baggage

‘Cicada’ chronicles the path to healing

“Cicada” (2020). Cast: Matthew Fifer, Sheldon D. Brown, Sandra Bauleo, Cobie Smulders, Jazmin Green Grimaldi, Scott Adsit, Michael Potts, David Burtka, Jason “Freckles” Greene, Beau Curran, Bowen Yang. Directors: Matthew Fifer and Kieran Mulcare. Screenplay: Matthew Fifer and Sheldon D. Brown. Web site. Trailer. Healing old wounds can be a long and painful process, especially if we’re unclear about the nature or source of the hurt. When we are, though, the path to overcoming trauma can be a seemingly unending one in which the anguish never goes away, leaving us feeling as if there’s no hope for recovery or a future worth looking forward to. But, many times, and often quite unexpectedly, something happens that sets us off in a [...]

Brent Marchant2020-11-23T19:28:27-05:00October 10th, 2020|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews, Romance|

‘Someone Somewhere’ helps us to find others by finding ourselves

“Someone Somewhere” (“Deux moi”) (2019 production, 2020 release). Cast: François Civil, Ana Girardot, Camille Cottin, François Berléand, Simon Abkarian, Eye Haidara, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Niney, Paul Hamy, Maria Bunel, Patrick d’Assumçao, Vincent Scalera, Emmanuelle Bouaziz, Quentin Faure, Jeanne Arènes, Michel Lerousseau, Dady Saint-Thomas, Jessé Rémond Lacroix, Hamza Ouechtati. Director: Cédric Klapisch. Screenplay: Santiago Amigorena and Cédric Klapisch. Web site. Trailer. Being alone can be one of the most heart-wrenching experiences any of us can endure. The sense of loneliness frequently weighs heavily on us when we’re uninvolved; the lack of attachment, of connection, eats away at us and leaves us emotionally empty. What’s often worse, though, is having such an experience and not even realizing why we feel the way [...]

Brent Marchant2020-06-07T22:59:56-05:00May 7th, 2020|Comedy, Conscious Creation, Movie Reviews, Romance|

‘One Last Deal’ examines how to go out on top

“One Last Deal” (“Tuntematon mestari”) (2018). Cast: Heikki Nousiainen, Pirjo Lonka, Amos Brotherus, Stefan Sauk, Jakob Öhrman, Pertti Sveholm, Kristoffer Möller. Director: Klaus Härö. Screenplay: Anna Heinämaa. Web site. Trailer. When we come into the home stretch of our lives, we hope to settle our accounts, make amends and, one would hope, make a splash while we still can. But that process may prove challenging, especially if we’re loaded down with baggage, have difficulty making changes and come up against unexpected obstacles. Can we persevere under those conditions? That’s the test put to an elderly businessman looking to wind up his affairs in the new Finnish drama, “One Last Deal” (“Tuntematon mestari”). Aging, ailing Helsinki art dealer Olavi Launio (Heikki [...]

Brent Marchant2020-05-07T09:27:22-05:00March 19th, 2020|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|

‘Judy’ profiles a fighter in search of a comeback

“Judy” (2019). Cast: Renée Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Darci Shaw, Bella Ramsey, Lewin Lloyd, Gemma-Leah Devereux, Royce Pierreson, Richard Cordery, Andy Nyman, Daniel Corqueira, John Dagleish, Adrian Lukis, Tom Durant Pritchard, Gus Barry, Jodie McNee, Ed Stoppard. Director: Rupert Goold. Screenplay: Tom Edge. Play: Peter Quilter, End of the Rainbow. Web site. Trailer. Everybody loves someone trying to make a comeback, especially when it’s a beloved entertainer. Audiences appreciate the effort, particularly when the talent is genuine and heartfelt. But launching a personal renaissance can be challenging if it’s burdened by baggage from the past, a bittersweet saga detailed in the new, fact-based biopic, “Judy.” In winter 1968, singer-actress Judy Garland (Renée Zellweger) had fallen [...]

