Q-Tips Reviews

Honey Boy –  From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father through cinema and dreams. Fictionalizing his childhood ascent to stardom, and subsequent adult crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Har’el casts Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges as Otis Lort, navigating different stages in a frenetic career. LaBeouf takes on the daring and therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Artist and musician FKA twigs makes her feature acting debut, playing neighbor and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as therapy and imagination as hope.

Q-tips say: Was just ok. A little disjointed and sometimes there was mumbling. Rent/stream another better movie.

American Factory –   In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.  

Q-tips say:   Billionaire from “communist” China buys former GM plant and pays workers less than what McDonald’s pays. Evidence that capitalism victimizes workers across the planet.  Race relations seem to be a recurring theme, but one the filmmakers refuse to address head-on.

THE FAREWELL –  The film follows a Chinese family who, when they discover their beloved Grandmother has only a short while left to live, decide to keep her in the dark and schedule an impromptu wedding to gather before she passes. Billi, feeling like a fish out of water in her home country, struggles with the family’s decision to hide the truth from her grandmother.

Q-tips say: We liked it. Mrs. Q says: One of the better movies I have seen recently.  Until the closing shot, this is a celebration of Asian actors, traditions, and relationships.   You have to love that Grandmother.

I SEE YOU –   When a 12-year-old boy goes missing, lead investigator Greg Harper (Jon Tenney) struggles to balance the pressure of the investigation and troubles with his wife, Jackie (Helen Hunt). Facing a recent affair, great strain is put on the family that slowly gnaws away at Jackie’s grip on reality. But after a malicious presence manifests itself in their home and puts their son, Connor (Judah Lewis), in mortal danger, the cold, hard truth about evil in the Harper household is finally uncovered.

Q-tips say:  Was just ok.  A twisty and eerie crime thriller. The frog mask is nightmarish.  Problem is that the film makes almost no effort to establish the characters of the family, or to ground the backstory of the serial abductor. Mrs. thought it was a certain person for many reasons and was correct.

PARASITE –  Meet the Park Family: the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist, to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide “indispensable” luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims’ newfound comfort, a savage, underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the Kims and the Parks.  There are subtitles for you to understand and enjoy.

Q-tips say:  A movie about the poor & rich. The Obama’s production co. did this movie. The other half liked it.  Mrs. Q did not. Since when is it ok to kill just to get what you want whether you are rich or poor?

Marriage Story –   A stage director and his actor wife struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal and creative extremes.  

Q-tips say: Was good but long. A story about the trials and tribulations of divorce and custody battles, is really nothing we haven’t seen before.

Mrs. Q says: The most entertaining characters are the two lawyers … they’re both just awful and they’re in it for themselves … I would watch an entire film or series just about the  lawyers going at each other.

Live Twice Love Once –  Emilio searches for the great love of his youth, with the help of his daughter and granddaughter. Will he be able to reconnect with this lost love before his memory fails?

Q – tips say: Was OK – enjoyed it.  Drama about facing Alzheimer’s.  Need to know: that Live Twice, Love Once is a Spanish-language film set in and around Valencia, Spain. It’s a dramatic story, incorporating comedy and irony, about a university mathematics professor after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. As the retired professor’s condition worsens, his relationship with his exasperating but well-meaning daughter and his own awareness of what is to come send him on a journey to find an early love that he’s never forgotten. Some profanity is included, mostly “f–k,” often uttered by a precocious 11-year-old. While there’s no sexuality, infidelity plays a role in the story. Wine is consumed in social settings; some drunkenness occurs at a boisterous wedding. For English-speaking audiences, the film is available on Netflix, either translated (dubbed) into English or with English subtitles.

TROOP ZERO – In rural 1977 Georgia, a misfit girl (Mckenna Grace) dreams of life in outer space. When a national competition offers her a chance at her dream, to be recorded on NASA’s Golden Record, she recruits a makeshift troop of Birdie Scouts, forging friendships that last a lifetime and beyond. NOTE: PG (for thematic elements, language, and smoking throughout.)

Q-tips say: We did like it.   The movie offers a lovely message of self-worth that makes the picture mandatory viewing for pre-teen audiences.