Tag: San Francisco

Review: ‘Suburban Fury,’ starring Sara Jane Moore

October 10, 2024

by Carla Hay

Sara Jane Moore in “Suburban Fury” (Photo courtesy of 2R Productions)

“Suburban Fury”

Directed by Robinson Devor

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Suburban Fury” has only one person interviewed: Sara Jane Moore, a deliberately mysterious person who has had many different identities.

Culture Clash: Before spending more than 30 years in prison for trying to shoot U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975, Moore says she was an informant for the FBI.

Culture Audience: “Suburban Fury” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching “where are they now” documentaries about notorious people who have faded from the public eye.

Sara Jane Moore in “Suburban Fury” (Photo courtesy of 2R Productions)

“Suburban Fury” is a mixed bag of a documentary about Sara Jane Moore, who famously tried to assassinate Gerald Ford in 1975. Moore is the only person interviewed for this retro-inspired movie, which she seems to be using as a way to play mind games. Viewers will hear some interesting stories from her, which might or might not have credibility since there’s no one in the documentary who can verify her elaborate tales of being a FBI informant going undercover as a left-wing radical.

A caption mentions in the beginning of “Suburban Fury” that Moore agreed to be in the documentary by insisting that she would be the only person interviewed for the movie. “Suburban Fury” could have have used more independent research to help verify some of Moore’s unverified claims. However, “Suburban Fury” succeeds at being a “where are they now” curiosity spectacle that re-creates and shows some archival material from Moore’s past. Moore (who was born in 193O) is purposely vague about her personal life but discusses at length her alleged involvement with the FBI as a confidential informant during the 1970s.

Directed by Robinson Devor, “Suburban Fury” had its world premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival. The movie was filmed in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Moore has been a longtime resident and where she committed her notorious act of trying to kill a U.S. president. On September 22, 1975, she used a .38 caliber gun to fire a single shot at then-U.S. President Ford while she standing in a crowd across the street from him when he was outside the St. Francis Hotel during a public visit to San Francisco. Moore was quickly arrested. She pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 2007.

Moore insisted then, as she does in this documentary, that she is perfectly sane. However, her unfocused ramblings don’t sound completely believable. Moore admits that she has spent much of her life being a pretender: When she was young, she was an aspiring actress. Later, she says she was very skilled at leading a life of many identities at once: She was a suburban housewife who also hung out and partied with people who were members of extreme left-wing factions of the Black Liberation movement.

Many of the interviews of Moore are conducted while she’s in the back seat of a 1970s station wagon parked on a San Francisco hill, while an unidentified man in a suit stands near the car, as if he’s on the lookout for someone, or waiting to see if Moore will try to leave. In the documentary’s end credits, a caption says that “Suburban Fury” was made with the cooperation of the U.S. Secret Service, but there is no further elaboration.

Moore gets very feisty and irritable with Devor, who can be heard but not seen asking her some questions. She yells at him if she doesn’t like the questions. She also gets very uptight and evasive about certain topics. For example, she defiantly says she won’t talk about her current family life because she wants to protect her family’s privacy.

The documentary has no information about what Moore did with her life after she was paroled from prison. The majority of what she talks about in the documentary is what she did in the 1970s, when she was supposedly an undercover informant for the FBI. She contradicts herself by saying she has no regrets about the presidential assassination attempt and but also saying in another interview that it was a mistake. There’s also some not-very-interesting commentary from her about what her life was like in prison.

“Suburban Fury” often uses boxy film aspect ratios of a 1970s-styled home movie, to give the look of a movie that could have been filmed in the era when Super 8 film cameras were consider hi-tech. “Suburban Fury” has the expected archival footage of the assassination attempt. Moore describes what happened immediately after she was apprehended by law enforcement. She says that male police officers began beating her out of anger at her attempted assassination. She says at one point during this assault, her trousers were pulled down, and one of the officers exclaimed in surprise that she was a woman.

The way Moore tells it, in the years before she went to prison, she was recruited by the FBI to infiltrate Black Liberation groups because the word on the street was that these groups would trust her. She says her main FBI contact was someone whom she calls Bertram “Bert” Worthington, which she says is not his real name. She tells elaborate stories about clandestine meetings with Worthington, whom she describes as a Yale University graduate who wore raggedy tweed suits and always treated her like a respectable lady.

These stories are the basis for the documentary’s narration of what Worthington might say about Moore now. “Surburban Fury” director Devor is the voice of Worthington in this narration. In “Suburban Fury,” Moore claims that Worthington knew about her plans to shoot Gerald Ford and advised her to escape with her son in her car and become a fugitive if she succeeded with her plan.

Moore will only discuss her doomed marriages to two of her ex-husbands, including the unnamed doctor whom she was married to when she was arrested for the assassination attempt. She says she was miserable in the marriage because he refused to let her have a job. “Surburban Fury” includes declassified FBI files that show by the time 45-year-old Moore was involved in this assassination attempt, she had already been married and divorced five times.

She also mentions how her previous husband—whom she does not name but she will only describe as someone who worked in the movie industry—wanted her to have an abortion when she had a surprise pregnancy. She refused to terminate the pregnancy. Moore speaks fondly of her son, whom she raised for a period of time with her doctor husband as her son’s stepfather. But the documentary also shows the FBI files that list she gave birth to about four children whom she abandoned. Moore is not fully confronted in the documentary about all the secrets and lies that she seems have accumulated in her life.

Moore will only admit that she came from an affluent background in West Virginia. The documentary has photos of Moore at various stages in her life when she had several surnames, to show without saying that she has long been a chameleon with different identities. Was she a bored housewife who somehow got caught up in espionage and political conspiracies? Or was she a calculating manipulator who knew exactly what she was doing?

“Suburban Fury” goes off on a tangent to discuss the 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patricia “Patty” Hearst, who was a 19-year-old student at the Unversity of California at Berkeley at the time of her abduction. Hearst joined her kidnappers in the left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army (which claimed to have an ideology of “rob from the rich to give to the poor”) on a crime spree that included bank robberies. Moore expresses disdain for SLA and Hearst, by saying that Hearst was kind of stupid and that SLA should have kidnapped Hearst’s wealthy father (Randolph Apperson Hearst) instead of going after one of his children.

What does SLA have to do with Moore? SLA was associated with Wilbert “Popeye” Jackson, who was involved with prison reform as a founder of United Prisoner Union while he was incarcerated at San Quentin Prison. Moore says she was one of many lovers that Jackson had at the time, like a harem. According to Moore, Jackson was sympathetic to the SLA but he also wanted to help Patty Hearst because he hoped that her father would reward Jackson by helping give a good education to Jackson’s son.

Moore also had an indirect connection to the Hearst family because she was a volunteer bookeeper for People in Need, a charity established by the Hearst family in response to SLA’s demands that in order for SLA to free Patty Hearst from SLA’s captivity, the Hearst family needed to do more for low-income people. There are some archival photos of Moore working for People in Need. Moore says she was very good at her People in Need job, However, since “Suburban Fury” viewers are only getting her selective version of events, it’s hard to know how truthful she is in certain parts of her story.

The many twists and detours that Moore takes in her storytelling get a little tiresome to watch when it becomes all too obvious that she wants to portray herself as a folk heroine who led a very unusual life. She portrays herself as a “victim” of “oppressive” government manipulations that involved death threats from government officials, even though she also describes herself in other parts of her stories as an independent woman who broke the law of her own free will. Without anyone else interviewed in the documentary, the narrative of “Suburban Fury” is obviously very one-sided.

Moore describes the day of her assassination attempt as, “I think I was in a fugue. A fugue state is a pattern.” She says she felt it was pre-destined that she would carry out the plan and remembers that there were no unexpected delays or hitches in the plan. “The plan had been written to be successful. I also thought I’d be killed,” she adds.

One of the many examples of Moore’s questionable credibility is that at one point in the interview, she claims she had no intention of killing Ford. In a separate interview, she says that at the time, she believed that political murders (including assassinating a U.S. president) were necessary for radical groups to get attention, and she had no qualms about killing a U.S. president if necessary. At some point during the documentary, viewers will wonder if Moore has told so many lies, she doesn’t know what the truth is anymore.

“Suburban Fury” doesn’t pass judgment on Moore but doesn’t go far enough in questioning her. She seems to get very irritated when she thinks she doesn’t have control of a situation. The main reason to watch this movie is out of curiosity to see what someone who has lived this type of duplicitous life has to say about herself when she’s in her 90s.

Moore seems to have a quick-thinking mind and looks healthier and younger than most people in her age group. One of the most telling things about her is in the documentary’s end credits. Moore, sitting silently in the back seat of a car at night, looks around nervously, as if she’s expecting the car to be ambushed at any moment. It’s a striking image that indicates that Moore might no longer be incarcerated in prison, but she a remains a prisoner of her own paranoia.

Review: ‘Carol Doda Topless at the Condor,’ starring Carol Doda

March 24, 2024

by Carla Hay

Carol Doda in “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” (Photo courtesy of Getty Images/Picturehouse)

“Carol Doda Topless at the Condor”

Directed by Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans and Asians) who are former associates or social commentators who discuss the life of Carol Doda, America’s first famous topless dancer.

Culture Clash: Doda’s nudity work caused controversy, got her arrested a few times, and sparked social change and debate over female nudity in a workplace setting.

Culture Audience: “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” will appeal primarily to people interested in documentaries about controversial people and social changes that happened in the United States in the 1960s.

Carol Doda (on piano) with George & Teddy (pictured at right) in “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” (Photo courtesy of San Francisco Examiner/Picturehouse)

“Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” is a fascinating but somewhat formulaic documentary that tells the story of Carol Doda, America’s first famous topless dancer. The movie looks at both sides of the debate over whether or not she was a feminist icon. “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” could have used better film editing and more research, since there are big gaps in her life that are missing or inadequately explained in the documentary. However, it’s an overall entertaining documentary to watch as a time-capsule aspect of the 1960s sexual revolution.

Directed by Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker, “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” is based partially on the 2018 non-fiction book “Three Nights at the Condor: A Coal Miner’s Son, Carol Doda, and the Topless Revolution,” written by Benita Mattioli, wife of original Condor nightclub co-owner Pete Mattioli, who are both interviewed in the documentary. One of the documentary’s producers is Lars Ulrich, drummer for the San Francisco-based rock band Metallica, which got its start in San Francisco’s 1980s nightclub scene in the same area where Doda found fame two decades earlier.

“Carol Doda Topless at the Condor,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival, is a typical mix of archival footage and interviews that were filmed exclusively for the documentary. It’s a celebrity biographical documentary that focuses almost entirely on the “fame” period of time in the celebrity’s life. Most of the people interviewed are those who used to work with Doda during the height of her fame in the 1960s.

The documentary has very little information about Doda before she became famous. It’s mentioned several times by people interviewed in the documentary that Doda was deliberately secretive about what her life was like before she became a dancer. However, if this documentary’s filmmakers attempted to find out more about Doda’s pre-fame life, none of that information ended up in the documentary.

