City of Ghosts

First Hit:  A film that can teach the west about Raqqa, it's people and Syria’s fight against ISIS (Daesh).

What we hear about Daesh and their takeover of Raqqa, we learn from our press. Often it isn't quite right, but there is a group that is giving the world a view of what is really going on.

The citizens of Raqqa, an ancient city on the Euphrates River, took to Arab Spring, rallied against Syria’s oppressive President Bashar al-Assad and tore down his statue while declaring their freedom. However, this revolution left an opening for a strong leader to come in and create a new movement that promised a better life. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Aka: "ISIL", "ISIS" and "Daesh") under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s leadership started controlling Raqqa’s citizens with an Islamic iron fist. The life he promised the citizens failed to manifest.

He controlled the citizens by beheadings, shootings, and starving the citizens Raqqa in mass. This control came swift and hard and took the citizens by surprise. In retaliation, a group was formed called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/). This group, a small handful of anonymous activists, came together to provide information about the cruelty of Daesh to the outside world by leveraging Facebook and other social media. Posting video, still pictures and commentary on the way Daesh is controlling the city via  their cruelty, this group is informing the world.

This film is about those anonymous activists. Although not so anonymous any longer we follow their escape from Syria to Turkey and Germany while their friends and family are being tortured and killed back home. This is a film of bravery and sadness. It is a film about love of country and the struggle for life.

Matthew Heineman superbly directed this story by putting together powerful pieces of video smuggled out of Syria and interviews. The long scenes of watching these activists staring at their screens waiting for the next piece of information to come from home were pointedly powerful. Revolution doesn’t always happen in a moment. but when a moment happens, they review it, edit it, and post it quickly.

Overall:  There are scenes in this film that are difficult and sad to watch, but it through these scenes we gain a needed understanding of this fight.

The Last Dalai Lama?

First Hit: A wonderful film about a beautiful man.

Loosely using the 14th Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday celebration in New York City as the centerpiece for this story, this 2015 celebration was a long way from his humble roots in rural Tibet. In this film, director Mickey Lemie paints a short historical vision of His Holiness's (HH) story from child, to spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, to political and governmental leader of Tibet, his forced exodus to northern India and his ascension to world spiritual leader.

The main question is: Will he be the last Dalai Lama? A group of people lead by the Panchen Lama are charged with selecting each Dalai Lama. The reverse is also true; meaning the Dalai Lama leads the selection of each Panchen Lama. The Chinese government has short-circuited this process by kidnapping the last Panchen Lama at age six. He’s not been heard from since. The Chinese have announced that they will select the next Dalai Lama because they want to influence and control the Tibetan people. It is likely they will purposefully anoint a new Panchen Lama, who has their ideals, and then give him directions as to who to select for the next Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition for selecting their leaders has been broken. Therefore, the question is will the Dalai Lama reincarnate? He says not in Tibet or China but possibly somewhere else in the world.

I cried, on and off, throughout the film because of the compassionate beauty of His Holiness’s (HH) spirit that showed through each scene. I was in his current home town of Dharamsala, India in December of 1998 when he gave talks at the public meeting/teacher area. I was honored to be in the receiving line and he blessed my silk prayer scarves. I've also seen him speak in San Francisco twice since then and each time, I sat in humble gratitude.

He is, as his name means, an “Ocean of Compassion.” His clarity of purpose is to give to others and this is his path to happiness. Being altruistic is his way to joy. He believes that if one focuses on giving to others you begin to cultivate true joy and it becomes the example to others.

When he discusses the people who have immolated themselves to draw attention to the Tibetan’s plight of the Chinese takeover of their country, I cried sobbingly out-loud in my theater seat (I apologize to anyone who was disturbed by this). The belief of doing no harm to others is deeply entrenched in Tibetans and to bring attention to their plight, they will not harm or go to war with the Chinese, so immolating themselves becomes one way they can bring needed attention to their situation. Later in the film they showed a few of these people’s pictures on the screen and my tears abundantly flowed again.

Another surprising scene included an interview with former President George W. Bush. I have never liked this President, however seeing how HH touched his soul with compassionate beauty, I was heartened. He did a painting of HH which was nice, but it was that he was the first President to publicly lend his office to be with HH when he received the Congressional Gold medal that struck me as powerful.

There were many other touching scenes that brought tears of joy and sadness and there were many scenes of laughter because HH has a wonderful delightful laugh. However, since spending three weeks in Tibet 18 years ago and finding the country and people to be embedded in my spirit, the film reminded me that my heart ached for these beautiful people to freely govern themselves.

The Philip Glass music was phenomenal. Lemie did a masterful job of capturing the spirit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama physically, mentally and spiritually.

Overall:  I was blessed to see him in person and embraced this film with loving openness.

The Beguiled

Overall:  This film was a slow-moving beast that was ultimately unsatisfying.

With a cast consisting of Nicole Kidman (as Miss Martha), Colin Farrell (as Corporal McBurney), Kirsten Dunst (as Edwina), Elle Fanning (as Alicia) and Oona Laurence (as Amy) and being directed by a Sofia Coppola, you’d hope to see a strong interesting film.

However, I was bored through most of it as it languished in the dark moody scenes both inside and outside the home where the girls lived.

The basic story is that Miss Martha runs a girls home and school in her large southern styled columned mansion. The civil war is going on around her home, but she does her best to keep the home going and girls shielded from the outside strife. One day, when Amy is collecting mushrooms, she finds an injured Corporal McBurney. Carrying him back to the home Martha puts him in a locked room and fixes his wound. His presence changes the tone of the home because the girls start discussing him and do little things to get noticed by him.

The film takes forever to move the story along and finally the corporal shows his lusty stripes by sweet talking Martha, tells Edwina to run away with him, and gets caught in Alicia’s bed by Edwina. As the corporal attempts to calm Edwina down she pushes him down the stairs and reopens his leg wound.

Martha determines she has to cut it leg off. When McBurney wakes up to find his leg missing he freaks out and goes on a rampage. Using guile and pressure on Alicia, gets out of the locked room and takes control of the home by using Martha’s gun.

Martha and the girls decide they must do something to protect themselves and find a way to get rid of the corporal.

Kidman was good as the head of the home. However, the script and direction let her down. Farrell was good as Corporal McBurney but the story let the audience down as to how he ended up in the woods and as to what his motivation was for seducing all the women. Dunst was strong as the pretty and dour Edwina but I wondered why McBurney selected her as the one he wanted to love and run away with. It didn’t make much sense. Fanning was very good as the young girl wanting to be an adult and experience more in life. Laurence was excellent as the young Amy whose kind compassionate heart was put to the test. Albert Maltz wrote an uninteresting script from a very interesting novel. Coppola had a vision but it was an uninteresting one and the result lacked reason and engagement unlike one of her other efforts “Lost in Translation.”

Overall:  This film was painful to watch as the two women sitting down the aisle would attest to by their comments while the film played on.

The Big Sick

First Hit: I really liked the story but the acting by the main character didn't stand up when compared with the rest of the cast.

This is a wonderful, real relationship, story between Kumail Nanjiani (played himself) and Emily Gordon (played in the film by Zoe Kazan). The unfortunate part is that Kumail wasn’t very engaging to watch. There were times it felt like he was a deer in headlights. Granted this may be the way he is but it doesn’t work for film. It was like he was amature playing with pros.

Kazan (as Emily) was amazing. Her quirkiness and direct dialogue was a perfect foil for Kumail’s poorly timed lightweight jokes and kidding way. Emily meets Kumail after she watches one of his comedy shows. As a struggling comedian in Chicago he gets small five minute segments at a comedy club along with his roommate and comedian friends. He and Emily seem to hit it off during the conversation and next thing you know they are staying the night at his house.

As a Pakistani, Kumail’s family wants him to marry a Pakistani Muslim so his mother, Sharmeen (Zenobia Shroff) continues to bring by women for him to court and marry. He doesn’t like them. Although the reasons why were obvious on the screen, there was one woman that was presented to him at dinner that made me wonder if it was because his mother introduced him that turned him off because she appeared interesting and someone he could get to know.

Both Emily and Kumail tell each other they are not looking for a permanent relationship and don’t want to see each other more than two nights in a row. However, their relationship grows quickly.

Kumail doesn’t tell his family about Emily and this backfires on him because Emily believes that Kumail has been honest with her. Because of this riff they have a horrible breakup and shortly thereafter she gets very sick. She's rushed to the hospital and one of her friends calls Kumail and asks him to go to the hospital to support Emily. Because she’s extremely sick with an unidentified infection and could die, he signs a form allowing the hospital to put Emily in an induced coma.

Afterwards, he calls her parents Beth and Terry (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano respectively) who make the trip from North Carolina to stay with their daughter in the hospital. The dialogue and scenes between the three of them while they hold vigil over Emily are funny and pointed. Like when Terry asks Kumail about how he felt about 9/11. Or, at the comedy club as Kumail is doing standup, when Beth sticks up for Kumail as a heckler attacks him. The scenes between the three of them are great mostly because of Hunter and Romano.

Emily eventually recovers and indignantly asks Kumail why he’s at the hospital after he hurt her so badly. In two of these scenes, I found Kumail's character (himself) to be rather benign and lacked real passion. This may be his real self, but for a film character, it had me question his love towards Emily.

All’s well that ends well and because Kumail and Emily co-wrote this film we know they get together in the end.

Nanjiani didn’t come across as strong. At times, I didn’t believe that he actually went through this experience although it's own story. He may do stand-up comedy and write for comedians but it doesn’t mean he can be a big screen actor. Kazan was wonderful. She is so expressive and fills the screen when she’s in the scene. Hunter was fantastic as Emily’s mother. Her movement from disliking Kumail to supporting and defending him was wonderful. Romano was a revelation. I loved his character. When he said “… I was hoping that if I talked something smart would come out…”, I busted a gut. It was a great line. Shroff was excellent as Kumail’s mother. Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani wrote an excellent script. Michael Showalter did an excellent job directing this story.

Overall: I really liked this film and felt the only downside was the lead actor.

Baby Driver

First Hit:  Thoroughly enjoyable and fun to watch.

The music mood of the film begins right away. The music is critically important to Baby (Ansel Elgort) because he spends most of his time with his white earbuds in his ears to listen to music that the audience hears during critical moments and sometimes as background in other scenes.

Baby uses the music piped into his brain to drown out the constant noise due to tinnitus. It could be that one of the reasons I related well to this film. Because of the explosive noises I was subjected to in Vietnam and from the extra loud rock concerts I attended, I have a severe case of tinnitus which means I have a constant loud noise in my head all the time.

I find that when I write, especially the two books I’m currently writing, I do it with music headphones on or I use the background noise of a café because it helps me concentrate. That’s why Baby listens to music especially when he drives the getaway vehicles for robberies set up by Doc (Kevin Spacey).

Doc obtains information about banks, armored cars, or even the post office he thinks would make great targets for cash. Doc then gathers a crew of people to do the job and each crew is a cast of different characters for each job he does except Baby.

Doc caught Baby stealing his car once and the trunk contained bags of drugs. Although Baby didn’t know about the drugs, when he fenced the car the drugs were lost. Doc makes Baby drive for the robberies because he’s the best driver there is and Baby’s share of the jobs goes to Doc as repayment for the lost drugs.

The robbery teams include; Buddy (Jon Hamm) Griff, (Jon Bernthal), Darling (Eiza Gonzalez), and Bats (Jamie Foxx). Darling and Buddy are a couple and work together but their first time working with Bats is quite an experience.

When Baby meets a waitress, at a diner he frequents, he is immediately taken with her because she sings while she walks by. Debora (Lily James), is drifting like he is. Her singing reminds him of his mom who sang and also worked at the same diner before she died in a car accident when he was a little boy. He was in the car when his parents died and it was this event that gave him the tinnitus.

When she says to him, she just wants to get in a car and drive west to a new life, he completely falls for her. Baby decides that he’s going to do one last job for Doc, pay off his debt, and ask Debora to go west with him.

This is a great set up for the film because Bats is crazy as hell, Buddy and Darling are fully capable of mayhem, Doc is arrogantly mysterious and Baby is, well, incredibly focused and talks very little.

The only things that I didn’t like in the film was the opening scene which seemed to choreographed and a couple of the scenes when Baby is walking to and from a coffee house to bring the robbery teams coffee. They were a bit to staged as well. Else I loved the driving scenes, the music and the premise as it was unique.

Elgort was fantastic. His inner character is exemplified during the scenes where he's with his foster parent Joseph (CJ Jones). Now that Jones cannot care for himself alone, it is Baby who takes care of him. His boyish soft looks belied the intense driven young man inside. He was perfect for the part. Hamm was great as the intense man, feeding habits including his girlfriend, Darling. Gonzalez was wonderful as the intense woman who was loved by Buddy. Together they had matching intense, impulsive and wild natures. Foxx was off the charts crazy. He clearly made this role his own. Spacey was perfect as the guy with the mean sarcastic whit. He’s got a wonderful ability to make his character drip in a smarmy liquid way. Jones was strong as the deaf man who loved Baby and wanted only the best for him. James was beyond amazing. Her sweet strong personality was perfect for the part. She exuded this role completely. Edger Wright wrote and directed this unique film with deftness. I loved the choreographed driving scenes and my only criticism I’ve already shared. This is one of the best actions films of the year.

Overall:  This movie was a joy ride.