represents this entitled mindset of white supremacy. When she first sees Anthony’s at installation at the gallery, she dismisses it as mediocre and trite depictions of racial injustice, possibly because what she sees in the art installation makes her uncomfortable. But when certain murders happen and start to be linked to the Candyman legend, Anthony’s art gets a lot of media attention.

And suddenly, Finley changes her tune. She praises Anthony for being a visionary and arranges to interview him for an article. It’s an example of how some white people who are media influencers only seem to care about up-and-coming black artists when those artists are getting attention from media outlets that have a mostly white audience. When Finley interviews Anthony, more of her racial condescension is on display.

“Candyman” is a visually compelling movie that makes use of shadow puppetry to tell parts of the Candyman story. It’s a better alternative than using live actors to re-enact the racist violence that’s in the movie. DaCosta brings a confident tone to her horror storytelling, which remains grounded in realism, even as supernatural occurrences are happening around the characters. The first “Candyman” movie had some over-the-top hokey moments, but the 2021 “Candyman” movie never lets you forget that racist violence is a real-life horror story for too many people.

There are also some gruesome but realistic-looking visual effects and makeup, especially when Anthony’s bee sting turns into an alarming infection that spreads through his right arm and beyond. Musically, the 2021 “Candyman” movie score by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (also known as Lichens) skillfully builds off of Philip Glass’ memorable score for the 1992 “Candyman,” including Glass’ haunting piano refrain that has become the franchise’s musical signature. Violence and gore are expected, but they aren’t gratuitous or exploitative in the 2021 “Candyman” movie. The point of the movie is to show that racism and revenge for racist crimes create a vicious cycle where there are no real winners.

The casting of this “Candyman” film is top-notch. The result is acting that is superior to the average horror movie. Everyone plays their roles well, with Abdul-Mateen, Domingo and Stewart-Jarrett as particular standouts. But realistically, no one in this cast is going to be nominated for Oscars because the acting isn’t Oscar-caliber. And this “Candyman” movie could have had more speaking roles for Asians and Hispanics.

The plot starts to get a little messy in the last 20 minutes of the film. Now that viewers know that several people could be Candyman, there could be an untold number of “Candyman” sequels. However, future “Candyman” sequels are better served by limiting the Candyman character to being depicted by just one person per movie and giving that person an interesting character arc. Otherwise, too many Candymen in a movie can spoil the story.

Universal Pictures will release “Candyman” in U.S. cinemas on August 27, 2021.

Review: ‘The Night House,’ starring Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Vondie Curtis Hall, Evan Jonigkeit and Stacy Martin

August 24, 2021

by Carla Hay

Rebecca Hall in “The Night House” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)

“The Night House”

Directed by David Bruckner

Culture Representation: Taking place in upstate New York, the horror film “The Night House” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A recent widow is convinced that her house is haunted because her late husband is trying to contact her. 

Culture Audience: “The Night House” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching slower-paced horror movies that are more about psychological terror than violent gore.

A scene from “The Night House” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)

Moody and atmospheric, sometimes to a fault, “The Night House” still delivers enough mystery and intrigue to make it a noteworthy psychological/supernatural horror movie. Rebecca Hall’s effective performance improves the quality of what could have been a movie that’s too dull and repetitive. It’s not the best ghost story you’ll ever see, but at least it attempts to give more unique visuals and better acting than most horror movies.

There are long stretches of “The Night House” that will test the patience of viewers who might be expecting more action or more jump scares. “The Night House” (directed by David Bruckner and written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski) is essentially a long meditation on grief and finding out secrets of a deceased loved one. It has the added supernatural element of the loved one’s spirit hanging around and trying to make contact.

In an unnamed city in upstate New York, Beth Parchin (played by Hall) is a lonely widow whose architect husband Owen Parchin has recently died in a horrific way: He went in a row boat on the lake outside their house, and he shot himself with a pistol. The beginning of the movie takes place less than a week after Owen’s suicide. Owen (played by Evan Jonigkeit) is shown in flashbacks and in home videos that Beth watches in her grief.

Beth and Owen had been married for almost 15 years. He built their lake house for Beth. The house is isolated in a heavily wooded area, which is a horror movie cliché that works pretty well in this movie. Beth is unsure if she wants to sell the house, now that Owen is gone, and the house is filled with painful memories. Beth is a high school teacher, whose closest friend is another teacher at the school named Claire (played by Sarah Goldberg), who becomes increasingly concerned about Beth’s mental health as time goes on.

Beth confides in Claire that she has no idea why Owen wanted kill himself, because he was the more upbeat and positive person in their marriage. Claire says she’s the one in their marriage who’s had a history of depression and negative thoughts. It’s also revealed in the movie that Claire had a near-death experience at 17 years old, so she has very a strong opinion about what might happen to human souls after death.

Almost immediately after this movie begins, Beth has nightmares or visions that Owen is trying to contact her. Get used to multiple scenes of Beth hearing Owen’s voice in a room or getting text messages from Owen—only to have her wake up because it was just a dream. Or was it? It gets to the point where Beth starts to question her own sanity.

Things get more interesting when Beth goes through Owen’s phone and laptop computer and finds photos of women she does not recognize. Was Owen cheating on her? Beth is determined to find out. And she discovers things about Owen that take her down a very dark path.

Viewers of “The Night House” have to get used to many scenes of Beth having nightmares. These scenes are genuinely spooky but can get a little tiresome because the point is made over and over that Beth is being haunted by what she’s sure is the ghost of her husband. It isn’t until she tries to find out his secrets that the pace and intrigue start to pick up.

The parts of “The Night House” that seem the most awkward are scenes showing Beth at work less than a week after Owen’s suicide. These scenes don’t take up too much of the movie (less than 10 minutes), but they beg the question: Why is Beth back at work so soon after her husband’s suicide, when she’s obviously emotionally fragile? The movie never answers that question. Because people grieve in different ways, viewers will have to assume that Beth is the one who insisted on going back to work.

Beth also has a concerned neighbor named Mel (played by Vondie Curtis Hall), who checks up on Beth occasionally. During her sleuthing, Beth discovers Owen’s architect sketchbook, which has some major clues about what’s going on. She also finds a voodoo doll, as well as an occult book that leads her to a bookstore. She meets a bookstore employee named Madelyn (played by Stacy Martin), who discloses some information that leads Beth closer to solving the mystery.

Rebecca Hall—who’s in all of the movie’s scenes—gives a fairly riveting performance as a grieving widow who misses her husband so much that she’s willing to go down a proverbial rabbit hole to find out secrets that might end up destroying her happy memories of him. And if Beth does find out some disturbing truths about Owen, will it cut short her growing obsession to communicate with him and possibly summon him back, just so he can be with her again in some way? Those questions are answered in the movie, but “The Night House” will leave viewers guessing over what the long-term repercussions will be.

Searchlight Pictures released “The Night House” in U.S. cinemas on August 20, 2021.

Review: ‘Naked Singularity,’ starring John Boyega, Olivia Cooke, Bill Skarsgård and Ed Skrein

August 24, 2021

by Carla Hay

Olivia Cooke and John Boyega in “Naked Singularity” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

“Naked Singularity”

Directed by Chase Palmer

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in New York City, the dramatic film “Naked Singularity” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: An idealistic public defender, who gets involved with a female drug courier, has to decide if he’s going to help her or betray her by stealing one of her big drug hauls that’s worth a small fortune. 

Culture Audience: “Naked Singularity” will appeal primarily to people who like watching cliché and unrealistic heist flicks.

Ed Skrein and Olivia Cooke in “Naked Singularity” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

“Naked Singularity” is a perfect example of talented stars who are stuck in a terrible movie. All of the principal cast members have done much better work elsewhere. This heist movie, which could have been thrilling to watch, is instead mired in a permanent creative rut filled with outdated depictions of women.

