Category: Marc’s Reviews

THE PRINCESS BRIDE

By Marc S. Sanders

The Princess Bride, Rob Reiner’s whimsical storybook fantasy come to life by means of a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading to his bedridden grandson (Fred Savage), has taken on an everlasting life of its own.  Though it’s not my favorite movie, it’s way up there for my wife, adjacent to Grease 2. I find it to be cute, but lacking a pulse on occasion.  Sorry, but for me a lot of the characters and moments are simply sleepy.  Maybe it’s literally too much of a bedtime story. Still, I do not frown on its pop culture touchstones since its release forty years ago.

Famed screenwriter William Goldman adapts his book that includes heroics and romance, along with swordplay and fire swamps haunted with R.O.U.S’s.  

A beautiful girl called Buttercup (Robin Wright, in her debut role) falls in love with a farm boy named Westley (Cary Elwes) who tends to any of her demands by responding with the simple catchphrase “As you wish.”  Though, just as the pair confess their affections for each other, Westley is thought to be killed by pirates.

Five years pass and Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) has declared that Buttercup is to be his bride.  The lady has no say in the matter and stands fast that she will never love again as long as Westley is gone. 

Buttercup is taken captive by three strangers. Vizinni, proud of his brilliant mind, Inigo Montoya an expert swordsman bent on avenging the six fingered man who killed his father, and Fezzick, the lovable giant.  (Respectively portrayed by Wallace Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, and Andre The Giant). 

But wait!!!! A masked man dressed in black takes up pursuit to rescue the kidnapped girl.

Everything looks familiar in The Princess Bride.  What has made the film so special is the attempts for comedy based on one liners and puns.  Billy Crystal is Miracle Max, the old healer, but with his Jewish New Yorker schtick for a personality.  Carol Kane compliments him well as the nagging wife.  Prince Humperdinck has people to kill and frame and a kingdom to overthrow, all while planning to marry Buttercup.  He’s swamped!  I love the sermon focused on “MAAWIDGE” delivered by the kingdom’s clergyman (my introduction to Peter Cook).  These moments of dry comedy make up for some unexciting leading characters.

Try as I might I have trouble understanding what Andre and Patinkin are saying beneath their dialects.  That’s an issue that takes me out of the movie. Patinkin moves gracefully with action, but his personality is sleep inducing.  Even with a Spaniard’s accent, he comes off very flat.  Christopher Guest is also here as Humperdinck’s right-hand man.  With This Is Spinal Tap! and his own mockumentaries, especially Waiting For Guffman, Guest’s appearance here is a bit of a letdown.  The guy is a perfect comic but he’s so dry and unexciting here.

Cary Elwes is dashingly handsome with his blond locks and a wry grin.  The sword fight with Patinkin is one for the ages, despite the blah music behind it and the artificial looking rock like set.

The soundtrack plays like a kid’s electric keyboard and the sets, while decorated impressively, still look like they are residing in a soundstage warehouse.  The beauty of fantasy is the escape.  The imagery must look convincingly like another world entirely.  Here I could never get past the fact that nearly everything from the fire swamp to the pit of despair and the castle looks like something from my fourth-grade play.  The costumes work.  The environments look too crafted out of spray-painted cardboard and paper mache, though. 

Robin Wright is the princess.  She’s beautiful, but there’s not much demanded of her from Goldman’s script except for a graceful English accent.

My favorite is Vezinni.  Wallace Shawn is simply doing Wallace Shawn and that’s absolutely fine by me.  The bratty Jewish guy with the lisp who operates with the most energy in the cast next to Crystal and Cook.  The best scene of the whole movie doesn’t include the screaming eels or a sword fight.  It’s actually when Shawn shares a moment with Elwes in a battle of wits.  Goldman writes his best dialogue here as Vizinni explains layers upon layers of logic because anything that Westley can think of can only be “INCONCEIVABLE!”  This scene plays like the best of Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show.  Truly one of my favorite comedy moments ever.

I like The Princess Bride.  I just don’t love it like so many ardent fans.  My hang ups just keep me out of the picture, and I think about what I want for dinner rather than where my full attention should be – the rescue of Buttercup.

Nevertheless, I love Rob Reiner for making such a film.  Too often the standard princess in the castle formula is reserved for Disney blueprints.  Goldman and Reiner colored outside the lines to lend comedic self-depreciation to the regular tropes.  I only wish they heightened their efforts a little more.

I miss Rob Reiner.  It’s a terrible loss and the tragic fate he shared with his wife is not only unfair to them but to the world of moviegoers and beyond.  He delivered bi-partisan opinions on politics, always looking to improve his country.  The height of his career might have been in the 1980s & 90s (This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, Misery, The American President, When Harry Met Sally…) but he always remained a treasured filmmaker and occasional actor in surprising roles (The Wolf Of Wall Street, Sleepless In Seattle).  He’ll also always be “Meathead.”  Sadly, when I return to these special and often groundbreaking movies, there’s now a tragic mark on the experience.  How can I not think about what Reiner would still have contributed to the world had his life and ongoing legacy not been ripped away so brutally and unnaturally? 

It’s truly inconceivable.

GOOD WILL HUNTING

By Marc S. Sanders


I went to a prestigious private high school.  I was never a genius but I primarily got As and Bs.  However, when I reflect on my four years there, I believe I always had to bust my ass for those grades simply to keep up with the rest of the class, comprised of sixty students.  The majority of my classmates never looked like they overexerted themselves.  With my dad hammering at me to turn a 96 into a 100, disguised as sarcasm that painfully bit me every time, I was a very insecure kid among this community of students primed for Ivy League.  One student could look at the page of a book for seven seconds and absorb all of the information in print. There’s a quick transitional moment where Will Hunting, Good Will Hunting, exponentially accomplishes such a feat.  Only difference is he reads a renowned therapist’s best selling book from cover to cover in minutes.  Thereafter, he’s able to conclude that the author likely conceals his homosexuality due to shame.  Will Hunting has one of the most gifted minds in history, but hides it beneath what he says with his fists in the Southie schoolyards of Boston accompanied with a brutal vernacular, telling anyone who challenges him to “f’ack off.”

The title character is magnificently played by Matt Damon, who co-wrote this script with his childhood best friend and Harvard classmate, Ben Affleck.  The film was directed by Gus Van Sant and went on to earn Oscars for the original screenplay, and for Robin Williams in a supporting role.  Seven other nominations were also applauded for the film.  

In the year that Titanic ruled the box office, it was Damon and Affleck’s little project that stayed afloat with $220 million in worldwide revenues on a $10 million dollar budget.  I consider their achievements as great as what Sylvester Stallone accomplished when he sold his script for Rocky.  Collectively, they have at least inspired me to follow through with writing my own original plays.

Will is an orphaned twenty-year-old janitor who mops the floors of the mathematics building at M.I.T.  The esteemed and self-confident Professor Gerald “Gerry” Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) posts an extremely complex math problem on the hallway blackboard allowing his students the opportunity for “greatness” if any of them can solve it before the end of the semester.  Overnight, it has been solved but no one takes credit for it.  It’s only later when Gerry and his faithful assistant Tom (Tom & Jerry!  HA!) realize that Will, the foul-mouthed janitor, is the kid with all the answers.  Amazingly though, he’s serving time for assaulting a police officer while starting a neighborhood gang brawl.  

Gerry has to groom this kid and shape him so that he can take credit for sharing Will’s brilliance with the world.  A judge agrees to release Will under the condition that he routinely meets with a therapist to deal with his anger issues.  Gerry eventually turns to his estranged friend and college roommate Sean (Robin Williams) who grew up in the same neighborhood as Will. Will might discover that he has more in common with Sean than he realizes.

No matter how many times I watch Good Will Hunting, I visualize a strong structure to its character make up, and that gives enforcement to the story.  In the center of this nucleus is Will.  Lines are connected to people who have a concern for him and his future.  

First, there is his pal Chuckie (Affleck).  With their buddies Morgan and Billy (Casey Affleck, Cole Hauser), the guys routinely drive around all day into the night drinking, smoking, and hanging around batting cages and bars.  Eventually, Chuckie will not be able to hold his tongue anymore and will have to lay out what Will should be doing beyond the nowhere life he leads now.

Next is Skylar played by Minnie Driver in a career turning portrayal as a sweet, sensitive and fun Harvard medical student. She shares a love story with Damon’s character that stands apart from so many other movies.  Their relationship builds as Skylar tries to understand all that Will is capable of while he hides behind the biggest of lies, like expecting her to believe that he has twelve older brothers, three of whom he currently lives with. He’s not proud of his super intelligence.  So, he resorts to making up what she might find impressive and unique about him.  

Gerry is proudly pompous as he carries his award-winning mathematical accolades with his designer scarves and sports coats, ensuring that Tom is always his follower, literally pacing a step behind.  Gerry may have Will’s best interests at heart, but it’s only because of his fascination with grooming the next Albert Einstein located within his own town.  As long as he can lay claim to the success of Will, then Gerry wants what is best for his discovery.  The question is whether Will wants what Gerry pursues.

Lastly, maybe the most important connection belongs to Sean.  A therapist and professor at Bunker Hill Community College who still mourns the death of his wife following an agonizing eight-year illness. Following an introduction where Will completely disarms Sean by examining a watercolor painting, Sean realizes that he must find a way to taper the patient’s super powered aptitude.  Will knows everything.  However, Sean must remind Will that he hasn’t experienced anything. Namely, love, responsibility and purpose.  Will’s weakness though is his “what-if” response to any opportunity that comes his way.  That weakness stems from his ability to foreshadow possibilities that he’d rather not face and overcome.  His nature is to see thirty steps ahead where everything derails for him and therefore undoes Will with opportunities for success and love.

Affleck and Damon carved a fully realized subject in their title character.  Their script runs episodically for Will with a different person in nearly every scene.  If Will is physically not in a scene, at the very least the moment still has something specifically to do with him.  In the second half of the movie, Gerry and Sean share moments where they debate and insist upon what they think is best for the prodigy.  Yet, the argument stems from their personal history together long before this kid entered their lives.  There’s a lot of deep thought and sensitivity written for Stellan Skarsgård and Robin Williams to rely upon for their performances.  

Apparently, the role of Skylar was not supposed to be British.  Yet, Minnie Driver delivers an Oscar nominated role by using her native tongue.  I like it because it shows Will encountering someone right for him who originates from outside of Boston, which is all he truly knows beyond the books he quickly skims through.  Skylar is an instinctual person.  She’d have to be to attend Harvard, but unlike Will with the untrained genius capabilities, she wants to learn about people who enter her life. Afar of therapy, mathematics and getting drunk with his buddies, Skylar is a pure, non-judgmental person for Will to share in his life.  He must figure out if he’s ready to take the gamble that she’s up for.  More importantly, as Sean will remind him, Skylar is not perfect and neither is Will.  

Chuckie may just be who Will has to sacrifice for any means of a promising future. I never thought Affleck was given much to do with his role until a concluding scene arrives in the third act.  He and Damon share a magnificent moment that seals the success of their script when the partnered screenwriters finally have to deliver an epiphany to their genius creation who carries a wealth of faults and personal demons. I like to think the context of this scene relies upon the real-life history of the two actors.  Harvey Weinstein, the producer, wanted Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in these roles.  Tell me, do you think that would have worked as effectively?

Good Will Hunting allows for so much to think about.  Will is portrayed more of a curse to himself and the world than anything else.  The role of Tom played by a real mathematician, John Mighton, has at best ten to fifteen lines in the whole picture, but it’s his presence and disapproving response to Will’s behavior that say so much about the overachievers who attend schools like M.I.T. and Harvard.  

One of my favorite parts occurs when an accomplished professor insists to Gerry that a problem cannot be resolved.  Will bellows the answer as easy as breathing and the middle-aged professor is destroyed instantly.  Tom tries to console the poor man before he storms out of the room in unnerving frustration.  As well, Stellan Skarsgård’s character operates with earned conceit but gradually crumbles as his newfound apprentice minimizes all that he’s acquired over his lifetime.  

The only one who can overcome Will’s involuntary penchant for personal destruction is Robin Williams’ Sean who knows that academia and knowledge must not be what truly defines Will Hunting.  Compared to Will’s background, Sean has experienced similar childhood trauma. Chuckie stems from a similar environment.  So, it’s just as well that both Sean and Chuckie are likely the most appropriate to guide Will in the best, most appropriate direction.

Wait!!!! Look at me!!!! 

I’m dissecting the characters of Good Will Hunting and I’ve hardly critiqued the picture.  I’m sorry.  I guess the film does not invite much criticism when it covers so many dimensions related to mentality and environment, strengths and talents, and the side effects which spawn weakness.

Good Will Hunting is not a perfect movie. One particular moment irritates me to no end.  If you’ve seen the film, then maybe you feel the same as I do with the “Retainer!” scene.  Chuckie dons a ridiculous three-piece suit and goes as Will to a prestigious job interview where he capably corners the interviewers into a bribe.  I cannot fathom why this part made the final cut.  It comes off entirely silly and unrealistic and it pulls me out of the movie every time I watch it.  What interviewers for a prestigious firm would literally take cash out of their wallets and lay it dumbfounded on the table for a kid to collect?  I passionately hate this scene because, by comparison, I love the rest of the movie so much.

Anyway…

Robin Williams demonstrates how effective he is with drama and pain.  Perhaps his own personal hurt lent to his performance.  Watch the first scene when Sean meets Will.  The conversation moves from small talk sarcasm to unexpected anger that gets physical.  Watch how seamlessly Williams diverts from broad range describing a World Series game and then into something that his character treasures personally a watercolor painting.  Most importantly, take in his nearly five-minute monologue where Sean evaluates Will on a park bench and deflates the ego that comes with the boy’s natural talent.   He talks about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and being in love and later mourning a loss.  Williams, with Affleck and Damon’s words, paints one picture after another to demonstrate what Will has no business discussing at all.  Not yet at least. (My wife and I sat on that bench in Boston.  Just to be there in that spot was exhilarating for us.)

Matt Damon delivered the third of a trifecta of super talented young characters who had to mold their best traits.  See Rounders and The Rainmaker.  This leading performance sealed the success of his outstanding career.  Think about it though.  Matt Damon is such a wise, studious actor.  He learns the unique languages and behaviors of his characters.  Look at these movies, but also look back on his portrayal of super spy Jason Bourne, another kind of savant with extraordinary talents that get beyond his personal control.  Parts like these seemed catered for Damon, not fellow actors like DiCaprio, Wahlberg, or Affleck.  Damon’s characters go through similar arcs, but each is entirely unique.

Good Will Hunting was a new kind of coming-of-age film, far ahead of the James Dean and John Hughes fare from prior decades.  For the film to effectively work, its script had to speak as smart as its characters.  Gus Van Sant recognized the insight and internal conflicts of guys like Sean, Gerry and Will.  All three men are incredibly smart, but they never found a way to live with each other nor had they yet to uncover inner peace.  By the end of this movie, perhaps you’ll agree they all have, especially good Will Hunting.

MELANIA

By Marc S. Sanders

Self-absorption is an expense of time for the outsiders looking in.  At an hour and forty-one minutes, the time I spent to watch Melania Trump’s documentary, Melania, was a terrible cost.  

The First Lady’s exploration of herself covers her personal experiences in the twenty days before the second inauguration of President Donald J Trump on January 20, 2025.  Frankly, after the movie kicks off with a needle drop of The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter (a favorite of mine), the mundane slugs on an endless runway.  

Brett Ratner, the director who nearly destroyed the celebrated X-Men franchise and delivered too many Rush Hour films, covers Mrs. Trump walking in slow motion…a lot…like way, way, way too much.  The first five minutes, even after the credits have finished, show Melania walk down hallways, step into elevators, step out of elevators and walk down more hallways into parking garages adorned with Trump campaign posters (great art direction) to get into a limousine that takes her to the airport to board a corporate Trump plane. Then we get to see her stride down the middle aisle that divides impeccable white leather, upholstered chairs.  It’s like…MELANIA IS REALLY DOING ALL THESE THINGS.  And I get to see it???? Me??? Really???

She’s a rock star or a superhero or perhaps she is simply MELANIA, because no one else could ever be THE MELANIA.

The main subject explains in monotone voiceover how she wants to cover the time she invests as a philanthropist and businesswoman in the days leading up to the inauguration.  So, we get right to the important things first like deciding if her evening gown is tight enough around her waist and neck, and if the lapels on her suit need to be bigger.  Hopefully, the designer can alter the collar on her white blouse.  Plus, how should the shoulders look?  There’s much to talk about.  So, Ratner is wise enough to return to these pressing topics later when Melania single-handedly decides that the white band around her infamous lampshade hat, worn on Inauguration Day, is not narrow enough.  Business! Philanthropy!

Staged interviews with young ladies looking to earn a position as Melanie’s personal assistant are weaved into the picture.  I learned that the job is simply not 9-to-5 work.  

I cannot say I’m a fan of Melania Trump.  I do not think I’ve been a fan of any First Lady.  I don’t know much about any of them.  Though I was impressed when Arnold, Dudley and Mr. Drummond got to meet Nancy Reagan on Diff’rent Strokes with her Just Say No campaign.  Reader, as an eleven year old it had an impact on me.  It was straightforward, simple and to the point. Plus, she was friends with Mr. T.  So, job well done Mrs. Reagan!  Now, I was curious what could I gain from our current First Lady.  Here was her opportunity to show us her very best.  

Melania does a zoom call with the First Lady of France to declare her push for her Be Best campaign.  The logo is written in blue crayon font.  It’s cute.  It’s eye catching and I never learn anything about it.  I’m guessing it is aimed at children, but what is it precisely doing to benefit children?  What tactics are being planned? What’s being executed?  What events are taking place?  Will Melania at least go to the Kids Choice Awards and get a pie in the face on Nickelodeon?  C’mon Melania!  Do it in the name of Be Best.

The most admirable moment in this self-described documentary is when Melania gets a visit from Aviva Siegel, an Israeli kidnap survivor from the Hamas attacks on October 7.  She wears a shirt that shows an image of her husband Keith who was still in captivity at the time of this filming.  This scene occupies about three and a half minutes of the entire movie.  Aviva is welcomed to cry on camera while Melania’s profile is shot from across the sofa in a New York high-rise apartment.  Melania doesn’t cry, doesn’t quiver, doesn’t ask a single question that I can recall serves any kind of consequence.  Yet, the one-time fashion model complements Aviva’s shirt and how it looks on the poor woman.  No promises or assurances are made in this brief moment.  They sit on a grey sofa.  Not a bed.  So, don’t expect bedside manners.

On to the party planning for the inauguration dinners and celebrations plus more wardrobe insight customized exclusively for the First Lady.  My wife watches reality shows showing home decor and reconstruction.  My parents would watch Lifestyles Of The Rich & Famous during the decadent 1980s.  What those programs accomplish that Ratner and Trump do not are the whys and hows.  Why did this millionaire need that kind curtain.  What drew them to those colors and patterns.  Why call the yacht this particular name, and so on. Melania simply goes for the gold trim in the napkins and tableware.  

She loves fashion designer Hervé Pierre’s evening gown, white with a black zig zag of fabric down the front and a high slit at the leg.  Now, let me tell you.  This is a dress!!!! It’s gorgeous and she looks gorgeous wearing it on the evening of January 20, 2025.  Yet, for a film that devotes so much to this object how about telling me something about the inspiration for the design.  If you’re going to invest so much into this piece of craftsmanship, then at least go deeper than having the woman literally look at herself in a mirror.

As the film is winding down a part of the country is on burning uncontrollably.  The California wildfires that displaced so many people were happening ahead of Trump’s inauguration.  Melania takes it upon herself to sit cross legged on a leather sofa in her ready room in front of a flat screen to watch the happenings unfold on FOX News.  An expensive piece of artwork dangles behind her head.  Her voiceover tells us that her heart breaks while Ratner gets close ups of her stunning blue eyes adorned in perfectly coifed mascara.  It’s ridiculous how hollow this looks.  An absence of emotion and sincerity.  You could have avoided making so light of this terrible period by just not having her reflect at all.  Melania is generous, however.  She allows her heart to break.

The First Lady’s husband makes appearances insisting to his wife that he won in landslides across various states.  We see him test one of his staffers who is unable to explain why championship sports are scheduled on the same day as the inauguration.  Is this anything that anyone can learn from?  Brett Ratner arguably has access to most of what the Trump staff and family can extend, and this is a nothing piece of nothing.

Melania mentions how her loving mother passed away a year prior and how she ran a fashion business that inspired her daughter to follow a similar path.  Where and when was this business in operation?  What was the name of it? The son in law Donald tells us that they loved her very much and she was a hell of a woman.  Melania’s dad will reside at The White House.  What else can we know?

Barron is Melania’s son with Donald.  He never speaks.  He’s shot from a distance. Never shows affection for mom and dad, but mom hopes he chooses a path that makes him happy.  Finally, a parent admits it!!!  

Melania’s attempt at bi-partisan openness has her attending Jimmy Carter’s funeral.  I’ll say he’s one of the worst Presidents in American history.  However, his philanthropic work following his service is second to none.  Unquestionably, a good soul.  Melania cannot even say that.  Brett Ratner is not insightful enough to prompt the First Lady for a few words about Carter’s contributions.  

Towards the end of the film, portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower are shared.  Why?  I dunno.  I guess I’m supposed to gather that Melania Trump carries on a legacy.  Do Melania or Melania or these filmmakers know the specific contributions of Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs.  Eisenhower, and what they personally mean to them?  Truly, I can’t say off the top of my head.  However, I’m not a First Lady making a movie about myself or my esteemed position.  So, tell me what it means to you.  Allow me to learn more than how your hat or your suit or your gown should look on you.  

Be Best? How?  

Homes are burning?  Anything you gonna do about it?  

A husband remains missing?  Is there someone you can call?  I mean I’m aware of the obstacles that come with politics and international affairs, but maybe this worried wife could gain from prayer with a Rabbi and you by her side.  

I’m never expecting Melania Trump to singlehandedly fix the world.  All I’m asking for is what she declared herself to be.  A businesswoman and a philanthropist.  

Mrs. Trump is a Michael Jackson fan, and her favorite song is Billie Jean.  She barely flexes herself in the back of her limo to sing along.  So, I get it when that song comes on at the beginning of the film.  It might be the most genuine, insightful portrait of the whole documentary simply because it shows a small shred of natural humanity in the woman.  That being said, why open the movie with the Stones’ Gimme Shelter?  It’s gritty and gives me images of struggle, doom and grit.  A dirty, garage band kind of song.  The outer shell of Melania Trump is anything but a single riff or note of the Stones’ song. So why?  I guess because the rights to use the number must be expensive, and money is no object to this superhero’s fanbase.  The sacrifice this woman does from one outfit to another, from one limousine to another, from one estate to another.  

No!  Being First Lady is certainly not a 9 to 5 job.

Ratner concludes Melania by shooting his subject leaning on her fists against a glass table-topped desk for professional photos.  She looks like a superhero ready to take on the world.  Honestly, if Melania Trump were to enter a phone booth to change into her costume and don a cape, she wouldn’t be able to find the door to let herself out.  

12 YEARS A SLAVE

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m grateful for those brave filmmakers who defy what is so glaringly oppressive in order to uphold a truth.  Steven Spielberg accomplished this with Saving Private Ryan and especially Schindler’s List.  I own both films on 4K, but I’ve only watched them each a handful of times.  I recently completed my second watch of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave.  While Schindler may feel more personal to me as a Jewish person who has met several Holocaust survivors, McQueen’s movie is uncompromising in its cruelty to black people , recklessly referred to as n!gg@rs, being held as property within the southern antebellum confines of slavery during the mid 1800s just ahead of the Civil War.  It’s one thing to read about lynchings and whippings.  It’s another to see it visualized; to see the life being breathlessly taken from a human being.  Not a slave.  A human being.

From such an ugly period in American history, the isolated story of this film follows the North Eastern free black man Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor, giving the performance of his career – heartbreaking, smart, emotional, fearful and brave at the same time).  He is a happily married father of two who earns an honest trade as an entertaining violinist in a well to do upstate New York Community.  When his family leaves town for a few weeks, Solomon is approached by two happy, colorfully dressed charmers with top hats (Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam).  Solomon believes he is being recruited to perform for some events across state lines for a significant sum of money.  He’s wined and dined by the men for a few weeks.  However, following a lavish dinner among the three, he awakens to find himself in southern Georgia, chain shackled at his four limbs.  

Despite his protests, insisting he is a legal free man, he is slapped, screamed at and trudged along to Louisiana and sold to a wealthy Plantation owner (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is comparatively kinder than his property keeper (Paul Dano).  Dano especially stood out to me this time as I reflected on Quentin Tarantino’s regard for the character actor. I question if the director, infamous for tossing the n-word around in nearly all of his films, has even seen 12 Years A Slave and had an opportunity to observe Paul Dano’s appearance. Dano’s character is genuinely mean spirited and hateful with that southern redneck naive racism for the black man. It’s what is demanded of this piece. His performance cruelly teases the black slaves with a song that sounds like a nursery rhyme but chants like a horror film while his screams insist they clap along. McQueen is wise enough to edit Dano’s voiceover singing as the slaves are getting accustomed to the new property, they are forced to tend to and live upon. Later, Dano and Ejiofor will conflict with one another, and the scene is terrifying of what it implies will arrive. So, there’s my two cents on actor Paul Dano (also known for There Will Be Blood, The Batman, and Prisoners). I’ll throw two more cents around and ask Mr. Tarantino to go reflect on his meritless position on this fine actor.

This picture also features Paul Giamatti headlining a horrible scene, working like a car salesman as he slaps the naked physiques of Solomon and other black people. His purpose is to demonstrate the value and endurance of these “properties” for potential buyers.  The novelty of used car salesman tactics seemed to originate here.  With no regret, black children are torn away from a helpless, anguished mother.  McQueen with John Ridley’s Oscar winning adapted screenplay includes this scene to show how quickly a transition into slavehood occurs.  Solomon and many of these other folk were free moments ago.  Now, they are delivered off a boat and are being sold like cattle, to be used not just for work but for sexual appetites and playthings.

The second half of the story finds Solomon as a sold property slave of the viciously harsh Edwin Epps.  Michael Fassbender has never been more terrifying with intense rage that hides any other memorable performance in his impressive career.  He more than serves the antagonism of this film the same way that Ralph Fiennes did for Schindler’s List.  This is a monstrous individual.  Strong, oppressive, with no way to be endeared.  If he’s mad, for whatever reason, he’s going to be mad at his faultless slave workers who do nothing out of line and work solely to satisfy Edwin’s demands.

As the title implies, Solomon’s captivity carries on for twelve years with no access to his family or proper legal authority.  He also dare not reveal he can read or write, lest he will come up as a threat to those that violated his legal rights as a free northerner.  Solomon Northrup was always to remain trapped.  Even his talents with the violin are compromised as he’s awakened in the middle of the night to marshal the entertainment for Edwin as he compels his property to dance naked among themselves in his drawing room.  

As horrific as Solomon Northrup’s story is, later accounted for in his published book, it’s a fast paced and engrossing tale.  McQueen assures an understanding of how harsh it was to live within the dense, stale heat while picking pounds of cotton for the slave owners and their wives.  The whispers of flies and mosquitoes, along with tall grass and dragonflies often found in the south bring an awareness to the mundane and exhausting life of picking cotton from sunup to sundown.

The work was never the worst though.  The younger black girls were groomed to be continually raped.  A telling moment occurs when Edwin prances around the property in just a loose, sweaty shirt (no pants) with a child holding his hand. It is easy to grasp what’s to become of this girl, especially considering how Edwin treats Patsey, a teenage slave, who is repeatedly raped and beaten by him while infuriating the jealously of the Mistress Epps (Sarah Paulson).  

Lupita Nyong’o is Patsey, in an Oscar winning performance.  Nyong’o’s anguish matches Fassbender’s rage in equal fashion.  (He was Oscar nominated too.) Ahead of shooting days, the actors maintained rigid exercises together to preserve a direct trust during the abusive scenes.  Though thoroughly convincing in their dialects and performances of tears and brutal anger and screams, I cannot imagine it would be healthy for either actor to go full method here.  Had they actually done so, I’d argue they’d never return to a sense of acceptable balance, mentality and perception between one another.  What they do together, just like this whole cast, is hard, brutal work. Just look at how red faced Fassbender gets. See how glossy Nyong’o’s complexion gets behind the screams and tears. Not all of this is just makeup spray water.

Steve McQueen takes large sections of his two-hour film to demonstrate the carryover of time.  I’m not necessarily talking about twelve years.  Rather, minutes and hours.  One section has Solomon strung up from a tree by the neck.  The only thing keeping him from crushing his windpipe is to continually tip toe on the wet mud beneath his feet.  Morning turns into sweltering afternoon and into night.  McQueen does not rush this moment.  He wants the audience to realize that black slaves were regularly hung from oak trees.  It’s one kind of understanding to endure the hanging with literally no aid or sympathy to rely on.  What’s worse? A quick hanging that ends in blacked out death, or the kind that only dangles a person to the absolute brink of death?

The hardest sequence is an unbroken four and a half minute shot.  The director’s camera circles around Patsey’s scarred, bound, naked body, as she gets bloodier and bloodier by the unending whippings from Edwin’s unreasonable rage. When the taskmaster forces Solomon to take over, a sad irony is that Patsey begs Solomon to resume the whipping.  She’d rather take her punishment from him, than the slave owner.  

