'One Child Nation'

The heartbreaking and vital documentary “One Child Nation” — which won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival —  is, hands down, the most disturbing horror movie in years.

The body count is in the millions, and the killer cannot be brought to justice — because the killer was a government policy that changed a generation in China.

Co-director Nanfu Wang was born in China in 1985, six years after this policy was enacted by China’s Communist government. The One-Child Policy decreed that all families in urban and suburban areas must limit themselves to having only one child. The policy was begun in 1979, and ended in 2015.

Wang, who now lives and works in America, has just had her first child, a son, when the movie begins. She and co-director Jialang Zhang go back to China for the dual purpose of letting Wang’s mom meet her new grandson and asking Mom about the One-Child Policy and how it changed their lives.

Because the Wangs lived in a rural village, the family was allowed a second child, Nanfu’s brother, Zhihao, but only five years after Nanfu was born. (Nanfu’s name is derived from the Chinese words for “man” and “pillar,” which tells you about her parents’ expectations.) Mom says she was threatened with sterilization after Zhihao, and Zhihao says he’s been told that if he were born a girl, he would have been put in a basket and left to die — something that actually happened to the child of Nanfu’s uncle.

More horrific stories emerge. The film introduces us to the village chief responsible for taking people’s possessions if they violated the policy, to a woman who says she performed more than 50,000 abortions and sterilizations over the years, and to an artist who incorporates images of fetuses into his work to draw attention to the human cost of the One-Child policy. 

Wang and Zhang also uncover a secret worthy of a “60 Minutes” exposé: How thousands of babies were rounded up and put in orphanages, which put the babies up for adoption in Western countries, particularly the United States. (The movie profiles Brian and Longlan Stuy, a couple in Lehi, Utah, have three adopted children from China and run a group that tries to match Chinese-born Americans with their biological families back in China.)

The forcefulness with which the One-Child Policy was carried out is matched by the insidious propaganda that promoted it. Playing cards, children’s songs, stage plays, banners, graffiti — there wasn’t a medium that didn’t somehow carry the government’s message that all good, upstanding Chinese citizens would only have one child.

Wang draws out painful details from her interview subjects, as they talk about their complicity and their tacit approval of the One-Child Policy. The refrain of “I had no choice” is repeated with a disheartening regularity, as each was convinced by government propaganda that the only alternative was slow starvation as the population grew.

Wang concludes “One Child Nation” with a stark warning that China’s One-Child Policy is the other side of the same coin as the growing effort to restrict abortion rights in the United States. Both, she points out, are about the government trying to control women’s bodies and their reproductive rights. Why should any government — Communist or democracy — have that kind of power?

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‘One Child Nation’

★★★★

Opened August 9 in select cities; opens Friday, August 23, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for some disturbing content/images, and brief language. Running time: 88 minutes; some scenes in Mandarin, with subtitles.

'Angel Has Fallen'

Even by the dumbed-down standards of this bombastic franchise, “Angel Has Fallen” is particularly loud and stupid, an action movie that wants to have its Deep State and eat it, too.

Once again, our hero is Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the U.S. Secret Service agent who saved the world from terrorists at the White House (“Olympus Has Fallen”) and the UK (“London Has Fallen”). Now he’s on the detail protecting President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman — and I had forgotten he rose from Speaker of the House to Vice President in the first two films). 

Mike is hiding, both from his wife Leah (Piper Perabo, replacing Radha Mitchell) and the President, that he’s lost some of his edge, and is taking painkillers to deal with migraines caused by concussions — presumably from getting pummeled so thoroughly in the past films. Even so, he’s not sure he wants, as everyone talks about, to replace the Secret Service director, David Gentry (Lance Reddick), who’s about to retire.

Most of this plot exposition comes out when Mike has his old Army buddy, Wade Jennings (Danny Huston), over for beers. Jennings now runs a private military firm, and asks Mike to put in a good word with his bosses — even though Jennings’ Blackwater-like operation is the kind of outfit Trumbull has vowed to root out of his Pentagon strategy.

Mike is with Trumbull, fishing on a lake in Pennsylvania, when a high-tech drone attack dive-bombs the entire Secret Service detail. Trumbull survives, though he’s in a coma, which means Vice President Kirby (Tim Blake Nelson) is temporarily in charge.

Mike also survives, and is suspected of masterminding the attack thanks to some carefully planted evidence. The FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Helen Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith), ships Mike off to a penitentiary, but the same bad guys return to spring him, leading to repetitious chase scenes that are weak re-enactments of “The Fugitive.”

Director Ric Roman Waugh (“Snitch”), a former stuntman who shares screenplay credit with Robert Mark Kamen and Matt Cook, throws tons of ammunition and not much sense into the mix here. He also oversees a thriller with no thrills, as the main “twists” of who’s behind the attempt on Trumbull’s life are obvious and telegraphed well in advance.

Butler mopes through his action sequences, which are meaty but boring. The only person on screen who seems to be having any fun is Nick Nolte, who pops up as Mike’s estranged off-the-grid father and adds enough puckish energy to make his scenes watchable.

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‘Angel Has Fallen’

★1/2

Opens Friday, August 23, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violence and language throughout. Running time: 120 minutes.

'David Crosby: Remember My Name'

If you’re not a fan of rocker David Crosby, director A.J. Eaton’s comprehensive documentary “David Crosby: Remember My Name” might make you one — or at least give you an appreciation of this rock ’n’ roll survivor.

As Crosby tells the story, that survival was not a sure thing. Crosby was witness to and participant in much of the rebellion and hedonism of the ‘60s and ‘70s. as a member of two Rock & Roll Hall of Fame bands, The Byrds and Crosby Stills & Nash. (He says Crosby Stills Nash & Young should also be inducted, “just to make Clapton jealous.”)

Crosby took on political issues, consumed copious amounts of drugs, went through rehab and a prison stint, and a slew of health issues. He tells Eaton that, at 72, he has eight stents in his heart — the most a heart can handle. He knows he’s not got a lot of time left, so he wants to make music while he still can. This is complicated by recent arguments with former bandmates Graham Nash and Stephen Stills that seem, as the movie shows, beyond reconciliation.

Eaton neatly weaves together archival images and performance video to capture Crosby in his musical prime, but it’s the interview today, conducted with the help of producer Cameron Crowe, that delivers the real juice. (One great moment has Crosby listening to a cassette Crowe saved of a 1979 interview they did for Rolling Stone — which is instantly nostalgic, and a reminder of how much of “Almost Famous” was based on reality.) In his interviews, Crosby is honest and self-effacing about the mistakes he’s made in his life, and how he maintains optimism in the face of long-standing regrets.

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‘David Crosby: Remember My Name’

★★★1/2

Opened July 19 in select cities; opens Friday, August 23, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, drug material and brief nudity. Running time: 95 minutes.

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This review first was posted on this site on January 26, 2019, when the movie premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

'Luce'

If digging through ambiguity over hot-button issues — racism, the pressure put on role models, sexual assault and white liberal guilt — is your jam, the provocative and frustrating drama “Luce” is for you.

The star student at Nova High School in northern Virginia is Luce Edgar (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a standout track athlete and talented debater. His backstory is the stuff of horror stories: Born in Eritrea and trained as a child soldier, Luce was adopted at age 7 by a prosperous white couple, Amy (Naomi Watts) and Peter (Tim Roth).

Luce is a model student, beloved by all of his teachers except one: Miss Wilson (Octavia Spencer), his history teacher. Luce complains that Miss Wilson is too demanding of the students, not in their class work but in expectations that they be role models.

One day, Miss Wilson calls Amy in for a chat. Writing for a class assignment, she says, Luce wrote a disturbing political screed demanding violent revolution. What’s more, when Miss Wilson searched Luce’s locker, he found a bag of illegal fireworks. Miss Wilson doesn’t report Luce to the principal, Dan (Norbert Leo Butz), but lets Amy handle things, mother to son.

This revelation sets off a string of incidents, as Amy and Peter wrestle with being protective of Luce and fearful of him. Other incidents, like the suspension of another student (Astro) and a party where something happened to classmate Stephanie (Andrea Bang), complicate the image of Luke as a perfect son and student.

Meanwhile, Miss Wilson is dealing with issues at home. Her sister, Rosemary (Marsha Stephanie Blake), is living with her after having been released from a mental facility. When the sisters are shopping one day, and Rosemary encounters Luce, Miss Wilson starts to suspect her student is stalking her.

Director Julius Onah, co-writing with J.C. Lee (on whose play the script is based), throws a lot up on the screen, and gives enough information so that every character can be seen as the hero or the villain, depending on one’s point of view. At the same time, Onah and Lee withhold certain key details, which makes it a little maddening for a viewer to sort out right from wrong.

The performances are solid, with Harrison particularly striking as the model student able to alter his personality to fit what those around him — teachers, classmates, parents — need him to be.

“Luce” is the sort of movie you should watch at the beginning of a film festival, so by the end of the festival enough people will have seen it so you can all talk about it and figure out what the hell happened. If Onah and Lee meant to make a conversation starter, they succeeded.

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‘Luce’

★★1/2

Opened August 2 in select cities; opens Friday, August 23, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and the Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, nudity and some drug use. Running time: 109 minutes.

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This review first was posted on this site on January 29, 2019, when the movie premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

'Ready or Not'

Of all the twists in the insanely gory and funny horror thriller “Ready or Not,” the best is in the premise: What if the “final girl” — the last survivor to face the killer’s rampage — was the only girl?

That’s the situation Grace (Samara Weaving) faces on her wedding night, after marrying Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien), heir to a family fortune acquired making board games. After the wedding, Alex tells Grace that there’s a family tradition anytime someone joins the La Domas clan, in which the newcomer has to play a game. Which game? That’s determined by drawing a card from an antique box, whose provenance is explained by the current patriarch, Tony (Henry Czerny).

Grace draws the “hide and seek” card. As Tony explains, Grace must hide somewhere in the La Domas mansion, and the others in the family must find her. What Grace doesn’t know, and what a frantic Alex tries to explain, is that the game is deadly — and that the family is grabbing shotguns, pistols, axes and crossbows in an effort to hunt Grace down before dawn. If Grace survives, Alex says with a morose expression, the whole family will perish, for reasons that aren’t explained for a long time.

That’s the set-up that rookie screenwriters Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy (no relation to the Ryan Murphy who created “American Horror Story”) let unfold in some occasionally clunky exposition dialogue. The fun part in the early going is introducing Grace to Alex’ messed-up relations, his no-nonsense mom, Becky (Andie MacDowell), his gravely sinister aunt Helena (Nicky Guadagni), his alcoholic older brother, Daniel (Adam Brody), and coked-up klutzy sister Emilie (Melanie Scrofano) among them.

Once the game is afoot, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (who co-directed “Devil’s Due” and segments of the horror anthologies “Southbound” and “V/H/S”) deftly split the focus between Grace’s desperate efforts to survive the night and the family’s comically inept attempts to catch her. The directors deploy a wicked, and blood-splattered, sense of humor, like when they deploy a running gag about Emilie’s nervousness with weaponry contributing to an alarming death toll among the hired help. 

(“Ready or Not” is being released by Fox Searchlight, recently acquired by Disney, so I chalk up to vestigial corporate family bonds — and pig ignorance — the fact that Fox News didn’t launch a scare campaign this movie instead of that other movie about rich people killing poor people for sport, Universal’s “The Hunt.”)

But “Ready or Not” wouldn’t work if Weaving wasn’t so charming, and smart, as the tenacious heroine. Weaving, an Australian beauty who impressed with a small role in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” navigates smoothly from sweetly innocent through scared prey to avenging bad-ass, winning over the audience as she tries to win the game and take the title as “final girl” for the ages.

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’Ready or Not’

★★★

Opens Wednesday, August 21, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violence, bloody images, language throughout and some drug use. Running time: 95 minutes.

'Blinded by the Light'

Gurinder Chadha’s cross-cultural comedy “Blinded by the Light” presents a conundrum for a critic, the same one that Danny Boyle’s “Yesterday” did: How much of one’s reaction is inherent to the movie itself, and how much is borrowed goodwill for the artist whose songs permeate the film?

In “Yesterday,” the songs of The Beatles almost papered over a litany of storytelling sins. In this case, as Chadha tells the true story of a British Pakistani teen touched by the music of Bruce Springsteen, the music fits a whole lot better.

Javed Khan, played by newcomer Viviek Kalra, is a second-generation Pakistani teen living in Luton during the 1980s, during the reign of Margaret Thatcher. Luton is depicted as England’s industrial armpit, made even worse when the Vauxhall Motors plant lays off a thousand workers, including Javed’s hard-working dad, Malik (Khulvinder Ghir). Dad insists everyone in the family work for a living while he seeks a new job — and he shoots down Javed’s ideas of going to college and becoming a writer.

Javed tries to write lyrics for his best friend, Matt (Dean-Charles Chapman), who fronts a synth-pop band. Javed’s lyrics and poems are all depressing, politically inflected screeds against the powers that be, and against the growing skinhead movement that is threatening Javed’s Muslim family.

It takes a Sikh classmate, Roops (Aaron Phagura), to introduce Javed to the pride of Freehold, New Jersey — The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

It only takes one listen, and Javed is hooked. Chadha, who told a similar cross-cultural tale 17 years ago in “Bend It Like Beckham,” illustrates Javed’s awakening by showing him up against a wall, as Springsteen’s lyrics are projected around him, during a literal windstorm. Springsteen’s words, telling of escaping a hard-luck existence in a fast car, are somehow perfectly capturing the feelings of this Pakistani kid in England.

Through Springsteen, Javed starts to find his voice — and even finds, in the militant feminist classmate Eliza (Nell Williams), a girlfriend who’s “ready to take that long walk, from the front porch to my front seat,” as Bruce sang in “Thunder Road.” But as Javed declares “I ain’t a boy, now I’m a man” (“Promised Land”), and is encouraged to write by his English Lit teacher (Hayley Attwell), the wedge between father and son is driven in deeper.

Chadha and her husband and longtime screenplay partner, Paul Mayeda Berges, write a script that is as unabashedly sincere as a Springsteen song. They believe in the influence Springsteen has on Javed’s — or anybody’s — dreams to break away from heartache and find their voice. This sincerity even takes the form of semi-impromptu musical numbers, one of them led by Matt’s lovably old-school dad (Rob Bryden).

“Blinded by the Light” could all fall to pieces, one note of doubt destroying the magic like a kid waiting for the Great Pumpkin, but the movie stays afloat in large part thanks to Kalra. The actor, in his movie debut, is as authentic and earnest a movie teen as ever populated a John Hughes movie, and he makes us feel the yearning he channels in every Springsteen song. 

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‘Blinded by the Light’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 16, at theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for thematic material and language, including some ethnic slurs. Running time: 117 minutes.

'Good Boys'

The comedy “Good Boys” is a lot like the three sixth-graders at its center: Funny, sweet, charming and completely obsessed with sex. Unlike these kids, though, the movie is also smart about sexual awakening and knowing about friendship.

The Beanbag Boys — that’s what these three call themselves — are entering sixth grade, and they’re determined not to be seen as kids any more. “We’re not kids, we’re tweens,” says Max (“Room” star Jacob Tremblay), who scores an invite to a cool kid’s party, where kissing will be happening.

For Max, the prospect of kissing means he might get to connect with Brixlee (Millie Davis), on whom he has a crush. But Max has never kissed, and doesn’t want to be caught short.

Max’s friends have their own concerns. Tough-talking Thor (Brady Noon) wants to be seen as cool, even if that means not auditioning in their middle school’s production of “Rock of Ages” to avoid the teasing of school bully Atticus (Chance Hurstfield). And Lucas (Keith L. Williams) is dealing with his emotions after his parents (Lil Rel Howery and Retta) tell him they’re getting a divorce.

The boys’ pursuit of intel on kissing leads them to borrow the prized drone of Max’s dad (Will Forte), by which they cross paths with two savvy high school girls (Molly Gordon, from “Booksmart,” and Midori Francis). A mad scramble ensues, involving a bottle of illegal drugs, and Thor’s parents’ stash of sex toys — which the boys stuff into a backpack with no idea how they’re used.

The writing team of Gene Stupnitsky (making his directing debut) and Lee Eisenberg, as they did in “Bad Teacher,” lets their characters speak the foul-mouthed thoughts a more polite movie wouldn’t even consider. The gags — including a real ball gag — are hilarious, as the kids try to act like they understand the sexual content they encounter when they try to cross over into grown-up territory.

Still, the boys’ innocent charm, as they strive to stay friends even as puberty is pulling them into different directions, shines through even the dirtiest jokes, making “Good Boys” pure of heart even when the jokes are filthy.

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‘Good Boys’

★★★

Opening Friday, August 16, at theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong crude sexual content, drug and alcohol material, and language throughout - all involving tweens. Running time: 89 minutes.

'Mike Wallace Is Here'

If there is a hell, for the investigative journalist Mike Wallace it must be having Fox News’s former bloviator Bill O’Reilly suggesting that he is his generation’s Mike Wallace — which is what happens in the first clip of the documentary “Mike Wallace Is Here,” which puts the late “60 Minutes” man under the microscope.

It was a wild career, one that started in radio and television as a jack of all trades: News reader, actor, game-show host and pitchman, hawking Old Dutch cleanser and Parliament cigarettes, among other things. He seemed to find his calling in 1957 with “The Mike Wallace Interview,” which was known for hard-hitting questions and a police-interrogation visual style — and a guest list that ranged from gangster Mickey Cohen to painter Salvador Dali.

The show was popular but risky, and ABC pulled the plug after the threat of a libel lawsuit. But it taught Wallace, and the industry, that news could be entertainment, if packaged the right way.

The right package turned out to be “60 Minutes,” launched by producer Don Hewitt in 1968. Wallace was one of the charter reporters on the show, the first “newsmagazine” on TV. The ratings were low at first, but Wallace hung in there and the show caught hold. Maybe it was the interviews of the major figures in the Watergate scandal, or the hidden-camera investigative stings that netted corrupt municipal officials or stores selling child porn, or the somewhat abrasive celebrity interviews with the likes of Barbra Streisand and Johnny Carson.

Director Avi Belkin covers a lot of Wallace’s life and career, including his work-before-family attitude, the 1982 libel suit filed by retired Gen. William Westmoreland, the corporate interference that delayed the story of tobacco whistleblower Jeffrey Weigand (the one chronicled in “The Insider”), and his running battle against depression.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Belkin introduces those topics by finding an archived interview (and CBS opened its vaults to the filmmakers) where one of Wallace’s interview subjects raises the issue. Then Belkin deploys a quote from the archived interviews with Wallace, and the result is like a Mike Wallace interview in reverse.

Belkin argues that Mike Wallace created the template that decades of lesser talents employed, turning news into a circus and a spectacle. It’s true they copied Wallace’s in-your-face attitude, but they didn’t come close to matching his integrity.

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‘Mike Wallace Is Here’

★★★1/2

Opened July 26 in select theaters; opens Friday, August 16, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for thematic material, some violent images, language and smoking. Running time: 90 minutes.

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This review ran previously on this website on January 31, when the movie screened at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.