Our reviews and thoughts on the latest releases, classics, and nostalgic favourites. Things we loved, things we hated, and worst of all, things we were ambivalent about.
Do you want to know how it ends? A meteor. That’s how we go. For the people of Earth, that day is today. It’s the last day of Earth, and Liza (Zoe Lister-Jones) has been invited to a party. The meteor is the least interesting thing about How It Ends, and its only certainty.
Liza’s initial inclination is to spend her last day alone, getting high and eating cookies. It’s a pretty solid plan, but unfortunately her Younger Self (also named Liza of course) (Cailee Spaeny) vetoes. Plan B involves checking off items on a list of regrets en route to the pre-apocalypse party. On Liza’s list of regrets: exes, former friends, estranged parents. Truth is the theme for the day, and if that doesn’t keep her honest, her Younger Self sure will. Liza and Young Liza hoof it across Los Angeles, encountering a pretty eclectic cast of characters, but most of all bonding with and taking care of each other.
How It Ends is oddly playful for the pre-apocalypse, but as both co-writer-director and its star, Zoe Lister-Jones certainly has the right sort of presence to pull it off. She’s got excellent chemistry with Spaeny, which you’d really sort of have to, or the whole thing would be an utter failure. It’s a fascinating philosophical experiment, to have two versions of the same person interacting with each other so naturally. I loved the relationship between the two, and felt a little jealous of it. I enjoyed laughing with them, eavesdropping on their most intimate conversations, and indulging in a double dose of Lister-Jones’ unique brand of charm.
Frequent collaborators Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein manage to take a quirky premise and ground it with self-aware performances. As the meteor draws ever nearer, we dread it not because of the impending doom of humanity, because it means the movie itself will end, and we’ve been having too much fun to want to say goodbye.
Aood (Ice Natara) finds out he’s dying of cancer and knows just who to call: everyone! Working his way through his contact list, he calls every friend and acquaintance to thank them for whatever it was that they’d shared. At the end he’s got only a select few remaining, close friends that he must say goodbye to in person.
His first call is to estranged best friend Boss (Tor Thanapob), a club owner in New York City, who agrees to return to Thailand to help his friend with a last request. Aood has a couple of ex-girlfriends to return mementos of their past relationship to, though closure is what he’s really after, on their behalf more than his own, being quite familiar with the dull ache of being the one left behind. One girlfriend is happier to see him than another, but either way, names are getting ticked off the list, dwindling contacts deleted from his phone. You might start to wonder, as I did, with half the movie still to go, is Aood’s cancer linger just a little too long? Alas, there is one relationship left to repair: predictably, that of Aood and Boss, and an ex they more or less have in common.
At this point the film jogs backwards, illuminating their shared history, but derailing the narrative of the first film quite drastically. Surprisingly, it eventually finds its way back, but I’m not convinced this was the best path to telling the story. More than just a story, though, One For The Road is a toast to male friendship and complicated bonds between young men.
Although the film didn’t blow me away, it did have some truly stand-out moments, and even if a bit derivative, it’s clear director Baz Poonpiriya has a voice and style he’s just beginning to own. If One For the Road is manipulative, at least it’s skillfully manipulative, and delivered via some fine performances. Poonpiriya shows promise, with some room for improvement.
Amin is a successful academic on the verge of doing the whole house and marriage thing, but he’s been hiding a secret for more than 20 years, and a secret with roots that deep can threaten even the most stable life. So for the first time, Amin sits down to share his story with an old friend.
Amin and writer-director Jonas Poher Rasmussen have known each other since high school, when Amin arrived in Denmark from Afghanistan as an unaccompanied minor alone in the world, having fled the country of his birth by himself. His back story was shadowy and thus often the subject of gossip, but Amin kept his story to himself, and only now, in this animated documentary, is he choosing to unravel it for the first time, an attempt to reconcile himself with the past, perhaps, and an act of hope toward his future.
A powerful testament to the refugee experience, this animated documentary is unbound from the usual confines of story-telling and benefits from a multi-layered approach to truth and identity. Amin’s story is complicated, and it is sometimes contradictory. He’s had to hide the truth for fear of persecution, for fear of discovery, but he’s also hidden it from himself, a common coping mechanism. Thus his story is not just one man’s account of fleeing the Taliban, but an exploration of trauma and its far-reaching ramifications. And for dessert, an accidental treatise on unreliable narrators, truth distorted by perception and time. Even the animation itself serves as a filter, obscuring us further from a subject whom we never properly meet.
Shame and guilt are the salt and pepper to Amin’s narrative, seasoning wounds that are already festering quite nicely without help. We can only hope that the process has been cathartic for Amin, and grateful for the intimacy and trust implicit in this act of sharing. Rasmussen’s familiarity and friendship with his subject is a gift and a curse. Certainly his gentle coaxing elicits a fuller story that we might otherwise have heard, but Rasmussen sometimes forgets we don’t know Amin as well as he does. We might have enjoyed an introduction. And Rasmussen’s wish to grant his friend a happy ending is admirable, but as a film maker, it’s a little easy, a little pat. And yet, over the course of our 83 minutes together, we want the best for him too. Amin doesn’t owe us his story. His sharing is a gift, and if Rasmussen is tempted to wrap it up in a bow, who can blame him?
Executive produced by Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Flee premiered on opening night at the Sundance Film Festival and was so well-received that NEON snapped it up, the first acquisition of Sundance 2021, before I could even post this review.
Edith Pretty has always supposed there may be gold in them there hills. Or artifacts, anyway, something of historical value. And so widowed Mrs. Pretty (Carey Mulligan) engages a disgruntled excavator away from a museum that undervalues him and underpays him. Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) digs right in, but what he finds is of far more significance than anyone had dared imagine.
Vexingly, the minute the dig turns up anything of real value, the British Museum and “the man” come sniffing, looking to take credit and ownership. They also take over the dig although no one wanted anything to do with it when it was just a housewife with a hilly backyard; Edith has up until now been self-financing the work.
The 1938 excavation of Sutton Hoo was of course historically significant and netted many revelatory precious artifacts. But for the real people involved, it was a time of personal significance as well. A war is looming. A young boy is without a father. A young woman learns she is not in love with her husband. An old man bonds with a child who isn’t his. A mother learns she will leave her son an orphan. And everyone fights to protect “their” treasure = from the air raids, and the thieves, and the damn greedy bastards. Though history won’t recognize them, Netflix will, assembling a first-rate cast with stand-out performances from Mulligan, Fiennes, and Lily James.
Director Simon Stone’s pacing is exquisite, unfurling a film that is languorous and poetic, unhurried and revealing, with just a tinge of melancholy lingering about the beautiful English countryside. The Dig made me think a lot about legacy – how the people who buried this ship and its treasures left a remarkable historical record for us to find, and in finding it, Edith Pretty et. al became a part of that record too. In some ways, even this film becomes part of this record, dating all the way back to the 6th Century. Of course, our own culture is so materialistic we’d never leave buried anything of great value. If the future isn’t digital, we won’t have left much of an impression, just piles of Chinese plastic. This is why we have such a fascination with archeology; we want to understand our ancestors, to know from whence we come. We’re less adept at telling who we are, and we collectively lack the ability to understand that we, too, might someday be reduced to a few artifacts in a museum. Hubris. It’s a condition of humanity, I suppose, and a film like this, though pretty and competently made, is hardly an adequate defense. In fact, while I found plenty to like about The Dig, it fell short of love, never quite stirring sentiment in the way it clearly expected it would.
Greetings from the Sundance Film Festival! Okay, to be honest, I’m not in Utah; Sundance has come to me – and possibly to you, if you go online and buy a ticket (good news! you’re already online! halfway there!).
Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is a CODA – a child of deaf adults. Her older brother Leo’s deaf too. She’s the only hearing member of her family. She’s still in high school but she gets up every day at 3am to hit the fishing boat with Leo (Daniel Durant) and their dad Frank (Troy Kotsur). Times are tough. Fish merchants are putting the squeeze on those in the boats, and while Ruby’s extra pair of hands on the boat are necessary, it’s her ears that are most pivotal. She is their link to the hearing world, to the people who set prices and regulate their industry and affect their future.
As a senior in high school, it is natural that Ruby would be wanting to peel away from her family. Literally finding her voice and pursuing her passion for singing is the only thing she does just for herself, but it takes time away from a family who are quite reliant on her. Ruby is the constant conduit between her family and the world. She never had the childhood that others do. While Ruby sometimes feels othered in her family, being the only hearing member, she is indeed a member of the deaf community in her own way. American Sign Language (ASL) was her first language, and is still her default.
Director Siân Heder treats ASL almost as if it is a character in the film. She captures the movement and the expression, giving us a de facto crash course in the language as Ruby translates helpfully from the side. Frank is particularly, erm, unfiltered, prone to salty assertions and crude but colourful insults which embarrass his daughter even when she chooses not to translate them.
Emilia Jones stretches wide to play this supremely mature teenage girl who longs for freedom while fearing for her family. She is a joy to watch and it’s easy to get lost in her story as she feels authentic on fishing boats and on stages alike. But what makes a movie like this, which is surprisingly conventional in its beats, is the fullness of character achieved by the entire family. Kotsur, as salty dog Frank, rough and tumble, coarse in a self-satisfied way, shows us a man struggling to provide for his family and support his growing daughter. Durant as Leo is a heartthrob big brother with his own ambitions who chafes at having his independence undermined by the help of his little sister. And last but not least is Marlee Matlin as mom Jackie, feisty former beauty queen and fierce mama bear. Theirs is a close knit family that is going through some growing pains as all families do. They may have their unique challenges, but at the end of the day, the Rossis aren’t so different. Heder’s tendency to lean into the tropes of the genre only highlights the fact that this family experiences all the same ups and downs as any other. But Heder’s tenderness and authenticity mark this film as one to watch, and with such strong and vibrant performances, it’s also one you won’t forget.
