Hello, movie lovers! Here we go for another year of movies and more, most of which have been seen in the comfort of my living room. This month features my personal Sidney Poitier Film Festival, reality shows, several excellent documentaries and a few regular old movies. All are rated on a scale of one to five cans of tuna fish (Bumble Bee only!) and the ones marked with an asterisk are ones I had not seen previously.
1. Love Hard* (2021, Netflix) – Natalie (Nina Dobrev) has no luck on the dating scene, but she has parlayed her romantic failures into a popular column on a website. So, when she swipes right (or is it left, I have no idea) on Josh, 30 (Jimmy O. Yang), she is surprised to see he seems like the perfect guy for her. They talk on the phone and she impulsively takes off for Lake Placid to spend Christmas with Josh and his family. But Josh isn’t quite the man she thought he was, and through a series of convoluted circumstances inserted to make the movie work, she ends up staying and playing his girlfriend while she pursues the guy she thought was Josh. Lost yet? This movie is light and cute, in contrast to a few more intense movies I watched to close the year. If you don’t see the end coming, you haven’t seen nearly enough rom-coms in your life. 3 cans.
2. Queer Eye, Season 6* (2021, Netflix) – The new season finds the tribe of gay men out to transform the bad haircuts and no-confidence people of Austin, Texas. Bobby redesigns their homes or workplaces; Tan reworks the wardrobes; Jonathan is in charge of grooming; Antoni is the cooking expert; Karamo handles culture. What seems like a silly show I learned 5 seasons ago is uplifting and hopeful, as this season the Fab 5 help a reticent baker, a cowboy living in a barn, a man still grieving for his deceased wife and a woman who runs a honkytonk but can’t get her house together, among others. This show is much more than a haircut and a coat of paint. It is a new lease on life for people who have stopped paying attention to themselves and their own dreams. 4 cans and a good haircut.
3. Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It* (2021, Netflix) – Rita Moreno is a bold, outspoken, frank woman whose show business story spans 70 years. Much in the news now because of the release of a new version of her signature work, “West Side Story,” Moreno, who won an Oscar as Anita in the original, has a huge body of work and plenty of stories to tell in this documentary. A native of Puerto Rico, Rita came to the US as a child and seemed destined for show business. She relates stories about misogyny, racism and other battles she had to fight to avoid constantly being stereotyped as the Latina, the Native American or other minorities. She parlayed her talent into being one of the few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony Award. She also tells of her long relationship with actor Marlon Brando, her use of therapy, her marriage to a Jewish doctor who had no idea who she was when they met, and other juicy tidbits. She is feisty and not afraid to speak her truth. 3½ cans.
4. The Tender Bar* (2021 Netflix) – Ben Affleck plays a philosophical bartender on Long Island (not Boston for once) who is like a father to his 9-year-old nephew JR (the initials don’t stand for anything, as you will hear repeatedly), the only child of a busy mother. They are part of a big, sprawling family which always seems to crash at the grandfather’s dilapidated house (Christopher Lloyd). Affleck’s Uncle Charlie guides the young boy with important rules for men growing up and the kid is an eager learner. Uncle Charlie has books behind the bar and gives out as much wisdom as beers, so the kid is exposed to plenty of literature, leading him to aspirations of becoming a writer. While JR’s largely absent father pops up every now and then, the results are generally a let-down for the child. His real family is in that beat-up house and the regulars at the bar. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to learn at the end that the movie is based on a real story, and that made it even better for me. 4 cans.
