Movies For Homebound Grown-Ups: Two Cool New Indies
Posted on April 16, 2020 at 12:05 pm
Copyright Aspiration 2020
You can have your own indie film festival at home now with some new releases:
Phoenix Oregon: James Le Gros plays a bartender and would-be graphic memoirist (James Le Gros) who has lost his way. The outstanding cast includes Lisa Edelstein as a liquor distributor, Dietrich Bader as the restaurant owner, and especially Jesse Borrego as the perfectionist chef who joins forces with the bartender to open a bowling alley.
Standing Up, Falling Down: Billy Crystal gives one of his all-time best performances as a doctor with a number of issues, including substance abuse, who befriends a would-be stand-up comic (Ben Schwartz). Grace Gummer is terrific as the comic’s sister.
And check out a new streaming service for indie films, Topic.
Remember on “Sesame Street” when they ask, which one of these four things is not like the other? “One of these doesn’t belong.” But there are a lot of ways to look at what is same and what is different, as “Trolls: World Tour” explores in a surprisingly subtle and nuanced theme in the midst of so much…well, just so much.
This sequel to the popular original film based on the little fuzzy-haired so-ugly-they’re-cute 1960’s fad dolls begins where the last one left off. Formerly cynical Branch (Justin Timberlake) has now learned to be happy, or happy-ish, and the eternally cheery Poppy (Anna Kendrick) is now Queen. Everything is glitters and rainbows and especially music music music, with a dizzying array of song snippets millennial parents will recognize. The snippets contribute to a a hyper, ADD quality that at times makes viewers feel shaken by the shoulders to make sure we notice we are being ENTERTAINED.
But happily-ever-after endings must be undone if there is to be a sequel and so Poppy learns that the pop-music trolls are not the only trolls and, even more surprising, pop music is not the only music. There’s even a map showing all of the different troll music communities, covering country, reggae, classical, hip-hop, funk, EDM, rock and more. (But it’s an old map — there’s no disco anymore. Even a movie about how harmony means accepting and enjoying every kind of music, disco is still over.)
Once all trolls were together, guided by a lyre with magical strings. But then they broke up into separate divisions, each with one string to produce the music. Queen Barb of Rock (a delicious Rachel Bloom of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”), daughter of King Thrash (a very funny Ozzie Osborne), declares a world tour which ever-optimistic Poppy thinks is about bringing everyone together in a peaceful manner, but Barb wants to grab all of the strings and make rock the one music for all of Troll-dom. Will this be the day the music dies? Or will Poppy find a way to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony? Will there be guest appearances from music giants along the way? What do you think? Kelly Clarkson, George Clinton, and Mary J. Blige all show up, along with many more song snippets and a lot of candy-colored action.
Also in the mix is Sam Rockwell, Kendrick’s “Mr. Right” co-star (not for kids, but a great movie if you like dark humor about world-class assassins). Here he plays a suspiciously helpful troll centaur from country music land.
And somewhere in there are some genuinely thoughtful themes. Like “Frozen II,” this movie touches gently but candidly on the idea that history is written by the victors. What we’ve been told about the past should be questioned, especially if we are portrayed as the heroes. And the idea of same and different, what kinds of differences we should appreciate and support in each other and what kinds we should not, is raised with sophistication and yet still in an accessible manner.
As everyone knows, this movie was scheduled to be a big holiday weekend family movie theatrical release. Instead, in the age of COVID-19, it is the first major studio film being sent straight to streaming, both a gift to homebound families and something of an experiment in unprecedented times. It may seem a bit frantic after weeks of sequester, but it is a bright, tuneful, sweet story with a message of hope that seems especially welcome in the spring of 2020.
Parents should know that this film has some mild peril and brief potty humor. A male troll “gives birth” to a baby (pops out of his head, like Zeus and Minerva)
Family discussion: Which is your favorite kind of music and why? How are Poppy and Barb alike? Can you find three things that are the same about you and your family members and three things that are different?
If you like this, try: “Trolls,” “Happy Feet,” and the “All Hail King Julien” series
Quibi is a new streaming service with features, comedy, drama, action, and reality shows, featuring some of the biggest names in show business on screen and behind the scenes. But there are two important differences from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney Plus, AppleTV+, etc.
First, everything is 12 minutes or under. Second, everything is made to be watched on your phone. Initially, Quibi was going to offer two free weeks before charging viewers ($4.99/month with ads, $7.99 without). But wisely and generously, given the COVID-19 quarantine, they are now offering 90 days free, just at the time we could all use some short bits of entertainment. There’s something for everyone. Give it a try!
Some examples of what you’ll find:
“Thanks a Million” means it literally. A million dollars in cash gets given away by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, and Nick Jonas. Each gets to give $100,000 to someone who inspires them. But there’s a catch — the recipient has to give half of that to someone else and that someone also has to give half of it away.
Liam Hemsworth stars in an update of the classic story “Most Dangerous Game” about a terminally ill man who agrees to be hunted.
The irrepressible Chrissy Tiegen judges small but colorful disputes in “Chrissy’s Court” with some help from her mother (the court bailiff) and her husband, John Legend.
In “The Stranger,” Maika Monroe plays a rideshare driver who picks up a mysterious passenger (Dane DeHaan).
Sneaker culture is examined by Lena Waithe in “You Ain’t Got These.”
Feel like being scared? Terror expert Sam Raimi brings us “50 States of Fright,” an anthology of 50 short horror stories, one for each state.
“Run This City” is the real-life story of the rise and fall of a 23-year-old who gets elected mayor and then gets indicted for embezzlement.
Breakout “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Sasha Velour and friends put on a show.
To honor nurses on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, Kino Lorber is offering a free streaming re-release of the acclaimed documentary, THE AMERICAN NURSE (www.americannurseproject.com).
The documentary highlights the lives of five American nurses from diverse specialties, bringing to the big screen a sincere look at the commitment, necessity, and compassion behind this profession that impacts us all.
Marking the six-year anniversary since it was released in U.S. theaters in May 2014, Kino Lorber will release THE AMERICAN NURSE for free on its streaming platform Kino Nowfrom now until the end of May. The release is timed to coincide with National Nurses Week, and the World Health Organization (WHO) also designating 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
The film’s free release is made possible by Fresenius Kabi, which also supported the development of the film and related book, and whose purpose is to put lifesaving medicines and technologies in the hands of nurses and others who care for patients, and to find answers to the challenges they face.
Rated PG-13 for some strong language including a sexual reference and racial epithets, and smoking throughout
Profanity:
Some strong and racist language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:
Some peril
Diversity Issues:
A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:
April 3, 2020
Copyright Apple 2020“The Banker,” now available on Apple TV+, is three movies in one, all of them vivid, engaging, and compelling.
First, it’s a heist in plain sight movie, and all, or pretty much all, strictly legal. Two black men, Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson) start a business in the pre-Civil Rights Act era when it was not only legal but the universal practice to keep people of color not just out of the neighborhoods where white people lived and worked but out of the places that make property ownership possible, the business that sell homes and office buildings and the people who provide the financing for those purchases.
Second, it is a “My Fair Lady”-style Cinderella makeover fairy tale movie, about taking someone who has the heart to be more than he is and teaching him the language, manners, and skills necessary to have credibility in the highest levels of society, or, in this case, business and finance. Garrett and Morris need a white man to pretend to be the president of their enterprise, so they recruit Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), a genial construction worker, and teach him their version of “the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain,” how to do (or pretend to do) complex valuation computations in seconds and how to play golf, so he can display the (apparently) effortless credibility needed to do big-money deals.
Third, it is a very personal underdog story of heroes to cheer for, two very different men, both played with exquisite precision, working together against near-insurmountable odds to overturn a virulently oppressive system.
Garrett has a head for numbers even as a young boy, where he listens in on the conversations of men of business as he shines their shoes. As a young man, he understands that the ability to own property is as critical to financial stability, social parity, and equal opportunity as the kind of political organizing that is getting started at the same time. Morris is already a savvy businessman with clubs and real estate holdings. Their personalities are very different — one a quiet, devoted family man, the other a good-time guy. But they both know how things work. They know how to make themselves invisible, pretending to be limo drivers or janitors to get access to the places of power while their front-man pretends to know what he’s doing. (One problem with the film is its failure to give Nia Long more of a role than the ever-supportive wife, though this ever-talented actress lends the character some dimension.)
We know from the beginning, opening on a Senate hearing with some harsh questioning, that powerful people are going to try to stop Garrett and Morris from taking some of their power. This movie, with MCU star-power portraying real-life superheroes, gives some of it back to them.
Parents should know that this film has some strong and racist language, some sexual references, scenes in clubs and bars, and some historical depictions of racism.
Family discussion: What did Morris and Garrett have in common? Who is most like them today? What should they have done about Steiner?