Pili (Kea Peahu) is Hawaiian born but Brooklyn raised, a competitive pre-teen geo-cacher who chases treasure all over New York City with her best friend. They’re so good they win a trip to a geo-cache summer camp in the Catskills, which makes Pili the only person in the history of the world to be mad about going to Hawaii on summer break. But her grandfather’s had a heart attack and mom insists.
Mom Leilani (Kelly Hu) left Hawaii when her husband died, but with her father Kimo (Branscombe Richmond) struggling physically and financially, she’s beginning to wonder if a move back to the family land is in order. Her kids Pili and Ioane (Alex Aiono) aren’t super excited by this news, as you can imagine, but Hawaii grows on Pili exponentially when she finds a journal detailing long-lost pirate booty. It’s like real-life geo-caching, with centuries-old Spanish gold as the prize! If they can find it, that is. Pirates are pretty shrewd when it comes to this stuff. Luckily Pili’s got a treasure map and a new friend named Casper (Owen Vaccaro) to help her navigate it. We get some stunning Hawaiian views and a genuine adventure not unlike The Goonies. Pili and Casper are joined by Ioane and new friend Hana (Lindsay Watson), and the foursome will encounter peril and mystery as they negotiate unknown and possibly haunted cave systems. Pirates are pretty serious about protecting the treasure they bury. Soon even the kids realize they’re in danger, but the only way out is forward, no matter how many dead bodies warn them away.
Finding ‘Ohana is a delightful family film and a throwback to epic action-adventures fit for kids. With grown-up stakes and real-life threats, the kids search for treasure but instead (or also?) find a connection to the land and to their heritage. Director Jude Weng knows the true treasure is friendship, and these bonds will only be strengthened throughout the film – perhaps even belabouring the fact, if we’re being honest. The film doesn’t really need to be two hours long. But it’s charming and well-made, with set pieces to impress and entertain, and stunning visuals you won’t get tired of admiring. The young actors are surprisingly excellent and the story is character-driven. It’s a fun film your family will surely enjoy this weekend, and on repeated viewings in the future.
Yesterday we watched The Ugly Dachshund mainly for its title and then ended up kind of charmed by it – except for the racist depictions of other cultures, for which Disney is truly sorry and even has a neat little disclaimer saying so. We checked for a disclaimer on this movie as well and found none, which Sean found a little unlikely but I reminded him that IF any other races or cultures were depicted in the film they surely would be horrible and racist but in 1959 it was even more likely that the film would just be homogenously white. Problem solved! Right? Well, it’s the kind of racism you don’t need a disclaimer for, a thought so disturbing we had to put a pin in it to debate some other time, though I do think the idea has value: the complete lack of diversity is also courtesy of racism, and it’s just as important to recognize racism by omission or lack of representation as the more “overt” kinds that may be easier to spot and condemn. Anyway, on to a very white 1959 indeed…
Wilson Daniels (Fred MacMurray) feels like some kind of freak, but he just doesn’t like dogs. Perhaps, as a former mail carrier, they’re just not meant to mix. His young son Moochie (Kevin Corcoran) wants a dog pretty badly anyway, but dad is adamant (and to be fair, also seems to have an allergy, despite his wife suggesting it may be psychosomatic). Perhaps a dog would have been a safer compromise, though, something to distract the kids because as it stands, teenage son Wilby (Tommy Kirk) is in the basement, about to blow the house up with a missile. Or an “issile interceptor”, mom Freeda (Jean Hagen) mistakenly supplies, because her female brain is clearly inferior, the poor, ignorant slut. In fact, the way Disney treats women in this film deserves its own disclaimer. And would definitely be picketed by PETA, while we’re airing all of Disney’s dirty laundry. That out of the way, back to the review.
Wilby goes and gets himself into yet more trouble, this time involving the girl next door. No, not THAT kind of trouble. This kind of trouble: he takes her to a museum where he clumsily knocks over an exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts and accidentally brings home a ring in the cuff of his pants that periodically turns him into a sheepdog. And that’s not even the crazy part! While nosing around a neighbour’s house, Wilby the sheepdog overhears a plot involving spies and stolen technology. He’ll have to convince brother Moochie, who knows his secret, to convince his father, who doesn’t know it yet, to flag the police. Dad is more distraught to learn that his son is (sometimes) a dog than he is about the whole secret agent theft thing. He can’t believe his own son is a dog, how terrible, how embarrassing, what will the neighbours think? He whines long enough that I start to wonder if this is a weird allegory for finding out your son is gay, but then I remember: 1959. Disney. That would be a whole other disclaimer.
No, the son is just a dog, and the dog will have to hop in a cop car and stop the criminals himself – and if he’s lucky, engage in an act of heroism along the way, which would break the dog curse. Fingers crossed.
Disney+ has so many hidden gems and unknown oddities that it feels like the vault is more like a mystery grab bag. Having adopted our first Dachshund about 6 months ago, we couldn’t believe that you’d ever call any of them ugly (our Walt was born with a birth defect – his left eye socket is too small, and he’s blind in that eye, but honestly it just makes him cuter) and we couldn’t wait to find out why they did – though we did wait, at least until Walt was out of earshot, just in case.
The Ugly Dachshund (1966) is about a young couple, Fran (Suzanne Pleshette) and Mark (Dean Jones) Garrison, who are perhaps a bit mismatched in the doggie department. Fran is obsessed with her prized Doxie, Danke, who’s just given birth to a litter of female pups. They are receiving the best start to life in Dr. Pruitt’s (Charles Ruggles) cushy vet office, where his own Great Dane has also recently given birth. Great Danes have much larger litters than little weiner dogs, and Dr. Pruitt’s concerned that his girl won’t have enough milk to go around, so the two men agree to sneak one of the Great Dane pups into Dake’s basket, who has the space and the food for one more. This, then, is the Ugly Dachshund.
Can you even?
Mark, who has never been a fan of the Doxies, is quite tickled to have Brutus the Great Dane, though he attempts to keep the breed a secret from his wife as long as possible – which actually results in poor Brutus having an identity crisis of sorts, believing himself to be one of the Dachshunds, never realizing he’s simply too big to be a lapdog. The Garrison household becomes a war of dogs, the Dachshunds getting into all kinds of trouble, with old pal Brutus taking most of the blame. Things come to a hilarious head on the night of a big backyard party; the Garrison’s social circle will never be the same!
This is an exceedingly cute movie if you don’t mind the casual racism, which of course we should. When Disney Plus started migrating all these old movies onto their streaming service, making some of them available for the first time in decades, they realized how poorly some of them had aged. Some of their films simply did not make the cut but others, like The Ugly Dachshund, is prefaced with a disclaimer: This programme includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. We want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. We’ve seen this warning in front of Peter Pan recently, and Dumbo too. Certainly the “negative depictions” were not difficult to spot in any of those movies and if you’re watching with children, a follow-up conversation is probably appropriate. That said, this movie was extremely difficult for me to watch, mostly because of cuteness overload. If I thought having one little Walt running around our house was sweet, imagine having a proud mama, 3 adorable puppies, and 1 Great Dane in disguise. I literally squealed and squirmed my way through this movie, my heart aflutter over every puppy pile – and true to Doxie tradition, there were many piles indeed (they love to cuddle!).
In real life, Suzanne Plechette had a Yorkie at home named Missy who kind of resented the Dachshund scent on her mama at the end of the day, so Plechette had to shower and change before returning home. We have a Yorkie too (we have nearly as many dogs as the Garrisons). His name is Fudgie and he doesn’t resent Walt at all; in fact, he likes the cut of his jib so much that he frequently tries to mate with him.
Fun fact: you may recognize Brutus from another Disney film – he’d also starred as Duke, one of the Swiss Family Robinson’s two guardian Great Danes. Dean Jones, meanwhile, starred in That Darned Cat, which I think makes him a bit of a traitor, and frankly, I’m surprised the dogs didn’t take a collective vote and boot him off the film altogether.
After being attacked in a parking garage, Ellen (Madelaine Petsch) wakes up without her sight. The nurse at her bedside tells her the damage to her eyes is irreversible. Unable to see, she is now dependent on her caretaker Clayton (Alexander Koch), whose main job is to help Ellen adjust to her new reality. Clayton spends a fair amount of time with Ellen at her apartment, and when he is not around, Ellen is occasionally visited by the detective investigating her attack as well as her two next-door neighbours, one who is abused and one who is the abuser.
But even without her sight, Ellen sees that something about this situation is….off. She can’t figure out what exactly is wrong but as she pulls at loose threads, her whole world starts unravelling.
Writer/director Cooper Karl establishes early on that the viewer’s eyes cannot be trusted, and it’s a recurring theme on which Sightless’ twists rely. While that approach likely was intended to match Ellen’s experience of being Sightless, it left me feeling disconnected from the film since I kept being reminded that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That disconnect neuters every one of this film’s attempts to shock, surprise and thrill, since nothing on screen can be trusted.
With Sightless lacking any edge due to its structure, you’re better off seeing what else Netflix has on offer.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 