Every once and a while, a movie slips through the cracks while in theaters and I catch up with it down the road. Proudly presenting “down the road”…
The East…What It’s About: An anti-corporate collective called The East attempts to out corporations doing evil, while Britt Marling works for a private security firm that protects a-holes like this. She is tasked with infiltrating The East (and especially getting close to Alexander Skarsgard’s mysterious character). Review: An intelligent, topical thriller that may take too many detours into weirdness (co-writer Marling seems to have some obsession with gross eating habits, vomit, and cult-like behavior judging by this and The Sound of My Voice) but is still well worth watching. Grade: B+
20 Feet From Stardom…What It’s About: A loving documentary to back-up singers throughout the decades, particularly the 60’s through 70’s, and a couple of ones currently trying to become lead singers. Review: Sure, it may have a very limited topic to deal with, and it isn’t the most informative doc I’ve ever seen, but I found the music, the joy, the soul, and the overall energy bustling beneath it to really save the day. Plus, how hot was Claudia Lennear back in the day? Grade: B
Europa Report…What It’s About: A manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa hopes to find other life in the universe. Needless to say, things go awry. Review: The big innovation in this space film is that the entire thing was apparently shot in a Brooklyn apartment on a show-string budget. Well it kind-of shows (it takes a very, very long time for anything truly interesting to happen), and I don’t think most audiences will appreciate the wait. Still, even if I didn’t like the film, I have to admire it. Grade: C+
Parkland…What It’s About: Three intersecting stories right after the moment JFK was shot (Zapruder having his film in the spotlight, the doctors that tired to save JFK’s life, and Lee Harvey Oswald’s brother), none of them particularly compelling but the cast certainly is. Billy Bob Thornton could play a haunted secret service agent in his sleep, and James Badge Dale is soulful as Oswald’s conflicted brother. Still, it feels like a film with no second act, and I wasn’t impressed that it seemed to just buy wholesale the life that Oswald acted alone. Grade: C
Somm…What It’s About: Being a wine sommelier is one of the hardest things in the world to be. You take a ridiculously difficult (and comprehensive) test and less than 200 people have successfully passed it in 50 years. Review: Aside from documentaries about issues, I love a doc that deals with a world few people know about, and this collection of oddballs (wine obsessives are extremely obsessive) are more than compelling. I particularly enjoyed the most obsessive of the bunch (the others, who aren’t nearly as talented, mockingly call him “dad”), and was rooting for him to finally pass that infernal test. Grade: B+