Brent Marchant2019-12-08T08:03:47-05:00October 7th, 2019|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|

‘David Crosby’ celebrates an icon’s quest for creativity, redemption

“David Crosby: Remember My Name” (2019). Cast: Interviews: David Crosby, Jan Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Cameron Crowe, Henry Diltz. Archives: Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Cass Elliott, Joni Mitchell, Christine Hinton, Jimi Hendrix, Dick Cavett, Jerry Garcia, Don Everly, Phil Everly. Director: A.J. Eaton. Web site. Trailer. It’s amazing how someone can embody both the best and worst of what we’re capable of. These qualities, polar opposites to be sure, seem incompatible with one another, yet, on occasion, they sometimes wind up residing within a single individual. Learning how to reconcile these extremes can thus prove to be quite a challenge for those of us who [...]

Brent Marchant2019-09-02T23:33:07-05:00August 9th, 2019|Conscious Creation, Documentary, Movie Reviews|

‘The Tomorrow Man’ urges us to live in the moment

“The Tomorrow Man” (2019). Cast: John Lithgow, Blythe Danner, Derek Cecil, Katie Aselton, Sophie Thatcher, Eve Harlow, Wendy Makkena, Isabelle Boni, Naveen Havannavar, John Sindoni. Director: Noble Lincoln Jones. Screenplay: Noble Lincoln Jones. Web site. Trailer. There’s nothing wrong with looking ahead – unless, of course, it becomes so compulsive that it keeps us from enjoying (or perhaps even recognizing) what’s going on around us – the present moment in which we dwell. It’s somewhat akin to being more worried about taking a smart phone photo of a significant event than the event itself. Yet, as comical as that may sound, all too often our focus is misplaced, myopically cast on the erroneous priority. We can miss a lot by [...]

Brent Marchant2019-07-07T02:26:52-05:00June 4th, 2019|Comedy, Conscious Creation, Movie Reviews, Romance|

‘Cold War’ charts the rocky road to peace of mind

‟Cold War” (“Zimna wojna”) (2018). Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza, Cédric Kahn, Jeanne Balibar, Adam Woronowicz. Director: Pawel Pawlikowski. Screenplay: Pawel Pawlikowski, Janusz Glowacki and Piotr Barkowski. Story: Pawel Pawlikowski. Web site. Trailer. Even when we get all the breaks, sometimes life just doesn’t satisfy us. We pursue the opportunities that present themselves, but somehow they inevitably fail to live up to their billing (and our expectations), leaving us feeling unfulfilled. And, if this pattern continues unabated, at some point, we may grow despondent, perhaps engaging in various forms of unproductive or even self-destructive behavior. So it is for an entertainer who has a chance to have it made and ends up sabotaging herself at every [...]

Brent Marchant2019-02-26T00:04:21-05:00February 1st, 2019|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews, Romance|

‘Ben Is Back’ explores the quest for redemption

“Ben Is Back” (2018). Cast: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance, Kathryn Newton, Tim Guinee, Michael Esper, Rachel Bay Jones, David Zaldivar, Kristin Griffith, Mia Fowler, Jakari Fraser, Alexandra Park, Jack Davidson, Jeff Auer, Henry Stram, Nigel the dog. Director: Peter Hedges. Screenplay: Peter Hedges. Web site. Trailer. The hell of drug addiction wears heavily on those afflicted by it. The physical and psychological effects alone can be devastating, but all of the other related effects – socially, economically and otherwise – can be just as destructive. And, when the impact on those close to an addict is added into the mix, the result can be just as catastrophic (and in virtually all of the same respects). But redemption [...]

Brent Marchant2019-01-20T02:56:30-05:00December 21st, 2018|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|

‘Lady Macbeth’ cautions us to control our powers of creation

“Lady Macbeth” (2017). Cast: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis. Paul Hilton, Naomi Ackie, Christopher Fairbank, Golda Rosheuvel, Anton Palmer, Cliff Burnett, Bill Fellows. Director: William Oldroyd. Screenplay: Alice Birch. Novella: Nikolai Leskov, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District. Web site. Trailer. How far are you willing to be pushed before you reach your limits? Some of us might cave in quickly, while others will endure much. A lot ultimately depends on the nature of the circumstances and how willing we are to tolerate them. For one independently minded woman, those limits get reached rather fast, and her recourse is something to which most of us would probably never resort, consequences explored in the chilling gothic tale, “Lady Macbeth,” available on DVD, Blu-ray [...]

Brent Marchant2018-05-23T08:40:55-05:00May 2nd, 2018|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|