johnfox-56042 Reviews

Ronny & i (2013)

Do yourself a favor and watch "Ronny & I"

[9/10 · 13 March 2018]

Do yourself a favor and watch "Ronny & I".

I am now 95 years old, and counting. I have served as a U.S. Navy commissioned officer in four wars, declared and undeclared, and have done so as a career intelligence officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and as the captain of a U.S. Navy combat ship while in active shooting combat - the single most rewarding privileged time that I have spent in my life. I have accumulated enough academic degrees to gag a goat. And I consider myself to be of the same school of Realpolitik as - god help me - Dr. Henry Kissinger. Which is to say I am old; I am experienced in riding the ups and downs of the vicissitudes of life; I have been riddled in combat sufficiently enough to be declared entirely dead twice; and I am no longer young and foolish, or an untrammeled youthful romantic. So when those bad memories come flooding back as they do from time-to-time, I watch yet again "Ronny & I" (2013) and then I am instantly rejuvenated back to my old resilient self, the same old resilient self that has served me so well in life.

Consequently may I be permitted to recommend to you to spend those few fleeting minutes watching "Ronny & I" as I frequently do and maybe, just maybe you too will emerge feeling rejuvenated as I do, time and time again.

Parenthetically, may I also be permitted to encourage anyone who regards "Ronny & I" to be "Unrealistic garbage" to seek out whatever exquisite punishment that they so richly deserve. And then do it again.

"Ronny & I" gets my well-deserved IMDb 8.5, or rounding up, my IMDb 9.

Shed My Skin (2015 TV Movie)

IMDb rating of 8, for all the right reasons

[8/10 · 18 September 2017]

"Shed My Skin", or "Aus der Haut", is an excellent movie, number 2,799 in my personal digital library.

I give "Shed My Skin" an IMDb rating of 8.0.

However, after reading the reviews of "Shed My Skin" in IMDb, I must wonder if I viewed the same film as the two fellow reviewers currently listed as of this writing. So, being a reasonable fellow, I enlisted the attendance of two native Germans originally from Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, to sit with me in my second viewing in order to critique my critique and thereby keep me honest. Incidentally, both of these fellows graduated from Heidelberg University with multiple advanced graduate degrees, and both of these fellows are probably still employed by The Federal Intelligence Service or in German the Bundesnachrichtendienst ( BND), the foreign intelligence agency of Germany equivalent to the CIA, directly subordinated to the German Chancellor's Office in Berlin, and therefore I must assume that they are not idiots. But they are gay, and they have been a couple together from their gymnasium days in Saxony-Anhalt.

As a retired career U.S. Navy intelligence officer age 94, I never inquire too closely into the current employment status of former and or current intelligence officers from any country.

I asked this pair to view this film after determining that neither had seen or even knew about "Aus der Haut" before my invitation, but I suspected that the story contained within this movie mirrored their own personal history during their gymnasium studies, given that they are of the same age and I knew that they have been together since those tender years. As it turned out, I was right. In spades.

In a nutshell, both of my young visiting friends and the young movie protagonists had the same unequal social-economic status as adolescents, both had enlightened and ultimately supportive families consisting of one or two parents, both were bright and creative, and both of these completely decent and wholly honorable guys were then struggling with the problems attending their being gay and being in love. With each other. Although, as in the movie, both dealt with these matters in very different ways, indeed.

Over a long evening the three of us ended up viewing "Shed My Skin" twice, focusing on casting, script, action staging, directing, and the usual technical aspects of successful moving-making. At the end of which my friends wanted to assign an IMDb rating of 10 to the movie, but out of prudent moderation and my personal recognition that they were unduly enthused by seeing what they saw as a cinema-graphic retelling of their personal teenage lives, I demurred with an IMDb rating of 8.

Parenthetically, I am fluent in German, as well as in several other languages, and both of my guests are fluent in English, as well as in many other languages, so we all agreed that the downloaded subtitles were quite adequate. And the three of us all agreed that the other two IMDb reviewers needed to have their heads examined.

May I be permitted to respectfully recommend that you see "Shed My Skin" or "Aus der Haut"?

Before the Fall (I) (2016)

Excellent: Subtle and Sophisticated Rendering

[7/10 · 20 June 2017]

I am 94 years old, born in 1923. In 1938, at the age of 15, I entered a major Ivy League university, graduating in 1941, something of a record at that time. On December 11, 1941, at 18 years of age, I joined the U.S. Navy because I was angry about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Because of my talent, education, personal ambition, and considerable political pull, I received a commission in the U.S. Navy, being assigned to Naval Intelligence. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and thereafter saw me retire at the rank of Naval Captain. Through it all, twice I was shot up pretty good, and twice I was told by doctors -- in effect -- that I was a hard man to kill, followed of course by what we would now call PTSD and very bad memories, but not to forget those endlessly repeated very bad dreams experienced to this day.

The good news is that you seldom find a senior career intelligence officer and combat ship captain in retirement who is poor. The skills, experience, knowledge and insights acquired, and priceless personal contacts thereby garnered frequently transfer favorably to the world of business.

Which brings me to "Before the Fall" (2016), written and directed by Byrum Geisler.

Ah yes, my marriage. Strip away the time frame, the civilian dress, the historical peculiarities, and especially the lack of reference to war, to killing, and to the absence of marshal mayhem generally and the eventually righted miscarriage of UCMJ justice that I personally engineered out of a sense of simple justice and out of my passionate, my absolute consuming interest in the object of my desire, you will find the accurate beginning of the latticework of my life-long love affair, who unhappily died before I did.

The clown responsible for the UCMJ miscarriage of justice was eventually keelhauled by the Navy in a fashion similar to the tender mercies of the Virginia state bar as described in "Before the Fall". To my complete satisfaction.

I salute Mr. Geisler and his crew and staff for their subtle and sophisticated rendering of a slice of life drawn, in my opinion, and especially in my experience from real life, gay or straight.

Or gay AND straight, because from this movie, both apply.

Parenthetically, the cinematography is excellent.

I give this fine movie an IMDb rating of 7.0.

Retake (2016)

Retake mirrors real life

[8/10 · 21 March 2017]

I am now 93 years old, and counting. I have outlived all of the people that I have known in my prime, so at this point in my personal odyssey I feel empowered to comment on men that I have known well over the years, since now they are all safely dead.

Which brings me to "Retake" (2016).

First of all, I agree in all respects with the only two reviewers currently listed as of this date in the "Retake" comments section. Where I expand on the other two reviewers' comments is that I have known personally three men who -- over time -- did what the character Jonathan (Tuc Watkins) did in Retake, and more importantly, I have know personally two of the three men who did what the character Brandon / Adam (Devon Graye) did in Retake.

The three real-life Jonathans that I have known tried to recreate the emotionally charged special events that they had enjoyed on their road trips from New York City toward the West Coast with their young lovers in the early 1960s, 1980s, and early 1990s, respectively. And a Polaroid camera was confirmed to be present in at least two of the three road trips.

All three real-life young lovers died of drug overdoses. All three real-life Jonathans later rented young men who looked similar to their respective dead lovers to play-act their way through a later parallel road trip in their ultimately failed attempts to relive their respective emotional highs, and all three coincidentally traveled from New York via the classic Route 66 highway. I know all of this because I was asked to clean up the various messes that my three Jonathans left in their wakes, which I did in the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s, retraveling the still classic Route 66, or its remains.

But for me, the weird, even eerie parallels with the movie Retake is that my three Jonathans were unsettlingly similar to the portrayed character Johathan, and my two personally known Brandons / Adams were virtually identical to the character so beautifully and skillfully played by Devon Graye (Devon Graye Fleming). The personally unsettling, definitely eerie, and almost identical behavior displayed by Devon Graye was later confirmed with the two now-not-so-young men rented years before, neither of whom had seen Retake before I recently approached them and supplied them with DVDs of Retake to confirm my conclusions. Which both emphatically did. And both were suitably amazed, as I was.

Yes, the movie Retake is not perfect, but it definitely is A MUST SEE. And please permit me to conclude, as one of the earlier reviewers did: "Overall, the picture is an example of well executed independent film that delivers something we lack in today's American cinema ‑ a REAL people's story."

Parenthetically, I wonder if the director of "Retake", Nick Corporon, personally knew or knew of any of the six real-life people in question.

Godless (2015)

Godless is a clear "10"

[10/10 · 5 March 2017]

The only movie that I have recently enjoyed as much as "Godless" (2015) is "Akron" (2015), which I recently reviewed on IMDb. Being addicted to happy endings, naturally I would like both movies - even though both are very different in look and pacing and place, but absolutely not different in their positive emotional impact.

Godless is movie number 2,734 in my personal movie library; Akron is 2,731. And while I seldom ride consciously on the coattails of another writer or reviewer, I must agree almost completely with my fellow reviewer of "Godless" who stated in part, "Craig Jordan as Nate is the most redeeming feature of the movie," although all of the performances in "Godless" are on the money. Period. Full stop. So I salute absolutely Craig Jordan and Michael E. Pitts, but also notably Garrett Young, from whom I hope to see much, much more.

My sole abjection to the previous review is related to pacing, described elsewhere as "DEADLY SLOW!". In my opinion, given the characters, plot, setting, cinematographic circumstances, and obvious directorial intent, the pacing of "Godless" is indeed slow, but the pacing of "Godless" is pure directorial genius, in my opinion.

With the mandatory caveat that I do not do this very often, I give "Godless" the IMDd rating of 10.

As a postscript, my long-time neighbor in what he calls "our sleepy Beverly Hills" has had an especially rewarding and lucrative career in the movie-making business hereabouts. So when I supplied him with a DVD of "Godless" and asked for his informed opinion about the totality of the production, the next evening he came over and said "first rate" and "top drawer" and agreed with my opinion of Joshua Lim's directorial genius. He also said that "Godless" is a jewel of a movie. And then he asked if I understood how hard it is for an actor to perform the understated character of Trent in the production, and how completely Garrett Young had precisely nailed all of the nuances of Trent. Of course I had to agree that Garrett Young was outstanding in his performance, and that I too hoped to see much more of him

Akron (2015)

Excellent acting, script, direction, and emotional impact

[10/10 · 3 March 2017]

As of this writing, I have 2,371 movies in my library. And while having and having watched repeatedly many of the 2,371 movies in my library, I am not a professional movie reviewer. But I believe that I do have an informed opinion about what is good and what is not good in movies overall.

The number of low and lowest ratings that some gave "Akron" (2015) surprised me, in part because I have given "Akron" a "10". So when I was recently visiting relations in Akron, Ohio, I asked several of my Latino relations about the allegations that a heavily Latino local church may have organized a number of the church's congregants to write IMDb for the purpose of slamming Akron (2015) because Matthew Frias was Latino and had competently played a gay young man in a very favorable light, within a story line that was very favorable to a gay love affair.

One of my relations turned out to be one of the church congregants who participated in this fraud, and then happily detailed just how this fraud on IMDb was orchestrated within the church itself. This relation stated that apparently none of the congregants had actually watched "Akron" or Matthew Frias, or if they had, they had only done so for a few minutes.

The moral of this is very simple, as far as I can see. Be very careful when using the ratings assigned to movies that some might find politically charged. And be very, very careful when religious groups target movies like "Akron" (2015) for whatever reason.

"Akron" (2015) deserves a "10" rating for all of the right cinematic reasons.