lynnfriedman Reviews

Rush (I) (2013)

Not Just Cars Driving in Circles

[9/10 · 25 September 2013]

Just look at that face on the poster. Who cares if the film looks like it's about men in fast cars going around in a circle? This is the perfect date movie. You have both action and meaningful dialog. RUSH tells the true story of the inexplicably long rivalry between two race car drivers in the 1970s. We follow Mr Hunk (James Hunt), and Mr Rat Face (Niki Lauda) as they fight to maintain their first place Grand Prix title from each other.

Thank the heavens this isn't a 3D movie, the action was intense enough. RUSH goes deep into the weighty topics of life. You will find your brain grappling with the meaning of friendship, ambition, even marriage. We watch Hunt and Lauda mature and adjust their priorities in life. Well at least Lauda does. Chris Hemsworth, playing James Hunt looks every bit the Bad Boy with boundless energy for women, booze, drugs, and looking death in the eye with every race. Daniel Brühl plays the contradictory Niki Lauda, equally motivated to win, but by his own strict set of rules calculated to avoid death.

As the story unfolds we meet girlfriends, managers, drivers, investors and assorted 1970s stereotypes that serve to flesh out the incalculable motivations and pressures involved in keeping the show on the road. Everyone has something to lose. Niki learns that happiness is the enemy. "It means you have something to lose." James seems to be suppressing his thoughts and feeling throughout the film with his physicality.

Trust me, RUSH is, well, a rush. (impulse control issues)

Independent Lens: Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey (2013) Season 14, Episode 18

Rags to Riches Nice Guy Arnel

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

Whew, just in time. If you're a hard core Gleek you already know how awesome Journey is. When the band needed to find a new lead singer to replace Steve Perry, little did they know they would become international icons of world peace and all things warm and fuzzy. Thus begins a real life fairy tale. Our story begins with Arnel, living an impoverished life in Manila. This is serious unrelenting poverty. When his mother died the family spun out of control. They had to sell their television, fridge, and furniture in exchange for her medical care. When the money ran out they were kicked out of their home. Dad took the two younger kids and at age thirteen Arnel was on his own. He would sing at funerals for biscuits, sleeping in the park with the other homeless kids. Eventually Arnel got a gig singing with a Journey tribute band. On the other side of the globe, dinking around YouTube, Journey's lead guitarist Neil discovers our young signer, pops him an email and poof, off Arnel goes on a plane to LA. He gets the job. Fast forward to his first gig in 2008 in front of 18,000 people plus 25 million South Americans grooving to the live simulcast. We shadow Arnel as he works through his total fear, not that you would know watching him. He never ran out of air while singing, jumping and running for joy around the stage. Arnel can now buy his family a nice home in the Philippines, bringing them all together again. We see that his values are solid. It's all about family, no room for the excesses that take down so many American stars. Arnel speaks to the camera, telling us that life is full of mystery, he lives in a castle now, all is well, problems will come and go. You gain, you lose, that's how life is. This guy is for real. This story is real. What a high to know that Arnel is out there somewhere in the world, still touring and putting smiles on thousands of faces. I don't think there's a word for ennui in the Filipino language.

Palaces of Pity (2011)

Everything I Learned About Life From Tending Goats

[5/10 · 2 June 2012]

Women side by side, looking at each other, relating to each other, different but the same inside.

We've got an old Portuguese woman with an iPad, her pierced face granddaughters, and goats. Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt's film is an elusory blend of classic and ultramodern, compassion and irony, all in the spirit of the famed Portuguese writer Jose Saramago. Life is pretty bleak in these parts and people don't talk much. No Mercedes problems here. Grandma doesn't have to lecture the girls on right and wrong or how to grow up into responsible women. Everything they need to know about life can be learned by the zen of tending goats.

Worst in Show (2011)

THe Dogs Don't Know They're Ugly

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

Apparently, the world's largest ugly dog contest is held every year at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, CA.

What's not to love about ugly dogs? Worst in Show amazes us with nature's diversity. Who knew there were so many ways to be ugly? Ugly is manifested via genetics, injury, and illness. What starts out as a happy freak show evolves into philosophical ruminations on morality. Kind of reminds me of an old Twilight Zone theme. The dogs don't know they're ugly, they're just basking in the attention. We meet a lot of quirky pet guardians. Some appear to be beyond emotionally involved in this supposedly light-hearted contest. Rivalries are revealed, hearts are broken, and lives are literally transformed.

A quick google reveals an obsessive amount of international press at this annual anti-beauty contest. There's a lot of intellectualism packed into this 90 minutes, but admit it, don't you want to see what their owner's look like?

Mother and Child (2009)

You'll Laugh, You'll Cry

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

An oasis amongst the summer film dreck, Mother & Child, is another fine offering by Rodrigo Garcia, (Nine Lives), who just happens to be the son of famed author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

This is no mere chick flick, which it is, but it's so much more.

The film introduces us to three diverse women whose lives manage to weave in and out of each others with dramatic consequences. The central theme is motherhood & adoption.

There's Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), a smart, beautiful lawyer with ice in her veins. She starts up a romance with her boss (Samuel L. Jackson).

For Karen (Annette Bening), it's the heartbreak of an unknown daughter that colors everything in her life. Her love store has gone out of business. She never got over her teen age pregnancy and being forced to give her baby up for a closed adoption. A new co-worker at her health care service ( Jimmy Smits), somehow manages to thaw her out with his gentle persistence.

Finally, we meet Lucy (Kerry Washington), the young woman distraught over her failure to produce a child with her husband. We find the two at an adoption agency, the central plot clearinghouse.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, but you won't feel guilty, even if you're a man. Mother & Child is a beautifully acted intelligent film.

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Die Sinners, Die

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

We love retro fashion and design because there's beauty and a touch of irony in nostalgic simplicity. If I want a mindless good time in film land, there's nothing like a trip to the past that never existed. I'm thinking of Doris Day singing over daisies and the like. But wait, there's more ladies, I bring you Elmer Gantry, circa 1960. This film really breaks the mold, I mean not moldy at all, in fact disturbingly current in it's profile of a man living by his wits alone who scores big time when he discovers the path to success through exploiting the town folks religious beliefs.

Elmer Gantry is a shady traveling salesman who happens upon a revival meeting. When he sees the beautiful evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer filling the tent up with paying sinners, a light bulb goes off. Forget farm tools, religion is the plastics of 1920′s America. There's a point where you start to believe that Elmer will go straight. Alas, he can't escape his womanizing past with the reappearance of Lulu Baines, the bawdy bad girl he can't forget.

There's so much going on here. Elmer Gantry was based on a novel by Sinclair Louis. We've got Shirley Jones in her Oscar winning role as Lulu Baines. Yes, that Shirley, the Partridge Family mom. Remember now, it's 1960 and Lulu describes a scene saying, "he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps." Oh yeah, and "you're amusing and you smell like a real man"

Changeling (2008)

Irony, Metaphor & Denial

[2 June 2012]

Another bleak, compelling, true story from the past.

Clint Eastwood directs pouty-lipped & fashionable working single mom Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) as she devotes her life to the return of her kidnapped son. Fans of the current political corruption cases will enjoy the irony popping up all over the place in this tale of 1940s Los Angeles political machine corruption. If this wasn't a true story you could never believe that this happened.

The poor mom's son is finally returned to her, only problem is he isn't her child. So does everyone say we're sorry madam, we'll keep looking for your son, oh noooooo. They try to convince Mrs Collins she must be mistaken, and when she persists they try to convince her she is crazy, going so far as to lock her up in the nut house along with several obviously intelligent, sane women who had the bad sense to cross some man in authority. I swear this film is a metaphor for all the denial we put ourselves through to survive our dysfunctional times.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)

The Swedes Interpret Black Power and TV Guide

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

The Black Power Mix Tape 1967 – 1975 is a fascinating documentary consisting of present day interviews mixed with 30 year old archival footage shot by a Swedish team and never seen in the US. This chronicle of the Black Power movement in the United States from 1967 to 1975 gives us the cultural and political back story from the point of view of prominent African Americans. The original music is by Questlove and Om'Mas Keith. While this is serious stuff, there are a few unintentionally amusing bits thanks to the curiosity and naive eyes of Swedish journalists. TV Guide, that's all i'm going to say. Much of the story takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area and includes amazing moments with Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale. Local actor Danny Glover is co-producer.

