Barbershop 3: The Next Cut [2016]

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (L)  Chicago SunTimes (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (L) review
ChicagoSunTimes (R. Roeper) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review

BET.com coverage
Essence.com coverage
TheSource.com coverage

My hat off to Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer and then to the rest of the cast, makers and crew of Barbershop 3: The Next Cut [2016] (directed by Malcolm D. Lee, screenplay by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver, characters by Mark Brown).  They revived this Chicago-set movie franchise in a most timely / poignant way.

The South Side of Chicago is at Ground Zero of many of the problems facing our country these days.  Hence, it was a joy listening to the banter, granted still scripted and at times exaggerated (a little) for laughs, of still basically regular people portrayed as living in what hopefully will be remembered one day as quite irregular times.  For for several years now not a single weekend goes by without people being killed on Chicago's streets most often on the South and West Sides.

Indeed, I found it quite sobering this past Easter (a few weeks past) when the Pastors from these parts of the city organized a city-wide "Cease Fire" AT LEAST FOR THE EASTER HOLIDAY and at least on Easter Sunday itself it proved to be a success.   [Note here that a good part of the current film is about the folks at the Barber Shop organizing a similar weekend long "Cease Fire" in which in lieu of violence, the barbers / beauticians offered free hair cuts / styling for 48 hours straight to all comers.

THESE KIND OF EFFORTS NEED TO BE ENCOURAGED BY ALL PEOPLE OF PEACE, AS ALSO WHAT FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER HAS BEEN CALLING FOR AS WELL: OPPORTUNITIES / HOPE BE OFFERED TO YOUNG PEOPLE FROM THESE PARTS OF THE CITY SO THAT THEY COULD HAVE MORE COMMUNITY IN THEIR LIVES THAN THAT OFFERED BY ... GANGS.

Honestly folks, while the language and situations may not be for the youngest of viewers and the film would probably scandalize at times "the older folks" of all races (all our parents / grandparents go to Church, and were brought up in a different way), this is still a wonderful movie for the vast majority of Americans to see. It's about our brothers and sisters living in / trying to navigate circumstances that ALL OF US UNDERSTAND and ALL OF US would _really like to run from_.

'Cept some of us _can't_ and _what would happen if all of us did_?

Honestly, a film to be proud of.  Great, great job!


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The Similars (orig. Los Parecidos) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity.com/es listing*

El Panda review*
En la Butaca review*
Proyector Fantasma (M. Santillan) review*

Moria - SF,H&F Film Review (R. Scheib) review
Scream Horror Mag (A. Hunt) review
Twitch Film (A. Mack) review

Variety (D. Harvey) review

The Similars (orig. Los Parecidos) [2015] [IMDb] [FAes]* (written and directed by Isaac Ezban [IMDb] [FAes]*) is a MEXICAN TWILIGHT ZONE-ISH SCI-FI THRILLER / PERIOD PIECE that played recently at the 32nd (2016) Chicago Latino Film Festival.  Ezban had scored a hit at last year's Festival with a similarly "weird" Twilight Zone-ish [1959-1964] [wikip] [IMDb] film The Incident [2014].

The story presented largely in palish green b&w is set at a remote bus station some five hours (normally) from Mexico City on the evening of October 1, 1968 during a massive (and freak) rain storm.

Readers Note that this date is significant, as early in the morning of Oct 2, 1968, Mexican security forces massacred hundreds of students who had been protesting during the summer in the lead-up to the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympic Games.  The Tlatelolco Massacre as it came to be remembered became a universally acknowledged event in Mexico though almost never spoken of until recent years.  The film Tlatelolco, Summer of 68 (orig. Tlatelolco, Verano del 68) [2013] by another young Mexican director, Carlos Bolado, played at this Festival back in 2014.

Back to the current story ...

The rain storm had both delayed all buses and largely severed communications.  There's a single public phone booth in the station's waiting room but between the noise of the pounding rain on the station's roof and then its presumed effect on the cables / connections outside it's almost impossible for anyone using said phone (probably terrible in the best of circumstances) to understand anything said over it.  Similarly, the driving rain has caused even the radio to sound garbled.  So on this "dark and stormy night" the people in this random, smallish bus depot in provincial Mexico some five hours from the Capital find themselves quite especially isolated.