Most of the documentary’s scant pre-fame information about Doda (who was born in 1937 and died in 2015) comes from interviews with her former accountant/business manager Jim Barbic and her cousin Dina Moore. “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” vaguely mentions that Doda moved to San Francisco as a teenager to become a famous entertainer, but leaves out details, such as she was born in Vallejo, California, and she dropped out of high school and started working as a cocktail waitress when she was 14.

It’s mentioned in the documentary that Doda’s parents (whose names and occupations are never mentioned in the movie) split up when she was 3 years old. Doda lived for a while with her mother, who is described as an abusive alcoholic. Doda was eventually sent to live at a Catholic school. Nothing is told in the documentary about her school years and what she was like back then.

Sometime in her 20s, Doda was married, divorced, and had two children (a son and a daughter), but she lost custody of the children. After she became famous, she often pretended that she was never a mother and avoided answering questions about if she was ever married. According to Moore, Doda’s ex-husband (whose name is not mentioned in the documentary) was abusive to Doda, who was left with longtime trauma from this abuse.

So much of Doda’s personal history isn’t explored at all in the documentary. Why did she lose custody of her children? Where are her children now? Who inspired her to become an entertainer? Did she get any early encouragement or discouragement to become an entertainer when she was a child? Did her personality change from her school days to when she became an entertainer? Don’t expect this documentary to answer any of those questions.

What “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” does instead is focus on her notorious antics that made her famous and have been described as trailblazing for exotic dancers. Whether or not she was a trailblazing feminist is open to debate. Doda certainly can be credited for leading the way in 1964 to make topless female dancing a big business in San Francisco, which was the first city in the United States to make it legal for businesses to have topless female workers. The businesses were often allowed to do it if the toplessness was labeled as entertainment for adults.

“Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” begins by describing how a San Francisco street named Broadway (in the city’s North Beach district) was the epicenter of San Francisco’s most popular nightclubs. In 1964, the Condor nightclub was co-owned by Gino Del Prete and Pete Mattioli. “Gino was wild and unpredictable,” says former Condor bartender Charlie Farrugia. By contrast, Pete Mattioli is described as the responsible and level-headed Condor business partner.

Doda started off as a cocktail waitress and then became a go-go dancer at the Condor. In 1964, R&B duo George & Teddy was one of the Condor’s biggest attractions. Doda began dancing The Swim (a 1960s dance craze where dancers mimicked swimming) on a piano during George & Teddy’s performances. And so, she became part of the George & Teddy act, every time George & Eddy performed at the Condor. The piano eventually was elevated and lowered from the ceiling, so Doda could make a dramatic entrance and exit on the piano.

Around the same time, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich invented the monokini: a topless swimsuit for women. If a bikini covered a female’s top and bottom, the monokini (held up by very thin straps) was designed to only cover a women’s bottom. Needless to say, in 1964, a monokini was considered edgy and controversial. Cultural critic/author Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., comments in the documentary. “The monokini, for me, really unlocks a deeper level of what Carol Doda was about and what she achieved.”

With the help of publicist David “Davey” Rosenberg (who died in 1986, at the age of 49), Doda decided to make a name for herself as America’s first famous topless dancer. On June 19, 1964, she wore a monokini while dancing. The Republican National Convention was happening in San Francisco at the same time as this milestone in the counterculture movement. Doda’s topless performance was an immediate hit and quickly led to sold-out performances with topless Doda as the headliner.

The topless women craze soon spread to other businesses in San Francisco, such as having topless waitresses, topless female sales clerks in retail stores and topless female shoe shiners. Because a business such as shoe shining is often conducted outdoors, San Francisco’s city officials began getting complaints about topless women being in public where children could see them. It led to a growing backlash against businesses that had topless women as part of the business.

In 1965, police took action when Doda, Del Prete, Pete Mattioli and several other topless dancers at the Condor were arrested for public indecency but were acquitted in a trial, because the prosecution could not prove there was a general consensus in the community that topless dancing was considered lewd and lascivious. The arrest brought even more fame to Doda, who was often described as a pioneer for female sexual liberation. Doda and other female Condor dancers were arrested again on public indecency charges in 1967, but the case never went to trial.

Always wanting to outdo herself, Doda then began dancing completely nude (and so did other dancers at the Condor) in 1969. By then, it was commonplace for semi-nude or completely nude dancers to be at adults-only clubs in many other American cities. Doda’s work at the Condor is considered to be the vanguard in making it legal to have nude dancing in these types of nightclubs in the United States. In 1972, California passed a law prohibiting bottomless nude dancing in businesses that served alcohol, which essentially ended Doda’s bottomless nude dancing career in California.

Part of Doda’s image was having large breasts, which she got through silicone injections. Her bra size went from 34B to 44DD. Her former accountant/business manager Barbic says that he warned Doda about the health risks of these silicone injections. “She kind of didn’t care,” Barbic comments in the documentary. “She was more interested in being an entertainer. And, of course, [Davey] Rosenberg was pushing her to do this.” Doda’s joking sexual double entendres and sarcastic wit in interviews, along with her “blonde bombshell” image, often got her compared to Mae West.

Several people in the documentary describe Doda as appearing to be very happy and extroverted when she was performing or doing interviews, but “the rest of the time, she was lonely and sad,” says Judy Mamou, a former Condor dancer, who claims to be the Condor’s second topless dancer. Judy Mamou (whose stage name was Tara) and her musician husband Jimi Mamou are interviewed in the documentary, which goes off on distracting tangents to give details about Judy’s topless act, her health problems from her silicone breast implants, and the racism that the couple experienced because of their interracial marriage.

Judy Mamou gets a lot of screen time in this documentary, but even she admits she barely knew anything about Doda’s personal life, because she says that she and Doda usually only talked about work when they were hanging out together. Marsha McGovern, another former topless dancer, says about Doda: “She wasn’t open about her past at all. She never talked about her family.”

Phil Derdevanis, a former bartender at the Condor, says that in the 19 years he worked at the Condor, he never saw any of Doda’s family members. Jerry Martini, a former saxophonist for Sly and the Family Stone, seems to have only superficial knowledge of Doda, because he says in the documentary: “Carol Doda was friends with everybody.” Apparently, those friendships weren’t very deep, because she didn’t open about her private life to many people who describe themselves as her friends.

Squid B. Vicious, a musician, says he was an underage kid who was at the Condor on the night that Doda first went topless, because his father worked there as a musician. Vicious says he has a vivid memory of all the commotion that was caused by Doda’s performance (he says he did not see the actual performance), and he didn’t fully understand the impact of the performance until he was much older.

And what exactly is that impact? To its credit, “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” doesn’t shy away from discussing the pros and cons of this impact. Science journalist/author Florence Williams comments: “On the one hand, Carol Doda took the male gaze and twisted it to her own benefit. And she did well by that.”

Williams continues, “But what she couldn’t have anticipated is the legacy she would leave on women who then felt they needed to live up to this male gaze, which had been enhanced and exaggerated by the presence of these very large breasts. It’s a very particular lens through which to see beauty and through which to see sexuality, which ultimately has been very limiting and has led to some serious body dysmorphia in women to follow.”

Martin (who is Doda’s biggest cheerleader in the documentary) and former topless dancer Mary Ann Schildknect both claim that the type of nude dancing image that Doda had is empowering for women who want to express themselves in that way. Schildknect says when she moved to San Francisco as a young adult in the late 1960s, one of her goals was to fulfill her fantasy of being a stripper. She admits that most women do not consider being a stripper to be a dream job.

Schildknect says of the judgment she received from other people for being a topless dancer: “People would say, ‘Oh, that’s such a demeaning thing you’re doing.’ Well, if I’m not doing it, somebody else [will], and look at the money I’m making. What’s the big deal? It was great. Here I am, a woman. Give me your money.”

But, by Schildknect’s own admission, being a topless dancer wasn’t as liberating as it might have sounded. When all was said and done, the mostly male club owners (not the dancers) were the ones getting rich from the dancers’ work. In addition, there was a lot of discrimination going on: Small-breasted women found it difficult to get work as topless dancers, which is why many topless dancers have breast implants. In addition, Schildknect says that black women weren’t hired for these types of dancer jobs in major clubs until the 1980s.

Author/sociologist of culture Sarah Thornton, Ph.D., adds this perspective: “Topless clubs are a reflection of a patriarchal society. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t individual women who may very well find a very strong sense of empowerment for themselves in that environment.” Polly Mazza, who was a dancer/waitress at the Condor, says in the documentary that that being a dancer at the Condor didn’t feel like exploitation. “It felt like a job.”

For all the talk about Doda being a symbol of female empowerment, the documentary has plenty of details that Doda wasn’t as empowered as she wanted to be. She had many disputes with the Condor owners about being underpaid. Doda was also rejected when she tried to get an ownership stake in the Condor.

Doda quit the Condor several times in the 1970s and 1980s. She would go back to the Condor when her other career ventures flopped or job opportunities dried up in other areas. Eventually, she had to retire from dancing because she was considered too old for the job.

Her various other career ventures included acting, singing and hosting. She dabbled in doing phone sex for a job. She also started her own skin care line and clothing retail store. None of these jobs gave her long-lasting financial security. The documentary makes it clear that Doda (who was admittedly not very good when it came to handling her business matters) had financial struggles through her middle age and elder years.

Doda’s fake breasts—which were big reasons why she made money and why she became famous—weren’t exactly a great investment either. Her silicone implants leaked and caused her major health problems for the rest of her life. The way it’s described in the documentary, she probably would’ve lived longer if not for these health problems.

After being unhappy for so many years in her personal life, Doda had a 10-year romance with widower retiree Jay North—a former restaurant manager, photographer and journalist—who died in 2010, at the age of 77. Very little is revealed in the documentary about this part of Doda’s life. Charles North, Jay North’s son, is seen in a brief interview clip saying that his father and Doda were happy together and very devoted to each other. Doda’s cousin Moore says that Jay North was “the love of her [Doda’s] life.”

Other people interviewed in the documentary include former Condor bartenders George Faulkner and John Burton; Art Thanash, former owner of Roaring 20s, a rival nightclub to the Condor; former dancers Judy Mac and Pamela Rose; Doda’s friend Jeff Valkanoff; music historian Mike Boone; nightclub owner Jay Nelson; and attorney Rick Morse, who says that Doda had a passionate fling with Frank Sinatra in the 1960s.

Doda never lost her love of performing and remained an entertainer through the last year of her life. The movie ends with footage of her in 2015, performing “All of Me” at a small nightclub when she in very ill health and had lost most of her hearing abilities. Regardless of what people might think of Doda and how she influenced sexual liberation in the 1960s, there’s no denying that she had a zest for life that affected many people.

Picturehouse released “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” in select U.S. cinemas on March 22, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on March 29, 2024.

Review: ‘Pastor’s Kid’ (2024), starring Courtney Bandeko, Krista Morin, James C. Burns, Marisol Miranda, Peyton Dilweg, Samual Charles and Joshua Matthew Peters

March 18, 2024

by Carla Hay

Courtney Bandeko and Jon Ryan McMahon in “Pastor’s Kid” (Photo courtesy of Atlas Distribution Company)

“Pastor’s Kid” (2024)

Directed by Benjamin Ironside Koppin

Culture Representation: Taking place in San Francisco and in Sri Lanka, the dramatic film “Pastor’s Kid” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people and Indian people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A drug-abusing college student has trouble dealing with the anger and resentment she feels toward her pastor mother, who is a born-again Christian and a recovering alcoholic.

Culture Audience: “Pastor’s Kid” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a faith-based movie that is also a well-made psychological drama.

Marisol Miranda in “Pastor’s Kid” (Photo courtesy of Atlas Distribution Company)

“Pastor’s Kid” is not a typical faith-based drama because it’s not preachy. The movie has a lot of cursing and drug use. It’s also an absorbing psychological portrait of a troubled college student who’s angry at her pastor mother.

Directed by Benjamin Ironside Koppin (who co-wrote the “Pastor’s Kid” screenplay with his wife Kristin Koppin), “Pastor’s Kid” is being advertised as “based on a true story,” although the movie never says the name of the person whose life story is the basis of this movie. That anonymity does not detract from “Pastor’s Kid,” which has a story that can apply to anyone who’s become caught up in drug abuse and has unresolved feelings about their childhood. Much of the movie shows flashbacks to the unhappy childhood of the movie’s protagonist, as a way of explaining how she ended up being so miserable

People who watch “Pastor’s Kid” should not expect a lot of fast-paced action. It’s a “slice of life” movie that takes place in about a month in the life of a San Francisco college student named Riley (played by Courtney Bandeko), who is also a drug dealer on the side. Riley regularly abuses alcohol and cocaine, the drug that she sells.

The movie opens with a flashback to when Riley’s mother Karen Taylor (played by Krista Morin) has become the executive pastor of an unnamed Christian church when Riley was a teenager. Throughout the movie, more flashbacks (which are not shown in chronological order) reveal that Karen is a born-again Christian who spent most of Riley’s childhood as a single parent in the throes of alcoholism. At some point, when Riley was a teenager, Karen got sober and married a Christian man named James (played by James C. Burns), who was very strict with Riley. Predictably, this caused friction in the family.

Riley’s childhood is depicted when Riley was 7 years old (played by Marisol Miranda) and was often left to fend for herself and take care of her younger brother Luke, who is about five years younger than Riley. A flashback shows Karen mentioning that Riley and Luke have different fathers. (Noah Frazier portrays Luke as an adult. Ezekiel Koppin has the role of Luke as a child.)

Riley lives with two housemates, who are also her friends from childhood: Tim (played by Joshua Matthew Peters), who has a messy mane of dreadlocks, is openly gay and very flamboyant. Sarah (played by Peyton Dilweg), another “wild child,” is commitment-phobic when it comes to dating.

For the past year, Sarah has been dating a musician named Lance (played by Samual Charles), but she doesn’t want to describe him her “boyfriend.” Lance is also a college student who plays in a band and has reluctantly gone along with his father’s wishes to major in business, not music. Lance often parties with Riley, Tim and Sarah.

An early scene in “Pastor’s Kid” shows Riley waking up from a stupor at her place. She finds out that Tim rescued her the night before from being kidnapped and potentially raped by two male strangers (played by David Lee Hess and Michael Hennessey), who were trying to put Riley in a car parked outside a bar called Smugglers. Riley has only fragmented memories of what happened, but Tim tells her that a Smugglers bartender named James (whom Riley remembers serving her) has a reputation of drugging women’s drinks.

It’s a sinister scenario that could have ended up a lot worse than it did. Riley tells her mother what happened, and Karen is understandably concerned. She tells Riley that she’s knows what she’s going through and offers to help without trying to scold or shame Riley. Later in the movie, Karen invites Riley on a Christian group trip to Sri Lanka.

“Pastor’s Kid” has a very compelling portrayal of emotional damage and how it affects people’s attitudes and outlooks on life. The movie doesn’t pass judgment on Riley or Karen but instead candidly shows their story from Riley’s perspective, as an example of what can happen when a parent and a child struggle to deal with unresolved issues. Thanks to very good acting from the cast (particularly from Bandeko), realistic dialogue and well-edited filmmaking, “Pastor’s Kid” can maintain viewer interest without being pretentious or melodramatic.

Even though Riley is going through a lot of emotional turmoil, the movie offers some comic relief in hallucinations that she has of a self-effacing man resembling Jesus Christ (played by Jon Ryan McMahon), who freely admits he’s not the real Jesus Christ because the real Jesus (according to the Bible) was not white, and he certainly didn’t wear modern flip-flop shoes. This Christ-like person is not welcomed by Riley. In fact, she’s often irritated by him. Unlike most faith-based movies, “Pastor’s Kid” doesn’t present religion as somehow magically being able to solve problems but instead depicts religion as an optional way to go on a path of healing.

Atlas Distribution Company released “Pastor’s Kid” in select U.S. cinemas on March 15, 2024.

Review: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,’ starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Bill Murray, Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas

February 14, 2023

by Carla Hay

Paul Rudd, Kathryn Newton and Evangeline Lilly in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”

Directed by Peyton Reed

Culture Representation: Taking place in an underworld universe called Quantumania, and briefly in San Francisco, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing superheroes, regular humans and alien creatures.

Culture Clash: Scott Lang (also known as superhero Ant-Man), his formerly estranged daughter Cassie Lang, Scott’s girlfriend Hope Van Dyne (also known as superhero The Wasp) and Hope’s parents get dragged into the Quantum Realm, where they have to battle evil forces, led by Kang the Conqueror. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of Marvel movie fans, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and superhero movies that are very predictable, corny and formulaic.

Paul Rudd and Jonathan Majors in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (Photo by Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios)

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is a quantum mess. It’s bad enough that it recycles tired clichés of Marvel movies. This uneven superhero movie also rips off 1977’s “Star Wars” in many ways. Jonathan Majors’ standout performance can’t save this substandard spectacle. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is supposed to be the start of Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The movie will no doubt make blockbuster money, as all MCU movies have done so far. But in terms of creativity, this disappointing film is a stumble right out of the gate for the MCU’s Phase 5.

One of the biggest problems with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is how it awkwardly balances comedy with action. The jokes are the most juvenile, tackiest and least funny so far in the “Ant-Man” movie series, which began with 2015’s “Ant-Man” and continued with 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” Peyton Reed is the director of all three movies, which makes his creative choices even more baffling for “Quantumania,” which has a drastically different tone (and lower quality as a result) than the first two “Ant-Man” movies.

When writer/director Taika Waititi directed 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok” (the third “Thor” movie of the MCU), he radically changed the tone of the “Thor” movie series to make it fit his signature comedic style: goofy and slightly offbeat. Waititi did the same for 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder,” to less well-received results. But it doesn’t explain why the third “Ant-Man” movie has gone so far off-course when it’s had the same director for the first three “Ant-Man” movies.

Much of the blame for why “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has turned into a hodgepodge of bad jokes, sci-fi rehashes and superhero triteness has to with the movie’s screenplay, which is the feature-film debut of Jeff Loveness. Loveness’ previous writing experience is for shows such as the Adult Swim animated series “Rick and Morty,” the ABC variety talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards, the 2016 Primetime Emmy Awards and the 2017 Academy Awards, with these particular award shows all hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. All of these TV shows require a different skill set than what’s required to write an entertaining superhero movie. Unfortunately, hiring a TV writer with no experience in writing movies turned out to be a huge mistake for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and Marvel Studios.

In “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” the story begins right after the events of 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd), a former petty criminal also known as Ant-Man (whose superpower is being able to change the height of his body by wearing a special superhero suit), is a happily retired superhero living in his hometown in San Francisco. Scott has cashed in on his superhero fame by writing a memoir titled “Look Out for the Little Guy!,” where he talks about his superhero experiences and what they have taught him about life.

The movie shows Scott reading excerpts from his book at a book signing, but a few people there still mistake him for the more famous Spider-Man. Scott tells the small audience at this book signing, “From now on, the only job I want is to be a dad.” However, the movie unrealistically shows that middle-aged Scott, in his superhero “retirement,” has chosen to take a low-paying job as a customer service employee at a local Baskin-Robbins store. He has been named Employee of the Century because of his celebrity status as Ant-Man.

It’s really the movie’s obvious brand placement for Baskin-Robbins, but viewers are given the weak explanation that Scott took the job because he loves ice cream. It all looks very awkward and fake. The movie’s overload of Baskin-Robbins brand promotion is extremely annoying. There’s even a scene where a Scott Lang look-alike named Jack, who’s a Baskin-Robbins employee, gets in on the fight action. It’s all so crass and stupid.

Get used to seeing a lot of “look-alikes” in this movie, because much of it takes place in an alternate universe where clones of people and clones of creatures can show up randomly. Scott is trying to reconnect with his 18-year-old daughter Cassandra “Cassie” Lang (played by Kathryn Newton), who was raised primarily by Scott’s ex-wife while Scott was off doing other things, such as being a criminal-turned-superhero. Cassie has turned into a social justice warrior who’s involved in civil protests.

In the beginning of the movie, Cassie has landed in the San Francisco County Jail, because she was arrested for shrinking a police car because the police were trying to clear out an illegal homeless camp. Scott and his intelligent and sassy girlfriend Hope Van Dyne (played by Evangeline Lilly), also known as superhero The Wasp (she can turn into a wasp mutant and can also shrink her body height), have arrived at the jail to retrieve Cassie. It’s how Scott finds out to his dismay that Cassie is also an aspiring scientist who invented her own shrinkage suit. She hasn’t given herself a superhero name though.

Scott thinks Cassie is too young to get involved in superhero antics. Cassie thinks Scott has become too complacent and thinks he should care more about making the world a better place. Hope and Cassie have bonded with each other because Hope is now the leader of the Pym Van Dyne Foundation, which uses Pym Particle (the body morphing invention used by Ant-Man and The Wasp) for humanitarian causes. Of course, it’s already been revealed in the “Quantumania” trailer that Scott will literally be sucked back into superhero activities, whether he likes it or not.

Hope’s parents are scientists Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (played by Michelle Pfeiffer), who were the original Ant-Man and The Wasp. As the movie over-explains and over-repeats in pedestrian dialogue, Janet was trapped in an alternative universe called the Quantum Realm for 30 years and doesn’t like to talk about what she experienced there. Janet returned to Earth when Hank rescued her from the Quantum Realm, as shown in “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”

However, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” makes a big misstep by giving away in an opening scene that Janet actually was acquainted with the movie’s chief villain: Kang the Conequeror (played by Majors) while she was in the Quantum Realm, where Janet and Kang are seen escaping an attack from a giant insect-like creature. The movie should have left it a mystery until the right moment to show that Janet already knew this villain. Instead, this part of the plot is revealed too early in the film.

At any rate, Scott finds out that Hank, Janet, Hope and Cassie have been studying ant science. Hope and Cassie in particular want to use this science to explore the Quantum Realm, but Janet has no interest in going back there. Janet won’t say why, but she will eventually make a confession later in the movie.

Janet describes the Quantum Realm as a “place with no time and space. It’s a secret universe beneath ours.” To Janet’s horror, Cassie announces to Janet, Scott, Hank and Hope (while they are all in the scientific lab) that Cassie has been secretly sending signals to the Quantum Realm. Janet frantically tries to turn off the signal machine.

