Dolemite Is My Name - Review

Dolemite Is My Name

A NETFLIX Original Film

Based on a true story of a floundering comedian named Rudy Ray Moore (Academy Award nominee Eddie Murphy) we see him early stung by a string of showbiz failures. Then one day on a chance encounter in an ally with a homeless man he has an epiphany that turns him into a word-of-mouth sensation by step onstage as another persona.

Borrowing from the street mythology of 1970s Los Angeles, Moore assumes the persona of Dolemite, a pimp with a cane and an arsenal of obscene fables. However, his ambitions exceed selling bootleg records deemed too racy for mainstream radio stations to play. Moore convinces a social justice-minded dramatist (Keegan-Michael Key) to write his alter ego a film, incorporating kung fu, car chases, and Lady Reed (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), an ex-backup singer who becomes his unexpected comedic foil. Despite clashing with his pretentious director, D'Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes), and countless production hurdles at their studio in the dilapidated Dunbar Hotel, Moore's Dolemite becomes a runaway box office smash and a defining movie of the Blaxploitation era.

REVIEW: The film is totally a lighthearted look at the main subject in Moore. He is seen as an abundantly kind, generous and tender man who figured out the use of clever profanity laced jokes could be the gateway to his lifelong desire to achieving the American dream. More so, it examines how his early childhood of physical and emotional abuse by his father was the singular driving force to making something of his life than being an Arkansas sharecropper.

But the real reason to see this film is the performances of Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes, especially more so Murphy. Murphy manages to make you laugh at Moore lack of professional talent, laugh at the clever profane jokes but also deeply sympathize and identify with the humanity in Moore all in the same breath. Murphy uses his natural talent in being funny to also give life to a real human story about a deeply kind and generous man. A performance that would not surprise me at all that he garners some serious Oscar Nomination consideration as Best Actor in 2020.

With a superbly written screenplay “Dolemite Is My Name” is less about Rudy Ray Moore as a comic and more about a man’s deep seeded refusal that he would not let his own discernible lack of talent get in his way. Instead he used his own indomitable determined spirit of achieving his own American dream and by watching his film story it’s a celebration of human perseverance and “I can do anything” underdog desire to be being more than the present.

3.75 Stars

Parasite - Review

Parasite

Winner of the 2019 Palme D’ Or prize as Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival, “Parasite” takes place in modern South Korea revolving around a story line of two distinct; could not be more polar opposite families. 

In family number one you see the Park Family; the picture of both aspirational and achieved wealth and financial success. Family number two is the Kim Family; far from wealthy but very rich in street smarts and not much else at all. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kim’s sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by their teenage college-aged son Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as a fake tutor and a fake art therapist, to the Parks teenage daughter and adolescent son.

After a short period of time a very meticulously symbiotic relationship begins to form between the two families largely predicated on the Kim’s keeping up their fake personas all the time almost 24/7. The Kim’s beginning to provide the Parks the "indispensable" luxury services typically associated to the wealthy while the Parks obliviously naively bankroll the Kim’s entire household not knowing they are grifting frauds. But as the old adage goes, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” - no matter how carefully planned, something may still go wrong with it. And thus an unanticipated event threatens the Kim’s' newfound comfort. Once destitute but no longer the Kim’s engage in a savage, underhanded battle that threatens to destroy the fragile balance of symbiotic need between the Kim’s and the Parks.

REVIEW: Listed as a drama mystery “Parasite” but is is so much brilliantly more. It is charming, funny, always clever and on occasion adroitly hilarious. Ultimately “Parasite is a masterful stealthy crafted tale of modern grifting through the filter of class greed and class discrimination. It also showed how the qualities that sometimes associated with people of wealth such as ingenuity, ambition and desire eventually wain as they now are inclined to easily fall victim to being more gullible, lazy, childish and naive when their financial success is achieved. Likewise the poor and the destitute can sometimes be equally inclined to being driven and ambitions to achieving their lifelong dreams by how more desperate their poverty conditions affect them.

There is both a poetic beginning and Shakespeare ending to this film’s story overall arc. A richly developed story that at times is directed with near perfection by Bong Joon Ho. Nothing ever gets lost in the 2:15 minute running time subtitled film as each characters motives are easily understood for the theater viewer to fully appreciate and enjoy. But more so from its first minute to its climatic ending this is simply a very smart, witty and thoughtful film that defies being limited to specific cultural boundaries. It would not surprise me in five years someone in Hollywood will adapt a similar screenplay with an American family in mind to telling this story. It’s just that original and surprisingly good.  

  

"Oh, what a Korean tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive". For me “Parasite” is clearly one of the five best films you will see in 2019.

