If Beale Street Could Talk

First Hit: From a visual and craftsmanship point of view this film was outstanding; however, the story languished in its beauty.

The crafting of beautiful scenes and moments was enhanced by an instrumental soundtrack and excellent camera work, but the story lost its impact as it unfolded.

As the book’s author pointed out, this is a story about anyone growing up black in America. He felt that Beale Street, New Orleans, was representative of any street in any city where black suppression existed.

Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephen James) are shown as childhood friends taking a bath. As their lives grow, the film conclusively shows how they’ve grown up together as friends, and there is an underlying affection towards each other.

As the film dances between Fonny in prison for a crime of rape, he did not commit, and their beginning of an intimate relationship, we see the back stories of how their relationship grew and their respective families.

Tish’s family is supportive of a nineteen-year-old Tish being pregnant with a twenty-one-year-old Fonny’s child. They are happy and want to embrace this new addition. However, Fonny’s strongly religious mother and daughters are not. The scene when Tish invites Fonny’s mother, father and two daughters to her parent’s home to share the news that she’s pregnant with their son’s child was exceptionally well done.

The power of different points of view between the two mothers was very well staged. To the ends that Tish’s mom Sharon (Regina King) worked to find Fonny’s accuser to help the case to free Fonny from prison, was juxtaposed with Fonny’s mom, Mrs. Hunt (Aunjanue Ellis), not being involved in assisting Sharon in releasing Fonny. This aspect of the film was very telling.

The film makes it a point to show discrimination by showing and discussing the difficulty of Fonny and Tish finding a place to live, before his being incarcerated. There was also the policeman that placed Fonny at the scene of the supposed rape, who was looking to get back at Fonny for another encounter. These and other scenes showed how blacks were racially discriminated against.

The difficulty in this film is sharing this story in the way that the novel was created because it languishes as it goes from scene to scene. I’m not sure how it could have been done differently.

Rivers was excellent as Tish. She was both strong and vulnerable in many scenes. The tomato shopping store scene and her telling her family she was pregnant are great examples. James was excellent as the creative artist and Tish’s lover. I loved how he continually showed his love for Tish through his words and eyes. King was fantastic as Tish’s supportive mother. Her willingness to find Fonny’s witness was powerful. Ellis was great as the religious fanatic mother. This small but pivotal role was felt throughout the film, especially at the end when Tish and her son visit Fonny in prison. Michael Beach and Colman Domingo as Fonny’s and Tish’s fathers respectively were fantastic. As men sitting in a bar discussing how to care and provide for their grandchild to be wonderfully realistic. Barry Jenkins wrote and directed this film. Although this is a compelling story, at times, it was not as engaging as it needed to be.

Overall: This was a good film, and many of the actors were superb, but on the whole, it didn’t quite work.

The Mule

First Hit: Film lagged and spent too much time on an aging Clint Eastwood.

I was looking forward to seeing this film, but as it wound down, I realized that I simply was watching an old man be an old man making choices.

I like Eastwood and here as Earl Stone who is a horticulturist that’s running his own business, he’s good. However, as we begin to explore his life, we discover he was once married, didn’t show up to his daughter’s wedding, likes to be the life of the party, and he slowly becomes afraid of the internet because he knows it going to ruin his business.

As his flower business fails, he needs money, so he turns to driving drugs for a dealer. At first, it’s small quantities, which he does easily. Then he starts moving larger and larger amounts of cocaine.

Eventually, the head of the cartel becomes impressed with this old guy who seems to be able to easily move drugs around the country. After meeting the head, he moves the largest shipment ever moved to a mid-west city.

In the meantime, he’s being looked for by the DEA who need a bust to prove their worth. Leading the team of men is an outsider DEA Agent named Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper) and a local DEA Agent (Michael Pena).

However, the story seems to be focused on Earl, when we’ve got Pena, Cooper, and Laurence Fishburne (as a DEA Special Agent) who are great actors that have stories to tell the audience as well.

Additionally, the audience gets cheated on a background of Earl’s family with former wife Mary (Dianne Wiest), daughter Iris (Alison Eastwood), and granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga). It could have been compelling to share more about this. Why hire great actors if they only have small, almost meaningless roles?

To me this was the downfall of the film. We spent a lot of time with Earl driving down the highway when backstories of all these characters could have been brought forth for our enjoyment.

