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	<title>Biopic &#8211; Film Legacy </title>
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	<title>Biopic &#8211; Film Legacy </title>
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		<title>Cabrini review: a reverent look at an irreverent saint</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2024/03/23/cabrini-review-a-reverent-look-at-an-irreverent-saint/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 23 Mar 2024 21:29:15 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Biopic]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/?p=1127</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[An ambitious day of biking will take me up the spine of Manhattan, from 6th Avenue past Central Park and up St. Nicholas to Edgecombe Avenue. At the Highbridge swimming pool I head west to Fort Washington Avenue, climbing that &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2024/03/23/cabrini-review-a-reverent-look-at-an-irreverent-saint/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<p class="has-text-align-center"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="600" height="248" class="wp-image-1128" style="width: 600px;" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240111-CAB_4k-Stills__0004_01-14-34-14.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240111-CAB_4k-Stills__0004_01-14-34-14.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240111-CAB_4k-Stills__0004_01-14-34-14-300x124.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></p>



<p>An ambitious day of biking will take me up the spine of Manhattan, from 6th Avenue past Central Park and up St. Nicholas to Edgecombe Avenue. At the Highbridge swimming pool I head west to Fort Washington Avenue, climbing that to Bennett Park, the high point of the island.</p>



<p>Just beyond is Cabrini Boulevard, which curls around a nature sanctuary to Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters, passing along the way a charter school, a Montessori academy, an immigrant center, and the St. Frances Cabrini Shrine. All are named for Francesca Cabrini, the subject of <em>Cabrini</em>.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s a different world from Midtown, unfolding at a slower pace, with expansive views, forests, gardens, playgrounds, and walking trails. People stop, sit, and absorb their surroundings. They don&#8217;t need to know anything about the first US citizen to be canonized to appreciate something of what she accomplished. Although she died in 1917, her influence is inescapable in the neighborhood. I&#8217;ve attended services in churches named for her, and was a patient in a Cabrini hospital.</p>



<p>Like Cabrini herself, the movie is forceful and efficient, dismissing with nuance and pleasantries to focus on obvious goals and messages. Rod Barr&#8217;s screenplay, never subtle, manages to avoid almost any mention of doctrine or scripture. Alejandro Monteverde&#8217;s direction is flamboyantly baroque, cameras swirling around characters while choirs ascend on the soundtrack. He pushes too hard to elevate his lead, who despite her ambition was resolutely down-to-earth.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s how Cristiana Dell’Anna plays her, as a no-nonsense, if sickly, reformer who will not take no for an answer. She goes up against the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, tangling with the Pope (a saintly Giancarlo Giannini) in Rome and an Archbishop (David Morse) in New York, before taking on politics in the form of Mayor Gould (played by John Lithgow as Jeff Daniels).</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><img decoding="async" width="600" height="248" class="wp-image-1129" style="width: 600px;" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240111-CAB_4k-Stills__0031_01-55-45-18.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240111-CAB_4k-Stills__0031_01-55-45-18.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240111-CAB_4k-Stills__0031_01-55-45-18-300x124.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></p>



<p>Cabrini battles pervasive anti-Italian sentiments as well as deep-rooted biases against women. She convinces realtors to sell her buildings, children to leave the streets, and celebrities to support her causes. She even persuades prostitutes to dig wells.</p>



<p>As a woman who founded close to 70 missions serving orphans, immigrants, and the sick and poor, Cabrini&#8217;s impact on the world was profound. <em>Cabrini</em> the movie focuses on how difficult it was for her to operate in a society that didn&#8217;t respect her, in the process ignoring just what made her such a magnetic and revolutionary figure.</p>



<p>Still, the movie does bring attention to someone who made the world better for a deserving underclass. And by downplaying religious aspects of the story, the filmmakers don&#8217;t have to include discussions about good and evil, or arguments about Christ and the poor. It&#8217;s almost like the Holy Church of Christ Without Christ in <em>Wise Blood</em>.</p>



<p>(It&#8217;s also a New York movie without New York. The streets, slums, views, and architecture are inaccurate at best, especially alleys that lead to bluffs and wide lawns in front of municipal buildings. Shooting took place in Buffalo and Italy.)</p>



<p>We can&#8217;t ignore Monteverde&#8217;s and Angel Studio&#8217;s earlier project, the sex-trafficking melodrama <em>Sound of Freedom</em>. A fictionalized account of Tim Ballard, later accused of sexual assault, the film became associated with QAnon conspiracies. Maybe that&#8217;s why <em>Cabrini</em> seems to avoid religion as much as possible in a story that deals so heavily with the Roman Catholic Church.</p>



<p>In that sense <em>Cabrini</em> follows in the grand tradition of movies like <em>Brigham Young</em>, a biopic of the church elder that glided over every controversial aspect of Mormonism.</p>



<p><em>Sound of Freedom</em> should not have any impact on whether or not <em>Cabrini</em> is a good movie. Nor should its religious messages, or lack thereof. What&#8217;s important is that <em>Cabrini</em> is a sincere account, told with grace and impressive production values, of someone who made a difference.</p>



<p><strong>Credits:</strong> Directed by Alejandro Monteverde. Screenlay by Rod Barr. Director of photography: Gorka Gómez Andreu. Edited by Brian Scofield. Music by Gene Black. Production design: Carlos Lagunas. <strong>Cast:</strong> Cristiana Dell&#8217;Anna, John Lithgow, Romana M. Vergano, David Morse, Giancarlo Giannini, Virginia Bocelli, Frederico Ielapi.</p>



<p>Photos courtesy Angel Studios.</p>
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		<title>My Darling Vivian: Unearthing a hidden past</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2020/06/16/my-darling-vivian-unearthing-a-hidden-past/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2020 17:54:40 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Biopic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Documentary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New Releases]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[Johnny Cash burned through personalities on his journey to cultural icon. Tenant farmer, Air Force cadet, rockabilly pioneer, country superstar, actor, drug addict, homewrecker, uber-patriot, teetotaler, elder spokesman, The Man in Black played out his messy, contradictory life largely in &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2020/06/16/my-darling-vivian-unearthing-a-hidden-past/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<p>Johnny
Cash burned through personalities on his journey to cultural icon. Tenant
farmer, Air Force cadet, rockabilly pioneer, country superstar, actor, drug
addict, homewrecker, uber-patriot, teetotaler, elder spokesman, The Man in
Black played out his messy, contradictory life largely in the public eye. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" width="600" height="479" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV3.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-673" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV3.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV3-300x240.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV3-188x150.jpg 188w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption>Vivian and Johnny Cash. Courtesy My Darling Vivian.</figcaption></figure>



<p>From
the icy determination of &#8220;I Walk the Line&#8221;and &#8220;Ring of Fire&#8221; to the bleak nihilism of &#8220;Hurt&#8221;
and &#8220;Rusty Cage,&#8221; his songs helped define his times. Cash connected
with the public as few artists could, even as he shrugged off the personas that
formed them. </p>



<p>A
version of his life was told in the movie <em>Walk
the Line</em>, directed by James Mangold and starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash.
In it the musician, floundering from the demands of celebrity, is rescued from
his demons by a kind, understanding June Carter (played by Reese Witherspoon).
Cash&#8217;s first wife Vivian Liberto (Ginnifer Goodwin) is treated more harshly.
Shrill, disapproving, she exists as an obstacle to Cash&#8217;s happiness.</p>



<p>&#8220;I
haven&#8217;t seen the movie and I don&#8217;t want to see the movie,&#8221; Cash&#8217;s daughter
Cindy says near the beginning of <em>My
Darling Vivian</em>, a documentary about her mother. Her lingering resentment is
one of the engines behind director Matt Riddlehoover&#8217;s movie. Here is a chance
to set the record straight about a woman who has been erased from most accounts
of Cash&#8217;s life.</p>



<p>In
separate interviews, her four daughters—Rosanne Cash, Kathy Cash Tittle, Cindy
Cash, and Tara Cash Schwoebel—recount Vivian&#8217;s deep, lasting love for their
father. Born in San Antonio in 1934, she led a sheltered life, raised by strict
parents and attending a Roman Catholic girls&#8217; school. She was 17 when she met
Cash, then an Air Force cadet, at a roller skating rink. Prohibited from
marrying, they corresponded through hundreds of letters while he was stationed
in Europe. </p>



