Category: Movies Page 14 of 57

Connie has been reviewing film uninterruptedly since 1970 (47 years) and routinely covers the Chicago International Film Festival (14 years), SXSW, the Austin Film Festival, and others, sharing detailed looks in advance at upcoming entertainment. She has taught a class on film and is the author of the book “Training the Teacher As A Champion; From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now, published by the Merry Blacksmith Press of Rhode Island.

“Causeway,” Jennifer Lawrence.

Jennifer Lawrence has been largely quiet, of late, perhaps primarily because she got married (2019) and had a child, Cy (2022).She founded a production company, Excellent Cadaver, and that company, with Lawrence as producer and star, just completed “Causeway,” co-starring Brian Tyree Henry and directed by Lila Neugebauer. The film screened at the 58^th annual Chicago International Film Festival and will open November 4^th, 2022.

The weakest thing about the film is the screenplay , written by Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh and Elizabeth Sanders (who, it should be noted, are fiction writers converting to the screenwriting game). The plot meanders around with little depth or direction. It has no real “ending.” Various facets of the lead character, Lynsey, are explored and dropped into the plot, much like someone making soup out of whatever ingredients might be on hand in their refrigerator. Lynsey is a veteran. Lynsey wants to return to active duty, despite having been brain-damaged by the explosion of an IED in Afghanistan. Lynsey is a lesbian. Lynsey knows sign language and has a deaf brother, who dealt drugs and is in prison (where Mom has never visited him.) There was never any prior lead-up to the deaf brother facet of the film, but it appears to have been a desire to work with the actor Russell Harvard, who is deaf in real life and whose work Lawrence and company admired.

At the beginning of the film, we learn that Jennifer’s character (Lynsey) has been in an accident, since she is checking into a residential facility to be assisted with things as basic as brushing her teeth. It did not immediately scream IED explosion in Afghanistan, but we gradually find this out. She improves rapidly returning to her childhood home in New Orleans and revisiting a troubled relationship with an unreliable mother (played by Linda Emond).

There are little more than fleeting references to Lynsey’s long-term issues with her mother. That is just one of the unexplored bits of business, like her brother’s earlier drug addiction, imprisonment, or deafness.

The most important relationship that is developed after Lynsey’s return from Afghanistan (and release from the residential treatment house) comes about when her mother’s truck breaks down. Lynsey takes the vehicle to a garage where James Aucoin (Brian Tyree Henry, Lemon in “Bullet Train”) befriends her and becomes her sole friend. Birds of a feather flock together, and both are dealing with memories of horrible traumas that nearly killed them, and changed the course of their lives forever.

This willingness to drop a juicy potential plot conflict into the soup and then walk away isn’t just a flaw for Lawrence’s character. It extends to co-star Brian Tyree Henry’s traumas, including the loss of one leg in a bad car accident that killed a small child and injured his live-in lady love. The exact nature of this accident is very briefly limned. All the details remain slightly confusing and unexplored.

This film takes us back to Jennifer Lawrence’s break-through role in “Winter’s Bone.” “Causeway” has that grainy feeling of genuine reality. You realize, while watching it, that this is no expensive blockbuster film the likes of Lawrence’s most famous roles, but is an indie film, well-acted by the principals. She is very good in it; I was disappointed that the writing was not more expertly crafted for the actors’ skillful interpretations. It’s not the only fine effort limited by the weakness of the script.

The problem is that the script goes nowhere, has no “ended” feeling, and simply leaves us scratching our heads and wondering why the writers opened up multiple myriad plot lines and then abandoned most of them. It’s nice to see that Jennifer Lawrence is still willing to appear in such slice- of -life films, but—aside from her as-always competent job— “Causeway” is eminently forgettable. It lacks a coherent conflict-based structure that can sustain the audience’s interest. It just rambles to a close with the feeling that none of the plot avenues laid out has reached any sort of conclusion, which is a disappointing cinematic experience for the audience.

This Apple original film premieres on November 4, 2022.

Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 21, 2022

In Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

Kathryn Hahn accepts a Career Achievement Award from Festival Artistic Director Mimi Plauche on Octobrr 18th at the Music Box Theater.

The October 18th, 139-minute Centerpiece of the 58th Chicago International Film Festival was a showing of “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” preceded by a Career Achievement Award to Kathryn Hahn, who appears in the film.

Benoit Blanc returns to peel back the layers in a new Rian Johnson whodunit, a sequel to “Knives Out.” This fresh adventure finds the intrepid detective (Daniel Craig) at a lavish private estate on a Greek island, but how and why he comes to be there is only the first of many puzzles.

Blanc soon meets a disparate group of friends gathering at the invitation of billionaire Miles Bron for their yearly reunion. Among those on the guest list are Miles’ former business partner Andi Brand, current Connecticut governor Claire Debella, cutting-edge scientist Lionel Toussaint, fashion designer and former model Birdie Jay and her conscientious assistant Peg, and influencer Duke Cody and his sidekick girlfriend Whiskey. As in all the best murder mysteries, each character harbors their own secrets, lies and motivations. When someone turns up dead, everyone is a suspect.

The cast of this one is just as star-studded as the cast of the first “Knives Out” movie. The central figure is a rich industrialist (think Zuckerberg) who may have stolen the idea for his success from his former girlfriend, Cassandra Brand, played by Janelle Monae. Miles Bron is played by Edward Norton.

Others in the group of dissidents include Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, Whiskey (Madelyn Cline) Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), her assistant Peg (Jessia Henwick) Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odem, Jr.) and the brief random appearance by Ethan Hawke. Even more noteworthy: the film is the last appearance by Angela Lansbury, who died recently, and of Stephen Sondheim, who died in November of 2021. Daniel Craig reprises the role of Detective Benoit Blanc, complete with the Kentucky accent.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (L-R) Edward Norton, Madelyn Cline, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, and Daniel Craig. Cr. [John Wilson/Netflix © 2022.]

The set design and costume design people deserve special kudos. For me someone who was not ga ga over the first one, will find that this one was bigger, louder and less appealing. The “mystery” part was too easy to figure out from the outset. While it is a harmless frolic, it doesn’t really have any Big Truths to impart, even though Rian Johnson (who wrote and directed both the first and second “Knives Out” film) says it is a commentary on the unequal division of wealth.

The film is going to play in 3 different theater chains for a limited period in November (23-29) hitting over 600 theaters at once, and then will stream on Netflix beginning December 23^rd.

“Pfiaff” Has U.S. Premiere at 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 21, 2022

In Movies, Reviews

When her sibling Zara suffers a nervous breakdown, the introverted Eva is forced to take on Zara’s job as a Foley artist. She struggles to create sounds for a commercial featuring a horse. The commercial is for a mood stabilizer known as Equili, which, among other side effects, can lead to high blood sugar inducing coma and death.

The title “Pfiaffe” derives from a diagonal dressage movement and from the French verb “to strut” or “to paw the ground”. The film is German, with subtitles and was shot in Berlin.

“Pfiaff” director Ann Oren.

“Pfiaffe” won the Best International Feature at the Calgary International Film Festival and the Junior Jury Award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Here in Chicago, the film was nominated for the Gold Hugo New Directors Competition. Its showing on October 20^th was its United States premiere.

When a ridiculously coiffed director tells Eva that her sound work for the Equili commercial is not up to snuff, he suggests to her that she actually go out and learn what a horse sounds like. Eva does so and seems quite smitten with horses, in general.

The director explained that, as in the beginning of the film “Nope,” this was related to the few minutes of film thought to be the very first moving picture image ever captured. The short piece of film was captured by 19^th century inventor and adventurer Eadweard Muybridge in 1878. Muybridge had been commissioned to study the movement of a galloping horse.

Then, a horsetail starts growing out of Eva’s body. Empowered by her tail, she lures a botanist into an affair through a game of submission. Lots of erotic imagery, including Eva swallowing an entire rose, stem and all.

PIAFFE is a visceral journey into control, gender, and artifice. It is sexy and proves that men always want to get a little tail. (small joke there).

But, seriously, the horse tail really works for Eva (Simone Bucio). She commences the strange affair with the botanist and dances with abandon at a night club. We also learn a lot about how ferns are self-fertilizing hermaphrodites.

Piaffe is Ann Oren’s first feature after a decade of working as an artist. The director said, “The film began, for me, with images.” She called the film “a playful drama with comic interludes.”

She also described the lead actor having to rehearse via zoom from Switzerland, because it was shot during Covid.

Director Ann Oren of “Pfiaff.”

Asked about the choice of Simone Bucio to portray Eva, Director Oren said, “Some actresses just didn’t get the voyage of the character.”

Of Bucio’s audition, Oren said, “I saw something very special in her. Every one of her takes was so powerful.”

Director Ann Oren was present at the screening on October 20th and said, “I don’t know what to compare it to. It’s its own thing.” The film opens wide in the U.S. on November 3rd.

UPDATE:

Silver Hugo: October 21, 2022

PIAFFE (Germany)

Dir. Ann Oren

The audacious, unconventional PIAFFE’s emphasis on the texture and process of cinema can be seen both in its aesthetic and its engaging characters. Ann Oren’s work is a sensual journey into the erotic and unpredictable. The extraordinary sound design and use of overexposure in particular encourage a new faith in the power of cinema.

“Call Jane” with Elizabeth Banks at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 20, 2022

In Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

Call Jane, with Elizabeth Banks.

“Call Jane” revisits the bad old days of the sixties and early seventies when it was illegal to get a therapeutic abortion in the United States. Elizabeth Banks plays Joy Farrell, the wife of an attorney (Will, played by Chris Messina) and the mother of a teenaged daughter, Charlotte (Grace Edwards).

Elizabeth finds herself pregnant. In the first three months, she develops a cardiac condition, cardiomyopathy, which could well prove fatal if she continues the pregnancy through to the end. She and her husband petition the hospital board to allow Joy to have a therapeutic abortion. In turning her down, the all male board announces that they had only given one such dispensation in 10 years.

I am probably one of the few reviewers who lived through this era. In fact, I had a friend, a fellow classmate on campus at the University of Iowa, who died because she attempted to self-induce an abortion. It was the odor of her body decomposing that alerted the authorities in her apartment building near campus that something was amiss. For me, movies like this are not ancient history. They are what I lived through.

The entire concept of “Call Jane” feels real, to me in 2022, with the attack on women’s rights by the GOP. The old French saying, “La plus ca change, la plus ca meme,” (The more things change, the more they stay the same) seems relevant.

What didn’t feel real to me was a twist the plot takes late in the game when “Dean” (played by Cory Michael Smith), the lead OB/GYN doctor, is let go and a person with no qualifications to perform an abortion takes over. That, to me, seemed to sum up the desperation of the times, but I question whether the individual really went that far out on that limb of illegality.

Although Elizabeth Banks’ participation in the film is noised about, little is said about Sigourney Weaver’s turn as the original “Jane,” Helen, who spearheads the effort to provide services to desperate women, or about Kate Mara, who plays a neighbor. (Mara’s role could have easily been dispensed with entirely).

Chris Messina (“Damages,””Argo,” “The Newsroom”) plays Joy’s husband, with a bad haircut from the era. All of the male haircuts looked strange. However, the flip that Elizabeth Banks sports throughout the film looked quite timely. I smiled at the line in the script when a character is asked, “Do you smoke?” and the response was, “Everybody smokes.” (Very true).

This thought, articulated by writers Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi, also rang true: “You think you’re in control of your life, and, just like that, you realize you’re not.” Another good line, given to Banks’ daughter, who does not want to know about unpleasant things, was, “I don’t wanna know about babies dying, or people getting shot, or periods, or Vietnam.” Director Phyllis Nagy does well with a good cast, and the cinematography from Greta Zozula is equally good.

With the current Supreme Court outlawing Roe v. Wade and throwing the country into chaos over the right to an abortion that women had enjoyed for the previous 50 years, the theme was certainly very topical. Earlier iterations of the film had Elizabeth Moss and/or Susan Sarandon attached.

The 2 hour and 1 minute film premieres on October 28^th, just 5 days after the 58^th Chicago International Film Festival ends.

“Pray for Our Sinners” at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival Has United States Premiere

By Connie Wilson

On October 19, 2022

In Editorial, Movies, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Reviews

“Pray for Our Sinners,” a documentary written and directed by Sinead O’Shea with music by George Brennan had its United States Premiere at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival. The 1 hour and 21 minute film documents the abuse of women and children in Ireland in decades past, perpetrated with the approval of the Catholic church.

The abuse took place in Ireland for literally decades until at least the 1980s.

Sinead O’Shea focused on her own home town of Navan in central Ireland and interviewed women who, as young teenagers, were sent away to mother and baby homes and forced to give up their babies. She interviewed female victims who had suffered this fate when just teenagers, and also spoke with now adult victims of brutality in the schools, suffered as children. Much of her conversation was with Dr. Mary Randle, who, along with her doctor husband, fought against the injustices. One of the topics was the local parish priest of those years, Father Andy Farrell. (It seems that Father Farrell discovered malfeasance in church finances and was spirited out of his post when he reported it.)

In 1921 Ireland earned its independence from England, but by 1937 the Catholic Church had managed to incorporate its beliefs into Irish law. In a country where 91% were church-goers, 6% said they attended occasionally, and only 3% said they never attended church, Ireland had more people institutionalized than any other civilized country. A citizen could be sent to an institution for all manner of misbehavior, as viewed by the church. For instance, if you talked about your feelings you could be declared “hysterical” and put away.

God was everywhere. That was the point. Few women worked. There was a law forbidding women from working after marriage. Women were to be submissive and produce children. However, unwed mothers were shamed into submission and forced to go to mother and baby homes, where the nuns who ran them made it their mission to “punish” the pregnant girls. There were at least 21,000 illegal adoptions from these homes during the era. According to a 2021 study, 9,000 babies and their mothers died in the homes.

Pregnant girls were treated like criminals. Even during delivery, they would be chastised for their bad behavior in becoming pregnant in the first place. Contraception was not available if the doctor did not want the woman to have access; divorce was forbidden. As one former resident of one of the homes said, “Your mail would be read. You were made to wash floors, even when 9 months pregnant. There was no breastfeeding. They wanted to do something to hurt you.”

Writer/Director Sinead O’Shea.

If women were mistreated, children were also targeted. The Catholic church ran the schools. Corporal punishment was the norm in towns across Ireland. Into this sea of misery a husband and wife doctor team in Navan, Mary and Patrick (“Paddy”) Randle, chose to speak out when others were too cowed to do so.

A 10-year-old boy. Norman, was beaten with a leather hose with metal inserts because he was left-handed. When Paddy Randle found out, he spoke up and demanded that such abuse cease. Twenty children who were brave enough to speak out were gathered. Since the local paper would not tell their story, the “News of the World” in London interviewed the children and ran a story on Sunday, May 4, 1969, under the title “Children Under the Lash.”

When the local priests in Navon learned that the paper was going to run the story, the newspaper was seized as it was entering the city. Norman was kicked out of school by the church authorities at the age of 9 and, even today, he has no papers to document his life in Ireland. He is like a ghost without a country in “Europe’s last theocracy.”

As Dr. Mary Randle described her efforts and those of her now-deceased husband to help the struggling women and children of their small Irish town. She said, “It was like a whole empire designated to punish girls and children.It’s just, yet again, a diminishment of women, how they were treated.”

I am Irish Catholic. My home county in Iowa, the Dubuque diocese, was very Catholic. Back in the sixties, drugstores in Dubuque, Iowa, would not sell the birth control pill to unwed girls. When I was in the hospital, having just given birth in 1968—a married woman, age 23—one of my doctors (who was a devout Catholic) refused my request for a prescription for the pill. He would pass such requests along to his Protestant partner, who had no such reservations.

There are political forces abroad in our land right now who would like nothing better than to deny United State females the right to purchase the birth control pill, because the ability to choose when (or if) to have a child empowers a woman. The immediate battleground is the issue of abortion, but the signs are there that that is just the first stop on the path of the current Conservative Supreme Court.

As for corporal punishment, when I was introduced to my very first classroom in the fall of 1969, a fellow teacher handed me a paddle and instructed me on the “proper” way to use it to paddle misbehaving students. I was appalled. I threw it away immediately. This disciplinary method had been ongoing in the district. If you think nothing like these Irish stories could ever go on in the United States, guess again. You just have to be old enough to have lived it, as I have.

I remember all the pregnant girls in my high school who were “drummed out of the Corps.” Once it was determined that a girl was pregnant out of wedlock, she was banished from attending class. (The boyfriend who had impregnated her suffered no such punishment.) The expectant mother would disappear to a mother and baby home run by the Catholic church. The home would house her until she delivered her child.

As one of the women in the film testifies, “There’s no point in talking about today and then, because it was so different.” Yes, it was. I remember it well. I am saddened to see the same power play(s) being perpetrated upon this generation of women in the United States via the currently red hot abortion issue. It’s done in the interests of refusing to empower women.

The most important decision a woman will make in her lifetime is whether or not to give birth. It will affect every facet of her life from that time forward. It should be her decision, in consultation with her doctors and her family. It should not be legislated or decided by a group of men in Washington, D.C.

Director/Writer Sinead O’Shea does a nice job of painting a picture of yesterday that I lived through and remember only too well. By quoting Dr. Mary Randle (“There is always a way to resist”) and painting a picture of the abuses of the Catholic Church against the weakest among their charges, O’Shea has vividly illustrated how irreparable harm can be done in the name of religion.

The law banning corporal punishment in the schools of Ireland passed in that country in 1984. Divorce is now legal and laws banning women from working are a thing of the past. The attempts to roll back Roe v. Wade in the United States under the cover of religion are ongoing and on the ballot in November.

Another documentary by Sinead O’Shea is 2017’s “A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot.”

“Raymond and Ray” (Ewan McGregor & Ethan Hawke) at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival.

By Connie Wilson

On October 18, 2022

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

“Raymond and Ray” premieres on Apple TV+ on October 21st. Ethan Hawke (Ray) and Ewan McGregor (Raymond) play half-brothers in the film, offspring of a feckless father who traveled the world apparently impregnating a variety of women. Check it out and see if you agree with one of its stars (Ethan Hawke), who once said, “It’s fun to see a movie that’s made for someone over the age of 15.” This is such a film.

These two sons by different mothers whom Dad (Benjamin Reed Harris III, portrayed only after death by Tom Bowers) gave the same name, grew up together. One guesses that the duo probably survived their father because they had each other. A line from the script is “We come from chaos.”

“Raymond and Ray,” Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke, at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival.

Raymond—the more conventional of the two and an employee of the Cincinnati Water & Power Department—convinces Ray (Ethan Hawke) to accompany him to their mutual father’s funeral over Ray’s initial objections. The pair have very bad memories of dear old Dad. Raymond (Ewan McGregor) warns his half-brother regarding their father’s passing, “It’s gonna’ take a whole lot more than a hole in the ground to get him out of your head.”

Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke can spin gold out of dross; their excellence in these roles was expected. Ethan Hawke, in particular, plays a character who has been a jazz musician for his entire life and is a reformed drug addict. Hawke delivers some scene-stealing moments playing the trumpet, both at the funeral and in a jazz club after the service is over, accompanied by co-star Sophie Okenodo as Keira. Hawke portrayed 50’s jazz trumpeter Chet Stevens in the 2015 film “Born to be Blue” and spent about 8 months learning to play the trumpet prior to that outing. It shows—although Hawke claims no expertise as a trumpeter.

Ray’s (Ethan Hawke) reputation in life has been that he attracts women “like shit attracts flies,” so Sophie Okenodo is written well in an interesting departure from expectations. Kudos to the writer/director Rodrigo Garcia. I loved lines like this one when the sons hear what a charming fellow their dead father was to others. Says Ray (Ethan Hawke): “Does whipping our asses with a belt count? ‘Cause, if it does he was a hoot.”

Rodrigo Garcia previously wrote 5 episodes of one of my All Time Favorite television series, “Six Feet Under” between 2001 and 2005. Only two other writers ( the show’s creator, Alan Ball, and one other writer wrote more ). “Six Feet Under” was a great training ground for this film, as it examined the family that ran a funeral parlor, and there are many scenes shot in a funeral parlor in this movie. The quirky funeral director is well-played by Todd Louiso and Vondie Curtis Hall plays the Reverend West.

Others have criticized the writing: too middle-of-the-road, too predictable, not far enough into either comedy or drama. I disagree. As someone who has been reviewing film for 52 uninterrupted years, “Raymond and Ray” showed the audience insights that few other films have even attempted, and did so with humor.

I agree that the many “reveals” became a bit much by film’s end, but the script delivers on some nuggets that have not often been examined at all. One Eternal Truth that Rodrigo Garcia illuminated for the audience is that we all belong to something greater than ourselves.

But the one that resonated, with me, came at film’s end, when the two brothers have lived up to their father’s odd wish that they actually physically dig his grave.Raymond (Ewan McGregor) says to Ray (Ethan Hawke), “We never really knew him, did we?” This truth is driven home again and again as the duo converse with others in their father’s life, including some of the women he loved and left.

I learned this lesson IRL, as someone who has buried both parents. I was constantly being brought up short by remarks made to me about what a lovely, sweet woman my schoolteacher mother was. It’s not that I didn’t love my mother or that I didn’t agree that she was “lovely,” It’s that the self a parent reveals to his or her offspring is often a completely different human being than the one the son or daughter experiences. It is jarring to hear from others about what a great conversationalist one’s parent has been—with and to others. That was the Eternal Truth that this screenplay illustrated so beautifully.

Spanish actress Maribel Verdu, as Lucia, enlivens the entire film. A veteran of “Y tu Mama Tambien” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the Spanish actress was a stand-out.

Certain aspects of the film deserve special praise. The music (Jeff Beal) is great and the cinematography by Igor Jadu-Lillo is, as well. Alfonso Cuaron (“Gravity,” “Roma,” “Children of Men”) is one of the executive producers.

“Raymond and Ray,” Running time: 106 MIN.
• Production: An Apple TV+ presentation of an Esperanto Filmoj Limited, Mockingbird Pictures production. Producers: Alfonso Cuarón, Bonnie Curtis, Julie Lynn. Executive producers: Shea Kammer, Gabriela Rodriguez.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Rodrigo García. Camera: Igor Jadue-Lillo. Editor: Michael Ruscio. Music: Jeff Beal.
• With: Ethan Hawke, Ewan McGregor, Maribel Verdú, Tom Bower, Vondie Curtis Hall, Sophie Okonedo.

“No Ordinary Campaign” World Premiere at Chicago International Film Festival Chronicles Efforts to Cure ALS

By Connie Wilson

On October 17, 2022

In Health/Medicine, Movies, Politics, Reviews

“No Ordinary Campaign” at Chicago International Film Festival Chronicles ALS Research

The documentary “No Ordinary Campaign,” directed by Michael Burke, focuses on the fight for more funding and help for patients suffering from ALS. The focal point of this fight for life is ALS sufferer Brian Wallach and his wife. Brian, a former Assistant District Attorney, met his wife. Sandra Abrevaya while working on Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

In this fight however, after his diagnosis at only 37, the stakes are literally life and death—for Brian and for all other sufferers of diseases like ALS. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. With their background in politics and their friends in high places (Obama speaks in the documentary and the Mark Zuckerberg/Priscilla Chan Initiative underwrote) the couple spearheads efforts to increase awareness and funding for ALS research.

The Wallachs lead the charge in personifying “courage in impossible situations.” They use their organizational skills to unite patients and their families, nationwide, and work to raise funds, testifying before Congress for increased funding to find a cure for these neurological diseases because “hope alone does not get you a cure.” Founding iamalsorg.com is a first step to unifying the many disparate voices crying for help.

One of the impediments to care turns out to be the FDA itself, which had a 6 month wait time to apply for social security disability benefits, when the life expectancy of many ALS patients is, basically, that short. It made no sense, nor did the clinical trial of a promising new drug (AMX0035) that let patients take it, but only for a short time. Patients who were experiencing progress were cut off after the clinical trial period, for no discernible good reason.

Brian and Sandra are shown making an emotional appeal to Congress in which they said, “Do not let another generation of patients die in pursuit of the perfect. Instead, let them be the first generation to live.”

The efforts of the consortium including legislative help from Senators Dick Durbin and Lisa Murkowski, leads to success in the Accelerated Access to ALS bill being signed by President Biden in June (2022) and approval for the use of AMX0035. The group also raised $80 million in funding in 2 years, much more than had ever previously been devoted to research for a cure.

With patients (1 in 300 will get ALS) pleading for help before the Congressional committee, Representative Rosa DeLaura of Rhode Island said, “I promise you we will fight for your survival. Godspeed.”

This was the World Premiere of the documentary from Redtail Media. Katie Couric was one of the executive producers.

“Decision to Leave:” South Korean Film Screens at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 17, 2022

In Movies, Reviews

A detective investigating a man’s death in the mountains ends up meeting and developing feelings for the dead man’s mysterious wife in the course of his dogged sleuthing.

Release date: October 14, 2022 (USA)

Director: Park Chan-woo

Screenplay: Park Chan-wook, Jeong Seo-Gyeong, Seo-kyeong Jeong

Cinematography: Ji-yong Kim

Nominations: Cannes Best Director Award, Palme d’Or,

“Decision to Leave,” another South Korean nail-biter.

South Korea’s Park Chan-wook’s newest work has been selected as South Korea’s submission for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, and Park Chan-wook won the Best Director Award, the Palme d’Or, at Cannes.

The film stars Park Hae-il (“Memories of Murder”) as police detective Hae-jun. While investigating the death of her husband , Hae-jun, who either fell or was pushed from atop a mountain he has just climbed, the detective becomes obsessed with the widow, Seo-ra, played by Chinese actress Tang Wei. Seo-ra. The detective learns that the beautiful widow helped her sick mother commit suicide and, as the film proceeds, her innocence becomes more and more dubious. As the screenplay puts it, “Killing is like smoking; only the first time is hard.” When her mother and her husbands begin dropping like flies, the detective and others are skeptical of Seo-ra’s innocence.

If I may stray from the plot for a moment, this film has more devotion to smoking up a storm than the film noir Bogart years. It reminded me how times have changed. I remember when smoking was considered “cool” and everyone savvy and in-the-know smoked. Given the fact that now we know how many serious illnesses are caused or exacerbated by smoking, I’ve read that Hollywood studios are currently faced with air brushing out the cigarettes in the hands of lead actors in films of that era, leaving them holding their hands in weird positions when the cigarettes, themselves, disappear.

