Starring: Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Orén Kinlan, Jack Reynor
Director: John Carney
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: September 22, 2023 (Theaters)/September 29, 2023 (Apple TV+)
I really loved director John Carney’s last movie, 2016’s Sing Street, so the test for Flora and Son‘s success just had to be: would it make me want to run out of the theater and SING in the STREET? Not necessarily out loud, in my head would also count.
Alas, it was raining, so I was more focused on seeking cover. But when I got home, I immediately re-listened to “High Life,” the song from the last scene, so that was pretty much the next best reaction.
While I did quite enjoy the original songs, the scene that most affected me the most was Eve Hewson watching a vintage Joni Mitchell performance of “Both Sides, Now.” It made me cry! And then she started crying, too!
TV
–Krapopolis Series Premiere (September 24 on FOX) – New animated series created by Dan Harmon.
–Celebrity Jeopardy! Season Premiere (September 27 on ABC)
–Celebrity Wheel of Fortune Season Premiere (September 27 on ABC)
–The $100,000 Pyramid Season Premiere (September 27 on ABC) – The summer season just ended, but apparently this is considered a whole new season already.
What’s It About?: Samidha (Megan Suri) has been losing touch with her Indian heritage, but it hasn’t been losing touch with her. She’s drifted apart from her friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), who seems to have completely lost touch with reality. While holding tightly to a jar containing something foreboding, she desperately turns to Sam for help, while insisting that the spirits their family told them about when they were kids are actually real. Then she inexplicably disappears, leaving Sam to be beset by the same demon, known as a Pishach. It looks like she’s doomed to repeat the same fate as Tamira. But there’s some hope, as she has that example to learn from, and she can also seek support from a trusted teacher (Betty Gabriel), as well as her parents (Neeru Bajwa and Vik Sahay), if she can manage not to be completely estranged from them.
What Made an Impression?: Coming-of-Age Metaphor: Don’t we all feel like we’re being pursued by an immortal demon during our teenage years? Maybe not everyone would describe that transitional period with that precise description, but there’s a reason why this stage of life is so perennially ripe for metaphor. There had yet to be a mainstream American film featuring Hindu demons to get that point across (at least not that I’m aware of), so writer/director Bishal Dutta went ahead and corrected that little oversight. It was a fresh call, and I’m sure I’m not the only horror fan who will appreciate the invigoration.
Good Grub: Ultimately, It Lives Inside contends that the best way to keep a Pishach at bay is a strongly bonded community, particularly one that regularly makes time for actually sitting down for dinner. Throughout the film, Sam’s mom Poorna constantly chastises her for not showing up on the days when they gather with friends and family to celebrate their culture. It’s a straightforward, unsurprising espousal of values, but it definitely hits its target. And it’s all underscored by a message that a family that eats together will survive together. You can practically see the demon-fighting powers during the culinary close-ups. Overall, It Lives Inside keeps its ambitions tight and focused, as it pulls off its simple, small-scale goals.
It Lives Inside is Recommended If You Like: Learning how to be a better child to your parent, or a better parent to your child
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Dumb Money (Limited Theaters, Expands Nationwide 9/29)
–A Haunting in Venice (Theaters)
TV
–Sex Education Season 4 (September 21 on Netflix) – Final Season Alert!
Music
-Barenaked Ladies, In Flight
-Diddy, The Love Album: Off the Grid
-Demi Lovato, Revamped
-Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
-Willie Nelson, Bluegrass
-Corinne Bailey Rae, Black Rainbows
-Thirty Seconds to Mars, It’s the End of the World But It’s a Beautiful Day
Podcasts
–U Spring’ Springsteen on My Bean? – Adam Scott Aukerman take on The Boss.
Starring: Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, Shailene Woodley, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Dane DeHaan, Myha’la Harold, Rushi Kota, Talia Ryder
What’s It About?: STONKS! I could attempt to continue to write the rest of this review of Dumb Money in the lingua franca of the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, but alas, I’m probably not well-versed in it enough to produce something coherent. So I’ll instead keep it generally prosaic. Back in 2020 and early 2021, r/WallStreetBets was the social media hub for something rather strange happening in the stock market. Based on the advice of a chicken tender-obsessed financial analyst named Keith Gill (Paul Dano), a whole cadre of amateur traders decide to go all in on the retail chain GameStop. Meanwhile, Wall Street types like Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) and Kenneth Griffin (Nick Offerman) are fairly confident that they should do exactly the opposite by short selling GameStop stock, what with the general decline of in-person retail video game sales. But the meme-fueled enthusiasm of working class folks like a nurse (America Ferrera), a couple of college classmates (Myha’la Harold and Talia Ryder), and even a GameStop cashier (Anthony Ramos) ensures that Opposite Day will be arriving very soon.
What Made an Impression?: Cutting Through the Malarkey: If you feel that the financial markets are a rigged game, it’s probably because their rules are too intricate and incomprehensible to anyone who can’t afford to spend hours poring over them every day. So it’s a bit of a minor miracle that Dumb Money is so easy to understand despite all that. It certainly helps that it’s based on a story that was widely covered by the media. And the underlying concepts are straightforward enough that you don’t have to sweat the details. But maybe we’ve also become more financially literate as a society since the days of Occupy Wall Street and the other populist movements that followed in its wake, along with the democratizing rise of the Robinhood stock trading app, which plays a major role in this story. But also, it comes down to simple storytelling skills: the characters are compelling, so it’s easier to pay attention to what’s going on. A Busy Pandemic: Recent history is a major part of popular cinema, and if that trend is going to continue, then we can’t ignore the COVID-19 of it all. As this story takes place during the height of the pre-vaccinated pandemic, there are a lot of face masks. That was a time of heightened anxiety, but it was also a time of doing whatever the hell else was part of your life, whether that meant surreptitiously texting in class, trying not to curse in front of your kids, or even trying to run that sub-4:00 mile you could never quite pull off in college. Buying stocks that become worth millions of dollars isn’t cool, you know what is cool? Making billion dollars’ worth of memories that you’ll cherish forever. What’s Behind the Screen?: Context is king. Dumb Money relies on a fair amount of pre-existing news footage, as well as clips of real politicians from Congressional hearings. This mix of documentary and dramatization equals illumination. The events of this story initially played out behind Zoom screens and Internet-speak, and now we get some juicy peeks into how those scenes might have played out in the flesh. They’re filled with the high-stakes foibles of humanity, offering an irresistible mix of voyeurism but also sympathy, as well as savagery but also a dollop of optimism. If the Almighty Dollar remains king, we’ll all remain dumb for it, but hopefully we can still blast through the status quo a bit in the meantime.
Dumb Money is Recommended If You Like: The Social Network, The Big Short, Memes
Where’s Nunno? (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)
Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Bonnie Aarons, Katelyn Rose Downey, Suzanne Bertish
Director: Michael Chaves
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: September 8, 2023 (Theaters)
I think The Nun should team up with Pistachio Disguisey from The Master of Disguise. Sure she’s got some other skills besides blending into things, particularly telekinesis. But those feats of fancy aren’t all that special compared to her camouflage capers. Maybe her next adventure should be some sort of Where’s Waldo?-style puzzler.
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–The Nun II (Theaters)
TV
–The Masked Singer Season 10 Premiere (September 10 on FOX) – Right after football.
–Jeopardy! Season 40/Second Chance Tournament (Begins September 11; check local listings)
-2023 MTV Video Music Awards (September 12 on MTV) – The VMAs are on a Tuesday this year, interesting, I wonder how that’ll go.
Music
-Courtney Barnett, End of the Day
-James Blake, Playing Robots Into Heaven – I know James Blake the tennis player, but I’ll see if James Blake the musician is also worth paying attention to.
-The Chemical Brothers, For That Beautiful Feeling
-Olivia Rodrigo, Guts
-Royal Blood, Back to the Water Below – This came out last week, but somehow I missed it, even though Royal Blood is one of my favorite bands right now.
Is “selfie” a Greek Word? (CREDIT: Yannis Drakoulidis/Focus Features)
Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Louis Mandylor, Elena Kampouris, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Maria Vacratsis, Melina Kotselou, Elias Kacavas, Gia Carides, Joey Fatone, Gerry Mendicino, Stephanie Nur
Director: Nia Vardalos
Running Time: 92 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for A Quick Trip to a Nude Beach and a Lack of Familial Boundaries
Release Date: September 8, 2023 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos) still has a wacky Greek family, but they’re not quite as boisterous as they used to be. Her dad Gus has passed away, her mom Maria (Lainie Kazan) is starting to get a little senile, and the once-regular family dinners are now few and far between. But they need to properly honor Gus’ legacy, so it’s time to head back to the homeland to make good on his final wish and deliver a journal to some of his childhood friends. Ergo, it’s time for pretty much the entire Greek population of Chicago to crowd onto a plane and enjoy several days of the sunny, low-key Mediterranean lifestyle.
What Made an Impression?: Low-Stress Love Stories: In case you’re worried about whether or not Gus’ journal is successfully delivered, well, I won’t spoil it completely. But I will say that it’s not an especially difficult task, and a rather simple MacGuffin to build an entire plot around. Which is one way of saying that there are other things going on to fill up an hour and a half, like the awkward courtship between Toula and Ian’s (John Corbett) college-age daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) and some guy she ghosted named Aristotle (Elias Kacavas). Aristotle is along for the trip ostensibly as Aunt Voula’s (Andrea Martin) assistant, but we can all easily see through that thin cover of matchmaking. Anyway, Paris and Aristotle quickly become sweet on each other with minimal conflict. There’s some business about her failing in school, but that’s basically solved just as easily through sheer gumption. Another love story pops up as well and gets a bit of side eye because one of the characters is a refugee. But that also becomes not a big deal just as quickly. Maybe after all the rigamarole about Ian not being Greek, the family just decided to immediately accept any and all notions of love. It’s All Greeks to Greeks: The Portokalos family has a habit of pointing out that certain words and bits of culture are – believe it or not – thoroughly and utterly Greek. And they’ve certainly got a point, as the Hellenistic period did indeed influence much of the Western world for the next couple millennia. But when they’re actually physically in Greece, those comments hit a little differently. Which is to say: everybody knows all that already! Anyway, it’s a gag that’s worth a few chuckles. Just Let Them Say Funny Things: So My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is low-stress, mostly plotless, and more or less an advertisement for the Greek tourism industry. But it still has some funny people doing some funny things, and it shows sparks of life when they’re allowed to make some mildly ribald comments. Andrea Martin in particular is as dynamite as ever, and she develops a charming rapport with Melina Kotselou, who’s apparently playing the mayor of the village. (It sort of makes sense in context.) Anyway, we could have used more of that odd couple combo. Otherwise, this is a sequel that’s just coasting by on the goodwill of its fanbase.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is Recommended If You Like: Greek completism
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