You can write fiction to include historical figures like King Leopold II of Belgium or Samuel L. Jackson’s George Washington Williams character.    Williams was a real-life Civil War soldier, Baptist minister, historian, politician, lawyer, and journalist who died in his 40s.

I went to a movie theater to see this movie because I like Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgaard as an actor.   I first saw him in the HBO television series “True Blood” when he portrayed the vampire sheriff. 

Over 200 films have featured author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character, a white orphan raised by apes in the African jungle.   A multitude of different white men have played as Tarzan since 1918, either in the flesh or in voiceovers.   I had seen all of the Johnny Weissmuller movies in which Johnny portrayed the fictional Tarzan, Lord Greystoke.   Weismuller was a 5-time Olympic gold medalist who made 12 Tarzan movies beginning in 1932.  For decades, Tarzan was Hollywood’s biggest foreign export.   In the 1966 NBC series, Ron Ely did his own stunts in his portrayal of Tarzan and ended up with lion bites and broken bones.  

What I didn’t like about the Tarzan character as I was growing up was that Africans were always portrayed as big-eyed and hopping around comically, always earning Tarzan’s vengeance or salvation.  The name Tarzan literally meant “White Skin”.   I also noticed that not all of the Tarzans were comfortable walking around in a loincloth whether in movies or television shows.

The Legend of Tarzan is the best of all the Tarzan movies.  It was made to reflect what is going on in the world today.  “For the first time in the franchise, black lives matter.”  There are many things I liked about this movie:

1. The romance between Tarzan and Jane was different than in the Weismuller movies.  Jane (Australian Margot Robbie) was portrayed as Tarzan’s equal in many ways.
2. Skarsgaard, being tall and lean, built up a lot of muscles for the movie.
3. There was a dignified portrayal of African tribes made up of brave and intelligent men and women which is our history.
4. In the movie, Tarzan seemed to be ashamed to be thought of as the book character published at that time and only seemed to relate to children as Tarzan. 
5. The poignant part of the story of a younger Tarzan killing a chief’s son because the young tribesman killed Tarzan’s ape “mother” and the chief (played by Benin-born Djimon Hounsou) grieved and swore revenge over the loss of his son, resulting in his giving Leopold’s cause a box full of diamonds.
6. The villainous Captain Leon Rom, played by Austrian Christophe Waltz, traded Tarzan for diamonds for King Leopold, “ruler” over the Congo.
7. The CGI special effects, especially of the gorillas and other animals, were perfect.
8. And, of course, Samuel L. Jackson, played George Washington Williams, who convinced fictional Tarzan to come out of retirement to help prove the slavery situation in Africa’s Belgian Congo which Williams actually promoted in letters.  

This movie, The Legend of Tarzan, was directed by David Yates, and written by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer.   The movie cost $180 million to make and earned $356.7 million at the box office.

Sources noted in the articles below:

Keegan, Rebecca, Los Angeles Times Movies, “Can You Make a Non-racist Tarzan Movie?” latimes.com, July 1, 2016.

Price, Lydia, “15 Hunky Actors Who’ve Played Tarzan Throughout the Years”, https://people.com, June 30, 2016.

Bady, Aron, “The Only Good Tarzan is a Bad Tarzan”, Pacific Standard, July 8, 2016.

Hughey, Matthew.  The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption.   Temple University Press.  2014.

Hochschild, Adam.  King Leopold’s Ghost:  A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.  Mariner Books, 1998.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

In 1986, I buried my father without shedding a tear for him.  He seemed a nice man, but he was always distant, like he didn’t belong in this family with six kids.  But, one day, a year later, I was walking across the President Street open-air parking lot at the Harbor.   A man walked past me smoking a pipe, and right away, I was in full cry mode for my father who smoked a pipe and cigars.  I cried for a full block.

This type of thing is sort of what Collateral Beauty is about.   The phrase “Remember the Collateral Beauty” is a line spoken in the movie a few times.

Howard, a working, inspiring, idea-filled, and happy man (played by Will Smith) co-partnered with Whit (played by Edward Norton) at a non-Madison Avenue ad agency.  The major officers of the company were Claire (played by Kate Winslet) and Simon (played by Michael Peña).   Howard is 60/40 with Whit in the partnership.

But, as soon as his six-year-old daughter dies, he loses every interest he ever had in life except riding his bike and building things with dominoes all day at work instead of working.   The partnership, his wife, talking, and, even eating no longer mattered to him.

Howard’s colleague-friends devise an ingenious plan to try to reach him and bring their dying company back to life.   They hire a detective and three actors to confront him about love, time, and death—his three stratagems that move people to buy products.

The acting was top shelf by everyone.  However, three characters stood out to me.   Time/Raffi was played by young actor, Jacob Lattimore (The Maze Runner).  He was refreshing and strong.   The investigator, Sally, was played by Ann Dowd (The Leftovers) whom I’ve seen in a number of roles.  Although she was behind the scenes in practically every scene, she was great in what her character was allowed to say.   Simon was played by Michael Peña (Antman I & 2, Battle: Los Angeles, A Wrinkle in Time, Gone in 60 Seconds, My Fellow Americans).   It was wonderful to see him in another dramatic role.

This movie, Collateral Beauty, was perfect for Will Smith (7 Pounds, The Pursuit of Happyness, I am Legend, Suicide Squad, Hitch, Men in Black, etc.), Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect, Red 1 & 2, Winchester, The Nutcracker and The Four Realms, Calendar Girls, The Leisure Seeker, Hitchcock), Edward Norton (The Illusionist, Red Dragon, The Grand Budapest Hotel, American History X, The Painted Veil), Keira Knightley (Love Actually, Colette, The Nutcracker and The Four Realms, several Pirates of the Caribbean movies), Kate Winslet (Titanic, Love Actually, Divergent, The Holiday, Sense and Sensibility), and Naomie Harris (28 Days Later, a few Pirates of the Caribbean movies).*   

There were unexpected twists and turns, especially at the end.   Also, there were many sad parts, but the movie was heart-warming, not depressing.    I wish I had seen this movie on the big screen but thank God for the library’s DVD service.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

*Movies mentioned are movies I have actually seen

The worst part was the terrible comical werewolf mask that made up the “old” werewolf (Brion James) who infected a Mom (Jeanne Bates).  The werewolf looked more like a comic version of a vampire.   Creating a more realistic mask would have added more horror to the movie.   Other than that, the acting was great for a movie of its type:  horror/comedy.  

A “guy” comes to a mother’s door answering an ad for a room.   It turns out that he’s a werewolf.   Mom is extremely naïve, because he posed as a blind man which creeped me out, but it didn’t creep Mom out at all.

Her son (Mark Thomas Miller) was a newsman who visited his Mom often especially after finding out that she was killing people because she was a werewolf.   So, her son decides to keep her locked up in her own room in her own house to protect her from herself.   Her son asked a doctor to come to his Mom’s house to examine her, but Mom buried the doctor in the back yard like a bone.  

Mom had a daughter who was very well-to-do and lived out of state.    But her daughter never visited and sent Mom a pair of dime-store slippers once a year.  The one time her daughter visited, her Mom ate her.

However, Mom did not kill her pregnant daughter-in-law nor her son who each treated Mom with the respect a good mother deserves.   I did like the idea of a good Mom kicking ass, but a few innocent people getting killed goes with the territory.

Director was Patrick Rand.   The writers were Patrick Rand and Kevin Watson.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

On Saturday, December 22, 2018, I saw the Aquaman movie in 3D at the Security Mall AMC theatre at the 7:30 p.m. show.  I was charged $15.49 which I thought was a bit much, but I felt it would be worth it to see Jason Momoa’s animal magnetism on the big screen.

I never saw Jason on “Baywatch”, but I did see him as the villainous werewolf in the movie “Wolves”.    Filmmakers did not pretty him up as movie leading men are prone to be.    In close-ups, he looks like a seafaring guy with lines in his face that could have come from working in the sun and wind.

Jason is not a pretty boy, but a gritty man on the order of a Charles Bronson-type who commands the screen when he’s on it.   Even without the hair, he would still look like he could kick ass and take names later.

Arthur Joseph Curry (played by Jason Momoa) didn’t start out as Aquaman.   He was just a fun-loving average guy who enjoyed fishing and guzzling gigantic beers with his lighthouse dad (played by Temuera Morrison).   Despite kids teasing him as he grew up because of his ability to communicate with sea life and his special abilities in water, he was always rescuing people who were in trouble in the water.   Otherwise, he just wanted to live an ordinary life.

But he’s no ordinary guy because of his mother.   However, his human father never told him about his inhuman powerful mother Atlanna who was queen of Atlantis (played by Nicole Kidman).   She was forced into a loveless marriage with the then-current sea king and left her lighthouse keeper/sweetheart to protect her human baby.

The queen’s legitimate heir to her throne and Arthur’s inhuman step brother, King Orm or Ocean Master (played by Patrick Wilson) starts a war with humankind because of humans polluting the oceans he says.   But it seems to me that he just wanted everybody to recognize him as king.    He uses fear tactics to bully all the other sea peoples into war with the land humans.   Some of the nonhuman beings under the sea resembled the mythical traditional mermen/women with fish tails while the rest were walking on legs like humans and they all could live and breathe underwater.

A great scene was when the sea creatures brought all the pollution and trash back to the coasts so that humans could see how much they have polluted the oceans.

Arthur’s advisor as he grew up human was Nuidis Vulko, (played by Willem Dafoe), who trained him in the skills he would someday need as king of the sea.

Mera is Vulko’s powerful daughter (played by Amber Heard) who comes to Arthur for help to stop the coming war between sea creatures and land humans.   He wants no part of this war but is forced into it by his step brother harming humans.   Mera is aloof at first because she doesn’t know Arthur.   All she knows is what her father has told her about him.   Arthur becomes Aquaman after he passes the test of retrieving the royal trident that no one else could do as well as saves his mom’s life with Mera’s help.

