Delayed Reaction: Captains of Zaatari

Premise: Teenage soccer players in a refugee camp are invited to an elite soccer league camp where they hope to pursue their dreams of being professionals.

 

It's hard to talk about this movie without oversharing. You see, it's kind of a depressing movie, and i's main tactic is giving the characters hope then taking it away. Based on that and the premise, you can map out most of the movie already. That doesn't make the movie worse. It just may dull effect.

 

Fawdi and Mahmoud are 17- and 16-year-old soccer players who live in a refugee camp in Jordan. A Qatari soccer league comes by to pick the best players for a soccer camp. Initially, Mahmoud make it in but Fawdi doesn't make the cut because he's slightly too old. He eventually joins Mahmoud at the camp though. Compared to the slums they live in, Qatar is a paradise. They stay in a nice hotel. They play soccer on real grass. Their games are even televised. It's a taste of the good life. And there's the glimmer of hope that they could impress the owner or manager enough to get recruited to be a professional...Only, that doesn't really happen for refugees.

 

It's a sobering movie that captures the allure of the dream and the harsh truth of reality. It's a very short movie - only 1h13m - so it stays pretty bare bones. It covers a lot in that time, from Fawdi's family struggles and his disappointment when not selected initially, but there's definitely some room to flesh things out. If it was more about the actual sports, they could've easily added more game and practice footage. It's a satisfying film though and a clever way to have a discussion about refugees in a way that I haven't seen dozens of times before.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: At the Ready

Premise: A documentary about a law enforcement club at a high school in El Paso.

 

We all do dumb stuff in high school. I don't mean poor decisions. I mean stuff that's silly outside the walls of the high school. It's a lot of playacting like adults. School plays aren't very good. High school TV stations are really amateur. 9 out of 10 high school athletes aren't very good. The sports are only saved by the fact that direct competition is easier to make compelling. So, it stands to reason that a club in which students play-act law enforcement scenarios would also be pretty dumb.

 

At the Ready is a tough movie to get right. Under the best of conditions, the topic of the movie looks silly. That's before it touches on political implications. Pro-law enforcement people could see all the training on responsible gun use, team building, and education and discussion of the purpose of law enforcement. Protesters against police violence could watch the same thing and be horrified by the indoctrination and celebration of things that should be last case scenarios. Mostly, I think the movie is successful at allowing the audience to place their own views on it. It's clear to me that the people who made the movie aren't #BlueLivesMatter, but I do believe they came to this from a place of curiosity. It's not out to make anyone look like fools. The only time they ever make it all look stupid are when other students or faculty stumble onto a training exercise. Those people give an odd look or roll their eyes, but I read that as the film reminding me that, this is just one club in an otherwise normal high school. I'm sure people laugh at the school news broadcast too.

 

The interest is more with the students or former students anyway. I thought the movie was going to be much heavier on the Law Enforcement competition and how that works. That's there but mostly in the background. Most of the time is spent examining the students in this club. El Paso is the largest US city on the Mexican border. The students in the club are mostly of Latin American decent. Local and federal law enforcement in the area recruits hard at the high school level around there. The dynamic is so interesting. These are idealist teenagers. Some of them support Beto O'Roarke and still believe his win or loss in an election is life or death. They are processes things like what to do about the caravan heading to the US (this was filmed a couple years ago, if you can't tell). One of the members of the club has a father who isn't allowed in the US because of crimes. Some people in their community look at them as traders for wanting to work for the Border Patrol. There's a lot to unpack in this movie and it does as much as it can. I wish they could've spent a little more time with a student who was less wavering by the end. Even the girl a year older than the others who joined the border patrol seems pretty uneasy about it. By the end, the movie implies that none of the kids really believed in any of it and that they've moved on. Surely there were other kids who got exactly what they needed out of the club though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Jockey

Premise: A jockey at the end of his career struggles to move on.

 

Jockey is one of the few Sundance movies I saw that lived and died by the quality of the lead performance. Many were ensembles or had enough else going on to work even if the lead performance didn't. Jockey needs Clifton Collons Jr. to be great though. Otherwise, it's a familiar sports story that's a little busier than it needs to be. Really, it's The Wrestler for horse racing. And The Wrestler also mainly works because of the lead performance.

 

So, Collins is Jackson, an aging jockey. It's all he knows and it's all he's ever done. However, his body is falling apart. He knows he shouldn't be riding anymore. He does a lot of his racing for his friend, Ruth (Molly Parker), who is one of the more working-class horse owners at the track. She just got a horse though that's special. It could be a champion and she wants Jackson to ride it. Oh, and there's a young jockey, Gabriel (Moises Aria), who claims to be Jackson's son who he never knew about. Jackson is suddenly looking at his greatest opportunity for success, the door shutting on his career, the life he never had, and how to leave his legacy all at the same time.

 

In some form or another, it's all stuff I've seen before many times. It totally worked for me; mainly because of Collins. He is one of those character actors who I've seen a dozen times in shows, big movies, and small movies. He's always good, but he's never the lead in anything I've seen. He sells all the beats of this movie, more than they deserve in some cases. His decision to mentor Gabriel feels like his own and not a plot mechanic. He's not self-destruction, although he doesn't take care of himself the right way. There's a purpose behind his decisions. I especially love a one-er at the end of the movie that allows Collins to run through a range of emotions while not saying anything.

 

I don't want to suggest that Collins is the only thing good about the movie. Molly Parker is at ease in a way I don't get to see from her often. Director Clint Bentley captures a world and community that feels real and lived in. The movie is pretty without being showy. Even when I knew exactly where the story was going, I didn't mind, because the tone of it all was right. I don't think the movie is quite good enough to overcome if someone just doesn't like the mechanics of sports or horse racing movies, but that's about the only negative thing I can find about it.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Quick Reaction: Ma Belle, My Beauty

Not every movie is for me. And, hard as I try, I may just be too much of a boring American for this movie. Ma Belle, My Beauty is about Bertie (Idella Johnson). She has recently moved to south France with her French husband (Lucien Guignard), and she isn't doing too well. She doesn't know the language and feels disconnected from her new life. So, her husband has a possibly misguided idea. He invites her pseudo-ex-girlfriend, Lane (Hannah Pepper), for a visit. You see, for a long time, the three of them were in a throuple, where they basically shared Bertie. One day, Lane up and disappeared, and the remaining couple opted to tie the knot. So, there wasn't a break up as much as a disappearance. The drama of the movie is Bertie sorting out what her feelings are for Lane now. Can she forgive her? Does she have any right to be jealous when Lane starts sleeping with another woman on the visit? Does she even want to take her back? And, Lane has to figure out how she feels too.

 

The acting is really good. Especially Idella Johnson. The French countryside looks beautiful in a "I like seeing it in a movie, but I don't have a strong desire to visit there" way. I didn't care that much about the central drama though. It felt obvious to me. Trying to give half of yourself to two people isn't enough for either of them. Big surprise. I didn't pick up much chemistry between Bertie and Lane (or Bertie and the husband, really). Since I never bought into that connection, it made how the drama of this would resolve meaningless to me.

 

(It would also be unfair if I didn't mention that this was my 8th movie in a day after 9 the day before and 10 the day before that. I didn't have my A-energy to bring to this.)

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Writing with Fire

Premise: A documentary about India's only all-female news organization.

 

I think even people who believe in the importance of journalism get tired of how sanctimonious journalists can be sometimes. All the fourth estate, speak truth to power, necessary public service stuff can be a little much. At the end of the day, it is a job, and the people who do it have to have an inflated sense of the importance of the work to do it well. I'm always up for an inspiring journalism story though.

 

The women working for the Khabar Lahariya newspaper in India are very impressive. That's the one sentence review of Writing with Fire. They are a group of Dalit women, which, according to India's caste system, makes them the least powerful people in the country. Basically, everything is stacked against them succeeding. Their low caste means they can't live in nice areas. They come from poor families that can't provide good dowries. The very fact that they work brings shame to their families. Once they marry, they aren't supposed to work. It's amazing that this newspaper exists at all.

 

Writing with Fire catches the women as they make their shift from paper to digital. In addition to being an education on India's caste, gender, and political systems, the movie is a lesson on what media looks like today. It's digital and iPads and web shows. They are the best kind of disrupters and the movie is pretty drama free, honestly. It's Khabar Lahariya being successful and getting bigger.

 

Still, it all goes back to those impressive women. I was continually surprised by the lack of support they received from their families and community. Even when they are the breadwinners, their families are ashamed of them working. Husbands would rather them not work. The one reporter puts off getting married because she fears that it means she'll have to leave the job. And they are fierce at what they do. There are a few times when they go up against crowds of people to make their point or ask their questions and hold court successfully.