And faster than you can say “inferior Marvel movie sequel,” all five of them are sucked into the Quantum Realm, which looks like a half-baked “Star Wars” universe. For much the first third of the movie, Scott and Cassie are separated from Janet, Hank and Hope. Scott and Cassie spend a lot of time bickering over how much Cassie might or might not be ready to use her superhero suit. (Too late. We already know she will.)

Janet, Hank and Hope spend much of their time talking in vague tones about a mysterious “he” and “him” leader who has wreaked havoc on the Quantum Realm. Anyone can easily figure out that the “he” and “him” is Kang the Conqueror. There’s no reason to make him sound like “Harry Potter” villain Voldemort, also known in the “Harry Potter” series as He Who Shall Not Be Named. It’s yet another way that “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” takes ideas from other sci-fi/fantasy franchises.

Reed says in the production notes for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” where he got some of the visual influences for the movie: “We pulled together a lot of visual inspiration—everything from electron microscope photography to heavy metal magazine images from the ’70s and ’80s. I collected all of these images from old science-fiction paperback book covers—artists like John Harris, Paul Laird, Richard M. Powers. Those paintings were evocative and really moody. We liked that feel and tone for the look of the Quantum Realm.”

Reed curiously didn’t mention “Star Wars,” which is undoubtedly the biggest influence on “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” The Quantum Realm’s terrain looks like a desert in some areas and looks like a crater-filled planet in other areas. The desert scenes look too much like the desert realm of Tatooine in “Star Wars,” while the hooded costumes worn by the Quantum Realm residents look an awful lot like the costumes worn by Tusken Raiders from “Star Wars.”

And if the “Star Wars” similarities for the production design and costume design weren’t enough, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” also imitates the Mos Eisley cantina scene in “Star Wars,” but doesn’t make it nearly as fun and interesting to watch. Hank, Janet and Hope end up in a place called Axia Restaurant, which is basically a “Star Wars” cantina look-alike filled with unusual-looking creatures. There’s no memorable music at the Axia Restaurant, like there was in the Mos Eisley cantina. Christophe Beck’s musical score for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is serviceable and unremarkable.

It’s at Axia Restaurant where Hope and Hank meet the smirking Lord Kylar (played by Bill Murray) for the first time. Janet already knows Lord Kylar, who says he is neither a human nor a machine. Lord Kylar, who is the governor of the Axia community, hints that he and Janet used to be lovers when she was in the Quantum Realm.

“I had needs,” Janet tells Hank and Hope in a somewhat defensive and uncomfortable tone. Hope then has to hear Hank talk about an ex-girlfriend. And she acts like a prudish teen who doesn’t want to think about her parents having love lives before they met each other. This is the type of time-wasting dialogue that’s supposed to pass as “comedy” in the movie.

Even though Murray shares top billing for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” his role in the movie is just a cameo that lasts for less than 15 minutes. It’s ineffective and misguided casting because he’s not convincing as this fictional character. All viewers will think is that this is Murray in a space-alien costume playing a version of himself.

As for the other inhabitants of the Quantum Realm, it’s a random mix of beings who look like humans and those who are very non-human in appearance, including a lot of jellyfish-like creatures that float around in space. As soon as Scott and Cassie arrive in the Quantum Realm, they are force-fed a red ooze by a creature named Veb (voiced by David Dastmalchian), because this red ooze will help these humans understand the language of the Quantum Realm residents. Dastmalchian had the role of Kurt (a member of Scott’s posse) in the first two “Ant-Man” movies. Veb is an underdeveloped character that is meant to be comedic, but Veb’s jokes fall very flat.

The Quantum Realm residents predictably greet these newcomers from Earth with reactions that range from curiosity to hostility. Jentorra (played by Katy O’Brian) is an anti-Kang freedom fighter who scowls a lot and has to learn to trust these Earth heroes to be her allies. Xolum (played by James Cutler, also known as Jamie Andrew Cutler) is a loyal soldier and totally generic sidekick of Jentorra.

Quaz (played by William Jackson Harper) is a psychic/telepath, whose only purpose in the movie is to make people uncomfortable by reading their thoughts and saying their thoughts out loud. His revelations are supposed to be amusing, but they’re not really all that funny. Randall Park has a small and non-essential role as FBI agent Jimmy Woo.

Corey Stoll returns as “Ant-Man” villain Darren Cross, also known as Yellowjacket, who has now been shrunken by Kang into a subatomic lackey with an oversized head known as M.O.D.O.K., which stands for Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing. M.O.D.O.K. looks like a floating head and delivers some of the few genuinely comedic moments in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Various characters in the movie have horrified reactions to seeing Darren look so drastically different as M.O.D.O.K., but this gag is repeated too much and loses its impact by the middle of the movie.

As for Kang, Majors’ performance is the only one that brings a certain gravitas to the rampant foolishness and smarm that stink up “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Majors brings a combination of menace and melancholy to his role, but it’s wasted in a movie that is hell-bent on trying to be more like Waititi’s “Thor” movies. The rest of the cast members’ performances aren’t bad, but they’re not special either. Kang’s soldiers are Quantumnauts, which are as anonymous and soulless as the mostly CGI creations that they are.

Unfortunately, the big showdown fight scene is lot more montonous and unimaginative than it should have been. It ends abruptly and in a way that has been done already (and done much better) in many other sci-fi/fantasy/action movies. As for the movie’s visual effects, it’s a shame that a movie with this big budget can make visual effects look so cheap and shoddy. There are scenes that make it obvious where the “blue screens” and “green screens” were.

A mid-credits scene and end-credits scene basically show the return of a major character from the movie. The end-credits scene is a nod to the Disney+ series “Loki.” As an example of how “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has a sitcom tone to it, the movie uses John Sebastian’s 1976 hit “Welcome Back” (the theme from the sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter”) as bookends to the movie. A big-budget superhero movie should not look like a second-rate sitcom, which is what “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has turned out to be.

Marvel Studios will release “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” in U.S. cinemas on February 17, 2023.

Review: ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru,’ starring the voices of Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin, Alan Arkin, Taraji P. Henson, Danny Trejo, Lucy Lawless and Michelle Yeoh

June 29, 2022

by Carla Hay

Pictured from left to right: Kevin, Otto, Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), Stuart and Bob in “Minions: The Rise of Gru” (Photo courtesy of Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures)

“Minions: The Rise of Gru”

Directed by Kyle Balda

Culture Representation: Taking place in the 1979, in San Francisco and in the fictional U.S. city of Springfield, California, the animated film “Minions: The Rise of Gru” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: In this origin story of “Despicable Me” supervillain Gru, he is an 11-year-old child who gets into conflicts with the Vicious 6, a gang of criminals that Gru admires.

Culture Audience: “Minions: The Rise of Gru” will appeal primarily to fans of the “Despicable Me” and “Minions” films, but others might be less charmed by the scattershot and uninspired plot of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”

Stronghold (voiced by Danny Trejo), Belle Bottom (voiced by Taraji P. Henson), Wild Knuckles (voiced by Alan Arkin), Jean Clawed (voiced by Jean-Claude Van Damme), Sevengeance (voiced by Dolph Lungren) and Nun-Chuck (voiced by Lucy Lawless) in “Minions: The Rise of Gru” (Photo courtesy of Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures)

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” is an unfortunate example of how a villain origin story loses its edge when it’s about the villain’s childhood. This formulaic cartoon is nothing more than a hyper mishmash of uninspired scenes with stale jokes and very little suspense. The best movie villains are those who keep people guessing on what they’re going to do next. That’s not the case with any of the villains in “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”

Gru (voice by Steve Carell) is now just a predictable grouch, where all he really does to show his villainous side in “Minions: The Rise of Gru” is get annoyed with the Minions, the cutesy yellow mini-creatures that don’t talk like humans but spew noises that sound like a combination of chirping and computer blips. Pierre Coffin is the voice of the Minions in “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” Just as the name suggestions, the Minions are at the beck and call of Gru.

Gru (an easily agitated, on-again/off-again villain) was first seen in the 2010 animated film “Despicable Me,” which spawned the sequels “Despicable Me 2” (released in 2013), “Despicable Me 3” (released in 2017) and the spinoff-prequel “Minions,” which was released in 2015. “Despicable Me 4” is expected to be released in 2024. In all of the “Despicable Me” movies, Gru is an adult who is an ex-supervillain who doesn’t particularly like people. In “Minions: The Rise of Gru” (directed by Kyle Balda and written by Matthew Fogel), Gru (still voiced by Carell) is an 11-year-old brat. Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val co-directed “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” has a simple plot, but it’s so cluttered with disjointed scenes that it just becomes a hodgepodge of characters running around, sometimes while they’re being chased and occasionally cracking some very unfunny jokes. The child version of Gru is not someone who has any cunning wit or hilarious barbs that define who Gru is as an adult. He’s just a basic annoying kid that has been seen in numerous types of animated and non-animated movies aimed at families.

The essential plot of “Minions: The Rise of Gru” is that Gru steals something from a famous gang he wants to join, lot of chases ensue, and you can predict the end. Gru, who is an only child, lives with his unnamed single mother (voiced by Julie Andrews) in the fictional city of Springfield, California. People know that Springfield is in California because much of the action in the movie takes in San Francisco. The time period is circa 1979, based on the movie soundtrack’s overload of disco songs that were released in or a few years before 1979.

Don’t expect Gru’s mother to be big part of the story. She’s only in a few scenes, such as an early scene where Gru coms home to find his mother in a yoga session with a physically fit, young male yoga instructor. Later, when Gru gets kidnapped, he tells his abductors that it will be a waste of time to demand a ransom. “My mom will probably pay you to keep me.” It’s one of few barely funny lines in the movie.

Gru hangs out with lots of Minions, of course. The ones that get most screen time are named Otto, Kevin, Stuart and Bob. Otto, who wears teeth braces, is a people-pleasing new character introduced in this movie. Because Gru is such an unpleasant child, he has no friends. The Minions are the only beings that keep him company. Gru spends most of his time being bossy to the Minions.

Gru is a big fan of a famous criminal gang called the Vicious 6. They are led by a Wild Knuckles (voiced by Alan Arkin), a cantankerous senior citizen who is known for his fighting skills in several athletic disciplines, such as karate, boxing and jiu jitsu. The other members of the group have their own ways of fighting.

Belle Bottom (voiced by Taraji P. Henson) has a chain belt that she can make into a deadly disco ball of mace. Stronghold (voiced by Danny Trejo) has metal fists. Jean Clawed (voiced by Jean-Claude Van Damme) has a lobster claw for one of his hands. Sevengeance (voiced by Dolph Lungren) is a roller skating champ who uses his spiked skates as a weapon. Nun-Chuck (voiced by Lucy Lawless) is dressed as a traditional nun, which allows her to hide her signature weapon of nunchucks.

Through a series of events, Gru meets the Vicious 6 and asks to join their group. He’s emotionally crushed when they essentially dismiss Gru. Belle Bottom tells Gru during this rejection: “Evil is for adults, not tubby little punks who should be at school.”

