Movie Review The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest (2023) 

Directed by Jonathan Glazer 

Written by Jonathan Glazer 

Starring Sandra Huller, Christian Friedel 

Release Date December 15th, 2023 

Published 

The Zone of Interest is a devastating work of art. It's an unflinching and horrific movie but not because it depicts the holocaust in any direct fashion. Rather, The Zone of Interest places the horrors in your mind all while an affluent family headed up by the Nazi Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp goes through the daily routines of your average suburban family. It's the casualness of it all that drills the horror of the holocaust into your subconscious. I should not have been so gobsmacked by seeing the family of a Nazi casually carrying on as if what their father does is just like any other job but it just kept hitting me again and again how horrific this all is. The normalization of the systematic murder of six million people leads you the revelation of how we normalize the horrors of the world every time we turn a blind eye to suffering and death. 

The Zone of Interest centers its story on Commandant Rudolph Hoss (Christian Friedel) and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Huller). As he goes off to work, she attends to the house staff and gets the kids off to school. It's all so familiar and normal. You see this tableau unfold in every suburb. Except for the part where Rudolph is wearing a crisply detailed Nazi uniform and is walking next door to his job as the commandant at Auschwitz where he's charged with finding the most efficient way to murder Jewish people while keeping just enough of them alive for slave labor for the camp or industry. His approach to his job is no different from your average middle manager holding meetings with higher ups while filing efficiency reports on the number of people he's able to brutally murder. 

Meanwhile, his wife is entertaining friends and family in their well appointed home. The film unfolds a number of callous and cruel scenes as packages are delivered to the home and it slowly dawns on us that the various pieces of clothing and personal items are those of Jewish people being murdered next door. For example, Hedwig receives a package containing a mink coat. She tries it on and poses in front of a mirror. She finds a lipstick in the pocket and starts applying it. She's as carefree as if she'd just purchased these items and they belong to her. If she cares at all where these items came from or how she's taking things that belonged to people her husband is murdering, you can't see it on her face or in her eyes. There is a sociopathic level of not caring in Hedwig. Her sense of cruel entitlement is soul shaking for anyone with a conscience. 

In a later scene, Hedwig's mother comes to visit and they have a conversation about a former neighbor, an elderly Jewish woman. The conversation casually discussed the woman's curtains and how the mother envied those curtains before wondering if the woman had been murdered next door. The mother indicates that she's far more upset that she wasn't the one to end up with those curtains than she's bothered by the fate of her former neighbor. Director Jonathan Glazer does not flinch in his presentation of these scenes. The mundanity of this conversation, the casual disregard for the lives of Jewish people is chilled my spine and that's the point. If you don't find this monstrous, there is something horrifically wrong with you, just as there is something absolutely wrong with these characters. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Maestro

Maestro (2023) 

Directed by Bradley Cooper

Written by Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer

Starring Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan. Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer 

Release Date November 22nd, 2023 

Published ?

There are many things to like about Bradley Cooper's Maestro. This biopic of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein is incredible to look at. Cooper and his cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, and production designer, Kevin Thompson, have put exceptional craft into the movie. Several of the films scenes simply pop off the screen in composition, detail, and the use of color. There is no denying that Bradley Cooper has a wonderful directorial eye aided by an exceptional team behind him. Where Maestro falters, sadly, is storytelling where the tenets of the movie biopic restrict and restrain. It's as if there was simply too much life in Leonard Bernstein to be constricted to the film form. 

Maestro begins its story with Leonard Bernstein being interviewed about his life and reflecting mostly on his beloved wife Felicia. Then we are thrown into a flashback, black and white, a young and eager Leonard Bernstein gets the phone call that will change his life. The main conductor of the New York Philharmonic is ill and cannot perform. His replacement is snowed in upstate. The 25 year old Bernstein with no rehearsal time, will have to fill in. He crushes it, he delivers an incredible performance that skyrockets his career. 

Meanwhile, in his private life, Bernstein is enjoying life as a gay man in New York, collaborating on various musical projects and spending time with his lover, David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer). These moments are brief but show a playful and wildly creative Bernstein constantly in creative mode, in the flower of his youth. Soon after however, he's met a woman at a party. Her name is Felicia (Carey Mulligan) and the two spark immediate chemistry. It's never stated that Bernstein is bisexual and the movie is remarkably vague on this point, perhaps because, until late in his life, Bernstein himself was vague on this point. 

