Sunset Song is an adaptation of the book Sunset Song, by Scottish author Lewis Grassic Gibbon.  The novel is regarded as one of the most important novels of the 20th Century, partially due to its frank depiction of a family’s harsh life. It was adapted to the screen and directed by Terence Davies.

The story follows the Guthrie family, who manage a farm in the early 1900s.  The father, John (Peter Mullan), is dominant, cold, and harsh. Chris (Agyness Deyn), the only daughter, has dreams of being a teacher.  She and her brother Will (Jack Greenlees) help their father, but manage to evoke his wrath from time to time.  Their mother, Jean (Daniela Nardini), manages the homestead, as well as two younger sons. She is distraught when she learns she’s pregnant again, and commits suicide.

Chris has to put her dreams of being a teacher on hold, to manage the farm in her mother’s place. Will, desperate to remove himself from under his father’s thumb, finds work elsewhere, then a wife, and announces they are moving to Argentina. John takes on a farmhand, and Chris manages to find a beau, Ewan (Kevin Guthrie).

There is much more to the story, but I’ll stop there. This film is very pretty, and pleasant to watch, for the visuals. The realities are a lot more brutal, and I’ll leave them for you to discover. The story plods along, and the movie itself runs 2 hours, 15 minutes. That’s OK, because it comes to a mostly satisfying conclusion. Recommended.

The Scottish dialect is pretty heavy, and would be hard to follow, at times, but the version I saw had subtitles.

Keanu is a black comedy, of sorts, but at its heart is a buddy comedy.

The film starts at an illegal drug lab. Two men bust in, and kill everyone. The leader of the factory tries to escape, with his new kitten.  He is not so fortunate, but the kitten gets out.

Rell Williams (Jordan Peele) is a man who’s just been dumped by his girlfriend. His best friend, Clarence Goobril (Keegan Michael Key) has just seen off his wife and daughter on a weekend getaway, so he calls Rell to find him in this state. Clarence tells Rell he’ll spend the whole weekend with him, in an effort to cheer him up. When he gets off the phone, Rell hears something at his door, and when he goes to check, he sees the aforementioned kitten, and takes him in. Rell calls him Keanu, which means “the cool breeze” in Hawaiian.

In the short while, Rell bonds with Keanu, and Clarence arrives to take him out for a bit.  They go, but when they return, Rell’s home is burglarized, and Keanu’s missing. Keanu becomes the MacGuffin that drives the story. Keanu lands in the hands of Cheddar (Method Man), the local drug lord. As Rell and Clarence attempt to recover Keanu, they are mistaken for the assassins who destroyed Cheddar’s supplier’s lab, and he uses that to get them to do a job for him before returning Keanu. They have to play along, because Keanu is everything to Rell.

We see that these two have a lot of pretending to do. Clarence is a classical milquetoast, whose favorite singer is George Michael. Rell has to man up and go nuts for a drug deal involving Anna Faris (as herself).

The film has some dark turns in it, and you can’t be quite sure which end is up. Clarence gets ‘outed’ for appearing as he does and Rell just amps up his performance. Naturally, the real killers are around, and they won’t go down without a fight.

This is a Key and Peele film, and it shows.  I do recommend the film, even with its dark nature.

Papa, or Papa Hemingway in Cuba (as IMDB refers to it) is a docudrama about Ernest Hemingway in the late 1950s, when he spent time living in Cuba. The film itself was mostly shot in Cuba, and used his home there for most of the film.  It is also the first Hollywood movie filmed in Cuba since the 1959 revolution there. Hemingway’s home is a national museum, now.

The story starts with a reporter for the Miami Herald, Ed Myers (Giovanni Ribisi). Ed is a big fan of Hemingway (Adrian Sparks), and writes a fan letter to him that he never mails, afraid of offending the man, himself. His girlfriend, Debbie Hunt (Minka Kelly), mails it for him, and Hemingway responds by inviting him down for a visit.

Hemingway’s there with his wife, Mary (Joely Richardson), who is as much a free spirit as Papa (Everyone calls Hemingway Papa).  They discuss Ed’s work as a war correspondent in Korea, and the connection is made. Hemingway takes the young journalist under his wing, exposing Ed to his world, which includes the realities of Cuba at the time.

Ed makes frequent trips to Cuba, but it’s clear that the tide is changing. Debbie wants more of a relationship, and is annoyed that Ed seems to be at Papa’s beck and call. The FBI approaches Ed to get him to monitor Papa and his activities. It’s clear they want the dirt. As with all things, familiarity breeds contempt, and we do get to see the surly side of Papa, who is as nasty as you’d expect. He and Mary argue, while he struggles with writer’s block. It’s all seemingly downhill from there.

The film’s a bit formulaic in some ways, but it was never dull. In a post-screening interview, the director explained that he chose a relative unknown to play Hemingway, so as to let the character of the man come out, rather than have everyone see the named actor playing a role.

What I found interesting was that this movie was originally written by Denne Bart Petitclerc, and it’s about his life.  He wrote the letter to Hemingway, spent time with him, but made up the character of Ed, for some reason. There was also a surprising ‘blink and you miss it’ cameo, but IMDB spoils that.

I appreciated this insight into the later years of Hemingway, and I do recommend it.

Eva Hesse is a documentary about an contemporary artist of the 1950s and 1960s, and made a big impression in the community. Her story is told historically, and the film is full of interviews and archival footage of her, her friends, and her sister. There is as much to tell about her art as there was to tell about her life and lifestyle, which had a big impact on what she did.

Eva and her family fled Germany in the late 1930s, before World War II broke out. Eva started as a painter, but her circumstances changed, and she evolved. She started in NYC, and then spent some time living in Germany after her husband, Tom Doyle, was commissioned to create sculpture there. She spent some of her time learning about European art, and combined it with her existing knowledge and skill into something new and interesting.

I am, by far, one of the least qualified people to discuss her art in any specific terms, however, this documentary provides the background that explains, and in some cases, demonstrates, the processes that she used when creating it. On that level, I found it fascinating. I don’t necessarily understand it, but I can appreciate the paths she took when creating her art.

I think that people who aren’t interested in the art world won’t appreciate the film entirely, but, for me, this documentary was a good look at it through an outsider’s eyes.

Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice is apparently a very polarizing movie. Either you love it or hate it. I loved it. The story is a little convoluted, but, for me, worked out well, setting the stage for the next movie or two in the series from DC. There are some early plot spoilers in this review, but nothing for the second half of the movie, which has a runtime of 151 minutes.

The film starts where Man of Steel ended. Superman (Henry Cavill) has defeated General Zod and his forces, leaving Metropolis destroyed. The death toll is large, and many blame Superman for the devastation. Among them is Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), who owns Wayne Industries. One of the buildings of his corporation was utterly destroyed in the fight, and becomes convinced that Superman will lead to the destruction of the entire human race.

On his own, there are other consequences to Superman’s actions. He rescues Lois Lane (Amy Adams) from the clutches of a probable terrorist leader, which leads to the massacre of innocents within that country later on. They blame him for either causing it or failing to stop those who actually did it.  It’s all uncertain. Back in the U.S. Senator June Finch (Holly Hunter) is holding congressional hearings as to the nature of Superman’s behavior. Is he a menace who acts without thinking of the aftermath, or is he aware of the situation and does nothing to stop it?

The relationship between Lois Lane and Superman has really gelled in this film. Gone is the silly pretense that one of the best investigative reporters in the world has no clue that Clark Kent is his secret identity. That always annoyed me in past films.

We are introduced to Lex Luthor(Jesse Eisenberg), who is beguiled by the presumably unstoppable Man of Steel. He finds out that the U.S. government has discovered Kryptonite in the wreckage of the two ships from Krypton that were left behind after the failure of General Zod. He attempts to gain access to all of these via Senator Finch, who isn’t so ready to let him. Bruce Wayne is also aware of the discovery, and realizes he needs the Kryptonite to bring Superman down. There’s a bit of interplay between Luthor, Wayne, and Clark Kent that comes into play.

The story goes on from there, and to me, was quite satisfying. It was no the typical linear story that you’ve seen in many other superhero movies, and it was a welcome relief. In those films, the heroes discover the villain, who has a plan to defeat them. They attempt to thwart him, but there’s a twist that prevents them from initially becoming victorious, but our heroes find a way to do that, eventually. There are no nuances and very little in the way of surprises in those. In this film, some of that occurs, but things are more complex than previously expected, which showed more depth than most of the films.

I do have a couple of gripes about the film, but most of them pertain to Batman’s portrayal. He’s a bit more single-minded than we’ve seen before.  Alfred (Jeremy Irons) is an effective voice of reason in the movie, even if he’s a bit ignored. Wonder Woman is introduced in the film, and is used well, IMO. There is one moment in the film that just seemed too convenient, but I’ll just leave it at that.

I cannot comment further on the storyline and such without spoiling the rest of the film. The scripting seems more adult-aware and less comic-booky than most of the other superhero movies. I’ll just say that the choices they made were quite surprising, given the subject matter and the long history of comic books.

I’m one of the few who can recommend this movie. I expect that it may polarize some people, but so be it.

Golden Kingdom is a movie told in a non-traditional sense, at least in the Western world. It has to be experienced, and the interpretation is left to the viewer.

Four young Buddhist monks life in a remote monastery in Myanmar. They live, with their master teacher, relying on the good graces of the nearby village, who delivers food daily. There is a certain regularity in their lives, but it is all called into question when their master is summoned for some unknown reason. The oldest of them, Ko Yin Witazara is put in charge, and he tries to maintain order.

They survive, by going about their daily rituals, and sharing stories. One day, the food deliveries stop. The youngest monk wanders off, and they find him, but he’s sick. They find a family who helps, but we come to find that there’s an armed rebellion going on. Eventually, they return, but are again alone. Poeple passing through visit them, but it’s not enough. Witazara wanders off for help.

That’s about all I can say about the plot. As I mentioned, this movie is better experienced than explained. There is beautiful imagery and  there are wonderous landscapes. A lot is left for the view to interpret.

I enjoyed this film, but for those who expect the story to be spelled out will have to look elsewhere. I presume that the tenets of Buddhism weigh heavily in this film, but I am not all that knowledgeable to say with any certainty. At the interview after the film, we came to find that there aren’t any deals to distribute the film in the U.S., but that may change.

Remember is a black comedy involving Senior Citizens and Nazis. It is a challenging and entertaining movie.

Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer)  is a 90 year old man, living in a nursing home. His wife has just died. He is losing his memory, and needs to be reminded of the simplest of things. His neighbor, Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau), tells him he has to begin his trip. Zev promised Max to seek out and murder Otto Wallisch, a block commander at Auschwitz, who got away before he could be captured. Otto has taken the name Rudy Kurlander and pretended to be a Holocaust survivor. Max has tracked down 4 Jews with that name, and he can’t be sure which one is Otto, so he’s sent Zev to go investigate. Zev and Max are the only survivors who can identify him. Max cannot go because he is wheelchair bound and living on an oxygen supply.

Max arranges tickets for Zev. He wrote a detailed letter of what Zev is supposed to do, in case he forgets, which he does, frequently. Zev’s son is distraught when he learns his father just walked out of the home without anyone stopping him. Max hangs by the phone, reminding Zev of what he has to do and waits to hear the results.  With the help of many people along the way, Zev continues onward.

Christopher Plummer’s portrayal of Zev is the driving force of the film. Zev is a frail man, but has an inner strength that keeps him going. Martin Landau as Max was equally strong. It’s a mystery what he’ll do next, and Plummer is perfect in convincing us that he doesn’t know, either, even though it’s spelled out for him in the letter from Max. It makes for a very suspenseful movie.

Much like Mr. Holmes from last year, this movie deals with issues of ageism quite well. Remember is already on my list of favorite films of 2016. I definitely recommend this film for people who can handle the subject matter.

My Golden Days is a quintessential French film, subtitled in English, in its U.S. release. Malaise is the driving force of the film.

Paul Dédalus is a man, departing form Tajikstan, and is detained for questioning. The government thinks he is a spy, and wants to interrogate him further. He reveals nothing, so a second agent is brought in . This gentlemen gets him to open up, so he starts talking about his childhood, where it all began. The flashbacks are told like a set of chapters in his story.

As a teen, Paul and his siblings hated their mother. In one scene, he’s threatening her to protect himself and his two siblings, Delphine and Ivan. He runs away and stays with his aunt, and while there, learns that his mother has killed herself. He returns home and helps care for his brother and sister. The father is there, but entirely uninvolved, and has a job where he travels almost constantly, leaving Paul in charge.

While hanging with his sibs, he meets Esther, the popular girl that no Delphine and Ivan dislike. He befriends her. She is very needy, and he is indifferent,  but they fall into a relationaship, regardless. Paul eventually goes off to college, and ingratiates himself into the anthropology program, working closely with a professor. Esther and he exchange many letters, read over the top of scenes throughout the film.

Their relationship deteriorates, and the only reason they seem to stay together is that they need something from each other, but Paul cannot fathom why he needs her, and never admits to it, directly. Paul travels for his schoolwork, most of the time, and it becomes clear to us that he is becoming his father, repeating his patterns to the letter. Paul does not.

I’ve read that this film is a prequel, of sorts, to a 1996 film, My Sex Life, or How I Got Into an Argument.  I have not seen that film, so I cannot comment on how relevant it is. On its own, My Golden Years is not a great movie. Nothing is “Golden”, and the opening of the film has no resolution. Everything that transpires just sort of happens, with Paul and Esther just stumbling onward. They don’t really take charge of their fates – Paul just fails upward, and Esther lets her life  be decided by others.

Hail, Caesar! is the latest movie from Joel and Ethan Coen. It is a movie with many spinning parts (with some anachronisms) that join to form an entertaining film.

In 1952, Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) runs Capitol Pictures, a movie studio. Even though he’s not the head of the studio, he’s making all the decisions that matter, the ones that allow them to keep making movies. At least six films are in play, and we catch glimpses of them all. He spends his time problem-solving, juggling the media, movie crews, and the actors who get ‘into trouble’. Eddie is also at a juncture in his life, and is faced with a decision. He’s being wooed away from the movie business by a company that’s made a very lucrative offer. He’s been mulling it over, and has postponed making the choice, because he’d rather that someone else make it for him.

Eddie’s primary focus is on bringing the filming of the movie “Hail Caesar!” to its conclusion. It’s about a Roman centurion, who’s life is changed by the arrival of Jesus. Baird Witlock (George Clooney), is the star of the film, and he has a scandalous past. He is kidnapped before the final scenes, and Eddie originally thinks he’s gone on a bender.

Meanwhile, one of his other stars, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlet Johansson), the star of a Busby Bekeley-style water ballet film, has become pregnant, and needs to finish the film before she’s showing. It doesn’t help that she’s single, which was the height of scandal in those days. Another problem for Eddie to work out.

The studio head has decided that one of his “western” actors needs to be cast in a high society film. Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) is pulled from shooting his current Western and thrown into a newer film, directed by Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Feinnes), and it doesn’t go well. Eddie has to make it work.

There is so much happening in this movie. Tilda Swinton plays twin sisters who are rival gossip columnists, played for comedic effect. Channing Tatum is a singing and dancing sailor in a musical called “No Dames!” Even Francis McDermond, wife of Joel Coen, has a scene.

I daresay this juggling act of movies within the movie, coupled with the off-screen antics of the stars, is very reminiscent of Robert Altman’s work.  It all makes sense, more or less, and it culminates in a rather satisfying way. I’m fairly certain that water-ballet films had reached their height in the 1930s, and were not being made in the 50s, and Scarlet Johansson’s behavior is more like Katherine Kepburn’s performance in His Girl Friday, but that is a relatively minor quibble. I haven’t brought up the kidnappers and their agenda, but I will leave that for you to discover.

I do recommend this film, but I will say it requires a bit more focus than most. This is one of the ‘tamer’ Coen brothers movies, and there’s little violence beyond fisticuffs.

Deadpool is a Superhero movie with a big difference. It’s lewd, crude, and socially unacceptable. It is also brilliant and worth the price of admission.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a former special forces operative, who is now a mercenary. He meets and falls in love with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Before they can get married, Wade is diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Wade is approached by a mysterious man, who offers a cure. The cure is actually an excuse to experiment on him, basically trying to trigger any mutant genes he may possess. Ajax (Ed Skrein) leads this project, and is sadistic. The treatment becomes a torture, and it leaves Wade disfigured and slightly mentally unstable.  Ajax reveals that he intends to sell any “successful” mutants off as slaves to the highest bidder. Wade resists, and manages to destroy the lab. He survives, because his main mutant power is the ability to regenerate and heal any injuries he sustains. Now free, he sets off to destroy everything Ajax has built. The plot is, for the most part, irrelevant.

Much of the film is told in flashback. Much of the film also includes narration by Deadpool himself. He breaks the fourth wall often. He pokes fun at the X-Men and other superheroes, even Green Lantern, a role Ryan Reynolds played. Much like Honey Badger, Deadpool don’t care. Even the opening credits have a number of jokes included. There was one confusing aspect of the film that I didn’t properly understand until I visited IMDB – his best friend Weasel is played by TJ Miller, who looks and acts like Ryan Reynolds’ Wade, so much so that I thought it was him.

Make no mistake, Deadpool is for adults. It’s graphically violent, and the humor is not for the light-hearted.

There’s a post-credits sequence that’s very reminiscent of another movie, and well worth the wait.