Then, ask yourselves dear Readers, who'd be out on a terrible / freak night such as this?  Clearly already those already quite marginalized or otherwise pushed by circumstances to extremes.

So while the station's night manager, 60-something Martín (played by Fernando Becerril [IMDb] [FAes]*), a few weeks from retirement, could have expected a quiet night in which he could spend most of it in the station's backroom leafing through 50s-60s era still largely b&w pornography... he finds his station filling up with increasingly disparate (and desperate) people.

The first to arrive is a 30-40 something miner named Ulises (played by Gustavo Sánchez Parra [IMDb] [FAes]*) who's wife is in Mexico City (at the in-laws...) about to give birth.  Despite the obvious storm, he can't believe that the buses are delayed.

Next appears an elderly indigenous woman (played by María Elena Olivares [IMDb] [FAes]*) who speaks no Spanish, only her native tongue, and yet clearly is convinced that something deeply wrong is afoot with this terrible storm and _immediately_ does not like Ulises.

A very pregnant woman named Irene (played by Cassandra Ciangherotti [IMDb] [FAes]*) soon arrives fleeing (again braving that terrible rain storm), fleeing her abusive husband.  Then a paranoid taxi driver :-) / "night school" student named Álvaro (played by Humberto Busto [IMDb] [FAes]*) who probably "reads too much" (or certainly the wrong stuff) comes to the station wanting to "join the students in the Capital." And he's absolutely convinced that this freak storm is some sort of "a plot" even if he's not sure it's a Gringo one, a Soviet one or EVEN an extraterrestrial one.

Finally, forty-something year old harried mother (of some means) named Gertridis (played by Carmen Beato [IMDb] [FAes]*) along with her oddly if quite seriously ill 10-12 y/o son Ignacio (played by Santiago Torres [IMDb] [FAes]*) arrive, he with an oxygen tank and a strange 50s-60s era breathing apparatus and with a shunt installed near the top of his shoulder for direct injections into his chest.  What the heck is wrong with him?  We do not know, but clearly it's very very serious.

So we have this odd collection of variously traumatized people collecting at this random provincial bus station, with a _massive storm_ (complete with thunder / lightning) POUNDING on the roof / glass front outside, with the radio -- mostly garbled of course -- occasionally coming in clear enough to warn of some massive if unclear "troubles" occurring all around the planet.  And then ...    

... the people in the station "begin to change."  How do they change?  Well, that's part of the charm of the movie ;-)  The change that occurs is both kinda amusing (to us Viewers "looking in" ;-) but to the characters involved, there in that cursed bus station at that time, it would be quite terrifying.

Now _why_ would they be "changing"?  Well, that's (of course) "open to interpretation" ;-).  Readers, remember only that the "paranoid Sci-Fi horror flicks" of the 1950s-60s to which this film clearly pays homage were set in the context of the Cold War with its Apocalyptic threat universal nuclear destruction causing, at minimum, for people almost _all people_ "to change" ;-).  

Anyway, my hat off to writer / director Isaac Ezban [IMDb] [FAes].*  You've certainly caught the attention of a fair number SciFi / Horror cinemaphiles around the world.  And I'm certainly looking forward to see what comes next ;-)

Great ... if quite paranoid ... job! ;-)


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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Andrea & Lorenzo [2015]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Official Website


Andrea & Lorenzo [2015] (written and directed by Rolando D'Lugo [IMDb]) is a CHEERFUL truly "small indie" ROMANTIC COMEDY from PUERTO RICO that played recently at the 32nd (2016) Chicago Latino Film Festival.
 
The film's writer/director/one of its leads, Rolando D'Lugo, who's also Puerto Rican rock musician (and is responsible for the film's honestly quite _impressive_ sound track) and teaches media studies in Puerto Rico, was present to take questions at the end of the screening.  He said that the film will be released in theaters in Puerto Rico at the end of April 2016 and is presently negotiating with various Latino television channels to have it play on TV across Latin America.  Eventually the film should become available for rental / streaming on NetFlix. (I suggested that he also try to make it available through iTunes and/or Amazon Instant Video)

The film tells the story of Andrea (played by Joa Tous) and Lorenzo (played by Rolando D'Lugo) introduced to us as a young Puerto Rican college age couple, she studying writing, he a somewhat brooding musician, each facing some challenges to their dreams:

Andrea's being told that her writing is really "quite average" and if she still really wants to make a living in writing that she really ought to start looking into "writing copy" for one or another "glossy entertainment magazine."  Sigh, Frida [wikip] poster in her room notwithstanding, her Prof's telling her that she's _not_ going to be the next "Gabo" (Gabriel García Márquez) [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn].

Lorenzo, on the other hand, is not getting anywhere with his music either.  Andrea would like him to just take a job in her father's warehouse.  Instead, Lorenzo would like to pick-up-sticks and go down to Argentina, where "it's another world" and where he believes he has a much better shot to get his rock career going.  Lorenzo asks Andrea to come with him.  Shaking her head, she says no.  And so ... the two break up.

... Skip to 5 years later.  Andrea's finds herself working for / increasingly successful at "an entertainment magazine" called "Chica Ye" and Lorenzo finds himself coming back to Puerto Rico in triumph as the lead guitarist for a Latino rock band called "Agua Luna."  And guess who Andrea's boss wants Andrea to follow / interview during week-long several stop tour of the Island?

Much of course ensues ... ;-)

A truly charming aspect of this RomCom is that since the cast is mostly composed of (college) student actors, they actually look their parts.  (Often American RomComs are filled with far more professional actors but also significantly older than the characters they're asked to play).

Rolando D'Lugo does play the "brooding musician" quite well and the songs played in the film are actually his own. 

Then Joa Tous plays her role as Andrea quite authentically and with an endearing and often spot-on comic touch (seriously, her timing was very good).  Her coworkers / friends Alicia, Cynthia and Mario (played by Sandra Ortiz, Blanca Lissette Cruz and Edwin Yumar respectively) look and sound like people that Andrea would hang around.  Older characters, like Andrea's boss Aurelio (played by Orlando Rodríguez), Lorenzo's manager Martín (played by William Piedra) and even a priest (played by Jacobo Morales) were again both well cast and well (authentically) played.

 My one complaint would be that even though the movie was made in a manner that it could easily play standard TV (basically PG-13), nevertheless the two main characters do end-up in bed several times during the course of the film.  It's all done in a manner that would certainly (though _technically_) "pass the censors."   HOWEVER, Latino parents of younger teens may not be particularly happy with this aspect of the film which seems to take it for granted that young 20-somethings "in love" are going to sleep with each other even if they're not married or when marriage is not even anywhere near the table.


I mention this criticism as one who otherwise really liked the film's generally light / youthful outlook.

Otherwise, honestly very, very good job!  And honestly best wishes for your futures!


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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Demolition [2016]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


Demolition [2016] (directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, screenplay by Bryan Sipe) is a decent enough if IMHO incomplete "small indie piece" about a random New York "suit" named Davis (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who in the opening scene of the movie loses his wife Julia (played by Heather Lind) seated right next to him in the car, driving (they're in the midst of having of a random / routine not particularly intense argument...) in the blink of an eye due to a car accident.  Davis survived said accident without a scratch...

Wow.  Waking-up in the hospital he's informed that his wife passed away.  Groggy, stunned, shocked, he goes over to a random vending machine in the corner of the Intensive Care Ward, small splotches of blood from his now (again, he's just been informed) deceased wife still on his clothes, puts in a $1.25 for a small bag of "Peanut M&Ms" and ... the machine gets stuck.  The receptionist at the Intensive Care Ward simply tells him, "These things happen sometime."

Irritated (and barely standing...) in a haze of many, many, many layers of still undifferentiated emotions, he takes down the number of the culpable vending machine and in the days that follow (in the midst of funeral preparations ...) writes very, very long, obviously _needlessly_ long letter to its owners asking for "a refund."  In the subsequent days, he writes three or four more such letters, never particularly angry, just spilling his guts even as he can't seem to differentiate between the random/awful SUDDEN LOSS OF HIS WIFE (!) with ... losing five quarters in a random vending machine.   Again ... wow.

Why would that be?  Well, that's the rest of the movie.

Needless to say, Davis' gut-wrenching letters eventually get a heartfelt, tear-filled response from a random "Customer Service Rep" named Karen (played quite wonderfully by Naomi Watts) at the letters' receiving end.  Since the culpable vending machine was still a physical device, the company distributing and managing such devices "all about the greater New York area" remains local, allowing Karen, who by the end Davis' fourth letter "knows him" (perhaps far more than she'd ever otherwise want to), to meet him, starting a necessarily awkward, post-awful-loss relationship (of sorts) between them.

I do believe that the necessary clumsiness of said "relationship" that develops between the two is a strength in the film: After receiving the kind of letters that Davis sends Karen's firm, it's hard to imagine a "flesh and blood" person on the letters' receiving end _not wanting_ to "reach out." Yet Karen, of course, has her own life with its own complications -- a 12-13 year-old son (played again quite well by Judah Lewis) trying to figure himself out as he enters teenage-hood as well as an already somewhat inappropriate relationship with her (blue-collarish) boss (played by C.J. Wilson).

Then Davis does not exist totally in a vacuum: His wife had parents, Phil and Margot (played excellently by Chris Cooper and less convincingly by Polly Draper) who had loved her and this dynamic -- Davis' own hazy and complicated ambivalence towards his deceased wife versus the utterly unconditional love that her parents had for her -- is certainly well explored.

WHAT LACKS IN MY OPINION is a strong to say nothing of _credible_ presence of ANY family or friends on Davis' side.  NOW PERHAPS IT IS POSSIBLE that this would be the case.  THERE ARE, PERHAPS, PEOPLE who are SO "DETACHED" from the rest of humanity / the world BUT ... IMHO such people tend to populate Movies (and specifically Hollywood movies) more than Reality.  (I think of the Classic Hollywood film Casablanca [1942] ... think how DIFFERENT that movie would have been if Humphrey Bogart's character, or for that matter "Sam" ... "had moms" ;-).  In Reality, they certainly would have had "mothers who loved them" ... but their mere existence, even "far far away" would have radically changed the story ;-).  I do understand that making Davis effectively a "monad" greatly simplifies the story and that this can work to the screen-writer's / film-makers' advantage.  BUT IMHO it also impoverishes the story's potential.  

In any case in an attempt to deal with both his grief and (as becomes increasingly evident as the story progresses) his now necessarily unresolved / unresolveable issues with his deceased wife, Davis embarks on disassembling all kinds of initially random but increasingly significant objects (ending with his house).  Does this bring him peace?  Different Viewers will have different opinions, but IMHO that he actually embarks on "doing something" which when one finds oneself depressed is the (hardest) first step, he starts "moving" (and progressively _feeling_) again.

The rest of the story then unspools from there ...

IMHO this was not a bad film ... but I do think that it needlessly cut corners in its attempt to tell the story.  As such, the story felt, to me anyway, truncated / incomplete.  Nevertheless, I do believe that the film could give Viewers a fair amount to reflect on and perhaps help them appreciate some of the grieving process of those who lose a significant other with whom they did have a (perhaps necessarily) "complex" relationship.

A (fairly) good job then, a (fairly) good job!


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Age of Cannibals (orig. Zeit der Kannibalen) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CinEuropa.org listing
Film-Zeit.de listing*

Goethe.de (J. Brendemühl) review
KunstUndFilm.de (D. Streisow) review*
Spielfilm.de (G. Torinus) review*

The Hollywood Reporter (B. van Hoeij) review

Age of Cannibals (orig. Zeit der Kannibalen) [2014] [IMDb] [CEu] [FZ.de]* (directed by Johannes Naber [IMDb] [CEu] [FZ.de]*, screenplay by Stefan Weigl [IMDb] [CEu] [FZ.de]*) is an award winning GERMAN DRAMEDY that won both critical acclaim / awards back home that played recently at the 19th (2016) Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.
 
The story plays-out entirely in a couple of hotel suites somewhere on say the 10th or 12th floor of an appropriately sleek "executive hotel" in Lagos, Nigeria, it's about two high flying if often quite clueless German business consultants Frank Öllers (played by Devid Striesow [IMDb] [CEu] [FZ.de]*) and Kai Niederländer (played by Sebastian Blomberg [IMDb] [CEu] [FZ.de]*).  At behest of their firm (back in Germany) they have been "doing business" / "consulting" from their rather comfortable if necessarily _ever temporary_ perch out there on said 10th or 12th floor of said "executive hotel" in Lagos, Nigeria for a fair amount of time.

After a while, it would be fair for Viewers to ask themselves if these two were actually "in exile" out there in Nigeria (because the firm didn't really want them "at the home office" back home ;-).  Indeed, the two seem quite frustrated because while "the home office" seems to encourage them, constantly tell them how good of a job they are doing ... way out there in Nigeria ... yet, both feel that they've been repeatedly "passed-up" for being "partners" in the firm.  They get even more nervous when "the firm" seems to send a third person, Bianca März (played by Katharina Schüttler [IMDb] [CEu] [FZ.de]*) is sent by "the home office" out there to Nigeria to join them.  Why has _she_ come?  Not only is _she_ a woman, but she's also been "with the firm" for _so much less time than they have_.

Ah, office politics ...

But said office politics aside, what were _they_ doing there on the 10th or 12th floor of a random executive hotel in the captial of a random "developing country" with "potential?"  And more to the point, did _they_ know _what they are doing_?

One gets the sense that they didn't.  Near the beginning of the film we hear these two smiling German consultants telling an Indian manager Singh (played by Romesh Ranganathan [IMDb] [FZ.de]*) of some Indian firm that they are "consulting" (who incidentally had to fly out from Bangalore, India to Lagos, Nigeria to receive their "consulting wisdom") THAT THEY BELIEVED that this Indian firm should pack-up and RELOCATE in Lahore, Pakistan.  Aghast, the Indian manager asks them: "Do you believe in reincarnation?"  "In a word, no." "Well hundreds of millions of Hindus in India do.  And to many of them the greatest curse is to be reincarnated as a Pakistani."  Exaggerated perhaps but it's true that predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan have not exactly "gotten along" since the two became independent together yet separately in 1947, three wars having been fought between the countries since then, and to some extent the main thing preventing a fourth one being that _both_ countries now possess nuclear weapons and no one could really predict what would happen if the two countries went at it (openly) again.   "Perhaps, but you're going to lose-out then on a lot of money saved in lower taxes and wages..."

Ah, Capitalism über alles...

While the two smiling "consultants" blithely hand-out advice derived from crunching their figures on their spread sheets while wondering why Bianca was there now, looking over their shoulder as they do this, we hear the occasional bomb or burst of what appears to rapid arms fire going-on outside.  Are the two, er three, worried?  Not particularly one of them, has even practiced, saying that he could get his suitcase packed in less than thirty seconds if they got a phone call "from the [German] Consulate" to do so.

Yet the gravity of the situation taking place _outside_ of their 10th to 12th story perch in the "executive hotel" where they were staying out there in Lagos, Nigeria becomes clearer when, after the two had taken a meeting with another business man Vicent Akume (played by Jaymes Butler [IMDb] [FZ.de]*) this time "a local" from Lagos pitching some sort of a random / probably unnecessary seaside (gated) executive park, Akume's sister (played by Joana Adu-Gyamfi [IMDb]) who had attended the meeting, very professionally, and _silently_ ("a step or two behind" her brother...) giving the pitch, suddenly, when she realizes the two Germans were not impressed and the meeting was going to end as a failure, begins _to strip_ out of her quite western very business-like attire, down to her bra and underwear and starts to BEG the two German "consultants": "Please, I'll do anything, just get me out of this coutnry.  You have NO IDEA what it's like to live here or what's coming ..."

And what's coming becomes progressively clearer...

The spacing between the bombs / exchanges of gun fire becomes increasingly shorter.  One starts to hear the breaking of windows, even presumably from the "Executive Hotel" where these German consultants were staying ... And it doesn't look like this story is going to end well ...

Okay, it all makes for a quite good story, and one that could easily be played-out on a stage.  My biggest problem with the film is its title, which while _perhaps_ could be taken in a general way (Capitalism as Cannibalism ...), still feels to this American's ears to be almost shockingly (and unfortunately) racist.  I do think that a title that would have highlighted the cluelessness of the "Consultants" would have suited the work better, like "Up in the Air," "In the Clouds," or even "The Unbearable Lightness of International Commerce (or Consulting)"

I write this because I would hope that the message of this film isn't that "Africans (or 'Third World people' in general) are savages."  And yet, one gets the sense that this is at least in part the film's message and IMHO that's pretty problematic...

Sigh, otherwise a pretty good, well executed film.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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The Boss [2016]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (1 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars w. Expl)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


The Boss [2016] (directed screenplay cowritten by Ben Falcone along with Melissa McCarthy and Steve Mallory) is, PARENTS NOTE, above all AN ADULT ORIENTED (if at times surprisingly insightful) COMEDY. 

The film is R-rated for reasons that become obvious as the story / jokes progress.  REPEATEDLY there appear situations that most Viewers would considered WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE for younger members of one's family.  To go into greater detail would both enter into spoiler territory and frankly into territory that would _make me blush_ as I am trying to maintain my blog here as a Catholic one ;-).  So at minimum PARENTS - PLEASE SEE THIS FILM ON YOUR OWN _before_ "letting the kids see it."  I would add though that I simply _can not_ think of ANY _credible_ reason why a minor would "need" to see this particular film prior to turning 17 (and thus being able to see it legitimately ...)

Okay, so why then review a film such as this, much less consider it favorably?  Well, Dear Readers, IMHO there are situations in this film that are IMHO authentically funny, and in their goofy way the film-makers here offer us Viewers a quite interesting and even _insightful_ "snapshot" into our culture / society today.

For Melissa McCarthy's character Michelle Darnelle, a cross between Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart PRACTICALLY _CHANNELS_ Donald Trump HERE and NOT (!!) in a slanted or particularly negative way. 

Instead, we're introduced to McCarthy's Michelle Darnelle as a hard-nosed but _successful_ businesswoman who _did have to overcome_ some very difficult obstacles in her life:  We see in the film's opening sequence that she was an orphan, abandoned by her parents, and then abandoned _repeatedly_ by a whole slew of foster / adoptive parents until, as a teenager SHE DECLARES: "I don't need ANYBODY, I'm just going to BECOME RICH."  and, well, ... SHE DOES ... become WILDLY, UNBELIEVABLY SUCCESSFUL / RICH.

The next scene in the movie has her speaking at (presumably) a "$50-100 a pop" motivational seminar AT a SOLD OUT United Center here in Chicago where she's assuring tens of thousands ADORING FANS: "Follow me, follow my example, and I'll make you SO RICH you won't believe it." Yes, Dear Readers, I told you that she practically channels Donald Trump in this movie, and again, NOT in a bad way.  Her adoring seminar attendees believe her.  MORE TO THE POINT, it would seem THAT SHE BELIEVES HER PROMISES AS WELL.

Well, of course, there's a "Fall from Grace."  A jilted fellow billionaire / former lover of hers, Renault (his actual name is Ronald ... which, come to think of it is just one letter from Donald ;-) played by a PERFECTLY CAST Peter Drinklage), rats on her to the Feds and ... soon Ms Darnelle finds herself doing 4 months (! ;-) of "hard time" in a "Club Fed"-like prison for ... pampered financial criminals.

But ... the damage has been done.  When she gets out of the (very classy) joint, quite tan from all the tennis she had been playing ;-) ... she finds that she's lost everything on the outside in the meantime and needs to crash at the flat of her former, formerly put-upon "personal assistant" Claire (played again quite excellently throughout by Kristen Bell). 

But one can't keep a driven, formerly spectacularly successful person like Michelle Darnelle down for long.  So after trying to make herself useful (remember, she has no job, nor any money anymore) by picking up Claire's kid Rachel (played wonderfully by Ella Anderson) after school and taking her to Girl Scout-like "Sunflower" meeting, Ms Darnelle has an honestly quite hilarious if certainly subversive "Epiphany" to get her "back into the game":

It turns out that the "Sunflowers" (like America's Girl Scouts) sell cookies.  "Why?  What do these 'Sunflower girls' GET out of selling those cookies?" asks Darnelle.  (Honestly, a spectacularly interesting / iconoclastic question ;-) ;-). 

"Well nothing," answers Claire, "The money that they make goes back into programs offered by the Sunflowers."

"Well, Rachel, what are some of those 'programs'?" asks Michelle.  Rachel honestly doesn't know, can't answer the question effectively.  AND ... as a result an IDEA is born:

Michelle creates an alternate Black Panther (!)-like (denim uniforms, red berets on their head, fist high in the air as their salute) "Counter Group" to "The Sunflowers" which she calls "Darnelle's Darlings," who then sell chocolate brownies (made by Claire) to (often _indimidated_ ;-) passerbys in competition to the Sunflowers' cookies. 