Paulson is in the background of this scene too.  She never flinches, always looks justified in permitting this action to carry on seemingly like a Lady MacBeth.  Nyong’o allows herself to be weakened to nothingness with horrifying screams.  Fassbender seems to never tire of flinching his arm with the whip in hand.  Ejiofor does not rush into what is forced upon him but once he begins, he’s out of breath with terrible suffering for what he is compelled to bestow upon this helplessly tied up woman.  Again, McQueen never breaks this into quick edits.  It is all one shot, as you see mists of sweat, blood and body heat emanate from Nyong’o’s back with every swiftly delivered lash.  It is so unfair.  That’s a terrible understatement, but it’s what comes to the forefront of my mind.  What person ever deserves this kind of treatment?  What reason could there ever be to whip a person into a bloody, stinging, charred up pulp?  This is never, ever fair.  

The scene is so harrowing that I have yet to discover how it was safely put together for filming purposes.  What these actors went through. It’s uncanny how real it looks.

None of what you see in 12 Years A Slave is ever forgivable. Long after these doers of evil are dead as well as their offspring and their offsprings, it remains as never excused and should never be offered repentance.  Some would actually say “Well you have to understand, that’s what it was like at the time.” To hell with that. Today, moments like these are actually being dismissed and erased from our institutions as attempts are made to “make America great again.” There are places in this world where this kind of treatment still occurs.  It’s fascinating that generations have not learned from the sins of ancestors.

McQueen’s film is assembled with amazing craftsmanship.  John Ridley’s screenplay contains a dialogue that performs with intellect, even if there are characters that we presume were denied formal educations.  Brad Pitt offers a cameo as a white man with a conscious devoid of prejudice.  Listen to his dialogue against that of Fassbender’s.  On a sweltering summer day on the plantation, these two sides of the slave ownership argument operate like a congressional debate.  Ridley incorporates vocabulary that lend to another time, long outdated, but telling of the limits that some people will never adopt. Ejiofor, as an educated Solomon, has been diminished to look like a censored man, but even his shredded, dirty slave wear does not prevent him from realizing there is a hope for common sense and good nature, even in this unseen corner of the world.

The antebellum plantations are vast and isolated from a civilization with architecture of tall posts on white porches.  These areas look like contained miniature empires; maybe adapted from grand landmarks of ancient Rome or Greece. The costumes deliver a wide contrast of social status.  The cast of slave actors perform scenes nude in dirty field settings, broken sheds and dark, smelly cattle barns. The white aristocrats are dressed in the finest fabrics.  12 Years A Slave does not just describe. More importantly, as a very well-done film, it shows how wide a berth these people are separated from one another.

This is a necessary, monumental biography to watch and explore.  In social media I continuously remind people that the Holocaust happened less than ninety years ago, and it could easily happen again.  The same is equally true for slave history.  If the acceptance of this mentality can be taught, it will be learned and then it will be executed.  It can happen so easily and so swiftly.

History is unclear of what became of Solomon Northrup after he wrote his book, ahead of his death, but his story will never be forgotten.  It’s fortunate that McQueen’s picture was bestowed an enormous number of accolades including winning the Oscar for Best Picture.  An Academy Award is not simply recognition for artistic greatness.  Its reputation allows a piece of filmmaking to constantly be recalled for years to come among an elite collection of accomplished achievements.  If anything, that should ensure the terrible chapters of American slavery are never, ever forgotten.

ABOUT MY FATHER

By Marc S. Sanders

Robert DeNiro meets the parents!  Though it’s not what you’re thinking, probably.

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco co-writes and stars as a proud Italian named (what else?) Sebastian in a heartwarming, sometimes raunchy script, loosely inspired by the relationship he might have had with his real, Sicilian, immigrant father who specialized in hairdressing.  DeNiro is Sebastian’s father, Salvo.  

The crux of this fiction is a clash of white, WASP entitled folks meeting the father/son goombahs.  The voiceover narrative from Sebastian informs us of the passionate love he has for Ellie (Leslie Bibb), a sunny and hyperactive artistic painter whose main focus consists of vaginas on canvas, but she’ll insist that if you look at them sideways, you’ll see sunsets.  He’s so crazy about Ellie that he asks Salvo for grandma’s engagement ring to propose.  Salvo insists on meeting the girl’s parents first.

Things eventually lead to Sebastian and Salvo traveling to the girl’s family estate in Virginia during the 4th of July weekend.  Tigger is mom, a hard talking, probably Republican with a flair of Hillary Clinton, state senator played by Kim Cattrall.  David Rasche is Bill (his name would have to be Bill), a happy go lucky owner of one of the world’s most prestigious hotel chains.  Ellie has two siblings – snooty son Lucky (Anders Holm) and free thinker, modern day hippie Doug (Brett Dier).  

As the arrival commences, we see a flock of peacocks, a dog, a tree house, and a helicopter ride.  Plus, remember that Salvo is a hair dresser.  I presume I don’t need to share the punchlines.  You know what you can expect.

I turned About My Father on following a play rehearsal that wrapped early.  It’s less than an hour and a half.  I was tired of watching Netflix crime documentaries and Seinfeld reruns.  I’d be done with this flick by 10:30 just before bed, and that’s good enough.  Yet, it’s a happy accident I randomly pulled this movie out of the streaming heap.  

Laura Terruso is a first-time director, only the fourth female to oversee a film with Robert DeNiro, and she does impressive work.  The entire cast is adoring.  No one is that standard jerk you are instructed to hate.  The material is light and as Maniscalco’s story proceeds you really want everything to work out for both sides.  

The comedian’s script, co-written with Austen Earl, is not perfect.  An issue with Ellie’s profession does not get a satisfying resolution. I also believe that after the voiceover set up narration from Maniscalco was done, it should have stayed done.  The movie is so simple that we really don’t need his narrative to intrude any longer.  Act the developments.  That’s better than telling us about it.

I’ve seen the guy’s stand up routine and his schtick is to lay on the Italian dialect really thick.  So much to the point that he’d make the first round of auditions for Goodfellas but get sent away on the call back.  It’s too much.  Behind a microphone on a stage the bit might work, but when he’s playing a real character with heart, feelings, anger, and embarrassment it becomes too far upstaged.

Fortunately, Robert DeNiro is delivering an outstanding and authentic comedic performance, up there with Midnight Run and Analyze This.  Not since his portrayal of Vito Corleone have I heard him work so much of his Sicilian fluency for the language into a character.  Salvo is over the top with his habits of being frugal with a menu or inflexible with Sebastian’s pleas, but this guy is totally authentic, believable all the way until the end, even when he poses for a family Christmas card in a silly get up.  DeNiro is doing more than being funny.  He’s ensuring the Italian/Sicilian culture is acknowledged and respected.  

Rasche and Cattrall, with the sons, offer the white privilege humor.  The subtleties are deliberately absent and there’s at least a half dozen sources of gags to come out of them beginning with the family’s matching, embroidered pajamas.  They’re funnier than I anticipated and actually endearing despite their naivety.  Cattrall got a highly undeserved Razzie nomination for worst supporting actress.  (I hate the Razzies! They offer nothing but cruelty.) Rasche is doing a new variant of a blue blood Mr. Howell.

Leslie Bibb’s character is written smarter with far more likability than Teri Polo’s girlfriend in Meet The Parents.  She’s not the ignorant jerk that Ben Stiller had to endure during an agonizing weekend.  Bibb as Ellie always cares about Sebastian’s well-being along with Salvo’s comfort while still loving her own family.  Incredible!  A family comedy with clashes and conflicts and no one deserves to get kicked to the curb.  These folks just gotta find a common ground to live with one another.

About My Father either could have been a little longer to better flesh out the situations of these characters, or replace the voiceover material, that overstays its welcome, with more character interaction and reflection.  

Despite its formula, it’s a welcome surprise with lots of good comedy, especially from Robert DeNiro.

