Wow, there are a lot of movies coming home this week. Some of them are so bad. Just really, extraordinarily bad. But hidden in there are a couple of decent horror flicks you might have missed.
Click the film title for the full review.
Another week chock full of movie options. Guilty pleasures to disappointments, poetic fables to fanboy riots. Check them out:
by Hope Madden
Cinematic in structure, narrative in its storytelling, all of it expressed with a visual flair that give it the sense of poetry—Honeyland is no ordinary documentary.
Filmmakers Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov offer a master class in fly-on-the-wall documenting with their patient, beautiful story of a lone beekeeper. Or is Honeyland actually an analogy for the human race and our relationship with this planet?
It’s both.
The Sundance winner offers no exposition, no context, no question and answer. Content to simply observe, Honeyland follows Hatidze Muratova, a Macedonian beekeeper. Loving long shots establish both the rugged terrain and the isolation of Hatidze’s days as she begins the yearly cycle of transporting a hive, caring for it and reaping the benefits of that patient, diligent work.
The filmmakers’ respect for Hatidze drives the doc, which never labels or trivializes its subject, never patronizes.
The solitude and the quiet of Hatidze’s days spent with bees and evenings with her bedridden mother soon make way for chaos and cacophony, as Hatidze’s lonesome dot of Macedonian land makes room for Hussein Sam and his nomadic family.
Kotevska and Ljubomir abandon the long shot in favor of mid-range filming and close ups crowded with jumping children, bickering siblings, chickens and cattle. The campers, the kids, the lifestock, the noise—all of it caught with affection and trepidation by both the filmmakers’ camera and Hatidze’s smiling eye.
Somewhere on the edge of this rush of sound creeps Hatidze, curious and cautious but smiling. Little by little she and this family form a community. She even becomes something of a mentor in the beekeeping tradition to one of the young sons, forming a sweet and eventually heartbreaking relationship.
Heartbreaking because rush and need, ambition and impatience all combine with selfish interests to convince the Sam family that beekeeping is also for them. Shortcuts lead to a natural imbalance and soon Hatidze faces the crisis left behind when the natural environment is used for profit rather than nurtured for balance.
Beautifully filmed with natural light to create a sort of visual lyricism, Honeyland becomes an allegory for our times. It’s hard not to be invested in Hatidze’s story, in her bees, as if our own future depends on them.
Little-known gem Avengers: Endgame come home this week. Heard of it? If that’s not your bag, maybe a little Shakespeare?
Click the title to link to the full review.
Whew! That’s a lot of movies! Some good, some bad, some really good…Well, maybe just listen to the podcast.
by Hope Madden
Dora the Explorer takes her backpack, her map and her adventures to the big screen. Can you say surprisingly entertaining?
It helps that director James Bobin (The Muppets, Flight of the Conchords) has mastered the art of cheeky-yet-wholesome fun. Our story begins in the jungle where 6-year-old Dora (Madelyn Miranda) and cousin Diego (Malachi Barton) seek adventure under the somewhat watchful eyes of Dora’s parents (Eva Longoria and Michael Pena).
But Diego is off to the big city with his parents and, about ten years later, Dora goes to stay with him while her parents seek the famed Lost City of Gold.
She may be 16, but Dora (Isabela Moner) hasn’t changed, which means the nightmare of high school is about to get worse for Diego (Jeff Wahlberg – yes, he’s a nephew).
And though the bulk of the plot deals with a kidnapping, a jungle adventure to find Dora’s parents, and an Indiana Jonesesque trek into a lost city, the heart of the film is with outsiders and outcasts facing high school.
Moner is an impressive talent, a point she’s proven with roles in Sicario 2 and Instant Family. She plays bright-eyed Dora with utter earnestness, allowing Bobin and a game cast to land plenty of jokes, none of them cynical or unkind.
This is definitely a family-friendly film, but you don’t have to be a preschooler to find enjoyment. Bobin’s good-natured humor winks at parents, the move to high school will endear the film to ‘tweens, but the high spirit and affection for the source material won’t be lost on little ones.
Is it a classic? It is not. And if you were one of the many middle aged men sitting alone in the theater yesterday, for shame. But Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a charmer and not a bad way to spend some time with the family.
So remember, high school is a horrible nightmare. Be yourself. And no swiping!
A couple of the best films of 2019 are ready for you to take them home. Do not miss Amazing Grace, an unmissable music documentary that captures Aretha Franklin at the apex of her skills, and the introspective indie gem The Souvenir.
Click the film title to link to the full review.
A bunch of movies to cover this week in The Screening Room, including Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, The Farewell, Luz, Sword of Trust, Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa as well as a whole slew of new movies available to watch at home.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Cat McAlpine
On a hot summer day Cynthia (Jillian Bell) and Mary (Michaela Watkins) walk into an Alabama pawn shop with a sword to sell. Shop owner Mel (Marc Maron) listens in disbelief as the women explain: This isn’t just any sword. This Union officer’s sword, and its accompanying documents, can prove that the South actually won the Civil War.
Sword of Trust pokes at what and who we believe in, and why. What leads people to believe that the world is actually flat or the deep state is actively erasing battles from history books? How many times can we forgive someone before we simply can’t anymore? Filmed on location in Birmingham, the pace of the film matches the speed of summer in the south. No one moves too fast, talks too loud, or quite gets to the point.
Penned by Lynn Shelton (who also directed) and Mike O’Brien, the dialogue is almost too natural, suggesting that most of the script was largely improvised. The frame work is a little choppy, with a focus on Cynthia and Mary at the start that suggests more of an ensemble focus than is delivered.
As the action picks up Cynthia, Mary, Mel, and pawn shop assistant Nathaniel (Jon Bass, loveable) all warily agree to pile into the back of a moving van with an unknown destination.
“This is definitely how people die.”
“This is how individual people die. There’s four of us.”
Then, we’re hit with a momentum bait and switch. The longest scene of the film takes place in the back of the van where the characters explain exactly how they came to this point in their lives. This is when realize the real film is about Mel, and his ability to find satisfaction in life despite its disappointments.
As the emotional epicenter, Maron is a marvelous star. Not dissimilar from his performance in Netflix’s GLOW, Maron has the beautiful, stuttering delivery of a man who can admit his life is “tragic” without ever truly contemplating that reality. Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t rise to meet his performance.
The action is predictable and anticlimactic. Mel is worrying over bad decisions and a woman he’s still in love with, but his only onscreen interaction with Deirdre (Lynn Shelton, again) is early on and devoid of context. There are bright spots, like Nathaniel’s patient diligence in trying to explain to Cynthia how the world is actually flat, but the film doesn’t quite shine.
The Sword of Trust skims over the top of conspiracy theories and their cult followers. Every believer is either a backwoods idiot or a loveable idiot, both easily dismissed. There’s an opportunity to explore the cultural black holes that create these communities, but Mel isn’t really interested in them, so the narrative isn’t either.
Ultimately, this is a worthy effort to highlight the people and stories that find themselves in small, southern towns. But the film would’ve benefitted from either more evenly distributing its focus on the lives of all of its players or narrowing the narrative sharply on Mel.
by Hope Madden
Fast, brave and baffling, Tilman Singer’s experimental demon thriller Luz enters hot, exits quickly and leaves you puzzled. In a good way.
The film begins with a nightmarish vision leeched of color, as battered young cabbie Luz (a letter-perfect Luana Velis) tumbles into a banal police station lobby shouting about how the receptionist wants to live his life. Soon she’s seated in an equally bland hallway, mumbling blasphemies to herself in Spanish as two German police officers—one who doesn’t understand and one who refuses to translate—look on.
Meanwhile, in a dive bar across town…
It makes little sense to summarize the plot because the fairly slight premise unfolds in front of you, offering as many questions as answers. To spoil that seems pointless.
There is something fascinating happening in this film, though, and Singer has no real sense of urgency about clarifying what that is. Seedy, lifeless places become environments where those as baffled as we bear witness—or don’t—to a patient if tenacious courtship of sorts.
It all begins in dehumanizing but fascinating wide angle shots. Slowly, clip by clip, Singer draws us in closer to the diabolical unfolding in our midst. It’s the deconstruction of a possession film, a bare-bones experimental feature that hangs together because of its clever turns, solid performances and Singer’s own technical savvy with sound design.
Running about 70 minutes and boasting no more than 6 speaking roles, Luz is surrealism at its most basic, storytelling at its sparest.
