April Movies Part 5: Abigail, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Challengers

April is finally at a close and I somehow managed to watch three more movies in the theater. Whether you're jonesing for horror, action, or sexy tennis, I've got every possible genre covered for you in this post!

Abigail: I only like funny horror and my fiance only likes vampires, so this movie was the perfect intersection of our horror movie preferences. If you've seen the trailer, you already know what to expect. A group of criminals have been recruited for one lucrative mission - kidnap a little girl and hold her in a mansion for 24 hours until her father pays a princely ransom. Each kidnapper gets a generous cut of the ransom, and the girl is returned to her father. What could go wrong?

Well, turns out the little girl is actually a deadly vampire. So...mayhem ensues. This movie is thoroughly entertaining, gory but funny, and with great performances delivered by every single actor, especially Alisha Weir as the murderous but adorable ballerina vampire. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, who were inspired by the 1936 film Dracula's Daughter, this is a splendidly silly film that does not seem to follow much coherent logic in terms of what vampires can and cannot do, but don't let that bog you down. Just settle in for some laughs, jump scares, and buckets of blood. 

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Directed by Guy Ritchie, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel, this is a heavily fictionalized account of a true story. Set in 1941, at the height of World War II, Winston Churchill needs some way to get rid of the German U-boats that keep sinking supply ships that are carrying aid to the struggling UK. He recruits a ragtag bunch of commandos to conduct a special raid on a Spanish island where a boat containing all the supplies needed to keep the U-boats running is docked. What follows is a very complicated but exciting mission where our stalwart heroes must outsmart the Nazis.

This is a Guy Ritchie movie, so you should know exactly what you're going to get. There's lots of action, lots of broad comedy, and lots of lovable rogues. The cast includes folks like Henry Cavill, Alex Pettyfer, Cary Elwes, and Henry Golding, and they are all having a whale of a time. Could this film be edited more judiciously? Of course. Is there a ton of exposition and some unnecessary twists and turns just so we can have a bit more shooting and punching? Naturally. But at the end of the day, do you want a film where you just sit back and watch a bunch of hot British men fight Nazis and look effortlessly cool while doing so? You bet!

Challengers: I walked into the theater with my arms crossed, all set to hate this movie. Based on the trailers, I thought this was going to be "Hot Threesome: The Movie" and prove to be an insufferable treatise on ethical non-monogamy or some such nonsense. However, written by Justin Kuritzkes and directed by Luga Guadagnino, I was instead treated to a remarkable character study of three very twisted people who are suffering from crippling work-life balance issues. And when the work in question is professional tennis, you get a compelling and thrilling film that is kinetic and exciting and manages to be both sexy and funny.

The screenplay is written brilliantly with a flashback structure that means we keep getting the back story of our three main characters in tantalizing bursts. We always get just enough information to advance the plot further by one more step, but it's only until we get to the very end that we finally have the culmination of everything these people have been to each other and the current state of their entanglements. In my screening, there were two men who clearly thought they were coming to this movie to watch Zendaya take her clothes off, and instead, they became markedly agitated as the movie proved to be rather homoerotic, with far more attention being paid to her sweaty male co-stars, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor. 

This movie is shot beautifully, and I have never been more engaged in watching tennis in my life. The soundtrack is genius, always providing a propulsive beat that gets you excited for the next tennis match or the next complicated sex scene where you get to see the true value of an intimacy coordinator who knows how to choreograph not just the physical act, but all the emotional complexities it represents. The actors are sublime, each representing a complex and screwed up human being with thwarted ambitions, and the evolving nature of their relationships from past to present is stunningly portrayed. This movie was a real revelation - go into it knowing as little plot as possible and you will be thoroughly rewarded. 

April Movies Part 4: Players & Upgraded

We can never watch enough romcoms and now we have two more available on streaming. So dive right in to get two very different flavors of romantic comedy that are both equally satisfying.

Players: Written by Whit Anderson and directed by Trish Sie, this movie stars Gina Rodriguez as Mack, a woman who loves to run "plays" to find casual hook-ups for herself and her friends. She routinely meets up in a bar with her best friend Adam (Damon Wayans, Jr.), co-worker Brannagan (Augustus Prew) and his younger brother Little (Joel Courtney). She has helped these men hook-up with dozens of people and they have watched her pick up many more after a long day at work. However, enter Nick (Tom Ellis), a sophisticated British journalist who has been nominated for a Pulitzer and is a proper "adult." After a one-night stand, Mack realizes that she actually wants more from this man, and now she needs to come up with a play to turn him into her actual boyfriend. With her friends' help, they embark on a complex plan (and intense stalking) to worm her way into this man's affections.

I won't tell you anything further. If you're any kind of romcom connoisseur, it should be fairly obvious to you from the jump how this whole thing is going to end. But the journey is as fun as the destination and this is a great cast of people getting up to a great series of shenanigans. This is a fun, zippy film that is perfectly charming. And as an added bonus, it takes place in NYC, so if you're a New Yorker, there will be plenty of fun "I've been there!" moments for you to indulge in.

Upgraded: Written by Christine Lenig, Justin Matthews, and Luke Spencer Roberts, and directed by Carlson Young, this film stars Camila Mendes as Ana Santos, an intern at an auction house who is desperately hoping to parlay this opportunity into a proper job and career that finally makes use of her art history degree. Her boss, Claire (played with a hilarious accent by Marisa Tomei) is a Miranda Priestly-type, a hard-ass who terrifies all her assistants. Anyway, via some machinations, Ana finds herself on a work trip to London. When an airport employee takes pity on her and upgrades her to First Class, she runs into Will (Archie Renaux), a charming young man who seems instantly taken with her. They have a very flirty flight across the ocean, during the course of which, Ana makes the mistake of pretending she is actually the Director of the auction house and not a lowly intern. 

As you can imagine, that one lie is gonna spiral out of control, not helped by the fact that, of course, Will's mother (played by the magnificent Lena Olin) is one of the clients that Claire and Ana will be holding an auction for in London. You can expect to watch Ana trying to get away with her lie without losing the man or her job, and everything will be spectacularly complicated until it all gets untangled. Again, this is nothing you haven't seen before, but these actors are delightful, London looks beautiful, and who doesn't love watching two people fall in love despite a lie and then have to navigate the fallout before they can reach their happily ever after? Get cozy on the couch and settle in for a heartwarming romance. You won't be disappointed.

April Movies Part 3: Monkey Man & Murder Mubarak

OK, did I choose to review both of these films because they are set in India and both have alliterative titles starting with M? Yes. But did I enjoy them both for very different reasons? Yup.

Monkey Man: Dev Patel directed this film, co-wrote it with Paul Angunawela, John Collee, and Jordan Peele, and then starred in it. If this is the direction this man wants to go with his career, I am wholly supportive, because this is one of the most fascinating and unique movies I've seen all year.

Patel stars as "Bobby" (not his real name, but that's what I'll use so I don't just have to keep referring to him as Monkey Man in the rest of this post). He is a poor young man in Mumbai who takes part in staged boxing fights, dressed in a monkey mask, to make some money. But we keep getting flashbacks to his past with his mother. It is clear she was very loving and doting, but then something horrific happened. As the movie progresses, we will piece together his traumatic story via many flashbacks and see how they all relate to his vengeful mission to destroy the people who ruined his life.

All of that sounds pretty standard, but where this film excels is in its execution. It does a brilliant job of capturing not only the claustrophobia of the slums, but also the exhilaration of navigating through those narrow alleys and byways and the thrumming pulse of the city where all these people magically manage to co-exist. The music choices are always excellent, with action sequences being set to rap, Bollywood, or occasionally, incredible instrumental music (renowned tabla player Zakir Hussain shows up in this film for a spectacular cameo that I can't stop raving about). The mythology of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, and the Ramayana runs throughout this film, setting up a righteous fight between good vs evil that very appropriately crescendos at Diwali. The cinematography by Sharone Meir is fluid and vibrant. Patel's direction is remarkably self-assured, with scenes that are shot with such an artistic and unusual point-of-view that you know this man storyboarded every frame to death. Moments of this film truly reminded me of The Green Knight, one of the best movies Patel ever starred in, as that too is a film that makes great use of mythology, imagery, and a lone man's quest.

