Fighting with My Family

First Hit: Mildly entertaining and while it was a bit too predictable at times, there were effective moments of inspiration.

Back when TV wrestling got its real start as (Golden Age) the NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) in the early 1950s there were outsized characters like “Gorgeous George.” The narcissistic persona he embraced both elevated the sport’s popularity, but it also created an over-exposure by the late 1950’s early 1960’s.

But as the NWA developed to become the WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation) and shortened to WWF, its outsized characters regained its audience both in person and on television. Having to switch to WWE (Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment) because WWF was used by the World Wildlife Fund in 2001, WWE was global, and its ego and brawn based characters were known worldwide. “Hulk Hogan,” “Triple H,” “Stone Cold Steve Austin,” “Ric Flair,” and “The Rock” (Dwayne Johnson) who makes a couple of appearances in this film moved the WWE into the financial and popularity stratosphere.

This movie is based on the true story of Saraya “Paige” Bevis (Florence Pugh), who had her mind set on becoming a WWE wrestler. Coming from Norwich, England her chances were minimal. How she became a WWE wrestler is this film’s story.

She got started in this business because her father, Patrick “Rowdy Ricky Knight” Bevis (Nick Frost), and mother Julia “Sweet Saraya” Bevis (Lena Headley) started a wrestling business to put food on the table. It was either this or crime. Patrick was a thief, and robbing banks was his previous line of work and had already spent time in prison for this. However, he loved wrestling, and it was the life he took on to keep from robbing banks. Although “Paige’s” oldest brother was in jail, her next older brother Zak “Zodiac” Bevis (Jack Lowden) was also a wrestler and part of the family business.

Together the family had a company called WaW that taught younger people to wrestle in addition to putting on small matches throughout England. With pestering calls to WWE to help promote their business and Zak and Saraya, they finally get a call back from the WWE. Their representative for talent, Hutch Morgan (Vince Vaughn), contacts the family and ask that “Paige” and “Zodiac” come to tryouts in London at the O2 arena when WWE shows up to do a show there.

Only Paige gets chosen to continue the training, and the film follows her in this process. Immediately we see her struggle against other women who happen to be beautiful, sexy and physically healthy and capable. This was the one part of the film’s story I thought the filmmakers could have done more with. Each of the other girls was former models and cheerleaders, and they also needed to work and make money, and they were putting it all out there as well as “Paige.”

Of course, Zak is jealous that his sister got chosen while he didn’t, and therefore the film follows the jealousy track Zak has towards her sister’s success. But when “Paige” wants to quit, we find out how the family stands behind her, and “Paige” finds her strength.

This is a feel-good story of success and perseverance while also finding your place in the world.

The wrestling scenes were reasonably well done, and when “Paige” goes in the ring for the Diva championship, her world and dreams come together.

Pugh was excellent as “Paige.” I like her ability to show vulnerability as well as strength as she made this journey. Lowden was terrific as well. His jealousy was ideally placed as he wanted to be the star of the family but realized he was the star of what he gave to others. Frost and Headley were terrific as the parents of the wrestling family. Vaughn was fantastic as the talent manager and finder. His story about why Zak would fail as a WWE wrestler was wonderfully told. Johnson as himself (The Rock) was appropriately perfect. His personality leaps off the screen. Stephen Merchant wrote and directed this story with his eye on the ball. He kept it moving and did a great job of getting wonderful performances from the actors.

Overall: This isn’t a great film, but the heart shows up well on the screen.

Films that rose above the fray in 2018

This was a particularly good year for films. At first I didn’t think so but after I reviewed the films I watched and wrote about this past year, I was pleasantly surprised. I was entertained by outstanding acting, strong and poignant films about racism, and out loud laughs. My next post will be about the Oscar nominations.

Game Night: This film was funny from the get go and I laughed out loud all the way through.

Leaning Into the Wind: Andrew Goldsworthy: If you liked the film River and Tides, you’ll love Leaning....

The Death of Stalin: There are very funny moments, but I couldn’t help but wonder was his regime filled with that much personal corruptness? Probably.

Flower: The acting lifts this bizarre storyline to funny, engaging and entertaining levels.

Red Sparrow: Although long at 2h 19min, it had enough twists, turns, and detail to keep me fully engaged.

You Were Never Really Here: Beautifully shot scenes, dynamic soundtrack, but this oddly paced film tells a story of redemption, salvation or deeper despair.