Eastwood was good, but he seems to either lack the fortitude to take on strong roles or he wanted it to be this fumblingly self-focused old man trying to make a living and be seen by others as king of the hill. Farmiga was strong as the granddaughter who believed in him. Wiest was great, but there was so little of her. Alison Eastwood was OK as Earl’s daughter. Cooper was OK in a limited but pivotal role. I think he needed to become more of the story. Pena was, as always, an excellent sidekick. Fishburne was strong as the leading Special Agent. Andy Garcia was excellent as the drug lord. Nick Schenk wrote this film from an New York Times article. Eastwood directed himself in this film and it appears he’s lost his touch.

Overall: This was a disappointing film, lacking in suspense as well as developing scenes.

Shoplifters

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

This is a view into a Japanese family consisting of husband Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky), wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki), Daughter Shibata (Mayu Matsuoka), and son Shota (Jyo Kairi).

The family lives somewhere in Tokyo. They are very poor. Osamu occasionally works as a laborer. Nobuyo works in a laundry facility. Grandmother receives a monthly pension. Shota goes out with Osamu and steals from stores all around town. He’s has a special thing he does with his hands before he steals an item. Sort of his good luck motion. Sometimes he steals alone.

Shibata is grandma’s favorite. She works as a erotic dancer by dancing in front of one-way glass and pretending to masturbate while wearing school girl clothing. She does have a favorite customer 4 ban-san (Sosuke Ikematsu) whom she meets in a conversation room and this scene is extremely touching and heart felt.

The family lives in a very small home that appears to have a very small bathroom, a living space that converts to the sleeping space, and a kitchen space and possibly one other room. They eat together while sharing their adventures of stealing, working, playing and sneaking through society and its laws - openly.

One evening while walking home from stealing, Osamu and Shota hear a young girl crying. Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) is sad, alone, and cold. Osamu picks here up and takes her home. They welcome her into their home and family. Hatsue looks at Yuri’s arms and see signs of physical abuse. Yuri follows Shota around town and in the house – inseparable.

Then grandmother dies which makes their home tenuous because the home is in grandmother’s name and the government who supplies the pension, doesn’t know the rest live there.

Then Shota gets captured stealing from a store, to keep Yuri from getting caught trying to steal. Next thing we know the parents are in jail, and the real story comes out that the family is a chosen family.

This is a story about love and love of the lost ones, about how poverty creates a motivation to steal, and how society and government rules are part of the problem.

The open intimacy of this film is amazing as we watch the family be together in their home and at the beach.

Franky is wonderful as the father, who longs to be a father but really doesn’t like working but likes stealing. His philosophy is that when an item is in the store it doesn’t belong to anyone yet, so it isn’t stealing. Ando is amazing as the mother who loves her husband because of his caring kindness. Matsuoka is sublime as the “daughter” who has a heart of gold and uses her beauty to help the family survive. The scene with 4 ban-san is so touching. Kairi is equally sublime as the young boy who does his best to survive, grow and learn. Kiki is amazing as the grandmother. Her wisdom and conniving ways are hilarious to watch. Sasaki is extraordinarily amazing as the young girl. I felt for her from the moment she appeared on the screen. So sweet. Sosuke Ikematsu as 4 ban-san, the man who watches Shibata was excellent as the non-communicative admirer. Hirokazu Koreeda wrote and directed this incredibly insightful and thought provoking film.

Overall: This engaging film is worth seeing again and again.

Widows

First Hit: Despite all the strong actors, just didn’t think this film held together very well.

In the attempt to put complexity in this story, director Steve McQueen mishandled this screenplay. The issue with the story is that to make the wives of thieves the heroes, they create a story about a crime boss wanting stolen money back from the wives who, for the most part, knew little of their husbands ventures. I don’t think the story needed to be this overly complicated to make a film about four women who become heroes of a heist. The story tried to make us care and it didn't work.

Veronica (Viola Davis) is married to Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) who heads up a group of guys he pulls jobs with. Florek (Joe Bernthal), Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Jimmy Nunn (Coburn Goss) are killed, along with Harry, during a job when they rob Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) a Chicago crime boss. Their significant others, Veronica, Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Amanda (Carrie Coon), and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) are being pressured to return the money by Jamal and his strong arm son Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya). The supposed reason is that this money was going to be used by Jamal to finance his campaign to become alderman.

Jamal is running for alderman against a family dynasty, the Mulligans. Outgoing Tom (Robert Duvall) is very much the prototypical version of an Irish Chicago alderman; controlling, suppressing anyone or anything that takes his control away and wanting to keep his meal ticket in place by having his son Jack (Colin Farrell) run for the office.

Pressed by both Jamal and his strong arm lackey son, Jatemme , Veronica needs to find a way to pay back the $2 million. She finds a detailed plan that Harry created to make a heist that will net them $3 million after they pay back the $2 million their husbands stole from Jamal.

There are amusing times when the women have to buy a getaway car and guns, but the planning and getting everyone on the same page it was the seriousness of Veronica.

There are other complications, including one of the widows is hesitant to participate, and when Veronica and Harry’s driver, whom she recruited to drive their getaway car, gets killed by Jatemme, they hire Belle (Cynthia Erivo) who is Linda’s babysitter.

There’s a twist with Amanda and why she doesn’t participate in the robbery with the other widows and it is an odd reveal.

Davis was OK as the lead widow. I didn’t sense or feel a real connection with her husband Harry. Neeson was mediocre as the double-crossing husband and thief. Rodriguez was strong as the woman who wanted to show up and make things happen. Debicki was excellent as the woman tired of being abused and taking charge of her life and becoming a critical part of the widows team. Erivo was very good as the babysitter pressed into action as driver. Duvall is strong as a character he embodies in many roles, controlling, mean, and cantankerous. Kaluuya was excellent as the over the top, mean, strong arm enforcer. Coon was OK as the widow that doesn’t participate in the robbery and has a secret. Henry was good as the crime boss wanting a piece of the semi-legitimate pie the alderman’s post would give him. Farrell was OK as the reluctant son who was being pressed into running as alderman, thereby keeping the family tradition alive. Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn wrote this somewhat misguided screenplay. The misguidedness led to McQueen’s mediocre direction.

Overall: Some of the scenes didn’t fit together well and seemed pressed, while the overall film lacked cohesiveness.

The Girl in the Spider's Web

First Hit: Although darkly shot with an overly complicated story, it was moderately entertaining.

Lizbeth Salander has been played by three people; Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara, and in this film Claire Foy. Each brought their own edgy darkness to the role. I will say that each of them was extremely watchable because of their unique intensity.

The film begins with a young Lizbeth (Beau Gadson) playing chess with her sister Camila (Carlotta von Falkenhayn). Their father is eerily controlling and sexually sadistic, especially towards a more willing Camila. The sisters are close, but their father controls Camila and although Lizbeth tries to save her sister from her father’s clutches, she fails.

After Lizbeth dramatically leaves their home, the film shifts to Lizbeth as an adult. She’s a computer programmer, and is constantly finding someone to help or save, for a price. The first person we see her helping is an abused wife by blackmailing the executive and moving all his money to with wife’s account. It's obvious that her father's behavior has her saving people being abused.

She takes on a job to steal software that can run all the nuclear missiles in the world. This is where the story is clouded. The NSA is after the software, so is the creator. After all of them are the Swedish police and secret service. Lizbeth is being looked for my lots of people.

Then Camilla (now played by Sylvia Hoeks) shows up and she becomes someone that wants the computer code along with vengeance towards Lizbeth for leaving her with her father.

The film dances through a fair number of action scenes with people trying to hurt Lizbeth and obtain the computer program she has. Lizbeth has befriended the son of the program's creator and she takes it upon herself to save the boy after his father is killed. What makes it more complicated, is that the there is a code required to get access to the software on the computer and only boy knows it.

All of this and more pieces are thrown together and some of it was interesting to watch, but the thing that made this film really difficult to watch was just how dim and dark, in color, the scenes were. Even the day scenes are dark in tone and color. I know this was to add to the darkness of the story, but when the whole film is like this, it can almost put someone to sleep.

Foy is strong as Salander and she brought her own unique darkness and strengths to this role. Sverrir Gudnason plays the writer Mikael Blomkvist was OK in a minor role as someone who makes his living writing about Lisbeth. Lakeith Stanfield playing Ed Needham the NSA agent trying to get back the code was one of the stronger actors in this film. Hoeks was strong as Lizbeth’s sister. Steven Knight wrote a confusing script. Fede Alvarez directed this film and unfortunately it was more confusing than interesting.

Overall: This will take its place as the worst of the three “The Girl…” films.