Disobedience (2017)

Director: Sebastián Lelio. Cast: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola. 114 min. Rated R. UK/Ireland/USA. Drama/Romance.

US-based photographer returns to the England Jewish Orthodox community she was shunned from years ago, to attend her rabbi father's funeral. From then on, the sex-obsessed campaign of the film have so shamelessly spoiled the story, almost two thirds in is predictable. So while refusing to participate in this act of treason, I'll summarize to say that the movie is extremely brave at not only affirming an individual's freedom in relationships, not only questioning the imprisonment of one's will in Judaism, but also questioning any religion's control over freedom. Surprised why the movie didn't make more noise. Wrong marketing, anybody?

PS: Available on Amazon Prime.

Mo says:

What Is Cinema? (2013)

Director: Chuck Workman. 80 min. Not Rated. USA/France/Canada. Documentary.

The question excites any movie-lover. And how not enjoy a collage of some of the most mesmerizing images in movie history, as an answer to that question? The documentary employs quotes from some of cinema's grand-masters (e.g., Hitchcock claiming if a painter paints an apple beautifully, who cares if the apple is sweet or sour?) to make a case for avant-garde cinema, and how story in film is secondary, as long as you "project an emotion" - a message I humbly doubt, given that the livelihood of cinema depends on commercial success. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the imagery.

Mo says:

Ocean's Eight (2018)

Director: Gary Ross. Cast: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Dakota Fanning, Elliott Gould.

Things go wrong on so many levels. Starting (again) with the basic Ghostbusters fiasco, where equal opportunity in Hollywood translates to inserting women in men's roles (without any gender-specific justification to do so); continues with bad directing by a good director, who wastes time on unnecessary listless scenes; accompanied by an entirely uninteresting Asian actress (who among such superstars should actually prove herself the opposite), placed for the sole reason of political correctness ... among other failures. The film is merely a showcase for some of the beautiful faces in showbiz today, at the service of undermining women in the mainstream.

Mo says:

Searching (2018)

Director: Aneesh Chaganty. Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee. 102 min. Rated PG-13. Mystery/Thriller.

After a perfectly-devised "silent" tragic opening (inspired by Up), in another modification of the found-footage genre, the story of a father searching for his missing daughter is told entirely on laptop/iPad/smartphone screens. Distracted for a second, and you miss a crucial plot element in this tightly-written script - most brilliant at how it conveys the main character's thought process by the sudden halt of a moving cursor onscreen. Sole criticism: how a movie so disturbingly portraying the horrors of social media exposure, suddenly ends as a whodunit - leaving one thinking: now what? Still, one of the year's memorable movies.

Mo says:

BPM (120 battements par minute) (2017)

Director: Robin Campillo. Cast. Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois, Adèle Haenel. 143 min. Not Rated. France. Drama/History.

HIV-positive youth in 90's France struggle to hasten research on anti-retrovirus medication, before they run out of time and die. While the common theme of such films is usually to see which major character is still alive by the end of the story, this one seems intentionally prolonged by slowing the pace of extended scenes, probably to make us feel the meaning of waiting as time runs out on you, day after day. But two characters talking for 10 minutes in the dark? Apparently, there's a fine line between driving your (very admirable) point home, and testing your audience's patience.

Mo says:

The Meg (2018)

Director: Jon Turteltaub. Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis. 113 min. Rated PG-13. USA/China. Thriller.

You go into these movies, knowing they'll be Jaws lookalikes - shark cage and comparing shark bite span and child going into the water and beach goers running out of the water and all. And honestly, they might not go wrong anywhere. Just that ... nothing really happens. You just sit there, watch these images pass by, and think: if they're not even hoping to top Jaws (like The Shallows did), if they don’t even make an attempt to better Jaws, then why try? Unless they're just Chinese productions promoting the Chinese. Not that I have anything against the Chinese.

Mo says:

Tehran Taboo (2017)

Director: Ali Soozandeh. Cast:  Farhad Abadinejad, Jasmina Ali, Rozita Assadollahy. 96 min. Germany/Austria. Animation.

Interconnecting motion-capture animated stories of three women in current day Tehran. I have issues with films delivering an opening shock of either strong language, strong violence, or perverse sexual themes (a sign of a filmmaker's low confidence in his/her own material), and I have issues with stories that go from filth to filth to filth, with no chance for the viewer to breath, and absolutely no hope in sight (a.k.a. propaganda). Everything you see in this film, or even worse, may be true. But good things happen in Iran (or any other place) also. This is agenda-driven movie-making.

Mo says:

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Director: Spike Lee. Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Alec Baldwin, Michael Buscemi, Harry Belafonte. 135 min. Rated R. Biography/Comedy/Crime.

It's not about the true story of a black police detective who devised a plan to infiltrate the KKK in the 70s. It's about how Spike Lee, after 30 years of movie-making, has perfected his own personal style and angry message - at one time considered propaganda or manipulative, but now ... undeniable. Certain lines of dialogue are right out of Trump's manifesto, which hurts the movie's true-story credibility. But that's not the point. You see perfectly-positioned current-day footage at the end, about how the once-ridiculed horror has taken form today, and you leave the theater in silence.

Trivia: Keeping it in the family! Main hero John David Washington is Denzel's son, and Michael Buscemi is Steve's brother. Seriously, not knowing this, I thought John David acted like Denzel because they'd both been under Spike Lee's tutelage, and kept waiting during the end credits for Steve's name to show up.

Mo says:

MoMagic!

The Glass Castle (2017)

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton. Cast: Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Naomi Watts. 127 min. Rated PG-13. Biography/Drama.

The relationship between a father, and a child. It's complicated enough, and when Woody Harrelson and Brie Larson play out that complication, with Naomi Watts as the mom, via a true story ... it can't get any better. Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, we watch a girl's rags-to-riches tale, how her father (intentionally?) held back from making her life easier, how she tries to stay away, how she cannot ignore the pull. While newcomer Cretton, who brought us Short Term 12 (and Brie Larson) maneuvers dangerously close to cheesy melodrama, you'll feel closer to your parents (or miss them) after watching this.

PS: Thanks for the recommendation, Farzaneh! Had no clue this was out there.

Mo says:

Tully (2018)

Director: Jason Reitman. Cast: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Ron Livingston, Mark Duplass. 95 min. Rated R. Drama/Comedy.

Reitman and writer Diablo Cody's third collaboration (after Juno and Young Adult) is spot on when it comes to the juggling act a pregnant mother must perform handling two other kids (one autistic), a clueless husband, and an entire world that comes crashing down on her - and it blows the mind how Charlize Theron keeps getting better and better with each film. But Cody goes through some head-scratching script-writing jujitsu, just to make an ending twist work; in retrospect, the implausibility factor bogs down the entire film. Reminds you of M. Night Shyamalan, and how beautifully he orchestrates his twists.

Mo says:

First Reformed (2017)

Director: Paul Schrader. Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Ethan Hawke, Cedric Antonio Kyles (Cedric the Entertainer). 113 min. Rated R. Drama.

I already knew, but if I hadn't, hope I'd been experienced enough to guess this plot was from the same person who wrote Taxi Driver. Young man sees filth taking over the world, and with an attractive girl in his rear-view mirror, goes on a naive crusade to single-handedly save the world. Only that this time, the man is a priest, wising up about the apocalypse of climate change. So to avoid the same Travis Bickle ending, Ethan Hawke’s perfect performance notwithstanding, Schrader delivers a final moment so contrived and manufactured, it almost makes you angry.

Mo says:

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Director: Peter Weir. Cast: Rachel Roberts, Anne-Louise Lambert, Vivean Gray, Jacki Weaver. 115 min. Rated PG. Australia. Drama/Mystery.

In the 1900s, girls from a boarding school in Australia picnic at a haunting rocky outcropping ... and then a few of them vanish. Opening on how the teenage girls are doomed to their pure innocence regardless of the reason for their elimination (The Virgin Suicides), the film moves on to depict how others react to a disaster, solely based on how it affects their own needs (Melancholia). But what captivates throughout the film and lingers on, is its constant hallucinatory sense of mystery, compounded by a hypnotic soundtrack. And the conclusion couldn't be wiser.

PS: They've recently remade this as an episodic TV show (available on Amazon Prime). Don't understand how far you can go with such limited material.

Mo says: