Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

Category: Movies Page 27 of 58

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.

“Coming Home in the Dark” at Sundance on HBO Max: Engrossing!

Daniel Gillies as Mandrake in “Coming Home After Dark.” (Courtesy of Sundance Institute.)

The New Zealand offering “Coming Home in the Dark,” from Director James Ashcroft unleashes a fast, high-energy road trip with a family that is set upon by two psychopaths with a grudge. The short story of the same name, written by Owen Marshall, was altered by Ashcroft and screenwriter Eli Kent, who had already adapted another of Marshall’s short stories prior to this feature film premiere outing.

The 93-minute film never loses its edge and, despite the warnings about graphic violence, it was far from “Saw”- like. But, yes, there is violence.

As the director explained in a brief message to the press at Sundance, the two screenwriters, working together, tried to incorporate historic New Zealand issues as background for the main character, the father of twin boys, who has been a teacher in a variety of schools. These were touches that the original short story character lacked. Alan/Hoaggie, is well-played by Erik Thomson, but Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) is evil incarnate.

The film opens with a beautiful sunset in the New Zealand countryside. It is worth mentioning that the feature film comes full circle at film’s end with that same beautiful panorama, only at sunrise. The circularity of structure is something I’ve enjoyed in films by Spike Lee and Brian DePalma over the years, and use in my own writing on occasion. There are many deft cinematic touches like this, including the failure of wife Jill to take her husband’s hand in the car, after she has just learned some disquieting information about his past. She remarks, “There is a difference between doing something and letting it happen, but they live on the same street.” The shots through grasses by cinematographer Matt Henley were outstanding.

PLOT

James Ashcroft, director of Coming Home in the Dark, an official selection of the Midnight section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Stan Alley.

The family of four—Alan, Jill and their twin teenaged boys, Jordan and Maika—are off on holiday when they stop alongside a gorgeous but remote New Zealand hillside in the Greater Wellington Region for a hike and a picnic. Ominously, two drifters appear on a cliff overhead and wave at the family below. It is not long after that a confrontation occurs.

Alan—known as Hoaggie—the father, and Jill, the mother, reassure their twin teenaged sons that it will be all right if they just give the men what they want. They promptly do so, divesting of their cash and valuables and every phone but one that Jill took from Alan and put in the glove box of their car when he began playing an annoying game on it while she was driving. But will it? Will giving the tall Maori-tattooed silent man known as Tubs and the shorter thug, who calls himself Mandrake, what they want save all their lives? At one point, a panel truck drives into the area where the confrontation is happening, and Mandrake instructs the family to wave in a friendly fashion, which they do. The paneled truck departs, honking back, and Mandrake remarks, “Later, this may be the point where you’ll wish you’d done something different.”

The film quickly spirals into a road trip to hell.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The shots through grasses by cinematographer Matt Henley were gorgeous, as were the sunrise/sunset scenes over a glorious New Zealand landscape. I’ve been to New Zealand, and, yes, it really looks that beautiful (Great Wellington Region).

ACTING

The acting by Erik Thomson, as the father, and Miriame McDowell as the grief-stricken mother is matched in acting chops by the intensity of evil radiating from the two criminals, Tubs and Mandrake (Matthias Luafut and Daniel Gillies.) Ashcroft uses the taller of the two assailants, played by Matthias Luafut, to good effect and Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) is the worst thing you can encounter at a picnic in the wild: a polite psychopath.

Ashcroft, from Aotearoa, New Zealand, was the artistic director of the indigenous Maori Theatre Taki Rua from 2007-2013 and his native name is Nga Puhi/Ngati Kahu.  This is his first feature film, but he has plans to move in the direction of Blumhouse horror films. This is a great start.

The film is slated to stream on HBO Max. Check it out. It was the best of 5 feature films I’ve seen at Sundance in the past 2 days.

“At the Ready” Premieres at Sundance on Saturday, January 30th

At the Ready” at Sundance. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute).

Director Maisie Crow of Austin, Texas, takes us inside Horizon High School, 10 mile from the border in El Paso, Texas, to explore the members of the Criminal Justice Club—students considering a career in law enforcement as members of the Border Patrol.

The director’s write-up put it this way:  “What is the price of pursuing dreams that have very real consequences?”

The price (i.e., pay) for a beginning border patrol agent is $52,583 and, within 5 years, the agents can be commanding salaries of $100,000 annually. The bi-cultural Spanish-speaking high school students in this border town near Juarez are potentially valuable recruits to the service, because they can communicate and know the culture.

We follow Cristine, Kassy/Mason, and Cesar, a recent graduate, as they take part in training as border patrol explorers and would-be agents.

Intruding on their career decisions are the personal lives of the students. It is the students’ personal lives that ultimately become more the focus of the film than the decision “to be or not to be” border patrol agents. That was a bit disappointing, as I thought we would learn more about the actual work that border patrol agents do and the conflicts an agent might face if asked to enforce a policy that, in their own judgment, was grossly unfair.

This subject does come up with the students when it becomes clear that there is a split of opinion about tearing immigrant families apart at the border. Cristine’s mother, in Spanish, says, “I mean, if you’re going to deport them, deport them, but why break up the family?  I read about one family where the mother was sent to New York and the children were in Washington.” Cristine’s mother doesn’t think much of the White House’s “no tolerance” policy, foisted on the administration by Steven Miller, and neither does Cristine herself, ultimately, as she does not continue with the Explorers program.

Another student involved is Kassy/Mason, who probably talks the most, saying “I found a support system so I could have a family and not feel alone, but it’s not a support system for who I am.”  Kassy—now known as Mason— is a Beto O’Rourke supporter, in favor of Black Lives Matter, and gay (trans by film’s end). Kassy/Mason’s parents are divorced and the house in the early morning hours is always deserted. During a Border Challenge Competition Kassy/Mason is removed from a team sent in to “sweep” a room. The older policeman who says  “stand down” had been a  hero to the teen. Perhaps this public demotion is one of the reasons the chattiest teen ultimately does not continue with the border patrol explorers group, as the older man gives as his reason that he  only wants 10 people strong, rather than 11. One wonders if this is the real reason.

For someone who spends a lot of the film telling us how difficult it is to “open up” about problems in the family, including divorce and homosexuality, Kassy—who becomes Mason by film’s end— does the majority of the talking about personal situations throughout the film. By the end of the film this young explorer has quit the program and is now openly trans and called Mason.

Last in the trio of students we follow is the recent Horizon High School graduate Cesar, whose father was caught trying to bring drugs across the border from Juarez and imprisoned in the local prison annex for a year. Cesar’s father, when released from jail, was told not to leave the area. So, of course, the first thing he did was to move permanently to Juarez, where Cesar now spends time visiting him and, at times, living with him.

Of the three students who were part of the Criminal Justice Club originally, Cesar and another student (Oscar) both seem as though they will make it into the field, while the others on whom this film concentrated the most probably will not.

The film ran one hour and 42 minutes, proving, once again, that “it’s tough to kill your babies,” whether that “baby” is a book or a film.

 

BYOB Means “Bring Your Own Brigade” in Sundance Documentary About Paradise (CA) Wildfire

A still from Bring Your Own Brigade by Lucy Walker, an official selection of the Premieres section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Brad Weldon is the “hippie star” and narrator for a documentary about the California wildfires entitled “Bring Your Own Brigade” ( BYOB.) Brad fought the Camp Fire of November 8, 2018, for 7 or 8 hours to save his house, likening it to “fighting an elephant with a piece of spaghetti.”

In the course of this 127 minute documentary by London-born director Lucy Walker there is riveting personal testimony and eerily beautiful cinematography (kudos to cinematographers Fenwick, Delaney and Smith), of entire hillsides on fire or the sun sinking behind the mountains with a smokey wasteland conjuring up images of Dante’s “Inferno.” Walker is a 2-time Oscar nominee for her documentaries and a 7-time Emmy nominee (she won once). Educated at Oxford and New York University’s Film School, she is known for “The Crash Reel,” “Devil’s Playground,” and “Waste Land.”

Those who lived in the ironically-named Paradise, California, were sometimes told to evacuate, sometimes given misinformation on the phone, and sometimes trapped without hope. Brad Weldon talked about “angels” being responsible for his home’s survival.

After the fire, Brad threw open his doors to 20 of his homeless neighbors. His 90-year-old elderly mother, blind and unable to walk, is shown throughout the film, with Brad tending to her needs, including some cannabis cookies that ramp up the entire thought that a commune of sixties hippies inhabit the town of 26,000+ residents located 85 miles north of Sacramento.

On November 8, 2018, eighty-six of the town’s residents died in California’s deadliest wildfire, called the Camp Fire. Paradise residents either received inadequate warning to evacuate or chose to stay, but when they all attempted to leave at once on the narrow roads, the result was pandemonium and chaos. One resident, mentioning that Paradise was one of the few California towns with no sewer system, made the comment that the town “can’t even get its shit together.” In fact, the town did have an evacuation plan that they had actually practiced, but no one factored in that everyone would try to leave town simultaneously.

That verdict is borne out by the scenes of panicked people describing horrific scenes (“the side mirror on my car melted”) and the remarks of a local architect (whose house was NOT built of wood) who said, “You can tell something is going horribly wrong.” Only 5% of the local buildings escaped fire damage. The city council, during a meeting, pointed out that 55% of the homes built after 2008 survived, while only 9% of those built before 2008, citing more stringent fire safety rules and regulations, and calling for more such cautionary measures for the future in the face of local resistance. As the director said, “Self immolation under the mantra of personal freedom.” I couldn’t help but find the situation similar to today’s Congressional stand-off and the inability of the town’s residents to see that the 5-foot fire break requested by local fire officials would not really infringe on their personal freedom all that much, but could have helped save their homes.

The first one-third to one-half of the film is gorgeously filmed with truly breathtaking cinematic images. It is hard to look away from the “400 foot fire tornado” as it races towards the people and the roads. The scenes of burned land after the fire are like the apocalypse. The “extraction crew,” who had to remove dead bodies from the cars that could not all manage to get out of town at once, were shown at work and talking about their soul-crushing work.

The first 45 minutes of the film is phenomenal. The last 82 minutes, which talk about the fire’s origins, the post-fire town, and the future, drag. The documentary moves on to ponder several questions:  How did this happen? What were the causes? What can be done to stop something like this from happening in the future, if anything? Is there a widening gulf between the “haves”—[like Kim Kardashian, who shares that she and Kanye hired a private fire force]—and the have-nots, who waited for help and got none. It’s worth mentioning that Paradise, which was all but totally destroyed, had homes whose median value was $200,000; it suffered 28 times the casualties of Malibu (3 dead), where homes clock in at $3.5 million.

The entire scenario seemed part of Trump’s America with “YOYO” (you’re on your own) the philosophy of survivors. Amazingly, those onscreen who were asked about global warming and its contribution to the proliferation of fatal fires pronounced that global warming was “a hoax,” just as fervently as did those who declared Covid-19 to be a hoax, right up until their relatives or friends died from it. In this case, however, the residents who have just lost their homes to the fire still deny climate change. At least there were many alternative theories and facts presented to give them some ammunition in their denials. The forest fires have been happening in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and none other than the long-dead Zsa Zsa Gabor is seen in a brief cameo discussing the first of many fires years ago. Twenty-two died in Santa Rosa in 2017; 22 died in the Thomas Fire.

At the very end, there is a hearkening back to the ancient wisdom of native peoples, such as the North Fork Mono Tribe or the Karuk people, whose ancient wisdom might well be tapped to prevent such future catastrophes. The PTSD of the firefighters is articulated by one of them named Phil who talked of the suicide and divorce and other symptoms of having tried their best and yet being blamed for their failure to control Mother Nature; Phil died 6 days after making the remarks.

It’s a very good look at the causes and the potential cures, with a great deal of history mixed into the final two-thirds of the film.

Gorgeous cinematography. Riveting real-life drama. Food for thought. What’s not to like?

“Sabaya” Has World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021

A still from Sabaya by Hogir Hirori, an official selection of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lolav Media/Ginestra Film.

The term “sabaya” refers to girls sold into sexual slavery in war-torn Middle Eastern countries. A Sabaya is a sex slave. This engrossing film from Hogir Hirori, his third film, captures and records the atrocities still ongoing in Sinjara province in northeast Syria. The Al-Hol camp there has 73,000 Daesh supporters, guarded by Kurdish forces. Two men repeatedly enter the camp to rescue young female victims.

Daesh is Isil, referencing the group by its Arabic acronym. The Isis/Isil/Daesh fighters kidnapped over 2,000 young girls and women in 2014. One Sabaya in the film tells of witnessing her father and brother being murdered in front of her. Some of the females taken by Daesh that we see on the film were taken when only a year old and do not remember their Kurdish language. They only speak Arabic and have been forced into marriages with Daesh warriors and often repeatedly sold, again and again.

A still from Sabaya by Hogir Hirori, an official selection of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lolav Media/Ginestra Film.

One passenger in a car attempting to rescue the girls from the Al-Hol Camp (known as the most dangerous refugee camp in the Middle East) tells the camera that she was bought and sold 15 times, first to a Swedish man, then a Syrian, then one from Tunisia, and so on.

The protagonists of the multiple brave attempts to return the Yazidi Kurd Sabayas to their original families are Mahmud and Ziyad, who plan and execute the raids from the nearby Yazidi Home Center.

The men are relentless in going back to the camp again and again in attempts to recapture kidnapped Yazidi female Sabayas. The girls have been forced into what Daesh calls “marriage” many times, but, as one says, “They call it marriage but it’s pure rape.”

From these unholy unions, children are born, and we see one child being taken from its Kurdish mother because his father is a Daesh man. The mother sobs helplessly. There have been 206 Sinjara Kurdish Sabaya women saved by the brave efforts of Mahmud and Ziyad, but 2,000 are still missing and there are 52 children born of these forced marriages.

One rescued victim says, “As a young girl, I was completely broken inside. My family was gone. How can God let this happen? They come from all over the world.”

A still from Sabaya by Hogir Hirori, an official selection of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lolav Media/Ginestra Film.

The Swedish Film Institute helped finance this expose of the atrocities still being committed in Syria and elsewhere. It is a powerful, dark, frightening look at continuing violence and terror. At one point Daesh sets fire to the tent city near the Yazidi Home Center and there is talk that the one fire truck has broken down on its way to fight the fire(s).

Man’s inhumanity to man is on full display throughout the film, with many close calls for the rescuers. Yet the bravery of the Kurds (whom ex-President Trump sold out) and the need for rescuing these Sinjara women and children and all like them, worldwide, comes through loud and clear. This film helps the world to focus on the continuing dangers of Islamic terrorism throughout the world and to remember the continuing fight to stem the tide of violence unleashed worldwide by Islamic terrorists in cities in many other countries.

“Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided to Go For It” Premieres at Sundance on January 29, 2021

This 90 minute documentary, directed by Mariem Perez Riera traces the life of Latino icon Rita Moreno, from her birth in Humacao, Puerto Rico in 1936, to her upcoming role reprising “West Side Story” with Steven Spielberg. (Film is slated for a December release).

Along the way, such luminaries as Gloria Estefan, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Eva Longorio, among others, give testimony to the achievements of the 87-year-old singer/dancer/actress.

A still from Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It by Mariem Pérez Riera, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo: West Side Story copyright 1961 MetroGoldwynmayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved. Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing.

I’m of the generation that thrilled to “West Side Story” with Rita Moreno in the pivotal role of Anita when it premiered in 1961 as a film, based on the 1957 stage version. Watching Anita dance in the clips from “West Side Story” of the sixties is watching pure talent on the hoof.

Just to show that she is not a one-trick pony, the woman is one of only a very few to have won the EGOT: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, and the first Latino to do so. She won her Oscar for “West Side Story,” her Grammy for the Electric Company album, her Tony for playing Googie Gomez in “The Ritz” and not one, but two Emmys, for the Muppet Show, which she starred on from 1971 to 1977.

When Gloria’s mother divorced her father and moved, with Gloria to New York City, she shares that they sailed on a ship, the S.S. Carabobo, whose name, in English, literally means Stupidface. Upon seeing the Statue of Liberty as a small child, she thought the green lady was the president and that she was holding an ice cream cone in her right hand.

Norman Lear and Linn Manuel Miranda teamed up to share with the world the story of a chameleon-like talent who “made herself into someone she wasn’t to please other people.” This was true, initially, of Rita’s career, which seemed mired in stereotypical roles as an accented beauty, whether the role was Latino or some other ethnicity. Rita also had to cope with sexual discrimination from the likes of Harry Cohn and, at one point,  attempted suicide after a failed romance with Marlon Brando that led to an unwanted pregnancy, a botched abortion, and an overdose of pills.

When she talks about Brando today, she says, “I think about it now and say, ‘What was there to love?’” But, at the time, Brando was the biggest star of the 50s and the two were together for nearly eight years. It was Brando who recommended that Moreno try therapy, of which she said, “Examining and finding value in yourself is the only way. And I chose therapy.”

Rita Moreno,1954. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute).

Married for 45 years to cardiologist (and, ultimately, her manager), Leonard Gordon, the pair remained married from 1965 until Lenny’s death in 2010. Their daughter, Fernanda Gordon Fisher, is the mother of Rita’s two grandsons and, as she admits, she is okay with living alone. In some ways, she says, felt liberated after the death of her husband, who was a bit of a control freak. She admits that there were times she thought of exiting the marriage, but stayed in the relationship for the sake of their family.

Now 87, Rita who began performing at age 6, has a role as Valentina in the re-boot of “West Side Story” planned for a December release. The cast will feature primarily Latino actors and actresses, although Ansel Elgort (“The Fault In Our Stars”) is of Norwegian, Russian, German and English ancestry. Another key fact of Elgort’s casting as Tony may well be the 5 years (ages 9 to 14) that he spent at the American School of Ballet, plus Elgort’s keen interest in music (he DJ’s as Ansolo). Elgort was named one of the Best Actors under 20 in 2014 and has been impressive in his film outings.

I

Rita Moreno. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute).

t will be interesting to see Rita Moreno’s career come full circle with her appearance in the same film, 60 years after she burst to stardom in it. The original budget for “West Side Story” was only $6 million; it went on to make $44,062,203 worldwide. The 2021 Spielberg effort has a $100 million budget with 144 cast members and is in post production.

Moreno is shown speaking and says “It’s interesting how we keep dragging our past into the present.  Damn the shadows and here’s to the light.” Morgan Freeman sums up this great talent’s career by saying, “Life is what it is—but it is what you make it.”

 

Director:  Mariem Perez Riera

Cast:  Rita Moreno, Gloria Estefan, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Longorio, Justine Machado, Karen Olivo.

Cinematographer:  Pedro Juan Lopez

Composer and Music Supervisor:  Kathryn Bostic and Maureen Crowe

 

 

 

Podcast Guests in December Limned

Tonight’s guest on the 7 p.m. (CDT) Weekly Wilson podcast is Dylan Kai Dempsey, a New York-based writer/filmmaker and film critic.  He covers all the major festivals and his reviews have been published in “Vanity Fair,” “Variety,” “NoFilmSchool,” “Nonfiction.fr” and “IonCinema.com.

In addition, Dylan is developing a graphic novel, #LikesforLukas” plus a TV series based on his own award-winning pilot script.

Dylan has also taught film, both at Tufts University, his alma mater, and in Paris.  He began hi career as a development intern for Bona Fide Productions in Los Angeles and Rainmaker Productions in London.

Tune in “live” tonight (Thursday, December 10th) as Dylan and I discuss the future of cinema: “Can the movies survive the pandemic?” “If they do, what will the theaters of the future be like?”

On December 17th, the guest will be Quad City author Sean Leary, talking about his newest book.

On December 24th and December 31st, since those dates are Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, respectively, you can expect re-runs of some of the previous 37 interviews done since February of 2020, with the replays available, as always on the blog and on the Bold Brave Media Global Network blog.

January will see some more political discussions as a new president is sworn in. What will happen between now and January 20th? Stay tuned for further developments and discussions.

“Stormchaser” Is Well-done Short Film by Gretl Claggett

Stormchaser”

Filmmaker Gretl Claggett both wrote and directed a short film/narrative pilot called “Stormchaser.”

I’m not sure which Midwestern state is portrayed in this 27 minute film, but the license plate said Missouri, so I’ll take a wild guess that it was, indeed, Missouri.

Gretl’s indie film, which might morph into a pilot if all goes well, won the AMC Networks’ Best Female Creator Award at the Stareable Fest 2020 and is traveling throughout the festival circuit now. She will be my guest on my podcast Weekly Wilson on November 19th at 7 p.m. (CDT) talking about this film and her burgeoning career. The film will be screening at Film Girl Film Festival in Milwaukee November 13th through November 20th.

So, what is the plot of “Stormchaser”?

I expected it to be up-close-and-personal information on tornadoes and their devastating effects on those trapped in them.

Not the case.

“Stormchaser” is about Bonnie Blue (Mary Birdsong of “The Descendants”), who grew up chasing tornadoes with her dad and now is making a statement for female empowerment. She’s trapped in a  demeaning job as a sales person for Flip Smith’s shingles and siding business, where “Flip the Switch” is the go-to phrase for the sales people.  (Nice acting on the part of Stephen Plunkett, who has been recognized at several film festivals.)

The film begins with a young Bonnie sliding into the cab of the truck next to her father as they seek to chase a tornado, described as “a gift from the infinite universe.” They encounter “a great river of air” and are off to the races.  Later, a radio preacher is heard burbling about “a visual manifestation of turmoil just beneath the surface.” By that point, the turmoil has pretty much broken through to the outside world.

Oddly enough, I wrote this review in my basement (hoping I would not lose power and the internet while working) during a tornado warning for the Chicago area and  Illinois on 11/10/2020, which lasted until 3 p.m. It is a classic gesture of serendipity that I was actually hunkered down in my basement avoiding the possible consequences of a tornado while watching “Stormchaser.”

The film becomes a story about a woman of a certain age—only female in a male-dominated workplace—standing up for her rights. She’s disconnected, up against a recession, and facing down a boss (Stephen Plunkett of “The Mend”) who deserves everything that comes to him in the course of the film.

Mary Birdsong (“The Descendants”) portrays Bonnie Blue and does a fine job. Plunkett won Best Actor awards for his role as Flip Smith at the Grove Film Festival (New Jersey) and the cast won Best Ensemble Cast at the Richmond International Film Festival. Plunkett also was nominated as Best Actor at the Idyllwild Film Festival.

Filmmaker Gretl Claggett said, “I created ‘Stormchaser’ as a darkly funny allegory, in which the main characters represent different facets of our sociopolitical system, from the Old America and culture of entitlement to the changing face and values of a New America struggling to find its way.”

Tune in on November 19th at 7 p.m. (CDT) when Gretl and I talk about “Stormchaser” and her past and future film projects. 

 

“76 Days:” Engrossing Doc About the Outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan (Free Online)

“76 Days” is a 93-minute documentary about the outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, a film directed and written by Hao Wu, Weixi Chen (the cinematographer) and an individual who chose to remain anonymous. One wonders how the team managed to record this battle within a Chinese hospital and whether the anonymity is because the Chinese government might disapprove of the telling of this story.

The film is shot within the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, beginning on January 23, 2020, in that city of eleven million people. The 76 days will end on April 8th and air raid sirens will mourn the dead in the city on April 4th.

The documentary opens with a dramatic scene of sick people trying to crowd into the hospital from the cold, despite the institution’s 45 stated maximum occupancy for patients.  This siege will not end until April 8th, the lockdown that the city endured.

The patients seem to be primarily elderly, although one young girl, a hospital employee, is seen wailing throughout the opening scenes. She keeps saying “I want to say good-bye. I’ll never see my papa again.” We track the mourning family member outside, where she once again pleads for one last glimpse of her deceased loved one, who is being taken away in a hearse.

We see Dr. Wang exhorting his colleagues to “unite as a collective whole and win the battle to protect Wuhan.” One volunteer explains that he had “a hero’s dream to go support Wuhan.”

Trang Dingyuan came from Shanghai to help. The first supporters (volunteers) arrived from Sichuan, but others drove all the way from Shanghai to help staff the hospital in Wuhan. It is an 8 hour and 47 minute drive from Shanghai to Wuhan. The universality of what New York later experienced is experienced, but with more PPE amongst the employees.

Mostly, the film is a testimony to the chaos that the epidemic has caused, with no hospital beds and resuscitation failing on several patients as the cameras record the desperate struggle.

Some humorous relief is provided by an elderly man, referred to as “Grandpa.” Grandpa, who has dementia, will not stay in his room and continues to wander the hospital corridors, usually while muttering things like “I’m already one foot in the grave.” He cannot read and there is a heated phone discussion with his son about how long he has been an upstanding member of the Communist party. [His son seems to think he should set a better example as a proud Communist, but, instead, Grandpa is mostly crying in his room—when he’s not out wandering around and causing problems.] Even when the hospital is trying to release him back into the world, Grandpa starts wandering in the wrong direction, back into the hospital. The staff applauds when Grandpa is finally released upon the world.

In the midst of all this death, a young woman in childbirth (whose water broke 2 days earlier) must be delivered by Caesarean section. She had Covid-19, which she has passed on to her newborn daughter. We follow that drama through to the end as the child—a chubby female with a full head of hair whom the staff nicknames “the hungry penguin”— is whisked away to another area of the hospital and an incubator.

A box of cell phones collected from the dead and dying is introduced early in the documentary. It is at the end of the documentary that Yang Li, head ICU nurse, draws the unenviable duty of sorting through the abandoned phones and calling the next of kin to tell them to come pick up their dead relatives’ belongings. Usually,Yang Li seeks to return a phone to the relatives. One deceased woman’s bracelet is retrieved for her daughter, despite the fact that it is against regulations and the deceased, Grandma Luo Jinsong, had swollen arms at the time of her death, causing difficulty in retrieving the jewelry.

When she completes the task of returning the bracelet and the phone to a young girl who is sobbing, Yang Li expresses her condolences. She turns from the camera and appears broken, numb. It reminds of the line from earlier in the film, “How could it have come to this?”

The beleaguered hospital employees work tirelessly to try to save their patients and to preserve order within the hospital. I was surprised to hear patients being asked if they had “vomiting or diarrhea,” since neither of these symptoms received much air play on American television. I was also surprised to learn that ICU is emblazoned above the doors to the Chinese facility, much like Intensive Care Unit appears above these areas in American hospitals.  I assumed that all signs would be in the language of the country. There was also a much better degree of PPE in this Chinese hospital than during the early days of the pandemic in the U.S. and most of the doctors and nurses appear as masked and fully covered workers.

Writer/Director Hao Wu helmed “All in My Family” in 2019 and “People’s Republic of Desire” in 2018. His documentary about underground Chinese churches (2006) earned him a detention from the Chinese government. “76 Days” has had 3 wins on the film festival circuit: Best Documentary at AFI Fest, Grand Prize and Social Impact Award for Heartland International Film Festival, and 3 additional nominations, including at the 43rd Denver Film Festival. After premiering at Toronto, it will release on December 4th.

“Drowning” (2020): Mom Obsesses Over Son’s Service

“Drowning” is a Melora Walters film, produced by Sergio Rizzuto’s Potato Eater Productions, in conjunction with Room in the Sky Films, Eight Trick Pony and Hero LA . Walters wrote, directed, and stars in the film. She has 110 credits as an actress, including “Boogie Nights,” and “Dead Poets’ Society.” She has 3 credits as a writer and 4 as a director.

This film premiered in North America in Austin, Texas, at the Austin Film Festival on October 29, 2019 after its World Premiere in Rome. The log-line is “A mother deals with the grief associated with her son going off to war.” It is based on Walters’ own life. Sometimes, when we are very close to the story, we need someone who isn’t integrally involved to step up and give us honest feedback. Stay tuned.

The cast in this one is quite experienced. They all do a fine job.  Since Melora Walters is Mira Sorvino’s best friend, we even have a few minutes onscreen of the 1995 Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner (“Mighty Aphrodite”). Others include Gil Bellows as her boyfriend Frank (produced “Temple Grandin,” acted in “Ally McBeal,” “Shawshank Redemption”), Jay Mohr as Henry (“Suicide Squad,” “Last Comic Standing”) and Joanna Goings as Catherine (“Search for Tomorrow,” “Another World”). Goings plays Ms. Walters’ therapist; interesting side-note, both women were once married to Dylan Walsh (“Nip Tuck”). Also, Sergio Rizzuto as Charlie, the son, and Jim O’Heir in a brief part shown on a television screen.

Here’s the problem with the film (and some suggested fixes):

After we establish that Rose (Melora Walters) is concerned to the point of obsession about her adult son’s going off to war (Iraq and Syria), her concern becomes quite tiresome very quickly. Here’s one line from the script, “It just feels like I can’t breathe until he comes home.” I have a friend who once said, as her son was getting married, “I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t see him every day.”

Advice: Get over it! He’s getting married. He’s an adult now. (Yes, I have 2 adult children).

Another scripted line, “We have no control. We cannot even protect ourselves We want to say it will be all right, but we can’t.” A well-meaning casual acquaintance tries to counsel Rose, telling her, “Everything about you says you’re sad.  I’m talking about the will to live.”

Rose’s boyfriend, played by Gil Bellows, wants her to move to New York with him, but she repeatedly turns down his invitation to the point that her nervous worrying about her adult son in the Army (“You sound like a parrot over and over and over.”) causes Frank (Gil Bellows) to finally say, “You just need to calm the fuck down, Rose.”

Unfortunately, that never really happens and there really isn’t any more to the story.

That much is for sure. Rose tries therapy, but the photography and swimming lessons with Jay Mohr don’t seem to be helping much.

I have these suggestions for ways in which the script could have been transformed from one long whine fest to something more dramatic. We might have had 82 well-acted minutes that actually go somewhere:

  • During the swimming lessons, Rose seems to have a suicidal moment, and there is a similar moment (pills?) when in her apartment. Why not let one of these attempts come close and put Rose in the hospital, where she has a Eureka Moment and realizes that—among other unresolved plot lines—she supposedly has a daughter in college studying chemistry that she should continue trying to stay alive to mother (in addition to her adult son)? Maybe it will sink in, as scripted, that the young soldier had drug abuse issues before he enlisted, so his enlistment was all for the best (Rose’s boyfriend, Frank, tells her this.) The Eureka moment could involve (a) Rose’s boyfriend, Frank (b) Rose’s hitherto not-heard-from college-age daughter and/or (c) the mysterious guy with the hat who stops by in a restaurant and calls her a “beautiful, sad woman” while quoting Schopenhauer. (“The only salvation is to live life.”)
  • Why not have son Charlie (Sergio Rizzuto) actually get injured while in Iraq? There any number of dramatic opportunities that could occur if Charlie had some sort of injury. (Not saying that Charlie should die, since Rose would probably not survive that. Just a scare, perhaps, that makes both of them aware that life is a gift and we should all make the most of it.)
  • Why not have Rose accept Frank’s offer to re-locate to New York City? It could be presented as a break-through moment. The Schopenhauer quote could be worked in somehow. One way to show that Rose is turning the corner on her fixation over her son’s service obligation would be to have her quit being so obsessed with answering her phone. Watching someone answer a phone is almost as exciting as watching someone driving. Both of these pursuits dominate a lot of screen time.

These plot suggestions are just the most obvious ones. It could be something totally off-the-wall like an unexpected romance with one of the much younger men who enter the bookstore where Rose works. Example: Rose is working and Peter (who is actually Mira Sorvino’s husband, Christopher Backus) comes in and flirts with her and, even though he is 17 years younger than Rose, they become a couple.

Again, the carpe diem refrain is no matter what the age difference, as Woody Allen once famously said, “The heart wants what it wants” and at least Rose would be advancing towards something other than lying on her fabulous green velvet couch eating potato chips. Maybe she could start up with the pool guy (Jay Mohr).

Whatever is decided upon from the options above, I’m available, if they want to work on getting an ending for this character study shot in and around Los Angeles. [And, yes, I’ve written 3 award-winning screenplays that will probably never see the light of day.] This one can be seen on YouTube.com.

 

 

 

“One of These Days:” A Snapshot of Small-town Texas Life at Hands On Contest

 Bastion Gauthier (Writer/Director) takes the topic of an annual endurance contest (Hands On) in Texas to win a pickup truck and turns it into a small-town tragedy. The contest promises thrilling entertainment to spectators and the chance of a lifetime for the participants, but it ends in real tragedy.

The contest organizer, Joan Dempsey, well-played by Carrie Preston, will be remembered by fans of television’s “The Good Wife” for playing Elsabeth Tascioni, a slightly off-beat but brilliant attorney. Carrie played the part in 14 episodes from 2010 to 2016 and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outtanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2013. She was nominated again in 2016. Joan is organizing the competition for Boudreaux’s Auto and Truck Dealership and she is very believable as a small-town employee of that car dealership.

The central contestant role is played by Joe Cole as Kyle Parson. Kyle and his wife and infant child are struggling, financially, and, as the script says, “He really needed a win.”

The rest of the cast of competitors who show up to try to win the truck by outlasting the others is a motley crew, with 20 people who seem to fit the bill often described as “poor white trash,” one of whom declares that what they are doing “isn’t rocket surgery.”

THE GOOD

In addition to Carrie Preston, who is always good in her roles, the “bad guy,” Kevin, played by Jesse C. Boyd, becomes a central figure. There are a variety of types that we can recognize from small-town life, whether it is the completely self-absorbed ear-bud wearing guy beating rhythms to the song that only he can hear on the truck’s chassis or the Bible-quoting Fundamentalist who occasionally requests that they all number off. We get a pretty good idea of the twenty competitors still standing, during the 119 minute movie, and there are those we root for and those we’d like to see quit or be disqualified—perhaps just on the basis of general nastiness.

The film won a special mention at the Zurich Film Festival and was a nominee for awards in Nashville.

THE BAD

Three things really detracted from the film:

#1) Cinematographer Michael Kotschi felt it would be a good idea to have the camera action be jerky at times, shooting forward down streets without any real attempt to focus. We can’t really call it “cinema verité (“Z”). It’s Cinema “F” as in “Failed.” The effect did nothing to enhance the film, but it did a lot to detract from it. I gave my GoPro camera to two eleven-year-olds to film a wedding over Labor Day; they did a better job of filming. The only good thing is that Kotschi did this hand-held herky-jerky treatment primarily on shots of streets, not when we were focused on the inter-action of the contestants in the parking lot of the Hands On contest. My advice to Michael Kotschi: STOP THAT!

#2)  For reasons I do not understand Writer/Director Bastion Gauthier ended the film and then added 20 to 30 minutes of additional background on our male lead, Kyle Parson. The information conveyed to us at the END of the film, (when Kyle is no longer a factor in the competition to win the truck), helps us to understand the plot’s events.. Adding the information at the end of the film was an odd and not very logical placement. It definitely belonged in the film, but chronological order would have been a better choice than tacking it on at the end.

#3) We never learn who won the truck.

I found the film to be interesting, aside from the three complaints mentioned above, but it had the potential to be more.

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