Griselda 

A six-part Netflix miniseries
Directed by Andrés Baiz
Starring (and co-produced by) Sofia Vergara
Premiered Jan. 25, 2024

Watch Time: 1 hr. per episode

Griselda is a biographical crime series dramatizing the true story of Griselda Blanco, who began her life as a prostitute in Colombia and eventually led one of the most profitable cocaine cartels in the US.

What I Liked About It 

The story: Amazing!

The plot: Fast-paced, non-stop, suspenseful, and believable.

The costumes: Vintage 1980s Miami. The wardrobes alone are worth the watch.

The star: All of the actors are strong in this series, but Sofia Vergara, someone I think of as a superb comedic actress, creates a character every bit as scary and seductive as Hannibal Lecter.

Critical Reception 

Griselda has gotten generally positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for Vergara’s performance.

* “The former ‘Modern Family’ star goes full Pacino-in-Scarface mode and delivers a robust, screen-rattling, suitably over-the top performance in the blood-soaked series… that plays like an extended B-movie.” (Chicago Sun-Times)

* “Hugely enjoyable, well-paced, and gorgeous to look at throughout.” (The Guardian)

* “Those who enjoyed Narcos and Sons of Anarchy will find plenty here to entertain them on the surface, but in terms of larger social commentary or insights on the state of Latinidad, it’s an empty vessel.” (RogerEbert.com)

You can watch the trailer here.

Forgotten Love

Directed by Michal Gazda
Produced by Netflix
Released Sept. 27, 2023

Watch Time: 2 hrs. 20 min.

Forgotten Love is Neflix’s adaptation of a 1992 classic Polish melodrama – the third adaptation of the Polish novel Znachor (which translates as “The Quack”).

I was suspicious of the title. It sounded like it could be a romance. But its conciseness and its vagueness gave me hope for something more.

And it delivered…

What I Liked About It 

This is a very good movie. I found it easy to watch, easy to enjoy, and it left me feeling satisfied. I think that was because it was (1) wonderfully imagined, (2) well built, (3) carefully managed, and (4) meticulously acted.

Why I Can’t Call It a “Great” Movie 

For all its excellence, including the script, the acting, the direction, and the cinematography, Forgotten Love is essentially a fantasy. A great film in my book is one that has great depth in terms of plumbing human nature and great detail in showing with exactness how humans behave (or once behaved) in particular times and situations.

Fantasy fiction has different objectives. It is not about the truth of who we truly are/were. It is about who and how we would like to be in imagined times and situations.

You can watch the trailer here.

BlackBerry 

Released May 12, 2023
Directed by Matt Johnson
Starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, and Matt Johnson
Watch Time: 2 hours

The Plot 

The story of the rise and fall of the first smartphone.

What I Liked About It 

The story behind this comedy docudrama (the factual story) is dramatic, sometimes exciting, and ultimately edifying. It stimulated lots of thoughts about my own experiences as an entrepreneur and made me feel better about my marketing rule: Try to be number two.

What I Didn’t Like 

The denouement, like most stories in life, was half-sad.

Critical Reception 

* “This is one of those whip-smart, character- and story-driven gems that grabs you from the start and never lets go.” (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

* “A corporate comedy of errors – but the film really shines thanks to Howerton, whose towering, shark-like performance makes him a villain for the ages.” (Beth Webb, Empire Magazine)

* “What emerges from the electronic noise and fussy aesthetic of BlackBerry is a compelling portrait of a company that flew too close to the sun.” (Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times)

You can watch the trailer here.

Shucked 

The Broadway production opened April 4, 2023 at the Nederlander Theatre 
Music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally
Book by Robert Horn
Watch Time: 135 minutes, with one intermission

You’ll need to get to NYC to see Shucked with the Broadway cast before it goes on tour. I saw it last weekend with K and a bunch of the extended family. It was a packed house, and the show got a standing ovation.

The Plot 

What do you get when you pair a semi-neurotic, New York comedy writer with two music superstars from Nashville? A hilarious and audacious farm-to-fable musical about the one thing Americans everywhere can’t get enough of: corn.

What I Liked About It 

Although the theme is corn and the major motif is corny humor, the script and lyrics are very smart. The play works as a musical comedy, but also, somehow, as a feel-good, we’re-all-human dramatic story in the midst of all the hateful culture wars going on outside the theater.

What I Also Liked About It 

My niece, Isabelle McDalla, has one of the leads as an ingenue.

Critical Reception 

Reviews were mixed. Critics tended to praise the comedy and acting but didn’t love the music. Still, the show received nine Tony nominations and won one: Alex Newell for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (which makes Alex one of the first openly non-binary performers to be nominated for and win a Tony).

You can watch an ad for Shucked here.

Sick of Myself 

Watch Time: 97 minutes

I wanted to watch Forgotten Love, which had been highly recommended by my Myrtle Beach buddies. But I wanted to watch that one with K, and she was not available. So, I flicked through Prime’s recommendations and found Sick of Myself, a 2022 Norwegian film written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli and starring Kristine Kajuth Thorp and Erik Saether.

It began as a typical Scandinavian domestic drama, but quickly turned into something that I would have criticized as absurd and implausible… except the acting and the direction were so good, I couldn’t pull myself away from it.

Sick of Myself is hard to classify. I’d say it’s 50% black comedy, 25% political satire, and 25% horror. It’s odd. It’s not for everyone. But it’s very good.

Interesting 

Borgli said that living in Los Angeles while writing the script is what most heavily influenced the film’s characters and plot: “The influence from the environment around me here really did something to the story and to the character. The personal traits of her being hugely ambitious, opportunistic, and maybe even a little bit of a narcissist were things I bumped into more frequently here than I did in Norway.”

Critical Reception 

* “Kristoffer Borgli is unduly proud of himself for concocting his unlikable protagonists, and he marinates in their repulsive self-absorption.” (Slant Magazine)

* “Putting aside the film’s obnoxious social critique… there is something compelling about its particular brand of cynicism.” (New York Times)

* “It’s not subtle, but a committed performance from Thorp and some uncomfortable truths about the nature of self-promotion [make] this a thought-provoking satire.” (Empire Magazine)

You can watch the trailer here.

The 10 Greatest Opening Scenes in Movie History

Spend a half-hour with these clips. It will make you richer. Then, if you want to, rank them yourself by whatever criteria matters to you.

My main criterion is emotional engagement. On that score, I rank the greatness of these opening scenes almost in the reverse order of Far Out Magazine’s… although I’d probably put The Godfather at #1. Click here.

For Your Possible Enjoyment 

Call Me Chihiro 
Directed by Rikiya Imaizumi
Initial release (Japan) Feb. 23, 2023

I usually recommend to you only “A” films – those that I would score at the top of my personal grading scale. But on Oct. 13, realizing that there’s not much difference between a B+ on my scale and an A- on someone else’s, I presented three “B” Netflix offerings that you may like a little better than I did. Call Me Chihiro is another one like that.

The Plot: A former prostitute, Chihiro, is rebuilding her life in a small seaside town. She now works in a bento shop, where she imperceptibly changes the lives of her new customers.

My Rating: Because Kasumi Arimura, who plays the lead, is utterly irresistible, I give it a B+.

You can watch the trailer here.

Born in Gaza

He’s Back!

If you’ve seen any of the films he’s been featured in – especially Free Solo, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary – I don’t have to tell you that he’s an amazing athlete, an astonishingly high-level technician, and irresistibly likable on screen.

Free Solo (2018) was undeniably a great movie. (I mentioned it in my review of The Alpinist, a documentary about his fellow rock climber Marc-André LeClerc.) And I felt it deserved the Oscar and all of the other many awards it won. But, frankly, I found it stressful to watch him climbing up a sheer cliff, hundreds or even thousands of feet in the sky, barely holding on by his toes and fingertips, knowing that a single slip could result in death.

I thought that was the last I would see of Honnold. But I came across several filmed climbs he’s done since then, including HURT (an acronym for Honnold’s Ultimate Red Rock Traverse), a 35-minute record of him knocking off 35 miles of rugged desert terrain, 23,000 feet of climbing, and 20 named summits. Click here.

And here are trailers for some of his other movies:

* Free Solo

* Reel Rock

* Explorer: The Last Tepui

* Valley Uprising

For Your Possible Enjoyment:

Three B and B+ Netflix Mini-Series 

My tolerance for junk-food movies and TV dramas has ebbed over the years. These days, if it feels junky at the 5- or 10-minute mark, I shut it off.

When I see things that are especially good, I recommend them to you. But when they are a bit less than that – Bs or even B+s – I don’t.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t good. Bs and B+s are, by definition, good. But are they good enough to recommend? Thinking about this yesterday, I had to concede that the difference between a B on my scale and an A- on another’s may be very small. So here are three mini-series that I’ve watched and liked in the last six months that you may like even better.

Lunatics 

Season 1, 10 episodes

Episode 1 premiered April 19, 2019

The Plot: Chris Lilley stars – as six characters – in this mockumentary series that he also created and wrote. It explores the lives of six extraordinary individuals who may not be what they seem. The subjects are observed over a period of months through documentary-style interviews and a combination of self-recorded and fly-on-the-wall footage. While they are eccentric and odd, they are also scarily recognizable.

My Rating: B+

My Comment: Chris Lilley was new to me. He’s a very smart comedic writer and an engaging, likeable actor.

You can watch the trailer here.

God’s Favorite Idiot 

Season 1, 8 episodes

Episode 1 premiered June 15, 2022

The Plot: Mid-level tech-support employee Clark Thompson falls in love with co-worker Amily Luck at exactly the same time as he becomes the unwitting messenger of God, filling his world with roller skating, a lake of fire, and an impending apocalypse.

My Rating: B-

My Comment: Like Lunatics, an ensemble comedy series with likeable characters. And like Lunatics, it’s funny, but not wickedly funny.

You can watch the trailer here.

The Girl from Nowhere 

Season 1, 13 episodes

Episode 1 premiered Oct. 31, 2018

Season 2, 8 episodes

Episode 1 premiered May 7, 2021

The Plot: Nanno is a mysterious and clever girl who should be avoided. She transfers to different schools, and when she lands at a new one, she exposes the lies and misdeeds of the students and faculty. The girls Nanno encounters often want to try to destroy her, but she always has the upper hand. When a student with a girlfriend gets mistakenly linked to Nanno, he becomes a social media sensation. After the truth about Nanno’s high school life is revealed, she makes sure there are no happy endings.

My Rating: B+

My Comment: I was torn between a B and a B+. I went with the B+ because of how interesting the idea of the plot is. This is essentially a high-school mean-girl story. But different from the way it is treated in the US, where the revenge is having the cute guy fall in love with the heroine, The Girl from Nowhere is about a girl who avenges her high-school tormentors 10 years after graduation.

You can watch the Season 1 trailer here.

You can watch the Season 2 trailer here.

6ixtynin9 

A six-part series from Thailand, recently released on Netflix

Original release date (New York) May 20, 2005

6ixtynin9 is essentially a crime drama, but it’s much more than that. It’s breathless. It’s fascinating. It’s sometimes funny, then melancholy, then sad. And it’s beautifully made.

Perhaps what surprised me most about this six-part series is that it was scripted and produced in Thailand. Almost 20 years ago!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. In some respects, it reminds me of Pulp Fiction. In others, a Mel Brooks movie.

If you are open to something new that will keep you entertained and thinking about all sorts of things you’ve never thought about before, check out 6ixtynin9.

Minor Caveat: It’s helpful if you have some familiarity with Thailand and Thai culture.

You can watch the trailer here.