By “Cinema” Dave

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Despite what presenter Faye Dunaway said Sunday night, Moonlight did win the Best Picture Oscar for 2016. In under two hours, writer/director Barry Jenkins shares a slice of South Florida culture through the eyes of a child, a teenager and an adult through three chapters of a larger narrative. Moonlight earned its honor through impressive storytelling and character development, a skill Barry Jenkins earned when he attended Florida State University, College of Motion Picture Arts. Congrats, Moonlight cast & crew.

On the Map opens tomorrow with a unique South Florida connection. Twelve years ago, Director Dani Menken appeared at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. As a producer, Menken earned the Best Documentary for 39 Pounds of Love, which features Ami Ankilewitz, an American-born Israeli who was diagnosed with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy who likes to party. In contrast, On the Map features the growth of professional athletes in Israel.

After World War II ended, the American sport of basketball grew as an international sport in Italy, Spain and the Soviet Union. Given the terrorist actions of the 1972 Munich Olympics, the story about the Soviet Union stealing the Gold Medal from Team USA became a mere footnote. Five years later, young Israel (a nation state less than three decades old) confronted the International Champion Soviet Union in an epic basketball game.

Told with grainy home movies and audio supplied by reel-to-reel tape recorders, On the Map retells the epic David & Goliath story about Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team.

Now 40 years later, the teammates reunite and celebrate their amazing victory. The memories are sharp and this story truly comes alive.

If you love the sport of basketball, get out of the house and check out On the Map on the big screen.

Kedi also opens tomorrow and will surely inspire cat lovers. Set in Istanbul, this unique documentary shows the symbiotic relationship between the urban dwellers and the cats. Like a National Geographic/Wild Kingdom documentary, Kedi captures kitty cats in a natural habitat demonstrating primal behavior.

It is ironic that people choose animation animals (like Oscar winner Zootopia) over natural animals at the movie box office. However Kedi provides many short stories about individual cats. The film pays off during the curtain call in which we revisit each of these cats and we remember each one of their stories.

March is predicted to be a box office bonanza with the releases of Logan, Kong Skull Island and Beauty and the Beast, respectively. However, don’t lose sight of the fine documentaries — On the Map and Kedi.

By “Cinema” Dave

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Denzel Washington has entered the Hollywood legendary status decades ago, joining generational acting legends like Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier. Fences marks Washington’s third directorial motion picture, which is based on August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony award-winning Broadway play. Having won a Golden Globe award (for Viola Davis), Fences is poised to receive multiple Oscar nominations.

Sanitation custodian Troy Maxson (Washington) returns home on payday and dutifully gives his check to his loving wife, Rose (Davis). After finishing a bottle of gin with his sidekick and discussing his glory days as a baseball player, Troy and Rose bring up their domestic woes.

Much like those controversial award-winning plays from the 1950s (Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) that became award-winning motion pictures, Fences features terse dialogue creating fantastic performances. Much like the performances given by Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski and Elizabeth Taylor’s Maggie the Cat, Washington and Davis sink their teeth in their roles with conviction.

At 139 minutes, Fences is a long movie to sit through. Set in a Pittsburgh townhouse, watching the Maxson family air their dirty laundry gets long in the tooth. After witnessing much arguing and bickering, one wishes the Maxson family would move away.

Among multiple awards, Moonlight took home the Golden Globe award for best picture. Whereas Fences was a static story, Moonlight clocks in under two hours and feels more epic. Set in a crime neighborhood in Miami, Moonlight presents the right of passage for little Chiron Black and covers the span of time from 1979 to the present day.

Told in three parts, we meet “Little,” a bullied boy whose Mom (Naomie Harris from Pirates of the Caribbean and James Bond franchises) is a drug addict. Seemingly pulled out of a bad situation by a mentor, little Chiron witnesses a tragedy that colors the rest of his life. In Part two, titled “Chiron,” we see the teenager confront his own feelings that leads to explosive actions. “Black” is the final story which presents the protagonist coming to grips with his current situation as a young man of the streets.

With echoes of Boyhood, Breaking Bad and Brokeback Mountain, Moonlight is truly an original story that presents a culture we see on the street. For its originality with surprising plot twists, Moonlight deserves award consideration.