Check out the look, tone music and graphics to the “true story” about an entrepreneur who cleaned up an oil spill and created a place at the table for himself and all who followed.
June 10, we’ll see if the movie measures up to this inspired, witty trailer.
The concept of “public intellectual” never enjoyed the status in the United States that it’s long had elsewhere. We can label a Noam Chomsky, Betty Friedan or Henry Louis Gates as such, but even they’re not venerated the way a David Suzuki has been in Canada or Richard Dawkins is in Britain.
France, of course, flatters itself on making genuine celebrities out of such figures. Bernard-Henri Lévy has been so famous for so long — a near constant presence in French media, public affairs and life — that he’s referred to just by his initials — BHL.
He’s not just an academic, not just a specialist in one field. BHL is a citizen of the world of ideas and in France, often serves as the conscience of the country, a figure who weighs in on ethical and social concerns and calls attention to humanity’s moral responsibilities to others.
That’s the role highlighted by “The Will To See,” a documentary Lévy co-directed to use his globe-trotting life as observer –“bearing witness” to the world’s conflicts to call attention to humanitarian crises and “bad actors” on the world stage.
Lévy does so often under assignment to the famed French magazine “Paris Match,” but he’s not exactly a journalist. His essays read like the carefully composed words of his voice-over narrations in the film, musings on the state of inhumanity and the plight of the weak. And he doesn’t just travel — often in what appear to be diplomatic convoys — a Frenchman in a suit in Nigeria or Kurdistan, Ukraine or wherever men with guns are imposing their will on others. He intervenes, arranges meetings and gives speeches celebrating liberty and the struggle for it in long-embattled (pre-current Russian invasion) Kiev and in newly-liberated Tripoli, proclaiming France’s and his admiration for people who struggle against oppressors.
“I remember Rwanda,” he narrates (in French with English subtitles). “I remember Darfur…I remember Cambodia.”
He started doing this as a young man, inspired by writer, leftist and public intellectual André Malraux’s call for the international community to intervene or at least focus its eyes on civil-war, poverty and cyclone-stricken Bangladesh back in 1971. He revisits Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and even Lisbon (which had its own revolution which he observed in 1974).
Returning to Somalia, even with lots of protection, doesn’t turn out to be a good idea. In Nigeria he details Boko Harum’s Islamo-fascist efforts to “wipe out Christianity” in that corner of Africa. In Afghanistan, he was there just before the West pulled out, lamenting the fate of a local woman he hired for a magazine he started in Kabul after the US and its allies liberated the city from the Taliban.
Lévy is particularly taken with the plight of the Iraqi Kurds, who have a hard time answering his questions about who their biggest threat is — ISIS, whom they have been fighting, or “Erdogan,” the Turkish ruler who turned on them with the West more or less permitting an alleged ally to slaughter a valued partner in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
He hears stories of massacres and meets an African village’s sole survivor, revisits the infamous Baba Yar Holocaust massacre site, shows us the armed thugs of this corner of the world or that one preying on and “ethnic cleansing” the unarmed, and notes drolly, “Isn’t war grand?”
All that said, I came away from the film with mixed feelings about the man. His compassion is unquestionable, but his methods have a patronizing, self-aggrandizing “show the flag” effect. A French Jewish intellectual telling homeless, broke young Muslim refugees that “Christians, Muslims and Jews are brothers,” when he’s in a designer suit and they’re in donated clothes is painfully tone deaf. They’re too in need of help and too polite to roll their eyes at that.
He complains about COVID lockdowns and is downright contemptuous handing out face masks in Lesbos, Greece, where the “there is no COVID” he says, noting that the kids will make theatrical masks out of them.
He stops by Gaza, highlights his lifelong support for Israel “which was born the same year as I,” and dismissively declares “But I don’t want to deal with Hamas,” and abruptly leaves. WTH BHL? The optics on that are just awful, suggesting his compassion not only has limits, but that they can be tribal.
A film that has a whiff of ego trip about it lets the guy show off his own petard, and lets us see him hoist himself by it.
Still, even if he’s only bringing these global trouble spots to the French and only hoping that “we do something” about it, he’s doing some good, one supposes. And as he notes of Somalia, “the world forgets” about these places after a while, even though the conflicts burn on and the tide of refugees ebbs and flows, even though most of us have lost “The Will to See.”
Rating: unrated, images of massacres, victims of war
Cast: Bernard-Henri Lévy
Credits: Directed by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel. A Cohen Media Group release.
Running time: 1:38
This show has Mike Myers taking on multiple roles in a multinational plot to take over the world, or some such.
Keegan-Micheal Key, Lydia West, Jennifer Saunders and Ken Jeong are among the co-stars.
It premieres May 5, and not to punch a guy(s) when he’s/they’re down, but there isn’t a laugh in the preview. Is there one over the course of six episodes?
June 10, you will believe dinosaurs like snow!
Turning the dark children’s fantasy “The Little Mermaid” into science fiction seems kind of pointless, but as they say in Japan, “Anime’s gonna anime.”
The Japanese WIT studio works primarily in TV. But when Warner Brothers Animation gets a commission from Netflix, “Bubble” becomes their chance to make a (streaming) feature film.
It’s set in a literal bubble in a dystopian Tokyo. A “gravity anomaly” heralded by bubbles that rained down on the planet left buildings half-collapsed, suspended pieces of them floating around with trains, rusting out buses and bubbles — always more bubbles
The only people living in this flooded, ruined Tokyo are hardcore parkour teams who take advantage of the glitches in gravity to compete in streamed and gambled on “Battlekour” games.
The Blue Blazers are the best, thanks to their loner parkour ace Hibiki (voiced by Zach Aguilar in the English dub of the film). He trains, blocks out the world via his headphones and leaves his four teammates, their “supervisor” Shin (Keith Silverstein) and the scientist that lives with them on this rusting out Japanese Coast Guard ship in the half-submerged city to their own devices. Makoto (Erica Lindbeck) is studying “the anomaly” and the its impact on the “lost boys” (they’re orphans) who risk their necks leaping from building to rubble to bubble in the battlekour contests.
Hibiki doesn’t hear music through his Beats. He picks up something musically strange and ethereal emanating from the mostly-disintegrated Tokyo version of the Eiffel Tower. And one day, nosing around there, he falls into one of the “ant lion trap” vortexes that bedevil this Water World. That’s when the feral pixie he comes to call Uta (Emi Lo) comes to his rescue.
She doesn’t speak, doesn’t appear to have any origin story, and seems to possess magical powers. Hibiki mentors her to repay his debt to her. But it’s Matoko’s reading of “The Little Mermaid” to Uta that triggers her desire to speak, and her eagerness to state the obvious.
Hibiki, my wide-anime-eyed lad, you’re the “prince” and I am the Little Mermaid!
Because those songs he’s was hearing from that tower? That was her singing.
The animation is closer to classic anime in its underanimated jerkiness, the Big Eyed characters and the post-apocalyptic punk milieu. Boy band wannabes and pixies populate this universe, with rival parkour teams including the cyborgish “Undertakers.”
This world will be turned upside down by Uta’s presence in it, and gravity’s increasing unreliability.
This isn’t the least interesting story I’ve ever seen told in anime, but it’s right up there. The dialogue’s of the “I wish I had parents! To talk me OUTTA things like this!” school.
There’s a lot of shouting in anime, and the worse the anime, the more shouting there is.
As a film subgenre, anime’s hits-and-misses batting average is no better or worse than any other film genre. There are rare great films, a few good ones, and a lot of brainless filler like “Bubble” that’s perfectly representative of the art form, but nothing that would hook most first-time viewers on it.
Rating: TV-PG, action violence
Cast: The voices of Zach Aguilar, Emi Lo, Erica Lindbeck, Keith Silverstein, Robbie Draymond and Laura Stahl
Credits: Directed by Tetsurō Araki, scripted by Gen Urobuchi, Noako Sato and Renji Ōki. A WIT Studios/Warner Brothers Animation film for Netflix.
Running time: 1:41
Boy, if Disney really wants to get Wuhan Ron’s “Don’t Say Gay” Goat, they should buy him a subscription to Hulu. With “Crush,” Hulu serves up the gayest gay vulgarian heroine in a gay fantasia of a high school ever…since “Glee!” anyway.
How gay? They cast Megan Mullally as the kid’s indulgent, supportive and overly “helpful” mother. Who better to pass along “glow in the dark dental dams” and toothbrush-as-vibrator advice? Well, if Harvey Fierstein isn’t available?
“Crush” is a formulaic high school rom-com with one great big out and over-powering gay twist. First-time feature director Sammi Cohen and screenwriters Kirsten King and Casey Rackham park this version of the virginal teen trope — starring Rowan Blanchard of TV’s “Girl Meets World” — in a school so gay-friendly that “coming out” is no longer an issue, “acceptance” is a given” and the toughest decision might be which of Miller High’s many alluring little lesbians to focus her attention on.
There’s the Wiccan, the “horse skank” (into dressage), the short-haired influencer, or the sporty-hotty Gabriella (Isabella Ferreira) whom out-but-never-been-kissed Paige has crushed on since elementary school.
Gabriella was the classmate who first gave her the tinglies, prompting Paige to come out to her mom.
Only Miss Popular Gabriella barely knows Paige exists. Despite the support of Dillon (Tyler Alvarez), Paige’s straight-best-friend — upending THAT “gay BFF” trope is as edgy as this gets — and Dillon’s girlfriend (Teala Dunn) and opponent in the class president election, Paige seems too shy and inexperienced to make a play for the princess.
“Am I at least a ‘top?'”
“Bottom…POWER bottom.”
That’s pretty much the tone of “Crush,” something that casting Mullally tips off. This is “Will & Grace” in-your-face sitcom gay, where the slang, the (girls) locker room talk, even the “I’ll finally learn to to insert a tampon without the end sticking out” banter passes “frank” on its way to “coarse.”
Mom’s raised Paige in a “sex positive house,” and as Dillon’s on a first name basis with his pal’s mother, their exchanges are bitchy-witty and sit-commie unreal in the extreme. Mom is flushed and responsive to Paige’s authoritarian track coach’s (Aasif Mandvi’s) advances.
“I guess the ‘promiscuous gene’ skips a generation,” Dillon quips. “That’s what they SAY,” Mom quips back.
The plot is just as obvious. Gabriella has a sportier, more introverted and more butch sister, AJ (Auli’i Cravalho). Isn’t she fated to be the one Paige falls for, playing by “Breakfast Club/Pretty in Pink” rules?
“Obvious” is where “Crush” goes a little wrong, and that’s just the start. The story has no real villain, just a quest to discover who “Kingpun,” the school’s graffiti artist/prankster is. Paige is the one the principal (Michelle Buteau, trying too hard) is prepared to suspend over this not-the-least-bit-amusing prank/vandalism, and on the flimsiest of evidence.
Paige’s “goal,” aside from first love, is to get into a Cal Arts summer program for budding artists this coming summer. We see nothing of her art that suggests she’s Cal Arts material, and the journey to creating more “personal” work is one of the movie’s non-starter plot threads.
The “kingpun” bits produce zero giggles. Track pratfalls — Paige joins the team just to be closer to Gabriella, to add an extracurricular activity and to avoid suspension — land just as flat. Thus all the laugh laughs must come from the shock-value frankness of the foul-mouthed kids and adults, the assorted high school (student and adult) “types” and the way tolerance run amok has shaped this high school’s conversations.
Yes, the kids are into”edibles” and drinking. But there’ll be no “Seven Minutes in Heaven” make-out sessions on the track team’s road trip, thank you very much.
“Noooo, that perpetuates a Christian narrative!”
The leads have little chemistry, something enough re-takes and clever editing can usually overcome. Cravalho (TV’s “Rise”) has a camera spark that veteran child actress Blanchard may have lost.
And I dare say none of those shortcomings will matter to the kids who relish the film’s inclusive vibe.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the filmmakers hope, that you’ll be so swept up in “representation” that you won’t notice how generic the story is, and how dull and drab and laugh-starved its execution turns out to be.
They went to all the trouble of nailing their “messaging,” and forgot to put it in a comedy that’s romantic or a romance that’s comic.
Hardly the sort of thing that will convert the Republican homophobes of Florida and their dear leader.
Rating: TV-MA, lots of profanity, frank talk about sex
Cast: Rowan Blanchard, Auli’i Cravalho, Megan Mullally, Aasif Mandvi, Isabella Ferreira, Tyler Alvarez, Teala Dunn and Michelle Buteau.
Credits: Directed by Sammi Cohen, scripted by Kirsten King and Casey Rackham. A Hulu release.
Running time: 1:33
There’s a lot of good stuff to chew on in this Hollywood Reporter take on Netflix hitting the wall, this time from a content quality and quantity point of view.
They greenlit an insane number of series and movies, threw a lot of money at people who either knew how to indulge themselves in spending it, or have no business spending it in the first place.
Spielberg and I have been saying that for years.
Kim Masters’ piece on their reckoning is here, schadenfreude and all. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/netflixs-big-wake-up-call-the-power-clash-behind-the-crash-1235136004/
Seems like a week doesn’t go by when somebody isn’t serving up a fresh batch of New Orleans music and New Orleans musicians in documentary form.
So for everybody who missed the earlier takes, and who can’t wait for the history of “Jazz Fest” doc that’s coming in a week or so, here’s “Take Me to the River: New Orleans.” Record producer and sometime filmmaker Martin Shore delivers a sequel to 2014’s “Take Me to the River” about the soul sound of Stax Records in Memphis, this time digging into the roots of funk and the ongoing evolution of jazz.
He spent years rounding up the vast extended Neville family members and Doctor John, Irma Thomas and legends from this or that brass band — Preservation Hall to Soul Rebels. He’d park them in the studio for live-on-tape sessions with Ledisi (a duet with New Orleans soul-pop legend Irma Thomas), Ledisi, Ani DiFranco, Snoop Dogg and others, contemporizing their sound and giving stars or rising stars the chance to work with their heroes.
Drummer Shannon Powell displays his mastery of the sticks and toothless grin as he shows off at this “I beat to eat” skills at his kit. Jon Batiste talks about the musical ferment one grows up in there, the mentors, teachers and long line of musicians who somebody coming up can learn from. Batiste learned how to lead a band, just by watching the legions of them performing at any given time in and around the city.
The music bumps and twists, roars and toots — Dixieland to funk, blues to soul, all of it tracing its roots back to Congo Square’s drum shows during the 18th and 19th century, when the city’s slaves would gather to play.
Anecdotes pour out and John Goodman narrates and reminds us of all the famous names in New Orleans music captured in this film who passed away before Shore got it finished.
As a film, its mix of interviews, little snippets of street life and Goodman’s drawled history lessons take a back seat to the loose and breezy recording sessions all around town. There’s no re-inventing the wheel, here. As New Orleans already went to the trouble of inventing the music and building a culture around it, all Shore had to do was point his camera towards the sound of the drums and he was good to go. He also convinced all these icons of the scene to sit down and gather round one more time for the microphones, recording gear and cameras, which is the real point here.
No, it’s not a cinematic wonder. But it’s educational, all this stuff about “second lines” and the “Habanera tempo” who learned from whom and who wrote or invented what. And Shore is to be celebrated for getting all these folks documented and down on film before it’s too late.
Rating: unrated, some profanity
Cast: Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Ledisi, G-Eazy, Snoop Dogg, Charles Neville, Allen Toussaint, Jon Batiste and Doctor John, with many others, narrated by John Goodman
Credits: Directed by Martin Shore, scripted by Robert Gordon and Martin Shore. A 360 Distribution release.
Running time: 1:50
Jerrod Carmichael — who also directed — and Christopher Abbott have had enough and a suicide pact is their plan B.
Can Tiffany Haddish, Henry Winkler or JB Smoove talk them out of it? Do any of them even want to?
May 13, in theaters and streaming from Annapurna.
Think of the thriller “Silverton Siege” as a South African “Dog Day Afternoon” — a hostage situation, a bank surrounded and a tense stand-off with potent political implications.
Director Mandla Dube and a superb cast deliver a tight and tense true story that hews to genre formula because that’s what hostage thrillers all do. There are just a couple of ways this all ends, after all.
But stars Thabo Ramatesi, Noxolo Dlamini and Stefan Erasmus animate a wildly-improvised 1980 day of political terrorism, designed to “make this country ungovernable,” tumbling into Plan C after Plan A is aborted and Plan B — their escape — is foiled. And with his first produced screenplay, Sabelo Mgidi makes a wry, raw comment on the delusions of “racial purity” at a moment when Apartheid finally started to crack.
Four “freedom fighters” were set to blow up the tanks at a huge fuel storage facility. But cagey, experienced Calvin Khumalo (Rametesi) smells a trap just before it springs. They escape in their van, only to be chased all over Pretoria, losing one of their number in the process.
Captain Langerman (veteran South African heavy Arnold Vosloo) has them cornered, at last. That’s when they storm into a bank, take its diverse population of racially segregated customers hostage, and try to bargain their way out.
Things get really interesting when their negotiated escape goes wrong, and Khumalo decides that whatever transpires, this just became bigger than these three and their hostages.
“What’s the price of freedom? EVERYTHING.”
The “true story” angle immunizes the picture — somewhat — from any tendency to mutter “Oh come on!” Some of the sermonizing you have to figure was invented, the “non violence” ethos declared by the freedom fighters sanitizes them and as character names were changed, other elements aren’t the literal truth.
There’s an African American boxing promoter (Shane Wellington) in line, irked at overt racism by some Boer on the staff — “I ‘m from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I deal with dumbass rednecks all the time!” — and even more irked when the freedom fighters threaten his safety, his livelihood and his bedazzled briefcase full of cash.
“We have an American citizen in here,” slows the roll of the police, with an officious martinet who has his own SWAT team showing up.
A priest, a South Asian man, a woman of mixed-race “passing” and a bank supervisor (Elani Dekker) with her own complicated racial history are among the other hostages. And some bull-necked bigot bank security chief figures he gets to decide who is “white?”
That adds weight to a movie that does well enough with the standard hostage drama situations — bickering amongst the hostage takers, “Stockholm Syndrome” with a hint of racial tolerance to it among the hostages, escalating stakes as demands are met or delayed.
Ramatesi, Dlamini as the female firebrand Terra and “pregnant wife” gunman Aldo (Erasmus) are terrific leads, giving us layered characters with competing agendas in a generally brisk and taut tale.
“Silverton” may be more on-the-nose with its messaging than in its literal history. But making his second feature film, Dube gets a heroic yarn out of a fairly conventional genre piece and sets a couple of fresh faces up for stardom in the process. After all, “Dog Day Afternoon” was fictionalized, too.
Rating: TV-MA, violence, profanity
Cast: Thabo Ramatesi, Noxolo Dlamini, Arnold Vossloo, Stefan Erasmus, Elani Dekker and Shane Wellington
Credits: Directed by Mandla Dube, scripted by Sabelo Mgidi. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:41
Movie Nation 