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Reviews
The King of Staten Island (2020)
A Poignant Film That Could Have Given Us So Much More!
Judd Apatow has a new film out called The King of Staten Island where he collaborated and wrote it along with SNL's Pete Davidson. It's based on Pete Davidson's real life where he lost his father during the terrorist attacks on 9/11 when he was just seven-years-old.
Scott (Pete Davidson) is still living at home in his mid-20s. He doesn't have anything lined up in his life, even though his dream is to be a tattoo artist. He just hangs out with his friends and drinks and smoke weed. He has a hidden relationship with one of them, Kelsey (The Diary of a Teenage Girl's Bel Powley), that is his childhood friend. When she tries to take it to the next level, he can't handle it and gets anxiety knowing that he has to acknowledge it.
This film was well cast making all the characters believable. Apatow is trying to capture something raw and poignant with comedy around it, but it doesn't quite get there, which it should with a runtime of 137 minutes. Pete Davidson's acting is fine, but the film starts out with him driving down a freeway with his eyes closed obviously having suicidal tendencies, but you never see him crying or having a breaking point about his father. That would have given the film grit and substance. It's probably exactly how he has been about the situation his whole life, but since he is playing a fictional character, maybe if it had something more moving, it would be the endearing film that I think Apatow truly wanted to capture. What's wrong with making a drama about depression with some comic relief here and there? But it's quite the opposite and they kept it light. It almost felt like it is an extension of Big Time Adolescence, which Davidson did last year which had more of an emotional tone. Bel Powley added to the humor and was one of the most interesting characters. And Tomei perfectly played opposite of Davidson. - Ken The Critic, CBS Austin
Daddio (2019)
A poignant look at someone losing their mom that ends up being absolutely hilarious!
We need more films like this! Even if you haven't lost a parent, but lost someone close to you, you know it always leaves a huge hole in your heart that will never disappear. Only time heals, but there's always a scar! The upside of all this is there is humor in it all. Just look around and Casey takes us on that journey of real life events how a death can affect us and affect the others around us and how in turn, their coping affects us. It's a lot of affecting that's going around. It's a slice of life film and films like this really helps us deal. I dealt with my dad having cancer a year ago and having to uproot my life momentarily to go help him and I remember the misery and humor in it all. After a day of helping him for 12 hours, I went to a Mexican restaurant and downed a pitcher of margaritas and laughed at the situation, which was very cathartic. I'm sure Casey Wilson did at some point too. I hope this becomes a feature someday, because it's what we all need! Happy Endings' co-star Adam Pally is in this too! I'm a sucker for any type of reunion. - Ken The Critic, CBS Austin
Three Identical Strangers (2018)
This documentary is a reminder why we love movies!
The Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin had a special screening on Tuesday of Three Identical Strangers and brought in brothers David Kellman and Robert Shafran. They had all been on a special tour with the documentary with Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League and their last stop was in Austin. Not only was there a screening of the film along with a Q&A. The Highball was turned into Triplets for a night, a restaurant that the triplets owned from 1987-2000 with actual drinks that they had on the menu.
If you don't know anything about Three Identical Strangers yet, you are in for a treat. Directed by Tim Wardle, who did this documentary for CNN Films, this story is one of the most fascinating ones that you will ever come across and the people are still disturbed that it happened to them nearly 40 years later. In the early 1960s, a Jewish board called Louise Wise Services was an adoption agency, but what they didn't tell the adoptive families that they were separating twins and triplets to do a nature vs. nurture study. The families didn't know that their child had a brother or sister, much less a twin.
In 1980 in New York, David Kellman went off to Sullivan Community College only to find that everyone acted like they knew him and was calling him by the name Eddy. He was confused, but one guy named Michael Domnitz came to his dorm room and asked him his birthdate and told him that he had a twin brother out there. They went to a pay phone where Domnitz knew Eddy's number and the voice on the receiving end freaked David out because it sounded just like his own. When the media covered the story, Robert Shafran was watching the news and thought to himself, "I look just like these guys!" Then they all came together and it was a love fest while all their parents were angry and felt like they were picking up the pieces. The triplets had many similarities such as the same speech patterns, smoking the same cigarettes, the same haircut, and had even wrestled in high school. Well, that's just what they did. They were complete strangers, but they got in the floor and wrestled each other like they had known each for their whole lives.
People were looking for the similarities. They weren't looking for the differences, which were there. While they were growing up, The Jewish Board would stop by and see how the children were doing and with the parents' permission, a person would study them and take notes without them even knowing what was going on. They were treating these children like lab rats and this didn't really sink in for the brothers until later. They always knew something was missing and as kids suffered from separation anxiety. They would bang their heads on the crib or on the walls. They found out that the study had them all put in different socioeconomic backgrounds to study how all of these elements worked in growing up. Three Identical Strangers has twists and turns like a roller coaster. If you are Jewish, in your 50s, and adopted, you just might have a twin out there.
On this film tour, Kellman explained how much Tim League made them comfortable and catered to them. "He hasn't let his celebrity change him. He's the real deal!" he said about League. It's nice to know that after a documentary like this, we know that there's good people like Tim League in this world.
Then She Found Me (2007)
Take you mom or wait for the DVD
So I saw this film at the SXSW Film Festival. The thing that people really like about these festivals is that not only do they get to see movies before everyone else, you get to have Q&As after the film with the director or some of the actors. Well, Helen Hunt did show up at the screening and spent 90 seconds introducing the film which she directed and was the main character. In the introduction, she said that when you are in a festival like this one, you're all of a sudden are considered "hip" and that she needed to be hip. This is her DIRECTORIAL DEBUT. She spent 10 years trying to get this film made and she didn't even stay for a Q&A. I still wonder why she even bothered to show up. Everyone was sitting there waiting for the Q&A to begin when a lady came out to announce that there would not be a Q&A. Everyone couldn't believe it. There was nothing hip about that and the film's lackluster characters were only saved by Bette Midler who plays her long lost mother and provides most the laughs. This melodrama would be a great gift to take your mom on Mother's Day, however considering the time and effort put into it by Helen Hunt, I would expect something more hip.