June 24, 2023

Day: 24, Movie: 24

I chose to go with Downton Abbey: A New Era as the June Swoon 2 film for the day despite the fact that I never watched any episodes of the original PBS series or the first feature movie. I wondered as I was watching A New Era how much of this movie would have been affected by me not watching anything prior to it. I didn’t feel lost as I watched it, but I wondered if it would have felt richer if I had.

There were several storylines going on during the film. First, some of the crew went to the South of France to see a villa that had been left to Violet Grantham (Maggie Smith). Second, a Hollywood movie crew came to Downton Abbey to film on location. There were other storylines involving the staff too.

There did feel like there were some storylines were ignored or pieces of the plot were never fully addressed. Again, that may be because I do not know these characters as much as a longtime fan of this property would be, but there were some moments that felt lacking.

I did like the idea of the Hollywood movie angle. It was actually the story of Singin’ in the Rain as the film they were making was a silent picture, but silent pictures were on their way out. So they changed it to a ‘talkie’ picture. Problem was (just like Singin’ in the Rain) the lead actress of the film, Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock) had a voice that was terrible and they had Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) dub the film. So this story worked because, one of the greatest musicals of all time already used it.

I do love Maggie Smith. Every minute she was on screen, the movie truly popped. It was a shame that she did not get more time, but it did make sense for the narrative. I also enjoyed the ultimate British butler Mr. Carson (played by Jim Carter) bringing the British to France.

I found this Downton Abbey film to be passable. I was not totally lost and it was enjoyable enough. They did cram a lot into the two hours and it felt as if it could have been shortened up some to make it more concise. Still, not bad.

June 23, 2023

I have a busy day today at the movie theater; in order to fit everything in to the schedule today, I had to make plans for the June Swoon 2. What I planned was to watch a short this morning. The short I decided on was on Netflix and had been the Academy Award winning short for Best Documentary short at this previous Oscar ceremony. It was called The Elephant Whisperers.

This doc took us to India where we meet an indigenous couple named Bomman and Bellie, who were able to raise two orphaned baby elephants. At first, they were given responsibility over a calf named Raghu, who was frail and sickly. Bomman and Bellie cared for the baby elephant and a bond grew between them. From the great success that they had shown with Raghu, the park rangers of the Mudumalai National Park entrusted them with a second baby elephant named Ammu.

Watching the interactions with the elephants and Bomman and Bellie was fascinating and beautiful. The couple truly treated the elephants as part of their family. Bellie spoke of the loss of one of her own children, a daughter, and how Raghu was able to comfort her, literally wiping away her tears. This was a poignant moment in the doc.

The doc showed the elephant kicking a soccer ball around, playing freely like any little kid might.

The imagery and picturesque shots of the park made The Elephant Whisperers even grander than it would have been. Director Kartiki Gonsalves made her film debut with this documentary, spending five years with the family of the Kattunayakan tribe.

The 41 minute short is a beautiful piece of art and shows a close relationship between humans and elephants. The film does a great job of showing the bond between them and the feelings shown by both human and animal.

June 22, 2023

Day: 22, Movie:22

As we are starting toward the last week and a half of the June Swoon 2, there are some films that I have never heard of before. Significant Others is one of those. I found it while going through Prime (it looks like it was on Paramount +) and the premise sounded decent. The Rotten Tomatoes score was fresh so I put this on the list.

Unfortunately, I did not like this one much at all.

A couple go hiking on a trail and plan to spend time in the wilderness. Harry (Jake Lacy) was much more excited about the trip than Ruth (Maika Monroe) was, but harry had more on his mind. After hiking awhile and setting up camp, Harry proposed marriage to Ruth. However, Ruth is very anxious about marriage and she had a panic attack.

The next day, they find a dead deer, covered with some kind of black goo. Harry thought it had some kind of disease. Ruth came across a cave that held a surprising truth that she was not expecting.

I won’t go any farther to eliminate any spoilers, but this film took a big step down from this point on. I had some tension building at first as I wondered what was going to happen in these woods. When it happened, things changed dramatically, including a tone that bounced all over the place.

The film was short, but felt longer than it was. The performances were fine and the film looked decent. Still, I feel that much of the story went off the track after awhile.

June 21, 2023

Day: 21, Movie: 21

Today’s June Swoon 2 film was a real surprise. Honor Society is a coming-of-age comedy that was on Prime (Paramount +, I believe) starring a strong cast of young actors in a very creative and unexpectedly funny movie.

Honor (Angourie Rice) was a senior hoping to escape the town she lived in by getting a recommendation to Harvard from her sleazy guidance counselor, Mr. Calvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). She discovered that she was one of four potential candidates for his recommendation and she decided to go out of her way to bring the other three candidates down.

Honor is also our narrator for the movie, breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the camera during each scene. This worked extremely well because of the charming nature of Angourie Rice. It also helped us get inside the head of Honor, whose behaviors and actions were pretty rotten. Because she kept speaking to us and explaining the thought process behind everything, Honor avoided becoming one of the ‘mean girls’ that typically populate this kind of movie.

In fact, although the group of characters in this movie certainly fall into the normally stereotypical tropes of a coming-of-age movie, these characters defy those expected roles.

As Honor is moving through her plans, you can see the development of the character and the lessons she learns along the way. You knew something was going to come crashing down at some point, because it always does in this style of movie. However, I will say that Honor Society pulled off a late movie twist that I did not see coming that played with all of the expected tropes. I was very impressed with the reveal in this film.

Mind you, things turn out a little too nicely, with the feel of a sitcom. The way this high school film ended this story was too perfect for it to be realistic, but it did feel like something more fantastical than a realistic portrayal so I did not hold that against it.

The cast was excellent. Gaten Matarazzo, Armani Jackson, Any Keum, Kelcey Mawema, Avery Konrad, Kerry Butler, Danny Wattley, Miku Patricia Martineau, Andres Collantes and Michael P. Northey are all great in their roles. Gaten Matarazzo gave an especially strong performance here, getting to do more than he has done on Stranger Things.

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did. It was a lot of fun, filled with a fantastical story mechanic and plenty of laughs. Angourie Rice was very charming and she is so likable, even when her character is pulling things that you shouldn’t be liking. A hoot of a film.

June 20, 2023

Day: 20, Movie: 20

Today’s June Swoon 2 film was one that I found on Peacock the other day as I was searching for more 2022 movies to add to the list. It is a film from New Zealand directed by Gaysorn Thavat called The Justice of Bunny King.

Bunny King (Essie Davis) was a woman who had been convicted of manslaughter after killing her abusive husband in self-defense. Bunny had her kids taken away from her and placed in the system. Once she had served her time, she came out and had to jump through several hoops in order to attempt to regain custody of her kids.

She started to live in the garage of her sister’s (Toni Potter) home because Bunny was unable to find a home of her own and that was the first step in getting her kids back. However, Bunny caught her sister’s husband Bevan(Erroll Shand) molesting his step-daughter Tonyah (Thomasin McKenzie). Bunny’s sister did not believe Bunny and took the side of her husband, throwing Bunny out of their house.

Bunny stealing Bevan’s car, taking Tonyah and hiding out with her. Bunny’s plan was to have a birthday party for her daughter, who was turning six. Things went poorly after that.

Essie Davis was magnificent as Bunny King. You could tell that Bunny had plenty of problems, including a temper that caused her to fly off the handle, but you knew that she loved her children and she loved her niece. Even though she may not have made wise choices, she did them for the right reasons and that made her easy to root for even though she was basically kidnapping Tonyah.

Thomasin McKenzie, who appeared in other great movies such as Last Night in Soho and Jojo Rabbit, was exceptional as the young girl who Bunny was trying to rescue from the abusive circumstance she found herself in. McKenzie was quiet and moving as she displayed the loyalty to Bunny despite Bunny’s rapidly elevating behavior.

The story was dark and at times tough to watch. Bunny’s bad behavior was never acceptable, but you certainly understand where it was coming from and at the heart of the woman was love. Not a role model for sure, Bunny King is a survivor and a force of nature. She actually reminded me quite a bit of the character of Leslie from To Leslie. Both women are rude and their malfeasance is against norms, but they have a hidden strength.

The Justice of Bunny King is on Peacock.

June 19, 2023

Day: 19, Movie: 19

Last year, Andrea Riseborough received a controversial Best Actress in a motion picture Oscar nomination from out of nowhere for her role in the independent film, To Leslie. It was unexpected and got a lot of people talking.

She deserved that nomination 100%.

I watched To Leslie this morning for the June Swoon 2 on Netflix and this movie was excellent. Andrea Riseborough played Leslie, a former lottery winner who drank away her winnings and ended up leaving her son, James (Owen Teague).

Hitting the bottom, Leslie returned to her hometown trying to find any way to survive. When local motel clerk Sweeney (Marc Maron) offered her a job as a maid, Leslie finally had to confront the demons that had sent her down her life’s path.

Andrea Riseborough was amazing as Leslie. Her performance was stellar, with every look, every glance filled with pain and meaning. The struggle of alcoholism was real and Riseborough portrayed it with an achingly powerful realism.

She masterfully played on the emotions of the viewers. At the beginning of the movie, I found her to be a horrible character and, before long, I was rooting for her. She ran the gamut of emotions and I was never quite sure what the end result of the film was going to be.

Marc Maron as Sweeney was a awesome supporting character as well, bringing a lifeline to Leslie just when she needed it. At first, you wondered why he decided to do what he did for Leslie, but as the film progressed, his motivations became obvious and perfectly understandable.

The film also featured an epic performance from Allison Janney as Nancy. When we first meet Nancy, you could understand and support her and as the movie moved along, Nancy became more of an antagonist that the audience could hate. This character was so three-dimensional that she felt like a real person who held grudges and who had reasons for them.

These characters in this movie were extremely well written and developed. They were real people facing the difficulties that life brought and not always facing then in a positive manner. There is an authenticity to the story and the characters that serves this film well.

June 18, 2023

Day: 18, Movie: 18

The June Swoon 2 continued today with another interesting documentary that was on Prime. Wildcat focused in on a British war veteran Harry Turner who left Afghanistan suffering from PTSD. Harry traveled to Peru where he joined up with wildlife biologist Samantha Zwicker, who was involved in the rescue of wild animals threatened by poachers.

As he was joining up, they received a baby ocelot named Khan and Harry became very connected to the wildcat. They began working with the baby ocelot in order to be able to release him into the wild in about a year and a half.

However, tragedy struck, leading to the cat’s unexpected demise, and the subsequent arrival of a second ocelot baby for the pair to raise.

I will say that this documentary was only partially about the cat; it was really more about Harry and Samantha and their traumatic backgrounds. The film does a remarkable job showing the mental distress that Harry was going through, and the illness that he suffered. The portrait of a man who tried to deal with his mental illness by cutting himself on the arm. How he spoke about the suicidal thoughts that troubled him. This was one of the most compelling parts of the doc.

There was also some great moments with Harry and his parents and younger brother who came to Peru to visit him. The relationship between Harry and his brother came through extremely well.

This was a top notch documentary that really has a solid and emotional story at its core. Wildcat is a great story for animal lovers as well as those who are interested in human drama.

June 17, 2023

Day: 17, Movie: 17

After a busy day at the theater and writing reviews, I was able to finally get to the June Swoon 2. Today, I went on to Shudder at Prime and picked out a horror/thriller called Burial.

A group of Russian soldiers have the task of taking the body of Adolf Hitler from the bunker where he had shot himself and deliver it back to Russia to Stalin. They are being pursued by German soldiers determined to reclaim the body of Der Fuehrer.

The Russians included translator/intelligence officer Brana Brodskaya (Charlotte Vega) who was determined to not fail in the transition of the body back to the Soviet Union.

The film also included a local Polish man Lukasz (Tom Felton) who helped the Russian avoid capture by the German, which included the  German “Werewolf” partisans.

There is not much of a horror element to the movie, being more of a thriller/war movie. Still, there are some suspenseful scenes with the characters in the woods and some of the images connected with some delusions that were tense.

I enjoyed this movie. I liked the way this movie was framed, with actor Harriet Walter, playing an older version of Brana, narrating the story of what happened during the final days of the war in Europe. The film truly picks up steam when Tom Felton arrives and we first learn about what is inside the box.

This was a good watch on Shudder and is a quick watch too. I liked this one.

June 16, 2023

Day: 16, Movie: 16

Hulu is the location today for the June Swoon 2 as I came across a dark comedy/drama film directed by Jerrod Carmichael called On the Count of Three. This was a film where the premise really snagged me when I came across it.

Two long-time friends are both at a point in their lives where they are both suicidal and agreed to shoot each other. Played by Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott respectively, Val and Kevin have had horrendous backstories that have led them both to stand opposite each other with a gun pointed at their heads.

However, Kevin hesitated and knocked the gun aside, wanting to have one more day to do some things that they wanted before the end.

Dark and funny at times, Val and Kevin run around the town doing some shocking things that do a great job of informing these two characters. They are so messed up, but you can’t help but find yourself rooting for them and hoping something happens to change their minds on the ultimate end.

Tiffany Haddish, Henry Winkler and J.B. Smoove have vital supporting roles in the movie that give the pair some dramatic characters to play off.

The third act of the film is dramatic and the ending is amazing. No spoilers, of course, but it is a satisfactory ending to the movie.

On the Count of Three is an excellent dark comedy with some wonderful character development.