All posts by Kenna

About Kenna

Kenna McHugh is an established freelance writer living in California. Her writing credits include the published book, BREAKING INTO FILM, Film Production book for inner-city kids, three screenplays, seven produced plays and hundreds of how-to videos on the Internet. "I love the challenge of writing because the end does satisfy the means. The writer is a valuable being. If the words aren't there the message isn't received. It is as simple as that. Give me a circumstance, a theme and away I go at my keyboard."

Life, Career of Beloved Comedienne Gilda Radner

comedy, documentary, true story, , , , ,

Lisa D’Apolito directed the Love, Gilda documentary. The movie boasts “In her own words…” I am quick to differ. Like most documentaries today, the directors skewed them to generate a message based on the director’s proactive. Sure. The movie shows her journals with words, but the director takes them out of context. 

Tender with personal interviews while highlighting Radner’s talent, but the movie needed to share more of her happiness and successes. We are all human and have problems. The director skews the fact that when she visits the doctor, she is not responsible. But clearly, she is being responsible for going to the doctor. It is how she handles those problems that make her a survivor.  

In her journals, the director pulls out passages from comedienne Gilda Radner reflections on her life and career. Weaving together her recently discovered audiotapes and rare home movies, Love, Gilda shares a side of Radner that is honest and whimsical. Portions of her diary read by well-known comedians. Each inspired by Radner’s talent and vivaciousness, Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Cecily Strong read in awe sharing her story.

The documentary includes interviews with original “Saturday Night Live” cast and crew, such as Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, Paul Shaffer and longtime friend, Martin Short. Throughout the movie photos of the younger cast and crew are spliced within the story. With photos of the young cast, all looking healthy and vibrant is worth watching the documentary. 

Her adventures before SNL have her marrying a sculpture, moving to Canada, and divorcing. She meets her boyfriend and longtime friend, Martin Short.  She receives a phone call from John Belushi and tells her “We need a girl.” Off Radner goes to Chicago, being the token girl for Second City comedy group. The photographs show young Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis. 

Gilda Radner puts a smile on the faces of people who remember watching her as one of the original cast members of SNL where she created and portrayed now-classic comic characters such as Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, and Lisa Loopner. She rose to fame winning an Emmy, starring in movies and on Broadway. 

Though the director uses Radner’s words and her voice by working with the Radner Estate, D’Apolito picks her favorites from a collection of diaries and personal audio and videotapes.  Documenting her childhood, her comedy career, her life with Gene Wilder and her struggle with cancer, the D’Apolito allows Radner to voice her story through laughter and tears. The never-before-seen footage and journal entries form the narrative spine of the documentary. Again, D’Apolito spins a tale of Radner trying to get Wilder to marry her. Yet, I distinctly recall, Wilder in interviews saying of how much he loved Radner and missed her so much after her death from cancer. Anyone who watches this documentary will see the love Wilder shared with Radner.

My favorite words from Radner, which I am paraphrasing, is how she mentions she just did what she loved to do, kept taking jobs, and ended up famous. 

Support the Girls – Waitresses Bare All

drama, review, , , , , , , ,

Written & Directed by Andrew Bujalski, Support the Girls follows Lisa, played by Regina Hall. The story is about her life as a general manager at a highway-side sports bar that resembles called Hooters Double Whammies. Just look at the promotional photos and get the idea – tits and ass.

Yet, Lisa is the last person anyone expected to find this type of establishment. She comes to love the place and its customers. As an intuitive mother, she nurtures and sternly protects her ‘girls’ on the staff.

The straw finally broke her back one day, and her genuine buoyancy was pummeled from every direction.

Lisa learns that fantasy sometimes becomes a reality, and nothing is far from the truth.

In 20014, Bujalski won the “Someone to Watch” Independent Spirit Award for Funny Ha Ha, which is nothing like Support the Girls. He offers his thoughts on establishments like Hooters. “It seems like just about the simplest business concept you could imagine – ‘What if all the waitresses in this restaurant wore tight, cleavage-y halter tops?’– but I couldn’t get over how bizarre it ultimately was. No culture besides present-day America would ever produce mass-scale demand for such a place, a business that seems about 10% strip club and 90% TGI Friday’s/Applebee’s/Chili’s/Cracker Barrel. Strippers are supposed to make men feel like badass transgressors. But these women are just supposed to make you feel normal — the proverbial “red-blooded American male.”

I totally agree with what he says because…Really? How can a woman act normal when she is practically bare-assed?

Hall liked Bujalski’s script and wanted to be in the movie. “From the moment I read it, I just resonated with Lisa. I had seen Andrew’s work and thought he wrote such a beautifully complex yet simplistic script. He was able to find the humanity in this space that we take for granted or don’t necessarily even think about. I just loved the chord that he touched on with this group of people, these women, and girls. I thought Lisa was great: her need to help, her need to fix, her need to save, and her need to be needed. It just resonated on so many levels.”

The movie is receiving accolades from critics. Regina Hall is the first Black woman to win Best Actress in the New York Film Critics Circle’s 83-year history this year for her portrayal of  Lisa.

Hall also starred in another strong cultural movie called The Hate U Give. The film is based on a book of the same name, but the power of the situation is nothing compared to Support the Girls. Though,  Lisa does nurture the girls in a motherly way. This situation is not racist like The Hate U Give.

The cast is rounded out quite nicely with Haley Lu Richardson, Shayna McHayle, James LeGros, Dylan Gelula, AJ Michalka, Brooklyn Decker, Jana Kramer, John Elvis, and Lea DeLaria.

All-Girl Skateboard Movie – Skate Kitchen

action, drama, movies, review, romance, , , , , , , , , ,

Co-written and directed by Crystal Moselle as her first narrative feature, Skate Kitchen, follows an introverted teenage skateboarder named Camille, played by Rachelle Vinberg. She is from Long Island and meets and befriends an all-girl skateboarding group. The group is New York City-based called Skate Kitchen.

Moselle mentions in an interview, “I was originally going to do a feature documentary film, but after doing the short, and hanging out with Kim Yutani, who is one of the programmers at Sundance, she was just like, ‘Why don’t you do a feature version of this?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re so right.’ I figured out a writer to work with. That January, we didn’t have a script or anything. We kind of just had a summary of what we wanted it to be. We went to Sundance and just started having meetings and financiers, and got the budget.”

In the movie, Camille becomes part of the in-crowd, and estranges from her mother, and falls for a mysterious skateboarder guy named Devon, played by Jaden Smith. Yet, their relationship proves to be trickier to navigate than mastering her skateboarding tricks.

Smith knew Vinberg before they worked on the movie together. They met on social media because Smith saw that Vinberg was a skateboarder and reached out to her. Moselle explains, “One day he hit Rachelle Vinberg up on Instagram! He just thought she was cool because she skateboards and he skateboards and we were like, ‘Oh, he should be in the movie.’ I randomly know his agent, so I was just like, ‘I have this film idea that Jaden might be into,’ so his agent got me a meeting completely separate from Rachelle. And it was months after that. And then I showed him the short film and he was like, ‘Oh I know that girl.’ We wanted his character to really authentically lead into the subculture of New York City skateboarding.

According to production notes, Moselle immersed herself in the lives of the skater girls and worked closely with them giving authenticity to the movie. “I was on the train and I was listening to them just chat, and they were super interesting and they had skateboards, and I asked them, “Would you guys want to do like a video project, something?” We exchanged numbers and when we met up, we just started hanging out and chatting. I just was super inspired by them. I didn’t really know much about being a female skater and how much intimidation they go through. I gave them the opportunity to do this short film with Miu Miu (That One Day) and I pitched them to do the short film. That went to the Venice Film Festival. From there it started to get a lot of attention and gain a lot of traction.”

The movie is gripping and combines poetic, atmospheric cinematography with spellbinding skating sequences. The movie captured my interest because, though I am not a skateboarder, I follow skateboarding movies. The experience of women in male-dominated sport tells the story of a girl who learns the importance of true friendship, loyalty, and self-discovery.

The rest of the cast members are Dede Lovelace, Nina Moran, Kabrina Adams, Ajani Russell, Jules Lorenzo, Brenn Lorenzo, Hisham Tawfiq, and Elizabeth Rodriguez.

The other screenwriters are Aslihan Unaldi and Jennifer Silverman. Moselle offered some insight on working with Unaldi. “There was a certain point in time where we had to shift the story and simplify it a lot more and Aslihan Unaldi came in and worked on it every day for like three months. We completely re-shifted the whole thing. She was really my collaborator on this, but it was all my ideas, and I wrote a lot of the script. I’ve never written a script before and we had to make this happen so quickly, because we had to shoot this film before these girls grew up, because right now they’re already too old for the film.”

 

Outlaw King a Scottish Tale From the History Books

drama, foreign films, historical, true story, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Co-written and directed by David Mackenzie, Outlaw King follows Robert the Bruce, played by Chris Pine. His life is transformed from defeated noble to a king to an outlaw as he struggles to reclaim medieval Scotland from occupation. Ambushed and reduced to a handful of supporters, Robert resolves himself to strike back against King Edward of England’s mighty army.

Robert is among the Scottish nobles who submitted to the occupying English King, Edward, played by Stephen Dillane.  A marriage is arranged between Robert and Elizabeth de Burgh, played by Florence Pugh, a daughter of Edward’s ally.

An unnerving peace seems the only way forward which Robert and his family reluctantly accept. His relationship with his wife is feisty as they get to know each other. But crippling taxes, relentless force, men and boys being coerced under obligations of the feudal system to fight for King Edward only strengthen the rising rebellious emotions amongst the Scots.

Major events trigger a change in the overall climate of Scotland. The death of the family patriarch Bruce Senior, played by James Cosmo, news of the brutal demise of former rebel leader William Wallace, and finally the murder of Robert’s rival John Comyn, played by Callan Mulvey.

With the help of the Scottish Church – including Bishop Lamberton, played by Paul Blair, Robert resolves to become king and try to unify a divided country – many of whom do not want more war and are opposed to him because of their own blood ties.

If you know your Scottish history, you know the outcome of the story. I can give you a hint, though, it is one of the greatest comeback stories in history. “…I couldn’t shake the feeling that the period between 1304 and 1307 was where the most extreme things were happening – and this is what we have focused on. We conflated some characters and events in the interests of drama and time, but we have broadly been very faithful to the recorded history or this timeframe,” explained Mackenzie.

The Netflix produced movie will hopefully turn out to be a movie worth watching. So much of Scotland’s yesteryear events are page turners in historical books.

Scottish director Mackenzie whose body of work includes Hell or High Water and Young Adam is an excellent choice for this epic movie. Here are a couple of clips from Outlaw King. Nothing like the trailer but poignant in terms of key points in the movie’s storyline.

 

“Dust 2 Glory” SCORE Baja 1000 Desert Race

documentary, sequel, ,

Dana Brown helmed the documentary Dust 2 Glory, as an incredible comprehensive journey of the SCORE Baja 1000 desert race. The desert race takes place in Mexico on the Baja California Peninsula. It is one of the most celebrated off-road races in the world. Contestants come from all over the world to compete, but predominantly they come from the US. The importance of this race is because it is the final round of a four-race annual series.

Brown is well-known for his Dust to Glory documentary in 2005. The first to capture the landscape of motor sports in a documentary and present the best of off-road racing challenges.

Dust 2 Glory grabbed my heart at the beginning of the movie. I never saw the first documentary, so seeing the off-roading experience in Brown’s second documentary sparked my interest in this kind of world.  Otherwise, I would never have known about it.

The display of the race captured my interest from a standpoint of being in the racer’s shoes.  The movie educated me on the race itself. I discovered the race takes place on the Baja California Peninsula since 1967.

SCORE Baja 1000 is the finale of a round of four-race annual series. The people who take part push themselves to the limit and beyond. They are skilled and dedicated drivers, and I felt as if I was riding right along with them in the race. I cheered for them, and I felt their torment with each defeat.

Brown doesn’t just make a movie about extreme sports, he immerses the audience, so they are a part of the extreme sport with all the passion and glory.

The Blu-ray special featurettes seem limited but worth a look, which includes “Bruce Brown’s Last Interview” and “Dana Brown’s Interview.”

I wanted to share footage with you, but the distributors or producers block the footage given by the promotional company. With that, if anyone is into racing, they will like this movie.

Found Footage 3D: Parody on Found Footage Horror Movies

horror, , , , , ,

Written and directed by Steven DeGennaro, Found Footage 3D begins with Mark, played by Chris O’Brien, who lives in the shadow of his overbearing older brother, Derek, played by Carter Roy. Mark always wanted what his brother processed. Derek is successful with a career in the movies and the love of a beautiful woman. Mark longs for a life like Derek’s. One day, Derek asks Mark to document the production of his next low-budget horror movie called Spectre of Death. Mark leaps at the prospect of being with Derek and becoming engaged in his production.

The Spectre of Death is filmed in the ‘found footage’ style similar to the Paranormal Activity movies.  Derek stars himself and his estranged wife, Amy, played by Alena von Stroheim. The storyline in Derek’s movie is similar to his relationship with his Amy. The art-imitates-life story of a couple whose relationship is slowly deteriorating. Against the objections of his director, Derek decided to make Spectre of Death the ‘first 3D found-footage horror film’ and hired his younger brother to shoot the first 3D behind-the-scenes documentary.

The production is plagued with trouble from the very beginning. Derek and Amy fail to be professionals and are amicable long enough to shoot a scene together. But things take a much more sinister turn when the fictional entity they’ve created for their film shows up in Mark’s behind-the-scenes footage. Frightening accidents begin to plague the shoot. The footage Mark is shooting grows stranger and more ominous. When an act of unexpected and ferocious violence finally tears down the wall between fiction and reality, Mark must find a way to contain the evil presence before it is too late.

The cast holds their own in this funny and quirky horror movie. The cast includes Tom Saporito, Scott Allen Perry, Jessica Perrin, and Scott Weinberg.

Found Footage 3D breaks down the found-footage horror movie and fills it with people who are aware of all of the rules, tricks, and platitudes of the genre. It obvious the cast and crew in the movie understand how to make a ‘found footage’ movie. The key to this horror movie, like all horror movies, who will survive?

Godard Mon Amour Brilliant Movie by Hazanavicisu

comedy, drama, , , ,

Directed by Michel Hazanavicius, who won the Best Picture Oscar for The Artist, which I totally recommend that you see The Artist if you haven’t seen it yet. It is brilliant.

With, that Hazanavicius brings us another brilliant movie called Godard Mon Amour. The movie is a true story of Jean-Luc Godard at a turning point in both his own groundbreaking career and in the art of cinema.

Just like the movie The Artist, which was set in the silent film era, Hazanavicius again tenderly transfers moviegoers back to a unique time and place in cinematic history. Known as France, in the late 1960s. We meet a Young actress Anne Wiazemsky, played by Stacy Martin, who achieved instant fame as the teenage star of Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. She finds herself juggling political protests and artistic challenges in her married life with Jean-Luc Godard, played by Louis Garrel.

Goddard, for those who don’t know who he is, is the fearless, innovative and significant director of Breathless, Band of Outsiders and Contempt. As Wiazemsky country undergoes enormous cultural change, so too does her dynamic with her husband, as the great director becomes absorbed in the political and cultural moment and less emotionally available to his wife.

Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and four César Awards, including Best Actor and Best Director, and co-starring Bérénice Bejo of The Artist, Godard Mon Amour is a global sensation – both as a tribute to a crucial moment in cinema history and as the resounding artistic triumph in its own right.

Ed Potton of The Times of London said Godard Mon Amour “manages to be a biopic, postmodern comedy, stylistic homage and poignant relationship study all at once.”

“Garrel is wonderfully dead-on as the director,” said Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly, adding, “Martin manages to convey some of the heartaches in watching the man you love turn sour.”

Donald Clarke of The Irish Times called the film “occasionally disrespectful and hugely amusing … It’s carried off with an irreverence that would delight Mel Brooks.”

Such a wonder of just about two hours spent enjoying filmmaking and filmmaker Goddard, I hope you get a chance to see Godard Mon Amour because it is a great movie for any movie aficionado.

“Hostile” Backstory Defines the Horror Worth Seeing

horror, science fiction, thriller, ,

Written and directed by Mathieu Turi, Hostile takes place when a worldwide epidemic pretty much killed most of the population on Earth.

Those few who survived the epidemic struggled every day, trying to find food and shelter. With that, a creature, unlike them, proves that they are not alone. The beast is super creepy. Take a look at the poster and Blu-ray/ DVD cover. You get a good idea of what this thing looks like in the movie.

Juliette, played by Brittany Ashworth, is driving on her way back from a scavenging mission. She experiences a terrible accident. She is trapped in her car, with a broken leg, in the middle of an unforgiving desert. That is not the entire story. There are a couple of stories within the story itself.

As you can see in the two movie clips, Ashworth’s acting skills shine as she tries to deal with and outsmart the creature. The story is about how she must survive the dangers of the post-apocalypse world while a strange creature prowls around her car.

Another part of the movie is a love story told in flashbacks while Juliette tries to survive the car crash and creature. The story is between her and a Frenchman named Jack, played by Gregory Fitoussi. The love story is a bit slow and twisted to the horror-thriller and science-fiction aspects of the movie. All in all, I think horror fans will like watching this movie because it is not your usual horror movie. There is even a nice twist at the end.

Turi’s directing credits include two shorts and another feature called Meander, which is in pre-production at this writing. He paid his dues in the business, working on sets as assistant director of several movies.

Higher Power is a Trippy Sci-Fi Journey

4K Ultra HD, fantasy, science fiction, thriller, ,

Directed by VFX artist Matthew Santoro, Higher Power is a visually rich sci-fi thriller. The movie stars Ron Eldard and Colm Feore.

Santoro makes his directorial debut with the story of Joseph Steadman, played by Eldard. Steadman suddenly finds himself under the command of a mad scientist, played by Colm Feore.  The mad scientist is on a mission that will alter the fate of his family and the world.

Because of the scientist, Steadman becomes equipped with new superpowers. But, he remains under the thumb of the seemingly omniscient scientist, and Steadman does all he can to protect his daughters from the man who bargains with their lives. The scientist’s warped mind overshadows his mysterious quest meant to save all of humanity. When the Universe decides what it wants, it’s pointless to resist. With his family’s life at stake, Joseph Steadman finds himself the unwilling test subject of a maniacal scientist in a battle that could save the world or destroy it.

Santoro uses his professional background in crafting an impressive movie filled with special effects. He directs a stunning a world of supernatural abilities and consequences. Santoro immerses you in the movie like a trippy journey. Spending most of the time going through the experiences of the main character, Steadman, as his life is engineered and disfigured to turn him into something stronger. I wasn’t sure what to expect watching this movie. It’s quite different from other movies that are similar in character. Higher Power is a refreshing concept with a trippy story.

The acting is decent and the story starts off slow. But, hang in there because as the story unfolds the movie becomes a rocket ride in which a reluctant man must overcome his past in order to find his higher power. The ending makes watching the movie worth it.

The movie clips show a good deal of what the movie emulates.  The special effects are awesome but basic. Only someone like Santoro can pull it off.

Dead Shack – Horrific Comedy About Zombies

horror, , , ,

Directed by Peter Ricq, Dead Shack follows a family on a weekend trip that spins as a horror movie with some comic relief – the horror is deep and the laughter is based on your sense of humor. I didn’t laugh so much because the movie is pretty darn horrific.

Jason, played by Matthew Nelson-Mahood hooks up with best buddy Colin, played by Gabriel LaBelle, and he joins Colin and his family for a weekend trip to a cabin in the woods. They soon become aware of the fact that they are not the weirdest people in the rustic area.  The neighbors turn out to be zombie-like, and there is a dark mystery behind the missing townspeople. The adults hold a drunken party but it ends abruptly with a scene horror fans will go crazy over.

Colin’s older sister, Summer, played by Lizzy Boys, and their father, who is usually drunk, and step-mother, Roger and Lisa, work together as things quickly go wickeder when Jason, Colin, and Summer witness their seductive neighbor, played by Lauren Holly, feeding two locals to her undead husband and kids.  Realizing their own potential fate – ending up as a full course meal, the kids must work together to bash in several zombie skulls and save themselves from the neighbor’s morbid family. Jason, Colin, and his family prepare themselves for an attack and plan to get away from the area alive.

Dead Shack delivers what horror fans want – bloodthirsty eating zombies and more blood, and even more splashing blood.  Adding to the bloodbath are genuine performances from the cast. The comedy touch keeps the story moving. The story comes across well and Nelson-Mahood is excellent as Jason, a shy teenage boy. LaBelle is good at being Colin who is more outgoing than Jason.

The Blu-ray comes with Special Features that include Dead Shack Behind the Scenes and Dead Shack trailer.