Director James Wan did a great job of getting that story told as a love and action story.   He pulls it all together so it’s full of fast-paced action and no way boring.

The actors make you believe they are underwater, and it doesn’t hurt for the special effects to make their hair move in water every time they are supposed to be in water.   You can tell a ginormous amount of money was spent on the special effects for this movie.   The visualization was done by a multitude of companies including Lucasfilm.   The powerful drum-busting music was wonderful throughout the movie.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Fifty Shades of Grey is a version of the Cinderella story, two people who would not have been exposed to each other except by coincidence.   Ana (Cinderella) filled in for her sick roommate/school editor and physically fell in front of the interviewee, Christian (the Prince).

Christian Grey!  Shades of S&M (Sadomasochism).  Your Dominant probably saved your sanity, your self-worth, etc. in your damaged youth.  You also knew what it meant to be a Submissive.  You’ve had so many women and were overly experienced in sex but emotionally unavailable.  You are attracted to Anastasia’s innocence.  Your immaturity shows in your jealousy toward any other male who wanted to even talk to Anastasia—and this was before you even had sex with her.  Every time you revealed something personal to her about yourself, you reverted to a little boy who was abused by your mother’s drug addict friends.  You even walked like a little boy.   When you asked Ana, “What are you doing to me?”, it’s obvious that with this woman you were nearly ready to change.  As with any addiction, change is painful.  For a man who didn’t do romance, you had a strange way of showing it with all the trips and gifts you were showering on her to attempt to persuade her to fulfill the contract.

Anastasia Steele!  You were a young woman totally inexperienced in sex but emotionally available.  You had male and female college friends.   However, you weren’t attracted to your male friends, but were attracted to Grey who tried to put you at ease in the interview for your college newspaper you conducted for your female roommate who had the flu.   Your immediate objectives lay in your upcoming finals and graduating.   Would you, the damsel who was not in distress, save the “knight” who was?  When Christian asked, “Do you trust me?”, of course, you said “yes” because you wanted what you thought he should have been able to give emotionally.  Every woman wants to have sex with a man who knows how to do it right (or is at least teachable) when he allows himself to be so.

I saw the movie in a movie theatre in 2015—one of the few times I’ve gone to movie theaters.   I believe the movie will become a classic in the adult genre.   There is nothing wrong with having a classic under your belt, although it’s certainly not a love story in the usual sense.   I just finished reading all three books:  Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed.   I will write a review of them later.

The movie begged for a sequel.   So many things were not fully addressed in the first movie.  I begged Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson to do the sequel.  I hoped also that the screenwriters would outdo the first movie in their sequel.   The soundtrack was stupendous, especially Annie Lennox’s version of the song “I put a spell on you” which began the movie!   Thank you, author E. L. James!

Admit it, fellow kinks—you came for the sex, and either the potential love story kept you there or the intensity of the little bit of “torture” made you walk out (as some critics say they did)!

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

 

Catherine Deneuve is a French actress who has played in a lot of R-rated movies.   The movie, Belle de Jour, is French and subtitled in English.   She usually played one of the aloof, cool, mysterious blondes like Alfred Hitchcock’s Grace Kelly or Tipi Hedron.

In Belle de Jour, Catherine’s character, Belle ne’ Severine, married a successful surgeon, but constantly fantasized about sex.   Catherine’s character acted frigid and her husband (Jean Sorel) didn’t force the issue.   What would have made the movie more interesting was if it had been explained why she didn’t desire her new “Prince Charming”-like wealthy doctor husband.   Thus, the marriage was never consummated.

But, she got hired at a local brothel where she gave up her treasure to diverse strange men and was quite happy during the day while her husband was at work.   The movie ends in near-tragedy, but not in the way you would think.  Individuals can’t necessarily live out every fantasy they can think up.  But, I liked the movie because I like adult fantasy movies, and I don’t remember seeing any nudity.

Catherine Deneuve played in a vampire movie that I liked called The Hunger, with David Bowie who acted as well as sang the theme song of the movie.   Of her movies that I have seen, the one I didn’t like was the half of the musical, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, that I watched.

“Belle de Jour Author [Dr.] Brooke Magnanti Insists She was a Call Girl”, https://www.telegraph.co.uk. The doctor had a blog before she wrote the book and had the successful television show, “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” produced.

On January 10, 2018, www.usatoday.com issued a video about Catherine Deneuve and 100 other women, including female writers, performers, and academicians, who put an article in the French publication Lamonde, denouncing the #MeToo movement as puritanical and fueled by hatred of men, following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.    She classified what happened to the women as flirting.

But, Catherine, there is a huge difference between flirting, molestation, and rape.   I am sure there are men supporting the #MeToo movement, also.   Catherine Deneuve has worked with various directors such as Francois Truffaut, Luis Bunuel, and Roman Polanski.   And, remember, Roman Polanski fled the United States in 1978 because he was wanted for rape.   Instead of “Where’s Waldo?”, officials should be searching for Roman.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin