Society Of The Snow

2023 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 2hr 24 min

Adventure ~ Biography ~ Drama ~ Thriller ~ True Story

Starring: Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella.

“What happens when the world abandons you? When you have no clothes and you’re freezing? When you have no food and you’re dying? The answer’s in the mountain.”

Society Of The Snow is based on the True Story of an Uruguayan Rugby Football Team. On October 13, 1972 the chartered Air Force plane Flight 571, carrying the team to a match, crashed into a glacier in the middle of the Andes mountains. Of the 45 passengers, 29 survived the crash only to fight for survival on one of the most inaccessible and hostile environments on Earth.

The movie follows their journey to survive as they battle extreme temperatures, wind and snow with only the shell of the plane for shelter. With no means of communication they have no way of knowing if anybody even knows where they are, or if they are thought to have perished. They resort to extreme measures to survive, and learn to lean on each other with love and faith to help them through their ordeal.

There was a 1993 Movie titled Alive that told the same true story. I vaguely remember it, at least the details of what they went through. I do remember that it looked like it was shot in a studio so you didn’t get the full sense of realism it should have had. Society Of The Snow was shot on location in The Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain and the actual crash site in The Andes Mountains of Uruguay. It is very realistic, you feel as if you are there with them struggling every minute to survive.

Netflix has a lot of Foreign films they overdub. I am not a big fan of these and try to avoid them. When the dialogue does not match the actor’s mouth, and it looks like an old Japanese karate movie…..it drives me nuts. I can’t hang with that. This one is well done and the story of survival itself is so intense, that is all you are focused on. It is an incredible true tale of survival and the heartwarming conclusion after all they went through is overwhelming.

And you know I love the True Story movies.

This is a good one.

Two Thumbs up.

P.S. There is a 36 minute documentary on Netflix entitled: Who were we on the mountain. It is an in-depth look at the creative process and the development of the film. Might be worth watching first before Society of The Snow.

Till

2022 Universal Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hrs 10min

Drama ~ True Story ~ History

Directed By: Chinonye Chukwu

Starring: Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hall, and Frankie Faison.

“This was my boy….Emmett Till. He just didn’t understand how different things were in Mississippi. The lynching of my son has shown me that what happens to one of us anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.”

Danielle Deadwyler stars as Mamie Till, a single Mother and Teacher in Chicago, Illinois raising her 14 year old son Emmett. Mamie puts Emmett on a train south to visit with relatives in Money, Mississippi. Before she takes him to the train station she stresses to him how different Mississippi is for Black folk. “Be small…..don’t draw attention to yourself.”

Emmett is picked up at the train station in Money, Mississippi by his Uncle Mose “Preacher” Wright and his cousin Wheeler Parker. The next day he joins his Aunt, Uncle and cousins as they pick cotton, being sharecroppers on a Plantation. After picking cotton Emmett and his cousins stop at the white-owned Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. Emmett enters to buy some penny candy and tells Carolyn Bryant behind the counter, “You’re pretty…….you sure look like a movie star.” As he leaves he whistles at her.

That was the wrong thing for a black man to do in 1955 Mississippi, whistle at a white woman. Carolyn Bryant’s husband and half-brother hunt down Emmett and take him to a barn where they lynch him, beat him mercilessly, shoot him in the head, then dump his body into the river. Mamie hires a lawyer and, after finally retrieving his body from Mississippi and seeing how horrific he died, decides to display him in an open casket for the whole world to see.

Mamie Till made it her duty to crusade on Emmett’s behalf for justice for the racially motivated brutal killing of her son. She never gave up, even after the trial in Mississippi where The Bryants were found not guilty of murdering her son. She made it her life’s work to become an activist for Civil Rights and her determination played a pivotal role in The Civil Rights Movement.

This is a True Story about a very important and pivotal moment in our country’s history in The Civil Rights Era. It took Emmett’s brutal racially motivated death, and Mamie’s fierce determination to not let this happen to anyone else ever again, to incite change.

I love the true story movies. This true story is a nauseating, revolting look at our troubled past as a Nation. The pure blatant disregard for a fellow human beings life based solely on the color of his skin is disgusting, a child nonetheless……

As hard as parts of it are to watch, I think you need to watch it. Just as Mamie thought that the whole world should see Emmett’s disfigured body in the open casket, we need to witness the mistakes of our past so that we can be a collective whole moving forward.

It’s a must see. A well done portrayal of an important part of our history.

Highly Recommended.

Two Thumbs Up!

Big Eyes

2014 The Weinstein Company

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 46min

True Story ~ Drama

Directed by: Tim Burton

Starring: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston and Terence Stamp.

Big Eyes, big Lies…..She created it….. He sold it….. And everyone bought it.

Big Eyes tells the true life story of Margaret and Walter Keane as seen through the eyes of Reporter Dick Nolan(Danny Huston). The film begins with Dick Nolan narrating, “It’s the strangest goddamn story I ever covered. It started the day that Margaret Ulbrich walked out on her suffocating husband and went to San Francisco, long before it became the fashionable thing to do. Back then, women didn’t leave. Not without a job or prospects. All she had was her daughter and her paintings with the big-eyes in the back seat.”

Margaret Ulbrich(Amy Adams) is drawing portraits at an art fair and meets artist Walter Keane(Christoph Waltz). Recently separated a romance quickly blossoms between the two. And when Margaret’s ex-husband threatens to take away her daughter with court action Walter quickly proposes and she becomes Mrs. Margaret Keane.

Walter starts selling her big-eyed portraits alongside his Paris street scene paintings. Soon her big-eyed portraits start selling and gain popularity. Walter jumps on the opportunity for all it’s worth and for two years keeps Margret at home painting while he is out promoting and selling the paintings as his own. When she finds out she is obviously upset at the scam he has placed her in. But under his domineering ways and fear of retribution, she plays along continuously painting the big-eyed portraits.

As time goes by Walter gets more abusive and the lie gets deeper. She gets more and more frustrated until she finally leaves with her daughter. Eventually she gets the courage to expose the scam and Walter’s big lie. “I am Margaret Keane and I painted the Big Eyes Paintings, every single one. Walter is a fraud.” They end up in court and finally after much hoopla the judge proclaims, “Enough is enough. The only way to determine which one of you painted those pictures is to place an easel and supplies in front of both of you and see which one can paint the Big Eyes paintings. Walter complains of an old shoulder injury while Margaret paints another of her Big Eyes paintings. The judge promptly rules in Margaret’s favor and she wins a 17 million dollar lawsuit against Walter.

I love true story movies and Amy Adams is one of my favorites. I am always surprised at how badly we as a species treat each other with little to no regard for another’s well being. How Walter manipulated Margaret into a prison sentence of painting her own portraits, locked up in a secret room while claiming all the credit as an artist, was despicable. In the end she came out on top and exposed the lie Walter had forced her to live. I love it when the underdog wins!

Margaret Keane has a cameo in the movie about the 13:39 second mark, sitting on the bench behind Amy Adams as they are painting by the lake in the park.

Excellent job by Tim Burton, Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz in bringing this crazy incredibly true story to life on the big screen. Well Done.

Highly recommended.

Two Thumbs up!

Dark Waters

2019 Focus Features

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hrs 7min

Drama ~ Thriller ~ True Story

Directed By: Todd Haynes

Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, and Tim Robbins.

“The system is rigged. They want us to believe that it’ll protect us, but that’s a lie. We protect us. We do. Nobody else. Not the companies, not the scientists, not the government. Us.”

Mark Ruffalo stars in the real life story of corporate defense attorney Rob Bilott who takes on Dupont after discovering it has a long hushed-up history of illegally polluting local populations and land with toxic chemical waste. Anne Hathaway plays his wife Sarah Barlage Bilott.

Reminded me of “Erin Brockovich” in that it is a similar true life story of big corporations getting caught polluting the environment and being held accountable.

Rob Bilott finds out from his grandmother’s farmer neighbor that there might be wrong-doing on the part of Dupont after his cows start dying. After starting to ask questions he quickly puts two and two together and realizes that Dupont has been shamelessly dumping toxic waste and trying to cover it up with little to no regard for human lives affected.

And so ensues a decades long fight to bring Dupont to accountability. Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway did an excellent job of portraying the toll that tenaciousness took on their family and lives. The manner in which Dupont tries to ignore, cover-up and humiliate those affected is downright nauseating. Shameful. Arrogant Corporate greed without regard for human life all in the name of profit.

There were a lot of real life affected people and families who portrayed themselves in this movie. Most notably Bucky Bailey, born with facial defects as a result of DuPont’s poisoning and negligence has a cameo at a gas station with Mark Ruffalo about the 1:51 mark. Great job to all the actors and thank God for people like Rob Bilott who have stood up to the greedy corporations to hold them accountable. Where is the honor in doing business? Where is their honor as an American? As a fellow human being?

Excellent movie.

Two thumbs up!

Bob Marley: One Love

2024 Paramount Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 47min

True Story ~ Music ~ Drama

Directed By: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, and James Norton.

“One Love, one heart, one destiny.”

So before you read this there are several things you need to know about the guy reviewing this movie:

I am a huge Bob Marley fan.
I have read several books on his life and music.
I am a Musician, guitar player, composer and songwriter.

I am not sure that my review is going to be completely un-biased. Having said that this movie is but a glimpse into Bob Marley’s Life, Music, Beliefs and Religion. A very good glimpse in my opinion but you couldn’t possibly encapsulate Bob Marley’s life story into a couple of hours.

It focuses on the latter period of his life with brief glimpses of the past moments in his history that led to the events portrayed. It also focuses on the depth and closeness of his relationship with his wife Rita Marley.

One of the highlights for me being a musician was the scene in London where members of “The Wailers” are playing the soundtrack album to “Exodus” (A 1960 movie) when Bob hears it and he and Rita go downstairs to hear what’s going on. Bob is working on a song called Exodus and the band members start messing around with a groove and you can see and hear the song come to life. It is a beautiful thing to witness the creation of a song and that scene was incredible to me.

One of the other things I found interesting as a musician and guitar player was realizing that Bob Marley was more of a rhythm guitar player and singer, and that Peter Tosh, Al Anderson, Junior Marvin and Donald Kinsey played the lead guitar roles in the band at different time periods.

Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton and the rest of the cast did a terrific job of portraying their characters. If you don’t really know much about Bob Marley or have never heard of him, I highly recommend this movie as an introduction. Watch the movie then listen to Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley and The Wailers. It is one of my favorite albums.

So that about wraps it up.

I absolutely loved it, yes I will watch it again and I highly recommend it.

Jah Man!

Two Thumbs up!