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 

Movie Review Air

Air (2023) 

Directed by Ben Affleck 

Written by Alex Convery 

Starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker 

Release Date April 5th, 2023 

Published April 7th, 2023 

Air takes advantage of the collective nostalgia of sports fans of the 1990s. It's a powerful force that alters our critical thinking and places in a welcomg headspace regardless of our critical faculties. Thus how we get a movie about corporate titans, literal billionaires, becomes a shaggy underdog narrative about overcoming the odds. Never mind that Nike always had the means to land Michael Jordan and make him the global brand he became, it's more compelling to pretend that they had no chance and were some kind of upstart in an industry they'd made a billion dollars in in just a decade of existence. 

Our culturewide nostalgia for what Michael Jordan represents leaves us willing to center a story about the triumph of a black entrepreneur that is centered on the success of the white men who proved capable of seeing his worth and willing to bend their profits to his will. Yes, there was still plenty of stakes in 1984 and there was always the chance that Michael Jordan could have gotten hurt or developed a disinterest in greatness, but we know that didn't happen and that fact makes this story much easier to be nostalgic about. 

The makers of Air are aware of the issues we are bringing with us into seeing Air. The film is aware that Nike is the weird cult of a billionaire's personality. The filmmakers are aware that they are taking a story of black excellence and centering it on a group of white men, Nike was well aware that they were seeking athletes they could exploit for financial gain that would mostly go to the white men exploiting them. The film pitches these problems in dialogue and bats them away by telling you a pretty good story about charismatic characters in a complicated and fast paced fashion. Does this excuse the sins involved? No, not in the least, but there is no denying the entertainment value of our blinding nostalgia. 

Matt Damon stars in Air as Sonny Vaccaro, basketball guru. Hired to define the Nike Basketball brand, Vaccaro works alongside marketing guru, Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), to find athletes willing to be paid to wear Nike basketball gear. As we join the story, it's 1984 and Nike ranks third in the world in basketball shoes. Adidas and Converse are numbers 1 and 2 and the biggest stars are making deals with them. This includes the top 3 picks in the 1984 NBA draft, Hakeem Olajuwon, Sam Bowie, and Michael Jordan. Nike has high hopes for maybe inking  a deal with someone named Mel Turpin. 

Then, late one night, Sonny Vaccaro watches Michael's legendary NCAA Tournament winning shot from the 1982 NCAA tournament championship. In that legendary video, he sees something that no one else had seen before. In Sonny estimation, Michael Jordan, then a Freshman, was actually the first choice to make this game winning shot. Of all the stars at the disposal of legendary College Basektball coach Dean Smith, he chose to draw up a play that relied on Michael Jordan to make the most important shot. On top of that, Jordan appears unafraid of this kind of pressure, he's calm and he confidently hits a shot that hundreds of other players might not have the nerve to make. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Paint

Paint (2023) 

Directed by Brit McAdams 

Written by Brit McAdams 

Starring Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins 

Release Date April 7th, 2023 

Publish April 11th, 2023 

Paint is weird. While everyone is caught up in Owen Wilson's Bob Ross impression, what's lost is a timeless story of a fragile male ego, an unrequited love story, and a story that seems to play out in a timeless void somewhere between the 1970s and the 1990s. If Wes Anderson were to direct a late night Adult Swim program, it play a little like Paint. The tone is tricky and odd but I kept finding myself charmed by it. I laughed plenty during Paint and that goes a long way to helping me forgive the messier elements of the story. 

Paint stars Owen Wilson as Carl Nargle, a big fish in the small pond of the Vermont art world. Carl's show, Paint, on Vermont's biggest PBS station, is the most watched show in the state. People's lives come to a stop to watch Carl's latest variation on a nature scene revolving around Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield. Carl's a star on screen and off where he has a devoted staff of women dedicated to his needs. Wendy McClendon Covey, Lusia Strus, and Lucy Freyer, play generations of women who may or may not have been Carl's lover at some point. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu

The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu (2023) 

Directed by Anna Chi 

Written by Anna Chi, Donald Martin 

Starring Lisa Lu, Michelle Krusiec, Adrian Pasdar, Joely Fisher, Archie Kao, Rochelle Ying 

Release Date March 21st, 2023 

Published April 12th, 2023 

On the one hand, seeing a story prominently feature three generations of a Asian American family on the big screen feels fresh and new. On the other hand, a movie this bad doesn't do all that much for representation for anyone. The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu is a painfully stretched sitcom episode premise that has been dragged to feature length for reasons that defy logic and entertainment value. The story of an elderly woman not wanting to spend her final days in a hospital bed isn't a terrible idea but in execution, it's a low rent bore. 

