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Review by Dan Skip Allen  The Boy and the Heron is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the director of such films as Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and The Wind Rises, among others. He was rumored to have retired, but after ten years, he's back with another animated film. This time, it's of a more personal nature, taking the form of a love letter to his son. Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki) is a young boy who moved to a new home in a new town with his father, Shoichi (Takuya Kimura) after his mother died in a fire. He is not settling in very well because of that. When he sees a Grey Heron (Masaki Suda) while exploring the grounds of his new home, it tells him that his mom is still alive. The bird convinces him to go to an old rundown tower. When he enters, he ends up in a strange underground realm. Miyazaki has made his films in the past with many different kinds of themes. He has made films about nature, natives, and the environment in his career. Those are just a few of the things his movies are about. The fact that they are animated means they have to be relatable for children as well as adults. Many animation filmmakers have been taking this approach in the last thirty years or so. This film deals with adult themes as well. There are themes of life, death, and reawakening. These are complex themes for kids to understand, but their parents can explain them when they are older. Like many of Miyazaki's films, he creates fantastical worlds his characters — often kids — can explore. While in these worlds, the characters are exposed to wild and wacky situations but often have an important meaning in the context of the film or the outside world to some extent.  This movie has talking birds, old wise men, and little girl sidekicks. All of these things make the store more accessible to audiences, but they don't take away from the wacky nature of what the director/writer is doing. Themes of creation are very evident as this man is very old and uses his work to ponder death. These are tough topics to deject, but they are important for people of an older generation. Miyazaki knows how to weave these themes into his stories, even if they are adapted from other material.
The animation isn't anything to write home about, but it's similar to many other films Miyazaki has made in the past. Hand-drawn animation has all but gone the way of the dodo bird, but this man keeps reviving it. It's not about the animation that matters, though — it's more about the story and the themes he is trying to infuse into his films that matter. The animation has been better in some of his older films. I'm not the target audience for this movie, but I always give every film I see a fair shake. This one isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I found it half of a great movie. The first half was very good, and I was totally invested in this story. The second half goes off the rails when the boy enters this weird underworld realm. It gets too existential for me and drags on for too long. This version of The Boy and the Heron wasn't dubbed, so something may have been lost in translation. As a fan of Miyazaki's films, I'm disappointed that this one wasn't more to my liking. The themes were confusing and complicated to understand. I enjoyed the first half but not the second half. The animation was good but not great. This is just not one of the better films from this incredible filmmaker. The Boy and the Heron hits theaters on November 22. Rating: 3/5
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Review by Dan Skip Allen  I've been watching football my whole life. Ever since I was a kid, I sat with my father when he was home on Saturdays and Sundays, watching my teams play: Notre Dame and the Patriots. I've seen a lot of great players who played for my teams, but one of the greatest ever who played against my teams in college (at Oklahoma State) and the pros (for the Detroit Lions) was Barry Sanders. Bye Bye Barry depicts his great career from high school through his professional career. Ever since Barry was a little kid, he was great at football. His father, William Sanders, also his biggest fan, ensured everybody knew this. Every coach in the country wanted him on their teams, including Oklahoma, his father's favorite team. He fell in love with Oklahoma State, though, and ended up a cowboy. This was the beginning of his incredible career and the many accolades that followed, including the Heisman Trophy — the greatest honor any college football player could win. The pros were clamoring to get him in the draft. He ended up falling to the Detroit Lions at the 8th pick, and the rest is history. Barry is synonymous with one of the worst decisions in football when he retired from football as the number two overall rushing running back in history. He only played ten years for the Lions and hung up his cleats. Many fans and sports personalities alike were scratching their heads at this decision. People thought he had so much in the tank. He thought otherwise, though. His teams were that good, which was the main reason he retired early. The film, like a lot of other documentaries, uses talking heads to get across their opinions of what they think of his decision. Eminem, Jeff Daniels, and Dan Patrick are some big-name celebrities who chimed in on the decision, along with Sanders’s teammates. These are all old friends and diehard Lions fans, so you know they had a lot to say about what he did. The Lions haven't been the same ever since — and not in a good way.  With any film about an athlete, musician, or entertainer, filmmakers tend to use archival footage of the subject they are documenting. That goes the same with this film. There is quite a bit of material of Sanders playing football and making incredible runs, helping his team — even though they weren't that good, more often than not. Sanders had the ability to break ankles, as they say. He is one of the great running backs of all time, and his Hall of Fame induction five years after his retirement proved that.
