Drama

Donald Cried

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Donald Cried
  • IMDb: link

Donald Cried movie reviewCreating an small independent movie centered around two generally unlikable characters presents some problems. In Donald Cried, Peter Latang (Jesse Wakeman) returns to his the home town he’s avoided like the plague for more than two decades to deal with the the recent death of his grandmother. With no other family in sight, and having lost his wallet somewhere along the journey, Peter is forced to enlist the help of his old friend Donald (Kris Avedisian). Hoping to squeeze some cash and a ride to the funeral home from Donald, Peter is quickly guilted into spending the entire day with the odd man.

A glimpse into Donald’s sad life only exacerbates the situation and makes it harder for Peter to extricate himself from the clingy Donald, even after leaning that for the past few years Donald had been masquerading as Peter at his grandmother’s retirement home.

The strength of Avedisian’s film, who wrote, directed, and saved the choicest part for himself, is we can see all these situations playing out in real life. Donald is a quirky loner, but knows how to use that to his advantage.

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Logan

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  • Title: Logan
  • IMDb: link

Logan movie reviewFinally learning that bigger isn’t always better (see X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: The Last Stand), 20th Century Fox has moved away from the super-sized team film. With both Logan and Legion (FX’s new series based around the X-Men character of the same name), the X-Men universe is taking some interesting turns with a darker tone and smaller character-driven stories. Logan may not be as entertaining as Deadpool, but it definitely ranks as one of the better X-Men films (and easily the best of the Wolverine standalone movies).

Set more than a decade in the future, Logan gives us a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) we haven’t seen before. Inspired by Old Man Logan, the Logan we see has aged considerably since the events of Days of Future Past and his healing factor has begun to fail him. In a world where mutants are all but extinct, Logan works as a limousine driver making ends meet and keeping himself, Caliban (Stephen Merchant), and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) out of the limelight. Of course that changes when a young girl (Dafne Keen) with very similar abilities to his own shows up on his doorstep hunted by those who want her dead.

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The Red Turtle

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  • Title: La tortue rouge
  • IMDb: link

“Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”
—Zhuangzi

The Red Turtle movie reviewIt begins with a man lost at sea in a storm. Shipwrecked on a deserted tropical island, for eighty-minutes without a single word of dialogue being spoken (other than a guttural grunt or two) our nameless protagonist attempts to survive but finds his attempts to escape the island thwarted by a giant red turtle. Initially believing the turtle to be and adversary to be overcome, the increasingly-confused sailor struggles to deal with what his eyes show him and the consequences of his actions as he lives out a life he never thought possible.

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20th Century Women

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  • Title: 20th Century Women
  • IMDb: link

20th Century Women movie reviewI was a big enough fan of writer/director Mike Mills‘ 2011 film Beginners to include it on my best of the year list. In his first film since Beginners, Mills reuses themes of nostalgia and the awkwardness of life along with some of the same structure (including inter-cut stills and narration to frame a time and place), but although 20th Century Women features a strong cast it lacks the intimacy and magic of his previous movie.

Set during the 1970s, the film focuses on single mother Dorothea (Annette Bening), her teenage son Jaime (Lucas Jade Zumann), and the other women in their lives, Jaime’s longtime best-friend Julie (Elle Fanning) and Dorothea’s friend and tenant Abbie (Greta Gerwig), who Dorothea enlists to help raise her son to grow into a proper man.

The strength of the script is the film’s characters and their interactions (even if Mills struggles a bit a making some of these women, based on the real women who raised him, a bit too cute and quirky for their own good). A notable weakness is the size of the cast leading to a less focused film that while enjoyable isn’t necessarily all that memorable.

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Fences

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  • Title: Fences
  • IMDb: link

Fences movie reviewAdapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name, Fences is notable more for its impressive performances than plot. Denzel Washington, who does double-duty as both lead actor and director, does all that he can to make the stage play fit the big screen but there’s little doubt what venue the story is best suited. As a film the story certainly works, but I wonder how much better it may have appeared on stage.

The talky script, adapted from the stage by playwright August Wilson, offers a slice of Americana in a low income area of Pittsburgh where former Negro League baseball player turned criminal turned garbage man attempts to make the best of the life he’s carved out for himself. The small cast focuses on Troy’s (Washington) relationships with close friends and family including his wife Rose (Viola Davis), son Cory (Jovan Adepo), troubled brother Gabriel (Mykelti Williamson), and best-friend Bono (Stephen Henderson). The more we learn about the outwardly charming Troy the less we like him. Troy is a bully, alcoholic, adulterer, and an all-around son of a bitch. The film’s first hour is a slow boil under the which pressure continues to rise until it boils over when the conflict between Troy and his family comes to a head.

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