Tag: review

Captain America: Brave New World

Sam Wilson

I was going to write a review of Captain America: Brave New World, but I need to talk about a previous storyline, even though I did not see it.  

Think Christian posted an article in 2021 titled Captain America and Christ’s Second Commandment. LeMarr Jackson suggests, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier poses a provocative question: Is the world actually ready to accept and love a Black Captain America?…

“In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America has stood for everything American: an indomitable will, a never-give-up attitude, a paragon of virtue, an extremely hard worker, and—above all else—an outstanding patriot. Not only has he represented these values, but he has also always looked a certain way, with “blond hair and blue eyes…”

“As he walks through a neighborhood with his partner Bucky (Sebastian Stan), a white man, two policemen stop them for having a spirited discussion. One of the cops insinuates that Sam is causing trouble by directly asking Bucky if Sam is “bothering” him. The cop also specifically asks Sam—but not Bucky—for identification, even telling Sam to ‘calm down.'”

Continuity

Having missed the six episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier from 2021, Brave New World was a tad confusing. Part of the storyline of Winter Soldier is this: “Sam.. learns about the first Black super soldier, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). When Sam meets the now-older man, he is disillusioned over how his country has treated him. He was a good soldier, but he was hidden from the public and mistreated by his government—quite unlike Steve Rogers’s experience.” 

Ah, so that explains Bradley’s role in Brave New World. This reminded me of how comic books were an annoying medium. If you miss an issue, you sometimes feel totally out of the loop and confused.

Ultimately, an article in The Hollywood Reporter titled “Chris Evans’ Captain America Wasn’t Expected to Save Us.  So Why Is Anthony Mackie’s?” got me to see Brave New World, which I attended at the Spectrum Theatre. In contrast, my wife saw Conclave, which I had seen months earlier.

As a critic wrote, “Captain America feels like a supporting character in his own movie.” I thought it just me. For a two-hour film, it was busy. The only 49% positive critics’ rating/80% positive with fans seems right. I liked Anthony Mackie as the new Cap and Harrison Ford as President Thunderbolt Ross.

The character Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), “an Israeli former Black Widow who is now a high-ranking government U.S. official, is also controversial” in some circles. Sigh. 

If you follow the MCU stuff, you might want to see it. Apparently, folks attending the Spectrum Theatre were not fans at 4 pm on the Tuesday after Presidents Day because I was the only one in a reasonably large theater.   

Movie review: I’m Still Here

Ainda Estou Aqui 

Of all the movies nominated for best picture, the film I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui  in Portuguese) is the one I knew the least about when I went to the Spectrum Theater in late February to see it. I couldn’t even remember the name, saying to the ticket seller, “It’s the, uh, Brazilian film,” and they knew what I meant.

In 1971, “Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship.” You first get a sense of this with a roadway police stop. Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and Rubens (Selton Mell) are living a reasonably comfortable upper-middle-class life. Eunice and Rubens clearly adore each other. They and their five children get along as well as a large family can. Rubens was in the federal legislature in the past but is long retired.

First, Rubens, then Eunice, and briefly, even one of their daughters are taken away and interrogated.  This turns their world upside down, “The film is based on Marcelo Ruben Pavia’s biographical book and tells a true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.” This true story is just one of many families disrupted by the government. 

Awards

The film won the Oscar for Best International Film. It was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture—I preferred it to Anora, FWIW—and Torres was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture—Drama, and justifiably so. Fernanda Montenegro played the older Eunice Paiva in the film; she is the mother of Fernanda Torres.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received 97% positive reviews from critics and audiences. And it did better box office in the UK than expected.  

David Sims of The Atlantic notes correctly, “By highlighting Eunice’s role as a parent, [director Walter] Salles pushes viewers toward considering the mundanity of living under a dictatorship — and the gnawing nightmare of lacking control in the face of obvious evil.” A strong film. 

Movie review: Flow

from Latvia

The star of the movie Flow is a solitary black or dark gray cat. It’s a feline in an animated feature, but it isn’t a cartoon cat, so it speaks only to mew and doesn’t walk on its hind legs. It sleeps on a human bed in a house surrounded by cat sculptures.

Humans must have existed at some point, but none appear in this film. Whatever happened to this world is getting worse, as the cat has to run to higher ground to stay above the flooding.

Eventually, a boat floats by and soon holds a lemur, a capybara, a heron, and the cat. How do these nonanthropomorphized creatures communicate enough to work together to survive? They must find a safe space. Oh, and there is a pack of dogs nearby.

Director Gints Zibalodis from Latvia co-wrote the script with Matiss Kaza, co-wrote the engaging music with Rihards Zalupe, and is listed as the movie’s editor, cinematographer, and art director. I particularly loved the painted aspect of the creature, especially the primary canine.

Future?

Even more than The Wild Robot, which I also liked, Flow is a credible futuristic tale. The reviews were almost universally positive, 97% with the critics and 98% with the audiences. One reviewer wrote: Flow is a spirited and wild film experience that must be experienced and appreciated for the ground-breaking, profound feat of excellence that it is. This writer was moved, engaged, and enthralled by its scope, beauty, and heart. An inspiring ode to wildlife and its resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.”

A friend of my wife said it was a meditative film, which I can relate to. We saw Flow at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany at a mid-January matinee. Thee were only six of us there, and two left when they realized they were in the wrong theater. 

Movie review: A Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan

My wife and I went to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany to see A Complete Unknown at a Saturday matinee in late December. I asked the cashier whether people approached them and sang the title. They said a few did because they were trying to remember the film’s name; rather than saying, “Oh, the Dylan film,” they dug up the line from Like a Rolling Stone. The theater was quite full, with most patrons appearing to be eligible for Social Security.

It isn’t easy to analyze the film without the big caveats that many have already shared about the chronology and veracity of what happened to Bob Dylan between 1961 and 1965.  Characters are combined, and events happen in different order. What DID Pete Seeger feel about Dylan “going electric”? (Pete has long suggested that the distorted sound, not the volume, bothered him.)

All I can do is evaluate the film I saw. I liked it quite a bit, and my wife, who is a bit younger than me and not as immersed in early 1960s folk/pop music culture, also enjoyed it.

Timothée Chalamet did a credible job as Dylan or an element of Dylan. The movie’s Dylan seems to have been consistently oblique about his upbringing. His first girlfriend in New York City, Sylvie (Elle Fanning), complained that he’d never discussed it. Dylan pointed out that we’re all reinventing ourselves. 

So it was with the real Bob, from his white face paint in the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975 to his religious era in the late 1970s and beyond.

Edward Norton did a wonderful job as Pete Seeger. Boyd Harrison was an adequate Johnny Cash, more with the swagger than the voice. Monica Barbaro was a pretty good Joan Baez; I think, in some ways, she had the hardest job of all since, to my ear, Joan’s is wonderfully specific.

A fan

I’m a big fan of these artists. I have a lot of Dylan, as well as several albums of Dylan covers, including this one. To be honest, seeing him in 2008 was rather unsatisfying.

Joan’s Best of Joan Baez album on Vanguard in the early ’60s was pivotal in my understanding of folk music. My father, sister Leslie, and I sag So Soon In The Morning from that album.  I saw her sing at the 1998 Newport Folk Festival. Recommend: the documentary I Am A Noise. About A Complete Unknown, she said that she didn’t have to see the film: “I lived it.”

My father owned the Pete Seeger album We Shall Overcome, Live from Carnegie Hall (1963). It got played a lot and had a huge effect on my father. I saw Pete sing in person probably three dozen times, mostly in the Mid-Hudson. One day, he performed at anti-war rallies in New Paltz and Kingston, NY.  I even spoke to him once at an anti-Springboks demonstration in September 1981 in Albany.

While I watched his ABC TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s, I rediscovered Johnny Cash in the mid-1990s through his American Recordings.

Movie review- Mufasa: The Lion King

Very leontine

I’m seeped in the Lion King mythos, so that’s why my wife, daughter, and I saw the Mufasa movie at the Spectrum Theatre in mid-January. My wife and I saw the original 1994 animated film, as did our daughter subsequently. The musical production at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady my wife and I saw twice, once with our daughter.  The daughter was in the production at church. I saw a junior high school production, and I suspect there’s another. But I didn’t see the live action film from 2019.

The reviews  for Mufasa have been mixed, only 56% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. A postive review: “A remake of ‘The Lion King’ was an unnecessary move from a cinematic point of view, but a masterstroke from a business point of view.”

A couple negative takes: It “would have been perfect if its characters had fewer lines, and if the songs were in the background rather than emerging through the mouths of clearly computer-generated figures.” “The songs fall flat, the story is basic, and the movie falls for all of the prequel tropes we’ve grown tired of.”

Profitable

I agree with all of that. It is Disney money grab, for sure, and a successful one at that. While the animals were rendered wonderfully, it was a bit difficult to distinguish some of them, particularly the lions.

Watching them sing was a bit distracting. Some of the songs were particularly cutesy. Although I had forgotten he was involved, a few,  in particular Bye Bye immediately sounded like Lin Manuel Miranda’s signature style, even though I had forgotten that he was involved with the film. Interestingly, listening to them without watching the action was less distracting.

We were surprised that the film suggested, albeit off screen,  incredible violence, as the vultures head towards what had to have been a killing field.

But I think the film got better as the film centers on five characters, three lions and two others. There was an interesting lesson at the end which I suspect some people will think is a bit too “woke” for their taste, but which I thought was true. By the end of the movie, I’d given into the storyline.

 I got enough out of it that it wasn’t a waste my time, but your experience may differ.

Ramblin' with Roger
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