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Sound of Metal

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  • Title: Sound of Metal
  • IMDb: link

Sound of Metal movie reviewRiz Ahmed stars as one-half of a heavy metal band whose life is turned upside down when the drummer starts to lose his hearing. A recovering heroin addict, Ruben (Ahmed) agrees to go to an insular community for deaf recovering addicts to appease girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) while still refusing to come to terms with what has happened to him.

The film from co-writer/director Darius Marder is one on personal struggle, loss, acceptance, and transformation as Ruben struggles both in finding a new life and his refusal to let go of what he had prior to his hearing loss. Even discounting the imparement, Ruben practices selective hearing in what doctors and others tell him both about the state of his hearing and about the limited help he might receive from expensive cochlear implants.

Although much of it takes place with a couple of montages, we do witness Ruben’s role from outsider to productive member of the deaf community over the course of the film. But despite the help Joe (Paul Raci) and others give to Ruben, the drummer can’t let go of returning to life on the road with Lou.

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Bacurau

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  • Title: Bacurau
  • IMDb: link

Bacurau Blu-ray reviewSet in the near future, the small Brazilian village of Bacurau suddenly disappears from maps, satellites, and cell towers not long after the death of the community’s matriarch and the return of another member of their community (Bárbara Colen). Far off the beaten path, no one outside the village seems to notice.

While already dealing with a water crisis caused by a crooked politician (Thardelly Lima), tensions begin to rise. As the community slowly becomes aware something is wrong, there is also an odd appearance by a UFO and attacks on both a water truck and at a nearby farm.

Without giving too much away, Bacurau centers around two groups – those in the village and a second group who is slowly revealed to be the cause of Bacurau’s recent problems. While the town looks to local heroes (Thomas Aquino and Silvero Pereira) to protect them, we learn about what the other group led by Udo Kier is after, ultimately leading to a climactic conflict in the village.

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People Suck in Indiana

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  • Title: The Prom
  • IMDb: link

The Prom movie reviewAdapted from the stage musical, The Prom sends a group of Broadway performers (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells) to Indiana looking for a cause to turn around public opinion about their narcissistic nature. What they find is a teenage high school student (Jo Ellen Pellman) denied the right to take her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) to the prom.

Directed by Ryan Murphy, The Prom is a bawdy life-affirming story populated by mostly paper-thin characters walking through the plot to set-up the next song and dance number. While Corden has received the most criticism for a stereotypical performance, other than the two girls in love, none of the characters have any more depth than a damp sponge. Pellman turns out to be one of the best casting choices as the beautiful young woman who wants nothing more than to be herself, and DeBose manages to steal a moment with her performance of “Alyssa Greene.”

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Soul

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  • Title: Soul
  • IMDb: link

Soul movie reviewPixar tackles the meaning of life in Soul. Jamie Foxx stars as Joe, a lifelong struggling musician who dies on the very day he earns his big break. Refusing to walk into the Great Beyond, Joe finds himself trapped in the Great Before where young souls are prepared prior to their journey to Earth. Joe’s fate will depend on helping a troubled soul (Tina Fey) find her one true thing.

Soul marks both Pixar’s first African American lead character and its director in Pete Docter (who also worked on much of the film’s development and screenplay). It’s a fun film, which will remind you of a number of body-switching comedies once Joe and 22 (Fey) make it back to Earth (many of those developed by Disney). The film also confirms that beaurcracy doesn’t end at death and Joe finds an entire new world to explore (and escape) if he wants to get home and claim his big break (while also teaching 22 about life).

Despite dealing with life and death, Soul lacks the emotional weight of previous Pixar films such as Up or Toy Story 3 due to how goofy much of the film becomes after Joe’s death.

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Tesla

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  • Title: Tesla
  • IMDb: link

Tesla movie reviewTesla is a lesser version of The Current War, which itself was far from a great film. Narrated by Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) in the present (despite the fact she died in 1952), Tesla covers the career of inventor Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke).

Writer/director Michael Almereyda makes some odd choices here, both in a narrator using an Internet that was developed decades after her death and in some pretty cheap greenscreen techniques the culminate in a bizarre music video that closes out the film. While some of these make the film memorable, they don’t do much for the quality of the final product. Nor does the plot’s choice to largely skip over important events of Tesla’s life. Those with even a cursory knowledge of Tesla won’t find much here, and the film’s meager budget doesn’t offer the opportunity to showcase the scale of his inventions and aspirations.

Hawke is hit-and-miss in the title role and Kyle MacLachlan is entirely forgettable as Thomas Edison (who it waffles on as a villain). If the film has any real star, it’s Hewson whose absence is felt in any scene in which she is not featured.

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