Always Be My Maybe

First Hit: This film had wonderfully funny moments and pointed scenes about discovering love right next door.

Childhood friends and neighbors Sasha Tran (Ali Wong) and Marcus Kim (Randall Park) spent all their spare time together growing up. Sasha’s parents were rarely home as they were tending to the family store, so Sasha spent time at Marcus’ house. Marcus’ mother cooked a lot and taught Sasha how to cook great original Asian recipes.

After the sudden accidental loss of his mother, Marcus and Sasha were in his car and in processing his grief, he attempts to kiss Sasha. At first, it was awkward, but she eventually responds, and after a funny make-out session they end up having car sex, and anyone who has had car sex knows how passion filled, intimate, and ridiculous it can be.

However, those two events build a wall between them, and they grow apart. Marcus gives up his plans for a future as a musician to take care of his father Harry (James Saito) who is a heating and air-conditioning specialist.

Marcus starts dating Jenny (Vivian Bang) a dreadlocked Asian woman while working with his dad. Although he continues to play in his band, they’ve not tried to expand their music into new venues. Marcus’ world has become small while supporting his dad. 

Sasha, on the other hand, has become a well-known celebrity chef who is used to walking red carpets and opens restaurants around the country. She’s engaged to her manager Brandon Choi (Daniel Dae Kim). Although at first, Brandon wants to marry Sasha, he changes his mind and heads off to open another restaurant overseas and tells Sasha they are on a break. Meanwhile, after opening a restaurant in LA, Sasha heads home to San Francisco to open another previously planned restaurant.

At a chance, or not so chance, meeting set up by Sasha’s assistant Veronica (Michelle Buteau), Sasha and Marcus reunite. One evening Sasha has a meeting and date with Keanu Reeves which, in her mind, was unbelievably fantastic.

Double dating with Jenny and Marcus, Sasha and Keanu meet for dinner at an exclusive and expensive restaurant where Keanu, arrives fashionably late, greets tables of well-wishers and admirers before sitting down. The food is pretentious and so is Keanu when he picks up the bill for 6,400 dollars, and we learn, that for Reeves, it is merely a residual check amount for the film Speed.

They head to Keanu’s hotel room to play a game and it ends up Marcus punches Keanu after Reeves rudeness hits a high point. Sasha and Marcus leave, star-struck Jenny stays.

This reuniting of Marcus and Sasha grows until she presses him to go to New York with her to open another restaurant. Marcus passes until his dad straightens him out about his life.

The film was well paced and not once, did it lag. The comedic moments were sprinkled throughout the movie, and these specific moments were not sight gags, but natural human moments to which the audience can relate.

Wong was excellent as Sasha. She was both sparklingly funny and sensitive. Loved that her character wasn’t going to sacrifice her love of her work. Kim was terrific as Marcus. Although, I didn’t think the transition from interesting young man to a basic recluse after his mother’s death was well understood or presented. However, his song about punching Keanu was delightful and a highlight. Saito as Marcus’ dad was outstanding. As the film went on, his wisdom grew, as did his presence in the movie. Buteau, as Sasha’s assistant, was lightheartedly enjoyable. Her role really worked at moving the story and film along. Reeves, as himself, was funny as all get out. He did all the things we might expect a self-important star might unabashedly do. Michael Golamco and Randall Park wrote a well-blended script of comedy and romance. Nahnatchka Khan did a great job of keeping this film focused, funny and poignant.

Overall: This film was fun, lighthearted and very entertaining.

The Souvenir

First Hit: A languid slow-paced film that bordered on torturous to watch.

This is either a good film about how a bad relationship can screw up your life, or it’s a bad film about how long the audience can watch someone live with their poor choices.

After seeing this film, I decided to peek at what some other reviewers said about this film. I’m surprised at how many reviewers liked this film when, while watching it, I wanted to get up and leave at least three times.

I believe I understood the point of the film; when someone is in love, that love can seep into, and drastically affect, every part of their life. My issue is why did this supposedly smart woman stay with this drug-laden man.

Here we have Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), a budding young filmmaker, being allowed to become a student in a prestigious film school. The scenes during class sessions are mostly long and uninformative, unlike the underlying philosophy espoused by the instructors. This film wouldn’t have passed the instructor’s criteria.

At one point after Julie explains her film’s subject, the interviewers state that it is usually better to make a film about topics the director has some experience and knowledge about. It’s obvious Julie knew little or nothing about her subject of a boy losing a parent they love.

Julie’s family is wealthy. Her mom Rosalind (Tilda Swinton) and father live life well on a large English country estate. But the scenes where Julie asks for money are incredibly disheartening and remind me of someone entitled and never really having worked for a living.

Julie meets an older man, Anthony (Tom Burke), who is supposed to be a diplomat, but we never really know for whom or what. He doesn’t want to be questioned about anything. This set-up allows him far too much freedom to not share where he goes and what he’s doing. The reality is that he’s addicted to heroin and when he’s out he out scoring drugs.

Although he’s always dressed nicely, he never pays for anything, and watching Julie ever reaching for her purse made me ill. His arrogance and air of superiority were not attractive, and I don’t know what Julie saw in him. These scenes were often followed up by another plea, by Julie, for money from her mom. When he robs Julie’s apartment, the act was only believable from an addicts point of view. Her response was almost benign.

I never saw or felt much chemistry between Julie and Anthony and saw no reason for them being together, except he needed her money to pay for his habit. Just like when two of her film friends come over for dinner, and the man says to Julie when Anthony leaves the room; I don’t understand you two, how do you handle him being drugged all the time? Julie has no response and the shock on her face would make you believe she will pursue this with Anthony, but she doesn’t, she just goes along for the ride.

There are long scenes where nothing happens and no setup too long, languid scenes to gain insight into the characters, let alone the film. The multiple shots of the four trees with a voice-over worked once, but that’s it.

Byrne has an attractive and unusual look, like her mom, but her actions in this role seemed juxtaposed to what I sense to be an intelligent person. This is either poor acting or weak script and direction. Burke was an excellent addict, and his behavior of using his system of excuses was typical addict oriented. Swinton was superb as Julie’s mom. Being her real mom probably helped. Joanna Hogg wrote and directed this film.

Overall: Despite reviews saying that Joanna is in charge of her craft, I can only say this film was uninteresting and forgetful.

Ma

First Hit: Moderately thrilling at times.

This is a story about someone who was bullied as a high school student and finally having the opportunity to go overboard and get back at what was done to her.

Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer) picks up the nickname “Ma” from a bunch of high school kids for whom she buys liquor because they are too young to buy it themselves. “Ma” also offers these kids a place to party and drink the alcohol she obtains for them.

Maggie (Diana Silvers) and her mom Erica (Juliette Lewis) have just moved from San Diego to her mom’s hometown in Ohio. Erica has taken a job as a cocktail waitress while training to be a card dealer at a casino.

Attending high school on her first day, Maggie meets up with Haley (McKaley Miller) who convinces her to join her and a few friends for a drinking party just outside of town. One of Haley’s friends and someone who smiled and said “hi” to Maggie is Andy (Cory Fogelmanis). Maggie joins them on this adventure, especially because Andy will be there.

Standing outside the liquor store, Maggie gets Sue Ann to buy some liquor. Sue Ann convinces the kids to follow her to her house where they can party, and she can keep tabs on them.

The word spreads around school that “Ma” will not only get them booze but let the kids drink and have fun in her basement. But there is something suspicious about “Ma” and Maggie suspects there is an underlying current of weirdness.

We learn that “Ma” went to school with Maggie’s mom and Andy’s dad Ben (Luke Evans) because the story cuts back and forth through time showing these adults as kids in high school and the mean trick they played on Sue Ann.

It is in this context that Sue Ann decides she’s going to get revenge on the people that embarrassed and humiliated her. She does this through their kids, the ones coming to her house to party.

Secrets are revealed, and the and the sick pain “Ma” feels about what was done to her expresses itself in several horrific scenes.

Spencer is rather good as the kind veterinarian assistant and the off the charts psychotic revenge focused woman in her hometown. She did a great job of changing her look as needed. Lewis is always interesting to watch on screen. She always makes me think she’s just hanging out on edge. Silvers is excellent as the somewhat shy, yet intelligent young girl. Miller is keen as the friend who creates excitement around herself. Fogelmanis is very good as the young man who cares about Maggie. Evans is terrific as the man who is the primary subject of Ma’s vengeance. Scotty Landes wrote this script that attempts to tell the darkest side of what happens to people who are bullied. Tate Taylor got strong performances from the young cast and Spencer.

Overall: It was fun to watch Spencer change her expressions from light-hearted and helpful to dark and revengeful.

Red Joan

First Hit: Laborious story of a woman who gave away British state secrets.

My intuition told me this film would be a shot in the dark, not the Peter Sellers kind, and it was.

Although, based on the true story of Melita Norwood, here her name is Joan Stanley (Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson as the young Joan).

This movie begins with an eighty plus-year-old Joan (Dench) sitting at home alone when there’s a knock on the door. It’s a special branch of the police and she’s taken away to be questioned.

It’s an okay opener, but the story rises and falls and eventually peters out at the end.

What happened? Why does an eighty plus-year-old woman get arrested? It’s interesting, in that she’s being detained because she’s accused of giving Britain’s atomic bomb secrets away to the Russians during WWII. Was it true? And if so, why did she do this?

These are the questions we hoped would be answered as the investigators probe her for answers while her lawyer son Nick (Ben Miles) sits shocked next to her in the interrogation room. It’s apparent that he knows nothing about his mother’s past.

