The Polka King

Title--  The Polka King

Release Year--  2017

Running Time--  1 Hour and 35 Minutes

Director--  Maya Forbes

Cast--  Jack Black, Jason Schwartzman, Jenny Slate, Jacki Weaver, J.B. Smoove, Robert Capron, Willie Garson, Vanessa Bayer, Mary Klug, Kevin Healey

Based on true events, the story of the Polka King of Pennsylvania, Jan Lewan, develops a plan to get rich that lands him in trouble.

The Jan Lewan Band is playing to a crowd of people and as the show draws to a close, Jan Lewan (Jack Black) brings his wife Marla Lewan (Jenny Slate) on the stage.  Marla is wearing amber jewelry from his native Poland and Jan is advertising it to sell after the show.  As he is helping to pack up the equipment after the show, an elderly woman by the name of Anita Krzyewski (Mary Klug) comes to him and tells him that she is his biggest fan.  Jan then begins to tell Anita about his life and all the horrible jobs he had to do to achieve the American Dream, which led him to meet Marla, a former beauty queen and the love of his life.

The following morning Jan is in the kitchen making breakfast for his family, Marla, their son David (Robert Capron) and his mother-in-law Barb (Jacki Weaver).  She is complaining because she thinks that Jan needs to get a “real” job and forget the singing.  Jan is convinced that he will make it big with his polka band and dismisses what Barb has to say.  Later that day, Mickey Stutz (Jason Schwartzman) (later Mickey Pizzazz) comes to the Jan Lewan Band Gift Shop to tell Jan that he is quitting the band.  Jan takes Mickey next door and urges him not to quit the band when Mickey admits that two other members of the band were thinking about quitting as well, especially since they had heard a rumor that Jan was hiring a dancing bear.  Jan admits that he has added a dancing bear to the show and tells him not to worry, that he was going to give them more money, he just needed more time.

Anita Krzyewski brings her husband Ed (Kevin Healey) to the gift shop and they express interest in investing with his band.  Jan takes them into his office and guarantees them a 12% return on their interest if they invest and soon, he has other people wanting to invest in the band.  After six months the state Securities and Exchange Commission office gets a call about the Lewan investments and investigator Ron Edwards (J.B. Smoove) visits Jan to tell him that what he is doing is illegal since he never registered with the state and he has to return all the money that he had taken.

Jan, having already taken hundreds of thousands of dollars and not having any way to meet the deadline, is approached again by Anita and Ed and told they want to invest more.  Jan changes the name on the the paperwork and takes their money.  When Ron calls to check on Jan and the progress he’s making, Jan tells him that everything is taken care of without telling him that he has created a new company in which to take investments with.

Where should I begin?  I honestly liked this movie although after sitting through it, it is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.  I don’t really mind Jack Black films...most of them anyway...and that is how I feel about this one.  It was funny and although Jack Black makes it funny, I think that Jacki Weaver as his mother-in-law Barb steals the entire show.  She is absolutely HILARIOUS.  

This film does have it’s low points.  There are a few times where it feels like the script gets a little muddy and the flow of the film dams up a little bit or even drags on for longer than it should but for the most part that can be overlooked.  This is also another one of those Netflix films, so if you are looking to see this one, you may need to make friends with someone that has a subscription if you don’t have one yourself.

There are a few parts of this film that I was watching and going “no way that really happened!” but alas, at the end of the film they show actual pictures from the events that the film touched on.

At just over a hour and a half this is not a terrible film to sit through, especially since here it is the next day and I have found myself singing “Ole, ole ole, ole!” (you will understand once you watch the film) all day long.  Take the time to decide for yourself, do a little polka and Don’t Forget the Popcorn!