There is also an emphasis in this film on modern-day technology, especially on cell phones and smart watches. Add in that age-old malady, insomnia, from which the lead investigator suffers, and “Decision to Leave” harkens back to the heavy influence of Alfred Hitchcock’s films on the young filmmaker.

As Katie Walsh of the “Tribune News Service” said in her piece on Director Park Chan-wook, “In its themes and style, the film pays tribute to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, whose “Vertigo” inspired Park Chan-wook, as a young film student and critic, to make his own films.”

The film runs 2 hours and 18 minutes and opened in theaters on October 14, 2022.

“The Lost King” Charms at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 16, 2022

In Movies, Reviews

The Lost King, directed by Steven Frears.

I remember when the newspapers of September 12, 2012, carried the news of the discovery of the body of Richard III buried beneath a parking lot in the town of Leicester in the U.K. I doubt if anyone not a resident of that particular city knew the behind-the-scenes story of how, exactly, Richard III came to be found, through the efforts of an obsessed member of the online Richard III Society, who would not give up her quest.

“The Lost King” is the story of Philippa Langley and, as its synopsis says: “In 2012, having been lost for over 500 years, the remains of King Richard III were discovered beneath a carpark in Leicester. The search had been orchestrated by an amateur historian, Philippa Langley, whose unrelenting research had been met with incomprehension by her friends and family and with skepticism by experts and academics. THE LOST KING is the life-affirming true story of a woman who refused to be ignored and who took on the country’s most eminent historians, forcing them to think again about one of the most controversial kings in England’s history”.

Ultimately, as scripted by co-star Steve Coogan in collaboration with Jeff Pope, it is a lovely tale with many messages for us in this age of disinformation. Coogan, it should be noted, also plays Philippa’s husband, John Langley, opposite the wonderful Sally Hawkins, the female lead from “The Shape of Water.”.

The film makes the point that “if you get in first with the first lie, and repeat it often enough,” the truth gets lost in the shuffle. And Philippa, for one, does not like it when people put people down. She is determined to gather the hard evidence to refute the bad things said throughout history about Richard III, especially in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Philippa points out that “People find out one thing about you and that’s all that they can see.” She also informs us that it was Richard III over 500 years ago, who, during his brief reign (1483-1485) as the last Plantagenet king of England posited the principle of British law “suspects are innocent until proven guilty.”

Philippa’s family, consisting of John Langley (well played by Steve Coogan, who also co wrote the script with Jeff Pope) and her two sons, are at first bemused by Philippa’s obsession with her task. One of her sons says, “If I had 2 sons, I would first make sure they had something to eat before I went off searching for Richard III.”

The family comes around, however, even chipping in monetarily. Husband John reminds Philippa that he once sold his rare collection of Sex Pistols memorabilia to finance a new kitchen for her, so the affection the two share for each other and their children actually gets a needed renewal and boost from Philippa’s new-found passion.

The entire idea that one’s reputation can be intentionally sullied because of the motives of others is examined within the framework of this film. Philippa feels that Richard III is not the monster Shakespeare made him out to be in his play, was not responsible for the murders of his nephews in the Tower of London, and that researchers should “take the evidence and study it to draw conclusions, not the other way around.”

Husband John agrees in principle, saying, “I’m sure Mother Teresa occasionally left the lid off the milk and Genghis Khan occasionally picked up bits of litter.” So much for the character assassination of anyone at any time in history, and a vote for doing one’s homework in getting to the truth.

Ultimately, Philippa’s consulting with the University of Leicester, (much as was limned in the film “Nine to Five,”) leads to men taking the credit for work done by a woman. In this case, the University of Leicester, which was initially dismissive, tries to take almost complete credit for the remarkable find.

When it becomes clear that the body found under the car park in the chapel area of what was formerly Greyfriars Church really is Richard III, Philippa suffers from not being recognized for her hard work, but she is awarded the MBE by Queen Elizabeth in 2015.

Not only the head wound he sustained in the Battle of Bosworth (the last King of England to be killed in battle), but also the DNA examination of Richard’s successors done by John Ashton Hill, (not to mention the evidence of scoliosis of the spine) would all prove conclusively that this was his skeleton, the body of a former King of England. It disproved the incorrect theory that Richard III’s ashes had been scattered in a nearby river. Philippa then fought for the royal coat of arms to be emblazoned on Richard III’s final resting place, over the objections of others.

Stephen Frears who is a twice Oscar-nominated director and holds the David Lean Chair of Fiction Direction at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, is more than equal to the task of directing this thoroughly enjoyable film. I hope he scores a third Best Directing Oscar nomination for his efforts.

The 81-year-old Frears previously gave us “The Grifters” and “The Queen,” for which his directing was Oscar-nominated. He is also the visionary who directed “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988), “High Fidelity” (2000), and the Meryl Streep vehicle “Florence Foster Jenkins” (2016). The music (Alexandre Desplat and the London Symphony Orchestra) and cinematography (Zac Nicholson) all combine to create a seamless story with relevant messages for our time. It began a theatrical run on October 7th.

“The Natural History of Destruction” at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 15, 2022

In Editorial, Movies, Politics, Reviews

“Babi Yar. Context” (AP 1944 Photo)

Perhaps the most succinct thing that can be said about “The Natural History of Destruction,” a film that screened at Cannes by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, is that there is nothing “natural” in destroying what has taken civilization centuries to build. There is nothing “natural” about massive civilian loss of life. This screening was the North American Premiere of the film.

On October 22nd, the film was awarded the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, with the following comments:

Silver Hugo

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION (Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands)

Dir. Sergei Loznitsa

Sergei Loznitsa has accomplished a pure cinematic experience which displaces our political positions, and compels us to empathize with the German citizens living through the war they instigated. By means of meticulous and slow editing, a complex array of scenes, rich with nuanced sonic detail, unfold in front us. The archival black and white images are breathless and relentless: they confront us without buffer with the horror of the war machine, to which there are no winners and everyone is a victim. The rare and strategic placement of speeches, as well as the occasional leak of color into the scenes, punctuate the otherwise non verbal stretches of accumulating horror: we witness war from all angles – from above and below, from close up and from afar, from within the machine performing the wreckage, from the factory assembling its parts, and from the bottom of the ruins it leaves behind.

This 1 hour and 52 minute film is based on the book by German writer W.G. Sebald, “Air War and Literature.” It has no narration, as such, and consists solely of archival material of bombs being made. Bombs being loaded onto war planes. Planes dropping bombs. Bombs exploding. Dead bodies on the ground. Civilians suffering the after-effects of the bombings.

There is, however a prelude of sorts where we see the happy civilian populace of a variety of cities—mostly in Germany, it appears, from the blimp flying overhead (OL-2129) with the German swastika on its tail. The people are enjoying life, unaware of the tragedy that is about to befall them.

Most of the footage is black-and-white, but it lapses into color periodically. What we see of the unnamed cities are bombed-out craters, buildings on fire, and complete rubble. In other words, it looks a lot like the Ukrainian cities that are being bombed by the Russians now, or like the remains of Naples, Florida after Hurricane Ian.

What little narration there is may be mumbled voices saying things like: “I’ve never seen anything like this.” “Neither have I.” “4,000 pounds just went up.” “Good show!”

The use of “Good show” pins down the bombers as being the RAF (British Royal Air Force), but the Luftwaffe is also involved in a variety of dogfights, and we hear other speakers (Churchill, Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, Field Marshal Mongtomery) talking about the entrance into the war of the United States: “Now we are no longer alone. We have powerful allies. Many tonnage of explosives can be carried into Germany.” Prime Minister Winston Churchill is shown being applauded by crowds in the streets and saying the British shall “stride forward into the unknown.”

Churchill is also heard saying: “We shall drive on to the end and do our duty, win or die. God helping us, we can do no other.” Churchill also urges German civilians to flee the cities where munitions are being made and watch their country burn from afar (or something else remarkably uncharitable).

A German voice, unidentified, decries the “shameful bloody campaign of today” and vows to fight on using counter-terrorism. You get the feeling that the director simply wants to make the point that killing innocent civilians of ANY country is unjustified, but the lack of identification of cities or speakers or air forces leaves one adrift. Are we looking at the ruins of Germany or of England? It probably doesn’t matter to the director, who simply wants to make the point that this sort of wanton destruction is wrong, no matter what.

British officer Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris is heard saying, “There are a lot of people saying bombing can never win a war. So, then, I say, we shall see. Germany will make a most interesting initial experiment.”

I live near Arsenal Island in Rock Island County, Illinois. The island has been involved in making munitions for the U.S. Army for a very long time—at least back to the Civil War, when it also served as a POW camp for captured Confederate soldiers. In the event of a nuclear Armageddon, which seems more and more likely with leaders like Vladimir Putin on the loose, we will have a big target on our backs as the enemy attempts to wipe out the capabilities of this large government installation.

I hope this Ukrainian filmmaker’s plea that people wake up and quit wreaking destruction on peaceful civilians in such horrible ways finds an audience of sane leaders, but it seems less likely with every passing day. “The Natural History of Destruction” opens on October 17, 2022.