Film Review: Thirteen Lives

                         Thirteen Lives

In 2018, the coach and 12 members of a boys’ soccer team called the Wild Boars were trapped while climbing in a famous system of underground caves in Thailand when a monsoon flooded the caves.

The word went out, attracting the Thai Navy Seals and other volunteers from all over the world. 

“Thirteen Lives” is Director Ron Howard’s filmed account of that harrowing but ultimately heroic and definitely historic event.

Howard dips into the politics of the situation, but ultimately credits local authorities with accepting all international volunteers, concentrating on three Brits with extensive experience in underwater rescue.

Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen play John Volanthen and Rick Stanton, who arrive first, assess the situation and plan the effort. These two experienced divers find the team – all alive and very hungry – but then must figure out how to get them to the entrance of the cave, some distance away.

Stanton suggests something that sounds insane. To avoid panic and possible drowning, he suggests they bring another Brit – anesthesiologist Richard “Harry” Harris (Joel Edgerton) – to sedate the boys and then float their sleeping bodies to the cave’s entrance, periodically topping off the anesthesia. It sounds like the plot of a crazy sci-fi movie. 

As the water level rises, the local authorities realize that rain must somehow be diverted from the caves to the surrounding fields as a survival technique. Unfortunately, this will flood the farmlands and farmers will lose their crops. But they agree to do what must be done.

One thing I like about Howard is the way he sets up shooting. His films are always good to watch, and this is no exception, adding the human dimension of anxious family members, worriedly waiting at the caves’ entrance for word of their loved ones.

It helps, too, that none of the actors are playing star here; all are in documentary mode.

Howard had his own problems with this story. Filmed during the pandemic, some of it was done on Zoom and blue screen was used for some other parts. But the whole makes for a fascinating film.

"The Thirteen" is streaming on Prime Video.

Theater Review: Dial M for Murder

 

      John Tufts as Inspector Hubbard, Ruibo Qian as Maxine Hadley, Kate Abbruzzese as Margo Wendice and Nathan Darrow as Tony Wendice in "Dial M for Murder."  Photo by Jim Cox.

Not many writers dare to take a widely loved Hitchcock film and rewrite it for the stage. Jeffrey Hatcher is one of them. 

On commission from The Old Globe, Hatcher has taken Frederick Knott’s “Dial M for Murder” – a staple in the 1950s Hitchcock oeuvre – and rewritten and updated it as a wondrously fun play which has just opened at the Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre.

You remember the plot: Tony Wendice assured himself a nice flat in London and a comfortable life by marrying a rich woman named Margot. When he finds out she is having an affair with mystery writer Maxine Hadley, Tony plots to kill his wife. Meanwhile, Margot is trying to figure out how she and Maxine can carry on without Tony getting too uppity about it.

Fake blackmail letters are written, murder plots are hatched and discarded, the local Inspector gets involved, lots of keys are involved, people run on and offstage and the whole is a hilariously delightful exercise in attempted murder. Until somebody gets killed.

Ryan Park’s 1950’s-inspired costumes make both Kate Abbruzzese (as Margot) and Ruibo Qian (as Maxine) look like fashion models. I wanted to go down and grab one of those outfits.

Which brings up the fun of a show in the White: the in-the-round situation makes it almost seem that the audience is involved. That’s even more fun when you’re watching all the possible “whos” in this inspired whodunit.

Anna Louizo’s set design is perfect – uncluttered so everyone can see (it is, after all, a fairly posh place), with just enough places to hold odd things. 

The lighting (Amada Sieve) and sound (Leon Rothenberg) are extraordinary and perfect for the show. At one point Sieve encircles the entire playing space with red lights, and strange sounds are heard offstage now and again.

Director Stafford Arima has assembled a terrific cast for this exercise. Abbruzzese and Qian are utterly believable as Margot, a wife married to the wrong person and Maxine, a professional mystery writer who can’t believe what she’s involved in.

Nathan Darrow’s Tony looks too pleasant to be hatching a murder plot on his wife, but let’s face it, a guy who marries solely for money might do anything. He even admits it.

Then there’s the plodding character who ends up dead. He’s called Lesgate, doesn’t know he’ll be the fall guy and is played by Roy Iskandar.

John Tufts’ Inspector is determined to find out who did what, but will he get help from anybody else in this group? Wait and see.

If, like me, you get a bit lost in the wild and woolly shuffle, not to worry. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the fun these consummate actors and their collaborators offer.

Hitchcock would have loved this. You will too.

The details

“Dial M for Murder” plays through Sept. 28, 2022 at The Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre.

Showtimes: Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.; Thursday and Friday at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.

Tickets ($30 and up): www.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 234-5623 

COVID policy: Mask-wearing strongly recommended although optional.

Theater Review: Pretty Woman

 

                    The cast of "Pretty Woman"

If you’re up for a Cinderella story about a hooker who makes her dream come true (or if you saw the 1990 film “Pretty Woman”), you’re the audience Broadway San Diego is looking for. The plot has been transformed into a musical and is onstage at Civic Theatre through July 31.

You remember the plot: Edward Lewis is a corporate raider in need of a pretty woman on his arm as he works on his goal of taking over a particular company. 

Meanwhile Vivian Ward, a pretty girl who needs a job, tells her friend Kit D Luca that she’s moving to Hollywood to become a professional escort (i.e., hooker) in order to make some green while she figures out what she really wants to do for living.

Edward and Vivian meet, make a deal for financial/social reasons, and you can guess the rest, even if you haven’t seen the film.

The stage show is fun to watch, as the scene changes from Hollywood & Vine to the Beverly Wilshire hotel’s penthouse and spots in between. 

Stars Olivia Valli and Adam Pascal are convincing as the couple (and she really is a pretty woman, talented and a stronger character here than in the film), and the songs (by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance) add to the plot and often the fun.

I had a particularly good time with the supporting cast – the hotel staff (Michael Dalke, Joshua Kenneth Allen Johnson and Jonathan Young) and Happy Man (manager of the Beverly Wilshire) Kyle Taylor Parker, who get some interesting choreography (by Jerry Mitchell) as they go about their work.

The six-person orchestra (led by Daniel Klintworth) adds sound and pizzazz to the goings-on, as do the sets (David Rockwell), lighting (Kenneth Posner and Philip S. Rosenberg), sound (John Shiver) and costumes (Gregg Barnes).

And I mustn’t forget Amma Osei, she of wondrous fine operatic pipes, who gets to sing a bit of a Violetta aria when Edward takes Vivian to the opera.

I might suggest you take some lightly sound-deadening headphones, though. The sound level of this show is downright deafening. But otherwise, it’s a great show.

Play Review: The Remarkable Mister Holmes

                                                                                              

Ah, Sherlock. Ah, Watson. Ah, lunacy – and let’s hear it for female detectives, too.

North Coast Repertory Theatre offers a loony-tunes version of the Sherlock Holmes-as-world’s-greatest-detective (just ask him) myth in the world premiere of “The Remarkable Sherlock Holmes,” written jointly by NCRT’s artistic director David Ellenstein and one of the city’s best funnymen, Omri Schein.

The lickety-split script offers a cast of nine excellent Equity actors playing a total of I-couldn’t-possibly-tell-you how many characters who rush in and out, many talking about at least one murder they ask Holmes to solve.

Ellenstein and Schein have added music to the mix – 21 songs, with music by Daniel Lincoln and lyrics by Schein.

There’s a fine four-member orchestra led by Ron Councell behind a curtain, and the theater’s crackerjack set designer Marty Burnett created a series of rectangular pieces that the actors push, pull and turn as the mayhem gets crazier. 

British writer Arthur Conan Doyle started the whole Holmes thing in 1887. By the time he’d finished, there were four novels and 56 short stories about Holmes and Watson.

