I am pretty sure I was not the target demographic for this movie, and I'm just as sure my feelings weren't helped by watching it at 1:00 in the morning. But, I needed to get it back to the library and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I can't even really explain the premise of this animated, soon to be franchise, but here's a brief attempt: the Trolls are good and happy and they are hiding from the Bergens, who are mean and grumpy, but eat Trolls once a year to be happy. Yeah. Voices are provided by Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Zooey Deschanel and a cast of dozens; it seemed like the director/writers were trying to pack in as many 'top' or hot voices as possible, even if it was for only one line. The music was great; remakes of many 1970s and 1980s hits: "Sound of Silence" by Paul Simon; "Hello" by Lionel Richie, "September" by Earth, Wind and Fire (all the songs have been adapted/remade) and the Oscar-nominated song "Can't Stop the Feeling", which was so much better live and on the Oscars. I can't give you any more of a synopsis, because I stopped caring.
3/18/17 Allied, nominated Best Costume Design, 2016
I feel like I should have enjoyed Allied a lot more than I did: a drama set in World War II with an element of mystery, but it fell short somehow. Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard star as Max Vatan and Marianne Beausejour; Max is a Canadian intelligence officer who falls in love with Marianne, a member of the French Resistance as they participate in a dangerous mission in Casablanca. They get move to London, get married and have a baby. Something about Marianne doesn't sit right with Max's bosses in the intelligence branch, and they think she is working for the Germans as a spy. Max, determined to protect the woman he loves, starts to dig into Marianne's past, and is shaken by what he finds, and what his duty requires him to do. I think I would have liked more suspense and intrigue; for me, it came too little and too late. I usually love Cotillard (Two Days, One Night and La Vie en Rose), and I liked her here, but there were moments when her performance seemed forced. Pitt was good, as well, and the two had a chemistry, but...I don't know if it was the writing by Steven Knight or the direction of Robert Zemeckis, but I think a good opportunity was lost. It's not a terrible movie, just not as good as I hoped.
3/19/17 Loving, nominated Best Actress, 2016
This is a hard review to write, because I think the story of Richard and Mildred Loving is an important one in our nation's civil rights history, and I liked the movie, but it's a subtle, modest, quiet movie, and I'm not sure many people rush to the theaters to see those movies anymore, or at least not as much as they used to. Some of this country's most important moments have come about because of ordinary people trying to live their lives, even if it's against the current 'norms'; Rosa Parks, Annie Lee Cooper and the Lovings. Joel Edgerton plays Richard Loving and Ruth Negga (in an Oscar-nominated role) plays his wife, Mildred Loving. Richard is white and Ruth is black, and in 1950s Virginia, they are having an illegal relationship; they go to Washington, D.C., where they can legally be married, but come back home to Virginia where they are arrested in the middle of the night. The Lovings move to Washington, but Ruth misses the open spaces of home where she wants their children to play, and they move back, but they have to hide. Eventually, the law finds them, and arrests them again, harassing them, until Ruth writes to Attorney General Robert Kennedy and he recommends the American Civil Liberties Union to help them. The case makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 1967. The Lovings both seem to be quiet and private people, even their 'opposition' in the form of the sheriff isn't as violent and explosive as he could have been, like in Mississippi Burning. There is really only one moment where Richard seems out of character, and it's after a night of drinking with his brothers-in-law and friends (all black), and one of the men says to him (my paraphrasing) 'You're not black. You can go back to being white if you get a divorce'. Richard doesn't say anything at the time, but the next scene is him at home, drunk, crying, telling Mildred that he can take care of her. It broke my heart. All he wanted was to be with the woman he loved, raise their children and take care of his family. There is a quiet strength in Mildred, and at times, she seems to be the one holding everything together. When I was telling people about the movie after I watched it, I made the comparison to Selma, another Civil Rights movie, but on a larger scale, with big marches, riots, speeches, big, impactful scenes, and you needed that movie for that event, and people went to see the movie, and it won a lot of awards. Loving, as I've mentioned, was a quiet film, and maybe for that reason, not a lot of people saw it in the theaters. And I think that's a damned shame. The dignity and strength that these two people embodied should have more of a celebration (although June 12 is known as Loving Day, the day of the Supreme Court decision), and hopefully the film will experience a new life on television and in schools (there is virtually no violence or profanity that I can recall). Ruth Negga was up against a pretty tough cast of characters for Best Actress, and the lack of fanfare around the film probably didn't help her odds, but doesn't diminish her role or the film in any way.
3/22/17 Fire at Sea, nominated Best Documentary, 2016
I hope this doesn't sound too callous, given the nature of the documentary, which "supposedly" was to follow the plight of refugees from Africa and the Middle East coming to a Sicilian Island, but this movie did nothing to move me emotionally. I think an opportunity was lost to show the impact of the refugees coming to this small Italian island on the islanders and the people rescuing them or helping them. This could have been a long form companion to the documentary short 4.1 Miles, which did an amazing job, in less than an hour, of showing the stress and heartache of the men rescuing refugees from leaky boats, and villagers of trying to help them. It seemed to me that Fire at Sea was two movies that never quite synched up; one looked at the refugees coming over on dangerously ill-equipped boats and briefly examined the refugees as they were brought to Italian ships or on to shore; and the second, and the one that dominated, followed a young boy as he went through his daily life, playing with friends, going on a boat with his father, getting his eyes examined and treated for lazy eye. The two did not ever seem to meet up with each other. I found myself asking what was the point? Reviews said this was a powerful look at what was happening in the world with the influx of refugees and the humanitarian crisis, but it didn't seem that way to me at all. I was very disappointed.
This is a hard review to write, because I think the story of Richard and Mildred Loving is an important one in our nation's civil rights history, and I liked the movie, but it's a subtle, modest, quiet movie, and I'm not sure many people rush to the theaters to see those movies anymore, or at least not as much as they used to. Some of this country's most important moments have come about because of ordinary people trying to live their lives, even if it's against the current 'norms'; Rosa Parks, Annie Lee Cooper and the Lovings. Joel Edgerton plays Richard Loving and Ruth Negga (in an Oscar-nominated role) plays his wife, Mildred Loving. Richard is white and Ruth is black, and in 1950s Virginia, they are having an illegal relationship; they go to Washington, D.C., where they can legally be married, but come back home to Virginia where they are arrested in the middle of the night. The Lovings move to Washington, but Ruth misses the open spaces of home where she wants their children to play, and they move back, but they have to hide. Eventually, the law finds them, and arrests them again, harassing them, until Ruth writes to Attorney General Robert Kennedy and he recommends the American Civil Liberties Union to help them. The case makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 1967. The Lovings both seem to be quiet and private people, even their 'opposition' in the form of the sheriff isn't as violent and explosive as he could have been, like in Mississippi Burning. There is really only one moment where Richard seems out of character, and it's after a night of drinking with his brothers-in-law and friends (all black), and one of the men says to him (my paraphrasing) 'You're not black. You can go back to being white if you get a divorce'. Richard doesn't say anything at the time, but the next scene is him at home, drunk, crying, telling Mildred that he can take care of her. It broke my heart. All he wanted was to be with the woman he loved, raise their children and take care of his family. There is a quiet strength in Mildred, and at times, she seems to be the one holding everything together. When I was telling people about the movie after I watched it, I made the comparison to Selma, another Civil Rights movie, but on a larger scale, with big marches, riots, speeches, big, impactful scenes, and you needed that movie for that event, and people went to see the movie, and it won a lot of awards. Loving, as I've mentioned, was a quiet film, and maybe for that reason, not a lot of people saw it in the theaters. And I think that's a damned shame. The dignity and strength that these two people embodied should have more of a celebration (although June 12 is known as Loving Day, the day of the Supreme Court decision), and hopefully the film will experience a new life on television and in schools (there is virtually no violence or profanity that I can recall). Ruth Negga was up against a pretty tough cast of characters for Best Actress, and the lack of fanfare around the film probably didn't help her odds, but doesn't diminish her role or the film in any way.
3/22/17 Fire at Sea, nominated Best Documentary, 2016
I hope this doesn't sound too callous, given the nature of the documentary, which "supposedly" was to follow the plight of refugees from Africa and the Middle East coming to a Sicilian Island, but this movie did nothing to move me emotionally. I think an opportunity was lost to show the impact of the refugees coming to this small Italian island on the islanders and the people rescuing them or helping them. This could have been a long form companion to the documentary short 4.1 Miles, which did an amazing job, in less than an hour, of showing the stress and heartache of the men rescuing refugees from leaky boats, and villagers of trying to help them. It seemed to me that Fire at Sea was two movies that never quite synched up; one looked at the refugees coming over on dangerously ill-equipped boats and briefly examined the refugees as they were brought to Italian ships or on to shore; and the second, and the one that dominated, followed a young boy as he went through his daily life, playing with friends, going on a boat with his father, getting his eyes examined and treated for lazy eye. The two did not ever seem to meet up with each other. I found myself asking what was the point? Reviews said this was a powerful look at what was happening in the world with the influx of refugees and the humanitarian crisis, but it didn't seem that way to me at all. I was very disappointed.
