We Are the Best! Movie Review

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson went a little dark after his light and free-wheeling feature debut Together, one of my favorite movies from 2001. He came back last year with We Are the Best, another film similar in tone and just as light on its feet. It’s amazing to see a director as comfortable dealing with high energy electrifying characters as he is with moody depression. In his latest he tells an adorable story, adapted from his wife Coco’s comic book about three young girls in Stockholm in the early eighties trying to stand out as punks. The punk movement was on its way out by then and of course girls weren’t supposed to care. But Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and her best friend Klara (Mira Grosin) are the school’s outliers, two kids who spike their short hair and dress alternatively. And they catch hell for it from their peers.

Searching for Sugar Man Movie Review

Have you ever heard of the folk singer from the early 70’s known as Rodriguez? He released two albums back-to-back. His record producers also worked with such well-known and esteemed acts as Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, and other big Motown hits of the era. That’s because Rodriguez was based in Detroit and, well, any big record producer in Detroit in the early 70’s certainly worked with a big Motown act. Rodriguez sold half a million records, was nationally popular, and his music spearheaded a national political movement. You still say you’ve never heard of him? That’s because the only popularity he ever had was in South Africa. The president of the now-defunct record label that put out Rodriguez’s records says he probably sold about six copies in the U.S. No one associated with Rodriguez ever knew of his immense popularity in South Africa.

Mammoth Movie Review

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson makes films about the ways people need each other. His newest film, Mammoth, is more specifically about the ways children and parents need each other. Here is a director who is comfortable with vastly different tones while maintaining a similar approach and style. This isn’t as joyous and celebratory as Together and certainly not the depressing nihilism of Lilya 4-Ever, but it falls somewhere in between.

There is something of an Alejandro González Iñárritu influence here, with interconnected action that takes place in three places around the world (New York, Thailand, The Philippines). The casting of Gael García Bernal (star of Iñárritu’s Amores Perros) is perhaps an homage to that influence. Mammoth doesn’t have the heavy-handed serendipity found in the films of Iñárritu, but deals with the interconnectedness of the characters in a more restrained and natural way.