North Coast Rep seems to want to smash them all together in this goofy but often hilarious mashup of Doyle’s characters and the ones Schein and Ellenstein have dreamed up. But they’ve added something new for this century: a female detective whose last name is Watson. 

This story has four (dead) bodies for a while, then one gets lost and nobody seems to know where (and sometimes who) anybody is (maybe that’s just my confusion showing), but it matters not. This is a show that urges you to sit back, relax, put your logical brain on hold and enjoy watching these actors run in and out, playing who knows how many characters.

Broadway and TV actor Bart Shatto is fun to watch in his NCRT debut as Holmes, who may or may not deserve his reputation as the best sleuth around. After all, as he tells us, he really wanted to be a dancer. 

He’s especially amusing after he meets the lovely Sharon Rietkerk, a frequent actor at North Coast, smashing as Watson, the distaff side of the sleuthing profession, whose competence both surprises and annoys Holmes.

In Holmes’ comfortable London digs, we also meet the magnificent but harried housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Lamb’s Players’ estimable Deborah Gilmour Smyth) and Holmes' young maid Phyllis (Katy Tang). 

New York actor Tony Perry plays Inspector Lestrade, amusingly incompetent or perhaps involved in one or another of the murders. Or maybe not. But he’s fun to watch.

Local goofy man David McBean plays the manager of the Hotel Magnificent with great aplomb. Local actors Phil Johnson and Katie Karel are excellent as Gustav and Gerda von Schwanz, a French-inflected pair who seem to be in the art biz.

TV actor Andrew Ableson excellently plays Rabbi Plotkin, who may or may not come to a bad end.

There’s blood, art pieces, fancy jewelry, and lots of craziness here, and the whole thing is nutty and often funny, but finally exhausting to watch. My assessment is that it would be better as a 90-minute one-act.Ah, Sherlock. Ah, Watson. Ah, lunacy – and let’s hear it for female detectives, too.

North Coast Repertory Theatre offers a loony-tunes version of the Sherlock Holmes-as-world’s-greatest-detective (just ask him) myth in the world premiere of “The Remarkable Sherlock Holmes,” written jointly by NCRT’s artistic director David Ellenstein and one of the city’s best funnymen, Omri Schein.

The lickety-split script offers a cast of nine excellent Equity actors playing a total of I-couldn’t-possibly-tell-you how many characters who rush in and out, many talking about at least one murder they ask Holmes to solve.

Ellenstein and Schein have added music to the mix – 21 songs, with music by Daniel Lincoln and lyrics by Schein.

There’s a fine four-member orchestra led by Ron Councell behind a curtain, and the theater’s crackerjack set designer Marty Burnett created a series of rectangular pieces that the actors push, pull and turn as the mayhem gets crazier. 

British writer Arthur Conan Doyle started the whole Holmes thing in 1887. By the time he’d finished, there were four novels and 56 short stories about Holmes and Watson.

North Coast Rep seems to want to smash them all together in this goofy but often hilarious mashup of Doyle’s characters and the ones Schein and Ellenstein have dreamed up. But they’ve added something new for this century: a female detective whose last name is Watson. 

This story has four (dead) bodies for a while, then one gets lost and nobody seems to know where (and sometimes who) anybody is (maybe that’s just my confusion showing), but it matters not. This is a show that urges you to sit back, relax, put your logical brain on hold and enjoy watching these actors run in and out, playing who knows how many characters.

Broadway and TV actor Bart Shatto is fun to watch in his NCRT debut as Holmes, who may or may not deserve his reputation as the best sleuth around. After all, as he tells us, he really wanted to be a dancer. 

He’s especially amusing after he meets the lovely Sharon Rietkerk, a frequent actor at North Coast, smashing as Watson, the distaff side of the sleuthing profession, whose competence both surprises and annoys Holmes.