THE HURT LOCKER

By Marc S. Sanders

Often the most effective war movies hardly focus on the enemy.  It’s the environment that keeps us on our toes.  Like Oliver Stone’s Platoon, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is a widely acclaimed depiction of the Iraq War, centrally located in Baghdad in 2004. Her film follows a frighteningly tense perspective of three members of Bravo company – a bomb disposal team.  

After their leader perishes in a surprise attack, Sergeant J. T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty) welcome Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) to the squad for the remaining thirty-eight days of their rotation. Beyond evading suicide bombers and questionable Iraqi civilians who observe from the sidelines, Sanborn and Eldridge fear they’ll have to survive James’ maverick approach to deactivating sophisticated bombs that hide in the scorching hot desert area. William James claims to be responsible for shutting down eight hundred and seventy-three explosives in his young career.  He’s good at what he does but he disregards the best interests and care for others within his vicinity.

The art direction for The Hurt Locker is most impressive.  The expected sand rubble and distressed tenement buildings are convincing as Jordan stands in place for the film’s Baghdad. Bigelow’s team goes to great lengths with sophisticated explosives.  An early moment has James gently tugging on a red cord that eventually leads to other cords and then what comes out of the desert sand is six identical underground bombs surrounding him from all sides.  With her camera positioned overhead, pointing down, this feels like a monster movie with tentacles springing out in a circumference around the hero.

Another early scene has James recklessly undressing from his bulky, anti-bomb suit, and disassembling an abandoned car to look for the suspected device that’s hidden inside.  With Eldridge and Sanborn remotely demanding updates, the wild man chooses to toss his headset away to focus on his dire circumstance, solo.  

Ahead of the film’s thrilling opening, a quote from someone named Chris Hedges appears: “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”  A more appropriate phrase would not describe Jeremy Renner’s character any better.  There’s no denying this guy is an expert and the best of the absolute best.  However, he’s positively the worst at accounting for his team or the environment around him.

Kathryn Bigelow is an outstanding director who gets better with each passing film.  The Hurt Locker elevates her finished products that began with cops and robbers fare like Blue Steel and Point Break.  Bigelow is not aiming for laughs or Hollywood shootouts.  With Mark Boal’s Oscar winning script, the filmmaker zeroes in on how someone so proficient with dangerous work pushes beyond limits of caution.  The three characters covered within this tiny sliver of a larger war find themselves tested with each passing day.  

There’s a routine to these guys as they respond to other desert platoons as the sun rises. They are summoned to come upon bombs and mines and people strapped to bombs and mines.  They load up in their Humvee, drive to the next site and do what is expected of themselves like firefighters would in any neighborhood. The conflict is these guys just do not work in sync with each other.  At night, they return to base following a full day’s work to play shoot ’em up video games, drink, and roughhouse with each other as a means to grasp who is the dominant one of the trio.  

Psychologically, James, Sanborn and Eldridge are not on similar planes.  Eldridge is the frightened one who confides in a Colonel with an empathetic, bedside manner.  Sanborn is the sensible levelheaded one.  James seems to lack priority for anyone including his on again/off again girlfriend back home (Evangeline Lilly) and the child they share together.  He’s bent on conquering the next sophisticated, wired device.  It only gets personal for him when one of the few kids in the area meets a gruesome demise and James goes lone wolf at night, within the towns, even though he’s not covert ops. His risks are too great for this war, his squad, and maybe himself.

Kathryn Bigelow effectively sets up environments that’ll rattle your nervous system.  Using handheld cameras, this film often works like documentary footage with quick cuts to citizens of Baghdad who may be staring at what this squad is doing, or maybe they are waiting for their cue to detonate something nearby and trap them.  A local butcher with a cell phone in his hand feels like the worst kind of threat.  A kid with a soccer ball seems untrustworthy.  A guy in a suit pleading for desperate help at the other end of the street is a person I wouldn’t want to stand next to.  There’s an abundance of desert citizen extras to look for and hypothesize about.  Is it that guy with the trigger or maybe it’s that kid or that woman?  Most of these people do not even speak.  Their glazed, war torn and dusty expressions say so little while the powerful machine guns held by the Americans will not do much to prevent a horrifying possibility.

The extensive footage of explosions is very impressive.  I read that Bigelow wanted to display what a real detonation would look like, and not with Hollywood fireball extravagance.  Accompanied with Oscar winning sound editing and mixing, the bombs in this movie lift the dirt and dust particles off the ground, building and automobile surfaces and then plume into mushroom clouds that expand beyond the limits of city blocks. The Bravo Company men even predict how the blasts will take off and where exactly the shrapnel and debris will reach and descend. They think they have this down to a science. This material is entirely different than what other action or war pictures typically show.  

Sniper fire comes at unexpected moments.  An open desert plain actually has an enemy concealed somewhere and quick pierces of sound drops a someone who you might think controls the scene. Then the next someone. The shock of how quickly it’s edited together plays with your senses. Bob Murawski and Chris Innis are the award-winning film editors of this piece. They complete their job to the fullest. This all looks so real and not a product of art.

The Hurt Locker is term to describe where a militant solder will go to when living with internal pain and conflict.  The soldier goes to his hurt locker. This war puts each of these three guys in their own kind of hurt locker, but perhaps they force their situations upon themselves and each other. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow’s film do not just devote time to the three characters who are most at play, but also to devices of war and destruction that drastically change these men.

The Hurt Locker is one of Kathryn Bigelow’s best films.

THE SECRET AGENT (PORTUGUESE, 2025)

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m not going to pretend I understand all of the dynamics of the Portuguese film The Secret Agent.  Most of the events occur in Brazil, dating back to 1977 – apparently a time of “mischief,” as the opening text describes.  Mischief is not the term I would use, but perhaps it is how a totalitarian regime dismisses their fearful and harsh dominance over its people.  Writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho drives home the message that it is unwise to rebel against the government.  Still, it may be a necessary evil to welcome an independent future, unchained from a fascist government.

Celebrated Brazilian star and Oscar nominee Wagner Moura is Armando Alves.  The story begins as he pulls into a gas station only to see a corpse covered by cardboard lying a few yards away in the dirt.  Rabid dogs are wanting to sniff and feed off the remains.  Seeing a dead body may alarm any of one of us, but Armando seems personally concerned at that random sight.  Filho’s story will eventually make us understand why his protagonist returns to his hometown of Recife with an enormous amount of dread.

Elsewhere, back where he worked as a technology expert, there’s a gruesome and unforgettable discovery.  A severed human leg is wedged within the maw of a dead shark resting upon an operating table.  The local constable, Euclides (Robério Diógenes) and his sons have been summoned to investigate.  It’s gruesome but the Sheriff and his cohorts find amusement in this gore.

The Secret Agent is hardly anything of what its title implies, but it’s biting with suspense.  Kleber Mendonça Filho constructs scenes that honor American classics like Goodfellas, The Bourne Ultimatum, another actual film called Secret Agent, and especially The Godfather and Jaws.  The latter operating as a driving element that bonds Armando to his young son Fernando (Enzo Nunes).  The story operates like a chase film, though there’s not much running to be had.  It’s all about how this man can remain hidden with only his deceased wife’s parents knowing specifically why he’s in town.  

By the way, rhetorically speaking, why is his wife deceased?  

Armando is hiding along with others considered to be rebellious against the government.  Go against the doctrine and risk being apprehended or executed.  The best that this man can do is hide in plain sight as someone else under a different identity.  He’s now known as Marcelo.

As I noted earlier, I have no knowledge of Brazilian history.  So initially it was challenging to understand the circumstances of the time and setting.  Portraits of Brazil’s President are hung everywhere.  Kleber Mendonça Filho makes sure to get push in shots repeatedly of this imposing, uniformed figurehead.  So, wherever you go, you will be found.  It’s interesting to see the big bad of this piece limited to a photograph that repeatedly appears.  Otherwise, the antagonists consist of a pair of smart and ruthless father/son assassins, the wealthy industrialist with a personal vendetta who hires these men to hunt down Armando, and a local corrupt police captain, Euclides. 

The Secret Agent requires an aggressive exercise in reading the English subtitles of this fast-talking Portuguese film.  There are also moments that weigh down the pace of the film.  For example, when Armando arrives at his hideaway, the seventy-seven year old woman who keeps the domicile has to introduce the other refugees he will be living with, while walking us through the vast labyrinth of this apartment building.  It’s a drawn out scene that mostly feels pointless as many of these characters have no major significance to the story.  

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s technique often reminded me of Quentin Tarantino.  It’s clear he is a lover of movies by drawing inspiration from favorite sequences in other celebrated films.  There’s even an incredibly odd sort of nightmare involving a terrorizing—well…I’m not going to spoil that.  See for yourself what comes out of nowhere.  

Still, many scenes occur in the back room of a local cinema adjacent to the projection booth where Armando’s father-in-law works.  What’s playing? The Omen.  A resistance leader, named Elza (Maria Fernanda Cândido) archives recordings of Armando’s testimonies but admits she and her partner nearly shit themselves watching the horror piece.  Imagine the power of film.  Amid all of this real life, bloody turmoil, and still The Omen and Jaws can scare the living crap out of you.

The Secret Agent surprised me with its tension.  I believe I am typically challenged to connect with films and characters that speak a language that I’m unfamiliar with while occupying a locale I have little knowledge of.  It’s often frustrating.  Yet, I feel wiser for having watched Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film.  An interesting dimension presents itself midway through as suddenly we see laptops and cell phones enter the piece.  Like the film taught me, archived recordings of Armando and other refugees are played on cassette to lend a first person point of view to what was happening fifty years earlier.  The need to know more and uncover what ultimately happened to Armando is absorbed by a young student named Flavia (Laura Lufési) who is motivated to explore beyond the recordings and go out into the modern world of Recife.

This story recollects a frightening time in Brazil’s late twentieth century history with dangerous threats coming from all sides.  It’s fascinating to see this man, Armando, try to uphold a sense of normalcy for the sake of his young son.  From Fernando’s perspective, his father and grandparents try to shelter him from seeing the scary movie phenomenon, Jaws.  At his age, it’s better he only knows how terrifying Jaws is compared to what’s occurring on the streets of his hometown and within his country.  

The Secret Agent is an excellent film.  One of the best of 2025’s Oscar nominated pictures.

IF I HAD LEGS, I’D KICK YOU

By Marc S. Sanders

“Stretched too thin” is a phrase I’ve always equated to having too much on your plate.  (Sorry for using one cliche to explain another.) At the opening of Writer/Director Mary Bronstein’s film, If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You, the voice of Linda’s young daughter describes mom as being stretchy when she is upset.  Bronstein’s lens is in close up of Rose Byrne’s weary complexion as she hardly convinces anyone that she is happy, while never getting upset.  Over the next two hours, viewers will know the truth and perhaps empathize or grow just as exhausted with Linda.

With her husband (the voice of Christian Slater) away on Navy leave, Linda is left to her own devices to care for her clingy daughter (Delaney Quinn) with a hyperactive personality and an ailment of being underweight for her age.  A feeding tube must remain inserted in the girl’s belly until she reaches at least a weight of over fifty pounds.  That requires Linda to take her daughter to a special facility for education and careful monitoring.  Joint sessions with a health care professional are also required, but Linda does not have enough hours in a day to attend. At night she has to fill the IV feeding bag periodically.  Because of her unfairly described “neglect” the girl will not be able attend the facility much longer while Linda balances her overindulgent career as mental health counselor.  

On top of all of this responsibility, a leak above her apartment has turned into a deluge and a gaping hole of mildew and mold is infesting their home.  Mom and daughter have no choice but to relocate to a crummy beach side motel.  It seems they’ll be staying there indefinitely as the repairs are not getting mended with any kind of urgency.

Linda has a troubled patient too; a new mom named Caroline (Danielle Macdonald) with a paranoia of what could happen to her infant child under any kind of circumstance.  How can Linda lend professional guidance if she’s losing control of her own well being?  

Linda’s only outlet is a psychologist that she leases an office from.  The most unexpected of all people plays this uncaring and uptight douchebag.  It’s Conan O’Brien and he is so far removed from his comedic and sophomoric personality that it took me a second to recognize him.  He’s not psychotic or sociopathic, but he is disturbing.  Yet this is the guy that poor Linda has to vent her frustrations towards.  

There’s also a parking attendant who’s a consistent, nonnegotiable dick.  

Linda just can’t get a break.  She has no support system.  She can’t find help anywhere and as the days pass so does her lack of emotion and care appear to amplify.  

It did not surprise me to learn that If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You is produced by one of studio A24’s Safdie brothers (Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme).  What is it with these guys?  They love the stressful extremes that can uphold a motion picture.  The achievements found in Mary Bronstein’s film are well done in a unique way.  Nevertheless, this is no fun time at the movies.  

Bronstein’s strategy is to pound the unbearable weight of her entire script on Rose Byrne’s character.  Following a prologue, the music blares, and the title appears in giant red block letters on your screen. A few minutes later, in the dumpy hotel room, Linda has a B-horror movie on. Linda’s situation is so much worse than a horror movie.

You never see Christian Slater or Delaney Quinn on screen.  You hear Linda’s husband through her cell phone with his unfair treatment and responses to what she shares with him, and you only hear the whiney voice of a preteen’s exaggerated fears of food and brief separation from mom.  Everyone that inhabits the world of this film have their own respective aggravations, but it’s Linda’s that matters.  As additional triggers unfold, it is Linda we focus on as she drinks and gorges herself on junk food and appears more and more disheveled with her hair, clothes, complexion and body posture.

I’ll never be a mom, but I’ve been a parent for nearly two decades and I could recognize the warning signs that Linda is encountering.  Let’s talk about how hard it is to be a parent and a full time working one with a child that needs maintenance all twenty-four hours of a day.  Too often all forms of media present an idyllic way of family life, even in those heartbreaking dramas like Ordinary People or Kramer Vs Kramer.  Try doing it by yourself when no one is listening to you, while at the same time insisting you are doing it all wrong.

Once the film began, I suspected that we would not see Linda’s daughter or husband.  We’d only hear them.  Simply put, her family cannot see the agony that we see for poor Linda.  It reminded me of Charles Schultz’ Peanuts cartoons.  You’d hear the adults, like the teacher or mom and dad, in a drowned out and incomprehensible voice but you’d never see them or understand what they’re saying.  You only saw the children and what was regularly ailing them, like Lucy calling Charlie Brown a blockhead when he couldn’t kick the football, or Linus’ dependence on his security blanket.  Feels like the reverse happens in If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You.  If anyone in Linda’s current state could recognize what she’s enduring, then maybe they’d help.  At best there is only a drug user (A$AP Rocky) who offers to lend some kind of hand, but Linda recognizes a threat from his presence and only relies on him for the worst thing for her under these circumstances.

Even with Mary Bronstein’s choice to have Linda hallucinate into the depths of that giant hole in her apartment ceiling, her film is entirely relatable and absolutely unpleasant.  However, it is also fiction.  Because of that, I wish the script did not turn to the main character having the insatiable need to drink and do drugs.  I’m at a point where I ask if that is all there is for people under duress.  They can’t have gone far enough unless they’re alcoholic or addicts?  I’m not a drinker, but I’ve encountered terrible depths in my life. I insist as a dad, I experienced a kind of postpartum depression following the birth of my child. It was awful. Yet I did not turn towards alcohol and drugs. Junk food and temper tantrums are what weakened me. In movies, drugs and alcohol are too often the go to device for the poison of choice. Can’t we see something else for a change when our protagonists experience dire straits?

Before chemical substances are ever introduced in this film, I felt Linda’s aggravated plight and the weight on top of her.  Midway through, the trope of downing a bottle of cheap wine and going back for more crutches the film too often.  I’ve seen this kind of story enough already.  Not everyone who is suffering the challenges of life are chemically dependent.  If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You didn’t need to go here like every other movie in that crowded fraternity of drug use and alcoholism.  

A beyond stretched Rose Byrne with a strong promise of winning a much deserving Oscar is more than enough.

BLUE MOON

By Marc S. Sanders

Ever hear of a guy named Lorenz Hart?  He was a lyricist.  I’ll bet a few of you know some of the songs he was responsible for like My Funny Valentine and Blue Moon.  Yup!  That guy, Larry Hart, wrote hundreds of songs that might have established an ongoing pop culture lexicon.  His partner was Richard Rogers.  Surely you know him.  Of Rogers & Hammerstein fame.   After a twenty-year partnership, Rogers distanced himself from Larry Hart’s substance abuse and procrastination, and went on to collaborate with Oscar Hammerstein II.  On March 31, 1943, their first effort together premiered on Broadway, receiving endless critical praise.  That production was Oklahoma! (Yes. To poor Larry’s chagrin the exclamation point was included in the title.)

On this celebratory evening, the producers, cast, crew and theatrical big wigs are planning to catch up at Sardi’s after the curtain call.  Larry, played with shrimpy, raspy, hyperactive, bitterness by a sensational Ethan Hawke, left the performance early to saddle up at the bar and regale the tolerant bartender, Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), with his bygone accomplishments and resentment towards his friend Richard (Andrew Scott) and now the replacement, Oscar (Simon Delaney).  He insists Eddie bring him a shot of whiskey-only to gaze upon, not consume.  We’ll see how far that goes. Wouldn’t you know it, but trying to keep to himself, in the corner, is E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy), the writer who’s working on a children’s book about a mouse.  

Writer/Director Richard Linklater once again partners up with his go to leading man, Ethan Hawke.  Together, they’ve done several films, some of which occur primarily over the course of one night (Before Sunrise, Dazed And Confused, and now Blue Moon).  This loose boxed-in, and theorized biography relies so much on the individual performance of Hawke.  

Nearly the whole script of dialogue belongs to the actor. As expected from most resentful and bitter artistes, Larry does not shut up.  Eddie and the piano player and later E.B. White may be his designated listeners, but schlubby Larry, with his balding combover and squat height is only talking to himself.  I read that Linklater had to modify his cameras and set design to more accurately capture the real subject of this film.  Ethan Hawke has a much taller height than Larry Hart. I think the actor and director pull off the illusion quite well.  Compared to everyone else in black tie evening wear, Larry looks like a reject from Middle Earth Hobbit-town in an old blue suit.

Like any good writer of such adored classic numbers, little Larry has a muse. She’s a twenty-year-old blond bombshell named Elizabeth, played with alluring exquisiteness by Margaret Qualley.  I must compliment the actress’ hairstylist for getting the blond coiffed hair to perfectly cover Qualley’s left eye, while the green right one draws us in, complimented by an hourglass hugging, glittery white evening gown.  

Larry is plagued.  Elizabeth is grateful for all of his attention and his guidance with getting her into the limelight. However, is he in love with her, or is his suspected penchant for men a reason why he lives through this young adult’s recent sexual conquests?  There’s a magnificent scene when Larry and Elizabeth hide in the restaurant’s cloak room, crouching down on the floor.  In a series of great talkie scenes for Ethan Hawke, his best moment might be when he’s squatting down on his haunches like a child, with little to say, and absorbing the whispered narrative delivered by Qualley.  It almost doesn’t matter what she’s describing.  It’s more about how she tells the story and how her acting partner responds with his hands clenched together under his chin.

Larry Hart was a real artist with a magnificent talent that in no way reflects his image, personality or physique.  His song lyrics are ALIVE and timeless, adoring too.  On the other hand, he’s stand offish and exhausting to be around, even if everyone at Sardi’s finds a moment to express what an inspiration he’s personally been.  A guy named George Hill looks up to Larry and is advised to make films about friendship (you know, like The Sting or Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid).  Then again, there’s also a snot nosed, know-it-all kid named Stephen who thinks Larry’s lyrics are pedantic at best.  This brat named Sondheim will probably go nowhere.

I knew nothing about Lorenz Hart.  Never heard of the guy.  Wouldn’t recognize his picture if I saw it on Sardi’s wall.  Don’t remember seeing it the last time I was there.  He’s a Saliere to Richard Rogers’ Mozart.  This poor guy had demons that ended his life at a young age.  

The best that can be said is that he provided so much cheer to the world during is forty three years on this planet.  It’s sad, but interesting to capture Richard Linklater’s one evening in this sap’s life that can sum up who he was and how he was regarded only to be quickly dismissed.

Larry Hart put everything in the spotlight but never had the opportunity to stand there himself.

FORGOTTEN FORTUNE

By Marc S. Sanders

Forgotten Fortune is a welcome film that brings attention to the unwelcome ailments of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. Yet, what writer/director Esteban “Stevie” Fernandez Jr demonstrates is that a diagnosis does not end the value of life.

Brian Franks (Brian Shoop)  is a retired mailman.  One morning during one of his dementia induced walks, dressed in full uniform, he comes upon the aftermath of what looks to be a murder, committed by two men.  It’s hard for the local police and his adult children to believe his story though, considering his age and condition.

Only when clues are uncovered following the unexpected death of his best friend, Leo (Lou Ferrigno), does the reality of seeing these two men Brian insists on witnessing appear to convince everyone else.  Now it is up to Brian and his pal, Larry (Jimmie JJ Walker), to solve the mystery and catch the culprits.

Forgotten Fortune is produced with simplicity, not a lot of aggressive beats in suspense or action.  The attempts at humor want to go no further than PG rated material, with the most risqué beat stemming from someone peeing loudly while wired by the cops. 

Fernandez is interested in sending a message about how to live a new normal with the elderly in the family and he spices up his message with some adventure.  I appreciate the sensitivity devoted to dementia and Brian Shoop plays it well.  He’s likable as the straight man to this trio partnered with Walker and Ferrigno.  I do wish the undertaking relied more on the recognizable strengths of these fellows. 

Ferrigno, who I had the pleasure of meeting in person, is still the muscle man and he’s got comedic chops (The King Of Queens).  Jimmie Walker with his “dyn-o-mite” personality still transcends generations long after Good Times ended.  He might be pigeonholed to that role, but he owns it all by himself and no one can take that away.  These three guys are such an odd match up that there is real promise in blending their career defining histories together.  I wish Fernandez would have depended more on why these guys are truly beloved within the world of pop culture and their devoted fans. 

Forgotten Fortune stands out among a crowded assembly of films because of its focus on a very real and likely fate for many people.  Aging is the one thing that none of us can escape, and a large percentage of the world population experience the side effects of that situation.  Yet Alzheimer’s and dementia should not make any of us or our loved ones feel any less than what we once were.  Intelligence and instinct can remain and therefore trust and faith should be upheld.  That’s the forgotten fortune of this film.