<p>Riddlehoover
assembles photographs, home movies, acetates, and archival interviews to offer
glimpses into a pivotal moment in American culture, told by the very people who
were changing it. Cash&#8217;s first singles from Sun Records won over an
unexpectedly wide audience. The hits continued when he moved to Columbia
Records, where he released concerts recorded at San Quentin and Folsom prisons.</p>



<p>An
imposing figure on radio and TV, Cash felt comfortable on the stages of both
the Grand Ole Opry and the Newport Folk Festival, with Roy Acuff and Bob Dylan.
The rest of the country wasn&#8217;t so flexible. It&#8217;s startling to be reminded how regimented
and unyielding society was in the early Sixties, when the mere rumor that Vivian
was black might derail Cash&#8217;s career—let alone his arrest for smuggling
amphetamines across the Mexican border.</p>



<p>Cash seemed to court trouble, upsetting gatekeepers on purpose. His album of Native American protest songs, his duets with Dylan, his appeals for tolerance (set forth in songs like &#8220;Man in Black&#8221;) predicted the coming cultural revolution. And like that revolution, he left a lot to deal with in his wake.</p>



<p>Because
Vivian kept out of the public eye, the observations and reminiscences of her
four daughters here are key. Rosanne, a Grammy-winning musician, was born a
month before Cash&#8217;s first single was released. Her sister Cathy arrived
&#8220;10 months and 23 days&#8221; after. Cindy was born just as the family was
moving to Encino, California, so Cash could pursue a movie career. She spent
her first weeks sleeping in a dresser drawer. Tara was born in 1961.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="479" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV1-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-674" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV1-1.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV1-1-300x240.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MDV1-1-188x150.jpg 188w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></figure>



<p>Memories
of their childhoods—Vivian taking a shotgun to rattlesnakes in the yard,
Rosanne realizing her father &#8220;wasn&#8217;t him&#8221; when he came home high on
drugs, the casual cruelty of Cash&#8217;s second wife June Carter—help counterbalance
the myths that have grown up around Cash. They also reveal Vivian as a single
mom terrified of the publicity her husband seemed to embrace.</p>



<p><em>Walk the Line</em> reduced Cash&#8217;s life to
melodrama, a series of conflicts to defeat, enemies to confront, diseases to
conquer. A journey only a hero could take. In stripping away that mystique, <em>My Darling Vivian</em> uncovers a much more
complex character. </p>



<p>In
one of his letters quoted by Riddlehoover, Cash tries to reassure Vivian about what
he calls her low self-esteem. His words are perceptive and encouraging, revealing
someone capable of insight and subtlety utterly missing from Mangold&#8217;s movie.
They help explain where Cash&#8217;s music came from. Not just his distinctive rhythm
and deep-as-a-well voice, but lyrics rich with narrative skill and inventive
wordplay. Written for Vivian, &#8220;I Walk the Line&#8221; is as elemental as a
hieroglyph, employing a central metaphor that resonates to this day (and that
has echoed throughout country music). Watching this, you can see the love that
led to the song.</p>



<p>Resurrecting
the woman who inspired Cash, who raised four girls in tumult and uncertainty,
and who remained true to her beliefs despite challenges and setbacks, <em>My Darling Vivian</em> is expert at charting
cultural shifts across the decades. Fleshing out Vivian Liberto as a person helps
transform our vision Cash from icon to husband and father.</p>
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		<title>Beastie Boys Story review: Ad-Rock and Mike D on how it happened</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2020/04/24/beastie-boys-story-review-ad-rock-and-mike-d-on-how-it-happened/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 25 Apr 2020 00:41:33 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Biopic]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[Two things stand out in Beastie Boys Story, a concert documentary screening on Apple TV+ starting April 24. First: Adam Yauch got it right. Second: Adam Horovitz is sorry. Directed by Spike Jonze, Beastie Boys Story is a filmed version &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2020/04/24/beastie-boys-story-review-ad-rock-and-mike-d-on-how-it-happened/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<p>Two things stand out in <em>Beastie Boys Story</em>, a concert
documentary screening on Apple TV+ starting April 24. First: Adam Yauch got it
right. Second: Adam Horovitz is sorry.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="412" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0104-copy.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-631" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0104-copy.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0104-copy-300x206.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0104-copy-218x150.jpg 218w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption>Mike Diamond, Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz in 1993 from an archival photo used in “Beastie Boys Story.” Photos courtesy Apple TV+.</figcaption></figure>