Gru steals the Vicious 6’s most valuable possessions: the Zodiac Stone. Otto replaces it with a Pet Rock. And you know what that means: The Vicious 6 is out to get Gru and his Minions crew. Wild Knuckles is then ousted from the Vicious 6, which is just a lazy way for the movie to have two factions of villains instead of just one. And since Wild Knuckles is the Vicious 6 villain whom Gru admires the most, get ready for the predictable “grandfather figure to Gru” story arc that you can see coming long before it starts.

Along the way, the Minions end up in San Francisco to get karate lessons from a former karate champ named Master Chow (voiced by Michelle Yeoh), which lead to mildly entertaining but entirely formulaic scenes. An unnamed motorcycle rider (voiced by RZA) and a young Nefario (voiced by Russell Brand) have brief appearances that are mostly forgettable. Nefario is an evil inventor who is an elderly man in the “Despicable Me” movie, but his origin story is “Minions: The Rise of Gru” so weak and underdeveloped, Nefario might as well have not been in the movie.

There’s nothing wrong with any of the visuals or voice acting in this movie. The screenplay and overall direction just make everything so mind-numbingly trite. “Minions: The Rise of Gru” will make a lot of “Despicable Me” franchise fans want the adult Gru back. This child Gru needs to back to his room. Gru’s bratty pouting and whining are just one giant bore, making “Minions: The Rise of Gru” a step down for the “Despicable Me”/”Minions” series.

Universal Pictures will release “Minions: The Rise of Gru” in U.S. cinemas on July 1, 2022. The movie was first released in several other countries, beginning in Australia, on June 16, 2022.

Review: ‘Redeeming Love,’ starring Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Nina Dobrev, Logan Marshall-Green, Eric Dane and Famke Janssen

February 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

Abigail Cowen and Tom Lewis in “Redeeming Love” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Redeeming Love”

Directed by D.J. Caruso

Culture Representation: Taking place in Boston in 1835, and in San Francisco in the 1850s, the dramatic film “Redeeming Love” features a predominantly white cast (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A woman who was sold into prostitution when she was 8 years old meets a religious man who wants to marry her and turn her into a “righteous woman.”

Culture Audience: “Redeeming Love” will appeal mainly to people who like watching tawdry and sexist movies that preach that “sinful” women need religious men to save them.

Abigail Cowen and Eric Dane in “Redeeming Love” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Redeeming Love” is a tacky soap opera masquerading as a faith-based movie. The movie’s sexist and awfully preachy message is that an abused woman can overcome child rape, forced prostitution and incest if a religious man falls in love with her. It’s ironic that a movie that’s supposed to be about redemption has no redeeming qualities in how relentlessly tone-deaf and irresponsible it is in filmmaking and in depicting traumatic issues.

“Redeeming Love” (heinously written and directed by D.J. Caruso) makes all of its female characters exist for the sole purpose of fulfilling men’s fantasies. Even the so-called “love story” at the center of the movie is about a saintly man who wants his fantasy fulfilled of having his prostitute “dream girl” becoming his religious and dutiful wife. It’s obvious that the “Redeeming Love” filmmakers don’t want viewers to expect any other outcome.

Caruso adapted the “Redeeming Love” screenplay from Francine Rivers’ 1991 novel of the same name. Filmmakers who turn a book into a movie have the freedom to set the tone of the movie and make cinematic changes that are different from the book. The filmmakers of “Redeeming Love” (with Caruso at the helm) chose to make the female protagonist a mostly pathetic lost soul whose life can only be turned around if she just lets a religious man love her.

The “woman who needs saving” is named Angel (played by Abigail Cowen), who is the most popular prostitute at a San Francisco brothel called Pair-A-Dice. (“Redeeming Love” was actually filmed in South Africa.) The movie, which takes place over several years, opens in 1850 with a scene at Pair-A-Dice, where about 50 dirty and disheveled Gold Rush miners have gathered outside near the front porch for a lottery. It’s not an ordinary lottery. The winner whose number is chosen will get guaranteed time the next day with 23-year-old Angel, who is so in-demand, she doesn’t have time to “service” all the men who want to hire her.

The Pair-A-Dice’s cruel and greedy manager/madam, who only goes by the name Duchess (played by Famke Janssen), proudly oversees this lottery because she knows that Angel is the sex worker who makes the most money for the brothel. At different times in the movie, Duchess is seen physically abusing her young female employees, or ordering her henchmen to inflict abuse if she thinks these sex workers are being insubordinate. Duchess won’t pass up the chance to make money any way that she can from the brothel’s demanding customers.

Duchess makes this announcement to the crowd of men who have eagerly gathered to see Angel: “She’s done shagging for the day. She’s all worn out. I have plenty of other girls—Chinese, African, Spanish—dealer’s choice. But if you want Angel, you’ll have to come back tomorrow. And by guess or by gully, it’ll be your lucky day!” Get used to this type of cringeworthy dialogue in “Redeeming Love,” which is a cesspool of idiotic filmmaking.

Angel is not a “hooker with a heart of gold,” because she’s supposed to be “redeemed,” remember? Instead, Angel is very bitter and angry about her life. She can’t picture herself as anything but a jaded prostitute.

An early scene in the movie shows Angel and some of her co-workers talking about their unhappy and abusive childhoods. An Irish woman named Lucky (played by Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) goes into details about being beaten as a child. Mai Ling (played by Ke-Xi Wu), who is originally from China, says that her father sold her into prostitution.

Flashbacks to Angel’s childhood reveal how she ended up as a sex worker for most of her life so far. Angel’s birth name is Sarah Stafford. The movie flashes back to 1835, when Sarah (played by Livi Birch) was an 8-year-old living in Boston with her single mother Mae (played by Nina Dobrev), who is an outcast in this society because she is an unmarried woman with an illegitimate child.

Sarah’s biological father is wealthy Alex Stafford (played by Josh Taylor), who is married to another woman. It’s implied that Sarah was born from an extramarital affair. Alex doesn’t want to publicly claim Sarah as his child, but he has been sending money and gifts to Mae. He wants Mae, not Sarah, to have the money and gifts.

One day, something happens that has never happened before: Sarah meets Alex for the first time, when he comes over to visit Mae. Mae introduces Sarah and Alex to each other, with a look of hope and apprehension. At first, the meeting is cordial but awkward.

But the meeting turns sour when Alex finds out that Mae took the money he had sent and spent it on Sarah, who also got the gifts that were originally intended for Mae. Alex becomes enraged and begins physically assaulting Mae and verbally degrading her. Sarah witnesses this abuse, including when Alex shouts at Mae that he never wanted Sarah to be born and that Mae should have terminated the pregnancy.

Another flashback reveals that Mae eventually died of an unnamed illness when Sarah was 8. Sarah, who is now considered to be an orphan, ends up in the custody of a sleazy man named John Altman (played by Willie Watson), who tries to get a woman named Sally (played by Tanya van Graan) to agree to take care of Sarah, but Sally refuses. John then tries to sell Sarah to a ruthless Irish criminal named Duke (played by Eric Dane, doing a terrible Irish accent), who runs a brothel where girls are held as sex slaves.

Duke doesn’t just kidnap Sarah. He also orders his henchman Colin to murder John as soon as John brings an innocent Sarah to Duke. One of the first things that Duke says to Sarah after she becomes his captive is that she’s now going to be his “wife.” Disgusting. This is the scene where viewers find out that Duke is a pedophile. Another scene reveals that Duke rapes the girls who are held in his captivity and who are prostituted out to other men.

The movie eventually reveals that Sarah ended up in San Francisco because she ran away from Duke. But is it the last time she sees Duke? Of course not, because he never stopped looking for her, and this movie is filled with sordid melodrama. Duke eventually ends up in San Francisco in the 1850s. He still keeps underage girls as sex slaves. And you can predict the rest, including what happens to Duke.

It might come as a surprise that for all of its disturbing subject matter, “Redeeming Love” is actually not a movie with a rating that recommends a minimum age of 17 for appropriate viewing. It’s actually been rated as appropriate for kids who are at least 13 years old. That’s because there’s no nudity in the movie. And the movie’s sex scenes are very tame.

Still, any parents who decide to let their underage kids watch “Redeeming Love” should know that this is not a wholesome movie at all. There’s a scene where an adult Sarah/Angel ends up having her father Alex as a sex customer. He doesn’t know that she’s his daughter, but she knows exactly who she is. He only knows her as Angel, and he tells her that she looks familiar.

However, Angel/Sarah still doesn’t reveal to him that she’s his abandoned daughter, and she deliberately has sex with him. (This incestuous sex is not shown in the movie, but it is openly discussed.) After Alex finds out the horrible truth, he commits suicide. Based on Sarah’s reaction (she seems happy that her father committed suicide), it’s implied that Angel/Sarah knowingly committed this act of incest for revenge and with the hope that it would lead to her father killing himself.

The incest in this movie might be considered spoiler information for people who don’t want to know about any surprises in the movie’s plot. However, it’s important for viewers to know in advance how this so-called “faith-based” movie has some morally twisted subject matter whose only purpose is to make Angel/Sarah look as trashy as possible. It’s one thing to be a victim of child abuse, which is not the victim’s fault. It’s another thing to be an adult and try to get a parent to commit suicide by knowingly having sex with the parent. It’s absolutely reprehensible.

But if Angel weren’t so “morally bankrupt,” then it wouldn’t make her “male rescuer” look as noble. Michael Hosea (played by Tom Lewis) is a 26-year-old farmer who is first seen in the movie when he’s praying alone in a church and asking God to find him a romantic partner/future wife. “Maybe she likes fishing,” Michael says out loud as he prays. “Maybe she has long legs. You know the kind I need. I trust you,” Michael adds, as if God is in the mail-order bride business.

When Michael first sees Angel in a horse-drawn carriage on the street, it’s “love at first sight” for him. He tells a friend who’s with him that he just saw the woman he’s going to marry. When the friend tells Michael that Angel works at the Pair-A-Dice brothel, Michael is undeterred. It’s at that moment that Michael decides he’s going to “save” Angel.

The movie makes a big deal out of reminding viewers that Michael is a humble and poor farmer. But somehow, Michael has enough money to visit Angel several times, in an effort to court her and get her to marry him. He refuses to have sex with her during these visits, even though Angel offers sex to him as part of the transaction. Michael tells Angel that he doesn’t want to have sex with her until she falls in love with him.

The rest of “Redeeming Love” is a horrendous slog of the ups and downs of Michael and Angel’s relationship. There’s a time-wasting subplot involving Michael’s widower brother-in-law Paul Atherton (played by Logan Marshall-Green), who was married to Michael’s sister Tess, who died in 1847, when she was 21. Paul doesn’t approve of Angel being in Michael’s life. Guess who used to be a customer of Angel’s before Michael met her?

There’s also some tedious drama about fertility that comes to the forefront when a family called the Altmans end up visiting Michael’s farm. This clan includes John Altman (played by Willie Watson), his pregnant wife Elizabeth (played by Lauren McGregor), and their two daughters: Miriam (played by Tayah Ronen Abels), who’s about 14 or 15, and Ruthie (played by Tayah Ronen Abels), who’s about 10 or 11.

The performances in “Redeeming Love” are tonally off-kilter. Some of the cast members ham it up too much with their acting, while others seem bored. Cowen and Lewis (who makes his feature-film debut in “Redeeming Love”) have zero chemistry together as Angel and Michael. Angel is depicted as a fickle and flaky heartbreaker, while Michael is “too good to be true.” The filmmakers clearly want Michael to get most of the sympathy from viewers, even though Angel is the one who’s had the much harder life of being abused and exploited.

Everything about this movie is extremely condescending to women, to the point where it comes across as misogynistic. The female characters with the biggest speaking roles and the most screen time in “Redeeming Love” are involved in prostitution, when there should be a wider variety of women in the movie. That’s an example of Caruso’s sexist writing and directing for this film. “Redeeming Love” is trying to pretend that it’s an epic love story, but it’s really just epic trash.

Universal Pictures released “Redeeming Love” in U.S. cinemas on January 21, 2022. The movie is set to premiere on Peacock on March 7, 2022.

Review: ‘Together Together,’ starring Ed Helms and Patti Harrison

April 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison in “Together Together” (Photo by Tiffany Roohani/Bleecker Street)

“Together Together”

Directed by Nikole Beckwith

Culture Representation: Taking place in San Francisco, the dramedy film “Together Together” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, Latinos and African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A middle-aged bachelor hires a surrogate to carry his first child, and the two sometimes have conflicts over his controlling and neurotic ways during the pregnancy.

Culture Audience: “Together Together” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing a unique and sometimes comedic spin on society’s stereotypes of single fathers and surrogates.

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison in “Together Together” (Photo by Tiffany Roohani/Bleecker Street)

“Together Together” pokes fun at and exposes a lot of preconceptions that people might have of gender roles, when it comes to people who choose to start a family without a partner and what it means to be a pregnancy surrogate in this situation. Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith, the movie adeptly combines comedy and drama without reducing the characters to becoming punchlines or melodramatic caricatures. Patti Harrison stands out for her winning performance as a conflicted 26-year-old named Anna, who decides to become a pregnancy surrogate and finds out that she’s not the only person in the surrogacy arrangement who has to deal with gender biases.

That’s because Anna is a surrogate for someone who typically doesn’t hire a surrogate to become a first-time parent: a heterosexual, never-married bachelor in his 40s who isn’t waiting to find his soul mate/life partner to start a family. This 45-year-old bachelor is named Matt (played by Ed Helms), and he and Anna both live in San Francisco, which makes it easier for them to see each other during the pregnancy. However, living in the same city also makes it easier for neurotic Matt to try to meddle in Anna’s life and control how she lives during the pregnancy.

Matt has a well-meaning tone to his control-freak ways, so he’s not as irritating in the movie as he could be. And certainly, Helms is skilled at playing an awkward nerd to comedic effect, since he’s been typecast in doing this type of character for most of his on-screen roles. What makes “Together Together” so entertaining to watch is the chemistry between Harrison and Helms as Anna and Matt. At first, Matt and Anna appear to be a mismatch, but they end up finding that they have a lot in common when it comes to feeling like misfits in their own families.

“Together Together” begins with Matt (who is an app developer) interviewing Anna (who’s a coffee shop barista) for the surrogacy arrangement. The conversation is clearly uncomfortable for both of them, but they try to make the best out of the situation without offending the other person. Because most people watching “Together Together” already know that Anna was chosen for this surrogacy arrangement, the movie doesn’t waste time with contrivances such as Matt interviewing other candidates.

During the interview, Matt asks Anna: “Have you ever stolen anything?” Anna replies, “Pens.” Matt then asks, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Anna says, “That’s private.” His next question is, “Are you religious?” Her reply: “No. My family is, but we’re not close.”

When Matt asks Anna why she wants to be a pregnancy surrogate for him, Anna says, “This appeals to me because I know it’s not the best thing in the world to be alone.” As soon as she says it, Anna gets flustered because she knows that remark comes across as judgmental, so she apologizes profusely for making this potentially offensive remark and tries to clarify.

“I meant being alone isn’t a bad thing,” Anna comments. “I meant if family is important to someone, they should be able to make one. Plus, [I want] the money, not in a bad way. Putting a little karma in the bank never hurt anyone.” This back-and-forth mumblecore-like banter goes on for a few more minutes. And when it’s time for Anna to ask Matt any questions, she asks, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” And then, the scene ends.

It sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which divides its screenplay’s three acts according to each trimester of Anna’s pregnancy. In case viewers don’t know, the movie literally spells it out in title cards: “First Trimester,” “Second Trimester” and “Third Trimester.” Various people come and go in the movie, but Anna and Matt remain the central focus.

As Matt and Anna get to know each other, so too does the audience. Matt finds out early on in their relationship that Anna gave birth to a child (she won’t say what gender) when she was was 17 or 18 years old. Anna dropped out of high school because of the pregnancy, and she gave the child up for adoption. It was a closed adoption, so she has no idea where the child is now or who adopted the child. And she doesn’t want to know.

Anna doesn’t want to know the gender of the child she’s carrying for Matt. And when her pregnancy starts to show, she also doesn’t want to tell people why she got pregnant and who the father is. Why all the secrecy?

It becomes obvious that Anna has unresolved issues about her first pregnancy because of how it affected her relationship with the rest of her family, which includes her parents and her sister, who are not seen in the movie. It’s inferred that her family members live in an unnamed U.S. state that’s far away from California. In her interview with Matt, Anna said that her parents are religious, so viewers can easily guess how Anna’s parents reacted to Anna being an unwed pregnant teenager.

Anna eventually reveals to Matt that her parents not only disapproved of her teen pregnancy but they also angrily disagreed with her decision to give the child up for adoption. Based on some other things that Anna says about her family, it seems as if her parents thought it would have been better for Anna or someone in their family to raise the child. Later in the movie, Anna gets a call from her mother that leads Anna to make a decision that Anna didn’t expect to make.

Matt incorrectly assumes that Anna is pro-life because she didn’t have an abortion for her teen pregnancy, but Anna tells him that she’s actually pro-choice. There are several instances where Matt goes out of his way to try to say “politically correct” things to make Anna feel more at ease (for example, he announces in a pregnancy meditation group that they’re both feminists), but many times he ends up saying something that makes things more awkward.

Anna says she eventually got her GED and a college associate’s degree, but one of the reasons why she wants the surrogacy fee money (the movie shows she got paid $15,000) is because she wants to get bachelor’s and master’s degrees in hospitality. She found a university in Vermont that will allow her to get these degrees on an accelerated basis. As for her love life, Anna’s most recent relationship was with a guy named Jason, and he broke up with her for reasons that aren’t revealed.

Unlike Anna, Matt is close to his family. His parents Marty (played by Fred Melamed) and Adele (played by Nora Dunn) got divorced and are now remarried to other people. Matt’s younger brother Jacob (played by Timm Sharp) and Jacob’s wife Liz (played by Bianca Lopez) have two daughters together under the age of 3. They all live in the San Francisco area, so they get to see each other on a regular basis.

Marty, Jacob and Liz are happy for Matt and his impending fatherhood, while Adele is suspicious and judgmental about the surrogacy arrangement. Marty’s wife Dana (played by Terri Hoyos) and Adele’s husband Carson (played by Tucker Smallwood) are also supportive of Matt’s parenthood by surrogate pregnancy. Anna eventually meets all of these family members. As for Matt’s love life, Matt tells Anna that he was in a relationship for eight years with a woman he thought he might marry and start a family with, but the relationship didn’t work out.

Matt and Anna have their first major conflict in the first trimester, when Matt finds out that Anna had sex with a guy named Bryce (played by Evan Jonigkeit), whom Anna describes as probably a fling. Matt shows a very old-fashioned and ignorant side to him when he acts shocked and outraged that Anna could have sex while pregnant. When Matt meets Bryce for the first time, it’s after Bryce spent the night with Anna. Matt blurts out to Bryce and Anna: “Did you guys just fuck?”

It’s so rude and so socially clueless. Matt’s harsh reaction to Anna having a sex life while pregnant predictably leads to an argument. And that leads to a scene in an obstetrician’s office where Matt has to have it explained to him that it’s generally safe for a pregnant woman to have sex, unless she’s been told by a doctor that she can’t have sex for medical reasons. Matt is presumably well-educated as someone who works in the tech industry, but he’s woefully ignorant about a woman’s anatomy during pregnancy.

Matt tries to bring up a clause in the surrogacy contract that prohibits Anna from engaging in dangerous acts while pregnant, with Matt saying that sexual intercourse can fall under that clause. However, Anna and their obstetrician Jean (played with scene-stealing sarcasm by Sufe Bradshaw) shut Matt down with his extremely uptight reactions to the idea that Anna can’t have a sex life while pregnant. Although Matt’s reaction is over-the-top, it’s the movie’s way of pointing out how some people have sexist attitudes by believing pregnant women’s sexual needs are supposed to disappear during pregnancy.

“Together Together” mines some pregnancy rituals for some laughs and satire about people’s attitudes about gender roles in parenthood. Matt and Anna attend a pregnancy mediation class, where the so-called open-minded teacher (who tries to look like a New Age guru) is condescending and judgmental when she finds out that Anna is a single woman who is a surrogate. And when people find out that Matt and Anna aren’t a couple, Matt gets more credit and praise than Anna for being committed to going to these classes.

In their separate surrogacy support group sessions (Anna is in a group for for women, Matt is in a group for men), Matt is the only man in his group who is unmarried or without a partner/co-parent. He gets surprised reactions, but they’re not as insulting as some of the things that Anna experiences. There are straight and gay couples represented in the sessions for the support groups, meditation and childbirth preparation classes that Anna and Matt attend. As for how Anna and Matt are able to spend so much time attending all these classes and counseling sessions, it’s implied in the movie that Matt works from home, and Anna’s job at the coffee shop is part-time.

Anna experiences other casual forms of sexism, when she notices that people treat her in a more dismissive or judgmental manner when they find out that her pregnancy is a surrogate pregnancy. But she notices that when people find out that Matt is a single man who hired a surrogate, people react by saying it’s very progressive and “brave.” The message is clear with people who have this attitude: There’s still a stigma attached to being a pregnant woman who’s not married or without a partner, compared to being a pregnant woman who’s married or who has a partner.

Anna also has to experience the rudeness of over-enthusiastic people who touch her pregnant belly without permission. And then, by her third trimester, there are the people who impolitely comment on how “big” Anna is. It’s the movie’s way of showing that some people are insensitive to the fact that pregnant women already know they’ve gained weight and they don’t need it pointed out to them in a body-shaming way, even if the commenter didn’t intend to be offensive. And then there are people (such as Matt’s mother Adele) who say that Anna must be that big because the baby is probably a boy.

Meanwhile, the gender discrimination that Matt experiences isn’t as embarrassing. After people get over the shock that he hired a surrogate and he wants to be a single father, they generally think that what he’s doing is somehow groundbreaking. It helps that he lives in a liberal city such as San Francisco. “Together Together” would have been a very different (and possibly more interesting) movie if Anna and Matt lived in an area that wasn’t so open-minded and accepting of their surrogacy arrangement.

Compared to Anna, Matt doesn’t have as many challenges during this pregnancy. One of Matt’s biggest “problems” is that he can’t find any advice books on being a single father who hires a surrogate, because most books about being a single father have to do with being widowed, divorced or fighting for child custody. Matt goes all-out in preparing for his child, including buying a book that gives in-depth analysis of every conceivable color to paint a baby’s bedroom and how each color might psychologically affect the child. And, as expected, because he’s kind of an obsessive control freak, Matt wants to monitor and judge everything that Anna is eating and drinking while she’s pregnant.

It’s implied that because of the traumatic experience that Anna had with her teen pregnancy, she doesn’t want to know the gender of the child she’s carrying for Matt. Matt wants to know the gender before the baby is born. And so, he and Anna argue a little about it during an ultrasound appointment. Meanwhile, obstetrician Jean witnesses a lot of this bickering and tries not to say out loud what she’s thinking, but it’s written all over her face.

Eventually, Matt decides that if he found out the gender, it would be too hard for him to keep it a secret, so he goes along with Anna’s wish for him to not find out until the baby is born. Matt also promises that he won’t tell Anna the gender of the child after she gives birth. Matt will be the one to name the child after the baby is born.

But while Anna is pregnant, they both agree that they should give the child a gender-neutral name. There’s a comical segment where Anna and Matt go through a series of names. They disagree on and reject several names until they eventually decide to call the unborn child Lamp.

In addition to their respective surrogacy support groups, Anna and Matt get surrogacy counseling from a non-judgmental therapist named Madeline (played by Tig Notaro), who doesn’t do much but listen to Anna and Matt’s neurotic rambling. Anna also confides in a sassy barista co-worker named Jules (played by Julio Torres), who is in his early 20s, openly queer (he dates men and women), and is apparently Anna’s closest friend. Jules is one of the few people whom Anna told that her pregnancy is a surrogate pregnancy and that Matt is the biological father. Jules, who is very opinionated, warns Anna about the complications of getting emotionally involved with Matt, whom Jules eyes suspiciously when Matt visits the coffee shop.

Anna and Matt’s initial discomfort with each other evolves into a deeper understanding of each other. In their own separate ways, they experience prejudice and misunderstandings from other people about their unusual surrogacy situation. And how they navigate their relationship, while coming to terms with how this surrogate pregnancy will change them, makes this movie work so well.

But as Anna and Matt become friends, Anna feels conflicted and confused over how attached she should become to someone who will be raising a child whom she doesn’t want to know. And when she attends a baby shower that Matt has thrown for himself (the party was Anna’s idea), Anna gets an eye-opening experience on how she’s perceived by the people he’s closest to in his life. Instead of the party guests remembering Anna’s name, they call her “the surrogate.” While Matt has people congratulating him at the party, she’s often ignored.

“Together Together” could have been a very gimmicky movie, but it’s held together by witty dialogue and truthful satires. One of the movie’s main intended takeaways is how much women bear the biggest brunt of indignities when it comes to pregnancies. And even though Anna and Matt end up becoming friends, there’s still an unbalanced power dynamic between them because he’s paying her to have his child and paying all of her pregnancy expenses.

When they hang out together, Matt is the one who usually decides what they do (they end up watching every episode of the sitcom “Friends”) and he sometimes acts like a know-it-all. He’s shocked that Anna knew very little about “Friends” before she met him. It’s as if Matt can’t take into account that a lot of people don’t really watch TV and are unaware of all the characters in popular TV shows. And so, he insists that he and Anna will watch every episode of “Friends.”

Anna is also acutely aware of the age difference between herself and Matt, who doesn’t seem to think their nearly 20-year-age gap is that big of a deal. (It’s probably because Matt is emotionally immature in a lot of ways.) This leads to Anna going into a monologue about Woody Allen that has to be seen in the movie to be believed. People will either laugh and/or cringe at this monologue.

“Together Together” has some sharp observations of how well-intentioned men, even those who think that they’re “feminists,” can still have patriarchal and possessive attitudes over pregnant women’s bodies. For example, Matt (who thinks he’s a progressive liberal) was quick to try to use his surrogate contract with Anna as a legal way to stop Anna from having sex while she was pregnant. Although he ultimately failed to police Anna’s sex life, the fact that he wanted to doesn’t make it any less alarming.

Ultimately, “Together Together,” like the title suggests, is not about a battle of the sexes. It shows with a lot of amusing charm how people in unusual pregnancy situations can overcome fears and prejudices, or at least cope in the best way that they can. And if an unexpected friendship can come out if it, that’s an added bonus.

Bleecker Street released “Together Together” in U.S. cinemas on April 23, 2021. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is on May 11, 2021.

Review: ‘The Etruscan Smile,’ starring Brian Cox, Rosanna Arquette, JJ Feild and Thora Birch

March 13, 2020

by Carla Hay

Thora Birch, Brian Cox and JJ Feild in “The Etruscan Smile” (Photo courtesy of Lightyear Entertainment)

“The Estruscan Smile”

Directed by Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnu

Culture Representation: Set in San Francisco and Scotland’s Valasay, Isle of Lewis, the family drama “The Etruscan Smile” has a predominantly white cast of characters representing the wealthy and the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A Scottish ferry operator goes to San Francisco to seek medical treatment and reunites with his estranged son, who has started his own family.

Culture Audience: “The Etruscan Smile” will appeal primarily to fans of the book on which the movie is based, as well as people who like sentimental dramas about emotional subjects, such as death and family.

Rosanna Arquette and Brian Cox in “The Etruscan Smile” (Photo courtesy of Lightyear Entertainment)

If you’re not in the mood for a tearjerking drama about a dying man who reunites with his estranged son, then “The Etruscan Smile” is not going to be for you. But if you want to see a well-acted story that is elevated by authentic performances by the cast, particularly star Brian Cox, then “The Etruscan Smile” is worth watching. Just make sure you have plenty of tissues nearby if you’re someone who cries during movies.

Based on the 1985 novel “The Etruscan Smile” by José Luis Sampedro, the movie version makes some location and cultural changes from the book. “The Etruscan Smile” book, which is set in Italy, is about a dying farmer who reluctantly seeks medical treatment in Milan, stays with his estranged son, and finds it difficult to adjust to city living, but his attitude toward life changes as he bonds with his grandson. The movie has a similar premise, but the central character is a 75-year-old Scottish ferry operator named Rory MacNeil, who travels from Scotland to San Francisco to get medical treatment.

“The Etruscan Smile” was released in the United Kingdom in 2019, under the title “Rory’s Way,” which isn’t a particularly good renaming of the film because it’s so vague. Even if people have never heard of “The Estruscan Smile” book, at least it’s explained in the movie why the story has this title, which carries more emotional resonance than a title like “Rory’s Way.”

The beginning of the film takes place in Rory’s hometown of Valasay, Isle of Lewis in Scotland, where he’s a widowed former carpenter who lives alone on Hebridean Island. Rory starts his mornings by skinny-dipping in Kyles of Valasay. He spends his work days as a ferry operator for tourists, and at night he’s usually drinking in local pubs. In addition to his drinking problem, Rory can be gruff, crude and stubborn. He has the lifestyle of someone who likes to live alone and is set in his ways.

While at hanging out at a pub one night, Rory gets in an argument with Alistair Campbell (played by Clive Russell), a local man he’s been feuding with for years. Campbell shouts to the pub patrons that he’ll pay for everyone’s drinks to celebrate that Rory is dying. Rory then insults Campbell, who eventually backs off. As viewers find out later in the movie, the feud involves a bizarre contest between the two men where they’ve decided that the “winner” is whoever outlives the other.

Viewers soon see that Rory does have a serious medical condition, to the point where he’s collapsed in his home. The only person who’s been treating him is a local veterinarian, who tells Rory that he can no longer give him medicine that’s meant for animals, and he urges Rory to see a doctor who treats humans.

And apparently, since there are no doctors in Scotland or the rest of the United Kingdom that Rory wants to see, he travels all the way to San Francisco to get medical treatment, even though as a visitor from the U.K., he wouldn’t have health insurance in United States. This is the only part of the story that doesn’t make much sense. However, there are a few explanations that clear up this apparent plot hole.

First, it’s pretty obvious that since the story revolves around Rory reuniting with his estranged son, Rory (who probably knows that he’s dying, but is afraid to get the official diagnosis) is going on the trip so that he can stay with his son and get to know his son and his family better. Secondly, the question that viewers might have about how Rory is going to pay for his medical treatment is answered when Rory arrives in San Francisco, is tensely greeted at the airport by his estranged son Ian (played by JJ Feild), and taken to Ian’s high-rise luxury condo in San Francisco: Ian has married into a wealthy family.

Ian, who is Rory’s only child, went to college for biochemistry, but his chosen profession is as a chef whose specialty is molecular gastronomy. He works as a sous chef at an upscale restaurant owned by a celebrity chef, who’s not named in the movie. Ian’s supportive wife Emily (played by Thora Birch) used to work at a hospital but has launched her own firm, which is in the start-up stage. She works from home and has a nanny named Frida (played by Sandra Santiago), but Emily also has to travel a lot for her business. Emily’s father has the kind of money to afford box seats at Candlestick Park for San Francisco Giants games, as Ian mentions to Rory.

It’s obvious from Rory and Ian’s first moments together, after not seeing each other for 15 years, that the reunion is going to be tense. Rory tells Ian that he’s glad to see him, while Ian only tersely nods and says nothing. While driving from the airport, Rory gives Ian a small wooden toy horse that Rory hand-carved himself, and says that it’s a gift for Ian’s infant child Jamie. Unfortunately, Rory calls Jamie a “she” when Jamie is actually a boy. Ian doesn’t even try to hide his disgust that Rory couldn’t be bothered to remember the gender of his only grandchild. (The adorable and expressive baby Jamie in the movie is played by twins Oliver Aero Kappo Epps and Elliot Echo Boom Epps.)

There are other reasons, explained in different parts during the movie, for why Ian and his father have been estranged. After Jamie was born, Rory never bothered to contact Ian and Emily—not even to send a card. It’s also hinted in the movie that because of Rory’s conservative viewpoints on how men and women should be, Rory never really thought of Ian as a “man’s man” and was probably disappointed in Ian’s career choice. It seems like Rory expected Ian to gave a more “manly” profession that requires physical strength.

Rory also has some resentment toward Ian, because he think Ian “abandoned” his Scottish roots by going away to America to attend the University of California at Berkeley. Ian’s late mother is briefly mentioned a few times in the movie. It’s implied that she was probably a long-suffering wife, considering Ian’s stubborn and sexist ways of thinking. And because Rory was most likely the more difficult partner in the marriage, Ian is angry with his father about that too.

Because Emily’s father has paid for the condo where Ian and Emily live, Rory makes it known that he doesn’t respect Ian for not being the family breadwinner and for taking financial handouts from Ian’s father-in-law. Rory also isn’t comfortable with Emily being the more dominant partner in the marriage, as he sarcastically remarks to Ian that Emily is the one who’s wearing the pants in the family.

While Rory is staying with Ian and Emily, he tells them the real reason for the visit: He needs to get an exam for some medical issues. Emily is understanding, but it’s another reason for Ian to get upset with Rory, because Ian doesn’t like that Rory wasn’t forthcoming about all of the reasons for the visit. Meanwhile, Rory tries to adjust to living in a big city and using modern technology. And he also has to adjust to being a grandfather.

When he’s alone with Jamie, who starts crying as babies do, he gruffly tells the child, “Man up!” It’s obvious that Rory doesn’t really know much about taking care of a baby, because he comes from the “old school” way of thinking that it’s a woman’s job to do that. But over time, Rory bonds with Jamie and looks forward to babysitting him.

One day, Rory takes Jamie out for a stroll for a couple of hours, but he doesn’t tell anyone that he’s leaving and when he’s coming back. Viewers can see that it’s entirely in Rory’s character to do something this irresponsible because he’s so used to living alone and not having to answer to anyone. When he returns with the baby to Ian and Emily’s home, Ian is furious, and Emily is worried but actually apologizes to Rory instead of scolding him. Emily says that she understands how Rory might be overwhelmed by his new surroundings.

After coming back from his first doctor’s appointment in San Francisco, Rory finds a tuxedo handing in his closet and a note attached to get dressed in the tuxedo and a car will pick him for for an event. The event is a black-tie gala at a museum, and Rory arrives only wearing the top of the tuxedo and a traditional Scottish kilt on the bottom. Ian is part of the culinary team that’s prepared the food at the event, which was organized by Emily.

It’s at this soiree that Rory meets Emily’s widowed father Frank (played by Treat Williams) for the first time. Frank makes a grand gesture in front of Ian, Emily and Rory, by telling Ian that he’s put a down payment on new restaurant for him, because he wants Ian to run his own restaurant. Ian is surprised and grateful, but Rory is repulsed that Ian has had this opportunity handed to him instead of working for it. Rory thinks it’s emasculating for Ian to be so reliant on Frank. Rory comments in Scottish Gaelic as he walks off, “The best way to tame your horse is to shoot his balls off.”

While wandering around the museum by himself, Rory sees an Etruscan sculpture of a smiling couple in a loving embrace. A museum employee explains to Rory that the couple is actually dead but still able to smile. The woman, whom Rory later finds out is named Claudia (played by Rosanna Arquette), chats with Rory some more, but she’s put off by his crude way of flirting with her. He tells her that she looks natural, unlike the women at the gala with the “big, fake tits.” Still, how Rory and Claudia meet is the kind of “meet cute” moment that you can immediately tell will lead to Rory and Claudia to begin dating each other.

Shortly after attending the party, Rory gets a call from Scotland that thrills him to bits: He’s found out that his enemy Campbell is dying from liver failure and doesn’t have much longer to live. It’s a moment of gloating that could be considered karma when Rory goes for another hospital visit, and this time, he gets bad news from physician Dr. Weiss (played by Tim Matheson): Rory has Stage 4 prostate cancer. Dr. Weiss refuses to tell him at first how many months Rory has to live, although the doctor relents much later in the story and tells Rory how much time he probably has left.

Rory reacts to the diagnosis with denial and anger. He calls Dr. Weiss a “good for nothing.” And when he tells Ian the news, he snaps, “I’m fine!” when Ian expresses concern. He also tells Ian that Dr. Weiss is an “idiot” and a “hack.”

It isn’t long before Rory is back at the museum—this time during the day as a visitor. He has Jamie in a baby stroller with him, but Rory gets distracted when a young woman in the museum pickpockets him, and he unsuccessfully chases after her, leaving Jamie and the baby stroller behind. When Rory frantically returns to where he left Jamie in the stroller, he sees Claudia holding the baby. It’s such an “only in a movie” moment—but then again, stranger coincidences have happened in real life.

While Rory is getting reacquainted with Claudia, a man standing nearby overhears Rory speaking in Gaelic and tells Rory that a local university is doing research on endangered languages and would love to hire Rory for his knowledge of Gaelic. Rory says he doesn’t need the money but he would participate in the research if Claudia accompanies him to the first session. Claudia is won over by Rory’s charming side, and they begin to date each other. It’s during the research sessions led by a professor (played by Peter Coyote, whose character in the movie doesn’t have a name) that Rory starts to feel valued as a person and completely accepted for who is he is, which affects his newfound appreciation of life.

Cox is one of those character actors who’s usually the best performer in whatever project he’s involved with (and he’s finally getting major acclaim with HBO’s “Succession”), so it’s not much of a surprise if you’ve seen his work that he gives another gem of a performance. Rory MacNeil can be unpleasant, but Cox infuses the performance with a lot of humanity that shows how tender Rory is underneath all of his blustery toughness.

The supporting actors also do a very good job with their roles. A particular standout is Feild, who goes through a wide range of emotions as Ian, a man who is struggling with his identity and confidence issues because he’s always been in a family where other people have dominated. During the course of the movie, viewers see that Ian realize that he needs to define his own happiness instead of letting others dictate it for him.

“The Etruscan Smile’s” screenplay (written by Michael McGowan, Michal Lali Kagan and Sarah Bellwood) can occasionally have hokey dialogue, but the actors improve these moments of triteness by their genuine portrayal of human emotions. All of the characters in the film are entirely believable, even though some of the words in the script are overly maudlin.

The pacing and tone of the movie (directed by Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnu) are at times a little too slow and quiet for some people’s tastes, but the direction is solid. The cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe is quite gorgeous at times, especially in the aerial shots of San Francisco and Scotland.

“The Etruscan Smile” (the first movie produced by Oscar winner Arthur Cohn since 2012’s “Russendisko”) isn’t a movie about a big, loud dysfunctional family. Most of the turmoil shown in “The Etruscan Smile” is internalized by the characters, but their true feelings come out in facial expressions and other body language, rather than non-stop melodrama. The last third of the movie is the best part, so the slower parts of the film are worth getting through in order to see how the movie ends. (The closing shot in the last scene is especially poignant.)

“The Etruscan Smile” isn’t a groundbreaking film, but it’s a compelling character study of how one man deals with a terminal illness and how he tries to right some of the wrongs in his life. At the very least, the movie can remind people what legacies they want to leave behind long after they’re gone and to not take loved ones for granted.

Lightyear Entertainment released “The Etruscan Smile” in select cinemas in New York state and New Jersey on March 13, 2020. MVD Entertainment will release “The Etruscan Smile” on VOD, EST, DVD and Blu-ray on June 16, 2020. The film was released in the United Kingdom in 2019, under the title “Rory’s Way.”

Marvel Studios launches We Love You 3000 tour at Comic-Con International with directors Joe and Anthony Russo

July 19, 2019

Joe Russo and Anthony Russo
Joe Russo and Anthony Russo (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

The following is a press release from Marvel Studios:

Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame became Earth’s Mightiest Super Hero franchise this year, and soon fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will soon be able to own their own copy on Digital (July 30) and Blu-ray (August 13). But even though the curtains have closed on this phase of the MCU, the celebration is far from over. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo are hitting the road for the “We Love You 3000” Tour, a series of in-person events in nine cities throughout the United States where fans will get to express their love for the MCU while the storytellers themselves get to express their gratitude!

The “We Love You 3000” Tour will kick off July 20 at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 with the Russo brothers and some surprise guests from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fans will be treated to free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (while supplies last) and fans who come in costume will get the chance to participate in a special Marvel Studios Cosplay photo with the Russos and their special guests!

From there, the tour will go to Seattle, San Francisco, Torrance, Chicago, Miami, Minneapolis, and Cleveland before wrapping up at the D23 Expo in Anaheim on August 25. Every event will be hosted by the Russos and other favorites from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Each event will have something different to offer Marvel fans including photo ops, in-store events at Best Buy Stores, and giveaways of 3,000 MCU Funko Pop Vinyl Figures and the limited edition Avengers: Endgame SteelBook – all as a way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to express their appreciation to Marvel fans.

Marvel fans made Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame the most successful franchise in film history – now it’s time for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to say thank you!

Here are the dates, times and locations of the We Love You 3000 tour:

(All times listed are in the local time zone. Details are to be announced for start and end times at several of the tour stops.)

San Diego, California
WHEN: July 20, 2019: 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
WHERE: IMDboat – 5th Avenue Landing Marina, Slip 5B (Directly behind the convention center)

Everett, Washington
WHEN: July 30, 2019: 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
WHERE: Funko Headquarters

San Francisco, California
WHEN: August 8, 2019
WHERE: Giants Game at Oracle Park

Chicago, Illinois
WHEN: August 12, 2019
WHERE: Best Buy (exact location to be announced)

Torrance, California
WHEN: August 13, 2019
WHERE: Best Buy, 3675 Pacific Coast Highway

Miami, Florida
WHEN: August 13, 2019
WHERE: Best Buy (exact location to be announced)

Minneapolis, Minnesota
WHEN: August 14, 2019
WHERE: Best Buy (exact location to be announced)

Cleveland, Ohio
WHEN: August 20, 2019
WHERE: Best Buy, 7400 Brookpark Road

Anaheim, California
WHEN: August 13, 2019
WHERE: D23 Expo, Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Avenue

2017 Fantastic Fest: Satellite offshoots added in New York, San Francisco, Denver

September 1, 2017

Fantastic Fest 2017 LOGO

The following is a press release from Fantastic Fest:

Fantastic Fest is proud to announce the creation of a trio of ‘satellites’ hitting three flagship Alamo Drafthouse theater locations: New York, San Francisco and Denver. Spanning the weekend of September 29 to October 1, these satellites will share a highly-curated selection of Fantastic Fest’s signature programming with audiences who crave the best in adventurous genre cinema from across the world.

“For too long Austin has had all the Fantastic fun,” said Fantastic Fest Creative Director, Evrim Ersoy. “We’ve long wanted to share these brilliant films with the widest audience possible, by opening up these three satellites it’s our first step in expanding their exposure and having them embraced by new audiences.”

This year’s slate of satellite films share the the DNA and lineage of programming that has helped Fantastic Fest become the largest genre film festival in the U.S. and be dubbed “America’s wildest film festival” by The Guardian. Highlights include S. Craig Zahler’s Venice Festival debutante BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, Takashi Miike’s deliriously violent 100th film BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL, MY FRIEND DAHMER, Marc Myers’ powerful adaptation of the celebrated graphic novel and a super secret, mystery movie courtesy of American Genre FIlm Archive that has to be seen to be believed.

Tickets for these shows will go on sale Wednesday September 7th at 1pm EST. A limited number of badges for the San Francisco Fantastic Fest will go on sale today at 12pm PST.

New York Fantastic Fest – Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn
AGFA Presents: Mystery Movie
Blade of the Immortal
Brawl In Cell Block 99
Jailbreak
My Friend Dahmer
Top Knot Detective

San Francisco Fantastic Fest – Alamo Drafthouse Mission
AGFA Presents: Mystery Movie
Brawl In Cell Block 99
Hagazussa
Jailbreak
My Friend Dahmer
The Square
Top Knot Detective

Denver Fantastic Fest – Alamo Drafthouse Denver- Sloan Lake
AGFA Presents: Mystery Movie
Blade of the Immortal
Brawl In Cell Block 99
Hagazussa
Jailbreak
My Friend Dahmer
The Square
Top Knot Detective

Copyright 2017-2024 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX