HELL AND HIGH WATER, SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU, FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS, HANDS OF STONE, THE INTERVENTION, THE LAND, MORRIS FROM AMERICA, plus Preston Sturges classics.

I was thrilled to feel like I discovered a hidden gem.  The new film HELL AND HIGH WATER is just that.  It features Chris Pine and Ben Foster playing brothers on a bank robbing crime spree in an economically depressed modern day east Texas, and  also features Jeff Bridges as a crusty old (?) sheriff on their trail with his Mexican/Indian deputy along as the brunt of his racist (but lovable) jabs.  The dialogue is nicely sharp, and the milieu is grim, but Bridges made me laugh often, and Pine and Foster made me sad.  There are at least two very fine special things about this film.  One is the deputy played with much sympathy by Gil Birmingham--his final scene caught me off guard with an audible ache in my throat.  There is also a brilliant scene at a bank that happens to be filled with mostly men cashing their payroll checks all at the same time.  This being Texas, every customer pulls out a gun when it becomes clear that the bank is being robbed, and what follows is a sublime sequence that is both funny and terrifying.  It's a small film but watching it feels like perfection.          GRADE----------A-

Another sublime film is the fictional account of what it may have been like when Barack and Michelle have their first date nearly twenty years ago in Chicago.  SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU captures the characters in a delightful, canny way with very fine performances by a spot on Parker Sawyer who looks amazingly like a youthful Obama, and even if Tika Sumpter doesn't look to me much like Michelle, she nails the attitude and mannerisms that make SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU a delightful comedy/drama with hardly a political agenda in sight.  Smart, funny and romantic, it should appeal to any political persuasion.          GRADE----------A-

As usual, Meryl Streep is a force in this (and every) film, and she gives FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS the gravitas that keeps this biographical comedy/drama bubbling and fascinating, and when her back story is reveled it has a sting.  Based on the true story of the title character, Florence is a leading opera fan and head of many musical clubs in high society.  She believes she should share her love of music by singing for her fans.  Unfortunately she cannot carry much of a tune, and there is both humor and sadness in her musical efforts.  Hugh Grant is her accommodating rich husband--it is one his best roles in a while, and the film is technically smooth to watch and very fascinatingly made by the brilliant British director Stephan Frears (PHILOMOMIA 2013, THE QUEEN 2006, HIGH FIDELITY 2000, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE 1985 etc.)             GRADE----B+

Here is a boxing movie for people who don't like boxing movies.  Based on a true story, HANDS OF STONE follows the life of a fatherless child in Panama who lives on the streets, hustling food for his mother and siblings, fighting off bullies if he needs to.  He becomes a fighter, and is introduced to an older mentor played by the great Robert deNiro, who shapes him into a welter weight champion.  The film concentrates on his life and family, and boxing sequences are not protracted.  The film covers, quickly, a number of years and for the most part is engrossing and effective.           GRADE-----------B

I actually started off in the theatre playing the new version of BEN HUR, but in the first 25 minutes, the film was so annoyingly hand held and herky jerky in every moment, that I fled the auditorium and saw instead HANDS OF STONE.  My advise is to stick with the 1959 version of BEN HUR with an iconic performance by Charlton Heston.  Whatever you may think of Heston's misguided politics (and I accredit that to his dementia in his last 15 years) that classic version is a fine, engrossing epic that hooks me every time I see it, especially when playing in wide screen in a theatre.

A small independent film written and directed by actress Clea Duvall, THE INTERVENTION is a smart, amusing film of four couples who meet for a weekend with the hidden agenda to try to convince one antagonistic couple to split and divorce, since that couple is always fighting.  The supporting cast includes many of the director's friends, who are up and coming actors, including Melanie Lynsky, Jason Ritter, Natasha Lyonne and Cobie Smulder, and while the film is not earth shattering (think low budget THE BIG CHILL without the music) it is enjoyable enough.      GRADE------------B-

Four skateboarding friends discover a bag of drugs and spend several weeks trying to escape the clutches of the evil drug "queen" who wants her pills back.  The film called THE LAND is effective, especially as the queen is played with chilling viciousness by Broadway actress Linda Emond.  She is also appearing this summer in my favorite movie (so far) INDIGNATION in another intense role as the mother of the protagonist.   THE LAND is nearly the same plot as another film from last year called DOPE--see below.           GRADE-------B-


A single black man transfers his hip hop loving young teen son to his new job in a small German town, where the kid feels alienated and lonely, in the comedy/drama MORRIS FROM AMERICA. When he does start to create friends, each scene seems to be a cliche of youthful coming of age ie. sex, drugs, alcohol, lying, running away, etc.  Comedian Craig Robinson (from TV's THE OFFICE) is the father, and he is fine.  I just felt underwhelmed by the plot.    GRADE---------C+

The interesting cast (Paul Giamatti, Toby Jones, Michelle Yeoh and others) each have a least one good scene  in the new film MORGAN but the mechanics of the plot, which plays like a poor man's EX MACHINA (2015) had me guessing the next moves from 10 minutes in, and the final "twist" is projected from her first scene.  Kate Mara is arriving at a forest station to assess the viability of an artificial intelligence, but all the scientists seem to want to mislead her into thinking that all is OK.  At the half way point, the plot becomes extremely predictable and banal.  Stay home and rent EX MACHINA if you haven't already seen it.  I wasn't crazy about that one either, but at least it has some moody pleasures.          GRADE--------C


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Following films viewed on DVD----------

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1942)--this is a classic  Preston Sturges film.  Joel McCrea plays a film director who decides to disguise himself as a hobo to gather experiences of poverty--all the better to make his new film O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU.  Instead he finds a girl (Veronica Lake) and finds it difficult to actually be broken down in America.  Skillful blend of comedy, drama and social commentary.             GRADE------A

THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942)---Another Sturges classic, this one has Claudette Colbert deciding to divorce her loving husband (Joel McCrea), and then marrying a millionaire to raise money for McCrea's latest project.  The dialogue is witty and silly all at once at times, and Rudy Vallee  and Mary Astor amusingly play the wealthy brother and sister who try to seduce the couple. There's a wacky, hilarious scene aboard a train where a dozen drunken men have a shooting contest.  All of these Sturges films featured a number of the same character players, most notably William Demarest and Franklin Pangborn.         GRADE--------A-

WAIT UNTIL DARK---(1967)  Audrey Hepburn was an Oscar nominee again for this thriller based on a stage play.  She plays a newly blinded newly wed who is terrorized by three hoodlums searching for a doll filled with drugs that her husband was given by a strange woman on a plane.  He has left for another trip, and she cannot find the doll, nor can the three men who try to search her apartment, thinking she cannot see them.  There is a lot of tension, and a young Alan Arkin plays three roles as the most vicious of them.           GRADE--------A-

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944)----Another classic Preston Sturges film has Eddie Bracken playing a young soldier who has been released from the Marines for over a year due to medical issues, but he is afraid to go home to his small town and his mother because he is embarrassed that he saw no action in the war.  He meets up with some friendly Marines (including William Demerest again) who go home with him, but they get caught up in a cascading lie that Bracken was a war hero.  Clever, witty comedy with a sharp dramatic edge.        GRADE------B+

20 FEET FROM STARDOM (2013)--Lively, informative, musical documentary about the struggles of back up singers to the stars, features interviews and performances by Sting, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Bette Midler, David Bowie, Lou Adler, and many many others, and highlights the lives of nearly a dozen back up singers including some more famous ones like Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Judith Hill and other.  It's a rousing, likeable film.         GRADE-----B+

THE GREAT MOMENT (1944)--One of the few dramas that Preston Sturges wrote and directed, the film, based on a true story,  features Joel McCrea  again, along with William Demarest as his side kick.  McCrea plays a dentist who discovers a way to operate on body and teeth without pain to the patient.  The film is engrossing and informative, although it is awkwardly constructed, with the final denouncement playing first, so that the film looses some kick in the end.            GRADE------B

DOPE (2015)--Three geeky high school friends into music and bicycles, find drugs in a bag and try to sell them, while being pursued by the drug "lord" in a plot that plays a lot like THE LAND above.  Lively music by Busta Rhymes, Pharrell Williams, Tribe Called Quest, and many others.  Nice mixture of comedy, drama, violence and  satire.                  GRADE---------B

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE  (1967)--A big budgeted extravagant "20's" musical featuring Julie Andrews, who must dance in the elevator to make it go up or down,  a miscast Mary Tyler Moore as her friend who never carries any money with her, an over the top rich society dame Carol Channing, the simple man James Fox who may or may not love Andrews and Beatrice Lillie who heads a white sex slave girl ring (!!!!!) --they all seem to have a lot of fun in this film, but the plot is rather odd (white sex slave ring!!!???) and some songs and dances are better than others.  In my opinion, the old pros Channing and Lillie steal the film in their scenes.     GRADE---------B-