To develop the story, the film slips back in time when young Joan (played by Cookson), is entering college to get a physics degree. Back in the late 1930s, this was almost unheard of, and throughout the film, there are numerous scenes where she gets mistaken as a coffee or tea server.

Graduating she gets a job as an assistant for Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore) one of Britain’s lead researchers for developing the atomic bomb. He hires her because she’s smart and knows she’ll contribute to Britain’s success. The scenes where she proves him right are lovely.

While in college Joan became friends with Sonya Galich (Tereza Srbova) who happened to be linked with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. While socializing with Sonya, she meets Sonya’s brother Leo (Tom Hughes) who is gregarious, smart, handsome, and very active in the party.

When Leo and Sonya learn that Joan is working for Davis on in a project to figure out how to make an atomic bomb, they begin to pressure Joan to share the secrets with them so that they can pass them on to the Russian government.

What put Joan over the top and start supplying the secrets was either her love for Leo or that she really believed that if Russia has the bomb as well as the United States, there would be peace, a stalemate in warlike aggression in the world.

This is where the film falls apart. Neither story was convincing. It wasn’t that these arguments weren’t or couldn’t be valid, I just didn’t believe Joan’s attraction to Leo, and I didn’t think she was credible about the case about a stalemate. I wasn’t convinced.

Dench was OK as the slightly surprised and shaken older Joan for being arrested for a crime some fifty years earlier. Being discovered that she was the person who leaked these secrets and why she leaked them could have been more exciting. Cookson was good as young Joan, but it was either her acting ability, the script or direction that didn’t have me believe Joan was really in love with Leo. Nor, did I think she was anxious about the destruction and death of war. Yes, there were shots of results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I didn’t get an impassioned sense from Cookson. Moore was beautiful as Britain’s lead researcher on their own atomic bomb project. I believed he really loved Joan. Srbova was strong as one of Russia’s conduits to obtain secrets. She was alluring and stealthy. I didn’t like Hughes’ character Leo, and that was purposeful. He was a user, and Hughes was excellent as that. Miles was okay as Joan’s son who didn’t seem shocked enough that he knew so little about his mom and dad. Lindsay Shapero wrote an uninspired screenplay. Trevor Nunn didn’t get a lot out of this story and his actors.

Overall: This is a great story that lacked inspiration on the screen.

The Biggest Little Farm

First Hit: Inspiring to see how nature taught this couple how to work within earth’s elegant framework.

This is a story for all of us. Nature has created its own way of balancing life, death, and survival. We humans, when we don’t look, watch, and listen, don’t learn about how the system works. This film shows us a couple, Molly and John Chester, who learned how nature works, all because their rescue dog Todd barked for freedom.

Todd, a filmmaker, and cinematographer, and his wife Molly who was a foodie and food blogger, together with the persistence of their rescue dog Todd found themselves buying a rundown, desolate 200-acre Apricot Lane Farm in Moorpark, CA.

The story of how Todd barked his way to the farm is every dog owner’s and apartment renter’s nightmare. Todd barked all day, every day when left alone, and finally, the landlord evicted the Chester’s.

This spurred Molly and John to fulfill Molly’s dream of growing everything they ate while blogging about the experience along the way. Selling the idea to friends, family, and other small investors, they looked for a farm to buy.

The farm they found, Apricot Lane Farm, was broken in every sense of the word. The irrigation pond was dried up, the dirt was lifeless and had no nutrients, and almost nothing was alive. They bought it anyway.

Investing in Alan York, a man who believed farms can and need to work within nature’s flow of life helped guide the Chester’s in what to farm, and how to build an infrastructure that works. There are times, I wondered if Alan was off his rocker or a charlatan, but slowly, just as he said it would, the land began to work in harmony.

The movie is filled with heartbreaking, loving, and most of all, fascinating moments where I found myself learning just as the Chester’s were learning. I suspect, everyone in the San Rafael theater, where I saw this film, learned something. One lesson I learned from John was when Todd taught him how to look and learn about how things work. Embracing the art of patient seeing, the whole framework of how John approached new issues shifted.

Along with the gritty pain of learning, there was also humor. Emma, the pig, and Greasy, the rooster, are great to watch. There’s even humor in a scary event. After Molly packing everything in the home she wanted to flee a raging fire (which both starts and ends the film), the comical moment arrives when it is revealed what Molly decided to pack up as they readied to leave their farm because of the fire threat.

This film has it all. But mostly it has a lesson for us. Nature knows how the world works, and very few of us abide by that native code.

 John Chester and Mark Monroe wrote this wonderfully paced story. Chester also directed this film and his ability to capture some of the most amazing photographs of nature only added to this excellent story.

Overall: Molly’s inspiration and Todd’s persistence has given us a lesson on how things work.