Ed's Review Dot Com

BRON Studios, Creative Wealth Media Finance, DC Comics,

Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Josh Pais, Rocco Luna, Marc Maron, Sondra James, Murphy Guyer, Douglas Hodge

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a very poor man, living in a run down tenement in Gotham City with his aged mother Penny Fleck (Frances Conroy). He makes a few bucks any way he can, working as a clown trying to sell product or to entertain children. But Arthur’s dream is to be a standup comedian. His idol is Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) who is the late night talk show host on Gotham TV. But things are not easy for Arthur, and things keep going from bad to worse. His social worker (Arthur definitely has mental issues) is taken away during budget cuts, and when Arthur loses his job, there is not much left to live for. An odd turn of events makes Arthur take on his alternate ego of “Joker” and things looks very bleak for his future.

This is a stunning film. It is not at all pretty, and is very caustic and violent at every turn. It will turn your stomach as you realize the crap a poor man in Gotham has to go through just to survive, and this is the background story of the arch-enemy of Batman, The Joker. We see what made him turn into the deranged villain he was, and we also learn a lot of what we though was true was actually not what happened at all. This film was extremely coarse, but very, very well done. I was stunned at the performance Joaquin turned in here, and I think he’s looking at a great number of awards this season! This has to be nominated as the best performance by a lead actor. It’s really that good. The film is excellent, and has some excellent performances, but Joaquin steals the show and is extremely outstanding. I was deeply moved by this film, and I personally think it was an amazing experience to see this movie that is simply based on one character out of the batman series. This really helped me to understand Joker, and I will certainly not soon forget it. I didn’t expect much when I went to see this film, but I was really touched. I recommend this to anyone who can handle the extreme violence and the very sad things that happened to this poor fellow. I will never think of Jack Nicholson again when I think of Joker. Joaquin was THAT GOOD!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Bron Studios, Escape Artists, MACRO,

Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, Jovan Adepo, Saniyya Sidney, Christopher Mele

Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) and his wife Rose (Viola Davis) struggle to survive in the Hill District in Pittsburgh in the 1950’s. Troy works as a trash man in the city, and brings his pay home to his wife to struggle through another week. Troy is a harsh man, having had a very rough childhood without a father, then spending a stint in prison for being stupid, and now trying to make a go of it for his family. But his older son is estranged and doesn’t come home, and his youngest son has a passion for football and has a planned scholarship for college as a football player. But everything blows up, as the problems mount faster than Troy can deal with them, as it all comes crashing down in a thunderous climax.

This film got a lot of honors during last season’s awards season, and this is probably the best film of 2016 in my book. This is a film that I really wanted to see in the theater, but was never able to pull it off. Then when it came out on DVD, I had it at the top of my queue on the day it was released. NetFlix has been playing games lately where they will send you one less than the number of free items in you queue and make you wait an extra day for the last one. Due to that, Fences ended up on the “Long Wait” game, so I decided rather than going out to RedBox or to rent this ON DEMAND, I would keep it at the top of the queue and see how well NetFlix could do at getting a movie I really wanted to see. Months have gone by and I finally got it this week. This was really worth the wait. One of the lines in the movie is something like: “Some people build fences to keep people out, but some people build them to keep people in.” This movie is called Fences for two reasons. One is the fence that Troy has always been promising to build, but it’s also a metaphor for Troy’s family and how he is losing them while he’s trying to hold him. This film reminded me a lot of the classic “Raising in the Sun” and is a very touching and well performed film about the trials and tribulations facing poor people back in the 50’s that will ring true today. It is very dramatic, and has a lot of dialog, but is very well portrayed. Growing up in Western Pa in the 1950’s myself, I was able to understand the feel of the movie. It’s very Pittsburgh. The entire cast is superb, and there is a lot of harsh reality, but a lot of tenderness underneath that is hard to show. This is an excellent film, and a wonderful story that is very much worth the praise heaped on it. This one should have swept the Oscars, and it was robbed when it didn’t. I recommend you watch this one!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Bron Studios, Creative Wealth Media Finance, Follow Through Productions,

Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Penelope Ann Miller, Gabrielle Union, Aunjanue Ellis, Colman Domingo, Dwight Henry, Roger Guenveur Smith, Mark Boone Junior, Esther Scott

The Birth of a Nation is the story of a real character, Nat Turner (Nate Parker) who as a child was found to be an educated fellow who could read and write, even though raised as a slave on a plantation. Nat became a preacher, and was paid to preach to the other slaves to convince them to work hard and listen to their masters to avoid trouble. But after events that turned Nat into a rebel that hated the treatment of his people in the south and caused him to start a bloody uprising that killed scores of white men, women, and children, until a battalion caught up with him and his men and they were all brought to pay for their rebellion. Based on a true character, this is harsh look at the terrible treatment of slaves and former slaves that occurred in the South in 1831 before the Civil war.

This was an interesting film, that is difficult to criticize without casting a very dim light on yourself. First let me say that the brutality and abuse that did occur was very horrible and unexcused, but I’m not sure that this is a completely accurate vision of what in particular happened this time. Historically Nat Turner did head a bloody uprising 1n 1831, but he was despised both in the North and the South due to the killing of little children and women along with the true slave masters. This film certainly does take one side of the story and makes a very shocking story that may be quite a bit embellished as to what really happened in this instance. Nate Parker, who plays Nat Turner, wrote the screenplay and the story and directed the film besides being the primary actor in it. It has a rather weird vibe to it. Though it’s obvious a brand new film, the style and feel of the movie made you think you were watching one of the old 70’s movies, just by the look of it. It wasn’t really very well put together, and it seems to suffer a bit from one guy having to do everything. Perhaps a bigger team would have helped. Still, it’s very touching and moves you to the core, but I’m not sure if we’re being played or if there’s really much truth to this one particular character and his portrayal historically. Likewise, the title, The Birth of a Nation is a political and racial hot button due the to D.W. Griffith 1915 film about the death of Lincoln and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan which is unfortunately a racist white supremacist one sided film that was certainly made to excuse the Klan, make them heroes, and appeal to the racists that existed, and to create many more of them. Now 1915 was a long time ago, but it seemed to be created to stir people up and tell a very incorrect and lopsided tale of who were the heroes and who were the villains. This film, was most likely given the same title to invoke some of the hatred toward the original film and start people off with a particular point of view. I don’t really think this movie is very fairly told either, as I doubt the true character of Nat Turner was really presented here. It was a really flat one sided portrait that simply appears to fire people up to protest. It doesn’t feel like a historical analysis or a documentary, but a one sided attack with no effort to show any balance. Now I can understand how this could happen, as it is a very touchy subject, and one that we really have to deal with in a rational manner. I just feel like this is throwing gasoline on a house fire and doesn’t serve a really good purpose other than to promote hatred. It’s a shame, as I certainly have seen other films that depicted the horrors that happened through a lot of the South at the time, and as a child of the 50’s I’ve seen it in person and on TV and in people I actually know. It’s an ugly thing to judge someone by the color of his skin, but it’s ugly either way, and we need to come together, not try to drive a wedge in to stir up the radicals and make them develop more hatred. With all that’s going on in our nation these days, it’s hard to tell what it all means. Maybe my own fear of being labeled is causing me to feel uncomfortable at this portrayal, and I really wish I had the opportunity to see Nate Parker and find out if he really hates me because of my skin color, or if he’s actually a really nice person who would like to talk to me as well. I would hate to prejudge that, but going by what I see in this film, I don’t think he’d like me very much. Most all ‘isms suck, but racism is one of the worst. In summary, I’m glad I saw it, but I’m just not sure how to react to what I saw.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Bron Studios, Gary Sanchez Productions,

Thomas Mann, Joan Cusack, Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, Linda Cardellini, Tim Robbins, Loretta Devine, Wes Bentley, Alan Tudyk, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Alice Klieg (Kristin Wiig) is quite a bit off. She’s seeing a shrink and taking her meds and trying to live a normal life, but one day she wins the lottery and suddenly has a boatload of money. Alice is a fanatic for daytime TV, and when she see’s a public domain show on a small local station, she fires the shrink, stops taking the meds and buys herself a TV show called “Welcome to Me” which is all about herself. The folks at the TV station know they’re going under so they play along with this psycho lady, but things don’t go well for TV host Alice as she alienates everyone except the viewing public.

There is a quirky movie, and then there’s a QUIRKY movie. This is definitely QUIRKY

movie, that’s for sure. This is clearly written for Kristen Wiig as this looney lady is right in her wheelhouse. It was interesting and mildly funny film, but I think that at the end of Kiristen Wiig’s run on SNL it suffered from too much Kristen Wiig. I’m afraid this one suffers from the same thing, a bit too much of her. She started to get on my nerves after a while. There is a mix of humor and sadness, and it never got a decent balance between the two. It suffers from the inability to decide what it is. This film has a similar feel to UHF starring Weird Al Yankovic. UHF is a cult classic, but Weird knew that he could not carry every scene, so he brought in a bunch of supporting characters which made this such a pleasure to watch over and over again. They could have used that formula in this film too, as the few sideline characters are not used very well, not very funny or dramatic, and mostly a snooze-fest. That leaves Kristen having to carry every scene which is not really fair. I like Kristen and when she’s in an ensemble cast she is fantastic. This just heaped too much on her shoulders. I don’t recommend this one, as I didn’t find it really that special.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate this movie:
please wait...
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Author: EdG

Unified Pictures, Amberdale Productions, Bron Studios,

Clark Gregg, Amanda Peet, Sam Rockwell, Felicity Huffman, Molly Shannon, Paul Sparks, Niecy Nash, William H. Macy, Saxon Sharbino, Allison Janney

Howard Holloway (Clark Gregg) is a former child star, now a manager of acting children who is having a hard time. His arch-rival, Aldo Shocklee (Sam Rockwell) would do anything to steal his talent, and a casting director who despises him. When he accidentally runs across talented Lydia (Saxon Sharbino) and tries to land her as the next “big thing” not only does he have to fight everyone else, but now he’s got a demanding and over protecting Father trying to ruin it all. Just as everything begins to fall into place, Howard learns a big secret that could cause him to throw it all away himself.

Living in California and having a child who was a child actress for a short time, I can assure you, the business is as ruthless as it comes. This film is about a really nice guy, played by Clark Gregg, who wants to be ruthless to survive, and plays his cards close to the vest, but who can’t bury his heart of gold. Saxon Sharbino was excellent as the “too big for her britches” wanna-be child star who is really good in this film. Her role may leave you despising her, but there’s no question that she did a great job playing the role. With other excellent performers like Felicity Huffman, Molly Shannon, Niecy Nash, Amanda Peet, and William H Macy, there’s a lot of talent, and it can’t help but shine through. No, this is not a great story, but it’s very passable, and quite interesting. Some of it is really funny as well. There are twists and turns, and crosses and double crosses galore, and so there’s a lot of mystery here as well. But most of all it’s a story with a lot of heart, some good old fashioned values, and some lessons to be learned. I thought it was a rather interesting film, and very well made, and think it’s well worth watching.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog