Author: Amy Diaz

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Teenage boys who might be some degree of embarrassed by this movie when they are older spend a week giving a pretty good demonstration of modern American politics in the documentary Boys State.

The opening credits remind you of where you’ve likely heard of the week-long, American Legion-sponsored government camp Boys State before: that iconic photo of Boys State try-hard teenage Bill Clinton, shaking hands with President Kennedy at Boys Nation (whose participants are chosen from Boys State). Other notable participants, as the movie highlights, include Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Samuel Alito (also Cory Booker). As we are introduced to the participants in 2018’s Texas Boys State we meet kids who seem like fitting heirs to that list. In particular, hit-the-ground-politicking Robert MacDougall feels like exactly the sort of kid who would introduce himself by saying he’s the future governor of Texas. We also met Ben Feinstein, a teen who lost both his legs to meningitis as a preschooler. He has worked hard to achieve and, he explains, that has shaped a very “up by your bootstraps” mindset. The big prize of Boys State is to get yourself elected governor (or, as becomes Ben’s goal, be the teen-behind-the-curtain for the kid who does get elected).

“Oh, their poor mothers” I found myself thinking about the crop of boys who are absolutely certain in their world views (so many opinions about abortion!). We also meet kids who arrive ready for a challenge: René Otero and Steven Garza come to Boys State aware that many of their fellow participants are likely more politically conservative than them but they are eager to make their mark nonetheless. Watching them figure out how to work themselves into the boy-created power structure is probably the most compelling action of the early part of the documentary.

Then, about halfway through this movie when I was wondering why Girls State wasn’t chosen as the focus (girls unleashed to be aggressive political animals feels like something more ripe for examination and suited to this moment in history than boys yelling into mics about masculinity), the movie makes a little turn and shows you a story of kids really caring about really making a difference — and really, aggressively playing politics the way you would if your formative political experience was 2016.

Though the documentary clearly anoints its heroes, I don’t really think it turns other kids (and these are just kids, kids who I hope are OK with how this movie shakes out) into villains. You see people with political viewpoints and also political instincts and a desire to win. The movie demonstrates why this is a worthwhile program and not just a resume-burnisher; we see boys care, and care deeply and watch them become genuinely respectful of their peers. It’s a fascinating little study of what this moment in American history means to the practice of politics and how it’s being learned by the next generation of politicians and activists. B+

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Amanda McBane and Jesse Moss, Boys State is an hour and 49 minutes long and distributed by A24. It is available on Apple TV+.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dominique Fishback fight a chaos-bringing drug in Project Power, a promising but under-baked action movie from Netflix.

It is a chocolate chip pancake with a raw-batter center — potentially satisfying but frustrating for its not-quite-there-ness.

Art (Foxx) is on the hunt for the source of Power, a new street drug that comes in a glowy pill and, when ingested, gives the user five minutes of some kind of superhuman power. Most of the time. Sometimes it kills the user — is I think the implication of a scene where a person takes it and immediately explodes. And it doesn’t appear that you know or have any choice in what power it gives you. And that power could kill or maim you, in the moment or over time. Feels like a lot of medication side effects but I guess the chance that you can be briefly bullet-proof, as New Orleans police detective Frank (Gordon-Levitt) is when he takes Power, or chameleon-like, as with an “invisible” bank robber we see him chase, is enough for some users.

Robin (Fishback, this movie’s real star) is an enterprising high school student who sells Power to help raise money for her mom, who is sick and needs medical treatment. Robin sells to Frank sometimes, who buys because it helps him and other cops level the playing field with the Powered-up criminals they chase. Frank likes and roots for Robin and is genuinely concerned when she texts him for help.

Trying to work his way through the Power supply chain in New Orleans, Art kidnaps Robin to get information about the person distributing Power to dealers. Though initially he gets her assistance through threats, Robin seems to come around to Art’s mission. A former military officer and an early test subject for the Power drug, Art later had a daughter with naturally occurring superhuman abilities. She was kidnapped by Power’s manufacturers and now Art is desperate to get her back.

The movie brings Art, Robin and Frank together at what feels like a late point — actually, everything feels like it happens later than it should in this movie. At an hour and 53 minutes, this movie feels about 20 minutes too long but also off in its pacing. Within individual scenes, there is good momentum and good chemistry between Fishback, Foxx and Gordon-Levitt, who are fun individually and fun together. But the movie itself doesn’t quite keep the energy level where it needs to be.

All three of the leads — but Fishback, in particular — are solid at the action and the comedy (which isn’t big and quippy but more smart and to the point) this movie requires. But Project Power often feels like it turns down the volume on them or crowds them out with a lot of visual “here’s what the drug is doing” business.

The movie also makes mention of Henrietta Lacks (the woman whose cells are fundamental to the last 60-plus years of medical research) and the fact that Power’s makers are testing the drug on the people of New Orleans. This feels like heavy stuff to just sort of sprinkle into a movie without doing anything with those elements. As with the movie’s overall pacing and runtime, I feel like this aspect of the story could have been more significant and given the movie more weight had somebody (some studio exec, in ye olden days when this movie would have been theater-bound?) asked for another draft of the screenplay and another round of edits on the finished film.

While the movie can be filed under “meh,” Fishback — and to a lesser degree Foxx and Gordon-Levitt — pushes the movie a notch above. Her Robin is an engaging character, the movie is always at least 30 percent more interesting when she’s on screen. A natural C, Project Power gets a boost from Fishback into B- territory.

Rated R for violence, bloody images, drug content and some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (and if you’re thinking “hey, that sounds familiar but from where,” they are the directors of some mid-series Paranormal Activity entries and of the documentary Catfish) with a screenplay by Mattson Tomlin, Project Power is an hour and 53 minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Seth Rogen is a turn-of-the-last-century immigrant to America and a modern app-developer in An American Pickle, a surprisingly sweet New York fairy tale.

Back in the old country, Herschel Greenbaum (Rogen) dreamed of drinking seltzer water, digging holes with shovels that didn’t split in half, not having to dig holes and other elements of a Better Life. His wife Sarah (Sarah Snook) shared this dream and, after Cossacks burned their town, they decided to look for a better life in America. Herschel’s job killing rats at a pickle factory in Brooklyn helped them save enough to buy their own burial plots (Sarah’s particular dream) and might have even afforded the occasional glass of seltzer but one day after being overrun with rats Herschel fell into a pickle vat that was then sealed up in a factory that was then condemned and left to fall apart for the next hundred years. One day in modern Brooklyn, that vat is opened again by kids chasing a drone and out sputters Herschel, well preserved but alive.

After rather delightfully yada-yada-ing the science, the movie gives Herschel, whose beloved Sarah and the child she was carrying when he hit the vat are both long gone, a relative in Ben Greenbaum (also Rogen), Herschel’s great-grandson. Ben picks Herschel up from the hospital and takes him to his Brooklyn apartment. Herschel is at first amazed with Ben’s life — his 25 pairs of socks, his seltzer making machine, his many shoes. But Ben’s career (freelance work on an app called Boop Bop), Ben’s lack of family photos hanging on the wall and his seeming lack of interest in visiting the family burial plot have Herschel wondering what Ben’s life purpose is.

An American Pickle makes a lot of the jokes you expect — the similarity of Herschel’s hat and vest to your modern-day Brooklyn hipster, the Instagrammable nature of the pickles he makes using bottles and cucumbers found in the trash (which he first sells for $4 and later for $14) and the pushcart he sells them from, the way conservative media applauds Herschel when he appears to be speaking his mind. But these are kind of garnish on the actual story, which is sort of a melancholy-tinged rumination on family and legacy and what connects us to our roots. This is the second movie (the other being The Sunlit Night) I’ve seen recently that seems to consider religion and how it helps with expressions of grief. What does religion mean to a modern-day Ben who doesn’t have the societal structure that are part of Herschel’s specific experience with being Jewish? It’s not a huge part of the movie but it’s a nice, thoughtful element to show up in a movie with riffs on silly internet company names and jokes about the vast variety of nut and grain milks.

I liked this oddball movie, which I can’t picture doing great in theaters but seems perfectly suited to the relaxed home viewing experience. Rogen’s performance seems to come from a heartfelt place; he and the movie seem to have empathy for both characters, which makes them feel like multi-dimensional people. B

Rated PG-13 for some language and rude humor, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Brandon Trost with a screenplay by Simon Rich, An American Pickle is an hour and 30 minutes and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is available on HBO Max.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Two couples on a weekend away have extremely bad luck with their beach house in The Rental, a horror movie that will make you scared of Airbnb-like vacation house rentals and, even more so, two-couple vacations.

Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Mina (Sheila Vand) are partners in some kind of business venture, I don’t recall if they say what, except that they both seem kinda terrible so I’m sure their company does something awful, like “disrupting the ice cream experience” or something. Mina is dating Charlie’s brother, Josh (Jeremy Allen White), an Uber-type driver, who has some insecurities about his financial situation. Charlie is married to Michelle, who pretends like she’s cool with how close Charlie and Mina are.

For reasons unknown, Charlie and Mina think it would be a great idea for all four of them to go to a fancy beach house for the weekend. It’s a few hours’ drive to get there and by the time they arrive the property manager, Taylor (Toby Huss), is peeved that they’re late. Mina pre-hates Taylor because she’s pretty sure he’s racist, as he had turned down her request for the house (because, she thinks, of her Middle Eastern last name) but then approved Charlie’s. Perhaps that’s why she kicks off their acquaintance by making a snarky-sounding, classist remark. Later, Taylor makes a joke about Michelle being a peeping Tom (why else, he says, would someone own a telescope in the city) and Mina is miffed that he can just waltz into the house whenever to bring the telescope he offers to lend them.

Fun weekend!

The awkwardness continues as everyone but Michelle, who says she needs sleep for all the fun she seems to think they’re going to have, takes ecstasy and Charlie and Mina end up alone and high in the hot tub. What could go wrong?

The next day, Charlie bails on Michelle’s hiking excursion that she’s so excited about and Mina forgets to take care of Josh’s dog (which they technically weren’t supposed to bring to this pet-free house anyway) and, while we get the occasional creeper POV shot, I was starting to wonder, watching this foursome who all seemed to land somewhere on the “ugh, this guy” scale, if the big reveal would be that nobody was menacing them and that their own guilt and suspicion and insecurity would actually drive them mad. Horror is other people! Of course, I’m mentioning it, so it’s not the big reveal and that was kind of a disappointment.

The movie is really at its best in the first 40 minutes or so, before it nails down what’s actually happening. The “what’s actually happening” felt like a letdown, with diminishing returns right up to the very rushed end. The movie did a decent job of setting up entertainingly unlikeable characters. Had the plot been built on these people and their flaws I feel like that would have been more interesting than just having a story randomly happen to them. In its first half, The Rental had some fun with its clueless rich people and maybe the movie reached B- levels of entertainment. But the off-the-shelf horror it turned into was solidly C- at most. So C?

Rated R for violence, language throughout, drug use and some sexuality by the MPA, according to filmratings.com. Directed by Dave Franco with a screenplay by Dave Franco and Joe Swanberg, The Rental is an hour and 28 minutes long and distributed by IFC Films. It is available for rent.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

An enterprising duo finds money in baked goods in First Cow.

Otis Figowitz (John Magaro) is, as his nickname “Cookie” suggests, the cook for a hunting expedition in the Pacific Northwest in the 1800s (Wikipedia says 1820). While searching for mushrooms and other edible fare to add to the provisions for the hangry trappers, he meets King-Lu (Orion Lee), originally from China. When they first meet, King-Lu is naked and hiding from a party of Russian trappers. Cookie gives King-Lu some food and takes care of him for a day or so while he recuperates from days on the run.

Later, after Cookie has been paid for the hunting expedition, he meets King-Lu in the small town (a bar, some houses, a thoroughfare where people sell all manner of things). King-Lu takes Cookie to the small shack where he’s set up a home. They hang out for a while, talking about future plans (maybe a farm for King-Lu, maybe a hotel and bakery for Cookie) and eventually about food. A cow has recently been brought to the area by the local rich guy, Chief Factor (Toby Jones), and Cookie has seen it hanging out in the meadow. What’s the harm in borrowing a little milk late at night?

Cookie makes a kind of fried biscuit with the first batch of stolen-milk-enhanced batter. King-Lu sees opportunity in these non-hardtack foodstuffs. Cookie makes a sweeter batch of what he calls oily cakes, which have kind of a doughnut-y appearance, and quickly sells out of them in the town’s thoroughfare, with King-Lu even helping along a bidding war for the last cake. They sneak in for another nighttime milking of the cow and the next day produce even more oily cakes (cooked on the spot), leading to a line of eager customers and cake-embellishments like a shaving of cinnamon.

The cakes are, I guess, the talk of the town and Chief Factor shows up to try one, leading Cookie to worry that he will eventually guess at the ingredients. Factor asks for Cookie to make an even more elaborate dessert for an upcoming tea party and King-Lu and Cookie find themselves trying to judge exactly how far they can take their criminal baking endeavor: they want to sock away enough money to chase their dreams but get out before they are caught.

There is a watchfulness about this movie — watching Cookie look for mushrooms or fry up oily cakes, watching other people in the town sell their goods, watching people go about their day. The movie takes the time to look around at the world this story is set in and what it maybe loses in momentum it gains in texture. There isn’t a lot to this movie in terms of events but there is a lot of richness, a lot of giving us the feeling of what a thing is like — a dirty bar, a spot in the woods or even the friendship between these two men, which is a truly lovely element of this story. This movie is the ultimate show-not-tell and it is able to immerse you in its world and in its characters without romanticizing the harsh realities of its time. A

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Kelly Reichardt with a screenplay by Jon Raymond and Kelly Reichardt (based on the novel The Half-Life by Jon Raymond), First Cow is two hours and two minutes long and distributed by A24. The movie is available for rent or purchase.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Take the musical numbers from the Trolls animated movies and divide them by a Spinal Tap’s “Stonehenge” sensibility and add an earnest Will Ferrell plus Dan Stevens’ dodgy Russian accent (but impressive willingness to go all in) and what you have equals Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, a new comedy on Netflix.

I feel like Ferrell, who stars here and has a writing credit, probably really likes the annual Eurovision Song Contest and wants to find some way of introducing its glorious pop-song ABBA-ness to an American audience. And that actually sounds like a great idea. The competition — which I have never watched but has always sounded to me like the best possible mash-up of American Idol and the Olympics — has been available in America only recently. I hope when it comes back (this year’s contest was canceled), Americans can view it with ease; it feels like exactly the kind of all-ages-friendly bowl of cheese dip that we’re all going to need in our lives. I watched a highlights reel from the 2019 finale and I am sold on this whole deal, don’t change one sparkly bit of it. (It looks like full versions of some years’ final shows are also available on eurovision.tv and now that I know that I suspect my productivity will nosedive.)

So, getting Americans interested in the Eurovision Song Contest? Worthy goal. But are enough people really sufficiently aware of the Eurovision Song Contest that, for example, the many Eurovision-related cameos (which I could identify as cameos because of the way the movie shot and introduced them, not because I knew who anybody was) resonate or that specific jokes about Eurovision register?

Without that layer, what you have is Will Ferrell as Lars Erickssong, a very middle-aged man living in a small town in Iceland who has spent most of his life trying to get a song in the Eurovision competition. He is so focused on this that he has never even pursued a romance with obviously-hot-for-him Sigrit (Rachel McAdams), his friend since childhood and his partner in the band Fire Saga. Sigrit is happy to follow Lars in his dreams, though she writes her own songs and does wish they’d maybe also find time to have a baby.

Due to a series of horrible (but lucky for Lars and Sigrit) events, Fire Saga finds itself as Iceland’s Eurovision competitor. Russia’s competitor Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens) and his friend Mita (Melissanthi Mahut), Greece’s competitor, have a better shot at winning the competition than Fire Saga and yet the duo seems to enjoy messing with the team dynamic of Fire Saga, which, with its special effects and iffy wardrobe choices, seems to be doing just fine sabotaging itself.

At two hours and three minutes, Fire Saga is at least 35 minutes too long. At times the movie feels more like a collection of extra material for a Saturday Night Live Eurovision sketch than a tightly plotted narrative. It is at its best when the too-old Lars is trying to sell a Viking power ballad or the enjoyably dippy Sigrit is talking to elves — or when it’s just showing us Eurovision. More Eurovision, would have been my studio note. A song-mash-up featuring real-life Eurovision people is charming and irresistible and joyfully silly in the best sense.

In yet another example of grading on a serious curve, this movie is acceptable entertainment because (if you have Netflix) you don’t have to pay any extra money to watch it and because you can feel when it’s slowing down and time your snack runs and phone-checking accordingly. B-

Rated PG-13 for crude sexual material including full nude sculpture, some comic violent images and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by David Dobkin with a screenplay by Will Ferrell and Andrew Steele, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is somehow two hours and three minutes long and is available on Netflix.