Movie Review A Thousand and One (2023)

A Thousand and One (2023) 

Directed by A.V Rockwell 

Written by A.V Rockwell

Starring Teyana Taylor, Robert Catlett, Josiah Cross 

Release Date March 31st, 2023 

Published April 3rd, 2023 

Nature or Nurture? How do we become who we are? The new drama, A Thousand and One isn't so much out to answer that question but it raises that question in a most compelling and beautiful way. The story of a fiercely protective mother and the baby she thought she'd lost to the system years earlier, A Thousand and One begs the question of identity while also revealing a pair of characters whose bond is tested and affirmed numerous times in ways most can never begin to imagine. 

Fresh out of a stay in prison, Inez (Teyana Taylor) simply wants to get on with her life. A talented hairdresser, she'd be content finding a chair in a salon somewhere where she could rebuild her life. Unfortunately, things are rarely that easy, especially for someone emerging from a prison stay. Instead of a salon space, Inez finds herself begging people to let her do their hair while papering all of Harlem with offers to do hair that fall on the deaf ears of indifferent passersby. 

While seeking work, Inez is struck by the sight of a small child. Terry or T, as Inez calls him, is certainly familiar with Inez and the way she speaks to him matter of factly seems to confirm their relationship. T is Inez's son, separated from her when she went to jail. Now out of jail, she sees him and though she seems to understand that she's in no place to try and take him back, she's eager to keep tabs. When Inez hears from one of T's friends that he was hurt, she goes to the hospital and their she makes a fateful choice. 

An unknown amount of time passes as Inez and T couch-surf between extended family and friends until Inez gives up her salon dream, for now, to take a job working as a maid in a nursing home over an hour away by train. It's hard and long work but it's enough to find a place for her and T to live. That's when Inez reconnects with a man who may or may not be T's father. Lucky and Inez have a complicated history. He may or may not have been part of the reason she ended up in prison. He's also the only man Inez ever loved. 

The push-pull of Inez and Lucky's relationship is deeply fraught, especially after Lucky bonds with T and becomes the closest thing he will ever know to a father. Lucky will bounce in and out of their lives even after the couple get married. Settling down doesn't suit him and the tension boils over on several occasions before. Well, you should see that for yourself. Lucky is a deeply complicated, flawed but loving character, loving in a way that he understands love, a love complicated by his own strange and fraught upbringing. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Squaring the Circle (The Story of of Hipgnosis) (2023) 

Directed by Anton Corbijn 

Written by Trish D. Chetty 

Starring Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Robert Plant, Paul McCartney

Release Date June 7th, 2023  

Published June June 1st, 2023 

For many, the idea of art, what art could be, it's transformative properties, the way it can shape your perception, sprang from seeing a striking image on the cover of an album. I can distinctly recall seeing the cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here in a friend's record collection when I was 10 years old and being fascinated by the image of a man on fire shaking hands with another man who was not on fire. It's an image both striking and yet simple, the notion that the record industry can burn an artist with a handshake and a smile. 

Regardless of what this image says about the band or the music on the record, that cover, and so many more esoteric, bizarre, and compelling images, helped to shape many young minds. That particular image that dazzled my young mind was created by the most prolific and influential graphic designers in the history of the music business, Hip-gnosis, the team of Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson. Starting at University in the mid-1960s, Storm and Po were an inseparable team. Each taught each other different aspects of design and their ideas blossomed from a shared love of turning reality and sense on their heads. 

Director Anton Corbijn is among many who can count Hipgnosis as a major influence on their work. A music video director, Corbijn is uniquely qualified to document the history and fascination surrounding the legendary art pioneers at Hipgnosis. He does just that with the remarkable, exhaustive and terrific new documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis). Through exclusive interviews with Storm and Po and the giants of the music industry who employed them, we get to learn the fascinating stories behind the most talked about, remembered, and beloved album covers in the history of music. 

From the late 1960s through the early 80s, Hipgnosis was the go-to team for creating album art so good that it could sell records on its own merit. If you're a fan of Pink Floyd, then you can thank Hipgnosis for creating the images you've always associated with Pink Floyd. The cover of Dark Side of the Moon? That was Hipgnosis. That wonderful photo of a cow on the cover of Atom Heart Mother? That was Hipgnosis. That tripped out cover for 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets, Hipgnosis. I could go on and on but you should just see Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) for yourself. 

Storm Thorgerson emerges as a fascinating character, a cantankerous, unpredictable and often rude man who earned the love, loyalty and enmity of the biggest rock stars in the world with his blunt assessment of their artistic desires. He had a habit of walking off Hipgnosis projects if he felt the artist wasn't listening to him or exerting too much control over the idea. He loved working with the band 10 CC, a rare band that let Storm loose to make his weirdest and often most expensive ideas come to life. 

Find my full length review at Beat.Media 

Movie Review Padre Pio

Padre Pio (2023) 

Directed by Abel Ferrara 

Written by Abel Ferrara 

Starring Shia LeBeouf 

Release Date June 2nd 

Published May 27th, 2023 

Padre Pio is a strange movie. Ostensibly, the film stars Shia LeBeouf as a troubled Priest who many claim as a Saint who suffered the stigmata, the wounds of Christ appearing on the hands and feet. He was claimed as a Prophet by some and a madman by others. Mostly, the man who came to be known as Padre Pio is known for becoming the biggest champion of confession. He had many passionate tenets to his preaching but Pio was quite adamant about the importance of confession and that appears to be the legacy that the Catholic Church celebrates, far more than his stigmata claim. 

So, why is a movie about this man so strange? Well, it's directed by Abel Ferrara for one. The odd and controversial director has taken his legacy in an odd direction late in his career. Having always leaned heavily into Catholic imagery and themes, he's been working in Italy the last few years and on incredibly low budgets. Budgets so low that his last film, Zeroes and Ones, starring Ethan Hawke, is nearly unwatchable. That film looks as if it had been filmed through a green plastic bag. 

Padre Pio is slightly better looking than Zeroes and Ones but the low budget is still very much Omni-present. The opening scene has an almost embarrassing level of amateur cinematography as Shia LeBeouf's Padre Pio arrives at an Italian Abbey riding a donkey. You can sense right away that this will be one of those performances by LeBeouf, intense to the point of parody. The passion that LeBeouf brings to his craft is admirable but, in the wrong movie, it can be embarrassingly, uncomfortably and unnecessarily intense. 

And then LeBeouf just sort of fades into the background for a while. The film is set in the immediate aftermath of World War 1. Italians are returning home and are aching for change to a society where the rich dominate and the poor are impoverished to a ludicrous degree. It's a moment ripe for a socialist revolution and that's what begins to happen in this small town. Agitators begin holding public meetings calling for improved working conditions and the rich employ thugs to hold on to their tenuous political power. 

Helping the elite of the city is the church. We see Priests praying over the weapons of the thuggish authorities of the town and holding hushed meetings with the rich elites. This would appear to place someone like Padre Pio in opposition to his own church, a genuine conflict. But no, this never comes into play with Padre Pio's storyline in any way. This is the set up for a scene in which a group of socialists are gunned down while attempting to vote in their local election. This plot never intersects with Padre Pio. 

My full length review is at Geeks.Media