Drama

Asking for It

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  • Title: Asking for It
  • IMDb: link

The first feature from writer/director Eamon O’Rourke has some interesting ideas and a solid enough cast to explore them. Sadly, Asking for It never quite figures out what it wants to be or how to get there. While there are flashes of a revenge story following the previously-cheery Joey (Kiersey Clemons) joining a group of militant women (Alexandra Shipp, Vanessa Hudgens, Leslie Stratton, Radha Mitchell, Leyna Bloom, and Lisa Yaro) on an Indian reservation after being date raped by a longtime acquaintance (Casey Cott), Asking for It isn’t a revenge story. It also isn’t a character study or drama. It’s easy to focus on what the film isn’t, but much harder to nail down what Asking for It is.

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Hands of Stone

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  • Title: Hands of Stone
  • IMDb: link

2016’s Hands of Stone is your typical biopic offering highlights of the life and career of professional boxer Roberto Durán (Edgar Ramírez). Writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz‘s by-the-numbers approach doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises or insight into Durán, but the film’s cast is solid beginning with a strong performance from Ramírez with some effective boxing sequences covering some of the biggest fights of the first-half of Durán’s career.

Robert De Niro as Durán’s trainer, Ana de Armas as his wife, and Usher in some inspired casting as Sugar Ray Leonard, highlight the supporting cast. De Niro is in grumpy old manger mode butting heads with his fighter for most of the film while Ana de Armas steals some scenes into Durán’s personal life. While at times the film seems to think of her as an afterthought, she’s stunning here often beautifully framed by cinematographer M.I. Littin-Menz.

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Exposed

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  • Title: Exposed
  • IMDb: link

A common reaction to watching 2016’s Exposed is “Um, what?” That’s also the correct reaction. Reuniting Knock Knock stars Keanu Reeves and Ana de Armas in a film which only briefly has them both on camera together, Exposed is at least two (maybe three) separate convoluted tales smashed together in a confused and haphazard fashion by writer/director Gee Malik Linton.

While Linton, under the name Declan Dale, wanted a surreal tale involving themes of abuse and its effects on victims both immediate and over time, Lionsgate instead wanted a cop picture. What was delivered is a little bit of both, but not a good version of either. While the stories eventually connect at the end of the film, they don’t ever true fit together leaving audiences questioning what they did with the last 100 minutes of their lives. There are certainly better ways to spend your time.

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CODA

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: CODA
  • IMDb: link

The winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture of 2022, CODA stars Emilia Jones as the only hearing member of her deaf family (Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, and Daniel Durant) whose reliance chafes on the high school senior who, despite loving them, wants a life outside the family. She finds this unexpectedly by following a cute boy (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) into choir where Ruby discovers she has a talent for singing that might lead to a future she could never have dreamed of.

In what I’d refer to as a Coyote Ugly ending, the plot falls a bit into cliché with Ruby running late to a life-changing audition without ever working out the logistics of the happy ending it promises. Despite this, the film is a moving experience highlighting the role of an unique individual whose circumstances make her feel like an outcast to the outside world but who, with the help of her teacher (Eugenio Derbez), begins to chase an impossible dream.

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Man on the Moon

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  • Title: Man on the Moon
  • IMDb: link

Director Milos Foreman‘s 1999 biopic of Andy Kaufman (played by Jim Carrey) is most notable for Carrey’s performance of the unusual celebrity that took himself too seriously but nothing else all that seriously at all. The film highlights the big moments of Kaufman’s career including his inter-gender wrestling, his reluctance to accept a role on Taxi, his chaotic appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and Fridays and the creation of his grating alter-ego Tony Clifton.

While Carrey is the backbone of the film, the script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski never really explores the reasoning behind Kaufman’s various antics or hold him responsible for those that fell flat in what is very much a celebration of the unique performer’s career.

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