Yes, this movie is a gory and violent action thriller, but I was so captivated by how it chose to depict that violence that I had a big smile on my face even during the bloodiest moments. There is also a significant plot involving a group of hijras (a transgender community unique to the Indian subcontinent) that is beautifully done. I am so used to Bollywood cinema always portraying hijras as villains, but here they get to save the day alongside our hero and also share some of the Hindu mythology that is so relevant to their history. This film has many remarkable themes that it weaves together effortlessly, speaking to the many minorities in India that don't always get a fair share, whether it be indigenous communities, LGBT folk, or women. Bobby's whole mission is driven by the violence done to his mother, and ultimately it is very satisfying to see him beat a man to death with a woman's shoe. I know an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but there is certainly something poetic about watching a misogynist get beaten to death with a glittery heel.

I don't know what it means that this movie has come out right before the Indian elections. To me, it's taking a pretty anti-Hindu nationalist stance, as all the villains in this piece are people who are trying to preserve the status quo and stomp out the rights of minorities. This is definitely the kind of movie Bollywood doesn't make, but Hollywood would never know to make it either. Instead, it takes someone like a Dev Patel, who can straddle both worlds, to come up with something that is so artful and thought-provoking but can also serve as his audition for James Bond. Because damn the man looks great in a tux while slaughtering a bunch of bad guys. 

Murder Mubarak:  Written by Gazal Dhaliwal, Tamojit Das, and Suprotim Sengupta (who adapted the novel Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan), and directed by Homi Adjani, this movie is definitely the sweariest and sexiest Hindi movie I've seen. Which accounts for why it went straight to streaming on Netflix - this is not the kind of movie you release in theaters to the more conservative masses. Apart from that however, this is still a pretty typical Bollywood film, with some pretty typical performances. What that means is that it's light and frothy, occasionally a little gory, but overall, a pretty good time if you're looking to while away a few hours.

The action takes place at a swanky member's only club in Delhi where a Zumba instructor named Leo Mathews (Aashim Gulati) has been murdered. Though there's a fair amount of misdirection at the beginning of this film for you to even figure that out. Which sets the scene for the rest of this film and its complexities. There is a sprawling cast featuring people like Pankaj Tripathi, Sara Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Karisma Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, etc., etc. Everyone is playing a rather heightened character, and as ACP Bhavani Singh (Tripathi) proceeds to investigate this case, it becomes increasingly clear that every single person had a motive.

The mystery is rather over-complicated and it makes sense that this story started out a novel - I might have to read the book now. Nonetheless, I never got bored while watching this film, even if at times I did feel a bit perplexed. Every actor looked like they were having a blast portraying these varied characters, and at the end of the film, the Poirot-esque denouement was quite enjoyable, as we not only solved the main murder mystery, but about a dozen other mysteries besides. Don't go into this movie expecting a polished script, but certainly expect to be entertained by a huge cast and a twisty plot that'll keep you guessing till the very end. 

April Movies Part 2: Problemista & Civil War

Do you want to watch a surreal comedy about what's wrong with America? Or do you want to watch a harrowing drama about what's wrong with America? Either way, dive in for reviews for two great movies about the perils of living in America!

Problemista: Written and directed by Julio Torres (who also stars, what a Renaissance man!), this movie tells the story of Alejandro (Torres), a young immigrant from El Salvador who dreams of being a toymaker of extremely whimsical (aka weird) toys. He wants a job at Hasbro, but in the interim, the man's gotta eat, so he has a job at a cryogenics company. When he is fired, the 30-day immigration clock starts ticking, where he needs to get a job with an employer who is willing to sponsor his work visa. Otherwise, he will be kicked out of the country.

As someone who works in a company with a lot of immigrants who routinely face this peril when they are made redundant, I immediately sensed his panic. But this movie takes a comically surreal look at the many ways in which the immigration system screws over hard-working people and makes them more vulnerable to exploitation. Alejandro thinks he has found a savior in Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton, in a role that should be considered in next year's Oscar race), a bizarre art critic who is the very definition of a Karen. She hires Alejandro to help her organize an art exhibition of her late husband's artwork, but she is a frenzied and frantic employer who is obsessed with FileMaker Pro. Since she has only taken him on part-time and hasn't signed any visa paperwork, to make ends meet, Alejandro is subletting his tiny bedroom in an already crowded apartment and taking up odd jobs on Craigslist that only get progressively worse as his desperation deepens.

I know I'm not describing a very funny movie, but it genuinely is hilarious while telling a very real tale of how people fall through the cracks all the time in our capitalist society. While riddled with jokes, Problemista manages to be a biting satire about how we treat people with dreams and thwart their ambitions. I suppose it's a comedy because of the way in which Alejandro's problems are resolved, but oh boy, the journey is fraught.

Civil War: Written and directed by Alex Garland, the one-word description of this film is: harrowing. I was on the edge of my seat for most of it, feeling sweaty and horrified. I know that doesn't sound like a fun time at the theater, but man, I haven't felt this emotionally invested in a film in a long while.

Set in the near future, the premise is that multiple states have gotten together to secede from the United States and a civil war has broken out. The country is now subject to violent attacks and bombings, and the President (played by Nick Offerman, in a spot of top-notch casting), keeps sending out messages about how the government is battling the insurrectionists and winning this war. But the reality is that things are going terribly, and the government will likely be overthrown. Kirsten Dunst stars as Lee, a weary war photographer who covered many horrific uprisings in other countries but now has to depict the war in her own homeland. She is accompanied by fellow journalist Joel (Wagner Moura), a man who really gets a thrill out of being embedded with military troops in the thick of action. The two of them decide to travel down to Washington D.C. from New York, a journey that is bound to be perilous as most of the major roadways have been bombed and rebel forces are dotted along the entire East Coast. But they want to go interview the President before the government collapses. Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran journalist who was Lee's mentor wants to join them, and so does Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young photographer who idolizes Lee's work and aspires to become a photojournalist herself. Reluctantly, Lee and Joel agree to take them along.

Together, this motley crew embark on the world's most terrifying road trip. The film plays out as a series of increasingly disturbing vignettes, where these four people encounter different terrors along the way and see the many ways in which ordinary citizens have either been transformed by this war or blithely ignore it. Rather than being a political movie, this is a movie that is simply trying to remind us about the horrors of war. Humans are a god-awful species, capable of incredible destruction, and as we follow these journalists on their amoral journey to document all the atrocities they see without taking any action, it is really hard to endure the relentless onslaught.

This film is shot impeccably by cinematographer Rob Hardy. Every action scene is blended in with photo stills so we can see the photojournalism happening in real time and observe how the violence is translated into macabre black-and-white beauty via a camera. Every actor is sensational, depicting how their characters evolve over the course of the film to either become more or less world-weary, each one dealing with their individual existential crises as they make this arduous journey. And the soundtrack is phenomenal, oftentimes jarring, as we get upbeat tunes at the most downbeat of moments and have to remember that every time something horrible happens to one person, there's another side in this war that is celebrating. It's all incredibly sobering but brilliantly told and I dearly hope it remains in the genre of speculative fiction rather than serving as a prophecy.

Super Sitcoms: Kim's Convenience & New Girl

Over the past few months, I have been engaged in a steady binge of two sitcoms I never watched when they originally aired on TV. But now, here I am to tell you that if you need something to cheer you up at 22-minute intervals over the course of multiple seasons, you should be adding these shows to your streaming queues immediately.

Kim's Convenience: What an absolute revelation. Set in Toronto, this show follows the Kim family, led by Sang-Il "Appa" and Yong-mi "Umma" Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Jean Yoon), Korean immigrants who run a neighborhood convenience store. At the start of the series, their daughter, Janet (Andrea Bang), is still living with them and helps out in the store when she isn't in college studying photography (an area of study that is naturally not beloved by her immigrant parents). They also have a son, Jung (Simu Liu, before he became an Avenger and a Ken doll), who is somewhat estranged from the family - while he still speaks to his sister and mother, he hasn't spoken to his father in a long while, because of a troubled childhood that led to him ultimately getting kicked out of the house and left to fend for himself. 

Developed by Ins Choi and Kevin White (from Choi's play of the same name), this show lasted for five seasons and is a sheer joy. I first started watching it with my mother when I was visiting her over a long weekend, and we found ourselves bingeing through the first season in glee, occasionally pausing to remark "wow, Koreans are just like South Indians!" Apparently Asian immigrants have much in common and it was astonishingly funny to watch this show and identify parts of my own life in this family that seemed like they should be so different from my own. (Also, it's wild that Koreans call their parents Appa and Umma, as I thought that was exclusive to South Indians.) Over the course of the five seasons, it's also wonderful to see how these characters grow and evolve, and the changing family dynamics as Janet strives to become more independent, Jung tries to reconcile with his father, and Appa and Umma strive to become less rigid. And of course, there's an insane number of supporting characters who are so fun and engaging in their own right.

The final season of this show is definitely rocky and I wouldn't say the show ended in the best way possible. But it doesn't matter - you will be plenty invested in these characters at that point and be devastated that there aren't ten more seasons for you to watch. The Kim family is the kind of sitcom family we need to see more of on TV, and if you haven't seen them already, drop everything you're doing and turn Netflix on right now.

New Girl: I watched about three episodes of this show when it first aired, decided I didn't care for it, wrote this scathing review, and then promptly forgot all about it. But my fiance is a big fan, and with his insistence that the show eventually evolved to be more about the supporting cast than the main character I found so annoying, I decided to give it another go. We subsequently spent some delightful months making our way through seven seasons, consisting of a total of 146 half-hour episodes. Phew. 

The show tells the story of Jess (Zooey Deschanel), an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles who finds her boyfriend cheating on her with another woman and has to quickly move out of their house. So she moves into a loft apartment with three other men: Nick (Jake Johnson), a surly law school dropout who is now an unambitious bartender and isn't convinced that this emotional woman should be moving in; Schmidt (Max Greenfield, an actor I have loved forever, and who is insanely wonderful on this show), a Jewish, corporate, commitment-phobic bro, who seems like he should be every woman's worst nightmare, but is actually just a fat kid who suddenly became hot and doesn't know how to handle it; and...Coach, but really Winston, because the actor playing Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.) left the show after the pilot, so they hired Lamorne Morris, aka another Black guy, to replace him. Yeah, the optics aren't great, but Winston ends up being the least chaotic member of this little gang of weirdos, even if he does have a penchant for pranks. Rounding out the cast, we have Hannah Simone as Cece, Jess's best friend, who also happens to be a model, so of course, the boys are intrigued by her. But while Cece has her fair share of romantic drama, she and Jess have a great, albeit unlikely friendship, that keeps everything grounded.

This show is very zany, and these characters get up to all manner of shenanigans over the course of seven seasons. I can't really say they evolve too much - these people are all ridiculous and chaotic, and oftentimes I would just be shaking my head at how hapless everyone was being. But the writing and joke density was what carried me through. I may not have cared much for certain characters, but boy did they deliver some great dialogue that made me chuckle. In particular, I could never get over Max Greenfield's line readings or facial expressions - the man has an ability to turn even the most innocuous sentence into an absolute meal. It was also exciting to see Hannah Simone, a half-Indian woman, as a main character on a sitcom, as there is ordinarily a dearth of South Asian representation on American TV. Was it annoying to see her culture and heritage continually stereotyped and no one ever making any effort to pronounce Indian names correctly? For sure. But it's an American network sitcom, and this aired well before the pandemic when folks got much more woke about cultural representation, so I guess we'll give it a pass. If you want jokes, this is the show for you. If you want culturally sensitive commentary, might I refer you back up to Kim's Convenience.

April Movies Part 1: Wicked Little Letters & The Beautiful Game

This week, I unwittingly found myself watching two movies that both turned out to be directed by Thea Sharrock. So let's consider this blog post a celebration of a British woman director who has turned out two quintessentially British movies that couldn't be more different.

The Beautiful Game: Written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, this is a movie inspired by the Homeless World Cup, an actual football (that's soccer for the Americans) tournament that began in 2003. This film tells the fictional story of the English team, managed by Mal (the incredible Bill Nighy), a man who was a professional football scout and has now dedicated his time to assembling a team of homeless people across England to participate in the Homeless World Cup every year. He already has a team gathered when he runs into Vinny (Micheal Ward), who is an extremely adept football player. Vinny vehemently denies that he is homeless, but he is sleeping in his car and struggling to find steady employment. For reasons that become clear much later in the film, Mal is fixated on persuading Vinny to join the team, and eventually, he does end up joining them for that year's tournament in Rome.

This is the category of British film that is a feel-good, slightly saccharine, socially conscious message movie. It's squeaky clean and full of heart and earnestness. Vinny is a great protagonist because he represents all the people who think homeless people brought their troubles upon themselves, even though he himself is currently struggling and unhoused. There's a cognitive dissonance stemming from his inability to acknowledge his own plight and that he should seek help, and that is ultimately the message of this film - stop judging others and get down to actually lending a helping hand. The supporting cast do a great job representing a group of men who find themselves in this situation for reasons ranging from drug addiction and gambling to fleeing the Syrian civil war. And of course, in the center of it all, we have Mal, a thoughtful, kind, and patient man who just wants to give these men a shot at this very unusual opportunity.

This is a sweet movie that you should stream and enjoy on a slow afternoon. It doesn't just focus on the England team - over the course of the tournament we meet players from South Africa, Japan, and the United States, and it's delightful to see these people bond across geographic boundaries, even if they take this competition very seriously. This movie never feels preachy, but it's certainly very straightforward in its attempt to humanize folks on the margins of society who are too often dismissed, feared, or ridiculed. It isn't high art, but it tells a deeply unique and intriguing story that might make you think twice the next time you pass a homeless person on the street. 

Wicked Little Letters: If you've just watched The Beautiful Game, prepare for some extreme whiplash as you head into this movie. Because while being extremely British, this falls into the category of British comedy that is sweary, satirical, and deliciously filthy. Written by Jonny Sweet and shockingly based on a true story, this movie is set in the 1920s and tells the tale of what happens when a woman named Edith Swan (the incredible Olivia Colman) starts getting a series of very angry and sweary letters that call her terrible names and say she is an awful person. (Yes, there's much more colorful language I won't be getting into, but to be sure, you will be able to enjoy the best that Shakespeare and British slang have to offer.)

The police are called in and suspicion is immediately placed on Rose Gooding (the equally fabulous Jessie Buckley), a young Irishwoman who recently moved in next door. Her husband died in the war, so she is a single mother to a young daughter, and she also has a Black boyfriend staying with her. She likes to drink, she likes to swear, she is obviously a rabble-rouser who is destined to be blamed for these letters. And so, she is arrested. The police station has just hired a Woman Police Officer, Gladys Moss (the glorious Anjana Vasan), who immediately senses that this whole thing is very fishy, and Rose probably didn't write the letters. But her male superiors don't want her to do any sleuthing. Nonetheless, she teams up with some local women to investigate this crime.

This is ostensibly a mystery, but it's pretty obvious where this is all headed (in case it isn't obvious to you already from my description, I won't bother to spell it out in this review so you can enjoy a truly spoiler-free experience at the theater). The supporting cast features a staggering who's who of British actresses like Eileen Atkins, Joanna Scanlan, and Lolly Adefope, who are all unsurprisingly delightful and look like they had a lot of fun making this film. This is a very feminist movie, featuring a number of characters who have found themselves oppressed by the patriarchy in different ways, and it's great to see them fighting back and regaining some control of their circumstances. This movie is silly, fun, and engaging, and if you desperately need to watch something where you can stand up and cheer on a bunch of enterprising women, this is the film you seek this week. Go forth!