Beirut: I really liked the way this film was put together and came to fruition.

A Quiet Place: Well done film and the silence of the actors made all the difference in the world.

Deadpool 2: First Hit: This film is fun, irreverent and filled with out-loud laughs.

RBG: Excellent film about a woman who lives within her strength and defined and changed U.S. law.

Disobedience: Extremely well-acted film about how antiquated thinking can split families and a loving relationship.

Hotel Artemis: Who says Hollywood cannot create a unique and well-acted film.

Blindspotting: Extremely powerful and pointed film and raises the bar for Best Picture of the Year. In my view this unnominated film is by far and away the best film of 2018.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot: A unhurried film revealing the power of how forgiveness of others and self, can make one’s life different.

Three Identical Strangers: A truly amazing story about how sciences’ curiosity didn't take into account the effects on human beings.

Sorry to Bother You: What I liked about this film is that it is funny, unique, and unlike any other film I’ve seen.

Leave No Trace: Sublimely acted and evenly paced film about a man and his daughter living in a public forest.

Puzzle: I thoroughly enjoyed this poignant film about a woman finding herself through a passion.

BlacKkKlansman: Fantastic film about race relations in the United States while reminding the audience about how far we have to go.

Eighth Grade: Outstanding acting and script gives us an insightful view of what it is like to be in the Eighth Grade today.

Fahrenheit 11/9: Covers a lot of stuff but I think it was mostly about Presidents and people in power managing and acting poorly.

Pick of the Litter: It was an fantastic and interesting way to learn about how guide dogs are taught to be amazing caretakers for the blind.

First Man: Compelling reenactment of an audaciously brave time in the 1960’s where we were challenged by President Kennedy to go to the moon.

The Hate U Give: A fantastic film about the existence of racism and, as indicated here, in our police departments as well.

Green Book: Excellent acting, engaging story, and both funny and thought-provoking make this film fun to sit through.

Boy Erased: Outstanding cast delivers sublime performances in a powerful story about LGBT conversion programs.

A Private War: Rosamund Pike (as Marie Colvin) gives a deeply complex performance of a war correspondent who brought personal stories of war victims to the forefront.

Bohemian Rhapsody: Accurate or not, this film was fun, well-acted, engaging, and joyful.

Can You Ever Forgive Me: Excellent acting about a caustic, friendless author that finally finds her voice.

Mary Queen of Scots: Saoirse Ronan (Mary Stuart) and Margot Robbie (Queen Elizabeth 1) give powerful performances in this adaptation of how Mary Queen of Scots tried to claim her title to the throne of England and Scotland.

Vice: I liked this oddly created film about a powerful yet enigmatic man who really ran our country for a period of time.

Ben is Back: Extremely well-acted story based on 24 hours of a mother and her addicted son’s return for the holidays.

Roma: Outside of the beautiful black and white photography and languid movement of the story, I left the theater with little.

The Favourite: A stark, intense musical score underscores the bizarre and tension filled interrelationships between the queen and her court.

Shoplifters: Wonderfully engaging film about a Japanese family who chose each other while fighting to stay nourished and together.

Stan & Ollie

First Hit: This is an outstanding, beautiful, love story about how two men spent their lives together making audiences laugh.

Like a married couple, Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) spent years of their lives together. In that time together, their bond of respect and friendship developed while on the road doing shows and making films making people laugh.

This film begins with the men doing a scene for a movie in their heyday. They are kibitzing in a trailer talking about the number of marriages Oliver had, all the money he had to give to these ex-wives, and his love for the ponies. The scene they shoot is one of their favorite dance routines, and it is a sight to behold.

Stan, on the other hand, was always working, writing, and thinking of gags for the duo to use in their films or stage act. As they enter the set to shoot a scene, Stan wants Oliver and himself to start their own production company because they do all the work and manager-producer Hal Roach (Danny Huston) and the film company is making all the money. Stan can get out of his contract, but Oliver cannot. They split up.

We see a brief scene where Oliver does a movie (“the elephant film”) with someone else.

The film then shifts to sixteen years later, and they are in their sixties. Their old movies still show in theaters, but few people see them, and they receive no royalties for their work. They both need money and Stan, who has never stopped working, is attempting to get financing together for a Laurel & Hardy film version of Robin Hood. To help them finance the film and to demonstrate their draw, they decide to tour England, Ireland, and Scotland to drum up interest. The hope is that the possible financier will see them in a London show.

The tour starts slowly, and they play tiny second-rate houses, stay in second-rate hotels, and the crowds are small. However, the people who do come to the shows, love them. Harry Landon (Richard Cant), their tour organizer decide they have to do some promotional newsreels. So, the film shows them promoting their shows and all of a sudden, the theaters are packed and their playing in front of audiences of 2,000.

When they reach London their respective wives, Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Kitaeva Laurel (Nina Arlanda) show up to see the big show in one of London’s most prominent theaters.

Lucille and Ida are a hoot together and separately as they are very different people and care about their husbands differently. However, the tour has been tough on both, especially Oliver. His weight challenges his heart, and his ability to move has been difficult. Then the underlying animosity, because Oliver did a film without Stan, comes out in a public argument.

Oliver has a mild heart attack and decides to retire. Stan tries to go on with a British replacement, but he cannot, it’s not Oliver, his partner, friend, and original cohort.

As the film winds up, Stan and Oliver do one more show and do their dance routine, it is sublime and brought such joy to my heart watching them.

Reilly was amazing. His expressions and ability to be Oliver Hardy was beyond anything I thought he could do. I was transported to 1957 as a little boy laughing out loud watching Laurel and Hardy on our black and white television. Coogan was equally fantastic as Stan Laurel. His routines, the one with the egg, were sublime. Arlanda and Henderson, Laurel and Hardy’s respective wives, were hilarious. I loved watching them snipe at each other and then, when watching their husbands’ last show, holding hands. Huston was superb as Hal Roach as was Cant in his role. Jeff Pope wrote a divine script. Jon S. Baird took this script and these amazing actors and made superb, finely crafted film.

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film and would watch it again.

On the Basis of Sex

First Hit: Outstanding and moving film about one of the most inspirational women in United States history – ever.

In May of 2018, I saw and reviewed the documentary “RBG.” It was an amazing factual film about a woman who changed the course of gender equality in the United States.

In this dramatic version, we have Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg providing some of the drama behind the story of one of the most inspirational women to ever practice law in the United States. Today at 85 years old, and a Supreme Court Justice, she is still trailblazing how we look at the law and its impact on gender equality.

When the dean of Harvard Law School Erwin Griswold (Sam Waterston) invites the women who made it into his school, over for dinner at his home, he asks each of them to share why they deserve to take a man’s place at Harvard’s prestigious law school. It is a defining moment in the film to share with the audience how horribly sexist these institutions were towards women. Ginsburg’s answer is divinely dripping of sarcasm that went over Griswold’s head.

Ruth’s husband Martin (Armie Hammer) is also a law student at Harvard focusing on Tax Law. His support of his wife’s journey in law school is wonderful. Unfortunately, he contracts testicle cancer which he has only a 5% chance of beating, and Ruth, showing support, takes his classes and hers so that her husband doesn’t have to drop out of school while he recovers. Using the notes she took from his classes, she teaches Martin what he needs to know to pass his classes. She’s doing the work of two students as well as caretaker and mother.

Being a couple years behind her husband, he graduates and gets a job in a prestigious New York Cit law firm. This leaves Ruth with having to make a choice, raise their daughter alone and continue with law school at Harvard or moved with her husband and finish her schooling at Columbia. She chooses the later.

The film explores the unfairness of being a woman becoming a lawyer in this mostly man’s world. Additionally, it explores how her daughter Jane (Cailee Spaeny) is being affected by the changing culture of the 1960’s. We see how the dynamics of this culture change helped Ruth see the laws that needed changing and she found ways, with the help of Martin, to make her case to a State Supreme Court and to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some of the scenes were amazingly poetic. Like when Martin hands a tax issue case to Ruth with the proviso, read this and you’ll see where you can make a difference. She did. I loved when Ruth takes Jane to see famed civil rights attorney Dorothy Kenyon (Kathy Bates) and upon walking back out into the streets, how Jane handles the harassing men and gets Ruth and her a cab. There were also a couple great scenes with Ruth and ACLU lead lawyer Mel Wolf (Justin Theroux). Lastly the scene in which she argues in the State Supreme Court for equal rights of a man was very well done.

For me the downsides of the film were, I would have liked Ruth’s first case in the U.S. Supreme court to be part of this film. Also, I found that Felicity’s accent fluctuations to be slightly problematic. Her voice lacked consistency.

On the upside when Jones gets ready to argue the main case at the State’s Supreme Court, she has Ruth’s look and feel down pat. Lastly, I loved the part where we see Ruth (Jones) climbing the steps to the U.S. Supreme Court and then see the real Ruth.

Felicity was very good as Ruth. Despite the accent variations, she brought a strength and character to Ruth and seemed to match the Ruth in the earlier documentary. Hammer was excellent. I loved his kind, thoughtful, and supportive lightheartedness he brought to this role. Spaeny was outstanding. I thought her portrayal of a young woman caught up in the movements of the 1960’s and also wanting to be respectful of her dynamic parents was sublime. I hope to see her in more films. Theroux was far better than I thought he’d be. My surprise is that he often takes sinister roles her here he shows a funny, smart, supportive side. Bates was sublime as with wizened civil rights lawyer who brings respect and a true grass roots feeling to the film. Waterston was excellent as the self-righteous sexist head of Harvard’s Law school. Daniel Stiepleman wrote a wonderful screenplay. Mimi Leder put the right touch on this film.

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed this film as the first film of the year to see and review.

Welcome to Marwen

First Hit: I loved the concept and thought behind the film, but on screen it lagged.

Using computer graphic (CG) actors in combination with real life actors is becoming more modern place in films. Here it is effective to create a world that Mark Hogancamp aka “Cap’n Hogie” (Steve Carell) creates after his memories have been literally kicked out of him. This is a true story.

Prior to the film’s beginning, Hogancamp is a graphic artist who goes into a bar, gets drunk, says something like, I like to wear high heels, to a group of four jerks. The jerks take offense, call Mark gay and beat and kick him to death’s door.

All his memories are beat out of him and his manual dexterity to draw is gone.

To keep his creativeness alive, he builds a miniature WWII village called Marwen (Mark and Women) in his side and back yards. Because so many women helped him recover, he finds dolls that represent them, and they are fighters against Nazi soldiers who appear when Hogancamp’s fears get triggered. The Nazi soldiers represent the men who nearly kicked and punched him to death.

Hogancamp’s alter ego is a doll called Cap’n Hogie who leads and fights with the women of Marwen. Together they battle the Nazi soldiers again and again.

In the battle sequences the film turns to the CG representation of the dolls. In these roles they are wonderfully done. However, as Hogancamp returns to reality, he finds himself taking pictures of the dolls that he’s staged in various poses throughout Marwen, sometimes even fighting the Nazis.

Nicol (Leslie Mann) moves in across the street and they strike up a friendship. Hogancamp falls deeply for Nicol’s kindness and kind inquisitiveness about what happened to him, the town of Marwen, and his cadre of doll women that keep the town of Marwen safe. He likes her so much he finds a new doll to represent her in his Marwen world.

Nicol’s boyfriend is a brutish jerk, much like the men that beat Hogancamp up. There are a couple of intense making scenes when Mark is talking with Nicol and the boyfriend appears.

Hogancamp is being pressed by his real life women friends, his lawyer, and Nicol to testify at the sentencing trial for the men that beat him. He’s reluctant to go to the trial and show opening, which causes him to slip into the dream world of Cap’n Hogie and the women fighters killing the Nazis intensifies.

Additionally, the brother of Roberta (Merritt Wever), one of the real-life versions of his fighters, is having a photography show of Hogancamp’s photos of Marwen in New York City. This event and the trial hearing are bringing things to a head for Hogancamp in the real world so the battles in Marwen are becoming more ferocious.

I thought the segues between real life and CG were really well done. The over done shooting and machine gun fire seem a bit excessive, but then again, they were dolls, so I guess it was required. The CG version of Nicol was wonderfully created and effectively done and captured the essence of Nicol.

Carell was good as Hogancamp. His Cap’n Hogie was even better. However, I cannot put my finger on what didn’t work and maybe it was because there were too many doll scenes. Mann was crazy wonderful. I loved her gentle kindness and empathy. She was perfect in this role. Wever was outstanding as the owner of the craft store where Hogancamp got all his supplies. Her support and getting Mark into a show in New York City was wonderfully portrayed. Caroline Thompson and Robert Zemeckis wrote this screenplay. I think they spent more time in the CG active doll world than needed and could have done more digging into the background of the story. Zemeckis directed this film.

Overall: I loved the end of the film when they showed a captioned picture of the real-life Mark Hogancamp.