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Review by Adam Donato  Nolan Ryan is one of the greatest pitchers in Major League Baseball history and is known for playing the most seasons ever. With such a long career, making a documentary about his life must be a daunting task. This Bradley Jackson documentary runs at an hour and forty two minutes. It covers everything from his relationship with his wife, which began when they were only children, to his life post retirement. Does this documentary have the arm to do this baseball icon justice? One of the more down to earth aspects about Facing Nolan is its focus on his personal life. Fortunately, Nolan Ryan is still kicking today so he’s able to give some insight into how he felt during defining moments in his career. His wife, children, and grandchildren get plenty of time to shine and show who Nolan Ryan was outside of the game of baseball. This goes a long way to humanize a character that is known for being a tough-as-nails cowboy type. Speaking of cowboy type, the story makes sure to focus on Ryan’s aspirations outside of baseball as he is a Texan through and through. After watching this, audiences are sure to know who Nolan Ryan the man is as well as the baseball player.  It’s surprising to see the amount of all-stars collected for this documentary. Standouts include Pete Rose, the all time hits leader, and Randy Johnson, the second most strikeouts all time. Getting players like Rose to speak about Ryan is especially interesting because Ryan was a very brutal player. One of his tenets as a player was that he threw hard and sometimes threw wild. The documentary seems proud of his ability to scare hitters by throwing inside and in too many cases, hitting them. This aspect feels distasteful as hitting other players as a fear tactic is a cheap shot. That being said, hearing from players who hated playing him is a perfect way to showcase what it was actually like to face Nolan.
One of the more impressive aspects of the movie is that it makes fans of the teams he played on have closure. Anytime an all time great player leaves a franchise, he is usually maligned by said franchise’s fan base. Mets fans got a World Series championship out of him, but trading him away feels right as Ryan never quite fit in in New York. The California Angels got his physical prime and only lost him over poor ownership. Houston got his most postseason success outside of New York. Texas got his twilight years which were his most efficient and certainly his most iconic moments. Ryan’s whole career is pretty well covered and will leave the viewer shocked to know that he never won a Cy Young award. Baseball fans are sure to enjoy Facing Nolan as it certainly does justice to the longest career in Major League Baseball history. This documentary perfectly encapsulates his entire career, all his achievements, and still has time to show off who he was as a person. Be sure to check this one out! Facing Nolan screens in theaters for one night only on May 24. Rating: 4/5
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Review by Sean Boelman
It is well-known that it is hard to make films starring and about kids, and Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s The Worst Ones explores that process. In doing so, it definitely probes deeply and poses some interesting questions, but one has to wonder if the film is part of the problem, even if its heart is in the right place.
The film is about a group of teenagers who are street cast in a feature film as the lines between their lives and the film begin to blur. It’s an attempt at meta filmmaking that is certainly quite ambitious and earnest, but its observations are seldom as insightful as the filmmakers clearly hope it to be. There are some interesting ideas here about the manipulation that can result from using non-actors — especially young non-actors — in a film production. However, in using nonprofessionals in this production itself, Akoka and Gueret weaken their argument to merely asking theoretical questions. Johan Heldenbergh plays the director of the film-within-a-film and he does a good job of bringing a lot of approachability to a complex role. The character has two sides: is he the savior trying to give these troubled youth an opportunity, or the manipulator inserting himself into the lives of these children and young adults and pushing them in the wrong direction? 
The film’s approach to the children is much less gray. It’s clear that we are meant to pity these children, not just for the situation that they are in, but also the fact that their plight is being milked for someone else’s advantage. Then again, watching a film that is in its own way also exploits these children feels rather… gross.
It is clear that Akoka and Gueret don’t intend for this to be all sunshine and roses. They want the audience to think about some of the more challenging aspects of this film and the film-within-a-film. But at a certain point, the film starts to fall victim to many of the issues that it is commenting on, and the result is hardly effective. Akoka and Gueret do a great job of directing the film, creating these layers of reality that separate the film based on what is happening. It’s the type of narrative that could easily become difficult to follow because of all that is going on in it, but the directorial approach goes a long way in making everything more understandable. The Worst Ones has a lot of intriguing elements that make it something to be recommended, but in trying to explore this gray area, it ends up in a gray area itself. Perhaps this is the type of challenging film that is necessary to start this conversation, even if it falls victim to those issues itself. The Worst Ones debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. Rating: 3/5
Review by Sean Boelman
The Tunisian film Under the Fig Trees debuted in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and it’s the type of international discovery that the section was designed to find. Wowing in its simplicity and humanity, this may not be the flashiest of movies, but it leaves a lasting impact nonetheless.
The film follows a group of young fieldworkers as they converse about life, love, and the other things that are important to them in the world. Sehiri’s background is in documentary filmmaking — this being her narrative debut — and her work in nonfiction gave her the experience to do wonders here, creating something intimate and insightful. Sehiri does an excellent job of balancing the themes in the movie so it never feels like it is preaching a message to the audience. Yes, the film does address weighty subject matter like sexism and the patriarchy, but it does so in a way that feels natural and flows perfectly with their concerns about other, more trite aspects of their lives. What makes Sehiri’s movie so effective is that it feels equally weightless and impactful. It’s entirely airy and lovely, but never feels insignificant. It’s clear that Sehiri has a profound love for this culture that she is depicting, and she wants to show it in all of its beauty and flaws so that the rest of the world can see it. It is impressive the level of intimacy Sehiri is able to make the audience feel with all of these characters. Through their conversations about the mundanities of their daily lives, we get to feel for and care about these characters in a way that one wouldn’t expect without ever feeling like it is being condescending towards them. The fact that these are all unprofessional actors definitely adds to the feel of realism that the film aims for, but it’s quite effective. Fide Fdhili leads the cast — and ultimately the movie was built around her — and has a fantastic, compelling screen presence to her that one wouldn’t expect from a young girl. The film is also gorgeous to look at. The use of natural light is just astounding and creates an atmosphere that is unique — almost even idyllic. It’s an interesting effect that, by eliminating artificial sources of lighting, the movie feels askew in a way that contrasts nicely with the heightened sense of realism in the script. Under the Fig Trees is an impressive narrative debut for Erige Sehiri, taking the sensibilities of nonfiction filmmaking and creating a compellingly grounded film. It’s subtle in a way that is thoroughly powerful. Under the Fig Trees screened at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. Rating: 4/5 Review by Tatiana Miranda  When the poster for the new Adrian Shergold film Cordelia dropped, many speculated it to be a sexy period piece starring Johnny Flynn and Antonia Campbell-Hughes. While the film does star Flynn and Campbell-Hughes, the image used for the poster is misleading as Cordelia is a psychological thriller, not a steamy story taking place in a historical setting. Yet the movie's misleading advertisement is the least of its faults. In its attempt to be a groundbreaking psychological thriller, Cordelia loses any tension or scare factor and instead turns into an awkward mess of wasted potential. The film follows the character Cordelia's (Campbell-Hughes) unraveling psyche as she grows close to her seemingly attractive neighbor Frank (Flynn). The first half of the movie teases an incident that happened twelve years prior, leading to Cordelia's intense PTSD and social anxiety. This contrasts the false sense of security she feels when she's with Frank. Cordelia's trauma-filled passivity makes her a boring titular character who continuously makes the worst imaginable decisions. Meanwhile, Frank has the potential to be a charming, helpful neighbor turned lover who has secrets of his own, but his character development is rushed through and, therefore, lackluster. When Cordelia finally reveals what happened to her twelve years ago, the reveal is underwhelming and overshadowed by the chaos of everything else happening in the movie, which is surprising since so much of the beginning of the film focused on teasing the cause of her PTSD. Several other reveals meant to be shocking are given screen time for the characters to digest. Although it almost gives them too much screen time as the audience is forced to watch Cordelia pointlessly sob over multiple revelations throughout the movie.  While Flynn and Campbell-Hughes have interesting chemistry together that makes the reveal of their respective motives exciting to watch, it is due to their acting skills and not the film's writing from Adrian Shergold and Antonia Campbell-Hughes. The dialogue is often pointless and runs in circles repeating the same concepts. For example, there are only so many times someone can understandably bring up the fact that they suffered a mysterious traumatic incident twelve years earlier. The time spent on pointless dialogue takes away from the time Cordelia could've spent creating trust in certain characters, making later reveals much more shocking.
Sometimes the genre of psychological thrillers gets mixed with the goal of creating a nonsensical movie that leaves one feeling uneasy, and it's clear that's what Cordelia intended to do with open-ended storylines and plot holes. Instead of leaving the audience uneasy and questioning what really happened, it just leaves you confused and aggravated. While Cordelia certainly has some intrigue, namely its poster, it is ultimately a movie worth missing out on. Cordelia begins playing in theaters and on demand on May 20th. Rating: 1/5
Review by Sean Boelman
Stefan Forbes’ HOLD YOUR FIRE. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films release.
There are a lot of shocking things about Stefan Forbes’s documentary Hold Your Fire, but perhaps the single most stunning thing is that it did not receive an Oscar-qualifying run. Timely and powerful despite having a smattering of flaws, this documentary presents a fascinating and powerful look at criminal justice reform despite its flaws.
The film tells the story of events that happened in Brooklyn in 1973, when a group of four men attempted to steal guns for self-defense, setting off the longest siege in NYPD history and defining the process of hostage negotiation as we know it. It’s one of those stories that is pivotal but often left out of history books, and Forbes’s documentary brings it to the spotlight. Forbes’s style of filmmaking is certainly very flashy, for better or worse. The movie plays out in an almost pulpy way, allowing the viewer to get wrapped up and absorbed in this situation as it unfolds. Some could argue that using such tragic circumstances for entertainment is ethically questionable, but it’s clear that this film’s heart is in the right place. It’s interesting, because even though the movie is clearly interested in communicating the nuances of the situation — showing that there is more to this type of standoff than the media and pop culture would let on — it falls victim to many of those same trappings of heightening the tension in the wrong places. 
Stefan Forbes’ HOLD YOUR FIRE. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films release.
Often, this comes at the expense of the deeper themes that this film explores. There is a lot to be said in this situation about racism and gun violence, but it’s not quite as impactful as it could have been. Granted, given that the runtime is a mere ninety-three minutes, the movie should be praised for even trying to juggle all of these ideas.
Part of the film’s issue is its slightly scattered nature. The movie jumps between different perspectives a lot, and while this is understandable given that this is meant to be from the standpoint of a mediator, it causes the arguments to lose some of their strength rather than fortifying them in a devil’s advocate sort of way. Still, there is an undeniable kineticism to Forbes’s film that makes it absolutely irresistible. There are a lot of archive materials with talking heads woven in, but this never feels too interview-heavy even though that is the primary method of storytelling. He manages to make the talking heads feel almost invisible, which is an impressive feat. Hold Your Fire is certainly an impressive feat of documentary filmmaking, and while the stylized execution works against it at times, it’s mostly very effective. It’s a compelling, largely unknown story that audiences should pay attention to. Hold Your Fire is now in theaters and on VOD. Rating: 4/5 |