There’s absolutely nothing original about “Naked Singularity,” except some mystical mumbo jumbo from a conspiracy-spouting nutcase—a supporting character in the movie—who rambles on about how singularity in the universe is the loss of physics. This crackpot theory serves as the basis for the title of this film, which was adapted from Sergio De La Pava’s 2008 novel “A Naked Singularity.” This award-winning book has been turned into a horrific mess of a movie.

“Naked Singularity” is the feature-film directorial debut of Chase Palmer. He co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with David Matthews, who has a background in television and also makes his feature-film debut with “Naked Singularity.” Palmer wrote the screenplay for the 2017 horror movie blockbuster “It,” which might explain why “It” star Bill Skarsgård (who played the evil clown Pennywise) was suckered into being in a flop like “Naked Singularity.”

The cast members actually do fairly good jobs in their roles. Too bad they have to spout some ridiculous lines and depict even more ludicrous situations. The first clue that this movie is going to be horrible is in the opening scene, which depicts a New York City courthouse that looks more like a jail or psychiatric institution. Belligerent criminals, one with his trousers down to expose his half-naked butt, get rowdy in the hallways and have to be subdued by security officers. Random people are yelling at each other. An attorney snorts cocaine in a bathroom.

Amid this chaos is idealistic public defender Casi (played by John Boyega), who’s in his mid-20s and in his first job out of law school. Casi (whose name is pronounced “Cassie”) wants to be a public defender because he thinks the system is rigged against disenfranchised people, and he wants to try to level the playing field. Viewers will soon see that Casi doesn’t level the playing field for his clients. He demolishes it because he’s such a terrible lawyer.

Even though Casi is the movie’s protagonist, don’t expect much of a backstory for him or any of the other characters in “Naked Singularity. ” Apparently, these people don’t have families or anything else going on in their lives besides work and the dumb heist that’s at the center of this movie’s flimsy plot. It’s an example of how hollow and boring these characters are.

Meanwhile, tough-talking and sarcastic Lea DeLeon (played by Olivia Cooke) works as a front-desk clerk at a tow pound. One day, a sleazy-looking guy comes up to her window and tries to flirt and sweet-talk his way into convincing Lea to let him drive one of the impounded cars off of the parking lot. His story is that he’s there to pick up the car for a friend, whom he says is unavailable.

Lea doesn’t fall for this obvious lie, because this guy doesn’t have a notarized statement from the so-called “friend.” Lea casually dismisses this con artist, and he reluctantly walks away. But judging from how Lea looks at him, it’s easy to see she thinks he’s kind of cute, in a way that seems to say, “I know he’s up to no good, but I’d sleep with him anyway.” Lea looks like the type to go for “bad boys.”

And sure enough, not long after meeting this liar, Lea (who’s single and lives alone) is swiping through a dating app on her phone, when she sees him. She finds out his name is Craig (played by Ed Skrein) and he’s very single and available. The next thing you know, Lea and Craig are having sex at her place.

The next morning, Lea is about to send Craig on his way because she sees him as just a one-night stand. But you don’t have to be a psychic to know that this loser, who tried to con Lea the first time that he met her, is still going to try to find a way to get the car that he wants. He won’t leave Lea’s apartment, he starts making threats, and she ends up pulling a gun on him.

Viewers later find out why he wants the car. It’s for the most obvious reason possible when it’s revealed that a Mexican drug cartel wants the car too. There’s a stash of heroin hidden in the car. And it’s supposedly worth on the low end of several million dollars.

It’s not shown in the movie, but Lea eventually did agree to help Craig, but she got busted at work for it. Not only did she get fired, but her boss had her arrested. And that’s how Lea ends up as Casi’s client. Lea and Casi have met each other before, although the circumstances under which they met are a little vague. It has to do with her previous criminal record, which is never explained in the movie, but whatever she did was serious enough for her to spend time in prison, because she’s on parole.

Even though Casi and Lea have met before, this is the first time that Casi has become Lea’s attorney. She admits to him that Craig offered $100,000 to Lea get the heroin that’s stashed in the car. The car and the heroin are still at the tow pound.

Casi soon finds out that being Lea’s attorney is going to be a lot more complicated than he thought it would be. She tells him that her life is in danger from Craig unless she can get the heroin. Craig wants to sell the heroin to a drug lord called the Golem (played by Kyle Mooney), an Orthodox Jew who leads a criminal gang of other Orthodox Jews. Yes, this movie is that bad.

Casi wants nothing to do with this drug deal at first, but there would be no “Naked Singularity” movie if he stayed clear of Lea’s messy problems. After Casi gets suspended from his job for six months for breaching courtroom protocol, his corrupt co-worker Dane (played by Skarsgård), the attorney seen snorting cocaine in the movie’s opening scene, convinces Carl that maybe the two of them should try to steal the heroin for themselves. Don’t forget the Mexican drug cartel, because they want that heroin stash too. Meanwhile, a narcotics cop named Detective Winston (played by Robert Christopher Riley) is hot on the trail and wants to bust this drug cartel.

“Naked Singularity” has a subplot of the antagonistic courtroom relationship that Casi has with the stern Judge Cymbeline (played by Linda Lavin), who is apparently the only judge in New York’s criminal court system, since she’s the only judge whom Casi is seen interacting with every time he has a case. Casi, like an idiot, mouths off and is rude to the judge, which leads to the judge filing the formal complaint that gets him suspended. The movie tries to make it look like Judge Cymbeline could be racist, but anyone with common sense can see that Casi is his own worst enemy in the courtroom. He’s woefully incompetent at his job.

Who does Casi have in his life to turn to for advice? An eccentric and scruffy loner named Angus (played by Tim Blake Nelson), who spouts a lot of what he thinks is deep philosophical thoughts but it’s really nonsensical crap. Angus is the one who imparts his “singularity” theory on Casi. Angus also has a samurai sword that Casi ends up taking, because you know that sword is going to be used at some point during the inevitable fight with the drug dealers.

It should come as no surprise that Casi and Lea end up sleeping together. It happens after he’s suspended and can no longer be her attorney. It’s an example of how Lea, who’s supposedly “street smart,” is still treated as a not-very-smart sex object by the filmmakers. Needless to say, the filmmakers have Lea usually dressed in some type of revealing clothing.

Lea made the dumb decision to invite Craig over to her place, knowing he was some kind of criminal who wanted to illegally get that car from the tow pound. Did she think that Craig would forget about that, just because she slept with him? Apparently so. But it just set her up as an easy target for him to threaten.

However, later in the story, this movie inexplicably has Lea threaten Craig, by demanding that he give her $1 million so that she will give up her criminal lifestyle and go away. Does that make any sense? Of course it doesn’t, because this is an idiotic movie. By the way, Lea’s $1 million demand isn’t blackmail, because whatever incriminating information she has on Craig, she’s involved in those same crimes. And remember, she’s on parole.

Throughout “Naked Singularity,” there’s a countdown to what this movie calls “the collapse,” which might lead people to believe that Casi or someone else in the story might be headed toward some kind of mental breakdown. “Naked Singularity” is too shallow for that. It’s just a dumber-than-average heist movie, with predictable double crosses and violence.

Although all of the principal characters in this movie are American, the principal stars of the movie all come from other countries. Boyega, Cooke and Skrein are British, while Skarsgård is Swedish. Their American accents vary from convincing and consistent (Cooke) to average (Boyega and Skarsgård) to a little shaky (Skrein). Boyega adopts a nerdy Midwestern American accent, even though the movie gives the impression that Casi grew up in New York City. However, viewers will never find out what Casi’s background is because “Naked Singularity” is such a poorly written movie.

