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JUST MERCY (2019) movie review
Category: Drama
THE CHOSEN (2019) series review
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OUTLAW KING (2019) Netflix movie review in haiku
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TOMB RAIDER (2018) movie review
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JUDY (2019) movie review
Zellweger’s JUDY, like Portman’s Jackie, offers a brief look into her moments of highest tension in life. Judy Garland was America’s sweetheart for the whole of her short life, but never was she allowed to bask in the joy of being so. She was a puppet, a plaything for managers to exploit and audiences to admire. 
I grew up in a world that kept her ruby slippers under glass and sang along with her gleeful performances. Her life looked charmed and protected under lights and roses tossed from theater seats.
This was the illusion. Off-stage versus on. Almost robotically, a switch flipped in front of an audience. The child actor poised, prodded, and pumped with narcotics became the showman. Addicted to audience and adrenaline as much as substances, she found no solace in the “normal” life she wished for. She loved her children but didn’t know how to shut off offstage.
Renee Zellweger truly embodies Judy in her last year of life, her swaggered performances and pained relationships. Judy Garland’s life story is a sad testimony to the abusive underbelly of entertainment and the affect of falling for the fickle love of fans.
JACKIE (2016) movie review
JACKIE Kennedy Onassis, fashion guru and lifestyle trendsetter influenced a nation with her quiet, proud posture of grace. Yet she endured what few could have, holding her murdered husband as he died and the million griefs that that sudden shock brought to her family, her situation, and her name in the days and years following – all under daily public scrutiny.
She suffered silently even before he died. In many ways, her struggle is underplayed in historical accounts. We rarely think of the assassination from her perspective. This film offers insight expertly shown by Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Jackie’s aimless pacing of empty state rooms, her endless dress and undress. This also sets audiences up for the fateful day when she chooses not to change out of her bloody pink suit until she is finally alone to grieve.
The film follows two interviews in tandem, one with a reporter and one with a priest. One a decision, the other a confession. One in staunch stance, holding demure position and poise, refusing to sensationalize. The other emotionally asking how God could allow her every level of suffering.
After JFK’s death, Jackie chose to honor her husband’s memory and position by leading the country in grief as she did in fashion. When anyone dies, we unconsciously customize their memory. We eulogize their beauties, skills, and strengths, remembering them for all of their best qualities. Despite their flaws in life, we glorify them in death.Jackie orchestrated a hero’s send off in favor of patriotic symbolism and in so doing, strengthened a country. Her dignity set the tone for the whole world to grieve. This film shows her internal tension and culminates as she explains the line from her husband’s favorite play, “for one shining moment, there was a Camelot.”
Bio pics run the Oscar syndicate, two favorites are: JACKIE (2016) & JUDY (2019). (Stay tuned for Judy review!) Unsung and yet beloved, the reputations of both of these two icons remain somehow untarnished despite the tragedy, conspiracy, intrigue, and raw reality of their stories.
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) movie review
Audrey had a way with people. She wooed them. She still does. So many of her films are almost travel-bios advertising the towns they tour – each city becoming a character of sorts in the film.
Roman Holiday (1953) sweeps her up into Gregory Peck’s arms for a guided tour of Rome offering an overworked Princess a rare holiday for a day.
In Funny Face (1957), Audrey tours Paris and transforms from bookish to bombshell. Bonjour Pari!
Breakfast at Tiffany’s catches cabs all around NYC with George Peppard. Their iconic day of firsts is a perfect city glance. 
Set in the well-sauced sixties, the story surrounds the nightlife loving New York model escort who befriends the young and beautiful writer George Peppard, who has similar secrets of his own.
Despite Mickey Rooney’s unfortunately racist caricature, much of this film still holds up. It’s a Pretty Woman story of sorts, in which Audrey Hepburn gets to play against type as Holly Golightly. 
No longer the little girl, wistful and tender hopping about Rome, this role created by author Truman Capote is much darker: a girl, full of sorrow, running from her past. The mask she wears just happens to have thick fake lashes and a perfect wardrobe dripping with tasteful jewels.
Honest and safe in each other’s presence, the two main characters grow more comfortable together and slowly more cognizant the fact that to true love requires vulnerability, dependence, and exclusivity – all of the relational holds she’s been running from her whole life.
She shows him her Sunday afternoon side, singing on the fire escapes and feeding the cat. Henry Mancini wrote the famous song “Moon River” for this film. Studios weren’t going to let Audrey sing it because of her whispey vocals, but Mancini stood up and said if she didn’t sing it they wouldn’t get to use it.
Peppard quickly becomes the one man in New York who is privy to her past as a young girl on the farm, married off to a widow at fourteen. She seeks freedom in the Big Apple but finds only a new sort of slavery. She calls herself a wild thing who can’t be held down. She won’t even give the cat a name because he doesn’t really belong to her. To belong to somebody would give them power over her that she can’t allow – it hurts too much.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, now iconic in both fashion and film, is truly one of the saddest stories, but it teaches its audiences that to love is to allow someone else in, for better or worse, and that that can be beautiful.
PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (2019) movie review
Peanut Butter Falcon rescued me somehow.
It’s a Huck Finn story about two runaway renegades with a plan and their unlikely friendship.
Zack Gottsagen, Shia LaBeouf, and Dakota Johnson star.
Endearing and hopeful, this story will pick up up out of any desperate spot, baptize you on the southeastern shores, and walk you homeward toward new hope. That’s a lot to say for a little oddly named indie film about friends being family, but it’s true. This film is precious to me.
LITTLE MEN (2016) film review by Gwen Hughes
No, definitely not Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men. This film from director Ira Sachs tells the story of a friendship between two young boys growing up in Brooklyn.
Brian and Kathy Jardine (Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) move to Brooklyn with their 13-year-old son, Jake (Theo Taplitz), after Brian’s dad dies and leaves them the building he owns. Having grown up in Manhattan, Jake is reticent at first but learns to enjoy the quieter side of the city and space to roam.
Jake befriends Tony (Michael Barbieri), another 13-year-old whose mother Leonor (Paulina Garcia) rents the storefront below the Jardines’ apartment. Exuberant Tony dreams of being an actor and looks to Jake’s dad, a washed-up movie star for inspiration, because his own absentee father is a nurse working overseas.
Jake and Tony spend days rollerblading and scootering through Brooklyn. Sleepovers and video games abound. But problems arise when Jake’s parents must raise Leonor’s rent to support their family. Leonor objects, citing her close relationship with Brian’s late father as the reason she deserves to stay. She’s a single parent, an immigrant and longtime tenant, and she won’t go down without a fight.
The dilemma is unique, and the solution is sure to be complex, if it exists at all.
Amidst this simple story, some scenes drag. Long scenes are used to exhibit the slower pace of life in Brooklyn but frequently end up feeling rather clunky.
Overall though, the script is tight. Insightful and simple dialogue is knocked out of the park by perfect casting. The two young boys, newly discovered by Ira Sachs, give honest and raw performances. A highlight is Theo Taplitz’s emotional monologue at the end of the film – he had me in tears.
Paulina Garcia is also incredible. The Chilean actress plays the role of disgruntled Leonor beautifully. She shines in the uncomfortable money discussions with Kinnear, where her searing and highly personal insults pack a punch.
Little Men is simple and unassuming. Friendship is at its heart, but the demands of parents and city life won’t let up. Head to Hulu and see how they fare.
(Now streaming on Hulu)
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Gwen Hughes is a seasoned writer and the Editor-in-Chief at Madison Park Living magazine. When she is not working, she enjoys reading short stories, quoting John Mulaney Netflix specials, and eating family-size boxes of Mott’s Fruit Snacks.
MARSHALL (2017) movie review
Tales of Thurgood Marshall don’t do his courage and swagger justice quite like Chadwick Boseman’s performance.
Sterling K. Brown (of This is Us) also stepped up to the big screen plate with expertise I hope to witness more often.
Josh Gad , often the funny man, centers and performs as the story goes from same-old courtroom to Atticus Finch-esque exposition.
Perhaps it is exposition that is this film’s fatal flaw. All talk, no action. Elvis sang a song to that effect, and we should have listened and offered a little less conversation a little more action.
It does its job, at least, of setting up the despicable former treatment of people of color in the south. Thurgood isn’t the all-good too pure and perfect hero of the film, but he’s human, relatable, delightful on every screen he graces, sauntering in with confidence to win cases Atticus never would have dreamed of winning.
Splatter: on FILM 