CODA - 10
I don’t know how to define “heart” in a movie, but I know it when I see it. My favorite movie of the year so far is this Apple TV exercise in joy. Just as Apple TV+ has a hit with Ted Lasso, now in its second season, they hit it out of the park with this movie directed by Sian Heder.
If you see only one movie this year, see this one.
Emilia Jones plays Ruby Rossi, the title character, a Child of Deaf Adults. Her schedule consists of getting up at 3 am to go fishing with her family, then attend high school. When she signs up for choir, her gifts as a singer are revealed, and she adds private singing lessons to her already packed schedule. Unfortunately, her parents and older brother have no way to assess or witness this talent, because they can’t hear. Her family inhabits a world of financial desperation in the New England fishing industry, and she is their voice and ears as they try to navigate it. It is often heart-breaking, and as the details of her harried existence unfold, you will get a depth of understanding of the deaf community. Like last year’s Sound of Metal, and A Quiet Place, it’s only a partial glimpse, but it is insightful.
There isn’t a false note as Ruby juggles her responsibilities, adding in a romance with another singer, and they both aspire to go to the Berklee school of music in Boston. While the plot is predictable, its execution is not. The acting is tremendous, particularly by the deaf cast headed by Troy Kotsur as Ruby’s father. I don’t want to give too much away, but have a box of Kleenex handy. If this doesn’t move you, check your pulse.
Leave No Trace – 10
Why in the world did I watch this 2018 drama about a daughter and father living off the grid in the Oregon wild? Because, believe it or not, it now sits atop the Rotten Tomatoes scoreboard as the most positively reviewed film ever. My reviews don’t count in that talley.
There’s a lot going on in this movie, and it’s almost all psychological. Ben Foster plays Will, a veteran with PTSD that has withdrawn from society completely and taken his teenage daughter Tom (played perfectly by Thomasina McKinzie) with him. They are a formidable team in that they have developed a set of rules for living in the woods, so that they can remain undiscovered. When you have some spare time, Google the “Leave no trace” rules for more info. This is interesting environmental information, and I have no idea if it precedes, or has any relation to this movie. But the movie is inspired by a true story of a father and daughter who lived in a Portland nature preserve for many years until they were removed.
When Tom breaks a rule, they are discovered and arrested. Deemed homeless, they are subsequently placed in a workplace to which they both react differently. They must decide their future, and this is definitely one of those “what would you do?” movies that I love so much. Director Deborah Granik’s last feature was 2010’s Winter Bone in which she gifted us with Jennifer Lawrence. Here she gives us McKinzie. And yet, it is Ben Foster whose anguish inhabits this movie. Strong and compelling, I understand why it has never had a negative movie review.
Shiva Baby – 10 (HBO)
Now this is how you make a comedy. In just an hour and 17 minutes, short and sweet, Director Emma Seligman takes us on an exercise in anxiety. Rachell Sennott plays Danielle, a young Jewish girl under pressure from her family to make something of herself. What she has chosen is to become a sugar daddy to Max, a wall street hot shot.
When Danielle has to attend a funeral of a family friend she barely knew, her experience begins with the usual family bickering and pressure about her future prospects, but soon escalates with the arrival of (surprise) her old girlfriend, then (surprise) her sugar daddy and (surprise) the wife and baby Danielle didn’t know about. The wife, played by Dianna Agron (of Glee fame) doesn’t take long to catch the wind, and as Danielle moves from room to room in the cramped house where the post-service visitation is taking place, there is always a new navigation, with a hilarious result.
The night we watched this my main criteria was to find
something short to watch. Little did I know
I would stumble upon a compact classic – no fluff, no stuff, just
brilliance in brevity.
Inventing David Geffen – 10
Much like the David Foster documentary now available on Netflix, this biography of an entertainment mogul will amaze you. It is now on Netflix, but first appeared on PBS in 2012 as part of the American Masters series. David Geffen wanted to be an agent/producer and he started at the bottom in the mail room of William Morris. He misrepresented himself on his resume, and went to extraordinary lengths to keep the deception alive. He started as an agent for Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods, a group that had a hit song called "Get Together" but I consider legendary because of their song “Sunlight.” He then discovered Laura Nyro and launched her on her trajectory. I was always a big fan of Nyro, so you could say this movie had me at hello.
Geffen is on a trajectory of his own, as a music, then movie hitmaker, as well as a political sponsor. His contributions to the world of entertainment are varied and fascinating. You think you know, but you don’t. If you love music and movies, don’t miss this portrait of a guy who, live Foster and Clive Davis, has had a magic touch with acts like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Cher, Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and many more, as well as a string of Oscar winning pictures. I’ve often spotted entertainment and thought they were going to be huge, and I was wrong. Geffen was usually right. PBS Stuff usually has a short run on Netflix, so catch it now.
Stop Making Sense – 10
I didn’t know much about David Byrne and/or The Talking Heads. I knew that this movie is generally considered up there with The Last Waltz as the best documentary concert films of all time. I saw the terrific David Byrne Broadway musical brought to HBO earlier in the year, and thought it was time to go back and catch the bookend to that experience. It didn’t let me down. It’s innovative approach to staging and filming a concert has held up.
6 Underground – 1 (Netflix)
This is a Netflix “action” movie that embodies everything I hate about the current state of movies. It is all nonsensical and disjointed action for action’s sake. With splashy colors and ridiculous and graphic violence in one set piece after another that mean little, it is tied together by Ryan Reynolds’ half-hearted charisma. You know you are in trouble in the first scene. It is a car chase through Florence that lasts forever. Blood is spurting all over 4 of the 6 person team because one woman is trying to extract a bullet from the other woman’s leg. High speed surgery, while chase cars keep coming out of nowhere to be exploded, shot, wrecked and otherwise exterminated. This is more than violence porn. It is graphic nonsense. If you are one of those who believe the Afghanistan war was the biggest waste of money ever, you haven’t seen this garbage, directed of course by Michael Bay at a destruction cost of $150 Million just for Netflix. No creativity here, sound and fury. I can’t believe I watched the whole thing.
Binge Report
Lie to Me – 10
I am revisiting, via Hulu, this 48-episode Fox show that aired from 2009 to 2011. I liked it then. It is even better than I remembered it. The primary cast of Tim Roth, Kelli Williams, Monica Raymund, Brendan Hines, and Hayley McFarland ooze amazing chemistry and the plots are aggressive and compelling. This show is unique and I haven’t re-watched all the episodes yet, but it is in the pantheon of my favorite drama series of all time.
Roth plays Cal Lightman, a character based on the work of Paul Ekman, a specialist on facial expression. Ekman was a consultant on the show, so there's an air of authenticity. The Lightman Group takes on cases where they are called on to ferret out deception and tell who is lying. Of course, all of this is done within the constraints of episodic television in which the mystery, plus a usual secondary plot, has to be resolved within an hour-long time frame, then the world is saved for another week. In the world of tv today, it would be done much differently, and in my imagination, it could be even better. Great series. If you are looking for something to binge, check this one out. Terrific cast, terrific premise, with Tim Roth's quirkiness center stage.
Here are my favorite TV Drama’s of all-time, in only approximate order:
Hill Street Blues
The Good Wife
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Rockford Files
House
Firefly
Rectify
The Newsroom
The Wire
Star Trek
Breaking Bad
Lie to Me
Homeland
The OA
Billions
Six Feet Under
The Practice
And select seasons of The Sinner, True Detective, and Fargo.
I still have many I want to watch, with some surgery downtime ahead of me. What’s your favorite TV Drama?
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