Rebecca

 

Title-- Rebecca

Release Year--  2020

Running Time--  2 Hours and 3 minutes

Director--  Ben Wheatley

Cast--  Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristen Scott Thomas, Keeley Haws, Ann Dowd, Sam Riley, Tom Goodman-Hill, Mark Lewis Jones, John Hollingworth, Bill Paterson, Ben Crompton

After falling quickly for a widower and marrying, a young newlywed arrives at her husband’s overly imposing family home only to find herself fighting against the legacy of his late wife Rebecca.

A young woman in her early twenties (Lily James) while working as a hired companion to a wealthy American woman (Ann Dowd) is introduced to an extremely wealthy English widower, Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer).  After a whirlwind two week courtship they are married and Max takes her home to his family estate Manderley.   The new Mrs. de Winter is introduced to the house staff and finds that she is highly disliked by the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Kristen Scott Thomas) for no apparent reason.  

As Mrs. de Winters learns how a country manor house works, she finds that she is constantly compared to Max’s first wife Rebecca.  Mrs. Danvers is doing what she can to implant in Mrs. de Winters’ brain that she will never be as beautiful, intelligent or sophisticated as the previous Mrs. de Winters and continually undermining the way the new Mrs. de Winters is trying to make the running of the house her own.  Mrs. de Winters learns that the previous Mrs. de Winters died in a boating accident and that Mrs. Danvers had been with her as her companion/servant since Rebecca was a child.

In an attempt to try to befriend Mrs. Danvers, the new Mrs. de Winters asks for her help so she can learn how Rebecca did things in the house which leads to Mrs. de Winters to revive Manderley’s annual costume ball.  She takes a suggestion from her lady’s maid to come up with a costume by looking at the pictures around the manor house and Mrs. de Winters settles on a stunning portrait of a former lady of the house, Caroline de Winters, as her inspiration.  On the night of the ball a drum roll sounds and Mrs. de Winters shows up at the bottom of the portrait dressed exactly like Caroline in the picture.  Max demands she go back to their room and change and it is then that Mrs. de Winters learns that not long before her death wore the exact same dress.

This cements in her mind the thought that Max regrets marrying her and is still madly in love with the seemingly perfect Rebecca.  Mrs. Danvers’ torture of Mrs. de Winters comes to a head when she tries to get Mrs. de Winters to commit suicide but it is thwarted when a huge disturbance is discovered off the coast by the manor.  A diver finds a decomposing body on a sunken boat, a boat that turns out to be Rebecca’s boat.  It is then that Mrs. de Winters goes in search of Max.  She finds him in a small hut where he admits to her that he has loved her the whole time they have been married and that his marriage to Rebecca had been nothing but a sham.  He tells her that Rebecca was a cruel, selfish and manipulative woman that made everyone believe that she was a perfect wife and paragon of virtue and she had several different affairs with several different men throughout their marriage.  The problem comes for Max when Rebecca’s body is found due to him identifying remains that he claimed was Rebecca’s a year prior.

I am not very sure how I feel about this film.  There were some high points and there were some low points but I’m not sure the highs were high enough to call it a good film or that the lows were low enough to call it a bad film.  It seemed to be just okay.  

The first thing to know is that this film is a remake of a film of the same name made in 1940 starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine with Alfred Hitchcock as director and David O. Selznick as producer.  For anyone that doesn’t know any of those names, these people are a big deal and for my money, it would be truly hard to outdo a film with these names in it, especially for a film that is rushed out to Netflix.  Please don’t get me wrong, I do not think that the actors in this 2020 version of the film did a poor job, I just think that sometimes it is better to leave well enough alone (especially since the 1940’s version is looking at a critic score/audience score of 100%/92% compared to the 2020 version standing at 42%/42%).  However, I have never seen the 1940’s Rebecca, so I can not compare one film to the other.

Something I HATED was the fact that Lily James’ Mrs. de Winters HAS NO NAME.  She is only Mrs. de Winters (but upon researching a little I did see that the 1940’s version was the same way) and I feel like perhaps it is a little lazy.  

So, this film, watch it or skip it?  Watch it because the ending is the best.  It really picks up after Rebecca’s boat is found.  I will just leave it there so that the ending is not spoiled.  This film is on Netflix, check it out and Don’t Forget the Popcorn!

 

 

VELVET BUZZSAW

 

 Title--  Velvet Buzzsaw

Release Year--  2019

Running Time--  1 Hour and 52 Minutes

Director--  Don Gilroy

Cast--  Jake Gyllenhaal, John Malkovich, Rene Russo, Daveed Diggs, Zawe Ashton, Billy Magnussen, Natalia Dyer, Toni Collette, Tom Sturridge, Alan Mandell, Rob Brownstein, Marco Rodriguez, Sedale Threatt Jr.

When unearthly and tortured looking paintings by an unknown artist are found and sold, a supernatural force takes revenge on the people that profited from his work.

Art critic, Morf Vanderwalt (Jake Gyllenhaal), is attending an art exhibition in Miami Florida with his friend Josephina (Zawe Ashton) when she learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her.  At the end of a long night and due to Morf feeling unfulfilled with his boyfriend Ed (Sedale Threatt Jr.), he and Josephina begin a sexual relationship.  Upon returning home to Los Angeles, Josephina is late to work when she finds that a man by the name of Vetril Dease (Alan Mandell) that lives in her building has died in the hallway.  When she finally does arrive to work at the Haze gallery, her boss Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) (nicknamed the Velvet Buzzsaw from her former days in a rock band), punishes her for her constant tardiness.

When Josephina returns home she is checking the mail when she strikes up a conversation with a man that is removing the name of the dead man from the mailboxes.  He comments that he has seen inside the apartment and there is a ton of art in there but the dead man left explicit orders to burn all of his work.  Josephina makes the excuse that she is going to find the man’s cat and enters the apartment.  She is enamored by the man’s work and knowing that it is all going to be destroyed, she steals all the artwork.

Rhodora finds out about the artwork and becomes fascinated by Dease’s work and decides to exhibit some of the work, telling Josephina that she could make her very rich.  Morf decides with Rhodora and Josephina’s approval to make a book about Dease’s work.  The exhibit is an instant success and soon Morf’s gallery friend Gretchen (Toni Collette), artists Piers (John Malkovich) and Damrish (Daveed Diggs) and rival gallery owner Jon Dondon (Tom Sturridge) all become enamored with the works of Dease as well.

Morf begins researching Vetril Dease’s life and finds that he had a troubled childhood that led to him killing his father.  This coupled with the growing mental illness that Dease dealt with was the catalyst for his art.  Soon, everyone that has started to profit from the sale of Dease’s art or story begins to die horrible deaths.

This movie, where to begin?  I liked the trailer but didn’t care so much for the film.  It felt like it was trying to be a lot of different things at once.  A thriller trying to be a horror film?  A drama trying to be a dark comedy?  Pick one and go with it, don’t travel back and forth between genres, it only confuses the viewer.  There were several times that the film used jump scares to try to get the point across when they probably should have just built the suspense up and let the scene do the work producing the scare.

I liked Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance in this film, although it could do nothing to save it overall.  Another person I liked (that I did not mention in the film synopsis) was Natalia Dyer who played Coco.  I can see her going places, keep your eyes open for her in the future.  I really wanted to like Zawe Ashton but her character was just dull and the fact that she goes from mild mannered at the start of the film all the way up to an uptight bitch toward the end was a huge turnoff, although that’s not her fault, it was the way the character was written, she just had the unfortunate role of having to perform said character.

I guess when it is all said and done, I didn’t know that the art world was so cut throat but then again, anyone that strives to be the best at their profession is probably as cut throat as they get.  Just one last question to leave at your feet...here, in 2019 (the year this film was released) what important person still carries around a FLIP PHONE???  Watch this one for yourself and see if your opinion differs from mine just Don’t Forget the Popcorn!