 

I don't recall anything special going on with the filmmaking of this documentary. It just tells a good story and follows compelling characters. Sometimes, that's all a documentary needs.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Life in a Day 2020

Premise: Footage collected from real people on 7/25/20 is edited together into a movie.

 

The Life in a Day idea is very cool. They ask for thousands of videos, watch thousands of hours of footage, and piece it together to make something coherent. This is a marvel of editing and about as ambitious as it gets. I wasn't aware of the first movie in 2010. I don't know if it was always their plan to do another in 2020, but last year turned out to be the perfect year to revisit. With COVID disrupting everyday life around the world, much of the footage ended up being unique to that year. I admire all the work that went into this movie. I mean, just think about how much raw footage they had to translate. That alone sounds like a herculean task.

 

However, here's the thing. Hours and commitment don't mean that much to me as a movie fan. I remember when Boyhood came out in 2014, people praised Richard Linklater for the unique idea and years put into it. I tried to give bonus points for that too, but really that's a disjointed and uneventful movie that plays like a clip show of a long running TV series. If you take out the meta narrative about how the film was shot, it's an unfocused screenplay that, in any other scenario, would've been rewritten and polished. Or a couple years ago, the critical community gushed over Kristen Johnson's documentary Cameraperson, which was a collection of extra footage she had from decades of working as a documentary camera person. Again, it sort of works as a metanarrative about the person behind the camera for all these experiences, but at the end of the day, it's still just some footage edited together that kind of works. The only time I can remember this idea really working for me is the 30 for 30 doc "June 17th, 1994", which covers all the eventful sports stories going on at the same time. The structuring of that is very purposeful.

 

This is all one long-winded way of me saying that as much as I admire the amount of work that went into Life In a Day 2020, it still is just a collection of clips lightly organized by topic. It offers the same thrill to me as that page in the yearbook where they chose 20 random pictures for a collage. It's not bad. Just not for me.

 

Side Thought: It bothers me that this is actually more like 2 days. presumably, footage was from any time that was July 25th in different time zones. So, when they are going to sleep in the US on 7/25, it's already 7/26 in China. I think I'm more intrigued by the idea of what people are doing at the same actual time, not relative time. It seems a little uninspired to be like "here's a bunch of clips of people waking up. Here's people eating. Here's lovers embracing. Etc." Put even more simply, maybe this movie is a feat of collection and sorting even more than editing.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Quick Reaction: Prime Time

This was one of the more forgettable movies I saw "at" Sundance. It's about a man who takes over the set of a Polish show on New Year's Eve 1999. He takes the host and a security guard hostage and demands that the station put him on the air so he can read a message. This isn't on the air live, like in Money Monster. In fact, the entire movie is about him trying to get on the air and the studio and police refusing. The movie refuses to give me anything satisfying to latch onto. The gunman, Sebastian (Bartosz Bielenia) is a black box. It never reveals his motivations or even what he was going to say. With the studio takeover not being on the air, the tension is much lower than if the whole world was able to judge every mistake. It even rotates between the people negotiating with Sebastian, which robs the audience of a developing relationship there. Frankly, I'm not even sure how plausible it is that Sebastian could hold the stage hostage for that long. He didn't really seem to come in with a plan.

 

I don't see the point in setting this on New Year’s Eve 1999. This could've been set on any day. Not much in the plot becomes more urgent waiting for midnight. There isn't even an artificial complication like Sebastian saying they have until midnight or he kills the hostages.

The premise of Prime Time is a good one. Most of the actors do good work in the movie. I just wish it wouldn't've been so determined to undercut expectations. Jakub Piatek built a high concept thriller. Milk it for all its worth. This isn't the time for restraint.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: A Glitch in the Matrix

Premise: A documentary examining the idea of Simulation Theory (the belief the we live in the Matrix, basically).

 

I don't find Simulation Theory compelling. I think it requires a god complex to believe it. More importantly, it's pointless. You have consciousness. Does it really matter if it's real or a simulation? Is there even a difference. As someone in this documentary rightly points out toward the end, thinking that you are the one person who sees the truth "is such a school shooter fantasy."

 

Now, that doesn't mean I came into this movie ready to hate it. I've never spent much time thinking about Simulation Theory. I just thought it was something a stoned person said that they think is insightful. I was hoping A Glitch in the Matrix could explain the appeal of the idea and make some compelling points about why some people believe it. Look. I'm not far from the demo of people likely to buy into this. I'm a 30-something single white male with libertarian tendencies and a healthy amount of skepticism. I'm used to looking for the sane people who can explain something commonly ridiculed. However, this movie does nothing to convince me that simulation theory is worth my or anyone's time. Right away the movie turned me off. It makes the decision to keep any of the simulation theory people anonymous by turning them into CGI creatures sitting at their webcam. Between that and all the Rick & Morty clips, the movie feels like they just interviewed the top handful on contributors on the reddit page then took them way too seriously.

 

There simply aren't enough credentialed people in the movie to back up the simulation theory believers. All the academics backtrack significantly from any suggestion that they believe it. There's no compelling evidence anywhere. I think it's dangerous to even entertain the idea, which thankfully the movie does finally get to with the story of the guy who ended up killing his parents. It's deflating to spend 100 minutes watching something, only for someone to explain it all by suggesting these people are probably just lonely or having trouble interacting with the world.

 

Basically, A Glitch in the Matrix fails to convince anyone who doubts simulation theory and undermines the people who do believe it. Perhaps I'm just not enough of an edgelord to appreciate this.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Searchers

Premise: A documentary about New York singles exploring modern dating services.

 

This is a fairly short documentary about what it's like to date in New York City in 2020. It's unfortunate that they made this in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic. I'd bet the idea and planning for this movie came well before COVID shut everything down, because there's a big disconnect in the movie in relation to that. Most of the movie is interview-like segments. While the people are being interviewed, they are normally on some sort of dating app like OK Cupid, Match, or Tinder, and they talk through how they use the site or app. What they are looking for. The tricks they've learned to see through people. The code we all speak in on the services. The film gets a wide variety of ages, races, and orientations. It approaches all of them with a curious eye. Overall, it does a good job summing up what the first steps of dating are in a digital age. I knew of most of the sites. I think Seeking.com was the only one that was new to me. That make's sense. I'm not a rich single man looking to be a sugar daddy. It was a little depressing to realize that the person I related the most to was the guy who made a spreadsheet to catalog his dates.

 

This really doesn't address COVID in any significant way though. I could've forgiven that and chalked it up to a timeline thing. I'm not sure I'd want to watch a whole movie about dating in COVID conditions anyway. But, throughout the movie, they cut to outdoor New York shots where everyone is wearing masks. It's like they are acknowledging COVID then saying "but we're not going to get into that". And, the gimmick of the movie does get old by the end of it. It's nice that there's a little follow up with people from earlier, but I sure felt bored by the end. There really are only so many ways to point out that people aren't transparent on the internet and it's hard to know if you really like someone until you meet them face to face.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Try Harder!

Premise: A documentary about a prestigious San Francisco high school and the cut throat business of college admissions.

 

My big takeaway from this movie is that I sure am glad I don't have to go through the college admissions process again. I did it 16 years ago and at a magnitude of difficulty lower than the kids in this movie. I remember using "no essay" as a factor to filter down the schools I applied to, for example. Even still, it was daunting at the time. The helplessness. The mystery. And at that age, we have such grandiose ideas about what it all means. I also went to a competitive high school, but again, not as crazy as Lowell High School, which this documentary follows. I remember being concerned about my class ranking and all that. Test scores. Being in National Honors society. I was a fringe smart kid at best, but I recognized enough in this movie for some war flashbacks.

 

While Try Harder! is technically about this school and a selection of the students, the focus is on college admissions. This movie does a great job covering all the aspects of that process for the students. It's hard to conceptualize a 4% admissions rate until you see what some of the kids they're turning down look like. These are kids with excellent grades and test scores. They have parents who are highly involved. They collect extracurricular activities and charity opportunities like merit badges (Oh, they are Scouts too). Still, that's not enough for a lot of schools.

 

I do have some "where's the poop?" suspicions about the movie though. A lot of the ways that it presents things don't feel right. Like there's some exaggeration going on. It paints Lowell as a school of geniuses, and I suspect that it's not quite as extreme as they make it sound. Surely there are kids not taking AP classes who are going to schools lower down the UC chain and are happy about it. It would've been nice to see one of them. This movie also weirdly makes these kids seem less successful than they are. The one girl only gets into two Ivy league schools and that's a deflating moment. There's a disconnect in the movie there. I wish the movie could've found a way to focus even more on the randomness of admissions rather than the kids not being good enough. It's a good movie, but it felt like the filmmakers went in thinking "Let's make a movie about how difficult college admissions are" as opposed to "Let's take a look at what college admissions are like at a prestigious high school".

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend