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Fight the Team

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Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting

by George Wolf

“We’ve been used for entertainment for so long, most Americans don’t even question it.”

Imagining the Indian is a documentary with a clear agenda and a specific target audience. It isn’t really interested in preaching to the choir, and it seems to realize there are those on the opposite side who view even broaching the subject as threatening some God-given right to tell others how to feel.

But in the middle, there’s a group that may indeed have never questioned why Native American team names and mascots need to be changed.

Imaging the Indian makes a clear and very convincing case.

In short, “It’s either racist or it’s not.” True enough, but directors Aviva Kempner and Ben West follow that early declaration with multiple historical and uniquely personal perspectives that repeatedly drive the point home.

Like Kempner’s 2019 doc The Spy Behind Home Plate, the approach is far from stylish, but heavy on substantial persuasion, usually from those most directly affected by the demeaning mascots, team names and group cheers.

While veteran sports journalist (and co-producer) Kevin Blackistone finds no shortage of sports fans who dig in their cleats and yell “It’s just a name!,” we see a series of Native Americans who have receipts. And they say it honors nothing but a continued “white fantasy” of a people swept out of the way for hundreds of years.

“I’m so past arguing. This is life and death for us.”

Really? Life or death? Yes, expect more receipts.

Kempner and West also highlight the leadership of Native American activist (and 2014 Medal of Freedom winner) Suzan Shown Harjo, and offer solid rebuttals to the frequent charges of “erasing history” and those misleading polls which seem to suggest Native American support for the controversial mascots.

I’m actually writing this review while a Cleveland Guardian’s game plays in the other room. And while it’s encouraging to note that the Cleveland Indians/Chief Wahoo die-hards are becoming less and less vocal, I know first hand that plenty still proudly resist the name change as some heroic stand against “wokeness.”

But with the Washington football team finally ditching “Redskins” (a name singled out as the most blatantly offensive of all), progress is being made, which is why it may be the most opportune time for Imaging the Indian to get this wider release.

Can a documentary actually be the tipping point for a new conventional wisdom, and a catalyst for permanent change?

Ask Sea World.

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Donna Corleone

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Mafia Mamma

by George Wolf

So a suburban L.A. mom named Kristin (Toni Collette) is handpicked to be the new boss of a mafia family in Italy? Man, that’s crazy. How’d that happen?

“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

It’s actually surprising Kristin doesn’t say that in Mafia Mamma, a film that’s built on exactly that same type of obvious, forced humor.

Kristin has barely had to time to cry about her son leaving for college when she catches her husband Paul (Tim Daisch) in the act with a younger woman. Then, while her head is spinning about the future of her marriage, Kirstin hears from the mysterious Bianca (Monica Belluci).

Turns out Kristin’s estranged grandfather was head of the Balbano crime family, and was just assassinated by the rival Romano clan. But Kristin (maiden name: Balbano) is only told grandpa is dead, and she must come to Italy to settle his affairs.

As Jenny (Sophia Nomvete), the oversexed best friend (c’mon, you knew there’d be an oversexed best friend) implores Kristin to have an “Eat, pray, f@#k” vacation, she’s quickly juggling suave suitors and surprising truths.

Bianca was General for Don Guiseppe Balbano (Alessandro Bressanello), and she’s committed to carrying out the Don’s last order: that Kristin take over the family.

Fish-out-of-water hijinx ensue, with director Catherine Hardwicke weakly juggling the mob tropes amid some well-intentioned but heavy handed reminders about how workplace culture disrespects aging women.

Collette is likable as always, and Belucci is smoldering as always, but the script they’re given can’t rise above the TV backgrounds of the writing team. Convoluted, nonsensical and never more than mildly amusing, Mafia Mamma is about as lively as Luca Brasi.

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Oklahoma Not Okay

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One Day as a Lion

by George Wolf

A few films in now, director John Swab’s favorite playbook seems to be upending familiar narratives with unexpected left turns. But unlike previous projects such as Candy Land, Little Dixie and Ida Red, his latest is built on a script Swab didn’t pen himself.

One Day as a Lion comes from screenwriter Scott Caan, who also stars as Jackie Powers, consistently recalling his father James as an Oklahoma man driven to desperate measures by the arrest of his son, Billy (Dash Melrose).

With Billy’s hearing just days away, Jackie needs money to hire TV lawyer Kenny Walsh (Billy Blair), who refers to himself in the third person and promises results. To get the money that talks to Kenny Walsh, Jackie agrees to whack powerful local rancher Walter Boggs (J.K. Simmons), who hasn’t paid his gambling debts to crime boss Pauly Russo (Frank Grillo).

But the diner hit goes south, leaving Jackie to kidnap waitress Lola Brisky (Marianne Rendón) and head out on the run, while Walter and Pauly threaten Jackie and each other.

Sound like your standard thriller, right?

Caan has something a little more zany in mind. As Jackie and Lola hit up her mother (Virginia Madsen )- a rich woman known as “Black Widow” after her trail of dead husbands – for the needed funds, a whiff of romantic comedy is in the air. And with Okie hillbillies arguing about gymnastics and Pauly yelling about belt buckles, the whole adventure starts to feel like the remote intersection of Taylor Sheridan and a Jimmy Johns commercial.

But Swab frames the dusty landscapes and empty streets with an appropriately desperate grit, the ensemble digs into the character eccentricities, and One Day as a Lion pulls you along a light but oddly compelling tale of kooky crime and possible punishment.

I’m still trying to figure out just what is up with the post-credits stinger, but even it lands with a “what just happened?” vibe that seems right at home here.

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It’s Gotta Be the Shoes

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Air

by George Wolf

1984. It was the best of times for Converse and Adidas, as they dominated the market share for basketball shoes. But for Nike’s basketball division, it was the worst of times that threatened to shut them down completely.

That all changed, of course, when Nike brought Michael Jordan into the fold, and Air deconstructs that watershed moment with an endlessly compelling vitality.

If you still need proof that Ben Affleck is a damn fine director, you’ll find it, right down to how he frames the multiple telephone conversations. But the real surprise here is the script. In a truly sparkling debut, writer Alex Convery brings history to life with an assured commitment to character.

Taking his inspiration from the ESPN documentary Sole Man, Convery invites us into the sneaker wars via Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), the legendary shoe rep and “Mr. Miyagi” of amateur b-ball. Convinced the only way to save Nike basketball was to tailor everything around Jordan, Sonny began relentlessly lobbying Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck), executive Howard White (Chris Tucker) and marketing director Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman).

And when Jordan’s agent David Falk (Chris Messina) tells Sonny it’s a lost cause, he brazenly heads to North Carolina for a face-to-face meeting with M.J.’s mother (Viola Davis) and father (Julius Tennon).

Davis was reportedly Michael’s personal choice, proving the man knows more than basketball. She’s as masterful as you’d expect, becoming the linchpin in a sterling ensemble that delivers Convery’s nimble dialog with consistent authenticity and wit.

And much like his success with the Oscar-winning Argo, Affleck proves adept at a pace and structure that wrings tension from an outcome we already know. In fact, he goes one better this time, inserting archival footage that actually reminds us of how this all turned out, before leaving Mrs. Jordan’s final ultimatum hanging in the air like a levitating slam from Michael.

And as for the man himself, the film wisely treats him “like the shark in Jaws,” with rare glimpses that only reinforce the elusive nature of the game-changing prize this Nike team is out to land.

The film’s closing summary may flirt with hagiography, and some of the soundtrack hits do feel a bit forced, but Air finds a crowd-pleasing new groove inside a classic album. It’s the thrilling sports movie we didn’t know we needed, and a part of the Jordan legacy that instantly feels indispensable.

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Anyone for Tetris?

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Tetris

by George Wolf

So, you had mad Tetris skills back in the day, did you? Wel then, maybe you know that the name came from merging “tetra” (Greek for “four”) with “tennis.”

But did you know that the road to your gaming glory was paved with blackmail, Cold War intrigue, corporate backstabbing, KGB harassment and perhaps even one exuberant singalong to Europe’s 1986 anthem “The Final Countdown?”

The Apple Original Tetris gives us all that and more, riding an animated lead performance from Taron Egerton and a nostalgic, 16-bit aesthetic for an entertaining ride through history that’s only too happy to borrow from both Pixels and Argo.

And no matter how familiar you are with gaming culture, this is one crazy-ass story.

In the late 1980s, Henk Rogers (Egerton) was a video game sales rep whose shoot-from-the-hip manner and boots-with-suits style earned him a cowboy reputation. His first look at Tetris left him mesmerized at its “poetry, art and math,” and obsessed with obtaining the marketing rights for he called “the perfect game.”

But Tetris was a spare-time invention from Russian worker bee Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), and getting those rights would put Rogers in the criss-crossing crosshairs of a competing sales rep (Toby Jones), a billionaire tycoon (Roger Allam, under some questionable makeup) and his heir (Anthony Boyle), game developers from Nintendo and various members of the KGB.

Fun! it is, especially the moments when a Russian business exec (Oleg Stefan, fantastic) moves from room to room in his office building, pitting the players against each other with deadpan delight.

Once again, Egerton is terrific. We first meet Henk as a fast-talking sales dog always ready with a pitch. But as Henk’s passion for a possible Tetris goldmine gives way to manic desperation, it feels real, as does his concern for safety of Alexey and his family.

Director Jon S. Baird (Stan & Ollie) indulges the throwback Thursday vibe, with plenty of game player graphics, pixellated frames and 80s jams. But look beyond the breezy attitude, and you’ll also find that writer Noah Pink includes some resonant nods to how even the seemingly harmless technology can quickly be weaponized.

Yes, the finale becomes a bit tidy, idealistic, and familiar (does Ben Affleck get a credit?), but the fictionalized history of Tetris is worth revisiting, meaning that after a slew of terrible video game adaptations, the genre can bask in a rare double score. Dungeons and Dragons can please crowds at the multiplex, while briefcases and boots gets the job done at home.

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Seoul Searching

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Return to Seoul

by George Wolf

“Your birth name is Yeon-Hee. It means ‘docile’ and ‘joyous.'”

None of those things apply to Frédérique (Park Ji-min), whose name was changed after a French couple adopted baby Yeon-Hee and moved her from Seoul to Paris.

25 years later, she’s back.

In Return to Seoul (Retour à Séoul), the trip “home” becomes a catalyst for one woman’s search for identity, as director and co-writer Davy Chou crafts a relentlessly engrossing study of character and culture.

Now 25, “Freddie”‘s planned vacation in Japan is diverted by a typhoon, and she lands in Seoul “by surprise” – or so she tells her adoptive mother in France. But it isn’t long before Freddie is visiting the agency that handled her adoption, and reaching out to her birth parents to gauge interest in a meeting.

And from the minute we meet Freddie, she is purposefully upending the societal expectations of her heritage. When Freddie laughingly explains it away to her friend Tena (Guka Han) as “I’m French,” Tena quietly responds that Freddie is “also Korean.”

Freddie’s birth father and mother have very different reactions to her outreach. Chou moves the timeline incrementally forward, and Freddie’s two-week holiday becomes a new life in Seoul, one that’s fueled by restlessness and unrequited longing.

In her screen debut, Park is simply a revelation. Her experience as a visual artist clearly assists Park in realizing how to challenge the camera in a transfixing manner that implores us not to give up on her character. Freddie is carrying a soul-deep wound and pushes people away with a sometimes casual cruelty, but Park always grounds her with humanity and restraint.

As the narrative years go by, Chou adds flamboyance without seeming overly showy, and manages to toe a tricky line between singular characterization and a more universal comment on Korean adoptees.

Freddie begins to embody the typhoon that pushed her toward this journey of self, and Return to Seoul becomes an always defiant, sometimes bristling march to emotional release. And when that release comes, it is a rich and moving reward for a filmmaker, a performer, and all who choose to follow.

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Press To Play

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Kubrick by Kubrick

by George Wolf

Stanley Kubrick gave so few interviews in his lifetime that an early striking moment in Gregory Monro’s Kubrick by Kubrick comes the first time you hear his voice.

It doesn’t really seem to fit, until you remember Kubrick wasn’t French or British, he was a native New Yorker. And he had a clear penchant for precise, matter-of-fact observations.

Film critic Michel Ciment was lucky enough to get some of those thoughts on tape over the course of several years, and Monro surrounds highlights of those cassette recordings with still photos, movie clips, and interviews with various cast and crew from Kubrick’s 13 movies.

Monro anchors the film with a recreation of the hotel suite from 2001. This one is adorned with mementos from Kubrick’s catalogue, which Monro spotlights as Ciment and Kubrick move their conversations from film to film.

Obviously, film fans will get critical insight into Kubrick’s mindset and interpretations of the stories he told (horror fans may especially take note of his far-from-the-rabbit-hole thoughts on The Shining).

But however much time Ciment spent with Kubrick, it seems Monro only found enough usable material for a heavily padded, barely one-hour running time, which leaves plenty unsaid. It’s certainly great to see all the classic clips from Kubrick’s films, but after actors such as Jack Nicholson, Malcolm McDowell, Sterling Hayden (Dr. Strangleove) and Marisa Berenson (Barry Lyndon) comment on Kubrick’s legendary perfectionism, you wait for reactions from the man himself that never come.

Maybe beggars like us can’t be choosers, and there are fascinating answers from Kubrick here, chief among them some suddenly prescient thoughts on HAL’s A.I. awareness. Kubrick by Kubrick is the rare chance to get inside the mind of a guarded legend, and even when it leaves you wanting more, that somehow feels like an ending he had planned all along.

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The Write Side of History

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Boston Strangler

by George Wolf

Writer/director Matt Ruskin wants us to remember that decades before the events of All the President’s Men, Spotlight or She Said, journalists – specifically women journalists – were heroically committed to finding the truth.

Wading through historical record with a detailed screenplay that’s surprisingly unaided by any source material, Ruskin crafts Boston Strangler as a salute to two dogged reporters and the mystery that still surrounds their biggest story.

In the 1960s, Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) was a lifestyle reporter for Boston’s Record American. She pressured editor Jack Maclaine (Chris Cooper, reliable as always) for a better beat, but got approval to work the Strangler story only on her own time. As Loretta’s promising leads met increasing roadblocks, street-wise veteran Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) had her back and the two “girl” reporters started lighting up the front pages.

Knightley and Coon make for a team just as formidable as their characters, highlighting the contrasts of the two women’s lives while making it clear how much they came to depend on each other. The always welcome Alessandro Nivola adds solid support as Detective Conley, a sympathetic cop who proves useful to the case.

And you might remember that case eventually led to the confession of Albert DeSalvo (David Dastmalchian). But Ruskin is arguing that bit of history is far from settled, and he methodically makes his case via the work of McLaughlin and Cole.

Ruskin’s storytelling is patient and assured, nicely mirroring the ladies’ work ethic and building a subtle bridge from past to present through the sexism and police corruption that made the truth even more evasive.

The film is more compelling than thrilling, striking a tone that fits the material. It’s not the splashy headline that’s important, it’s what kind of substance is delivered underneath. Boston Strangler delivers a relevant history lesson, and another salute to the ones that keep asking questions.

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Missions Possible

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The Magician’s Elephant

by George Wolf

Anything is possible, just believe in your dreams.

That’s a fine moral for The Magician’s Elephant. But much like the film itself, it’s a bit generic and less than memorable.

Based on the children’s book by Kate DiCamillo, this Netflix animated adventure takes us to the land of Baltese, where strange clouds have rolled in and “people stopped believing.” Young orphan Peter (voiced by Noah Jupe) is being raised by an old soldier (Mandy Patinkin) to live a soldier’s life, which will be hard because “the world is hard.”

It gets harder when Peter uses meal money for a fortune teller (Natasia Demetriou) to tell him how his long lost sister can be found. The soldier told Peter the girl died at birth, but that’s not what he remembers, and a palm reading confirms that she is indeed alive.

To find her, Peter must “follow the elephant.”

But there are no elephants in Baltese, at least until a desperate magician (Benedict Wong) makes one fall from the sky. And after the magician and the elephant are both locked up for causing trouble, Peter begs the King (Aasif Mandvi) to let him care for the beast, as it is “only guilty of being an elephant.”

The King agrees, providing Peter can complete three tasks. Three impossible tasks.

Ah, but remember, nothing is impossible!

Director Wendy Rogers (a visual effects vet helming her first feature) and screenwriter Martin Hynes have plenty of threads to juggle, from animal cruelty to the costs of war to a Dickensian twist of fate. The resulting narrative ends up feeling overstuffed and convoluted.

The muted coloring no doubt reflects the village’s cloudy atmosphere, and the stiff animation may be intended to recall a children’s popup, but there is little in the film’s aesthetic that is visually inspiring.

Mandvi and Patinkin are the most successful at crafting indelible characterizations, while the rest of the voice cast (also including Brian Tyree Henry and Miranda Richardson) manages workmanlike readings that neither disappoint or standout.

Same for the film. The Magician’s Elephant pulls plenty from its crowded hat, but has trouble conjuring anything that is truly magical.

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Rising Up to Meet You

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The Quiet Girl

by George Wolf

This has been a fan-fecking-tastic awards season for the Emerald Isle. Multiple Oscar nominee The Banshees of Inisherin has racked up plenty of other noms and wins these last few weeks, and the sublime short feature An Irish Goodbye is a recent BAFTA winner and leading Oscar contender ahead of Sunday’s ceremony.

But the hometown favorite might well be The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin), up for a Best International Film Oscar after winning seven of its ten nominations at the recent Irish Film Awards.

So yes, it’s feckin’ good, and it’s so exquisitely, heartbreakingly Irish.

In fact, the feature debut from writer/director Colm Bairéad is the first Irish language film to be nominated for an Oscar, but it begins speaking through the subtle foreshadowing of a cuckoo’s song – the bird known for laying its eggs in the nests of others.

And in rural Ireland circa 1981, young Cáit (an astonishing debut from Catherine Clinch) is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with “her mother’s people” for the summer. Middle-aged couple Seán (Andrew Bennett) and Eibhlín (a marvelous Carrie Crowley) have never met the shy and introspective Cáit, but they welcome her into their home.

Seán spends most days working the farm, so Eibhlín tends to Cáit with an unconditional affection she has never known, and the young girl begins to blossom. But after Eibhlín declares “if there are secrets, there is shame,” Cáit discovers a secret that permeates the farmhouse.

Like Belgium’s Close (also up for Best International Feature), The Quiet Girl features a terrific debut from a child actor and is draped in a tender stillness that gently cradles the building of its central relationship. Clinch and Crowley are absolutely wonderful together, rendering it nearly impossible not the care whether this wide-eyed young girl and her wounded mother figure will feel safe enough to open their hearts.

In adapting Claire Keegan’s novella, Bairéad’s storytelling is confidently restrained and overflowing with compassion, as it builds to one of the most quietly devastating final shots in years. The Quiet Girl is an intimate, beautifully realized take on finding what we need to heal our pain – and knowing when to rise up and meet it.