The two undergo a whirlwind romance accompanied by Bernstein's remarkable successes on the stage, screen and as a composer of numerous symphonies. A lovely scene has Bernstein take Felicia to the stage where a musical he's working on with Jerome Robbins is rehearsing. The two get swept up in the dance rehearsal before being pulled apart. The symbolism rages aloud in this scene as the two sides of Bernstein's sexuality are pulled in different directions, one toward Felicia, one away from her. Dancers keep pulling both in different directions with Felicia imagining a man who might have taken her from Bernstein earlier in their life. It's an exceptional and exciting sequence that demonstrates Cooper's terrific direction. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review American Fiction

American Fiction (2023) 

Directed by Cord Jefferson 

Written by Cord Jefferson 

Starring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown 

Release Date December 15th, 2023 

Published December 23rd, 2023

American Fiction is the sharpest American comedy of 2023. This brilliant deconstruction of writers, writing, society, and popular culture from Cord Jefferson fearlessly points an accusing finger at the audience while not letting its main character off the hook either. Featuring one of our finest actors, Jeffrey Wright, at his absolute best, American Fiction takes elements from classic literature and mixes them with a touch of the angsty self-analogizing of the formerly great Woody Allen, and crafts a near perfect comedy. 

Monk, played by Jeffrey Wright, is a dyspeptic college professor and long struggling author. Despite having published several books, he cannot escape the specter of being a 'black author' and he's desperately frustrated. After suffering a loss in his family and the decline of his mother's health, Monk gets drunk and writes the kind of novel that he despises. It's a novel filled with stock characters from popular culture centered on the supposed 'black' experience. 

It's written in broken English and Monk's fictional author, Stagg R. Lee, is supposed fugitive from the law. He hopes to use the book to shame those that claim this kind of book is 'important' and 'raw' and explores the 'black' experience. It centers on a gang member with a deadbeat dad and no mother. The book is cobbled together from every 'important' piece of black popular culture aimed at white liberal guilt of the late 20th and 21st century. And in what should come as no surprise, it becomes a massive hit when Monk's agent sends it out to white publishers. 

Faced with the conundrum of having written a book he despises and being offered big money to publish the book he despises; Monk begrudgingly takes the money. With his mother being in declining health and needing round the clock care and his brother, Cliff (Sterling K. Brown), being of little help as he drugs and sexes his way through a nasty divorce, Monk needs the money, even if it is coming at the cost of his self-respect. Where this story is headed, you will need to see for yourself. I can only tell you that it is an exceptionally smart and funny journey to get there. 

Writer-Director Cord Jefferson has written one incredibly nimble and lithe comic script. It bubbles with wit and a contempt for a culture that reduces people to stereotypes. At the same time, the keystone of the movie is revealed in a terrifically awkward and deeply uncomfortable opening scene. Here, Monk in his job as a professor is teaching about the work of Flannery O'Connor. When he writes the title of one of O'Connor's short stories on the board, the title of which I can't comfortably write in this review, the student, a young white woman objects. The title contains the N-word and while the young white woman expresses her discomfort at having to see the word, Monk becomes frustrated and berates her. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Ferrari

Ferrari (2023) 

Directed by Michael Mann

Written by Troy Kennedy Martin 

Starring Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, Penelope Cruz 

Release Date December 25th, 2023 

Published December 21st, 2023 

There is no question from me that Michael Mann is an exceptional director. His talent is undeniable but if you need proof, check his Oscar nominations for The Insider and for being a Producer on The Aviator. His films have seen remarkable success and shown incredible staying power. Take, for instance, his beloved classic Heat which still gets rapturous reviews from new audiences who discover it year after year. You can sense that I am setting you up, right? It's not entirely what you think. Michael Mann's newest film, Ferrari, starring Adam Driver, features exceptional direction, superb cinematography, and exceptional effects and stunt driving. 

