Hit Man (Netflix)
I’m sure I’m not the only one who was surprised that this movie is a comedy. But I guess I shouldn’t have been considering it was directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, Richard Linklater, who directed Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and Boyhood. Linklater always brings a unique twist to everything he directs, and this film is no exception. I also love the fact that he often relies on actors who are not that well known, and in this case, the lead is played brilliantly by Glenn Powell who had supporting roles in the latest Top Gun, as well as Hidden Figures.
In this film, Powell plays Gary Johnson, a nerdy psychology professor who has a side gig working for the local police as a fake hit man. They have set up a sting operation where they intercept calls from people who are looking for someone to take another person out, and Johnson steps in, studying the person who made the call to try and come up with the perfect persona to fit what they’re looking for. And once the deal is made, the police step in and arrest the caller.
But things go awry when Gary, posing as a super cool guy named Ron, meets up with Madison, a woman who wants to knock off her abusive husband. Madison is played by Adria Arjona, and from the time they meet to discuss the deal, a chemistry starts to build between the two characters. When ‘Ron’ hears Madison’s story, he suddenly has a crisis of conscience, and can’t bring himself to go through with the scheme, instead pushing the money back across the table and telling her she’d be much better off just leaving her husband.
Of course a romance develops from there, and the best bits about this film come from the fact that Madison has actually fallen in love with Ron, not Gary, and the deeper the relationship develops, the more Ron starts to take over Gary’s thought process.
The chemistry between the two leads is fantastic, and as things become more and more complicated, the more difficult it becomes for Gary to keep up the ruse, especially when it turns out that Madison hasn’t been entirely honest herself.
The ending of this film left a little to be desired, as it’s not exactly clear what Linklater is trying to say about this story, which is loosely based on real life events. But it was still thoroughly entertaining, and chock full of classic Linklater moments.
Four fortune cookies
Butterfly in the Sky (Netflix)
This documentary about the creation of the children’s show Reading Rainbow was completely absorbing, and also kind of a depressing statement about how much things have changed in the world of television. The show was developed in 1983 for a local New York television station, was very slow to get funding, much less an audience, but it’s clear from the beginning, as told by almost everyone involved in the production, that part of the reason it was able to succeed was because they were able to get LeVar Burton, fresh off his success in the TV series Roots, to host the program.
Burton comes across as one of the most genuinely authentic and compassionate ‘celebrities’ that I’ve ever seen in a documentary as he explains why he stuck with the show, even after he was offered huge money to appear in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Because he believed so much in what this show had to offer. Plus you can just tell from the excerpts they show, not to mention the way he describes his experience, that he loved doing the show.
The idea for the show came from Twila Liggett, a former elementary school teacher who was concerned about how the motivation for kids to read fell off during the summer months. Her co-developers, married couple Cecily and Larry Lancitt, also appear in the film, and the passion these people had for this project shines through in every interview, even forty years after it first aired. They were also able to interview many of the kids who reviewed books on the show, and again, the exuberance for what they experienced with this program still shows all these years later. A stark contrast to the other, much more disturbing documentary, Ready, on the Set, that recently came out about Nickelodeon.
The saddest part of this story is how the series ended, and I’ll let you experience that yourself. But this documentary is a terrific exploration of how, occasionally, people with real passion for what they’re doing can make impossible ideas come to light. The title refers to the theme song, by the way.
Five fortune cookies
Reptile (Netflix)
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