Tag Archives: George Wolf

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Folk in the Road

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The Independents

by George Wolf

Is it karma? Kismet? Dumb luck?

Whatever it is, New York neighbors Richard (Rich Price) and Greg (writer/director Greg Naughton) are brought together by the fate of a fallen tree limb. Both are musicians, and after an eye-opening impromptu jam session they decide to throw caution to the wind.

Rich, a teacher and grad student, will blow off working on his dissertation, and the guys will take to the road. They’ll stop in Ohio to pick up Greg’s estranged girlfriend, then hit the Eagle Rock folk festival to play original tunes on one of the side stages.

So what are the odds weird hitchhiker Brian (Brain Chartrand) also plays guitar and can provide the missing voice for perfect three part harmony?

The guys sound great together, and they should, because they’re an actual group called the Sweet Remains. Taking inspiration from his real life, Naughton filmed his directorial debut over several years, shooting around the band’s touring schedule.

The result is a sweetly earnest and often funny ode to the simple joy of making music, and the value in even the most unlikely dreams.

So yeah, a fast-talking record exec (Richard Kind) hears the guys play and sets up an L.A. showcase, but give Naughton credit for adding plenty of unexpected, sometimes pretty clever speed bumps on the road to overnight success.

As actors, the three leads are all talented musicians, with just enough easygoing charm to get us rooting for their characters almost immediately. That’s a big help when those brand new songs sound polished on the first take, or when someone conveniently has an uncle who can get them out of the latest jam.

How much of Naughton’s art is imitating his life? Hard to say, but it hardly matters. In both cases, it took the guys some time to arrive, but now that they’re here, what remains is pretty sweet.

The Independents will be released virtually via LAEMMLE THEATRES and ANGELIKA CINEMAS for a special limited engagement beginning Feb 26, then it will be released via TVOD on March 9.

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Bad Heir Day

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Coming 2 America

by George Wolf

A quip about unnecessary sequels is just one of several “wink-wink” gags you’ll find running throughout Coming 2 America. And though the original was heavy in sexism (even for 1988) and light on LOLs, there’s little doubt that the film’s huge fan base has been anxious for a follow-up.

Eddie Murphy teams again with director Craig Brewer, which is reason for optimism, since Brewer helmed one of Murphy’s career highs – 2019’s Dolemite Is My Name. But screenwriters David Sheffield and Barry Blaustein return from the original film, and while they thankfully update the sexual politics, the humor is again scattershot at best.

Most of the cast is back, including 90 year-old James Earl Jones as King Jaffe of Zamunda. He’s ready to pass the throne to Prince Akeem (Murphy), but is worried that Akeem and Lisa (Shari Headley) only have daughters, and tradition calls for a male heir.

What’s this? The loyal Semmi (Aresenio Hall) has been keeping a very big secret all these years, which means Akeem and Semmi must return to New York to find Akeem’s long lost son.

That would be Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), who makes the trip to Zamunda for royal training with his mom (Leslie Jones) and uncle (Tracey Morgan) in tow. The additional family is good for Lavelle, and for us, as Jones and Morgan’s “fish out of Queens” antics give the film its most consistently fresh and funny moments.

They’re just aren’t enough of those moments to pump real life into part 2. The girl power is overdue and and love lessons are generic, each as predictable as getting more insults from the barbershop guys and more R&B stylings from Randy Watson.

Buy hey, you go to see Sexual Chocolate, you want to hear the hits. And if you’ve been waiting for Coming 2 America for reminders of what you liked the first time, you’ll get them.

Otherwise, a return trip isn’t necessary.

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Hoop Fantasies

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Boogie

by George Wolf

What’s the greatest moment in Asian-American history?

According to Alfred “Boogie” Chin’s father, it’s Micheal Chang’s upset of Ivan Lendl in the 1989 French Open final. And though Boogie’s sport is basketball, the Chin family is hoping some similar court magic will take them all the way to the NBA.

And that’s the first trouble sign with writer/director Eddie Huang’s first feature. From what we see on the court, the idea that Boogie (Taylor Takahashi in his screen debut) is good enough to play in college – let alone the NBA – is laughable.

Wisely, Huang keeps the in-game action to a minimum, focusing instead on the pressures of an Asian teen who must shoulder the burden of being his family’s savior while coming of age in Queens, New York.

Boogie transferred to City Prep High School, so a high-profile showdown with Brooklyn phenom “Monk” (rapper/musician Pop Smoke, is his last role before his tragic murder last year) would help land a college scholarship. But so far, the scouts aren’t promising anything more than walk-on opportunities.

The opportunities with Eleanor (Taylor Paige, so good in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the clear standout in this cast) are looking much brighter. As the big game draws near and the “manager” Mom hired makes things even more tense at home, Boogie leans on Eleanor for a quiet sense of comfort.

Huang (creator of TV’s “Fresh Off the Boat”) throws out some solid ideas, but his attempts to develop them stop at vague generalities. Much like the hooping talent, the cultural struggle of the Chin family is told more than shown, never giving us a reason to get emotionally involved.

And if you’re going to cast a completely inexperienced actor as your lead, why not someone who’s actually a basketball talent? Takahashi was apparently a high school standout, but that doesn’t translate here. Still, even without the inexplicable basketball charade, the coming-of-age drama is only G league material. Huang may yet prove he got game, but it’s going to take some work in the film room.

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Luck Be a Lady

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Lucky

by George Wolf

Lucky takes a well-known horror trope – the masked killer whose “dead” body vanishes when you turn your back – and puts it in a freshly relevant light.

A gaslight, if you will.

May (Brea Grant, who also wrote the screenplay) is a self-help author living in the California suburbs with her husband Ted (Dhruv Uday Singh). They are working to get past a rough patch in their marriage when a strange, persistent threat presents himself.

Every night, a masked man (Hunter C. Smith) tries to break in and kill May. She fights him off – sometimes spilling plenty of blood in the process – but he always seems to get away. The police are on the case, but they’re more interested in why Ted doesn’t appear to be around anymore.

And they’d really like her to calm down.

Grant’s script is often smart and timely, and director Natasha Kermani peels enough layers successfully to hit a number of societal bullseyes. But an extended metaphor such as this is tough to keep constantly afloat, and some gaps of logic in the narrative work against the film’s subtlety and in turn, its overall power.

Grant and Kermani end up walking an entertaining line between subversive humor and metaphorical slasher. Lucky works best in that center, when May becomes a living example of that internet meme comparing what men and women do each day to avoid becoming a victim.

This is the final girl in a modern world of gaslighting and victim-shaming, where women form common bonds overs fears too often dismissed.

Just calm down, Honey, you’re lucky to be alive!

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Girl, Uninterrupted

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Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry

by George Wolf

Two hours and twenty minutes – plus an intermission – for a documentary on a teenage pop star? Isn’t that a bit indulgent?

When you put it that way, probably, but director R.J. Cutler hardly wastes a minute of the time we spend with Billie Eilish (born Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell – nice!). Bolstered by a goldmine of home and backstage video, The World’s a Little Blurry becomes a captivating window into the life of a talented young performer – and a generation coming of age in these often scary and confusing times.

Eilish first got noticed as a 13-year-old after she posted the song “Ocean Eyes” (written by her older brother Finneas O’Connell) on SoundCloud, and it became a million-streaming viral hit.

Billie describes her home-schooled L.A. upbringing as being “one big fucking song,” and there is no denying the family joy as we witness them all react to hearing “Ocean Eyes” on the radio for the first time.

From there, we see Billie and Finneas writing “Bad Guy” – the international smash that would springboard her to world tours and multiple Grammys – and this doc quickly becomes more than just another marketing project from the record label.

Billie is clearly a deep thinker – as insightful writers often are – and she isn’t afraid to put her darkness and vulnerability right there in the storefront window. But it’s clear that her family anchor is strong, and that big bro Finneas is not only a calming influence but a multi-talented musical MVP in his own right.

And along with the hits, Cutler gives us plenty of real human moments. From Billie getting her driving permit to meeting her idol Justin Beiber, from rolling her eyes at something her mom just said to embracing fans as “part of me,” the film captivates because it becomes the story of a family.

One member just happens to attract a little more attention.

That would be Billie.

Duh.

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Role Playing

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The Father

by George Wolf

How much you’re moved by The Father will likely depend on how you see the central narrative device employed by director/co-writer Florian Zeller.

Is it a gimmick that cheapens the very subject he’s digging into, or is it an effective – even logical – new frame for a familiar picture?

Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman star as father and daughter Anthony and Anne. Now, with these Oscar winners as your leads, your device could be the mail-in offer from the back of a cereal box and it would most likely be riveting, but Zeller has more lofty ambitions.

Anthony’s memory is fading fast, forcing Anne to navigate his mood swings and growing combativeness while she looks for an in-home caregiver who can handle him. Young Laura (Imogen Poots) looks promising, but Anthony’s initial charm at their meeting gives way to insults and accusations about a plan to force him from his well-appointed flat.

But is it his flat? And who is the man in the living room (Mark Gatiss) who says he lives there?

Is Anne really planning to move to Paris with a new boyfriend, or is she still married to the impatient and angry Paul (Rufus Sewell)? And just who is that other woman who looks like Anne (Olivia Williams)? Zeller adapts his own stage play with a profound intimacy that feeds the intentional confusion.

In the last several years, movies such as Away From Her and Amour have mined their greatness through the effect of dementia on the longtime spouse of the afflicted.

But here, not only does Zeller make a sympathetic pivot to the adult child of an ailing parent, but his chamber piece finds its greatest resonance through the heartbreaking empathy that comes from giving us Anthony’s point of view.

And even if the whole affair does strike you as gimmicky, the transcendent heights hit by Hopkins and Colman (and indeed, the entire ensemble) make spending time with The Father more than worthwhile.

As artistic as it is nuanced, as lyrical as it is devastating, it’s a film with not only something to say, but a welcome new approach to saying it.

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Speak Up and Sing

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Truth to Power

by George Wolf

Serj Tankian is a passionate guy.

As frontman for System of a Down (and as a solo artist), he’s passionate about music. As an American of Armenian descent, he’s passionate about America’s foreign policy – specifically the U.S. stance on recognizing the Armenian genocide of 1915.

In Truth to Power, director Garin Hovannisian not only gets us closer to a charismatic and multi-talented performer, but he also tackles the sometimes thorny relationship between art and activism.

For Tankian, shutting up and singing is a ridiculous notion. And though he freely admits he seldom knows what he’s going to say before an onstage rant, Tankian’s social consciousness only increases when the lights come up.

Hovannisian gives us a satisfactory trip through Tankian’s life story and the forming of SOAD with three other Armenian-Americans, then brings us along as the band plays its first Armenian show in 2015. Tankian especially is regarded as a national hero, and the intimate moments where we see how deeply this treatment touches him are among the film’s strongest.

But the broader focus is on Tankian’s push for Turkey to admit to the Armenian genocide, as well as his inspirational role in the Armenian revolution of 2018. And though the film makes an often powerful case for art’s ability to affect change, it ignores a very obvious conflict.

In the last few years, SOAD drummer John Dolmayan has been an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and various hard right political postures. Though we hear Tankian worry about the rise of such views, Hovannisian never broaches the subject of how the band members co-exist.

Even if the bulk of the film was completed before Dolmayan spoke out, the somewhat slight running time suggests an epilogue would only add relevant context to the entire conversation.

Without it, there’s a pretty major question just sitting there unanswered, and Truth to Power – despite its commendable passion – feels incomplete.

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No Moose, Just Squirrel

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Flora & Ulysses

by George Wolf

Is “Holy Bagumba!” gonna happen?

Too early to tell, but Flora & Ulysses wants it to happen.

Ten year-old Flora (Matilda Lawler) likes to blurt the phrase out in excited surprise, and there have been plenty of surprises since Ulysses got super powers.

Ulysses (a CGI squirrel with noises courtesy of John Kassir) has skills, no doubt, and in between trashing donut shops and learning how to type, he just might teach a self-described young cynic that there is some magic in this world after all.

Director Lena Khan brings the latest animal adventure tale from novelist Kate DiCamillo (The Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn-Dixie) to the screen with broad brushes, easily digestible messages and family-friendly hijinks.

Khan does try to keep the parents interested through winking nods to E.T, Alien, and The Shining, along with a curious amount of music montages. The playlist ain’t bad (Bill Withers, Tom Jones) but it’s big enough to make you wonder how much was added just to get the film to feature length.

Young Lawler is a treat, with spunky charm to spare and a seemingly natural sense of comic timing (especially with a CGI co-star). But the adapted script from Brad Copeland (Spies in Disguise, Ferdinand) is all surface-level spoon feeding, where the family strife is sanitized, the danger little more than silly and the squirrel is a furry, slo-mo ninja.

In other words, perfectly fetch for the younger set transitioning from picture books to family films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05F8MmsiLQs

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Shimmer Time

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Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

by George Wolf

Remember that opening of Napoleon Dynamite, where Napoleon was tossing a green plastic Army man on a string out of the school bus window? If you didn’t think that was funny, it was an early sign you were gonna have a bad time.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar opens with its own litmus test, as a kid on a bicycle is delivering papers while singing “Guilty” along with the Streisand and Gibb in his headphones.

If that makes you laugh, stick around, you’ll laugh more.

Things have been better for the always perky, cullotte-loving Barb and Star (co-writers Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig). They’ve lost their husbands, their spot in weekly “talking club,” and their jobs at the hottest furniture store in Soft Rock, Nebraska (not a real place, but it should be).

With mid-lifers in tube tops, a 24 hour CVS and a parade of guys in Tommy Bahama, Vista Del Mar, Florida promises a vacation paradise perfect for “finding their shimmer.” Plus, it’s the home of the annual Seafood Jam (“where the crowd’s on the older side!”).

After a Disney-on-Viagra greeting at the hotel, it isn’t long before the BFFs’ rock solid bond is threatened by the handsome Edgar (Jamie Dornan) and the chance to rent a banana boat.

Will the girls’ friendship survive all the fibs and sneaking around? And how long can Edgar hide his part in the nefarious plan by an evil genius (also Kristen Wiig) to kill everyone on the island with poisonous mosquitoes?

I’m sorry, what was that second thing?

Just know director Josh Greenbaum keeps a loose grip on a film that’s ridiculous at every turn but still full of good-natured, garish fun and about as many laugh out loud moments as dry patches. Even though Barb and Star are new to us, they feel like characters the two stars have been privately honing for years, and it’s the chemistry of Mumolo and Wiig (who also co-wrote Bridesmaids) that allows a bit about the name “Trish” to continue beyond all limits of good sense until you give in to the hilarity.

You’ll also recognize plenty of faces in the supporting cast, highlighted by Mark Jonathan Davis doing his Richard Cheese lounge singer persona and Damon Wayans, Jr. as a spy with a bad habit of spilling his personal info (“dammit!”).

Expect some goofy outtakes over the credits, and waves of silliness that just won’t rest until your frown is turned upside down! It may not be dynamite, but Barb and Star brings enough laughs to make spending time with them a pleasure.

Just don’t call it guilty.