Green Book: Enjoy the Ride Along the Way to Redemption

Movie Review: Green Book (2018)
Version: Library Blue-Ray borrow

Green Book isn't an easy journey, for characters or viewers. It places tough bar bouncer "Tony Lip" Vallelonga (played by Viggo Mortensen) and delicate classical pianist Don Shirley (played by Mahershala Ali) on a long-winding road trip of self-discovery, mostly through the racist southern USA. You'll need thick skin to make it through, but it's worth the journey.

Tony is there because his work at a New York City bar is suspended for a while and it's good to stretch his legs on a long drive. Shirley is there to make a quiet statement. Neither is there for the other, initially, and the tension between the two is palpable as Tony struggles to protect and provide for the man he's signed on to serve, guided only by the Green Book guide for negroes who dare to travel in the segregated Deep South of the early 1960's United States. But as the two learn about each other's lives and the realities of appalling disparities of injustice, and their newfound respect for each other's talents and strengths, they take on the world together and finally become friends.

The picture painted is an ugly one. There is a gritty earthiness to this film that feeds into the reality of the times Green Book exposes. Be prepared for the long haul, because it takes till nearly the end of the film before there will be relief. And that's as it should be, because that's how long the struggle that is the theme of the film has taken.

Mortensen is an underrated actor who often takes on meaty roles, and Green Book is among his meatiest. Ali has been winning accolades for some time for his soulful portrayals in heavy-themed films, and this is among his most sensitive. Together, they make a powerful twosome on the long road to redemption an a subject desperately needing it. If we really pay attention, we enjoy the ride along the way.

Moonlight: An Important Story of Courage and Perseverance

Movie Review: Moonlight (2016)
Version: Library borrow

As complex and riveting a story as I have seen in a long time is Moonlight. It traces the story of a young African American gay man growing up on the rough streets of Miami. We see his difficult life as a bullied quiet "little" boy of around age 9, as an abused teen, and as a recovering adult. It is vague about his sexuality, although there is one explicit scene in his teen years when a close friend introduces him to gay sex on a lonely beach at night. Less vague are the scenes of motherly neglect as he is growing up and the abuse he receives as a weak male by other children when he is a boy and when is a teen, even receiving a beating on the playground, an act forced on his close friend by the other more aggressive teens.

The main character is Chiron, played at various ages by Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes. He is mentored as a child by a neighborhood drug dealer named Juan (played by Mahershala Ali) and given shelter by Juan's caring girlfriend Teresa (played by Janelle Monáe) when Chiron's mother Paula (played by Naomie Harris) sends him away so she can do drugs or be instead with her boyfriends. Later as a teen Chiron has no mentors, just the shelter of Teresa's home and the friendship of boyhood friend Kevin, played at various ages by Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, and André Holland. After his beating on the playground, usually weak teen Chiron has finally had enough and returns to class to take a chair to the back of the head of the main bully who brought on his beating, resulting in his arrest. We next find him on the streets of Miami as a drug dealer. It's been years since his beating, since getting out of jail, and Chiron has moved on and changed his life.

Out of the blue, Chiron gets a call from his old friend Kevin, the one who gave him the beating in the playground. He's wondering what he's been up to all these years. What's he up to now? And we find out how their two lives have changed. Kevin was Chiron's close friend, who shored him up when others were picking on him, who stood at his side until he was challenged by the stronger bullies to act out against Chiron. Now there is an implicit invitation for Chiron to visit Kevin in Atlanta and when Chiron drive up to see him out of the blue, there's another implicit invitation. Chiron has driven all the way there to see what it's all about. 

Everywhere in Chiron's life there is danger. There is betrayal (except for Juan and Teresa). There is abuse. We are always wondering where his life will turn. Even at the end, when there is a slight twist of fate, we wonder where Chiron's life will turn. 

Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar Award. It was promoted as being controversial because it was a daring movie about a Black homosexual. But having seen it, I would say it is less about that than it is about the abuse of the weak and the rise of the abused against horrific odds.

A good film, a daring film, a film exploring new ground in old territory, Moonlight is an important story of courage and perseverance in a difficult world. It's definitely worth seeing. 

Hidden Figures: An Entertaining, Emotional Journey With Important New Lessons

Movie Review: Hidden Figures (2016)
Version: Library Borrow

Sometimes a film is good because it's entertaining. Sometimes because it strikes an emotional chord. And sometimes because it teaches us important new lessons. Some films are good for all those reasons, and Hidden Figures is one of them.

Hidden Figures is historical fiction based very closely on fact. It's the story of a group of Black women, who served as human computers at the dawn of the electric computer age, and who worked at NASA at the dawn of the manned space program. It focuses particularly on three women who would become heroes in helping America launch the first men into space during the race for space dominance against the Soviet Union.

The scientists at NASA were all White males. They were top physicists and engineers in their fields, self-assured, and like any group of prima donas, unappreciative of help checking their work. But their work wasn't successfully launching rockets. The Soviets were beating the Americans at meeting milestones launching rockets, and the pressure was growing for America meet their pace if not surpass it.

In another building quite far away from where the scientists worked was an office for "Colored" workers -- Black women. They were known as "computers", although not the kind we're used to thinking of today. The kind we think of today were just in the beginning stages of development. Humans did the computing, the data processing and math -- often higher mathematics -- required to solve NASA's complex science challenges. There weren't White workers with the skills and talents to solve NASA's computing problems, but NASA increasingly learned that there were Black workers who could. And despite the color barriers of the time -- this takes place in the early 1960's -- these three Black women rose to the occasion to help lift NASA rockets off the ground, into orbit, with men on board, and safely back to the ground.

Hidden Figures is the uplifting story of these women, especially Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer), Katherine G. Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), and Mary Jackson (played by Janelle Monae), who struggled through bigotry, racism, and sexism, to crack the race and sex ceilings at NASA and help take America safely and successfully into space, finally to surpass the Soviets in the frontiers of space exploration. In the process, they would discover new math formulas, create new engineering solutions, and bring NASA into the modern computer age. This is an entertaining, emotional, life-lessons journey that will warm your heart and have you rooting for every underdog with a brilliant mind.

The acting performances are flawless, from Spencer, Henson, and Monae, who play not just smart women seeking the opportunity to fulfill their natural intellectual talents, but also as mothers and daughters and wives trying to live normal, everyday lives in 1960's America; to Kevin Costner, who plays the beleaguered NASA administrator under pressure to stave off the Soviet space threat and recognizes the equally damaging threat of bigotry and racism; to Kirsten Dunst, who plays the at first dismissive White talent-pool manager that comes to appreciate people for who they are, not who they appear to be; to Jim Parsons, far from his TV role as the brilliant but clueless Sheldon Cooper but now as a snobbish smart physicist who reluctantly turns his work over to a "Colored" woman to check his math and who is finally won over by Johnson's brilliance. Mahershala Ali and Aldis Hodge put in strong supporting performances as well.

There is much more about this film to admire as well. Set decoration is spot on for the era. Hair style and costume design are exemplary. The feel of the times fits perfectly, too, as anyone who lived in those times can attest. The script is well written and executed, bringing in humor not just to be funny but to make a point. The politics of the film isn't there to make a point but to make sense in the story line.

Hidden Figures was Oscar nominated for a reason. It is a well made film. Everything comes together with brilliance to finally tell the story of unsung American heroes of the space race, a race we could not have won without them. Bravo!