Dream Horse

Pretty anodyne title for this movie based on a true story.  From the stable of movies like Billy Elliot and the one about the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, it is decidedly feelgood and appropriate for pandemic times. 

Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) is a general dogsbody in a small Welsh village.  She cleans the supermarket, runs the cashout, is a barperson at the local club, looks after her aged parents and husband and dreams of a better life.  A chance conversation gets her thinking of the idea of having a racehorse. 

 She hasn’t got the funds to do this alone so she convinces the locals to join in a syndicate for ten pounds a week to pay for his training and upkeep.  The horse is named Dream Alliance and after a slow start eventually becomes a winner with the villagers chartering a bus and following him around the country in his races. 

 Tragedy strikes when he has a serious injury but he is nursed back to health and wins the Welsh Grand National giving much pride to the rather depressed village.

Very much a formulaic movie with a strong message about chasing your dream however mad it may seem, the film is carried by the superb Toni Collette who gets drab and dreary and yet also determined as Jan, the motivator of this grand plan.  A cast of the usual British village characters support her with Damian Lewis also giving good support as the racing manager.

Enjoyable, with not much to think about but go along for the ride.

3 stars plus

Soul

I’m not a great Pixar fan only because I prefer to see real people acting and not simulations but this film was recommended so I gave it a go. 

 It is a surprisingly deep exploration of the before life, the after life, souls and encarnating in bodies that may go above the heads of children in terms of the technical stuff but will enchant them with the story.

  Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) is a school music teacher with the regret of never having achieved his dream of becoming a full-time jazz musician.  

Just as he gets his chance to play alongside noted sax-player Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) he falls down a manhole, gets separated from his body and is recruited to become a mentor for a soul who is resisting going to Earth.  

All this takes place in a celestial training and admin centre run by figures that seem to come out of a Picasso painting.  

Eventually his charge soul 22 (Tina Fey) and he end up on Earth but in the wrong bodies and the fun begins.

I loved the images, the recreation of New York is magical and the characters are fun. 

 Pixar have been congratulated on having a black lead, which is great as well.  All very slick and accompanied by good music.

It might not be a top movie and the message gets a little convoluted at times but this is an entertaining piece of cinema well-worth seeing and interesting for the subject matter it broaches.

4 stars plus

The Man with the Answers

Simple road movie about Victor (Vasilis Magouliotis) a young Greek guy, ex-competitive diver,

who decides to drive to Germany to see his estranged mother who has set up house in Bavaria.  

On the boat to Italy, he meets a German, Matthias (Anton Weil), who starts to shake him out of his funk,

doing acts that challenge his values but also making Victor see life differently. 

 After an initial distance and resistance, the two get closer and a romance grows

which is useful when Victor finally gets to see his mother (Stella Fyrogenis).  

A short sensitive movie by Stelios Kammitsis which hardly breaks any new ground but is honest enough and gives us some nice scenery.  

Portrait also of something of a lost generation.

3 stars

Land

This is an understated film all around, beautiful but not especially memorable except for the superb Alberta Rockies scenery and Robin Wright’s highly competent acting. 

 It is also Wright’s debut film and she achieves her goals quite effectively.  

She plays Edee, a woman who has suffered a major trauma and seeks to escape contact with people by going to live in a log cabin off the grid in Wyoming.

She is totally unprepared for life in the cruel winter and soon finds herself struggling.  

At her lowest ebb, a local hunter Miguel (Demián Bechir) finds her and nurses her back to life, showing the kindness of strangers and the human need for some sort of social contact. 

 That’s about it.  Beautiful to look at, short on dialogue and action but a well-told lesson about life.

3 stars plus

The Final Member

Extraordinary subject for a documentary perhaps.  

Siggi, the Icelandic curator of a penis museum has samples of penises of all mammals on display but lacks a human version.  

Wanting to obtain one before he retires, Siggi has two main donor candidates. One is Pall Arason, a 90-something Icelandic explorer and womanizer

and Tom Mitchell a 60-year old Californian, somewhat obsessed with his member Elmo becoming the world’s most famous penis. 

 This documentary is the chronicle of the race against time.  Will Pall die soon?  Will Tom have Elmo cut off. 

 The most hilarious thing about it all is the seriousness with which they all take the issue.

  Only in Iceland perhaps. Mercifully short and not without its merits.

2 stars plus

Butterfly House

La Cage a Folles Vietnamese style.  Very good production values but basically a pretty weak version of the original with neither farce, slapstick or dark humour to save it. 

 By mid-movie it had sunk into lots of speechifying and many comic moments had been lost.  

What saves the movie is the acting of Loc Thanh as Han, the “mother” figure of the parental pair.

  Clearly a competent and experienced actor he brings depth and subtlety to the role, surfing over a fairly corny script and showing most of the rest of the cast up for their one dimensionality. 

 Sorry as I would have liked to have liked this more.

2 stars

Black Bear

This two-act movie is in the indie style and while I was not completely convinced by it, the film has its merits.  In act one, a film-maker with writer’s block comes to a house by a lake in upstate New York that the owners, a young couple are turning into an artist’s retreat.

Allison (Aubrey Plaza) is not the easiest type but her presence sparks scenes of jealousy and bitterness between the couple Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and the pregnant Blair (Sarah Gadon).  Much of the debate revolves around gender and it gets all rather nasty.

Act two is in the same setting but involves the shooting of a movie in which gender and jealousy play an important role.  

This time Gabe is the director, Allison, the lead actress and his wife and Blair a second actress.  We get a host of characters from the movie too, some a bit clichéd like the script girl who can never find her place.  Is act two, the sequel to act one? A mirror?  

The finished product of Allison’s imagination?  We are never sure and then there is the bear motif which appears in both parts as a sinister symbolic energy.

Aubrey Plaza is especially convincing especially as the histrionic actress in act two.  Sarah Gadon gives good support.

  I was glad when it ended but Lawrence Michael Levine’s film had its plus points.

3 stars

The Queen’s Gambit

Major Emmy winner and Netflix success, The Queen’s Gambit is a tight portrayal of the life of a hypothetical chess champion Elizabeth (Beth) Harmon.  

Orphaned by her mother’s suicide, she is brought up in a girl’s institution and learns chess from the janitor.

Such is her connection and brilliance at the game, she enters her first tournament as a young girl, escaping the clutches of her new adoptive parents.

The father soon departs the scene leaving Alma (Marielle Heller) a failed concert pianist and alcoholic in charge.  Beth herself is dangerously addicted to tranquilisers and alcohol too throughout the story.

Alma and Elizabeth strike up a deal whereby the mother accompanies her to tournaments around the country, winning with her sheer native intuition.  

As the seven-part series continues we see her meet and beat all the local champions on her way to compete against the Soviet world champion Borgov.  

The series certainly jazzes up chess and though you would have to know the game to understand the moves, there is much to enjoy at just the psychological side of the game. Another major feature of the series directed by Scott Frank is the impeccable reproduction of the décor and costumes of the time.

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Beth and is captivating from the start and much depends on her ability to convey the hunger of an orphan to make it when she has been let down by so many around her.  I also liked Isla Johnston as her child self.

All in all, a very polished, entertaining and thoughtful show, if somewhat dark and perhaps a little far-fetched in parts.

4 stars plus

Suk Suk

Pak (Tai Bo) and Hoi (Ben Yuen) are two retirement age men in Hong Kong.  

Pak still drives a taxi, mostly to get out of the house and away from his bitter wife Ching (Patra Au) and to keep earning money for his daughter’s upcoming wedding to a poorish man.  Hoi is long divorced and lives with his puritanical son and family. 

 One day they meet and it becomes apparent that they find each other good company.  It’s the sort of company when hours pass and few words are said.  

Having lived straight lives could it be that in their twilight years, they may end up together as a couple?  Suk Suk under the gentle hand of Ray Yeung explores this topic as we also get a view of daily life in Hong Kong, a subdued, less glamourous view of the city than we usually see.  

The plight of elderly gays in the city, often abandoned by a society that tolerates all types of lifestyle behind closed doors  but insists on everything being in order on the surface is also seen as young local gay activists plan for a gay-only rest home for the elderly.

Sensitive, beautifully paced and acted, this film surprised me with its impact on a low budget.

4 stars

Shiva Baby

Can only give this a brief comment but Emma Seligman’s debut comedy is about as awkward as you can imagine and deliberately so.  Danielle (Rachel Sennott) is the daughter of typically ambitious Jewish parents. 

 She is joining them at a type of wake and discovers that present are not only her sugar daddy boyfriend Max,

complete with wife and baby, but also her-ex, Maya, who is a more together young woman headed for law school.  

Danielle has no idea what she wants to do and tends to invent stories which get closely scrutinized by the extended family and friends as the three main protagonists meet up and avoid each other in the course of 90 odd minutes.  

Some scenes are really embarrassing but Seligman manages to balance tension, humour and reality very well.  

Polly Draper is very effective as the mother.

A film that got me hooked and kept me there till the end.

4 stars plus