In Holmes’ comfortable London digs, we also meet the magnificent but harried housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Lamb’s Players’ estimable Deborah Gilmour Smyth) and Holmes' young maid Phyllis (Katy Tang). 

New York actor Tony Perry plays Inspector Lestrade, amusingly incompetent or perhaps involved in one or another of the murders. Or maybe not. But he’s fun to watch.

Local goofy man David McBean plays the manager of the Hotel Magnificent with great aplomb. Local actors Phil Johnson and Katie Karel are excellent as Gustav and Gerda von Schwanz, a French-inflected pair who seem to be in the art biz.

TV actor Andrew Ableson excellently plays Rabbi Plotkin, who may or may not come to a bad end.

There’s blood, art pieces, fancy jewelry, and lots of craziness here, and the whole thing is nutty and often funny, but finally exhausting to watch. My assessment is that it would be better as a 90-minute one-act.

Theater Review: Something Rotten!

                

           Bryan Banville and Cameron Bond-Sczempka as Nigel and Nick Bottom

If you only get a chance to see one play this year, make it Moonlight Amphitheatre’s hilarious spoof of Shakespeare and musical comedy, “Something Rotten.” Jamie Torcellini directs this lunacy with a sure hand.

Cast your mind back to 1595 (if they can, you can), especially easy when you hear Minstrel (E.Y. Washington) sing the jaunty opening tune “Welcome to the Renaissance.” 

There’s an Elvis-like rock star in this theater world – you guessed it, Shakespeare (David Burnham) – who hasn’t left much space for other playwrights. 

But there are other wannabes around, like Nick Bottom (Cameron Bond-Sczempka) and his younger brother Nigel (Bryan Banville), to whom Shakespeare barely gives the time of day, and no backer will touch the brothers. 

This inspires Nick and Nigel to sing “God, I Hate Shakespeare.”

It’s funny, but it doesn’t pay the rent, for which Shylock (Dallas McLaughlin) is breathing down their necks. But he doesn’t really count because, you know, he’s Jewish and Jews aren’t allowed to do business in Renaissance England.

Nick and Nigel need an idea for a play. When Nick runs into Nostradamus (not the real one, his cousin), Nick asks the soothsayer to forecast “the next big thing in theater.” 

Nostradamus (Randall Hickman) suggests “a musical,” with great songs and a tap-dancing ensemble. In case that sounds too trivial, he suggests that “some musicals are very dramatic.”

And we’re off to a “Chorus Line” bit, with great dancing.

Unfortunately, Nick’s attempt to get financing from local rich guy Lord Clapham (Greg Nicholas) falls on dead ears, and when Nick’s long-suffering wife Bea (Chloe Denton) mentions that she’s going to go to work (remember that unpaid rent?), Nick decides the time has come for action.

The first attempt, a musical called “The Black Death,” (sung by black-clad Grim Reapers) is a bomb, so it’s back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, Nigel has hooked up with the lovely Portia (Liliana Rodriguez), whose only drawback is that she’s the daughter of one of those strict (and boring) Puritans. It’s always something…

While they’re wasting time on theater, Bea enters, dressed as a man and carrying a bucket of bear excrement. She even has a professional title: The Bear S*** Boy.” Hey, at least she’s making money.

Meanwhile Nigel sends a note and a sonnet he wrote to Shakespeare, who sends back an invitation to Shakespeare in the Park.

This is the Bard’s chance to shine, and he does, by quoting several of his own sonnets to great acclaim. He ends the act by concluding that he is “the will of the people now,” bringing the first act to a close with the romping song “Will Power.”

In the second act, ol’ Will is complaining about being so darn popular.

“It's a cross that I bear,

I'm like Jesus, I swear

It's a burden but I suffer through it.”

Makes you weep, doesn’t it? And when Will finally gets a brilliant idea, he remembers that it has to be in iambic pentameter. Ah, life is so difficult.

Meanwhile, Nick asks Nostradamus what Shakespeare’s new hit will be. The seer mispronounces “Hamlet” as “Omelette,” and Nick is off to do the next new hit:
“It’s Eggs!”

It just gets crazier from here on, with cracks about other familiar musicals, until finally Portia and Nigel get together, Daddy notwithstanding, and Nigel reads her his newly-written “Ode to Portia.”

They decide that it’s best to write and act from the heart, singing a lovely song called “To Thine Own Self” (be true).

More craziness ensues, including Shakespeare taking Nick to court for stealing money, not to mention ideas, and Nick is sentenced to beheading.

The cast, orchestra (led by Michael Patternostro), choreography (by Bill Burns) and rented sets are excellent all around.

You’ll have to see the play to see how it ends. Trust me, it will be worth your time.

The details

“Something Rotten!” plays through August 6, 2022 at Moonlight Amphitheatre, 1250 Vale Terrace Drive in Vista.

Shows at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, July 20-31 and Wednesday through Saturday, August 3-6.

Gates open at the open-air theater at 6:30 p.m. for dining (Bread and Cheese Eatery is the concessionaire) and picnicking.

Tickets ($17-$61): moonlightstage.com or (760) 724-2110.

COVID protocol: Masks suggested, not required.

Film Review: Let Me Be Me

                                    

There was a time not too long ago (the middle of the last century) when children diagnosed on what we now call the autism spectrum were called schizophrenic, taken from their parents and sent to institutions.

Over the years, research revealed that autism is a behavioral disorder that can be dealt with and even overcome within the family setting.

In Dan Crane and Katie Taber’s documentary “Let Me Be Me,” we meet Kyle Westphal, born on the spectrum to parents with two other children not on the spectrum. 

Kyle confused his parents. His mother recalls that he would not react to what was going on around him. Kyle recalls that he liked to hide in the couch. “My blanket became my own little sanctuary.”

Finally, the family went looking for help. They found it in a group called the Autism Treatment Center of America, whose program “Son-Rise” teaches family members of those on the spectrum how to connect to their neurodiverse family member. The film illustrates some of those techniques, which involved creating a playroom downstairs and joining Kyle in his unique behaviors.

It turned out that Kyle likes women’s clothing – not wearing it but looking at it and visualizing how it would look with this or that alteration.

Today, Kyle is a successful fashion designer with a degree from Drexel University. In “Let Me Be Me,” the family tells Kyle’s story with humor and candor, and we even get to watch him at work and at a runway show.

It’s a wonderful, positive film that offers hope and a way one family found to keep the neurodiverse member at home, allowing all a simpler and more fulfilling life.

“Let Me Be Me” is available on VOD, as well as at Kino Now and on DVD through Kino Lorber.

                           

Theater Review: Blue Period

 

Ah, art. Ah, Paris. Ah, friendship, love and disappointment.

You’ll get them all in the world premiere of playwright Charles Borkhuis’ “Blue Period,” playing through Aug. 7 at Chula Vista’s OnStage Playhouse.

The artists here are the one you know – Pablo Picasso – and his friend Carles Casagemas, whose name you probably don’t know. 

When we meet them, they are both youngsters – 19 and 20 – and childhood friends in Barcelona. Picasso (Javier Guerrero) is destined to become a household name in the art world. Casagema (Jose Balistrieri) is not.

Picasso wants to go to Paris not just because it’s the center of the European art world, but because, well, because it’s Paris. Who wouldn’t want to live in a Montmartre garret, hobnob with artists, beautiful women and other Parisians in cafes, opium dens and bordellos, and make contacts with art dealers and maybe possible buyers?

One of the first things they do is meet a lovely and charming woman named Germaine (Claire Kaplan), sometime model, often playmate, who spends an extraordinary amount of time with these two, especially given that she is married to someone we don’t see.

But this is the Belle Epoque, and everything is an adventure, beautiful or at least exciting. Life is wonderful and the dialogue crackles.

Picasso does what he really came for: he meets art dealer Pere Manyac (Herbert Siguenza), who knows a saleable piece of art when he sees one, and he’s seen Picasso’s earliest works. He wants to represent the youngster. Life seems to be going Picasso’s way.

But when the boys go home to Barcelona for Christmas, they are reminded why they left. Both were disappointments to their father, and the trip doesn’t help either’s disposition.

So in the second act, they return to Paris, but now Picasso’s mind is in a different place. Instead of the youthful exuberance of his early paintings, he begins to paint the poor, the downtrodden, the ill. This is the beginning of his Blue Period.

Manyac is annoyed. The dealer wants works he can sell, not portraits of truth. 

Casagemas is getting more and more depressed, because he is hopelessly in love with Germaine, but she refuses his offer of marriage. Twice. Even worse, she seems more interested in Picasso.

Germaine, still lovely, is getting a bit testy as well. “You ignore everyone you’re not painting,” she complains to Picasso.

The play will not end happily for all, but it is wonderfully presented. All four actors are superb and well directed by OnStage artistic director James P. Darvas. 

Guerrero is charming and fun to watch as the dedicated Picasso, who keeps painting through it all and telling his Barcelona buddy Casagemas to do likewise.

Balistrieri is also effective as Casagemas, who came for the friendship but realizes that he is not the artist his friend is. Still, he stays around for the ultimate sadness.

Kaplan’s Germaine holds everything together as the center of attention and lust from both these fascinating if frustrating men. She is the ultimate courtesan who looks for no more than pleasant play from either.

Siguenza’s Manyac is the ultimate businessman, who wants the “old” Picasso because it will sell and does his best to convince Picasso to go back to the older style. (Siguenza is an artist himself: take a look at his Picasso-like paintings in the lobby.)

The technical aspects are spectacular, especially the sound and projection design by Estefania Ricalde, the lighting by Kevin “Blax” Burroughs, and the video design by Salomón Maya. 

Duane McGregor’s set design works well, and Sandra Ruiz’s costumes give the flavor of the time.

“Blue Period” is well named and well presented. If it seems a bit too wordy at times, revel in those well-chosen words and know that they are true to the storyline.

The details

“Blue Period” runs through August 7 at OnStage Playhouse, 291 Third Avenue in Chula Vista.

Showtimes: Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m; Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets ($22-25): (619) 422-7787 or onstage playhouse.org

COVID protocol: Masks required inside the theater.

Film Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

When humans betray you, it’s time to turn to nature.

In a film world dominated by absurd superheroes and terrible monsters lurking in the dark, it’s a great relief to come across a story like “Where the Crawdads Sing,” Lucy Alibar’s adaptation of Delia Owens’ 2018 very human novel of a young girl who is abandoned by all but her abusive father and turns to the peaceful calm of local marshlands.

Kya Clark (British-born Daisy Edgar-Jones) is the refugee, disdainfully called Marsh Girl by local residents of Barkley Cove, North Carolina. Louisiana stands in for North Carolina, but the marshlands there are so beautifully, restfully filmed that I was almost envying Kya.

Kya has two friends in local general store owners Mabel (Michael Hyatt) and Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer, Jr.) She still cooks for her dad (Garret Dillahunt), though she admits to Mabel that “I don’t know how to do dinner without grits.”

The film, like the book, has three sections: Kya’s escape from the real world and her meetings with two possible boyfriends, followed by a murder mystery in which Kya is blamed for the murder of one, followed by the courtroom drama of Kya’s trial, defended by Tom Milton (and acted brilliantly by David Strathairn).

Kya spends the first part of the film showing us how she has survived the departure of each family member (though doubtless wishing she’d been invited to go with one of them), and how she plans to survive her abusive father: “Don’t let him see you. Fend for yourself.”

But it’s in the marsh that she’s truly at home. She collects leaves and occasional branches, which she sketches. She keeps the drawings out of Dad’s sight.

Kya is first attracted to passerby Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith), the handsome son of wealth, who volunteers to teach Kya how to read, sees her drawings of nature and encourages her to send them to a publisher. But just as she begins to think about a future with Tate, he announces that he’s going off to college, and she’s deserted again.

Later, local stinker Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) shows up. 

“I don’t know how I felt about Chase,” Kya says, “but I was no longer lonely.”

Time jumps around here, and I didn’t bother to keep track. I was so caught up in Edgar Jones’ spectacular performance – and even delighted at the Perry Mason-like trial that attempts to convict Kya of Chase’s murder – that I just went along for the ride. Ah, memory.

“Crawdads” may take on too much and deliver too little for some viewers, but I for one can recommend it highly.

Film Review: Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank

     

How much worse can life get than being a dog stuck in a town full of cats?

Well, if Mel Brooks has anything to do with the answer (and he does), it can get pretty darned funny.

“Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” gives us a hilarious, sometimes raunchy and entirely delightful story about poor Hank the dog (voiced by Michael Cera), who finds himself defending the cat haven Kakamucho from a ruthless villain named Ika Chu (voiced by Ricky Gervais), who wants to wipe the town off the map.

How’s that going to work? Well, first Hank will have to learn how to be a samurai. He asks, but it seems there is no “Samurai for Dummies” book. So Hank will have to take lessons from reluctant local teacher Jimbo (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson).

Need I say more?

There is more, much more, and all of it is hilarious (well, unless you consider the notion of an execution squad for canines less than amusing). 

There’s nothing new, strange or startling here. It was originally supposed to be a follow-up to “Blazing Saddles” called “Blazing Samurai,” but that was years ago. Instead, it’s an outright spoof, with sight gags, fart jokes, one-liners, and a few references to other films like “West Side Story” and “Star Wars.”

It’s got some messages about stuff like admiration, courage and not judging on looks alone, but mostly it sounds like one Mel Brooks gag after another.

Some people don’t think that’s enough to carry a film. Me, I have always loved Brooks’ sense of humor. If you think he writes funny stuff, this show is for you.

Film Review: Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song

                       

                                Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song          

There are poets, novelists and songwriters, but I can’t name many who can do all three well. One of them was Leonard Cohen, who will be forever remembered for the song “Hallelujah.”

Born the son of wealthy, orthodox Jewish parents in Montreal in 1934, Leonard had the luxury of taking his time to figure out what he wanted to do. He started writing poems in the ’50s (and was a published poet at 15), then moved to novels (having two acclaimed novels by the time he was 32). In the ’60s, he decided to write songs.

He wrote the song “Suzanne” and showed it to Judy Collins, saying he wasn’t sure it was a song. She assured him it was, and said “I’m recording it tomorrow.”

But dealing with the business end of music – the recording business – proved more problematic, since it is more concerned about whether records will sell than whether they say anything significant.

But Cohen’s “Hallelujah” made his reputation, despite the lukewarm reception it got from the recording industry. Once it was committed to DVD, everybody started singing it – Bono, Brandi Carlisle, Bob Dylan. It even made the soundtrack of the film “Shrek.”

The new film “Hallelujah” pulls together the multiple strands of Cohen’s work, personal and spiritual lives into a two-hour portrait of man and musician. He seems always to have been on a quest, and would do things like disappear without a word.

When composer/producer/performer John Lissauer heard Cohen’s songs, he reportedly said “They sound cinematic to me.” Cohen asked if he’d like to talk in New York. They agreed to meet and Cohen wrote six songs for him, but when Lissauer called, Cohen said he was going to Egypt.

“I didn’t hear from him for eight years,” Lissauer reports. 

On another quest, he spent six years at a Zen retreat on Mt. Baldy.

Meanwhile, “Hallelujah” became a staple for touring singers.

Cohen was an interesting, complicated person, whose last personal appearance  was in Coachella in 2009. He died in 2016.

“Hallelujah” is a fascinating, complicated film about a most unusual person.