“Naked Singularity” is one of those “let’s try to outsmart the gangsters” movies written and directed men, who give male actors the most prominent roles and have one token female (almost always young and attractive) who gets to tag along for the ride. In these “boys club” movies with top billing going to several men and one token woman, older women have much smaller roles, usually as nurturing maternal types (which doesn’t apply to this movie’s characters) or as hard-nosed battle-axes, like Judge Cymbeline. Casi has an older female boss named Liszt (played by Liza Colón-Zayas), another “battle-axe” type, and she gets less than five minutes of screen time. All the other female characters in this movie are just extras, almost all of whom have no names and don’t speak.

Women and girls are 51% of the population in the United States and in the world. Therefore, it’s really moronic how certain filmmakers, such as the people who made “Naked Singularity,” continue to peddle these narrow-minded, outdated and inaccurate views of women as a minority who only exist for men to fight with, have sex with, or do dirty deals with so the men can get rich. That’s how women are portrayed in this garbage movie. And yes, Lea could get a cut of the deal that’s at stake, but the men get more money out of it overall, so the men still come out on top.

“Naked Singularity” starts out trying to be a message movie about bucking the legal system as an underdog. But it ends up going into a lazy and uninteresting downward spiral of being a doltish heist movie that looks as phony as a counterfeit bill. Luckily for the stars of “Naked Singularity,” their talent will land them in better projects, and this embarrassing dud will be a forgettable footnote in their careers.

Screen Media Films released “Naked Singularity” in select U.S. cinemas on August 6, 2021, and on digital an VOD on August 13, 2021. The movie’s release on Blu-ray and DVD is on October 5, 2021.

Review: ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,’ starring Simu Liu, Tony Leung, Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, Michelle Yeoh and Florian Munteanu

August 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Meng’er Zhang, Simu Liu and Awkwafina in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton

Some language in Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in China and in San Francisco, the superhero action film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing heroes, villains and people who are in between.

Culture Clash: A Chinese man who ran away to the U.S. as a teenager, in order to get away from his ruthless overlord father, must confront his past and the power of 10 magical arm rings that are the source of the story’s conflict.

Culture Audience: “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and are looking for an enjoyable origin story that is not a sequel or a prequel.

Tony Leung and Fala Chen in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings” has plenty of heart and adventurous spirit to satisfy superhero movie fans. It’s too bad that the title character has a personality that’s duller than the average Marvel superhero. Shang-Chi is frequently outshined by his wisecracking female best friend/sidekick. And there’s a long stretch in the middle of the film that drags the pace down considerably.

Directed by Daniel Destin Daniel Cretton, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Rings” is an origin story that doesn’t dazzle in a spectacular way, but it gets the job done in a crowd-pleasing way that serves the movie’s target audience well. Cretton co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham. It’s yet another Hollywood studio superhero story about a superhero with “daddy issues.” The big difference this time is that the majority of the cast is Asian, mostly of Chinese heritage.

One of the problems with the movie is that the climactic showdown scene doesn’t offer much that most movie and TV audiences haven’t already seen before. To put it bluntly: This movie needed better villains. In “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” there’s a villain named Razor Fist (played by Florian Munteanu) with a machete as an arm. That pales in comparison to a “Stars Wars: Rise of Skywalker” villainous henchman named Cardo that had a shotgun for an arm.

Battles with dragons? Yawn. It’s very “Game of Thrones” and not much different from any recent big-budget live-action movie where the dragons are the big monsters that have to be defeated. And a hero going in a one-on-one duel fight against his villain father? Ever hear of “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Return of the Jedi”?

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is literally an origin story, since viewers see how, in China, his parents met, fell in love, got married, and had Shang-Chi as their first child. The movie shows Shang-Chi as a baby, as a pre-teen child (played by Jayden Zhang), as a teenager (played by Arnold Sun) and as an adult (played by Simu Liu). Shang Chi’s father Xu Wenwu (played by Tony Leung) was a corrupt overlord who came into possession of 10 magical arm rings (because bracelets must not sound macho enough) that allowed him to have immense power. His heart softened when he met Ying Li (played by Fala Chen), who charmed him after a sword duel that she won against him. It was love at first sight, and they got together soon after that.

Shang-Chi spent his entire life training to be a fighter and to follow in his father’s footsteps. Shang-Chi’s mother Li also gave him a special green pendant that she said he must never lose or give away. But tragedy struck when Shang-Chi was a teenager: His mother died. Wracked with griedfand despair, widower Xu Wenwu went back to his corrupt ways. There’s a part of the movie that reveals that Xu Wenwu also might have lost his mind to insanity.

When Shang-Chi was 14 years old, Xu Wenwu ordered him to complete his first “assignment” assassination. At age 15, Shang-Chi ran away from China to the United States. He ended up settling in San Francisco, where in high school he befriended a smart-alecky girl named Katy, and they’ve been best pals ever since. The movie does not show Shang-Chi’s American life during the time that he was in high school or in his 20s, but he and Katy have a few discussions about their past together.

Now in their early 30s, Shang-Chi (who changed his first name to Shaun) and Katy (played by Awkwafina) work together as parking valets at a ritzy hotel. They’re very educated and over-qualified for the job. He can speak four languages, while she has a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Katy has a mischievous and rebellious streak, since she’s the type of valet driver who will take a car out on a joy ride instead of parking it. That’s what she does when she gets handed the keys to a red BMW, which she takes to speed through traffic, with Shaun/Shang-Chi along for the ride.

Katy doesn’t know about Shang-Chi’s past until it catches up to him in one of the movie’s best action scenes. It’s when Iron Fist and some other thugs attack Shang-Chi and Katy while they’re on a moving bus. Katy is shocked to find out that her friend Shaun has superhero-level fighting skills. Later, he tells her that his real name is Shang-Chi.

But the “fight on the bus” scene kicks off the movie in a very thrilling way. The martial arts and choreography are top-notch. And there are some heart-pounding moments when Katy has the take the wheel of the bus and navigate through San Francisco’s hilly, narrow and crowded streets. It makes her daredevil joyrides as a valet look like an easygoing holiday in comparison.

Why is Shang-Chi being targeted by these goons, who seemed to come from out of nowhere? As he explains to Katy about his secret past, it means that his father must be looking for him, because the assassins took Shang-Li’s pendant. And you know what that means: Shang-Chi and Katy are going to China—Macau, to be more specific.

If non-talking monsters or aliens aren’t the main villains in a superhero movie, the talking villains better have a memorable personality. Unfortunately, as talented as Leung is as an actor, this type of formulaic, power-hungry overlord has been done in movies and TV so many times already. After watching “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” for the first time, the average viewer will be hard-pressed to remember one line of dialogue that Xu Wenwu said, although Leung certainly gives it his all in depicting a once-loving father who has since gone in an evil direction.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” does have moments of levity, mainly because of Katy’s sarcasm and the MCU re-appearance of Trevor Slattery (played by Ben Kingsley), a flamboyant British actor who was previously seen in 2013’s “Iron Man 3.” It won’t be revealed here what Trevor does in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” but it’s enough to say that a cute faceless and furry creature that Trevor has with him (about the size of a dog) will be one of the most remembered aspects about “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”

Dr. Strange sidekick Wong (played by Benedict Wong) is another MCU character who’s in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” although Wong’s screen time is a lot less than Trevor’s. New characters to the MCU include Shang-Chi’s estranged younger sister Xialing (played by Meng’er Zhang, making an impressive feature-film debut) and their aunt Ying Nan (played by Michelle Yeoh), who is the sister of Shang-Chi and Xialing’s late mother.

Before Shang-Chi and Katy go through predictable scenes of training for the big showdown battle that takes place at the end of the movie, there’s another standout fight scene that takes place on a skyscraper. In many ways, the skyscraper scene and the bus scenes are more unique and more thrilling fight than the final battle scene. This movie’s action definitely shines the most when it has martial arts between humans, rather than visual-effect-heavy battles with mythical creatures.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is a big step forward for Hollywood-made superhero movies that do not have a predominantly white cast. There’s plenty to like about the movie. But as an origin story, it relies a little too much on over-used, basic tropes. Except some of the fight scenes, there wasn’t a lot of originality in how this story was structured. The good news for people unfamiliar with the MCU, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is one of the few MCU movies that’s a true stand-alone film that doesn’t have a lot of references to other MCU films that you would have to know about to understand these references.

However, it’s not a good sign when one of those past references from an MCU movie (Trevor) is more entertaining to watch than the main hero and the main villain in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” Awkwafina might get mixed reactions in her role as Katy, since people seem to love or hate Awkafina’s off-screen personality. Liu is perfectly fine as Shang-Chi, but he doesn’t have the charisma to be in the upper echelon of beloved MCU characters. The rest of the cast is serviceable in their roles. This movie isn’t going to win any prestigious awards for any of the cast members.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” also has disappointing mid-credits and end-credits scenes. People really won’t miss anything if they skip the credits. However, it’s enough to say that the mid-credits scene does show Shang-Chi, Katy, Wong and two other MCU characters. As far as escapist entertainment goes, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” delivers enough to satisfy people who are fans of superhero movies or martial arts. But people who want more magnetic personalities in action heroes might have to look elsewhere.

Marvel Studios will release “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” in U.S. cinemas on September 3, 2021. A one-night-only sneak preview of the movie was screened in select IMAX cinemas in the U.S. and Canada on August 18, 2021.

Review: ‘Meat Me Halfway,’ starring Brian Kateman, Marion Nestle, Eric Adams, Will Harris III, Anita Krajnc, Ethan Brown and David Katz

August 22, 2021

by Carla Hay

Brian Kateman eating a Carl’s Jr. Beyond Burger in “Meat Me Halfway” (Photo courtesy of 1091 Pictures)

“Meat Me Halfway”

Directed by Brian Kateman and Journey Wade-Hak

Culture Representation: Taking place in various U.S. cities, the documentary film “Meat Me Halfway” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans, Latinos and Asians) discussing the factory farming industry’s effects on the environment and individual choices on whether not to eat meat.

Culture Clash: The debate continues over choices to be a meat eater versus being a vegan/vegetarian.

Culture Audience: “Meat Me Halfway” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in getting various perspectives on how the food and drinks we consume not only affect our health but also the environment.

Brian Kateman and Eat Just vice president of product development Chris Jones in “Meat Me Halfway” (Photo courtesy of 1091 Pictures)

“Meat Me Halfway” is not a preachy documentary that pushes a one-sided animal-rights agenda. It’s a well-rounded film with diverse viewpoints and options to help people decide if they want to be meat eaters or non-meat eaters. The filmmakers are very up front with their intent to give information to meat-eating people about why and how meat eating can be gradually reduced or eliminated from someone’s diet. However, the filmmakers also realisitically know that eating meat is a human lifestyle choice that isn’t going away anytime soon.

“Meat Me Halfway” co-directors/co-writers Brian Kateman and Journey Wade-Hak make their feature-film directorial debuts with this documentary and are also two of the movie’s producers. Kateman also serves as the documentary’s narrator, interviewer and on-camera guide during his cross-country journey in the U.S., to look at various sides of the meat-eating debate. As the co-founder president of the non-profit group Reducetarian Foundation, Kateman believes in the approach that getting a lot of people to stop eating meat can be effective if people gradually reduce their meat consumption, instead of pressuring people to immediately stop eating meat.

In the beginning of the documentary, Kateman appears on camera and makes this statement: “One of the reasons why I wanted to make this documentary is I’m confused. I’m a guy who wants to end factory farming. And I start a non-profit organization to make that happen. And so many people seem seriously pissed off about it. There are so many alarms going off from scientific bodies about the problems with our food system—particularly factory farming. And yet, meat consumption continues to climb.”

Factory farming, as opposed to organic farming, puts an emphasis on mass producing animals that can be slaughtered for meat or used for dairy products. Most people have seen photos or videos of these types of farms, which keep the animals in tightly confined, often unsanitary quarters that can only be described as cruel. However, whenever big money is involved, don’t expect there to be immediate changes to the factory farm system when the system is allowed under the law.

That leads anti-factory farming activists to take the approach that the best way to make changes in the system is to reduce consumer demand for meat. That doesn’t mean that the majority of the world will become vegetarians or vegans in a short period of time. But groups such as the Reducetarian Foundation want to educate people on the individual and environmental benefits of reducing meat consumption.

It was a good creative decision to make Kateman appear on camera and share his thoughts and reactions to what he finds out during the making of this documentary. He brings an engaging, likable tone to the film that will keep viewers interested. Kateman also reveals some of his own personal stories about how pressure from peer groups and his family (he was raised as a meat eater) affected his diet and nutrition decisions over the years.

Let’s face it: A lot of pro-vegan/vegetarian documentaries use either or both of these off-putting approaches: scare tactics with a lot of gruesome slaughterhouse footage or academic/scientific lectures with a lot of dull talking heads. Thankfully, “Meat Me Halfway” takes neither approach, which makes this documentary very accessible and relatable to everyone, regardless if you eat meat or not. The movie also makes excellent use of animation to illustrate many of the facts and figures mentioned in interviews.

“Meat Me Halfway” doesn’t shame people who eat meat but gives valuable information to anyone who might want to choose to reduce or stop their meat intake. There have already been many documentaries that go into the scientific details about the direct ties to meat consumption, carbon emissions and global warming/climate change. “Meat Me Halfway” quickly reiterates these scientific findings, but climate change not the main focus of the film.

Bill McKibben, a Schumann distinguished scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College in Connecticut, comments: “A fight is on to see not if we can stop global warming—at this point, it’s too late for that—but to see if we can stop it short of the point where it takes out the kinds of civilizations we’re used ot having.”

Dr. Marion Nestle—who is a Paulette Goddard professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University—thinks it’s kind of outrageous that in this day and age, when it’s been proven that diet is directly linked to health that this outdated practice is still going on: “Doctors are not taught nutrition in medical school.” She also believes that when it comes to the U.S, food industry, any system that benefits corporations the most will be the hardest to change.

Nestle also asks this question that she thinks animal-rights and nutrition activists need to answer in order to better communicate their agendas to the general public: “Who [in the business world] would benefit if people ate more heathily?” Nestle describes herself in the documentary as a responsible meat eater and someone who is in a “privileged position” to be able to seek out and buy food that didn’t come from a farm factory. She acknowledges that not everyone has those privileges, usually for socioeconomic or location reasons.

Dr. David Katz, founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, believes that U.S. culture runs on an unholy alliance that was made between the corporate manufactured food industry and Big Pharma. After all, if people are more likely to be unhealthy from eating mass-produced food, the pharmaceutical drug companies benefit from all the prescription medication that they can sell. It’s cycle that’s extremely difficult to break when billions of dollars are at stake.

“Meat Me Halfway” also includes a brief exploration of the history of human food consumption. Experts who are interviewed say that meat eating has always been part of human history, but that today’s humans eat more meat that humans in ancient times simply because mass production of meat has made it more accessible than ever before. Experts such as journalist Maryn McKenna point out that the mass production of food on factory farms also coincided with the rise of anti-biotics use on farm animals to get the animals to become have “more meat on their bones” and less likely to get sick.

Other academics interviewed in the documentary include Dr. Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London; Dr. James McWilliams, professor of history at Texas State University; and Dr. Paul Freedman, Chester P. Tripp professor fo history at Yale University; Authors and journalists who weigh in with their thoughts include “Meathooked” author Marta Zaraska, journalist/food historian Bee Wilson and journalist Mark Bittman.