Sleeping Beauty (2011)

This Ain't Your Granny's Sleeping Beauty

[6/10 · 2 June 2012]

Remember the Sleeping Beauty story of your childhood? You know, that family friendly, romantic fantasy musical? OK, now take out everything but the beautiful girl and the fantasy, add a lot of soft core and inexplicable behavior.

The 2012 Sleeping Beauty is a complete enigma. I suppose it's about a young student exploring her sexuality, or maybe exploiting her body for financial gain. Ultimately I arrived at the conclusion that our lovely Lucy was searching for her true self. In the classic modern single gal mode she signed up for any and all experiences offered to her. All those drugs, unexplained relationships, just plain weird habits, and random sexual encounters added up to a modern upside down fairy tail. Instead of getting the prince, Lucy is searching for a genuine feeling. We don't have a clue what makes her tick and neither does she.

For about an hour and a half you will be completely baffled by our lead character. Lucy is working her way through college by taking odd jobs such as a test rat in white walled labs and office drudgery in a perpetual paper pushing office. Who could blame Lucy for jumping at the chance of making some big bucks when she hooks up with a kinky temp agency.

Initially she is hired to serve rich people food in some fancy private club. The catch? All the waitresses wear racy lingerie and allowed themselves to be admired/leered at by old men. But wait, there's more. Lucy keeps getting promoted to more challenging and lucrative assignments. Finally the audience gets to see the sleeping beauty reference. Not to spoil things for you, let me just say she drinks a potion, she sleeps, and old men do mysterious things to her. Yes, human sexuality can be perverse. You will see many examples of this, some full frontal, and behavior including random acts of unexpected kindness and disturbing brutality. This isn't your granny's Sleeping Beauty. Or if it is, she didn't write a book about it so you'll never know.

Mary Lou (2009– )

If Glee and Abba Had A Love Child....

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

The love child of Glee & Abba is living in Israel and her name is Mary Lou. This film is a wonderful romp with great music on the inside, serious messages on the inside.

Mary Lou was originally created as an award winning four part Israeli television series in 2010. If you are one of those people who get catchy songs stuck in your head, consider yourself warned. This musical tells the story of young Meir Levi who shares his mom Miriam's love of the Israeli rock star Svika Pick. Pick even makes a cameo appearance in one scene. His music has an infectious 70′s beat with raw emotions and a touch of the exotic thanks to the melodic Hebrew lyrics. With Miriam singing Pick's tunes my mind drifted off to a parallel universe with Doris Day singing Kurt Cobain's depressingly raw lyrics with her signature sunny disposition.

Meir and his mother Miriam are living a hum drum life in rural Israel. The opening scene has them dusting in matching head scarfs, our first hint that this young boy might grow up to bat for the other team. My favorite quote from the film is spoken by Miriam as she explains that "it's easier to defeat dust than sadness."

Mom mysteriously leaves town during Meir's tenth birthday party. As a slightly built bleached blond teen of flamboyantly non-hetero appearance, Meir suffers through the stereotypical high school taunting. If you have watched enough Glee you already know that the worst tormentors are acting out of fear of their own sexual identity issues. Meir's beautiful gal pal Shuli makes life worth living as his trusted confidant and protector. (Shuli is played by Dana Frider, who was discovered on the Israeli version of "So You Think You Can Dance.")

Enter Gabriel, the impossibly handsome dark skinned love interest of both Meir and Shuli. Shuli forms a relationship with Gabi and the heartbroken Meir moves to the big city of Tel Aviv. His quest is to find the famous Svika Pick, whom he has woven an elaborate fantasy involving his mother having run off to sing in Pick's band. Along this journey he is befriended by Ori who introduces him to the world of drag performing. Meir eventually becomes a cast member of "The Holly Wigs" and transforms himself into "Mary Lou", a character in one of his mother's favorite Svika Pick songs.