5. Lillies of the Field (1963, Pluto TV streaming) – The recent death of the transcendent actor Sidney Poitier inspired this viewing choice while I stayed with friends. Handyman Homer Smith just happens to stop at a farm in rural Arizona to ask for some water for his car engine. The farm is run by a small group of German nuns, headed by Mother Maria, a taciturn, no-nonsense woman who feels her prayers have been answered with his arrival. The nuns have little money but plenty of dreams; Mother Maria (Lilia Skala) wants to build a chapel. She ropes Homer into staying and helping them not only with the construction of the chapel but also by teaching them to speak English. Poitier won the Oscar for his portrayal of the earnest, firm but cooperative handyman, whose clashes with the Mother have a bit of comic relief. If you have never seen this movie, do yourself a favor and watch it. 4½ cans. And RIP to a giant of the movies and of life.
6. Greyhound* (2020, Apple TV+) – After watching the quiet, comforting movie above, seeing this action drama was quite a contrast. Tom Hanks plays US Navy Commander Ernest Krause, assigned to lead an Allied convoy in the treacherous waters of the Atlantic in World War II. His ships are constantly under fire from German U-boats, and most of the movie consists of Hanks barking out orders (if you can politely bark, which he seems to do) to his crew and coordinating with his sister ships as they fight the Battle of the Atlantic. Will he have enough torpedoes? When will the air cover arrive? Hanks, as always, brings humanity to the role, saying grace before a meal (most of which he never gets a chance to eat) and treating his crew with authority and respect. Look out for that submarine! If you like an action movie without man-made superheroes, this one’s for you. 4 cans.
7. To Sir, with Love (1967, Hulu) – You’re humming that title song by Lulu right now, aren’t you? Sidney Poitier is Mark Thackeray, a would-be engineer who takes a job teaching teenagers in a tough school in London. They all have attitudes and troubled pasts, and his segue into education isn’t going well until he realizes that he has to teach them life lessons and slowly earn their respect. Poitier brings a calm demeanor and respect to the classroom to earn their trust. 4 cans.
8. In the Heat of the Night (1967, HBO on Demand) – That calm demeanor helps ace Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs survive when he is arrested in a tiny Mississippi town and accused of murdering another man. There isn’t any evidence against him beyond just being Black and being in the train station, ready to return home after a visit with his mother in a nearby town. Soon, Virgil joins forces with the small-town police chief (Rod Steiger) to solve the crime with his attention to detail and following the evidence. Throughout, he battles the racist population of a town that distrusts and doubts him. This intense drama won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1968 and Steiger was named best actor, but you also could see the award going to the controlled and believable Poitier, who turned in a riveting performance in the less showy role. 4½ cans.
9. Cheer* (2022, Netflix) – The second season of this "reality" series about college cheerleading is less cheery than season 1. National Championship Navarro College is out to defend its cheerleading title, still led by now-famous Coach Monica Aldama, who gained notoriety in season one and subsequently competed on “Dancing with the Stars.” Their chief rivals, also from Texas, are from Trinity Valley Community College, where Vonte Johnson, a former TVCC cheerleader, is the coach. Both teams have plenty of drama and lose the chance to complete in the 2020 championship in Daytona when Covid cancels the event. But Navarro raises the drama stakes when last season’s breakout star, Jerry Harris, is accused of sexually harassing two young boys and makes a sudden departure from the team. We don’t see these cheerleaders actually cheerleading at sporting events. Instead, we see endless practices, lots of flying through the air and tumbling on the mats, doing things you cannot even imagine are possible. It sure looks like another season is possible for these talented athletes, whose focus is on two days in Daytona and achieving perfection there. 4 cans.
10. 15:17 to Paris* (2018, HBO) – There is only about 15 minutes and 17 seconds of action in this Clint Eastwood dramatization of an incident on a Paris-bound train attacked by a terrorist. Follow me here – the movie dramatizes the event but uses as stars the three Americans whose quick thinking and bravery thwarted the attack. Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlotos and Anthony Sadler had been pals since grade school. Not the best of students but not serious troublemakers, the three find themselves together in the principal’s office far too often. The movie meanders through their lives as kids and then as young men, with Spencer and Alek joining the military and Anthony going to college. None of them can really find themselves in the ideal position. When they reunite for a vacation in Europe, fate puts them on this train, where their military training and heroics come in handy. But that’s the whole movie. It wasn’t terrible and I was certainly impressed by the way the young men handled themselves on that train. 5 cans for the heroism but only 3 cans for the actual movie.
11. 8 Days: To the Moon and Back* (2019, PBS Documentaries) – No one who was alive in 1969 will ever forget the excitement of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. When Neil Armstrong took that “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” the world watched and held its collective breath. This dynamic documentary includes a wealth of behind the scenes footage from both the spacecraft and the control center in Houston, reminding us of all of the things that had to go right for Armstrong and his fellow moon walker Buzz Aldrich to land and reunite with commander Michael Collins as he circled the moon waiting for them to blast off and return to the command module. This was a tremendous feat for everyone to accomplish and it was thrilling to relive it. 4 cans.
12. In-Lawfully Yours* (2016, Prime Video) – Jessie (Chelsey Crisp) is a fun-loving woman married to Chaz (Philip Boyd), a real lout who she catches in the act of cheating on her. She’s ready for a divorce, but they don’t tell his mother Naomi about their marital woes because she (Marilu Henner) has just lost her beloved husband. Although they have signed the divorce papers, Jessie volunteers to stay with her mother-in-law to help her clean out the house so she can move in with what she thinks will be her son and Jessie. There’s a meet-cute with Ben (Joe Williamson), the handsome local pastor, who happens to be Naomi’s son-in-law. He is grieving the death of his wife, Naomi’s daughter. Confused yet? You know immediately that sparks will fly between Jesse and Ben, but you don’t know what a scumbag Chaz can be. This was a lightweight romantic comedy that was appealing if only as a change from the more substantive movies I usually watch. 3 cans.
13. One PM Central Standard Time* (2013, PBS Documentaries) – Anyone who was alive on November 22, 1963, will remember the meaning of those words and who spoke them. It was CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, reporting from the TV newsroom in New York, who informed the world that reports, “apparently official,” had confirmed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. In my house, as in many others, the TV stayed on for the next four days, as the American people watched in sadness the funeral and the aftermath of the murder of the young president, the poignancy of his young wife and children at the funeral procession and burial in Arlington National Cemetery. But this documentary (which includes some newsroom reenactments) also shows the challenge of getting the story and the importance of getting it right. The movie says – and I agree – that this broadcast and the subsequent days marked the emergence of broadcast journalism. No more waiting for newspapers to give us the story; the story was right in our living room. Interviews with many people working on the story that day stress the importance of the reporting and informing the public to the best of their ability what had transpired. Riveting. 4 cans.
14. Janet.* (2021, Lifetime) – This 4-part documentary follows the career of singer/actress Janet Jackson. The youngest member of the famous Jackson family of Gary, Indiana, Janet followed her immensely popular brothers on the stage at the urging/insistence of their domineering father, Joe, first singing and appearing in variety shows with her brothers and then starring in several TV roles. Janet loved it and took to it, and although she eventually cut ties with her father as her manager when she was an adult, she is a strong supporter of her father. The same is true of her brother Michael, who she adored and continued to support during the scandals that rocked his legacy. Janet should be judged on her own considerable merits as a performer, an innovator and a musician. Oh, yes, there was that unfortunate “wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl halftime show, but Janet received unfair criticism for something for which she had no control. I gained new resect for the woman who urged other women to be in control. 3½ cans.
15. Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold* (2017, Netflix) – Prolific author Joan Didion is profiled in this loving documentary by her nephew, actor-director Griffin Dunne. Married to Griffin’s uncle, John Gregory Dunne, Didion and her writer husband chronicled American society though novels, essays and plays. Didion is the star of this show, through interviews and a treasure-trove of archived footage that trace the couple’s life together, their various homes, famous friends and their loving daughter. After having seen this poignant tribute, I realize that I need to read her work. 4 cans.
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