The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu centers on dyspeptic senior citizen, Mrs. Wu (Lisa Lu). Mrs. Wu is staying at a high end nursing home and is set to celebrate her 88th birthday but she's far too miserable to enjoy it. Despite what we are told is a high end nursing home experience, Mrs. Wu describes the place as a prison that her daughter, Mary (Michelle Krusiec) and her white husband, Brian (Adrian Pasdar) have sentenced her to. Mrs. Wu wants to spend her last days either in her own home or on the road in Carmel, California, where she lived the biggest moments of her life. 

After a disastrous birthday celebration, Mrs. Wu corners her granddaughter, Emma (Rochelle Ying) and Emma's best friend, Karen (Tiffany Wu), and asks them to sneak her out for an impromptu road trip. In exchange, Grandma gives Emma a VHS tape message from her late father, one she wasn't supposed to get for another year or so, on her 18th birthday. Emma and Karen then enlist the help of Mrs. Wu's best friend and caregiver, Charlotte (Joely Fisher) to help them with this scheme, and keep Grandma alive long enough to reach Carmel. 

Subplots abound in The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu and each is less interesting or relevant than the last. Karen is coming out as gay. There is nothing wrong with this except that it has no bearing whatsoever on her relationship to her closest friend, Emma, who accepts her friend's revelation with the kind of loving support one would hope to get from their childhood best friend. There seems to be an element of Queer-baiting going on as the film seems to want to create tension between the friends, perhaps with Karen having a crush on Emma, but this is hand-waved away with Karen's subplot about a long time male friend she hopes will go to prom with her. Heterosexuality safely confirmed, the LGBTQ elements are dismissed mostly unaddressed. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Indecent Proposal

Indecent Proposal (1993) 

Directed by Adrian Lyne 

Written by Amy Holden Jones 

Starring Demi Moore, Robert Redford, Woody Harrelson 

Release Date April 7th, 1993 

Published April 19th, 2023 

Indecent Proposal tries to skirt the issue of its sweaty desperation with a softcore stylishness that had become a cliche trait of director Adrian Lyne well before he recaptured the zeitgeist with this movie. For all of the talent he clearly has and the discourse his movies have inspired, the one consistent thing about Lyne is that he enjoys watching attractive people cavort in little to no clothing while sweating profusely. If you can rely on Lyne for anything, it's getting well known stars to doff their duds to provide late night masturbatory thrills. Not there is anything terribly wrong with that. 

It's the pretense that Lyne has about his movies. Lyne appears to have quite a high opinion of his movies which, without the imprimatur of big movie stars, would be late night cable fare. High minded as Adrian Lyne may be, it's the smut that really revs his engine. In Indecent Proposal he is desperately reaching for a respectability always slightly out of reach, probably because his other hand is reaching for a particular body part that his work aims to stimulate far more than has drama might stimulate the brain. 

That said, there is no denying Lyne's talent for base mass appeal. Lyne's lurid fantasies, just on the dark side of morality, always seemed grab hold of the culture, even if only for a short time. With Indecent Proposal, Lyne made an impact with a very simple premise: What would you do if someone offered you a million dollars for sex, with the permission of your partner? I'm being quite loose with that question. The reality is it wasn't much of a question for the masses but, rather, for the male audience. Would you let your wife sleep with another man for $1 million dollars? 

Indeed, the woman in question, played by the gorgeous Demi Moore, is rather superfluous to the drama of Indecent Proposal. She's the object in play between two arrogant, possessive and deeply insecure men. That might not sound so bad except that neither the movie or the men involved, played by Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford, are remotely aware of how insecure they come off. Each wants to play the 'alpha' male with Redford's fortune proving to be the deciding factor as to who is indeed the bigger dog in this yard. 

The opportunity to explore male insecurity is thwarted by a narrative more interested in moral failings like greed and infidelity than in examining where the real failings of these characters exist, in their massive, unfulfilled egos. The film romanticizes Harrelson's jealous possessiveness, as if he hadn't encouraged his wife to sleep with Redford and was a victim of her greed and his own indecisiveness in the face of a moral quandary. Jealousy is not a cute quality, it's romantic, it's ugly and creepy and while it happens to everyone, it's not a good quality and it makes Harrelson's character more of a creep than the heartbroken romantic of Lyne's conception. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media