Meir and his friends learn universal coming of age lessons and all arrive at their own version of adulthood by the end of the film. You also get to find out what happened to Miriam. Get to know Mary Lou, you'll be blown away.

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness (2011)

The Singing Yiddish Milkman

[8/10 · 2 June 2012]

Have you ever wondered if anyone will remember J.K. Rowling in the next century? Hard to believe that Harry Potter could ever fade from the popular consciousness and require a promulgating documentary. Case in point, Sholem Aleichem, the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, a renowned Yiddish author and playwright. His chosen name is a Yiddish variation the expression shalom aleichem, meaning "hello", or "peace be with you" in Hebrew.

The musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on one of his many stories about Tevye the Milkman. This was the first commercially successful English-language play about Jewish life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Born in 1859 in the Russia Empire, Solomon Rabinovich's father was a rich merchant with a penchant for gambling. This led to the family's economic downfall. Solomon grew up to mirror his father's foibles and bring his own family to financial ruins several times. What he had going for him is his vast intelligence and passion to keep the Yiddish language alive. He used his insight into his own psychology to create characters that served as metaphors for larger Jewish cultural issues of assimilation and identity.

Rabinovich's granddaughter Bel Kaufman was the author of "Up the Down Staircase", made into a popular film. Fleeing the Russian pograms and debtors his family finally settled in New York in 1914. An estimated 100,000 mourners turned out for his New York funeral in 1916.

The Flood (2010)

Life Sucks & Then You Learn Things

[7/10 · 2 June 2012]

Mabul is one of the emotionally heaviest opening night films i've ever seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Best to know that in advance, you're in for a night of contemplation and hopefully relief that your life doesn't mirror that of our lead actress. The story of Mabul (The Flood) takes place on the Israeli coast. Teacher Miri has to put up a brave front to keep her business alive. She creates an emotional island for herself by having an affair. Her husband Gidi pretends he's going to work every day. Their son Yoni keeps the class bullies at bay by completing their homework assignments. All hell breaks loose when his autistic brother rejoins the family. An interesting aside is the assumption that it's okay for her young son to act all macho and boss her around since I guess he's a man in training. A great insight into the local mores.

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

Delivers Exactly What You'd Expect

[7/10 · 2 June 2012]

Critics will trash this film, audiences will make it a summer hit. What to Expect When You're Expecting delivers exactly what you expect. Heidi Murkoff wrote the same-titled pregnancy manual 28 years ago. Hollywood has apparently decided the masses are ready to laugh at the terrifying side effects of being preggers. Stuff like uncontrollable flatulence, leaky pee valve, hormonal roller coasters and all the other truths behind the "pregnancy glow" myth. In the standard screenplay story arc, five couple's lives intersect as they find their way through the fears and joys of new parenthood.

This candidate for "straight to video" saves itself from obscurity by rounding up a gang of actors that had openings in their schedule. The box office sure bets include Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Dennis Quaid, and Chris Rock. Our couples are predictably attractive and well off, or attractive, incredibly talented and struggling. Pregnancies are surprisingly planned and unplanned. Some couples are married and there's even a cross-racial adoption. The only disappointment is they're all hetero. Ever heard of Modern Family? Middle America is ready.

Chris Rock and his dad dudes roll in the park every Saturday with their manly strollers and Baby Björns. I'm still trying to figure out what's so funny about the running joke of an unsupervised accident prone toddler in their posse. To be fair, there were lots of foot stomping laughs from the audience until the gasps of horror at the last pratfall.

Luckily for the moms and social services, all confessions of lax parenting are strictly kept in the man code vault. Loved the hapless husband constantly upstaged by his wealthy and competitive dad whose beautiful trophy wife never breaks a sweat in her six-inch heels. She's a mommy unicorn. Two of our Type A working moms are punished for thinking they can carry on as normal. One woman has to resign herself to bed rest while the other breaks down in the middle of a speech on the joys of motherhood. The speech is a great confessional gob of embarrassing pregnancy goo that your frenemies would never tell you.

I feel obligated to rant a bit about our culture's love of happy endings. Hollywood reinforces almost every plot with a metaphorical cherry on top. WTEWE= pregnancy sucks, don't fall for the parenthood trap, oh, and it's the only thing that makes life worth living. Huh?

Your Sister's Sister (2011)

Take Two Sisters, Add One Love Interest

[6/10 · 2 June 2012]

We're not in Hollywood blockbuster big-budget-explosion-land anymore. Apparently there are other ways to wash away the dull moments without explosions and gigantic budgets. The plot begins as a simple weekend in the country. The dialog is mostly unscripted. Shooting without a big Hollywood budget and a crazy tight schedule, Your Sister's Sister holds our interest with the relationships of the characters. Take two sisters and one love interest and you've got the classic play of betrayal and forgiveness, the rivalry that's only paired with siblings, love that's not returned, and all sorts of human relatable fears. This is the kind of film that stays in your head long after the credit roll.

Sex and the City (2008)

Sex & The City: Girl's Night Out Flick-o-Year

[7/10 · 28 May 2008]

This is the Diva Night Out film of the year. Put on your cruel shoes, big hat and stuff you cocktail money into your designer bag.

It was clear from the loud screams during the opening credits that this was going to be a crowd pleaser. You got your four gals, their love interests, gay pals, and new for this film, the obligatory black side-kick girl friend. Jennifer Hudson, you rock girl.

Two and a half hours didn't exactly fly by, rather it felt like blitzing an entire season on a great big screen.

Highlights: Fully exposed male member,hot simulated sex, fashion, weddings, girl bonding, lots and lots of shoes, & Big's real name and email address ([e-mail])

Favorite Quotes: "40 is the last year a woman can be photographed in a bridal dress without the unintended Diane Arbus reference".

"Why is it that we are willing to write our own vows, but not our own rules."

Personally i have a hard time with the well worn plot twists based on a misunderstanding. I spent a good 80% of the film with an anxious pit in my stomach wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Oh why doesn't she just check her voice mail messages and see that her man was just working through his own issues. Ultimately these misunderstandings served as life lessons for our gals as they struggled with their relationship issues. Samantha ponders the loss of her identity as part of a "we". Miranda and Carrie turn their lives upside down before they come around to seeing their love interest's point of view. Growing up means realizing it's not all about you anymore. Unless of course that's the kind of life you choose. Without revealing the ending i will state that there were smiles all over the lobby, but by the time i got to the parking lot below i found myself front and center of a huge verbal girl fight over blocking the exit lane. Perhaps all those 20 something audience members were in a sublimated funk pondering the concept of becoming a 40 something single.

Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Socially Awkward in the Land of Tuna Casseroles :contains mild plot Spoilers

[9/10 · 3 December 2007]

For starters, it's about a socially awkward young man who lives in the garage behind his older brother Gus's ( Paul Schneider) house in a generic mid-west sort of small town. Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, is a loner at work and a recipient of pity by Gus and his wife. One day at work, Lars observes his cube mate surfing porn and discovers the wonderful world of anatomically correct life size dolls. By the time the large shipping box appears on his doorstep he has convinced himself that the plastic vixen inside is actually his internet girlfriend, in town to spend some quality time with him. The film could easily have devolved into some bad SNL skit, but happily it reveals itself to be a surprisingly entertaining study on people's need for intimacy and the nature of acceptance. If you hang in there and have any affection for the Midwest you will grow to love this film. You have got to love a town full of people who don't just humor Lars, rather join in on his delusion. After all, she's new in town and doesn't know anyone. Having grown up in the land of tuna casseroles and jello molds i found myself completely invested in the plot. Lars & Bianca have a chaste relationship, no frat house jokes here. There are a lot of laughs thanks to the absurd nature of fitting the visiting plastic girl into the local social scene. Bianca ultimately becomes a vehicle for Lars to work out his issues with his brother and with the town's help, ultimately heal himself. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is indy-style entertainment. You can get the creeps next week with "No Country for Old Men" or "Before the Devil Knows your Dead."