I just can't make myself care about the subject. Is that a failing of Michael Mann as a filmmaker or, is it merely that the problems of a rich, philandering, man obsessed with car racing just isn't relatable or compelling as the lead character in a movie. Adam Driver invests the character of real life car magnate, Enzo Ferrari, with charisma, personality, and a not terribly distracting Italian accent but, he's still playing a character that defied my ability to care about him. I don't care about car racing. And, I supremely, assuredly do not care about the supposed problems of a very rich man on a journey to remaining a rich and troubled man despite being responsible for multiple deaths in the pursuit of his love of race cars. 

Ferrari picks up the story of Enzo Ferrari, founder of the famed Ferrari car company, in 1957, in the immediate aftermath of his beloved son and heir, Dino Ferrari. The death of his son has driven a wedge between Enzo and his wife, Enzo's mother, Laura Ferrari (Penelope Cruz), a turbulent personality expressing her pain and grief via explosions of vitriol toward the husband she feels is responsible for their son's death. By Laura's reasoning, Dino stretched himself to the breaking point pursuing his father's love of car racing, causing him to die at 24 from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. 

The rift between husband and wife has grown to such a degree that Enzo has started a new family with his mistress, Linda Lardi (Shailene Woodley). Enzo has purchased a villa for Linda and their son, Piero, where he comes to stay regularly while somehow not letting on to Laura that he's been cheating. This is a lot padding and not particularly compelling. Woodley is fine but exists mostly as a device to strain Enzo and Laura's marriage, regardless of how true the story of Enzo and his mistress may be. Michael Mann doesn't appear to be very interested in developing Laura as a character or giving her a function in the film beyond being a plot device. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Color Purple

The Color Purple (2023) 

Directed by Blitz Bazawule 

Written by Marcus Gardley 

Starring Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks 

Release Date December 25th, 2023

Published December 20th, 2023 

The Good Lord Works in Mysterious Ways. That's what the opening song in the new musical adaptation of The Color Purple tells us. Oftentimes, people use this phrase to excuse or explain the seeming whims of the almighty God. When something unpredictable happens, god works in mysterious ways. The opening of the movie is setting us up for the notion of the unpredictable nature of fate. The fate that separates two loving sisters. And, perhaps, the same fate that will eventually reunite them. God works in mysterious ways and we can't no until we reach a conclusion, what God's intent was, what lesson God was imparting, and how the journey through God's various mysterious ways will help us learn, grow, change or merely adapt. 

Oh I know, she be mine is the next song. After having given birth, featuring a distracting cameo by Whoopi Goldberg, star of the Spielberg adaptation of The Color Purple, Celie sees a baby in her father's store. The baby has the same name as one of the babies that her father has forced her to immediately give up after their birth. This leads Celie to visualize a sequence in which she walks through a series of convicts breaking rocks before she walks into a gorgeous scene set in a small creek bed, clear, clean water, a small shimmering waterfall, and a series of women who are cleaning clothes in washtubs. 

The sequence is gorgeous, especially the dance sequence in front of the waterfall, spectacular visuals that are beautifully captured. Young Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, playing the young Celie that will eventually give way to Fantasia Barrino's take on the adult Celie, sings beautifully. Her voice is superb. It's a standout sequence, a lovely fantasy and a moment of joyous escape for a character who will spend so many of the next years of her life imprisoned, first by her abusive father and then by the husband she never asked for or wanted. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Perfect Days

Perfect Days (2023)

Directed by Wim Wenders,  

Written by Takuma Takasaki, Wim Wenders

Starring Koji Yakusho 

Release Date November 10th, 2023 

Published December 19th, 2023

The story behind Perfect Days, as Wikipedia tells it, is that friends of filmmaker Wim Wenders invited the director to Japan to view the remarkable new public restrooms that have been built in Tokyo. Each of these public restrooms was designed by an artist using remarkable design, modern tech, and extraordinary design. Not many people get a specific invitation to come and look at arty toilets but not everyone is Wim Wenders. These friends of Wenders hoped that by inviting the filmmaker to see these art installations that happen to be working public toilets, he would be inspired to make a short film about them. Instead, Wenders was inspired to make a two hour feature length movie about a humble man who takes pride in cleaning these incredible works of art, that happen to be public toilets. 

The work of art inspired by Tokyo's remarkable art-toilet project is one of the most lovely, gorgeous, and inspiring movies that I have seen in my more than 20 years as a film critic. Perfect Days stars Koji Yakusho as Hiroyama. Hiroyama asks for little and doesn't expect much. He goes to work everyday for Tokyo Toilet Service and painstakingly cleans every inch of every public restroom on his route. He takes pride in his hard work, even as the people who make the mess take little care to make Hiroyama's job easier. The pride that Hiroyama takes in his job is inspiring and shows a man who may not appear special from a glance is a great deal more than the sum of your perceptions of him. That's true of everyone you meet but it feels special in this case because it's in a movie, a communal experience like few others in the world. 

When Hiroyama isn't diligently assuring that every public restroom on his route is as clean as possible, he's listening to his collection of classic rock and underground cassette tapes. Dear reader, the soundtrack to Perfect Days is utterly sublime. The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, The Animals, Otis Redding, the music of Perfect Days is a series of amazing needle drops that celebrate the greatest music of all time and appreciating that remarkable music and how it enriches our lives. The music and art we love and consume makes our lives better and when you consider that the public restrooms that Hiroyama takes such care to clean, the movie is a whole is about an appreciation of art of all kinds, diligent dedication appreciating the beauty of the world. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Fallen Leaves

Fallen Leaves (2023) 

Directed by Aki Kaurismaki 

Written by Aki Kaurismaki 

Starring Alma Poysti, Jussi Vatanan 

Release Date November 17th, 2023 

Published December 18th, 2023 

Continuing to catch up on movies of 2023, I've recently had the pleasure to enjoy Kelly Reichardt's Showing Up, and Justine Triet's engrossing, Anatomy of a Fall. I've still got a few titles to go but I'm making great progress toward my best of 2023 list. The hard part is going to be having so many great movies to decide between. It would honestly be easier this year to create a top 20 but nevertheless. Making my end of year list is a joy, even as I will have to wrestle with where to put Aki Kaurismaki's new movie Fallen Leaves on my list. Fallen Leaves is a lovely, sincere, slice of life drama set among the poor of modern Finland. 

Ansa (Alma Poysti) lives a solitary single life in a tiny apartment in Finland. She survives mostly on taking home out of date food from her job at a local grocery store. Sadly, she will soon lose that job. An over zealous security guard sees her letting another poor person take some out of date food that she was throwing in a dumpster. As she's leaving work, the security guard and an officious store manager make her empty her bag and inside they find a piece of expired food that was to be her dinner that night. She's fired on the spot and two of her co-workers choose to quit in solidarity. They too had been taking expired food to survive on. 

In a parallel story, Holappa (Jussie Vatanan) is working a menial job cleaning rust off of metal with a high powered hose. It's just him standing and spraying for endless job. It's mind numbing and to cope with the dreariness of the job, Holappa has developed a drinking problem. He hides a bottle near his work station and regularly grabs a swallow in between spraying pieces of metal. As you can imagine, this won't last. Eventually, Holappa will get caught drinking on the job and he will be fired. Before that happens however, Holappa meets Alma and in a world of dreary, lonely, desperation, the two find a bit of a spark. 

Holappa buys Ansa a cup of coffee and takes her to a movie, things she could not do on her own as she's still looking for a new job. His kindness is touching and their tentative flirtation is sweet. The film even gives them a romantic comedy complication as Alma promises to tell Holappa her name if they go on a second date. She gives him her number and he loses it, and that sets up the rest of their story together. It's a complication that would be just as at home in a Hollywood rom-com but it feels more meaningful and heartbreaking in the context that writer-director Aki Kaurismaki places it in. 

Two sad, lonely people struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder find each other and give each other comfort only to seemingly lose their one chance of finding comfort in a cold and uncaring world, that's poetry. Great art from great sadness. Kaurismaki doesn't inflate the importance of this moment, if anything, it's merely just an incident on our way to somewhere else in this story. The brilliance of Kaurismaki is using something as simple as a rom-com complication and using it to magnify the sadness and heartache of his characters in a way that feels honest. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media