An interesting difference between the two groups becomes that "Darnelle's Darlings" would directly get a 15% cut (commission) from their sales and another 15% would be deposited into "a college fund" created for each of the girls.  Okay, so where would the other 70% go?  Well, to Michelle (and Claire ... Claire's baking all the brownies after all...).  Michelle makes _no bones_ about this being a FOR-PROFIT enterprise.  Indeed, she sees _this_ as _her_ way to "make it back to the top" ;-).

Much then ensues ... ;-)

Now back to the film's crudity.  One could certainly imagine that this story could be told in a _much less_ crude and _far more_ child friendly way than Melissa McCarthy and her director husband Ben Falcone chose to do.  Yet, it is clear that the two _chose_ to make the film in this way. 

The question is of course "why" and the answer may be again similar to the reasons given by Donald Trump's Presidential Campaign for _his_ rather outlandish / provocative antics: "to get people's attention." (It may be _also_ a question of talent / ability.  McCarthy / Falcone and then Trump may honestly not be able to do better.  They MAY honestly be simply rather crude people.  But then another question arises: Should one _immediately_ disqualify someone or someone's ideas simply because the person expressing them is "rather crude?") 

It is clear though that in both cases -- McCarthy / Falcone and then Trump -- they succeed, and like-it-or-not, in both cases McCarthy here and Trump in his campaign, say and do things that shock but also challenge / take down sacred cows.

So like it or not, this is actually a _quite interesting_ (and insightful) film ;-).

Good job!  Sort of ... ;-) ... but again PARENTS do keep the kids away from this one.


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The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (orig. La dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (1 3/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allociné.fr listing*

APUM.com (L. Forero) review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (P. Vedral) review*

The Hollywood Reporter (J. Mintzer) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review


The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (orig. La dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil) [2015] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (directed by Joann Sfar [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, screenplay by Gilles Marchand [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and Patrick Godeau [IMDb] [AC.fr]* based on the novel [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Sébastien Japrisot [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is a FRENCH retro "NEO-NOIR" flick that played recently at the 19th (2016) Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

While certainly stylish, sigh ... this is honestly a film where the trailer and even the poster (above, right) are far better than the actual film.  And, further sigh ... one's almost certain that it need not have turned out that way.

The story centers on a random, be-speckled and rather heavily be-freckled, redheaded, 20-something, previously largely invisible, presumably Parisian secretary named Dany (played by Freya Mavor [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) who one day was visited upon by a rich / good-looking (presumably previously "way out of her league") former crush of hers named Michel (played by Benjamin Bolay [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) who asks her if she could come over to his quite opulent home to type-up the last part of a manuscript that he'd been working on.

She says ... "Sure!" After all, he was a former crush of hers.  It also would give her a chance to reconnect with _his wife_ Anita (played by Stacy Martin [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) a former friend of hers who she hasn't seen in ages, since perhaps Anita ran-off with Dany's secret crush Michel and had gotten married.

After setting-up Dany, dutifully in front of a typewriter, Michel and Anita apparently go off to some party.  Oh yes, they leave Dany to babysit their daughter.  They come back late, and wake-up Dany, fallen-asleep by the typewriter, quite early in the morning with a rather odd request: Could she now drive the them, Michel, Anita and their little daughter, in their quite stylish 60s era American sports car to the airport: "It'd be cheaper than a taxi ..." they say, "Just bring the car back (to their home) afterwards." 

Dany agrees, drives them to the airport and ... then decides, "Hey, I'm in a really cool 60s era sports car!  My friends tell me that they're not coming back for a couple of days anyway.  I've NEVER seen the sea before ... Who's gonna know?"

And that's when the film really begins ... As she's off on what would seem to be a random if quite innocent joy ride, she is _repeatedly_ surprised to find that "everybody seems to know her."  HOW CAN THAT BE?

The rest of the movie ensues ... and from the title of the film, it can't go particularly well.


There is SO MUCH that, of course, COULD HAPPEN in a story WITH SUCH AN EVOCATIVE INTRO and STYLISTICALLY the film is TOPNOTCH throughout.  HOWEVER, sigh ... (I can't say more ...).



* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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