Danny Trejo – Inmate #1

Whether audiences know him as the vengeful ex-Federale in the Machete franchise or in one of the hundreds of other movie and TV roles he is credited with including Navajas in Desperado, Johnny 23 in Con Air or as Tortuga in his two-episode-turn on TV’s Breaking Bad, veteran actor Danny Trejo has had a full career and an even fuller life.

In the documentary Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo, which hits VOD platforms July 7, Trejo, who was discovered on the set of the 1985 action thriller Runaway Train, takes a look back through his troubled adolescence, which landed him in and out of prison through the 1960s, including a stint in San Quentin, and explains how his reckless lifestyle led him to Hollywood.

During an interview with me late last month, Trejo, 76, talked about using his platform to give back to the community, why he works so much and when he plans to retire from making movies.

In the documentary, we really get a sense of how much you like to work and how much you like to cash those checks. Besides the money, what is it about making movies that you love?

What I really love about them is that they give me a great platform to spread the message and let people know that drugs and alcohol will ruin your life and education is the key to anything you want to do. With this platform, I can walk on to any campus and have everybody’s attention. I can walk into any juvenile hall and everybody wants to hear — not so much what Danny Trejo has to say — what the guy from Spy Kids, Heat, Desperado, Blood In, Blood Out [has to say].

You use the platform really well. What about film as an artform?

[Late actor] Dennis Hopper once told me that art was something you hang on the walls. I love movies because they’re entertaining. We wanted to do the documentary as entertaining but with a message.

Did you ever think someone would make a documentary about your life?

I never thought I would get out of prison. Nobody had any hopes of me making it through the 60s. So, here I am. This is like divine inspiration. Thank you, Jesus, for every year.

If you hadn’t found yourself on the set of Runaway Train in the 80s after you got on the straight and narrow, do you think you would’ve found your way to Hollywood eventually? If not, what do you think you’d be doing right now?

I don’t see how. I would probably still be a drug counselor. And I am. I’m still a drug counselor. That’s my first love. I work with drug addicts and alcoholics and guys just getting out of prison. But I do that now more on a public relations scale. We detox heroin addicts. I found a great place to find [addicts] in the movie business.

Since you’ve been in so many movies and TV shows, has it ever happened that someone you’ve worked with in the past comes up to you to say hi and you have no idea who they are?

Believe me, it happens all the time. I act like I know them — “Oh, yeah, what’s up?” — until they give me some kind of [clue like], “Remember, we worked on …” and I’m like, “Oh, yeah!”

Once when I interviewed you 10 years ago for the first Machete, you said you would accept a role in a movie for $100. Have you upped your minimum wage since then?

(Laughs.) They’ve upped it for me. I love to work. My agent knows that if I’m not working, then [I’ll] just take anything because I want to work. I did a low budget movie once as a favor for a friend and I ended up going to Paris twice, Venezuela, Brazil and Florida all in the same movie. It was awesome!

You seem like the kind of guy that would probably die the day after he retires.

Yeah, I kind of feel like that. If I retire, I’ll die. But what’s to retire from? People say, “Aren’t you going on vacation?” My life’s a vacation! I love doing this.

The last time you played a character without a name was in 2015. It was for a movie called L.A. Slasher. You played Drug Dealer #2. Drug Dealer #1 was played by Dave Bautista. Why was he #1 and you #2? Don’t you have seniority?

I don’t even know. I don’t remember the movie. (Laughs.) What was the name of the movie?

L.A. Slasher in 2015.

I don’t know that one. (Laughs.)

Would you still take on one of those nameless roles today?

My agent knows that I need to keep working. Otherwise, I’ll buy another old car.

What car are you working on now?

My ’65 Buick Riviera. It’s running perfect. I did the Jay Leno show (Jay Leno’s Garage) with that. Now, we’re working on a ’49 Chevy Stepside Pickup. Beautiful.

Ep. 155 – Big Time Adolescence, McMillion$, and no movies in the age of COVID-19

In this week’s homebound edition of The CineSnob Podcast, Cody and Jerrod review Hulu’s “Big Time Adolescence” and the HBO documentary series “McMillion$” as coronavirus fears send new releases running from movie theaters.

Click here to download the episode!

Bonus Ep. 17 – Bill Nighy, “Emma”

In this bonus episode of The CineSnob Podcast, prodigal host Kiko Martinez returns to speak with actor Bill Nighy, of “Love, Actually” and “Shaun of the Dead” fame, on his role in the newest adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma.”

Click here to download the episode!

Top 10 Films of the Decade (2010-2019)

KIKO MARTINEZ
Editor and Founder

1. The Social Network (2010)

Director David Fincher’s internet epic is an incisively written biopic where legal drama meets toxic ambition. It’s a story of greed, envy and the ruthless means one young man uses to rise to power in social media. Call it There Will Be Blood for the tech generation.

2. The Master (2012)

This intelligent and demanding film from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is loosely inspired by scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. It features both lofty concepts and performances by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix that are beyond words.

3. Phantom Thread (2017)

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s period piece on a British couture dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a work of art. He expands his exploration on relationship dynamics to reveal a wickedly humorous newfound romance that is both suffocating and Machiavellian.

4. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Leave it to filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen to make you fall in love with 1960s-era folk music in an instant. Everything comes together harmoniously in this memorable dark comedy.

5. Boyhood (2014)

Filmmaker Richard Linklater and his cast went on a 12-year journey to create this soul-bearing, once-in-a-lifetime, coming-of-age film about a boy growing into young adulthood.

6. Moneyball (2011)

Moneyball offers an exceptionally entertaining look at the true story of an MLB general manager’s unconventional baseball philosophy. The film makes the big leagues because of its clever script.

7. Spotlight (2015)

Expertly paced and absorbing, this print journalism procedural will forever be mentioned in the same breath as other elite newspaper films including 1976’s All the President’s Men.

8. The Florida Project (2017)

Told through the eyes of a child, The Florida Project offers a captivating and convincing observational drama filled with moments of incredible sadness and wide-eyed innocence involving marginalized characters.

9. The Look of Silence (2015)

In the follow-up to The Act of Killing, director Joshua Oppenheimer allows raw emotion to rise as we follow an optometrist who confronts mass murderers of the Indonesian genocide of 1965.

10. Shame (2011)

Step into the darkness to witness the self-destructive behavior of a sex addict. The polarizing drama features relentless performances from Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.

 

JERROD KINGERY
Contributing writer and podcaster

1. Boyhood (2014)
2. The Florida Project (2017)
3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018)
4. OJ: Made in America (2016)
5. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
6. Short Term 12 (2013)
7. The Disaster Artist (2017)
8. Logan (2017)
9. The LEGO Movie (2014)
10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

 

CODY VILLAFANA
Contributing writer and podcaster

1. 127 Hours
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. Boyhood
4. Marriage Story
5. Moneyball
6. Birdman
7. Manchester by the Sea
8. Spotlight
9. Logan
10. The Florida Project

 

CINESNOB.NET’S TOP 10 FILMS OF THE DECADE (2010-2019) CONSENSUS LIST:

1. Boyhood
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. The Florida Project
4. Moneyball
5. (tie) The Social Network and 127 Hours
6. The Master
7. (tie) Phantom Thread and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse
8. Spotlight
9. (tie) Marriage Story and OJ: Made in America
10. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Top 10 Films of 2019

KIKO MARTINEZ
Editor and Founder

After watching 228 films in 2019, here is a list of my 10 favorites, plus and a few honorable mentions.

1. Marriage Story

Director and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Noah Baumbach knows divorce well — personally and, in turn, cinematically. His 2005 independent, dark comedy The Squid and the Whale was a semi-autobiographical look at his parents’ divorce. He uses his own divorce experience to give Marriage Story an authentic structure. What surges out of his screenplay is an emotionally devastating drama about what is essentially the slow and untimely death of a once-loving relationship. It may sound like audiences could drown in a sea of sorrows, but Baumbach allows the film to materialize from a broad palette that includes plenty of humor, joy and tenderness.

2. Parasite

Co-writer and director Bong Joon Ho executes a meticulously crafted, satirical thriller, which turns out to be his most thematically rich project to date. The film follows the Kims, a poor Korean family of four who refuses to accept their place on the lowest rung of society. When the eldest child Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) gets a job as a tutor for the daughter of an affluent family, the Kims see an opportunity to turn their economic situation around. While the deceit is played for fun, a twist in the story shifts the film’s tone seamlessly from an entertaining, smartly written caper into an intense and unpredictable potboiler that speaks to the widening gap separating the haves and have-nots.

3. The Farewell

Comedy and tragedy come together with compassion in The Farewell, a beautifully told narrative from writer and director Lulu Wang. In the best performance of her career, rapper-comedian Awkwafina (Crazy Rich Asians) stars as Billi, a Chinese American artist living in New York who finds out her grandmother (Shuzhen Zhou) is dying. She also learns her family is keeping her grandmother’s failing health a secret from her. Touching and delightfully funny, the film is culturally fascinating as we watch Billi torn between her Western upbringing and her Eastern roots and follow how she’s able to establish her identity as an independent and sensitive young woman.

4. Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

It’s hard to believe director and two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter Quentin Tarantino actually might call it quits after he completes 10 movies, especially since it’s evident with his ninth feature that he hasn’t lost a step when it comes to crafting a scene. He seems to be having just as much fun as he did when he started making movies 27 years ago with Reservoir Dogs. In Hollywood, he finds inspiration in paying homage to the Western films and TV shows of the late 1960s. This unique buddy comedy features Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt maneuvering their characters through the entertainment industry — a chemistry that makes Hollywood so enjoyable to watch.

5. 1917

Shot and edited to look like it was filmed in one continuous take, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes and Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins have created one of them most visually stunning war movies in modern cinema. Narratively, the film is fairly simple: two British soldiers (George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapma), who are serving during World War I, are tasked with delivering a message to allies through territories crawling with enemies. It’s a mission that will save the lives of 1,600 men, including one of their brothers. What follows after the setup is nothing short of miraculous as we watch the two men journey through hellish conditions to reach their destination. Not since Saving Private Ryan has a cinematic battlefield been this extreme.

6. The Lighthouse

Writer-director Robert Eggers delivers a film that stands up to some of the most unsettling cinematic experiences in its depiction of the slow creep of mental illness. With no defining plot, it’s a story about two men searching for a means to coexist in a place that seems designed for someone to die alone. The film stars four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as lighthouse keepers stationed on a barren island in New England in the 1890s. The film may not register with those turned off by the bizarre, but Eggers — like he did with his debut film The Witch — continues to redefine the horror genre by injecting it with an arthouse flair.

7. The Nightingale

Written and directed by filmmaker Jennifer Kent, the gothic tale of revenge set in early 19th century Australia is devastatingly grim and emotionally jarring. The film isn’t a comfortable watch to say the least, but it does strike a nerve in a visceral way. Audiences anticipating some level of catharsis — frequently offered in similar vengeance films — might be disappointed with the script’s unpredictability and slow-burn storytelling. But as viewers witnessed in her 2014 debut feature The Babadook, Kent isn’t interested in genre mechanics. She has created something that dismisses archetypes and relies on brutal history lessons to expose man’s perpetually cruel nature.

8. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

First-time feature filmmaker and fifth-generation San Franciscan Joe Talbot speaks volumes on family, friendship and gentrification in this feature. The film features beautiful soliloquies that enlighten viewers about evolving neighborhoods across America and the working-class people who are pushed to the fringes of society to make room for new, upscale apartment complexes and fancy coffee shops. It’s a film that takes on the subject of cultural identity with grace and heartache — a genuine narrative which, as cliché as it sounds, is a love letter to San Francisco and a cautionary tale to residents of other rapidly expanding cities that may leave them behind.

9. A Hidden Life

For those who aren’t familiar with three-time Oscar-nominated writer and director Terrence Malick’s work, A Hidden Life — his longest film at 174 minutes — is probably not the best initiation. Returning admirers, though, will find the combination of his meditative storytelling approach, emotional intimacy and elegant wide shots a rewarding extension of the philosophically heavy themes he’s explored in the past. Malick examines the life of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), an Austrian farmer and conscientious objector who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. It’s a powerful and poetic tale of martyrdom and easily Malik’s best film since 2011’s Tree of Life.

10. Knives Out

The classic whodunit mystery is reinvigorated in extraordinary style in writer-director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. It’s the best film of its kind since 2001’s Gosford Park. Instead of sipping tea with the Brits, however, this is a full-blooded American murder mystery — one that uses the current U.S. political atmosphere to lay a foundation for the venom erupting inside the home of a well-to-do family, whose patriarch just committed suicide. Of course, with a whodunit narrative, the story twists itself into some intriguing knots that will keep audiences guessing until the final scene. With a stellar ensemble cast, including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans and a remarkable Ana de Armas, Knives Out is a top-tier thriller.

Honorable Mentions: Birds of Passage, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Little Woods, Pain & Glory, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tigers Are Not Afraid, Toy Story 4, Uncut Gems and Wild Rose.

 

JERROD KINGERY
Contributing writer and CineSnob podcaster

1. Dolemite is my Name – Simply put, the most fun I had watching a movie this year, and proof (along with “The Irishman,” “Marriage Story,” “El Camino” and more) that Netflix is finally in the movie game for real after years of false starts. Eddie Murphy, finally back from his self-imposed exile, reaffirms that he’s one of the funniest motherfuckers in the world as he leads a stacked cast in a “let’s put on a show!” story on par with greats like “Ed Wood” and “The Disaster Artist.”
2. Knives Out – Disney and Lucasfilm all but insulted Rian Johnson to his face by kowtowing to the worst Star Wars fans who violently hated “The Last Jedi,” but no matter. Johnson writes and directs an all-star cast through a clever whodunnit that never devolves into the farcical trap that often defines the genre.
3. Uncut Gems – An unrelenting anxiety attack of a movie with a career-best performance by Adam Sandler. Watching his character manage an escalating series of ill-advised bets and shady loans all for the goal of one big score is excruciating, but in the best of ways.
4. Jojo Rabbit – The humorous satire of the politics of hate really disguises the message of kindness at its heart. Writer-director Taika Waititi, who also plays an imaginary Hitler as a petulant nincompoop, might not go as hard at Nazis as we need in, sigh, 2019, but sadly, the lessons imparted in “Jojo Rabbit” are somehow still necessary.
5. The Irishman – Iffy digital de-aging aside, this sprawling gangland swan song from Martin Scorsese works to finally eradicate any sort of glamor that could be derived from the mafia lifestyle. The highlight of this epic is a re-engaged Al Pacino as doomed Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, who Scorsese works to ensure won’t be on any misguided dorm room posters a la Tony Montana.
6. Parasite – Watching the scheme unfold in “Parasite,” and then watching it fold back in on itself and jet off into a new, weird direction is so fun and interesting, you might forget it’s all in Korean. But you’ll definitely want some ram-don.
7. The Farewell – How would your life be different if you knew you were on death’s door? In writer-director Lulu Wang’s film, the elderly matriarch of a Chinese family is kept in the dark about her terminal cancer, which in turn makes her the liveliest member among the dour uncles and cousins. “The Farewell“ is anchored by fantastic performances from Awkwafina and Shuzhen Zhao, who is the living embodiment of your grandma and my grandma, even though she only speaks Chinese.
8. Marriage Story – Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannsson are riveting throughout, delivering real, lived in details in both conversations and shouting matches. Yes, the story is an autobiographical one from writer-director Noah Baumbach, but it would have hit harder had we not been watching rich people fighting.
9. El Camino – I’ll never turn down a reason to revisit the world of Vince Gilligan’s “Breaking Bad,” but is a 2-hour sequel/mid-quel the way to do it? Turns out, yes, especially when Aaron Paul and Jesse Plemons share the screen for extended periods of time.
10. Little Women/A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (tie) – Since I can’t have a top 11, the final two spots in this loaded year are reserved for two movies that playfully mess with typical framing. In “Little Women,” writer/director Greta Gerwig chops up the classic novel’s timeline, creating rose-tinted flashbacks paired with bleaker “current” timelines. The cleverest move, though, comes from slyly positioning the maybe-out-of-character happy ending as an in-movie “corporate” mandate. In “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” director Marielle Heller gently frames the entire film as an episode of “Mister Rogers Neighborhood,” complete with charmingly low-tech miniatures to illustrate scene changes.

Bottom 5:

1. Joker
2. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
3. Cats
4. The Amazing Johnathon Documentary
5. Godzilla: King of the Monsters

 

CODY VILLAFANA
Contributing writer and CineSnob podcaster

1. Marriage Story
2. Parasite
3. The Farewell
4. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
5. Jojo Rabbit
6. Dolemite is My Name
7. Pain and Glory
8. Knives Out
9. Uncut Gems
10. Midnight Family

 

CINESNOB.NET’S TOP 10 CONSENSUS LIST:

1. Marriage Story
2. Parasite
3. The Farewell
4. Dolemite Is My Name
5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
6. Knives Out
7. Jojo Rabbit
8. Uncut Gems
9. (tie) The Irishman and 1917
10. The Lighthouse

Ep. 135 – Ad Astra, Between Two Ferns: The Movie, Fantastic Fest recap, and a weekend at Big Texas Comicon

This week on The CineSnob Podcast, the lads review AD ASTRA and BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE.

Cody also regales us about his time at Fantastic Fest, while Jerrod talks his weekend at Big Texas Comicon.

Click here to download the episode!

Cinematic Spillover: Short Reviews of Tigers Are Not Afraid and The Fanatic

The Fanatic

If you thought actor John Travolta was disturbingly bad in the 2000 sci-fi bomb Battlefield Earth, brace yourself for something just as awful – but with far fewer cheesy special effects. In The Fanatic, Travolta stars as Moose, an autistic man living in Los Angeles who spends his time tracking down celebrities to collect their autographs. His paparazzo friend Leah (Ana Golja) refers to it as his “freaky little hobby.” But when Moose meets his favorite action star Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa) and is rejected, he develops an unhealthy obsession with the man and drives himself into full-blown stalker mode. Directed and co-written by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst (The Longshots), who actually drops a Limp Bizkit reference in the movie (seriously, he does), The Fanatic should be an embarrassment for everyone involved. Not only does Travolta deliver one of the most cringe-worthy performances in recent memory, his interpretation of an individual on the autism spectrum is stereotypical garbage and downright offensive. Even without Travolta’s laughable role, Durst and first-time co-writer Dave Bekerman pen a script that is more tasteless than the plaid shorts and Hawaiian shirt combo Moose wears throughout most of the movie. Every character is exaggerated to a level of annoyance that might be considered as cruel and unusual punishment. The absurd friendship between Moose and Leah amounts to a series of phony signs of affection – just enough to gaslight viewers into thinking that maybe Travolta’s character is simply misunderstood. Someone should start polishing up those Razzies for the Worst Film, Director, Screenplay and Actor of 2019. Grade: F

Tigers Are Not Afraid

Mexican writer/director Issa Lopez’s dramatic fantasy Tigers Are Not Afraid begins with some startling statistics. Since the beginning of the drug war in 2006, 160,000 people have been killed and 53,000 people have disappeared in Mexico. “There are no numbers for the children the dead and the missing have left behind.” We meet some of these orphans – Estrella (Paola Lara), Shine (Juan Ramón López), Tucsi (Hanssel Casillas), Pop (Rodrigo Cortes), and Morro (Nery Arredondo) – Lopez’s version of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys in her creative, heartbreaking and violent fairy tale. Unlike most fairy tales, however, there are no happy endings in Tigers. Kids in Mexico see dead bodies in the street every day and have become desensitized to the bloodshed. During a gun battle outside of her school, a teacher gives Estrella three pieces of chalk while they both lie face down on the floor and tells her that she now has three wishes. Her first wish is that her mother, who was kidnapped by a local cartel, returns to her. When Shine steals one of the cartel member’s cell phones containing incriminating evidence of the crimes they’ve committed, the ragtag group of kids become the target of the narcos who won’t stop until they’ve silenced everyone. Filled with beautiful magic realism throughout the film, Lopez’s Tigers is a powerful piece of cinematic art that will move audiences and allow them to see the hellish conditions presented through the eyes of the children who are suffering. Like Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth, Tigers’ mix of horror and childlike imagination is something that you won’t soon forget. Grade: A-

Cinematic Spillover: Short Reviews of Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins, Ladyworld and Itsy Bitsy

Itsy Bitsy

With a title like Itsy Bitsy, horror fans might anticipate a campy creature feature starring a cluster of eight-legged freaks, but visual effects producer and first-time writer/director Micah Gallo has something a little more sinister up his sleeve. The story follows Kara Spencer (Elizabeth Roberts), a nurse and single mother who moves with her two children to a small town to take a job as a private caretaker to Walter Clark (Bruce Davidson), a world-traveler with an affinity for collecting tribal artifacts. When a cursed relic is brought to him by a friend of his deceased wife, it releases a dog-sized, venomous spider that takes up residence on Walter’s property. Surprisingly, the spider itself doesn’t play into the narrative much until the third act. Itsy Bitsy is more about Kara and her insecurities as a mother and the depression she has to confront because of the death of a third child. Despite Gallo’s ability to keep a consistently creepy vibe, the script, which is also co-written by special effects and makeup artist Jason Alvino (Sucker Punch) and writer Bryan Dick (911 Nightmare), doesn’t bring all the dramatic and horror elements together in a cohesive enough way. Gallo, however, builds some solid tension. Ironically, Itsy Bitsy might’ve worked better as a conventional and minimalist ghost story instead of a gooey monster movie. The arachnid is irrelevant. Itsy Bitsy hits VOD platforms August 30. Grade: C+

Ladyworld

One could argue that Ladyworld, an avant-garde thriller being labeled by some as the female version of the 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, is performance art, but don’t buy it. Co-writer/director Amanda Kramer and co-writer Benjamin Shearn pile a group of actresses into a house, turn on a camera and tell them to brood for 93 minutes. That is the emotional depth viewers can look forward to experiencing. Ladyworld is ambitious, but it’s the kind of ambition one might recognize in a second-year film major. The potential is there, but not the execution. The film follows eight teenage girls at a birthday party who become trapped inside the host’s house after an earthquake. With each passing hour, the teens slowly begin to descend into madness as they attempt to find a way out. They also form alliances between each other – like an experimental version of a TV reality show where the contestants live together and try to get under each other’s skin. Some of the girls swear there is a male stranger lurking inside the house, although the presence of the intruder is left up to audience interpretation. Between all the crying and cattiness and having to listen to one of the most grating musical scores in recent memory (electronic dissonance can be amazing – i.e. composer Mica Levi – but this is something else), Kramer and Shearn fail to create even one character who feels like an authentic human being. Instead, characters act odd without much direction and Kramer seems more interested in staging a scene with her cast rather than making one come alive. “This party would be a lot more fun if it were over,” a gloomy girl says at one point in the film. We couldn’t agree with you more. Ladyworld hit VOD platforms August 27. Grade: D+

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins, featuring late pithy political columnist and Texas-raised rabble-rouser Molly Ivins, is the kind of documentary viewers will wish wasn’t made posthumously. Watching archive footage of the liberal-leaning writer breaking glass ceilings in the journalism world is wildly entertaining and inspiring, but imagine the impact a film like this would have with Ivins speaking not only on her entire career but on the current toxic political climate and the morally bankrupt occupant of the White House. Sadly, Ivins passed away in 2007 after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. What she left behind was a trove of respected work printed by numerous outlets across the country, direct words of wisdom and humor captured on video and a roadmap that can influence future journalists to always seek the truth and fight back against the establishment. “She got great joy in exposing the bastards,” one admirer says in the film. Although director Janice Engel treats Ivins with kid gloves at times, it’s Ivins who is throwing the biggest punches. Raise Hell is a high-spirited tribute to a consummate professional who could deliver a Texas-sized rattlesnake bite you’d never forget. Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins opens exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse Park North August 30. Grade: B+

Cinematic Spillover: Short Reviews of Ready or Not, The Peanut Butter Falcon, David Crosby and More

David Crosby: Remember My Name

It’s 2019 and, against all odds, singer-songwriter David Crosby is still alive. It’s a somber concept at the center of David Crosby: Remember My Name, a candid documentary on the unstable life and career of its title subject – one of the founding members of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash. First-time director A.J. Eaton taps into Crosby’s mind as he contemplates the mistakes he’s made in his life, mortality, addiction, the friends and lovers he’s lost along the way and his contribution to the musical counterculture of the 1960s. Like the documentary Echo in the Canyon from earlier this year, the best footage comes when Crosby is front and center telling both funny and tragic stories about his past and exorcising his demons. “Every minute that you get is precious,” he says. “Time is the final currency.” As a documentarian, Eaton plays it straight – allowing Crosby’s words to direct the narrative and giving him a platform to speak from the heart. Most importantly, the film is not an exercise in hero worshiping. Crosby’s warts are visible for all to see. While it’s unknown if a project like Remember My Name can move some people to reconnect with Crosby (he’s burned a lot of bridges in the last half century) and make amends, the doc makes a good argument for why they should. In the end, Remember My Name feels a lot like the 2014 music documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me – a touching farewell to an exceptional talent. Grade: B

Luce

Anchored by a solid ensemble cast, the dramatic tension hits a few boiling points in Luce, a smartly-written and compelling story that challenges its audience to take a step back and consider the consequences of certain characters’ actions. Actor Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Mudbound) stars as the title character, an exceptional high school senior with a supportive mother and father, Amy and Peter (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth), and a bright future ahead of him. That wasn’t always the case. Ten years prior, Amy and Peter adopted Luce from a war-torn African country where he saw things no child should ever witness. Although his life has completely changed, one of Luce’s teachers, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), expresses concern when Luce turns in an assigned essay about the benefit of political violence. From here, Luce plays out like a suspenseful thriller – one that distorts the truth and questions the idea of trust between parents and children. Although filmmaker Julius Onah completely crashed and burned with Netflix’s The Cloverfield Paradox last year, there’s no remnants of that style of direction anywhere. Luce is an enlightening experience that pushes its uncomfortable narrative to some of the most thought-provoking places of any movie this year. Grade: B+

The Peanut Butter Falcon

The high school literature vibe is strong with first-time feature film writers/directors Tyler Nelson and Michael Schwartz’s adventure dramedy The Peanut Butter Falcon, an obvious homage to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. While Nelson and Tyler don’t delve deep into the same themes of the classic novel (with the exception of the characters’ quest for freedom), Nelson and Schwartz create a sweet albeit sometimes sappy friendship between lead actors Shia LaBeouf (American Honey) and first-time actor Zack Gottsagen. Gottsagen, who has Down syndrome, stars as Zak, a young man abandoned by his family, thus becoming a ward of the state. North Carolina officials aren’t sure where to place him, so they move him into a retirement home where he is befriended by social worker Eleanor (Dakota Johnson). After more than two years, however, Zak, doesn’t want to live there anymore. He wants to go to a wrestling school in Florida where his favorite pro-wrestler Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church) coaches. After escaping the home and stowing away on a boat, he meets Tyler (LaBeouf), a crab fisherman on the run after he destroys the crab pots of some shady competitors. Going the same route down the East Coast, the two men form an authentic bond rooted on their shared loneliness and desire to live without limitations. The Peanut Butter Falcon might be a easygoing buddy road movie on paper, but the care that Nelson and Schwartz give these individual characters, especially Zak, is more endearing than most. Dramatically speaking, it’s a little lightweight, but the chemistry between Gottsagen and LaBeouf is pro-level rapport. Grade: B-

Ready or Not

Contrary to what a filmmaker like Jordan Peele has given audiences early in his career with Get Out and Us, not all horror-thrillers have to say something meaningful to prove their worthy of their celluloid. Sometimes all you really need are a few hacked-off appendages or someone’s head in a vice to get the heart pumping, amirite? Ready or Not is a strange hybrid of both approaches. It presents itself as another horror-comedy like You’re Next or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, but then it pulls its punches as a social commentary. Ready or Not wants it both ways, but screenwriters Guy Busick (Urge) and first-timer Ryan Murphy just don’t have a strong enough script to keep the story consistently entertaining, funny and even a little provocative. The film follows Grace (Samara Weaving), a bride who has married into the affluent De Loma family. The De Lomas are an eccentric group of 1-percenters who aren’t sold on Grace fitting into their lifestyle. She may not even get the chance to try when, on her wedding night, she is forced to play a sadistic game of hide and seek where her family attempts to hunt her down inside their mansion before the sun rises. With crossbows, axes and old revolvers in hand, the De Lomas spread throughout the house as Grace does her best to stay hidden and counter their attacks, all while her husband Alex (Mark O’Brien) decides if he really wants to become a widow before his honeymoon. It’s evident Busick, Murphy and co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (V/H/S) and Tyler Gillett (Southbound) have a kernel of an idea ruminating in their heads about classism and the power of the elite, but they simply can’t find a way to develop it into a worthwhile narrative. The movie flirts with big concepts and then flakes out. Still, the buckets of blood might be enough for most horror fans to wash away any disappointment by the lack of insight it pretends to convey. Grade: C+

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Actress Cate Blanchett knows how to play neurotic characters well. She’s actually won two Oscars for doing so. From her role as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 biopic The Aviator to her role as a manic New York socialite in Woody Allen’s 2013’s Blue Jasmine, Blanchett can push herself to the edge without losing her grip on reality in the process. She does the same as the title character in Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, although to a less effective degree. Based on a 2012 novel of the same name by Maria Semple, Linklater’s film explores the life of title character Bernadette Fox, a wife, mother and former architect who loses her shit one day and escapes out of a bathroom window after her husband (Billy Crudup) sets up an intervention to confront her about her emotional problems. The first half of Bernadette, when she spirals out of control, is intriguing enough, especially with Blanchett playing a mom and trying to keep her family life from imploding. Once she goes AWOL, however, Bernadette loses its way. It’s ironic that the last half of the film maps out a concrete final destination (Bernadette wants to get to Antarctica), but is so thematically directionless. Linklater seems to want to say something about the creative process for an artist and how an artist needs it to feel alive, but once he lets the audience in on the concept, the end credits start to roll. Grade: C+

Cinematic Spillover: Short Reviews of Good Boys, Gwen and The Amazing Johnathan

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary

Unless you’re Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine), it’s usually never a good idea to insert yourself into the documentary you’re making – unless, of course, you’re part of the actual story. Or, in the case of director Benjamin Berman (TV’s Comedy Bang! Bang!), you’re forced to turn the camera on yourself to capture the insanely bizarre things that are affecting the production. It’s exactly what happens in The Amazing Johnathan Documentary, a project that seemed to start off as a respectful and heartfelt journey alongside “rebel magician” John Szeles (AKA The Amazing Johnathan) during his farewell tour. In 2014, Szeles was diagnosed with a terminal heart disease and given one year to live. Berman wanted to be there to film the entire thing. But, as viewers will learn as the narrative slowly unfolds, so did a lot of other people. It’s best to know as little as possible about The Amazing Johnathan Documentary before you hit play. And even if you don’t know too much about Szeles’ career, Berman does an incredible job keeping audiences in the loop with old footage of his TV performances and interviews with fellow comedians and his family. With his nothing-to-lose attitude, Szeles is a perfect subject for this stranger-than-fiction doc that is equal parts fascinating and odd. As a character study, Berman does his best to blast through the bullshit, even when that is all Szeles wants to offer. And while there are still a handful of questions left unanswered when the credits start to roll, viewers should realize they’ve experienced something profound and uniquely meta. The Amazing Johnathan Documentary hits Hulu August 16. Grade: B+

Good Boys

No movie with this many dick jokes has any business being this funny. That said, Good Boys is just that – an obscenity-laced comedy with just the right combination of audacious humor and heart that will win over adults who don’t mind hearing 6th graders drop F-bombs. Sure, you won’t see evangelicals get on board for the R-rated raunchfest, but without the script featuring the phrase, “Grab them by the pussy,” is that really a surprise? Taking a few pages from its most obvious cinematic inspiration, the 2007 comedy Superbad, Good Boys is just as side-splitting hilarious and a lot more adorable – like the Little Rascals if the Little Rascals wielded dildos and shot people in the face with paintballs. The film stars Jacob Tremblay (Room), Keith L. Williams (TV’s The Last Man on Earth) and Brady Noon (TV’s Boardwalk Empire) as best friends Max, Lucas and Thor. When Max gets invited to a “kissing party,” he makes it his mission to go, so he can kiss the girl of his dreams. But when the boys accidentally lose Max’s father’s expensive drone and then unknowingly steal a bunch of ecstasy pills from a couple of high school girls, their afternoon turns into a race to put everything back to normal before they get grounded for life. Co-written by Lee Eisenberg (Year One) and Gene Stupnitsky (Bad Teacher), who also makes his directorial debut, Good Boys works because of its incredibly likeable trio of tweens who are actually really sweet characters. If Max, Lucas and Thor were mean-spirited little punks, this would be an entirely different movie. Luckily for audiences, even with a few lowbrow jokes that don’t register as much as others, Good Boys earns high marks. Good Boys opens nationwide August 16. Grade: B+

Gwen

There’s only so much a filmmaker can do with a dark and brooding atmosphere. For every Hagazuusa or The Witch that gets it right, there are movies that depend too much on their murky cinematography to tell a story. It’s a simple distraction from the fact that the script itself isn’t very compelling. Gwen falls under that category – a gothic horror/drama with a menacing tone that allows its vagueness and lack of emotion to weigh it down. Set in the 19th century Welch countryside, the film follows a mother (Maxine Peake) and her two daughters, Gwen (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) and Mari (Jodie Innis), living on their farm and awaiting their father to come back from the war. Their livelihood is put in jeopardy when mom mysteriously falls ill and their entire flock of sheep are torn apart and strewn across their land. Is something supernatural affecting the family or is there a more logical explanation for their bad luck? First-time writer/director William McGregor fashions together some thought-provoking scenarios and grim imagery, but the folktale never finds its way out of the fog. What we’re left with is a well-directed first feature that struggles to find purpose. Gwen hits VOD platforms August 16. Grade: C

Aisling Franciosi – The Nightingale

In her two-episode turn as Lyanna Stark on Game of Thrones, it could be argued that Irish-Italian actress Aisling Franciosi’s role was both an integral and non-integral part of the award-winning HBO series. Without her, the narrative that captivated audiences for eight full seasons would’ve ceased to exist. She gave birth to Jon Snow, for Christ’s sake. Still, her actual contribution to the show as an actress was ancillary at best.

In her new film The Nightingale, there’s no doubting the immense impact Franciosi brings to the daunting role and to the disturbing story, which is set in early 19th century Australia. Written and directed by Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), Franciosi plays Clare Carroll, an Irishwoman seeking revenge against a British lieutenant (Sam Claflin) and the soldiers who raped her and killed her family. With help from an Aboriginal tracker, Clare ventures out into the deadly Australian wilderness to find the men and claim her pound of flesh.

During an interview with me last week, Franciosi talked about what drew her to the role, why the film is different from most revenge flicks and why she doesn’t feel like she has to defend the movie from detractors who are condemning it without seeing it.

What motivated you to want to take on the lead role of a film that is as dark and controversial as The Nightingale?

Jennifer [Kent’s] writing really struck a chord with me when I read the script. There is just something about the way she writes that is very authentic and truthful. It really resonated with me. The story is a very powerful one with a lot of big themes that I think she deals with intelligently. Also, from an actor’s point of view, I just thought, “Wow. This is a once-in-a-lifetime role.” In my career, I’ve played a lot of teenagers, which is great, but I really wanted to step up to the plate and prove that I could do more.

Most young actresses like yourself don’t get a chance to show their range in such a powerful, serious film. Honestly, it’s really amazing that you got to do that in a project like this so early in your film career and not in something like Halloween 12.

(Laughs) Honestly, I was lucky that this script came along. I did work my ass off to get it. I also wrote to Jen and told her that I would give her everything and that she could push me to the absolute limit if she gave me the role. But I can’t lie. I know that I’m lucky. I’m realizing more and more that these roles come maybe once or twice in a career. To have gotten one so early on feels like a real blessing, but also makes me realize I can’t compare every script to this one.

This story is set during a very particular time and location in history. Did you study what was happening in Australia during the early 19th century to get a better sense of what these characters were going through?

I did a lot of research. Between getting cast and filming, there were about nine months, so I used that time to devour every documentary and book I could find. I educated myself on the history of Australia and the Aboriginal history. I studied post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and violence against women and sexual violence in general.

The physical nature of your role must’ve taken a toll on you. What was the actual shoot like, especially since most of it is outdoors?

We were filming in pretty inhospitable locations. I knew it would be a grueling shoot. I think the shoot was for 54 days and I was in 52 of those. I was working 14-16 hours a day. A lot of prep went into it, but that’s a luxury that you don’t get on a lot of projects. I auditioned more than three years ago, so the wait seemed endless. It was torture.

Revenge films aren’t anything new, but why do you think this one feels different? The rage your character shows and the change she goes through during the film felt more urgent than most revenge films I’ve seen in the past.

I think one way it’s different is that you don’t get the payoff that you’re quite expecting. The film really looks at the cost of revenge. Things don’t get wrapped up neatly with a bow as they do frequently with films. Clare is going on a quest for revenge, but I, personally, don’t see it as a “rape-revenge” movie. She’s going after [the man] who stole everything from her. She had been enduring his abuse for a long, long time because she wanted to protect her family. When she goes for revenge, he has not only taken her sense of self and her body, but also her child and her husband and her future and her dreams.

What was your relationship like with Sam Claflin (the British lieutenant) when the cameras weren’t rolling? Did you try to steer clear of him to keep that intensity high on the set or was it a real working collaboration?

Sam and I had a discussion early on about whether we should hang out before and after the shoot. We thought it was an interesting idea if we kept some distance. But as soon as we started workshopping, we realized we had to do the opposite. I had to get as close to him as possible. It was important for us to feel like we were safe with one another. When you’re shooting the kinds of scenes you have to shoot together, personally, I can’t put myself in an emotionally fragile place to get an authentic performance without trusting the other actors completely. So, we really got to know each other very well. We got really close as a group. I was sobbing in between takes and they would comfort me and just hold me. Everyone was just so sensitive to what was going on and what we were trying to do with the performances.

I’m sure you know there will be people who dismiss the film without seeing it simply because of the violent aspects of it. As you talk about this film, do you feel like you have to defend it or would you rather it speak for itself?

I don’t feel I have to defend it, no. I think the nice thing about giving yourself wholeheartedly to a project is that we know that we did it for honest and honorable reasons. The reality is that these are realities of colonialism and war. We see it going on even today. You can’t tell an honest story and depict a time in history without showing the violence. If you’re going to do that, you need to show just how terrible it is. I’m really proud of how we’ve shown it because we really focus on not dehumanizing the victims. In our film, it’s really about looking at the human being and the emotional cost of violence. We’ve become so desensitized to violence and what it actually means to inflict pain on another human being. So, I absolutely stand by every frame of this film. I think it makes people angry because it makes people feel things they don’t want to feel. But I think art has a place in making us look at society and at ourselves.

Gregory Nava – El Norte (35th Anniversary)

The story of Gregory Nava’s grandfather was something his family never talked about. The director and Oscar-nominated screenwriter’s grandfather was one of two million people of Mexican heritage — many of them U.S. citizens — deported (or coerced to self-deport) during the Great Depression by local, and sometimes federal, authorities.

“My family was ripped apart,” Nava told me during an interview ahead of the rerelease of his 1984 drama El Norte. “It was a family secret. It took time for me to find out about it. People keep these kinds of secrets because they want to conform and assimilate.”

A one-night only screening of El Norte takes place in theaters nationwide September 15. Nava recognizes the film’s rerelease is a good chance for Latino parents to speak to their children about their family’s history — especially since U.S. history is repeating itself today with President Donald Trump enforcing, what Nava calls, “draconian policies.”

“We need to teach our children who we are and where we came from,” he said. “We need to stand strong and educate them to never forget their past.”

Some of the Trump administration’s cruel practices, Nava points out, include President’s family-separation policy introduced last year that removed thousands of children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to deter migration; mass deportation of nonviolent undocumented immigrants; policies that punish immigrants for accepting government assistance and Trump vilifying Latinos and other immigrants — an action many of the President’s critics say is responsible for the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart earlier this month where 22 people were killed by a white nationalist targeting Mexicans.

“Our Latino community is in crisis,” Nava said. “All of us are under attack, not just immigrants. We are all in those cages with those children. All of us are in that Walmart in El Paso. We must rise to the occasion and get our message out about who we are, so that what’s happening in America right now can never happen again.”

Nava said it starts with compassion — the same compassion he wrote in his Oscar-nominated screenplay for El Norte. The film follows two indigenous teenagers who flee a Civil War in Central America to find a better life in the U.S. At that time, communist revolutions in countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala raged on, which inspired Nava to make his two protagonists Guatemalan.

“I was deeply moved by these true Americans — these Native Americans,” he said. “They had been ripped from their homes and suffering from genocide. I knew I had to tell their story, which is universal.”

In 1993, El Norte was selected for preservation by the U.S. National Film Registry in the Library of Congress. It celebrates the 35th anniversary of its theatrical release this year.

“[The rerelease of El Norte] is so bittersweet because 35 years later, the situation has not changed on the southern border,” Nava said. “In fact, it’s gotten worse. The message of El Norte is more relevant than when we originally made it. All Latinos need to get together again in a positive way. This should be a call for action.”

There is potential for a movement, Nava said. Today’s political climate reminds him of what took place after El Norte was originally released in the U.S. in 1984. Two years later, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which “legalized” most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Nava likes to think El Norte had a hand in motivating immigrants to demand the government recognize them as citizens.

“[El Norte] had a tremendous impact when it was first released,” he said. “The thing I’m most proud of is how the immigrant community picked up on the film and went to the government and got protective status. We thought, ‘We’re on the right track.’ Yet, it’s gotten derailed and now we’re worse than we were before. It’s tragic.”

The country is suffering, Nava said, because the Trump administration “has no humanity.”

“They don’t understand who we are as a nation,” he said. “They don’t know that immigrants are the ones who built the United States and who keep it young and vital. From all those immigrants comes our future.”

But can Hollywood help sustain a brighter future for America by simply making movies like El Norte, Sin Nombre, A Better Life and others? Do fiction films really wield that much power? Nava believes it’s vital that Latinos are portrayed on screen in positive ways, so that more people know that in real life we’re not all drug dealers and criminals — an identity Trump has tried to cast on the culture since announcing his run for presidency in 2015.

“It’s an important thing to do, and we need to do more of it,” Nava said. “Hollywood has a major part in this. They have to open up their pocketbooks to let more Latino filmmakers get their films made. People don’t see many of us on screen, and when they do see us, we’re narcos. That negative portrayal creates a negative effect.”

Getting more opportunities for Latinos is something Nava has been fighting for his entire career. He’s had to prove himself every time he wants to make a new movie that his last success — from El Norte to Mi Familia to Selena — wasn’t a fluke and that Latino stories are important enough to tell.

“It’s a sad commentary that Latinos have the worst representation of any group in our country,” he said. “But, I believe a sea change is coming. We have won our place at the table. Now, Hollywood has to respond. They need to see our heart and soul.”

This interview was initially published by Remezcla.com

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