Bye Bye Barry showed two things about Sanders. One is that he was very humble. In one instance, he refused to get in the game to break a rushing record. The second is he saw multiple players in his career get paralyzed while playing football. He didn't want that to happen to him. He also was a father of four boys. He wanted to be there for them and not be some injured ex-player who couldn't be around for his kids' games and activities. His boys mean the world to him; a framing sequence in the documentary shows that very abundantly. The film gives an all-encompassing look at this man, his career, his decisions, and the rest of his life. Bye Bye Barry is a film that shows a man who knows what his priorities are. His father raised him right, and he took that into his NFL career. Even though the documentary focuses on fans of the Lions and their futility over the years, the main focus is on Sanders's decision to leave the game he loved at the height of his career. The filmmakers make that abundantly clear. The talking heads and archival footage talk about the fact that this man was a great Hall of Fame player. Football fans should be able to digest this meal quite nicely on the week of Thanksgiving, the day the Detroit Lions played every year. Bye Bye Barry streams on Prime Video beginning November 21. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  Disney is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year, and they have been taking out all the stops. Their films, on the other hand, haven't been doing as well as they'd hoped. Their latest offering from Disney Animation, one of the building blocks of their studio, is Wish. They've made dozens of great animated films in their hundred-year history, and hope this is another film in their storied history. For their sake, it better be good because they need to rescue their lackluster year as a whole. Asha (Ariana Debose) is a young girl who has her life all figured out. She has a happy family and a group of friends she loves and cares about. She even has a pet goat. The only thing that would make her life better is if she got the assistant job to King Magnifico (Chris Pine) she is vying for. The only problem is when she finally meets the man she thinks will change her life — he isn't what she'd hoped he would be like. In fact, he was a bit of a fraud, and she hoped to reveal his true nature to the townspeople of Rosas. Disney has made dozens of princess movies or films featuring female protagonists such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle. They all have one thing in common: they have a feisty personality and try to defeat evil in some way. That's exactly the type of character Asha is. Even though she has a caring heart, she has a drive to prove that the people in her town deserve better than what they've got regarding their king and leader of their community. She goes out into the woods and does what any girl her age and in her situation would do: wish upon a star. That is a pretty familiar line from the Disney anthem. Go figure it would play a major role in this film. Directors Fawn Veerasunthorn and Chris Buck have infused this film with more Disney magic than can be imagined — literally and figuratively. The plot suggests you should wish upon a star, and everything will be alright. Your wish will come true, and you'll live happily ever after. That's the motto of Disney itself. As an added bonus, the filmmaker threw in a lot of Disney cameos and Easter eggs referring to the Disney classics from the past. This movie is a glorified tribute to the 100-year history of Disney Animation.  As mentioned, Disney has been making animated films for quite a while. Steamboat Willie was the first with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs shortly thereafter. They take pride in reinventing themselves, like they did in the late ‘80s and ‘90s with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, The Lion King, and many others soon afterwards that were among the best they've ever made. Wish advances their animation again with a vivid colorful look with well-defined characters and a depth and layering that creates a gorgeous animated film, and one of the year's best by far. This is a definite Academy Award contender for animated features at next year's Oscars.
One of the stalwarts of Disney animated films is the music and the songs that accompany their films. This one has a few memorable songs, such as “Welcome to Rosas,” “This Wish,” and “This Is the Thanks I Get?!” These songs and the music of the film from Dave Metsger are very catchy. They are sure to be sung by kids and adults alike this holiday season. They are infused into the narrative nicely, and “This Wish” in particular has a good shot at being nominated for Best Song come next year's Academy Awards. It has a beautiful message a lot of people can get behind. Moms and dads should let their kids hear this as often as possible. Wish is another success as far as I'm concerned from Disney Animation. It has a great message of hope and dreams, and standing up for others, as well as what you believe in. There is a very relatable protagonist voiced by Ariana DeBose, who is an amazing singer in her own right and villain voiced by Pine. The songs are terrific and surely will catch on with kids and families that see the movie over the holidays. The animation is some of the best of the year thus far. This film will surely garner much awards attention later this year and next. The main reason I loved this movie so much is that it was a love letter to all the great Disney films of the past 100 years. Wish hits theaters on November 22. Rating: 4.5/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  Image Courtesy of Netflix. Adam Sandler hasn't done many animated films in his career. He has done the Hotel Transylvania series, though, where he played Count Dracula. Now, he is in a new animated film produced by his own Happy Madison called Leo, where he voices a lizard. He takes this role very seriously, and this reptile ends up being a good role model for a class full of bratty kids. Leo (Adam Sandler) and Squirtle (Bill Burr) are two captive animals in a class full of fifth graders. They sit in their cage, commenting on everything that goes on around them. When the teacher gets pregnant, a substitute teacher takes over the class. She's a lot harder on the kids than the last teacher. One of the things she implements is that the kids have to take one of the pets home for the weekend. Leo ends up being the one who goes. When he's with the kids, they learn that he can talk, and he starts to give them advice on home and school lives. The animation is pretty straightforward computer animation. The kids and adults all look similar to many other humans in other animated films. It's the animals — specifically Leo and Squirtle — that have a distinct look to them. I think that was on purpose. The animals had to have a different look to set them apart from all the humans in the film. The humans did have some famous people voicing them, though.  Image Courtesy of Netflix. Jason Alexander, Cecily Strong, Jo Koy, and Rob Schneider (a Happy Madison regular), all voice adults in the film. The kids are voiced by a group of unknowns, as far as I could see. They were all fine, though, in their roles. All the kids had various issues that set them apart from the others. When the story gets to the climax, they all come together for a common goal. The cast as a whole is pretty good.
Robert Smigel, Robert Marianetti, and David Wachtenheim directed this movie from a script by Smigel, Sandler and Paul Sado. They infused themes kids can get behind as well as adults. Plot points involving parental problems, separation, bullying, and body issues are littered throughout this story. The main one I am dealing with in my personal life is aging. That was a surprise to me. I didn't think a story point about an aging lizard would be a key in the story, but it was. It's not fun getting old, so I can relate to that in the film. Leo isn't going to be labeled one of the best animated films of the year, but it is quite interesting in its story, and some of the animation was good. Sandler and company do an adequate job bringing these characters to life. The various story elements are the reason to see the movie on Netflix when it streams. A plot device of talking animals proves to be a good idea in this context. Giving advice and an aging story beat were my favorite parts of what is mostly an average animated film. Leo is now in theaters and streams on Netflix beginning November 21. Rating: 3/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  Photo Credit: Daniel Escale/Netflix. The Crown has always been one of my favorite Netflix shows ever since it premiered in 2016. I had always been fascinated by the Royals, but this show let me and millions of others into the inner circle of the royals like never before. Sure, Peter Morgan took some liberties with the narrative and the truth of what happened, but that is what we like about the show. It's not the definitive story of these people's lives. Season 6 is a hard one to digest because the true events were only about twenty years ago. Fans of the show will eat it up anyway. I loved it, like I did with previous seasons of the show. Season 5 of The Crown left fans of the show with Diana Spencer (Elizabeth Debicki) and Prince Charles (Dominic West) getting divorced and going their separate ways. Season 6 Part 1 starts with the framing device of a car racing down a Paris street, with a pack of men on motorcycles following it very speedily. It then flashes back to eight months before this moment in time, where Diana is with her boys and others swimming in a lake. This starts the relationship with Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), the son of a Middle Eastern billionaire, Mohamed al-Fayed (Salim Daw). The Crown Season 6 is split into two parts. The first four episodes of Season 6 focus mainly on the burgeoning relationship between Diana and Dodi. There are two seemingly outcasts in their respective circles. They start to become acquainted because of their outcast status. They find they are kindred spirits, and unbeknownst to them, they were photographed on Fayed's father's yacht. This started the news cycles swirling as a bidding war for the photos to get underway. Paparazzi is nothing new to Diana, though. As a member of the Royal Family, she dealt with this frequently. Now, she doesn't have the protection of the Royal Family's security force. The paparazzi would be her undoing, as the world already knows. They didn't stop her from having a fun summer in the Caribbean with Fayed, though. Peter Morgan, the creator of The Crown and its head writer, along with the directors Alex Gabassi and Christian Schwochow, decided to do something a little different with the narrative in episode four of Season 6. They made a distinct effort to try a different narrative approach that serves the audience watching at home on Netflix. I feel this choice was well warranted. Morgan and company put the dialogue of various characters into first-person style. How they were thinking and feeling was a key to these scenes in the series. The viewers needed to see this aspect of the story. Everybody knows how this story ends, but it's the narrative decisions Morgan uses that make for interesting television for fans of the show.  Photo Credit: Keith Bernstein. The Crown has always had great technical aspects, and this season is no different. There is a dichotomy of two of the main three characters in the Caribbean, where they are on the water with sunny backdrops with beautiful vistas surrounding them. Then there is the rainy, cold, and damp of Scotland, where the third main character lives in his castle. When members of the Royal Family venture outside, there are beautiful green hills with a stream flowing at the bottom between them, or wooded areas where characters go for walks and get air from stressful moments in their lives. The two locations are fascinating because of the characters and the situation they are in. The emotions of the characters also have an interesting juxtaposition regarding the location they are in as well. Morgan did a nice job with this plot point.
