Film Reviews

Moonlight – Like Watching Beautiful Poetry Come To Life

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I had heard a growing chorus about the greatness of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight from the festival circuit, and it is now gracing the number one spot on many critics’ Top 10 films of the year.  It’s a three-way Oscar race at this point, with Manchester By The Sea, and La La Land.

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Before I saw the film, I did not understand the movie poster for Moonlight, but it is actually perfection.  The film is split in three parts showing 10 year old “Little”, a young teen and then a young adult Chiron.  The poster shows all three actors split in thirds, and how they together make the whole person that is Chiron.

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This image released by A24 Films shows Alex Hibbert, left, and Mahershala Ali in a scene from the film, “Moonlight.” The film is a poetic coming-of-age tale told across three chapters about a young gay black kid growing up in a poor, drug-ridden neighborhood of Miami. (David Bornfriend/A24 via AP)

The film Moonlight is based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue which was written by Chicago Steppenwolf playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.  Little/Charon is a young taciturn 10 year old in the first segment.  Chased by bullies who taunt him for being a “faggot”.  He hides out in a crackhouse, and is improbably rescued by the local drug dealer gang leader, Juan (Mahershala Ali in a tour de force).  Mahershala Ali I was mainly familiar with from his excellent work as the lobbyist Remy in House of Cards, but he’s one of those faces who has been in several TV series and movies like Hunger Games Mockingjay.  I’ve never seen him like this.  He was quite simply amazing.  He will be nominated for just about every supporting actor nomination available this awards cycle.

He takes young Little back home to his wife Teresa because Little won’t talk and say where he lives.  After Little spends the night, Juan takes him under his wing, and you fear what he might be grooming Little for.  But there is just this luminous scene where he teaches Little to Swim on a Miami beach.  Juan is the one who tells him about black boys looking blue in the Moonlight.  Little lives alone with his single mother nurse, and you can see in his big eyes how he craves a father figure.  He even asks Juan and Teresa, “What does ‘faggot’ mean?” and your heart stops.  Juan and Teresa explain, but also are accepting and tender.  Every character in this film has layers and complexities — the local drug lord, is the caring father figure, full of acceptance.

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The second segment shows lanky Chiron (Ashton Sanders) still being bullied at school.  He has one consistent friend, Kevin, who was his best pal in the first segment, too.  There is an incredible tender scene between Kevin and Chiron alone on  the beach one night.  But then afterwards, he is betrayed.  This moment in the still above is when Chiron looks at his beaten face in the mirror, and you can just see him girding himself, and saying, “No. More.”  He explodes, and it had my heart in my throat just like the ending of FandryFandry.  You’ve seen this poor kid, now with a crack addicted neglectful mother, just endure and endure and he just can’t any more.  Many movies would end there.

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But the final segment shows what Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) has become as an adult.  He’s now a drug dealer with gold teeth and macho attitude.  The way he dresses, and his car all show how he’s trying to live up to what Juan was.  He gets a call from Kevin (André Holland) out of the blue, and that sends him driving hours through the night back to Miami to see Kevin again.  The film ends so tenderly and with such a sense of hope.  My heart was just so full.

This is an incredible film.  Groundbreaking in its structure.  It examines the life of a young gay black man, and examines the toxicity of the roles of masculinity.  It’s complex, and it’s also just so luminously filmed.  It is a gorgeous film to watch.

2016 may suck in general, but we’ve been given such a gift this year with great films.  Don’t miss Moonlight.  It’s still playing in theaters.

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Befikre – Aditya Chopra gives us a scrumptious light Paris pastry of a romantic film

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When you have made the romance Hindi movie that is held up as the gold standard, and is STILL playing in a theater 21 years after it’s release, that’s a lot of pressure.  Aditya Chopra is an excellent producer, but has gone years between directorial projects.  Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is the film that started me on my love of Indian Cinema, and I watched Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi second — and I was a goner.  It’s hard not to have super high expectations of an Aditya Chopra film.  All three previous films that Chopra has personally directed had superstar Shahrukh Khan as the lead, an actor that he was instrumental in making a superstar with DDLJ.  It was so monumental an announcement that Aditya was casting a new (for him) actor, that Ranveer Singh made a video announcing it and described how he cried walking out of Aditya’s office when he heard the news.

The first teaser trailer of Befikre is in fact the opening credits of the film, showing couples of all shapes, sizes, colors and orientation kissing all over Paris.  Is this Aditya’s shot across the bow to the censor board?  I certainly know I’ve never seen another Hindi film with so much kissing in it, much less gay kisses.

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Our first glimpse of Dharam (Ranveer Singh) and Shrya (Vaani Kapoor) is when a TV is thrown out a window.  It’s the breakup to start, and that is Aditya’s way of telling us this isn’t going to be like every boy and girl meet cute film.  It has a Western and an Indian flavor to it.  He pays homage to DDLJ in a few ways, with a song, and a field of yellow (could be mustard) flowers in the distance in a country scene.  I also see touches of some of my favorite romantic Hollywood films.  There’s a little When Harry Met Sally.  The flashbacks forward and backward over and over was very much like 500 Days Of Summer.  Aditya has taken elements from lots of Hollywood romances, but he makes this film his own, as he is the master.

ranveer-singh-befikre-vaani-kapoor-from-still_a422a78a-abaa-11e6-b4b4-3ed39deda4e7Dharam is new to Paris, and he’s a stand up comic flown in from Dehli to headline a friend’s club.  Have we ever had a stand up comic as an Indian romantic hero before?  That also felt very modern to me.  Shyra meets him at a bar, and their dynamic from the beginning starts with a dare.  “If you do X, then I’ll go out with you.”  ‘Desperate Dharam’ as Shyra calls him, is up for any dare, if it means he can spend more time with this fascinating wild creature.  When he takes her dares, Shyra gets that little spark in her eye – here’s someone who gets me and will go on my kind of adventures.  But she warns him from the first that she won’t be tied down and she doesn’t want him to fall in love with her.  We’ve seen all that from the trailer.  We’ve seen live in relationships in Hindi films, too, but this relationship definitely feels more modern, and Aditya’s gorgeous setting of Paris helps with that.

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Shyra has grown up in Paris with parents from India and she views herself as French, but cooks Paratha when she needs comfort food.  Her parents are stunned when she announces, “I’m not asking for your permission.” that she will be moving in with Dharam.  He tries to make nice with them, by touching their feet.  “Why did you do that?” she asks.  “I just wanted them to know you weren’t moving in with a jerk.”  The mom I recognized as one of the aunties from Dil Dhadakne Do.

Ranveer has his manic energy, and shows more skin than our herione.  Not only is there the red underwear scene from the trailer, but he shows off his bare butt, too.  I really, really liked Vaani Kapoor.  I didn’t remember her really from her first film, Shuddh Desi Romance — I think she was the jilted bride.  She is tough and quirky and independent and Shyra. The dancing they do together is fantastic.  I don’t know that they had that timeless chemistry or heat that Kajol and SRK did, but then again, that was an extraordinary jodi.

In one of my favorite dialogues, Dharam apologizes for calling Shyra a slut in their breakup argument, “It was me who wasn’t experienced.  I’m sorry for saying that.” What happens after Dharam and Shyra breakup becomes interesting, as they are best friends after some time blows over.  This is where many Hollywood romances would start, as they have to cram the whole story into 90 minutes.  She starts dating someone else, but he is not an a**hole, or a jerk.  In fact, he’s almost too perfect, and too grown up.

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This is the part of the movie that felt very much like the new guy was Patrick Dempsey in Sweet Home Alabama.  He is a real choice, but maybe not the right choice.   And maybe not the choice for Shyra that feels like “home”.  He’s not a horrible stereotype like Simran’s fiance in DDLJ.

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The third wheel actor was new to me,  Armaan Ralhan, grandson of a director, so in the filmi family.  He was nice and not just a boring drip of a banker, plus he was more than accepting of her best friendship with Dharam.  He was great.

Things all come to a head in a rather slapstick, almost farcical silly Four Weddings and a Funeral climax way.  It’s not the emotional angst and drama of the climax of DDLJ.

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But you know what?  Sometimes, a French macarons is just what you want.  Lighter than air, oh so sweet, but sophisticated, too, and out of the ordinary.

Also — There’s a cute epilogue scene after the final credits song so stick around for that.

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Still LOVE this song the best.  So catchy!

 

Dear Zindagi – Alia Bhatt is wonderful in this portrait of a complex young woman at a life crossroad.

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I unabashedly loved Dear Zindagi.  It’s a true measure of my love of my family that I didn’t see Dear Zindagi the day it came out in the US due to our Thanksgiving holiday travels.  I have been looking forward to this movie for some time, hoping it would live up to my sky high expectations, and it did.  I have yet to see director Gauri Shinde’s feature film debut English Vinglish, which evidently deservedly garnered accolades.  (I actually downloaded English Vinglish to watch on my trip but the subtitles were in Arabic. ARGH!)

I’m not saying a male director can’t tell the story of a woman, but there’s a different special perspective a woman writer/director brings to a film.  Alia Bhatt’s Kaira (Koko) is allowed to be a complex young cinematographer who is troubled, and frankly, sometimes unlikeable.  She is no manic pixie dream girl for anyone.  And that is just refreshing to see in itself.  The film totally passes the Bechdel test!  Kaira has a tight knit group of friends who she can be totally herself with, but a tense awkward relationship with her parents.

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She has a working and romantic relationship with producer Kunal Kapoor.  He offers her a dream job directing her first feature film in NYC, but admits his ex-girlfriend will also be working on the project.  He wants to make his relationship with Kaira more serious, but she demurs.  Then she can’t sleep thinking about her quandary — should she go to New York even though it will be incredibly awkward?

Kunal is one of 4 men in her life in this movie (not including SRK).  There’s Sid, the handsome restaurant owner (Angad Bedi) and Rumi (Ali Zafar), a charming musician she meets when she returns to her hometown of Goa.  She has to go back to Goa because her landlord in Mumbai makes her move out because she’s a single woman.  And he’s not the only one harassing her for being single, once she gets home she is barraged by her parents and her aunt and uncle for continuing to work, and not settling down.

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She happens to overhear SRK speaking at a therapist conference and goes to see him.  If only all therapists looked like Shahrukh Khan.  When through several sessions, they get to the root of her insecurities, I was crying right along with Alia.  She is just fantastic in this film.  She has this quality about her that reveals her vulnerability and she sucks me right in.  It’s hard to believe how far she’s come as an actress since Student of the Year.  Highway was my first glimpse and then this year she was devastating in Udta Punjab.  I can’t wait to see her work in the future.

Some reviewers have questioned the epilogue at the end of the film, but I liked it.  As suspected, Aditya Roy Kapoor is the final cameo man in her life.  I liked that the movie left us at a hopeful point — that she’s moved on and is ready for new possibilities.  I like that kind of ending in my romance novels, and I liked it here.

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Shahrukh Khan is fantastic in this as her therapist and mentor.  He has unorthodox methods, like playing Kabbadi with the surf on the beach outside his office.  But best of all is his message to young girls through the words he says to Kaira (Alia).  She thinks everyone thinks she’s a slut because she’s had relationships with more than one man.  SRK asks her if she’s ever bought a chair.  “Did you buy the first one you saw without trying it out?” as he pops from chair to chair in his office.  He gives her permission to live her life without worrying so much what “everyone” else thinks.

The music in the film didn’t send me, but the title track is decent.  It’s not that kind of movie.  There’s mostly montage type song sequences.  Really this is sort of a bridge film between Parallel type cinema (The Lunch Box, etc.) and mainstream Hindi fare.

I’m glad Kaira found support with her Dr. Jehangir Khan, and that director Gauri Shinde has backing from producers SRK (Red Chilies) and Karan Johar (Dharma).  She’s a great talent.  Loved this film, and already have plans to see it again in a few days.  I’m taking some friends who don’t even watch Bollywood films.  This is a great crossover type of film.

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Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya – Or the one where Salman is shirtless with a guitar

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pyaar-kiya-toI watched Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya (If you loved someone, don’t be afraid) written and directed by Sohail Khan (brother of Salman Khan) over the last two days.  I bought it super cheap in one of my DVD orders from India and it had no subs, but Youtube to the rescue.
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Going in, I knew nothing about the film other than it was a love story with Kajol and Salman Khan coming out the same year as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.  I didn’t know that Dharmendra has a key role as Kajol’s uncle.  Kajol is an orphan raised by her brother Vishal (Arbaaz Khan) and her uncle.  Vishal is extremely overprotective of her, driving away suitors by beating them up.  Kajol finally convinces her brother to let her attend college, and that’s where she meets Salman Khan, a rather goof off student.  Salman starts the movie shirtless!  This is his intro scene for the movie — the famous “O O Jaane Jaana” song.
pyaar-kiya-to-darna-kya-1998-3Wastrel Salman first wins over Kajol, and then has to win over her family, especially her skeptical brother Vishal.  Salman is particularly ridiculous in many scenes playing his role for broad comedy, and I was wondering if he let the Vishal brother of Kajol character upstage him so much because it was his actual brother. I literally had no idea Arbaaz Khan was Salman Khan’s brother AND that he was the producer of Dabangg.  He is such a looker in Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya!  I think this is one of his first movies, and he did a great job.
 It was interesting that Arbaaz got a whole seduction song with the Ujala character.  (Kajol’s friend Ujala is the one doing the seducing.)  He’s a secondary character that in most movies would not get his own song.  Especially these days Salman is so, well, SALMAN that he overshadows everyone else.  In this earlier movie, he wasn’t quite so much larger than life, if you get what I mean.
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I don’t know that Kajol and Salman had any smolder whatsoever, but they were sweet and cute together.  The first half didn’t grab me, but the second half songs are great, and the finale scene with Dharmendra, Salman and Arbaaz fighting together to rescue Kajol is really something to see.
One other minor note.  The director made Kajol dance in what looked to be the most awkward type sandals for dancing, unless they had a strap on the back I couldn’t see.  Like slip on wedges or something.
Lots of shirtless or nearly so Salman and great songs so worth the watch!
I also don’t remember seeing another movie yet in my watching history, at least, where Dharmendra is playing this uncle fatherly type of role.  That was interesting, too.
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Shivaay – Awesome Action in this attempted mashup of Taken and Bajrangi Bhaijaan

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I love Ajay Devgn.  Unabashedly love him.  In Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, I am totally Team Ajay.  One of my Desi friends expressed amazement that I like Ajay and was looking forward to Shivaay, “What?  He’s so ugly!” She’s still my friend even though I now wonder both about her eyesight and her mental acuity.  He has superb screen presence and can actually act, but he just has an unmistakable swagger as an action star.  The Shivaay trailer just blew me away.  We’ve never seen this level of stunt work and action cinematography in Indian cinema.  I had heard mixed things about Shivaay once it came out, but there was no way I was going to miss this film on the big screen.

With Shivaay, it’s almost like Ajay the director is trying to combine an action thriller like Taken with the emotion and family heart of Bajrangi Bhaijaan.  The action sequences are fantastic, and really thrilling.  They measure up to the quality of Hollywood films, and the Bulgarian scenery is just gorgeous.

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I absolutely adored Ajay’s relationship with his young mute daughter.  She was a terrific child actress.  Did she have to be mute? — maybe that was a way to get around the plot point that she doesn’t look like her Indian father and the actress wouldn’t be able to speak good enough Hindi.  As Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood points out, this is really a special father/daughter relationship on screen.  It has nothing to do with a daughter leaving home for marriage, and we have an adoring single father. raatein_shivaay_ajay_abigail

Why did this film not touch me in the heart the same way Bajrangi Bhaijaan did?  It has more serious peril with human trafficking by the Russian mafia, and a cute kid and all, I can’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t work for me.  Shivaay was just that much darker and had few moments of lightness and fun.  Ajay also didn’t have anyone supporting him of the quality of Nawaz or Kareena.

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There was maybe too much time spent in this romance plot with Polish actress Erika Kaar, who does not have the acting chops of Kareena Kapoor Khan.  The villains are also mostly interchangeable Eastern European bad guys.  The big reveal of the ultimate bad guy mastermind was pretty predictable, and the final battle was pretty damn awesome.  The title track by Badshah is great, but the rest of the music tracks also don’t have level of Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s soundtrack.

Ajay is a solid action director.  I wish the script had been a bit better, and aside from the delightful child actress, the supporting players of better caliber to match Ajay’s intensity.  I would still recommend catching Shivaay in the theater, because the action scenes look amazing on the big screen.  Ajay’s showing the way — you can play a dad, and still have swagger and cool.

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And wield wicked weapons like those rock climbing hooks!

Three and a half stars out of five for the great action.

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Paheli – My Kind of Ghost Story

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Paheli, Shahrukh Khan’s 2005 movie about a ghost or spirit is one of my all time favorite Shahrukh Khan movies, even if it is not one of his blockbusters.  It’s not a scary Halloween movie (like maybe Darr, which is more creepy than scary), but it does have a ghost!  Paheli means riddle.

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Fantasy film seem to be unusual in Hindi cinema, and in this film Shahrukh Khan plays both a number counting merchant husband, and a bhoot, or a ghost or spirit (sort of a genie, really) who takes his place.  Rani Mukerji is the bride who captivates the Ghost, with Amitabh as a wise shepherd in a cameo.  It’s a fable that is also about women’s empowerment, and the scene where SRK tells Rani he’s a ghost is one of my all-time favorites.  She laughs at first, because it sounds ridiculous!  But her real husband barely noticed her, and wouldn’t sleep with her on their wedding night, but this ghost is obsessed with her every since he saw her at the well he haunted.

He could have lied and just taken her in the guise of her husband, but he loves her enough to give her the choice.  Swoon!

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Rani and SRK have always had great chemistry, but man do they smolder in Paheli.  Yowza.

The costumes are just stunning, and the music in the film is just fantastic:

 

Amitabh Bachchan has a fun cameo as the wise shepherd who must solve the riddle of the two husbands.  Juhi Chawla, who co-produced the film, plays Rani’s sister-in-law whose husband (Sunil Shetty) had disappeared.  Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak play puppet narrators and of course Anupam Kher is the father.

tumblr_n1rdaglgnt1qmz4s4o1_1280I love Shahrukh in double roles and these two roles he makes completely separate people.  The husband is comedic and obtuse, and the ghost playful and sultry.

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Plus, I love the idea of a ticklish ghost!  Paheli has been overlooked but I love it.  And I love its message of female empowerment and choice.

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Ae Dil Hai Mushkil – Karan Made Me Cry! Modern Relationships Can Be Complicated (Spoiler Free)

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I realized that Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is actually the first film directed by Karan Johar that I have seen on the big screen.  Sure, I’ve seen Johar/Dharma productions, like Kapoor and Sons, on the big screen in the two plus years that I’ve been watching Indian cinema, but this is the first totally Karan Johar film.

I went to the first day, first show, at my local theater and they were NOT prepared for the Diwali crowds.  The theater was pretty full, and there was a long line at the ticket window.  Interestingly, I was not the only non-Desi there.  There were two women who were fans of Aish from Bride & Prejudice, but didn’t even know what the title of the film meant or who SRK is.  (!!!)

This will be as spoiler free a review as I can make it.  We know the film is about unrequited love.  If you think about it, many of Karan Johar’s films are about unrequited love, be it from a lover or a parent.

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Anushka and Ranbir meet when they are both fighting with their boyfriend/girlfriend.  They kiss and Ranbir sweetly hugs her, and Anushka pulls away.  “What kind of kiss was that?  Save those kinds of hugs for your family!”  There is no sexual chemistry from her side, but they are soul mates in every other way.  They both love old 80’s films, quote dialogue to each other and sing old song lyrics to each other.  I caught some of the filmi references (like them doing the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai finger to the noise bit), but there were many I didn’t catch.  (Can’t wait for Margaret to do a full summary on Don’t Call It Bollywood where she can instruct me on all the ones I missed!)

We knew about the Shahrukh Khan cameo as Aish’s ex, but there are some other fun ones.  Alia Bhatt and Lisa Haydon!  Fawad Khan’s role has been cut down so much that it’s not much more than an extended cameo.

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I wish the songs in the film had had subtitles, because I felt like I was missing meanings from the lyrics now that I was seeing them in the film itself.  Anushka is his friend, his best best best friend, but we can see that Ranbir wants more.  He declares himself after she returns to her former love, but it’s too late.

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Then he has the passionate relationship with Aish, and I loved her as this mature seductress!  She and Ranbir had great chemistry, and the cameo with SRK was a delight.  Shahrukh and Aish just give off that old lovers vibe and it was perfection for this film.

There is a twist in the final 15 minutes or so of the film that I mentally said to myself, “Oh, Karan, really, you’re going there?”  But damn it.  Karan made me cry!  It was predictable, but he played my emotions like a violin and the tears were running down my face.

The music as we know, is just sublime in this film.  The title track and the way Ranbir perform it is so amazing.   Really his performance through the film is excellent.  But I was most impressed with Anushka.  She just gets better and better with each film.

Anushka criticizes Ranbir’s singing in the film (he wants to be a singer) and says he can’t really sing with emotion until he’s experienced heartbreak.  And that, I think, is ultimately the message of the film.  Great art, be it film, music or poetry, comes from heartbreak and pain.

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Manam – A Comfort Movie as delicious as a mug of hot chocolate

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Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood raved to me before she posted her review that I had to watch Manam [Us], especially when I told her the other movie I was taking on my flights was Aligarh.   I’m so glad I did.  It was so wonderful!  The perfect cozy family film – like drinking a big mug of hot chocolate.

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I didn’t realize until I looked up the movie when I got home from my trip that the actors in this film are all in the same family.  And the family company, Anapurma Studios, produced the film.  This was the final film of ANR, who died of colon cancer during post-production.  His son Nagarjuna wanted to work together on one last film, and it’s a worthy tribute to his father.  Nagarjuna’s son Chaitanya is one of the leads, and there’s a cameo with his other son Akhil == and a special appearance by Amitabh Bachchan!

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The only other film I’ve seen with Nagarjuna is King.  I liked him, but the action comedy movie wasn’t the best.  I loved him in Manam.  Manam is a reincarnation movie.  Nagarjuna loses his parents the day after his 6th birthday, and in their honor has become one of the wealthiest businessmen in India.  He happens to sit next to the reincarnation of his father on an airplane.  His father is played by Nagarjuna’s son Chaitanya (who is adorable!).

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Nagarjuna then searches out his mother, and finds her reincarnation, too, played by Samantha Ruth Prabhu.  He has an instant connection to his mother, but has to work a little harder to connect with his father.   He plots how to get his parents reunited again.  They had been about to divorce when they died, and there are unresolved issues.

 

But my favorite part of the film is when we discover that Nagarjuna has been reincarnated, too!  His son is played by Nagarjuna’s father, ANR.  The flashback scenes of the romance back in the past with Nagarjuna and Shriya Saran are just magical.  Nagarjuna is wealthy in the past, too, and chooses a poor woman to marry because he likes her picture.  He is puzzled why she wants to wait 6 months to marry and seeks her out.  He discovers that she needs 6 months to earn enough money to purchase his traditional groom gift of clothes.  She doesn’t know who he is and lets him stay and be her worker on her farm to earn the money faster.

The reveal scene at the wedding when she the curtain drops and she just leaps on him because of course she had fallen in love — the best!  Oh, my goodness, how I loved this scene:

None of the issues and problems in the film are horrible, and even though people die — they come back and work it out in the next life.

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This movie is like a big ole family group hug.  I loved every minute.  Highly recommend!

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Margaret was right.  This was the perfect feel good movie to follow the darkness in Aligarh.

When I realized Naga Chaitanya has the Nivin Pauly role in the Telugu Premam, I went out to see that film next.  Review coming soon!

 

 

Love Between the Covers – a great documentary about the wonderful world of Romance novels

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Laurie Kahn (A Midwife’s Tale, Tupperware) captures the wonderful world and community of Romance novels in the documentary Love Between The Covers, now streaming on Netflix in America.

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I love romance books.  I pretty much exclusively read romance, and I try to attend the RT convention each year (sponsored by Romantic Times Book Review magazine.)  Kahn captures a lot of what I love about the community surrounding romance.  There’s a special relationship that exists between the authors and their readers.  The pay it forward feeling among fellow authors also seems to be truly unique, and she shows an aspiring novelist being mentored by an experienced author.

“Susan: This is a female powered engine of commerce. And it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. Celeste: An industry that would falter and crumble without romance. You know, we pay the bills. Susan: For all of fiction. For all of popular fiction. Celeste: Yeah. We’re the ones who keep the lights on.

— Susan Donovan & Celeste Bradley

The Romance genre is a billion dollar business but it gets no respect.  As the authors in the doc point out, no one makes fun of men who watch Schwarzenegger movies knowing he’ll live in the end, or criticizes the formalaic nature of mystery novels.  But romance novels are derided for always having to have the HEA, or Happy Ever After ending.

lenbarot_squareThis documentary has several of my favorite authors, and I love that Kahn included Beverly Jenkins (above in the purple), one of the pioneers of historical African-American romances.  The doc even shows one of the yearly historical trips Jenkins goes on with her readers, visiting the settings of her novels.

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when-beautyAnother author highlighted in the film is Eloisa James, one of my all time favorite authors.   She is also Mary Bly, tenured professor of Shakespeare at Fordham University in New York.  James talks about how unsupportive her parents were of her writing romance.  Her father is a renowned poet and her mother a short story author.  She led a double life — even though her novels were on the NY Times best seller list, she was told not to reveal that or she wouldn’t get tenure.  She famously revealed her secret in an op-ed in the NY Times.  And at one conference I heard her tell the tale of how she told her fellow professors at the university by dropping stacks of her books on the table at a faculty meeting! In the documentary she reads a passage from my favorite book of hers, When Beauty Tamed the Beast, which is based on the TV character House (but set in Regency era.)

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Kahn also includes one of the biggest authors in same-sex romance, Len Barot who has the pen name Radclyffe.

“I love fiction because it’s fiction. Fiction is not real and it’s not supposed to be. Fiction is a dream. Fiction is a desire. Fiction is hope.

— Len Barot/Radclyffe

Barot was a surgeon who wrote her novels at night and on the weekends.  I haven’t really read much lesbian fiction, but I do read m/m.  Sarah Wendell of the review site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books  introduced me to the great romances in m/m, and she’s included in the doc, too.

I even loved the graphics in the doc which mimic romance covers – and of course she includes a photo shoot for one!

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These are my people!  I’ve met most of the authors in film through the RT conference, except for Nora Roberts, the Queen of all Romancelandia.   Some of my favorite authors in the doc are Jill Shalvis, Nalini Singh, Eloisa James, Sherry Thomas,  and Jennifer Crusie.

So if you’re a woman who’s gotten that look when you read a romance on the subway, or just someone curious what this world is all about, I highly recommend Love Between the Covers.  

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When I showed a Bollywood film (Bang Bang) to friends who had never seen one before, my best friend said during one of the songs — “I get it now.  These movies are just like the romance books you read all the time!”  Exactly so.

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Aloha – Kind of a Mess

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Sometimes even I am too tired to watch a movie with subtitles.  I picked Aloha on demand because it wasn’t too long, basically.  Wow, what a mess of a movie.  I knew it had gotten lots of bad press because of the whitewashing casting of Emma Stone in a character that is supposed to be a quarter Hawaiian and part Chinese , Captain Allison Ng.  Cameron Crowe has made some really fantastic films, but lately he seems to have lost his way.

My issues with the film are beyond the whitewashing, but why Cameron Crowe didn’t just make Emma Stone’s step-father Hawaiian or something, I don’t know.  She’s supposed to be a believer in Hawaiian legends and superstitions in the plot.  I guess he based the character on a real red-headed Hawaiian woman, but he should have seen the controversy coming.

aloha-2015-movie-screenshot-john-krasinski-john-woody-woodside-5But moving on from that, there were plenty of times in the movie where I could not figure out what was going on.  This is basically a rom-com dramedy and I couldn’t figure out why the main characters were acting the way they were.  There were some shining moments to the film,  especially the performances.  Crowe assembled a great ensemble cast.  Rachel McAdams is military contractor Bradley Cooper’s ex-girlfriend.  The always great Bill Murray is Cooper’s wealthy eccentric boss, and I just loved him in this.  John Krasinski is Rachel McAdam’s military pilot silent stoic husband, and I just adored his performance especially.

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I wish the film had been from the perspective of either of the central women figures in the script, because I was most interested in their stories.  But of course, this is Cameron Crowe, so it’s all about the journey and perspective of messed-up-and-at-a-life-crossroad Bradley Cooper.  He can’t move on to a romance with Emma Stone until he resolves his issues with ex-girlfriend Rachel McAdams.

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The complicated confusing plot about launching a satellite that might have weapons and all is incidental to each actor getting a little flourish of an acting moment.  While there were some scenes that were brilliant, the whole didn’t hold together.

You, dear reader, are unlikely to watch this film, so I’m spoiling the ending because it annoyed me so much.  Rachel McAdams and Cooper broke up 13 years ago when he did not show up for an important weekend vacation.  She has a 12 year old daughter and had married John Krasinski shortly after the breakup.  Yep.  Everyone does the math.  The final scene shows Bradley Cooper looking through a window at his daughter in her hula dance class.  She looks out and he beams and nods.  The young actress is great in doing what Crowe asked her to do — look surprised, then tearily happy, as she runs out to give Cooper a hug and then run back to class.  Really??  A pre-teen girl figures out that the father she’s known her entire life is not her real father, and this near stranger just nods at her and it’s all good?  Yeahhhh, I don’t think so!  She doesn’t first think, hey it’s creepy that this old friend of my mom is staring at me?  Or have any anger at her mother or him?  Of course not, because her part in this movie is just to tie up Bradley Cooper’s character’s life up with a pretty bow.

I did like the Hawaiian setting.  My in-laws used to have a house in Hawaii, and there are not enough movies set there and celebrating what’s unique about it.

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