4:00 Stars

Leading 2020 Contenders For Oscar Nominations

LEADING 2020 CONTENDERS FOR OSCAR NOMINATIONS

BEST PICTURE - 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

The Irishman

Marriage Story

Jojo Rabbit

Parasite

1917

Little Women

Joker

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Ford Vs Ferrari

The Farewell

Bombshell

The Two Popes

The Report

Pain and Glory

BEST DIRECTOR - 

Martin Scorsese - The Irishman

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Bong Joon Ho  - Parasite

Noah Baumbach - Marriage Story

Sam Mendes - 1917

Greta Gerwig - Little Women

Taika Waititi - Jojo Rabbit

Pedro Almodovar - Pain and Glory

Todd Phillips - Joker

Marielle Heller - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Terrence Malick - A Hidden Life

Fernando Meirelles - The Two Popes

Lulu Wang - The Farewell

James Mangold - Ford v Ferrari

Jay Roach – Bombshell

BEST ACTRESS -

Renee Zellweger - Judy

Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story

Saoirse Ronan - Little Women

Charlize Theron - Bombshell

Awkwafina - The Farewell

Cynthia Erivo - Harriet

Alfre Woodard - Clemency

Elisabeth Moss - Her Smell

BEST ACTOR - 

Adam Driver - Marriage Story

Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Robert De Niro - The Irishman

Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory

Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes

Eddie Murphy - Dolemite Is My Name

Taron Egerton - Rocketman

Christian Bale - Ford v Ferrari

Adam Sandler - Uncut Gems

Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Michael B. Jordan - Just Mercy

Shia LaBeouf - Honey Boy

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - 

Laura Dern Marriage Story

Jennifer Lopez - Hustlers

Annette Bening - The Report

Shuzhen Zhou - The Farewell

Margot Robbie - Bombshell

Margot Robbie - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Scarlett Johansson - Jojo Rabbit

Florence Pugh - Little Women

Meryl Streep - Little Women

Nicole Kidman - Bombshell

Da'Vine Joy Randolph - Dolemite Is My Name

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - 

Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Al Pacino - The Irishman

Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Willem Dafoe - The Lighthouse

Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes

Joe Pesci - The Irishman

Sterling K. Brown - Waves

Jamie Foxx - Just Mercy

Alan Alda - Marriage Story

Taika Waititi - Jojo Rabbit

John Lithgow – Bombshell

BLUE HIGHLIGHT – Lester’s Early Prediction Who Could Win

Zombieland 2: Double Tap - Review

Zombieland 2: Double Tap

After an entire decade after Zombieland became a hit film - cult classic, the lead cast (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone) have reunited with director Ruben Fleischer (Venom) and the original writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick (Deadpool) to star in the sequel “Zombieland: Double Tap”.

The plot (if you want to call it a plot) find the makeshift family of uninfected hero-survivors still immersed in the zombie apocalypse trying to enjoy the little pleasures of life one day at a time. They have now moved to DC and are residing in what’s left of the White House where “Tallahassee” (Harrleson) has tricked out the entire White House grounds with zombie security measures. We also find the uber well-organized geeky “Columbus” (Eisenberg) and the dourer sardonic “Wichita” (Stone) are now a full-blown couple. But when he proposes marriage to her with the priceless blue “Hope Diamond” that he just found lying around, the idea of marriage to “Wichita” sends her and her sister “Little Rock” (Breslin) into "gotta-go and get the hell out of here mode". “Little Rock” is especially eager to go as she is no longer an adolescent. Rather she is a young woman now with a strong desire to meet someone to love for herself. She also has tired of “Tallahassee” (Harrelson) over Bearing father figure attitude towards her.

When “Columbus” wakes up the next day to find “Wichita” and “Little Rock” have left he convinces “Tallahassee” to take a road trip to help him find them for no less a reason than to keeping their ad hoc survivalist family together.

A cowboy and geek go on a road trip in the middle of a zombie apocalypse,…..what can go wrong?

REVIEW: Running 1:40 minutes “Zombieland 2: Double Tap” is a minuet dance of faster and smarter zombies, zombies who act like Arnold Schwarzenegger the Terminator T 800 (uuuh, one shot to head not going to do it), doppelgangers, an actor Colin Farrell look a like who is a pacifist, Elvis Presley obsessions, a blond bimbo who wear pinks all the time who hid out in a mall at a “Pinkberry” franchise of frozen pink desserts; who coincidentally pronounces every road sign she reads phonetically i.e. the town of “Babylon as  - “Baby Lon” and finally one humongous over sized monster truck from hell.

Its abundantly clear from the get-go there is no real discernible plot to have to concentrate on. But that did not keep me from laughing through out most of the entire film. And while the first “Zombieland” remains Director Fleischer’s best movie by a mile its sequel is still filled with witty sarcasm, glib dialogue and enough pop culture references to have kept me pleasantly entertained.  

See it now or rent it later, either way “Zombieland 2: Double Tap” is still worth your self-referential, dysfunctional family, funny, sometimes hilarious, bloody and always endearing time.

3.00 Stars

Joker - Review

Joker

“Joker” features and centers around actor Joaquin Phoenix interpretation of a loner in the year 1981. A marginalized working class loner named "Arthur Fleck" who earns a struggling existence as a clown-for-hire holding up adverting signs in the fictional morally fractured and bankrupt city called Gotham. There is not much to "Arthur's life as even after his work shift  he immediately heads home to be with his ailing mother who he adores. He feeds her and they watch television regularly together. Particularly, they watch his favorite variety talk show hosted by “Murray Franklin” (Robert DeNiro). He loves to watch "Murray" and to also take notes as inspiration for his own jokes with the long term hope of one day he will get enough jokes written down to audition as a stand up comedian one day.

But early on its clear that in spite of "Arthur" being a very sympathetic decent man who wants to do good - wants to be good, Gotham is largely a city where people interact with each other with spontaneous displays of kindness to spontaneous displays of cruelty and violent brutality. And inspite of the pervasive cruelty all around him day after day "Arthur" still tries earnestly to seek out connections with other people as he walks the streets of Gotham City. He's the internal optimist hoping there is good in other people like him. So, he tires to make friends but also he has to be careful approaching people as his odd outward subdued personality from being on antidepressants and his neurological disorder similar Tourette syndrome that causes him to inadvertently laugh out loud won’t be misinterpreted as him being rude. Unfortunately they are misinterpreted and often and one day it causes Arthur to making one bad impulsive decision that brings about a chain reaction of other escalating events into him becoming the gritty diabolical character we all know as the number one nemeses to Batman, “THE JOKER”.

REVIEW: What jumped out to me in the 2:02 minute running time is watching Phoenix’s interpretation of how his Joker came into existence. With him being in almost 99% of every scenes and with him about 50% of the time in extreme camera close ups, I personally think his performance here should be an actor’s studio training class of just how to slowly, gradually and meticulously descent into madness. Phoenix' doesn’t just quickly transform into Joker, he doesn’t just episodically evolve into Joker, rather he actually seems to have a complete metamorphosis of a change right before your eyes into another biological entity altogether that is dark, sinister and criminal.

Unlike Heath Ledger’s iconic Joker who was already brilliantly deranged from the film's beginning, Phoenix approaches his Joker similar to someone using a single edge razor blade shaving super thin slivers of a garlic pod for a spaghetti sauce recipe. He carefully reveals very gradually reveals, very subtle reveals the small strands of the monstrous DNA bubbling inside him. For me Phoenix's work here is clearly Best Actor nomination worthy, but it won’t. Largely because of the incredible darkness surrounding his characters actions and the unanticipated violence in the film that at times was even so shocking for me that I mumbled………”Wow I did not see that coming”. His work is formidable, powerful and truly memorable. Its filled with equal parts joyful humanity and acute evil all the while elevating the entire films story every inch of the way. He was absolutely the perfect actor to take up where Heath Ledger left it.

WARNING - Joker is at times very tough to watch and not one inch of it is ever redeeming while watching it, so it is not for all audiences and especially not for any children. But what it does do for adults is adroitly delve into the same emotional struggles of the big city loner  wanting to do good in a violent way as Robert DeNiro did with his “Travis Bickle” in “Taxi Driver”. It also examines as "Taxi Driver" did with a direct in your face execution the dynamics of American economic class struggles and social divisiveness. And it does it all with astonishing hypnotic beauty and hypnotic brutality. I was both fascinated, mesmerized and riveted watching "Joker".

In the 2008 “Batman – The Dark Knight” there is a scene involving Wayne Manor butler “Alfred Penny” (Michael Caine) who is having a conversation with the wealthy "Bruce Wayne" (Christian Bale aka Batman) about Gotham newest criminal called "The Joker". "Wayne" is intellectually perplexed as to understanding what drives the Joker to his life of crime (Heath Ledger). He really doesn't appears to be motivated by the same conventional greed and venal temptations as other Gotham City criminals in the past. "Alfred" approaches "Wayne", by taking a step closer to say.......”Master Wayne, some men are not looking for anything logical like money; they can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with……..some men just want to watch the world burn”. Joaquin Phoenix performance is so compelling and so revealing  that it makes "Alfred's" explanation even more relevant and more meaningful in this film. We see "Alfred aka Joker"  learn as Heath Ledger Joker executed "that rules won't save you and the only sensible way to live is without rules"....................while watching the world burn.

Director Todd Phillips has made a challenging reimagining film of a fictional character that felt more real than some fictional superhero movie. His "Joker" is kind, violent, sad, flawed, tender and psychotic. But it was his choice in lead actor Joaquin Phoenix  that creates with craftsman’s like control a new story of the Joker character one that is soft and loving in the beginning to one who is diabolical and evil in the end.

3.75 Stars