One episode in particular shows the true nature of what all these people were dealing with, and that's where two photographers were being interviewed in a documentary style. They feature heavily in episode two. The paparazzi and the local photographer, who does their job in different ways. One is looking for the next payday, and the other is looking to show the Royal Family respectfully. Each has their own way of going about their jobs, but have different motivations entirely. Thus, the episode truly showed what the Royals were dealing with 24/7, 365 days a year. And Diana, more than all the rest, felt it once she divorced Charles. She was fair game after that, as far as the paparazzi were concerned. The Crown Season 6 Part 1 is dubbed at the beginning of the end of this great show. We all know the story of Diana and what happened to her on that Paris road twenty years ago. It's just how all this transpired, and what led to that fateful car ride that is what's most interesting. The little details and why she was there that fretful day are what makes Season 6 Part 1 so good. All the little minutiae that goes along with them is why this show works. Morgan knows how to infuse the little things into each episode and season. This season will go down as one of the best, and surely will gather awards consideration next summer at the 2024 Emmy Awards and maybe the Golden Globes in January. Debicki is surely going to blow people's minds with her performance. She once again gives a tour de force performance as this world famous woman, Diana Spencer. The Crown is now streaming on Netflix, with the second part streaming December 16. Four out of ten episodes reviewed. Rating: 4.5/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  Beulah Koale, Michael Fassbender and the cast of NEXT GOAL WINS. Photo by Hilary Bronwyn Gayle. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.© 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved. Photo Credit: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle. It's not a hidden fact that I love sports movies. It's one of my favorite genres of film, bar none. There is just something about a good sports movie. If done right, it gets you in the feels. Next Goal Wins, based on the 2014 documentary of the same name about the American Samoa soccer program, is directed by Taika Watiti (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok). And to no one’s surprise, his unique style of filmmaking is in full effect once again. Thomas Rongon (Michael Fassbender) is a struggling soccer coach. He is brought to a meeting by the US Soccer Committee, where he is told he has two options. He must accept his fate of losing his job, or he can coach the American Samoa team, which has never won a game, let alone scored a single goal in the existence of their program. He reluctantly takes the latter, but he is not happy about it. With Taika Watiti, you know he's going to bring the laughs as a director. He doesn't waste any time with that, as he uses a framing device to tell the story of the American Samoan soccer team. Commissioner Tavita (Oscar Knightley) just wants one goal from his team. He hopes this disgraced coach with tremendous potential can bring that out of his team. He knows it's a tall order, but he has a positive outlook on things. It is a little too positive for Fassbender's character’s liking. That's the kind of laugh-out-loud humor in this movie. As someone who has coached basketball and American football in the past, I know how hard it is to get a team to come together for a common goal. That's where a lot of the humor comes from in this movie. The training sequences and tirades of Fassbender's character were gut-busting, to say the least. I couldn't stop laughing at how funny this film was. One scene that had me in stitches was when Tavita lost a bet the previous season and had boobs drawn on his face. I know it's not nice to laugh at the misery of others, but I couldn't help myself. Waitti knew where to put a funny line of dialogue or a moment of slapstick comedy. This is a masterful depiction of how to do a true comedy.  Kaimana and the cast of NEXT GOAL WINS. Photo by Hilary Bronwyn Gayle. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved. Photo Credit: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle. Also, with the comedy, there is a heart to this movie. Sports films usually pull on the heartstrings, and this one is no different than others in that regard. The downtrodden nature of this team and its history is ripe for the pickings as a true comeback story. Add in Fassbender's character woes, and you have a two-sided coin of tough things to overcome. Both of these things needed each other to succeed, and that's why this story works so well. Throw in some other character development from some supporting characters, and you have a sweet underdog story, a la Cool Runnings.
With sports movies, a key thing to make them look authentic is if the sport focused on in the film is played realistically. I am not a soccer expert, but I do watch it religiously on weekends when I have time. For a movie, I felt like the soccer was authentic. The characters moved the ball up and down the various fields they played on in games or practice. These actors genuinely looked like they could play the game from my limited perspective. That was a good part of the movie for me. I would have been completely thrown off if the soccer was performed badly. Michael Fassbender is the star of this film. He's the draw, but Waititi surrounded him with a supporting cast that was quite hilarious, to say the least. Will Arnett and Rhys Darby were both funny, and the actors who played the players on the team were genuine in their portrayals of these real players on the team. Another standout is Kiamana, who plays Jaiyah, a trans member of the team, and brings an important element of emotional grounding to the story. Next Goal Wins is a hilarious crowd-pleaser by any standards. It had me laughing throughout. Not at the obscurity, but at the verbiage and dialogue from so many characters. Fassbender played it relatively straight, while others brought the laughs. He was equally good as this fish-out-of-water coach, surrounded by a culture he didn't truly understand. The soccer was played very well, and the overall story had me emotionally invested in it from beginning to end. I loved this movie. There is nothing more I can say. Even an inspiring half-time speech was brilliantly done by Fassbender and Watiti. Next Goal Wins hits theaters on November 17. Rating: 4/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  (L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios' THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL. The Marvels is quite an achievement for director Nia DaCosta, the director of the Candyman reboot. She has combined two strong-willed women and a spunky teenager for the first time. This in many people's minds is groundbreaking. For me, it was a good combination based on many hours of investing my time in these characters by watching the films and television shows they were in. I have been looking forward to this team-up. The question is, is it worth your time? Fans of the MCU got a glimpse of what is going on in this film a year and a half ago, when out of nowhere Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) appeared in Kamala Khan's bedroom, destroying her closet. That was just the beginning, though. The first act of this movie is filled with multiple scenes of Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeaux (Teyonah Parris) switching bodies. It is played with a lot of humor in mind, and it's one of the best sequences of the film. The family of Kamala Khan, Nick Fury, and even Goose all get involved in the beginning action scene switcheroo, before Carol figures out how to stop it. Once the three ladies are together, they work out the kinks of the switching bodies, but it allows them to each have bonding moments with the others. The strongest parts of the film are the connections that the three ladies have while figuring out what to do going forward. They are trying to stop a woman who wants to rebuild the Kree homeworld at any cost, so there is business at hand.  Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios' THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL. As with most MCU movies, The Marvels has a lot of pretty cool visual effects. With all the switching, space battles, Flerken action, and so forth, the visuals have to look good. This movie has better-looking visual effects than some of the latest MCU films, and that's a good thing. The various power sets of the three ladies must also look authentic for the three ladies and the main villain, Dar Benn (Zawe Ashton).
Marvel and the MCU have been on a downswing lately. The films haven't connected with the audiences like they did in the first three phases. The 5th phase has been a little better than the 4th phase, but the movies don't interest me as much either. With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and now The Marvels, they have gotten back on track with their film properties. Loki Season 2 and Secret Invasion were also pretty good from my perspective. They have gotten back to what made them such a big fan-friendly film series in the past: fun and interesting characters and fascinating storytelling. The Marvels is a fast-paced and funny sequel to the first Captain Marvel. Nia DaCosta was able to capture a joyous atmosphere while also having a serious villain. The chemistry between the three main characters was off the chain. They showed genuine enthusiasm for working together. It showed in the final product. I was laughing at all the craziness, but also realized it was made in the context of the film. This movie was a blast from beginning to end. The Marvels hits theaters on November 10. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios. Of late, there have been a few filmmakers who have come onto the scene like a firecracker. They break out with their first film, and everybody expects explosions again with their subsequent films. In the case of Emerald Fennell, an actor in her own right, she has done an adequate job in her sophomore outing in Saltburn, but not as great a job as she did in Promising Young Woman. Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is a young British man who has just started school at the prestigious Oxford University in London. He is trying to find his way around literally and figuratively. Inadvertently, one day he comes across a classmate in need of help. Felix (Jacob Elordi) has a flat tire on his bike and can't get to his class back on campus. Keoghan's character reluctantly gives up his bike to help this young strapping lad. This leads to a fast friendship between the two college-age boys, which isn't ideal for Elordi's cousin Farley (Archie Madekwe) This has a very similar tone and feel to a movie I saw — and loved — from twenty-five or so years ago called The Talented Mr. Ripley. In that film, Matt Damon plays a young man who is enamored by the life of a popular young man in Italy named Dickie Greenleaf, played by Jude Law. The Keoghan character similarly admires the Elordi character in Saltburn, and the Madekwe character is very jealous of their friendship, also very similar to Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Talented Mr. Ripley. They are both suspicious of the Keoghan character. This doesn't dissuade Elordi's character from inviting his new pet project to his home "Saltburn" for the summer, though, after the end-of-term exams. Fennell crafts a film with a fascinating coming-of-age story with familiar themes. She puts the viewers in a front-row seat for this operatic film. There are many scenes of sensual behavior between Keoghan's character and Elordi's character, his alluring sister Venitia (Alison Oliver), and even Madekwe’s character. She creates a fever dream in many scenes. Scenes of various dinners, birthday parties, and so forth are filled with debauchery and drug/alcohol-fueled mayhem. These scenes are where all the real meat and potatoes of the story take place. You get to see how the various characters' motivations start to surface, and who's who in this cast.  Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios. Besides the characters I've mentioned, this film has four supporting characters that were very funny to me. Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Carey Mulligan (in a lesser role, but working with Fennell again after her Oscar-nominated turn in Promising Young Woman), and Paul Rhys as Duncan the family butler. Pike and Grant are hilarious in these over-the-top parental roles of the Catton family. Pike gives a good performance as this nosy mother trying to needle Keoghan's character about everything in his life, and Grant is just a crazy old man, not knowing what's truly going on around him. Mulligan isn't in the film much, but she makes the most of her scenes. The real star here is Rhys as the butler. He gives a lot of snide remarks and wild looks to Keoghan's character, and he seems to be enjoying every minute he's on camera. He was a delight to watch in this sinister seeming role.
I'm always a fan of films about the haves and have-nots. The dichotomy of how different people from different walks of life interact in these types of films is fascinating to me. As one of the have-nots, I can relate to Keoghan's character to some extent. The film gives the viewers a twist, though, and things aren't exactly what they seem from the surface. Fennell, who also wrote the script, throws in a few monkey wrenches as the story weaves its way around the true nature of what's going on in this movie. She keeps the twists close to her vest, even though I kind of figured out what was going on pretty early in this story. One particular aspect of the movie I wasn't that pleased with was the cinematography by popular cinematographer Linus Sandgren. There were many scenes at night or during darkly lit party sequences that were hard to see. The daytime scenes were fine, but once the film got to a lot of the night scenes, characters were in shadow and shaded quite often. I wished he could have lit these scenes better. The house — which is what the film is named after — is beautiful, and during the day you can see it in all its glory and beauty. This includes the grounds, which include a massive maze, which plays a key role in a major sequence toward the end of the film. Keoghan is the real reason to watch this film. He goes to a place I never thought he had in him. He is mostly reserved, but sometimes creepy and weird. He has a few scenes at the end of the film that defy what acting is all about. I thought I knew who were the main players for the best actor Academy Award conversation, but now that is thrown all out of whack. Keoghan and Yakusho from Perfect Days have messed up my mindset regarding that. Keoghan is just that good in this role. Saltburn, if anything, is a film I want to live in. The world that Fennell and company create is one I want to inhabit, even though there's a danger to being part of the sensual, beautiful existence. She creates fascinating characters vividly brought to life by this amazing cast. Big or small roles alike, everybody brings a different vibe, which all meld together for the better good in this film. Although the movie has similar themes as other movies, it stands on its own as an achievement in storytelling. I loved these richly written and acted characters. The look of the movie could have been a little better, but that is a minor quibble. Keoghan's performance is the true reason to see this coming-of-age thriller, though. Saltburn screened at the 2023 Miami GEMS Film Festival, which runs November 2-5. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  There are some films that catch you by surprise, and that’s the case with Perfect Days for me. I can't believe how incredibly relatable this film is to my life. It's pretty amazing how similar the paths of the main character, Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), and myself are regarding my job of twenty years. Director Wim Wenders set out to make a PSA about public toilets in Japan, and ended up making a masterpiece of cinema instead. Hirayama is a simple man who lives a simple life. He pretty much has the same routine every day. He wakes up to the sound of a guy sweeping the street, trims his mustache, brushes his teeth, gets dressed, and heads off to work. He listens to old cassette tapes of The Animals' “House of the Rising Sun,” Lou Reed's “The Dock of the Bay,” and “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison on his way to work each morning. His job requires him to go all around Tokyo to clean all the public restrooms in the city. It's a pretty mundane job, but he seems to like it and is good at it compared to his co-worker Takashi (Tokio Emoto), who is late and doesn't like his job much. Wenders has made a very contemplative film. It features a man who doesn't say much to anybody; he might have said fifty words in the entire film. It's not what he says that matters, though — it's what he does. Hirayama is a responsible man who takes his job very seriously. When he's not working, he has a similar off-hours routine. He visits a local bar in which he admires the owner/bartender and frequents a little restaurant where he gets drinks and free food as a thank you for his hard work. Hirayama does his laundry like we all do on the weekends. Koji Yakusho is best known by American audiences as the man who sells a hunting rifle to a nomad in Morocco, setting off a chain of events in 2006's Babel. Here, he gives a tour de force performance as this solitary man who is proud to go about his day cleaning toilets. Sometimes people, like his niece, come in and out of his daily life. This helps the viewer learn a little about this proud, hard-working man. But mostly, the film follows Hirayama and his daily rituals, whether it's watering his plants, taking lunch in a garden, or using his old camera to take a picture of a tree he likes with light shining through it.  As I mentioned, this film is quite relatable to me. I've had a few jobs where I cleaned toilets for a living. One in particular, like Hirayama, I had a truck, and I went around six parks in my town every day for two and a half years, cleaning the toilets and emptying the trash in each park. It was my job, and I took pride in it. This is what I was good at. It's all I'm good at as of today. There are people who need to do these types of jobs. It is part of how the world goes around. The film reminds its audience to respect these workers.
Win Wenders is a German auteur director who has been making movies for many decades. Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas are two of my favorites of his filmography. He just seems like he can capture the mundanity of life — the parts of life we all ignore, but without them, the world wouldn't run smoothly. That's what he does here with Perfect Days. No one wanted a film about a man cleaning toilets in a big city, but when you see it, you will realize how incredible it is. It's these kinds of films — not just because they remind me of my past — that make me happy. I'm a film critic and an all-around lover of film. Wenders is a master filmmaker for a reason. People like him don't come around every day. I hope this film gets in the five for Best International Feature Film next year at the Academy Awards. It's well deserving of one of those slots. There is one thing in the movie that I found fascinating, but not bad by any means, and that is how this man featured in the film dreams. He dreams in a 4:3 aspect ratio in black and white. We the viewer see his thoughts as he sleeps, and it's pretty much what he saw that day at work. He literally takes his work home with him and dreams about it. I loved these scenes because they showed a different side to this man. This added a nice technical touch to the story. Perfect Days is a film I had no idea what I was going to see when I walked in, and when I walked out, I couldn't believe what I had just seen. It is about this solitary man and his everyday life. That's it, but it's about so much more. It's about taking pride in your job and being responsible for something everyone takes advantage of. This man could have been like the younger man — chasing tail and being irresponsible — but he chose care instead. If more people cared about their jobs, this world would be a better place all around. It took me completely by surprise, and I'm so happy I saw it this weekend. It's now one of my favorite films of the year. I see a lot of awards consideration in the future for this movie. Hopefully, there will be some Best Actor awards love for Yakusho. Perfect Days screened at the 2023 Miami GEMS Film Festival, which runs November 2-5. Rating: 5/5 Review by Dan Skip Allen  David Oyelowo as Bass Reeves and Dennis Quaid as Sherrill Lynn in Lawmen: Bass Reeves, episode 2, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+. Taylor Sheridan is a writer and director who has carved out a nice place for himself in Hollywood. He has his neo-Western trilogy — Hell or High Water, Sicario, and Wind River — with which fans and critics have been enamored. Because of the popularity of those three films, Sheridan was able to ink a deal with Paramount+ the streaming service for the big movie studio. His shows Yellowstone, 1883, and 1923, have brought the Western genre back. Lawmen: Bass Reeves is the latest show for Paramount+ under his banner. It's another show that does the Western genre justice. Bass Reeves (David Oyelowo) was a member of the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He was also owned as property by George Reeves (Shea Wigham), his commanding officer. When things started to break down in Ply Ridge, Arkansas in 1862, these two defected and tried to save themselves. Once Bass realizes he might be in true danger at the hands of his master, he decides to put his own life in his hands. He makes a run for it, and his destiny is forever changed. Oyelowo has played some terrific characters in his career thus far, with Martin Luther King Jr. among them. He has done a little bit of everything in his career, but he hasn't been in a Western yet… until now. He seems like he's at home on a horse and firing a pistol. This is a character with a lot of nuance. He is trying to navigate a world of racism that hates Black men and women. If he said the wrong thing or moved in the wrong way in the presence of certain men or women, he could be shot dead. He also has a family he has to think about, which is very important to him. As far as Westerns go, Sheridan and company know their way around this genre. Lawmen: Bass Reeves is a very well-done series thus far, from the four of the eight episodes critics were provided. The show is very much as good as any Western series I've seen. It's on par with the other series from Sheridan — even though it's not connected to the Sheridan shared universe of the Dutton Family. As mentioned, the supporting cast is fantastic in this show. Each episode has a few cast members that specifically add to the story in each episode. Dennis Quaid plays Sherill Lynn, another lawman who reluctantly teams with Reeves. They form an uneasy bond as friends and colleagues, which gets Reeves to go to apply to be a Sheriff himself. Garrett Hedlund plays Garrett Montgomery, another man labeled a posse man who helps lawmen get bounties of wanted criminals. He has an interesting personality and reluctantly teams with Reeves to chase a big bounty they learned about from a prisoner of theirs, Billy Crowe (Forrest Goodluck). He also meets Widow Dolliver (Dale Dickey), the mother of two wanted felons in episode four.  David Oyelowo as Bass Reeves in Lawmen: Bass Reeves, episode 2, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Lauren Smith/Paramount+. Along with these men I mentioned, the show features a few women who feature prominently in the series. Lauren E. Banks plays Jenny, Reeves's wife, who is like his conscience in a way. He leans on her for advice and comfort. Their daughter Sally is played by Demi Singleton from King Richard fame. She has her own arc in the series. As her father is out catching bad guys, she has been smitten by a young man who comes around and goes to their church. That's what is one of the good things about this series: it develops its supporting characters nicely.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves is based on a real man — the first Black Deputy Sheriff East of the Mississippi River. His territory was mainly Arkansas and Texas, but he lived much further North away from his work. His work occasionally would come to his home. Not knowing about this man was very interesting to me. I'm a man who loves history and learning about new things and people from the past. I have enjoyed getting to learn about this man and this time in American history. He's a fascinating character, which is inspiring for other Black men and women to follow in his footsteps in the future. I love the look of this series. The cinematography shows a lot of scenes of mountains and plains and everything in between. Forest, river, and desert all look amazing, as shown by the cameras weirded by all the cinematographers in the show and directed by each man or woman impeccably. This series has multiple directors, but they all have the same vision creator and writer Sheridan is looking for as part of his vision for the show. Lawmen: Bass Reeves is the latest series from Taylor Sheridan to the streaming service Paramount+ after such hits as Lioness, Tulsa King, and Mayor of Kingstown. Sheridan knows how to write a leading man, and Oyelowo is more than capable of being just that. He has a great career going right now, and this character and series adds to that. This is a Western series based on a real man, and as such it is a very good show. This genre has come back in recent years thanks to people like Sheridan and Kevin Costner. Hopefully, people give this different twist on the Western genre a chance, like I did. It was worth it in every way possible. I loved this show thus far. Lawmen: Bass Reeves streams on Paramount+ beginning November 3 with two episodes, with new episodes streaming subsequent Sundays. Four out of eight episodes reviewed. Rating: 4.5/5 |