Several animal-rights activists are interviewed in “Meat Me Halfway,” such as Toronto Pig Save founder Anita Krajnc, Animal Outlook executive director Erica Meier, Beyond Carnism president Dr. Melanie Joy and Farm Sanctuary president/co-founder Gene Bauer. Among the people who advocate for animal welfare, there are those who believe that meat eating and meat sales can’t be realistically eliminated, so they instead are pushing for better treatment of animals that are raised to be sold as meat. Meanwhile, others think that meat eating is never ethical and should be stopped completely.

Meier says, “Supporting any level of slaughter is wrong.” During Kateman’s interview with Krajnc, he asks her if she thinks it’s acceptable for people to decide to gradually stop eating meat, on their own terms. She replies, “I don’t think it’s an acceptable premise to say one should eat less meat. When we go to slaughterhouses and see the animal victims, every individual matters.”

Krajnc then invites Kateman to a protest gathering that takes place at a Farmer John slaughterhouse in Los Angeles. The purpose of the gathering is to line the streets with animal rights activists, as the pigs are being transported in trucks to the slaughterhouse, and spray water into the thristy pigs’ snouts and mouths, to give the pigs some comfort before they’re killed. The activists do not do anything illegal, such as block traffic, but they sometimes carry signs to show their condemnation of slaughtering animals.

Kateman expresses trepidation at first about going to this activist gathering, because he doesn’t think he wants to experience what he knows will be disturbing sights, sounds and smells of pigs being forced to die. But he ends up going anyway, and it’s an extremely emotional experience for him. He’s moved to tears. The movie includes the sounds of pigs squealing in horror as they are driven into the slaughterhouse.

Kateman said was most painful to him was to make eye contact with a pig inside one of the trucks, and he felt the pain and fear that the pig was experiencing. He also expresses disgust at the slaughterhouse’s outside wall mural paintings , which depict pigs frolicking on a farm, as if Farmer John is a happy and peaceful place for pigs. Kateman says these murals make a hypocritical mockery of what goes on inside the slaughterhouse.

However, the documentary includes the perspectives of people who are trying to make the meat industry more humane in how it treats animals who will inevitably killed for meat. These advocates want better living conditions for animals and less painful ways for the animals to die. One of those people is Daisy Freund, ASPCA director of farm and animal welfare, who monitors farms and gives them ratings based on how well these farms treat animals.

Freund recommends to Kateman that he visit White Oak Pastures, a non-factory farm in Bluffton, Georgia, because White Oak Pastures has received among the highest ratings in the U.S. for its humane treatment of farm animals that are raised for future meat consumption. White Oaks Pastures owner Will Harris III, with his Southern drawl and wry sense of humor, is one of the more memorable personalities in this documentary.

Harris gives Kateman a tour of White Oak Pastures and allows the documentary cameras to record anything except the actual slaughter of animals. Harris explains that what sets his farm apart from most other farms is that the animals are not confined into tight spaces and are instead allowed to roam in their natural habitats. “Animals need to express instinctive behavior,” Harris says,

In addition, Harris says that White Oak Pastures has its own slaughterhouse on the property, so that the animals raised on the farm won’t be transported in a truck for long distances. The documentary has footage in the slaughterhouse of dead animals (such as cows and chickens) being skinned and gutted. Harris says that White Oak Pastures uses a heart electrode device to paralyze and kill the animals, and he claims scientists have told him the animals experience quick and painless deaths using this method.

“Meat Me Halfway” clearly endorses the idea that people should be eating more plant-based food instead of meat. It also responsibly acknowledges that the types of food that people have access to are usually determined by socioeconomic status and location. And that often means that low-income areas (especially those populated by people of color) are frequently at a disadvantage.

One of the people who talks about this problem is Eric Adams, who was president of New York City’s Brooklyn borough at the time he was interviewed, but he has since gone on to become the Democratic nominee and widely predicted winner of the 2021 New York City mayoral race. Adams comments, “I believe, depending on where you live, your zip code determines the quality of fruits and vegetables you’re going to receive. Far too many quality stores and supermarkets really don’t believe that inner city communities will like that quality of food.”

Of course, it’s a myth that lower-income people don’t want quality food. It’s just that the closest food stores to them might not have the high-quality food stores that are more in abundance in higher-income areas. Olympia Auset, founder of the mobile grocery seller Süpermarkt that services low-income neighborhoods, is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. She says she’s seen first-hand how low-income people are often deprived of getting fresh fruits and vegetables in their neighborhoods, because many of her customers tell her how far out of the way they would have to travel to get this type of produce that’s easily available in other neighborhoods.

One of the reasons why the mass-produced meat industry is such a juggernaut is because food that is mass-produced tends to be less expensive than organic food. Plant-Based Food Association founder Michele Simon comments that the three most powerful deciders in food choices are taste, price and convenience. It’s mentioned multiple times in the documentary that people are more likely to change their eating habits if it will cost them less money. The problem for a lot of people who don’t have the luxury of spending whatever they want on food, healthier food is usually more expensive than less-healthy food.

So what are meat eaters to do if they want to become a vegetarian or vegan but they don’t want to give up the taste of meat or dairy products? That’s why there’s currently a boom in companies that make and sell plant-based food that tastes like meat and dairy products. Several leaders of these companies are interviewed in the documentary, including Beyond Meat founder/CEO Ethan Brown, Miyoko’s Creamery founder/CEO Miyoko Schinner, Clara Foods founder/CEO Arturo Elizondo, New Age Meats founder/CEO Brian Spears and Finless Foods co-founder CEO Michael Selden.

“Meat Me Halfway” also takes viewers inside a few food labs where these vegan foods are crafted and perfected, like food scientists putting together the right healthy ingredients for a recipe. New Age Meats director of biological Dr. Nicholas Legendre says that these foods go through similar testing processes before being put on the market that any other meat and dairy products would have to go through to get FDA approval.

There’s a scene in the movie where Kateman visits Eat Just headquarters in San Francisco and gets to be one of the first people to taste a meatless chicken nugget that the company is testing. Kateman gives this new product his a positive response by saying it really does “taste just like chicken,” Eat Just vice president of product development Chris Jones seems very happy with Kateman’s reaction and says it’s the highest compliment to hear that this meatless “chicken” tastes like real chicken.

Not everyone is a fan of vegan “meat” products. New York University’s Nestle says that she doesn’t really trust what kind of experimental ingrdients could be in these types of products, and that she would rather eat real meat instead. The documentary also mentions that there have been some reports (unverified by any major scientific organization) that making vegan “meat” uses more environmental resources than what it takes to process real meat. These are claims that Beyond Meat’s Brown vehemently denies and says that the opposite is true, at least for his company.

One of the most personal aspects of “Meat Me Halfway” is when Kateman interviews his meat-loving parents Russell Kateman and Linda Kateman at the parents’ home on New York City’s Staten Island. Both parents are skeptical that eating less meat can help the environment. Russell says, “I think it’s a joke.” Linda adds, “We haven’t seen any proof.”

Russell also admits that he’s not very concerned about global warming. “I’m more concerned about the temperature in the house.” Russell and Linda (who are both in their 60s) also say that’ve never heard of avocado toast and they’ve never eaten avocados before in their lives. The documentary includes footage of David serving Russell and Linda some avocado dip with potato chips, and the parents have a lukewarm reaction to the taste of avocado.

About two years later, Russell has undergone a transformation that won’t be detailed in this review, but it’s shown in he documentary. Let’s put it this way: There’s a scene later in the movie of Russell and Linda at a dinner table with plates filled with avocado. That scene looks a little too staged, but the point is that Russell and Linda have become more open about eating more fruits and vegetables, compared to their first interview that was shown in the documentary.

At 80 minutes long, “Meat Me Halfway” is a well-paced and informative film that will give people of any food persuasion a lot to think about what their food choices can be. The movie’s greatest strength is how it includes an admirable variety of perspectives, so that viewers can make up their own minds on the meat-eating debate. The commentators are passionate about what they believe without being overbearing in trying to convince people to agree with them. It’s never easy to do a documentary about the intersections between food, health, environmental issues and animal rights, but “Meat Me Halfway” presents it all in a cohesive manner that can resonate with plenty of viewers of diverse backgrounds and food lifestyles.

1091 Pictures released “Meat Me Halfway” on digital and VOD on July 20, 2021.

Review: ‘Flag Day,’ starring Dylan Penn and Sean Penn

August 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

Sean Penn and Dylan Penn in “Flag Day” (Photo courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc.)

“Flag Day”

Directed by Sean Penn

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Minnesota, the dramatic film “Flag Day” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman reflects on the troubled relationship that she’s had with her con-man father, who has been in and out of her life. 

Culture Audience: “Flag Day” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of director/star Sean Penn, but this movie is an erratic mix of monotony and melodrama, adding up to disappointing filmmaking.

Dylan Penn in “Flag Day” (Photo courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc.)

“Flag Day” should’ve been titled “Daddy Issues in a Self-Indulgent Movie.” That should save people the trouble of wasting their time if they don’t want to see this rambling, uneven mess. Everything about this movie—from the acting to the screenwriting to the directing—could have been so much better, given the level of talent involved. Sadly, “Flag Day” is an example of what can happen when people capable of award-winning work just seem to be coasting off of those past glories instead of delivering a truly outstanding project.

Directed by Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, “Flag Day” is the sixth feature film that he’s directed but the first in which he’s both the director and a star. “The Flag Day” screenplay, written by brothers Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, is based on journalist Jennifer Vogel’s memoir “Flim-Flam Man.” In real life, Jennifer’s father John Vogel was a notorious con man who was responsible for counterfeiting millions of dollars.

In “Flag Day,” Jennifer (played by Dylan Penn, the real-life daughter of Sean Penn and his second ex-wife Robin Wright) is the narrator and is supposed to be the story’s main character. However, she’s overshadowed by her father John (played by Sean Penn), even when he isn’t on screen, because the filmmakers make the Jennifer character someone who’s constantly thinking about and reacting to whatever her father does. It very off-putting because it’s yet another movie where toxic masculinity is given more importance and more forgiveness than the woman at the center of the story while she’s supposed to be finding her own identity.

There’s a half-hearted attempt at a “female empowerment” message during the last five minutes of the film. But it smacks of insincerity because she only arrives at this breakthrough not through her own choice but because she’s been forced to do so under some very disturbing circumstances where she has no other option. And the way she finds out that she has no choice is one of the worst scenes in the movie.

“Flag Day” gets its title because John was born on Flag Day. It’s another sign that this movie wants to be more about John than about Jennifer. As Jennifer says in her voiceover narration, because John was born on Flag Day, he likes to believe that any Flag Day parades and celebrations are really for him. Get ready for more narcissism and delusions of grandeur, because John is the epitome of these obnoxious personality traits.

The movie shows Jennifer at various stages in her life, from childhood to adulthood, in chronological order. The exception is the opening scene, which takes place in a police station when Jennifer is an adult in her 20s. She’s meeting with someone named U.S. Marshal Blake (played by Regina King), who shows Jennifer some of the evidence that law enforcement has against John for his counterfeiting activities. According to U.S. Marshal Blake, John passed more than $50,000 in counterfeit U.S. bills and had printed about $2 million worth of more counterfeit bills. For his forgeries, John was facing a maximum of 75 years in prison.

U.S. Marshal Blake seems sympathetic to Jennifer and confides in her that her own father “poked so many holes in his arm” (in order words, he was a needle-using drug addict) “that it was like a rehearsal for the ultimate rejection.” U.S. Marshal Blake adds, “We get used to it, don’t we?” The movie circles back to this scene with U.S. Marshal Blake toward the end of the film, as viewers find out what happened to John after he was caught for his forgery.

But in between, the rest of the story is about how John held Jennifer as an emotional hostage for much of her life—even when she didn’t know it. Because the movie is supposed to be told from Jennifer’s perspective, her childhood memories of John tend to be rosier than what he deserved. There are obvious clues that things were not as wonderful as Jennifer remembers.

The movie’s flashback timeline begins in the early 1970s, when a 6-year-old Jennifer (played by Addison Tymec), who grew up in Minnesota, has memories of her parents being free spirits who liked to party and go on road trips. Jennifer remembers her father as the more fun-loving parent. John and his wife Patty Vogel (played by Katheryn Winnick) moved around a lot with Jennifer and her introverted brother Nick (played by Cole Flynn), who is two years younger than Jennifer. As Jennifer tells it, she began to think that if her life were a fairytale, her father would definitely be a prince.

In reality, John had trouble making an honest living. He jumped around from one “get rich quick” scheme to the next, always with the promise that the latest one would be the one to make their dreams come true. And he also got involved with shady people, often owing large sums of money. If John showed up at home looking like he was in a fight, chances are it was because of his debts.

The movie shows that as a child, Jennifer also witnessed John verbally and physically abuse Patty. But as many children in abusive homes tend to do, they block out the worst memories. Jennifer still thought of her father as her hero. There’s a scene of reckless John teaching Jennifer at around 11 or 12 years old (played by Jadyn Rylee) how to drive, by having her sit on his lap to operate the car, even though she could barely reach the gas pedal and brake pedal. Tymec and Rylee are quite good in their roles as childhood Jennifer.

John’s con games and irresponsible lifestyle eventually took a toll on his marriage to Patty, who became an alcoholic. Patty left John around the time that Jennifer was 13 years old and Nick (played by Beckam Crawford) was about 11 years old. The couple eventually divorced. Because of Patty’s alcoholism, there’s a brief period of time when Jennifer and Nick live with John and his girlfriend Debbie (played by Bailey Noble), who treats the kids well. The children get a first-hand look at John’s outlaw lifestyle.

Because Jennifer idolizes her father, she blames Patty for the couple’s divorce. When Patty tries to warn Jennifer about how much John can be hurtful, Jennifer always dismisses these warnings. More than once, Patty tells Jennifer that she “knows things” about John that she can’t tell Jennifer. Those secrets are never revealed in the movie, but they don’t really have to be disclosed because enough is shown about John to prove what a lousy person he is.

The only other Vogel family members who are shown in the movie are John’s brother Beck (played by Josh Brolin) and their mother Margaret (played by Dale Dickey). Beck is sympathetic to Patty and helps her and the kids get settled into a new place when she decides to leave John. Beck is an intermittent presence in their lives, and he candidly tells Patty how sorry he is that John couldn’t be a better husband and father.

Margaret is a crabby racist who has one scene in the movie, where she complains that John (who is clearly her favorite child) had a great business years ago until it was burned down. Margaret says that she and John think jealous black people were the ones who caused the fire, even though there’s no proof of who committed the arson. Considering John’s history as a con man and his constant money problems, it’s easy to speculate that John was the one who committed the arson for the insurance money.

The movie than fast-forwards to 1981. Jennifer is now a rebellious, drug-abusing teenager in high school. Her natural blonde hair is dyed black and styled to look like she’s a Joan Jett wannabe. (It’s an obvious wig though. This movie needed a better hairstyling team.) Jennifer and Nick live with Patty and her boyfriend Doc (played by Norbert Leo Butz), who tries to come across as a respectable, upstanding person. In reality, Doc is a drunk and a sleazeball, who tries to sexually assault Jennifer one night in her bedroom while Patty is asleep.

Jennifer screams and manages to fight him off. The commotion is loud enough to wake up Patty, who goes in the room to find out what all the noise is about. Patty sees how distraught Jennifer is and sees that Doc is on the floor in his underwear. It’s easy to figure out what happened, even though Jennifer is too shocked and/or ashamed to say it out loud. Patty takes Doc’s side and makes the excuse that he was drunk and probably thought he was in the wrong bedroom.

Jennifer’s relationship with her mother is never really the same after that. They have some very angry arguments, where Jennifer expresses outrage that her mother failed to protect her from Doc. It isn’t long before Jennifer runs away from home. Jennifer barely says goodbye to Nick (played by Hopper Jack Penn, Dylan Penn’s real-life brother), who just kind of fades into the background for the rest of the movie. After Jennifer experiences the harshness of living on the streets (the movie doesn’t say for how long), Jennifer decides to show up unannounced at her father John’s place, where he lives alone, and she asks if she can stay with him.

John is reluctant at first, but he eventually agrees. Jennifer also tries to get him to turn his life around. John actually gets a straight-laced sales job in an office. But viewers can easily predict that John, who’s spent most of his adult life as a con man, is eventually going back to his criminal ways. The movie telegraphs it in the opening scene, where Jennifer has the meeting with U.S Marshal Blake about John’s counterfeiting.

After a while, it becomes tiresome to see the same patterns over and over again: Jennifer loves her father, but she can’t really trust him because he’s a pathological liar. They are in and out of each other’s lives. She struggles with deciding whether to give him yet another chance or to completely cut herself off from him.

But here’s the biggest problem with how Jennifer’s story is told in this movie: Even when Jennifer reaches adulthood, John is still portrayed as her unhealthy focus in life. Not once do viewers see if Jennifer had any significant friendships or fell in love—in other words, the movie makes it look like she never established any deep emotional connections or meaningful relationships with anyone besides her father. Jennifer and her brother Nick were close as children, but after she ran away from home, it seems like they were never that close again.

There are montages of Jennifer being a drifter and partying with various people whose names and personalities are never shown in the movie. Eventually, Jennifer decides to get her life together, and she enrolls in the University of Minnesota in 1985. But even that scene looks rushed and phony. She has a meeting with an admissions officer named Dr. Halstead (played by Nigel Fisher), who scolds her for lying on her application about being a high school dropout. At first Jennifer denies it, but then she admits she lied and that she never graduated from high school.

Dr. Halstead takes pity on her and says that if she lied about something like that, then it must mean that she really wants a college education. And just like that, he says that Jennifer can enroll in the university. In reality, university admissions are much more complicated and have more people involved in making the decisions than what’s portrayed in this movie. And telling a big lie on a college application would be automatic grounds for disqualification, unless someone can squeak by because of exceptional intelligence or because the applicant’s family is rich. Jennifer doesn’t fit either description.

“Flag Day” doesn’t know if it wants to be a gritty drama or a hokey soap opera. Jennifer says corny lines in her narration, such as when she makes this comment about her rogue father: “He left a trail of broken glass and broken hearts.” What is this? A Hallmark Channel movie? No, because there’s cursing, drug use and violence.

Sean Penn’s direction tends to be overwrought with close-ups of Dylan Penn’s face, as if Jennifer is a tragic ingenue heroine who has to bear the burdens of her father’s sins. She does an adequate job in her role overall, except in the melodramatic scenes which just look like over-acting. Sean Penn tries to depict John as a lovably messed-up outlaw. But it’s all so unconvincing and too contrived, in order to gloss over the reality of John being an abuser and a racist. Sean Penn does a lot of annoying mugging for the camera in this movie.

While the filmmakers clearly want viewers to feel sympathy for Jennifer, nowhere is it adequately addressed how she did some emotional damage of her own too, when she abandoned her younger brother Nick. The movie doesn’t care to explore how Nick was affected by all of his family trauma. And because “Flag Day” never shows Jennifer having any real friends or lovers, the movie leaves a big question mark about how her dysfunctional childhood affected her personal relationships as an adult.

There’s something very wrong with a movie that’s supposed to be about a young woman’s journey to form her own identity, and yet viewers learn more about who her father hangs out with and dates than they learn about her personal life. It’s a sloppily told story where the filmmakers use a woman’s pain as a “bait and switch” gimmick, when the movie is really a showcase about a man behaving badly.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures released “Flag Day” in select U.S. cinemas on August 20, 2021.

Review: ‘John and the Hole,’ starring Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle and Taissa Farmiga

August 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

Charlie Shotwell in “John and the Hole” (Photo by Paul Özgür/IFC Films)

“John and the Hole”

Directed by Pascual Sisto

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

Culture Clash: A 13-year-old boy drugs and abducts his mother, father and older teenage sister, so that he can keep them captive in a bunker on a nearby property. 

Culture Audience: “John and the Hole” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching strange and baffling dramas about teenagers who commit disturbing crimes.

Michael C. Hall, Taissa Farmiga and Jennifer Ehle in “John and the Hole” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

The rambling and pretentious drama “John and the Hole” raises more questions than it answers about a teenage boy who holds his family members hostage in an underground bunker. If the point of the movie was to show what a teenage sociopath looks like, then congratulations. Mission accomplished. If the goal was to present a meaningful story, then this movie is a failure.

Directed by Pascual Sisto and written by Nicolás Giacobone, “John and the Hole” is a sluggishly paced film that’s meant to be a psychological portrait of the emotionally detached teenager who commits this crime. Once it’s established that the teen troublemaker is a sociopath, “John and the Hole” doesn’t have much to say. The majority of the movie is about how he gives his family no explanation for why he’s holding them captive, and he lies to people to cover up his family’s disappearance.

Without giving away any spoiler information, it’s enough to say that viewers will be very disappointed if they might be expecting some kind of insightful ending to this story. There’s also an unnecessary subplot involving a single mother and her 12-year-old daughter who do not know this family and have nothing do with the crime. Don’t expect any clues on how or why this teen sociopath ended up this way. The characters in this movie have no backstories.

John Shea (played by Charlie Shotwell) is a 13-year-old who lives in a sleek, upper-middle-class home with his father Brad (played by Michael C. Hall), mother Anna (played by Jennifer Ehle) and sister Laurie (played by Taissa Farmiga), who’s about 16 or 17 years old. The house is in a wooded area that’s somewhat isolated. On the surface, they seem like a typical American family with a comfortable lifestyle in an unnamed U.S. city. (“John and the Hole” was actually filmed in Massachusetts.)

But the “normalcy” is all a façade, at least when it comes to John. He’s a quiet and introverted loner, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. The beginning of the movie tries to make it look like John is slightly behind in learning development, compared to his peers. The opening scene is of John in a classroom being asked by a teacher (played by Pamela Jayne Morgan) what the square root of 125 is. John repeats, “I don’t know,” until he gets the correct answer.

At home, John is using his toy drone in the woods when it gets stuck in a tree. When he climbs the tree to reach the drone, it accidentally falls into an area of the woods that he can’t reach. During this attempt to get his drone back, John notices a partially finished underground bunker that looks like construction on it has been abandoned. There’s nothing inside this bunker but walls. The bunker is about 20 feet deep and is about the size of a medium-sized shed.

When John goes home, he somewhat nonchalantly tells his father Brad that he lost the drone. Brad is annoyed and disappointed, but he doesn’t seem too surprised. John mentions the underground bunker and asks his parents if they know anything about it. John’s mother Anna mentions hearing that the land owner ran out of money to finish the bunker and/or the construction permit expired. She also explains to John that bunkers are where people want to live in case of emergencies.

Laurie and John seem to have a typical sibling relationship. They argue sometimes, such as when John keeps bouncing a tennis ball off of a ceiling, and he ignores Laurie’s request for him to stop. They get into a little scuffle when Laurie takes the tennis ball away.

It’s mentioned later in the movie that Brad has put John in a tennis program, with the hope that John will become a star player. John has been training for the “qualies” (a tennis term for qualifying rounds), which will determine if John can qualify to compete in state-level tennis tournaments. After holding his family members captive in the bunker, John uses this tennis training as an excuse for why he’s the only person who’s stayed behind in the house when certain adults show up to look for his absent family members.

