May 15th
Astronaut - new feature film
Afterlife - Series Netflix
This Ain't No Mouse Music - DocPlay
Lost in Translation - revisit - Foxtel film

My sadness continues - for the many deaths, illnesses, ongoing dramas, people struggling to make ends meet, and the stupidity of certain politicians who are still disputing, denying, self-aggrandising and creating more trouble than we already have.   So, lifting of restrictions - how have things really changed though? Yes we can gather in larger groups, but it just means we have to be all the more cautious. Hopefully not too many silly people will run amok and flout the restrictions, as if there were no pandemic. It's still with us, and we still have no cure or vaccine. To be really safe, stay at home and watch films. This week's selection is a slightly more uplifting bunch - we need it!!
P.S: I'm not giving my usual graded recommendations during this period - I'm only reviewing things I recommend!

Astronaut
Director: Shelagh McLeod
Length: 97 min
Available on FetchTV, Google Play, Foxtel Box Office, Apple TV

 © Filmink - Dreyfuss plays a loving grandpa, who

still has all his marbles

Only a few weeks ago I was talking about the young Richard Dreyfuss, then only 26 years old, in American Graffiti. Now in his 70s, he plays Angus, a retired civil engineer, who has always wanted to travel into space. When a raffle is held with the prize of that exact trip, despite his age, he enters. Yes, I know some reviewers are negative about a film like this, with its rather stereotyped view of old age (not Angus, but the other oldies in the retirement home). The film's denouement, no matter how realistically based on the Branson/Musk space-flight ambitions, also lacks a certain credibility and is too neat. However, there is MUCH to recommend this sweet, heart-warming film, not the least being the fabulous performance by its lead, and the lovely relationship created with grandson Barney (Richie Lawrence). Angus is a wonderfully inspiring character, as he proves old-age is not an impediment to being useful, or to having big dreams, which is a much-needed reminder in today's world. I chose to put aside the ultra-critic hat, and simply enjoyed it as a delightful, feel-good film.  

After Life
Director: Ricky Gervais
Length: 2 Series each 6 x 1/2 hour

Streaming on Netflix

 © Netflix - Tony meets Anne in the cemetery -

bittersweet scenes to warm the heart

Written and directed by, and starring Ricky Gervais, this series is something to be relished. Gervais plays Tony, a grieving widower, who is bereft without his beloved Lisa, and uses abrasiveness, sarcasm, hostility, and suicidal desires to fend off his emotional pain. He works at a regional newspaper, where the low-key stories and his fellow employees garner his contempt, an emotion Gervais does par excellence. I used to not like him, but after this show, I'm a convert. This is a winner of a series, with incisive scripting, dry humour, out-loud laughs, but underneath it all a surprisingly moving thread of compassion, and a universal resonance for the sadness and struggle in so many of our lives. Penelope Wilton is terrific in her small role as Anne, also bereaved, but the entire cast is the perfect accompaniment to Gervais's brilliant creation. 

This Ain't No Mouse Music
2013
Director: Maureen Gosling, Chris Simon
Length: 92 min
Streaming on DOCPlay: https://www.docplay.com

© DOCPlay - heaven for music fans

Chris Strachwitz, a child refugee from Nazi Germany, has spent his life tracking down blues/roots and other traditional American music genres, recording it, and celebrating it. Chris founded Arhoolie Records, and helped bring so much previously unknown American music into people's living rooms. From down south blues (with Lightnin' Hopkins and other icons), through to Tex Mex, Cajun and Zydeco from Louisiana, New Orleans Jazz, and Appalachian bluegrass, there is an abundance of great music to be enjoyed, along with a plethora of fascinating observations and interviews with aficianados (musicians themselves) like Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. This film won three various audience awards, and I can see why. For lovers of music, this is an absolute treat, and the word uplifting an understatement. (What is "mouse music" by the way? See the film and find out!)

Lost in Translation

Director: Sofia Coppola

Length: 102 min
2003

Available on Foxtel

 © Murray and Johanssson are perfect together

What a list of creds this film has, among them Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Screenplay in the 2004 Golden Globes, and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Low-key and understated is the name of the game in this sad, sublime story of faded movie actor Bob Harris (Bill Murray), in Tokyo for an advertising shoot for Suntory whisky. At the same hotel is Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), young wife of trendy photographer John (Giovanni Ribisi), who is always too busy to barely notice his lonely wife. Despite the age gap, Charlotte and Bob seem to click together, and what happens I'm not telling, except to say it may not be as you'd imagine. This film is replete with yearning, regret, existential loneliness and the sort of emotions one can often not express. This is set against a backdrop of a wryly amusing Japanese society, where translators seem unable to communicate effectively, and where quirkiness comes up against tradition. There is so much deep poignancy in this film, such a palpable sense of "what if", it brought me to tears, and I was thrilled to revisit it.