Archive for category: Reviews

The idea of four iconic Black men from disparate fields meeting in a hotel room the night of the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston fight in 1964 is an intriguing conceit for a stage play, which this was, but it hasn’t been translated to the screen. This was one of the slower movies I’ve watched; it seemed to stop after every speech. I never got the reason for the rendezvous, or why Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Clay would hang out for hours in a dumpy hotel room without food, drink or women. Maybe the draw was Malcolm X, but as portrayed by Kingsley Ben-Adir he was short of charisma, a black hole at the center of the gathering. As one of the characters commented, “Which one here doesn’t belong?” Outside the hotel room, the movie added set pieces for each character that were exaggerated to the point of absurdity: Jim Brown being called the ‘n’ word by Beau Bridges; Clay being berated by Christopher from the Sopranos; Cook bombing at the Copa then singing without a mic in Boston. The intellectual discussion was just as half-baked. Tom Stoppard this was not.

Part 1 is a sharp interpersonal psychodrama as a flirty screenwriter arrives at a lakeside retreat and disrupts the shaky marriage of the couple living there. Part 2 shows the same story, with the female leads reversed, being made as a movie, with a messy but funny cast of a dozen. Is Part 1, then, just a movie that was made by the characters in Part 2? Was Part 1 a real experience that led our screenwriter (Aubrey Plaza) to write the movie then made in Part 2? And what was with the black bear? Enjoying, but not really understanding what I had just seen, I raced to the reviews to discover that the reviewers were just as befuddled. What they liked, and I did too, were the recognizable stresses in the male-female relationships, the sly humor and the way Aubrey Plaza held the screen. Also noted in the reviews: a good (low-budget, single-set) movie to watch on TV.

If you like depressing Irish movies about spousal abuse and a mother with two kids, no money, no home and no prospects, this is your cup o’ tea. Fortunately, through a series of improbable good breaks, our heroine ends up about where she started, but quit of the abusive husband. Clare Dunn, who co-wrote and stars, is wonderful as the hard-luck mother, her kids are good, and Harriet Walter is rock solid, although her character is suspiciously perfect.

The abstinence-only strictures of the Catholic Church take on the rising hormones of a 16-year-old naif in this indie charmer of a movie, and guess who wins? Natalia Dyer is perfect and perfectly believable as a teen. The hypocrisy and absurdity of Catholic sex “education” may be a tad over the top, but it’s a favorite target of mine, hence the mockery was quite enjoyable. The movie looked like it cost about $100,000 to make, but was missing nothing.

An earnest effort at a feel-good romance, which felt like it was made during the era it depicted, 1957-62, not necessarily a good thing, but with the pleasing difference that almost all the characters were Black and discrimination was at most a minor issue. The acting was a bit obvious and the story was predictable, with some major implausibilities. These were nice people to hang with and the music was good, but there was little emotional connection and nothing stuck. (PS: it may have been unfair to watch this alongside Small Axe, a stronger period study of Black life, where the people and their situations feel more real.)