There are no signs that John is in an abusive home. It’s implied throughout the story that he was probably born with sociopathic tendencies. What John does in the movie goes beyond what an underage teenager would do to try to be in a house for days without parental supervision. John isn’t as intellectually underdeveloped as he first seems to be. He’s actually a cunning manipulator.

In fact, as soon as John finds out about the bunker, there’s a very big clue that he meticulously planned how to force his family into the bunker. However, what he didn’t plan very well was how to deal with any inquiring adults who would want to know where John’s parents and sister are. His lies often seem like he hastily thought them up, almost like he was so fixated on holding his family captive that he didn’t think much about how people who see the family on a regular basis would get suspicious of not seeing Brad, Anna and Laurie for several days.

The first red flag that something is off-kilter about John is when he drugs the family’s unsuspecting, middle-aged gardener Charles (played by Lucien Spellman), who sometimes goes by the name Charlie, by spiking a glass of lemonade that John gives to Charles. It’s not mentioned what type of medication was used, but it’s a sedative that’s so powerful that it causes Charles to lose consciousness. Charles is a friendly employee and there’s no reason for John to hate Charles. John is just using Charles as a test.

Somehow (it’s never shown how), John is able to put Charles in a wheelbarrow. Charles is of average height and has a somewhat stocky build, which means that he would be too heavy for a scrawny 13-year-old boy to carry on his own. Like many other things in this poorly written movie, “John and the Hole” skips over logical details. Viewers will find out later in the story what happened to Charles.

John uses the same drugging method to secretly incapacitate his parents and sister while they’re asleep. It’s implied that he put the drug in their food or drinks at dinner. The movie shows John dragging their unconscious bodies out of their bedrooms. But after that, it doesn’t show how he was able to get their bodies inside the bunker without breaking any of their bones.

The only way to get in and out of the bunker is by climbing on something tall enough to reach the surface (such as a ladder) or by being lifted. The bunker has no sharp incline where people can slide or climb in and out. Anyone who jumps into the bunker is at risk of getting injured on the hard surface of the floor. Sure, John could’ve used a wheelbarrow to dump his family members into the bunker, but that would also mean they would sustain major injuries when they hit the floor.

How this physically slight 13-year-old got three adult-sized people into this deep hole without any injuries is a major plot hole (no pun intended) that the movie never addresses. The movie just shows Brad, Anna and Laurie waking up in the bunker and being confused over what happened. At first, they think it’s the work of an intruder and they’re fearful of what happened to John.

But when they find out that John is the culprit, the parents are shocked, but Laurie isn’t. She says that she’s always suspected that John hates them. John ignores their pleas to get them out of the bunker or to call for help. He throws food and water down to them, but not on a regular basis. At different points in the movie, he even cooks risotto for them and throws down some blankets when the weather gets cold, as if he thinks he’s being very generous. John never says why he’s keeping them captive.

Of course, John’s parents and sister do the best they can to get themselves out of this horrible situation. They try to climb on each other’s backs, to make a human ladder, but the three of them aren’t tall enough to reach the surface. They also try yelling for help, but the bunker is in a very remote part of the woods. It’s very unlikely that anyone will pass through that area, except for John, who is the only person on the outside who knows that they’re in the bunker.

The rest of the movie, until the last 10 minutes, shows how John lies to people to cover up for why his parents and sister are not around and why they aren’t returning phone calls and messages. John stops going to school, and no one from his school tries to find out why. The movie also doesn’t explain why no one from Laurie’s school or Brad’s job tries to find out why Laurie and Brad aren’t there. These are just more examples of how badly conceived and ridiculous ths movie is.

It’s unclear if Anna is a homemaker or has a job outside the home. The first person to notice that Anna is missing is her good friend Paula (played by Tamara Hickey), who stops by the house because she and Anna were supposed to go an event together. Paula is upset because it’s out of character for Anna to make them tardy for an event where people are expecting them.

John’s lie—which he never wavers from every time someone asks him where his family is—is to say that his parents and sister had to abruptly leave because Anna’s father had a heart attack, is in a coma, and isn’t expected to live much longer. John explains that the family had to travel out of the area for this family emergency, and that they decided to leave John behind so he wouldn’t miss his tennis training.

John also tells Paula that it’s unlikely that his mother will call her because Anna is just too stressed out. Does that sound believable to you? Paula seems a little suspicious of this story, but she doesn’t really question it until the days go on and she still hasn’t gotten a phone call from Anna, despite leaving many messages.

Meanwhile, John drives one of the family’s cars to withdraw cash from an ATM (by using his parents’ bank card) and to buy things that he wants. He also gets lonely and invites an online friend over to the home, so that they can meet in person for the first time. The friend, who’s about the same age as John, is named Peter (played by Ben O’Brien), and he’s told the same story about why John is alone in the house.

John drives Peter in the family car multiple times, such as when they go to a store and when John goes to a bank ATM to get more cash. Peter doesn’t seem the least bit concerned that John (who definitely does not look old enough to drive) will be caught illegally driving. It’s just more ridiculousness on display. Peter’s parents are barely mentioned, but apparently, he has the type of freedom where he can just go over to a stranger’s home to spend the night whenever he wants, without his parents wanting to know where he’s going and who will be with him.

At John’s house, Peter and John spend time playing video games, goofing around, and doing a dangerous underwater experiment in the house’s swimming pool. They each try to hold the other down underwater for as long as possible. At one point, it looks like John might actually drown Peter.

There’s another part to this movie which is supposed to be artsy, but it just comes across as nonsensical. Before John’s parents and sister are shown waking up in the bunker, the movie shows a 12-year-old girl named Lily (played by Samantha LeBretton) asking her mother Gloria (played by Georgia Lyman) to tell her a story called “John and the Hole.” Who are Lily and Gloria? Don’t expect to this movie to give any clear answers.

As time goes on, it becomes harder for John to keep his secret. His tennis instructor (played by Elijah Ungvary) gets a little suspicious when John offers to pay the latest fee in cash. The instructor refuses to take the money because he says he’s used to getting paid by check. And when Paula comes back to the house to check on John, he acts clingy and bizarre by asking her to spend the night with him. It’s not the type of thing that Paula will easily overlook.

In the beginning of the movie, Laurie mentions her boyfriend named Josh. She appears to be having a hot romance with him because she wants to spend as much time with him as possible. However, not once does Josh appear in the story. Even if John wanted to impersonate Laurie by using her phone to text Josh, it still doesn’t explain how this boyfriend wouldn’t be suspicious that he hadn’t heard his girlfriend’s voice in more than a week.

In order for a movie about a sociopath to have some type of impact, viewers need to have more information than just a series of scenes where the sociopath acts weird and secretive. John and his family are not shown in any significant way, except for what happens when he keeps them captive. It’s not the actors’ fault, because they seem to be doing the best that that can with this very unimaginative and limiting screenplay. Shotwell shows talent in playing a teenager who seems to be emotionally defective, but John has absolutely no charm or wit to suggest that he can keep up a long-term charade like a skilled sociopath.

While John’s parents and sister are trapped in the bunker, they mostly complain about their discomfort (they’re underfed and they can’t take showers), and they sometimes bicker with each other. They make a minimal effort to try to figure out what could have caused John to commit such a heinous act. The only clue that Anna can come up with is that John once asked her what it was like to be an adult. Anna says that her answer was that it was just like being a kid, but with responsibilities.

That’s still not a good-enough explanation. Lots of underage kids would like to be home alone without adult supervision. That doesn’t mean they’re going to keep their family members in captivity. How John’s family deals with this problem is supposed to be this movie’s commentary on the denial that family members can have when they have a loved one who is mentally unstable or a sociopath. However, the way that this movie presents everything is as empty as John’s soul.

IFC Films released “John and the Hole” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 6, 2021.

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