<p>Directed by Spike Jonze, <em>Beastie Boys Story</em> is a filmed version of a theater piece Horovitz and Mike Diamond performed at the King&#8217;s Theatre in Brooklyn. Backed on a bare stage by projected photos, archival footage, and music videos, Horovitz and Diamond reminisce about their time in one of the world&#8217;s biggest rap groups.</p>



<p>Yauch, Horovitz and Diamond
started out in the 1980s as punk rockers, along with drummer Kate Schellenbach.
Attitude was more important than skill, and in archival clips the group&#8217;s DYI
energy is infectious, even as Horovitz and Diamond admit their naiveté. Then
came rap and MTV.</p>



<p>The Beastie Boys lucked into
a friendship with Rick Rubin, who would evolve into an influential,
idiosyncratic producer. Rubin introduced them to Russell Simmons, one of the
earliest and most successful rap impresarios. Under their guidance, the Beastie
Boys became a white rap group, dropping Schellenbach in the process.</p>



<p>Horovitz and Diamond are largely silent about issues like cultural appropriation and sexism, although as director Jonze makes some astute visual juxtapositions highlighting the incongruity of the entire Beastie Boys construct. American culture is riddled with examples of performers like Pat Boone profiting from other cultures. If Russell Simmons &#8220;just needed three white rappers to get on MTV,&#8221; is he that far from Sam Phillips turning Elvis Presley into a star?</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="400" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0105-copy.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-633" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0105-copy.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0105-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0105-copy-225x150.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption>Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond discuss their music video for “Sabotage.” </figcaption></figure>



<p>The Beastie Boys&#8217; excuse was that they were just joking. &#8220;Our big idea was that we would be as rude and as awful as possible on stage&#8221; to get noticed, Diamond says. In their account, the world-wide hit &#8220;(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)&#8221; was a parody track recorded to fill out the <em>License to Ill</em> album, something that mocked the &#8220;party bro and frat guy.&#8221; They put a 25-foot penis in their stage act as a test, because they didn&#8217;t think they would be allowed get away with it. Funny if it&#8217;s a joke, but it turned out many of their fans didn&#8217;t get it.</p>



<p>Early tours were by their own
admission disastrous, and the group chafed at having to keep up their party bro
reputation. (The ironic underpinning to &#8220;Fight for Your Right&#8221;
disappeared pretty quickly.) They wasted money renting a mansion in Los Angeles
and recording <em>Paul&#8217;s Boutique</em>, a financial
failure. Horovitz isn&#8217;t too happy about how he responded to fame on a personal
level either. </p>



<p>Diamond and Horovitz deliver their
bad news with aplomb, bouncing around the stage, trading quips and putdowns,
laughing at clips of their earlier selves. Their secret weapon is Yauch, whose
development as an artist should be an inspiration to everyone. Yauch became not
only a dedicated musician, but a humanitarian who used his celebrity to help
others.</p>



<p>Yauch&#8217;s growth lets Horovitz
and Diamond off the hook to a certain extent, although onstage the two seem
genuinely determined to be better, more mature versions of their earlier
selves. &#8220;It&#8217;s not so much that we grew up, but we wised up,&#8221; Horovitz
says.</p>



<p>He also delivers an endearing
riposte: &#8220;I&#8217;d rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.&#8221; Getting
away with it — with being punks, with lacking talent and training, with having
no corporate support — was a large part of the Beastie Boys&#8217; appeal.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="428" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0102-copy.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-632" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0102-copy.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0102-copy-300x214.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Beastie_Boys_Story_Photo_0102-copy-210x150.jpg 210w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption>Mike Diamond, Spike Jonze and Adam Yauch prepare for the “Sabotage” music video.</figcaption></figure>



<p>That and their music, packaged
expertly in videos of startling originality (&#8220;Sabotage&#8221; directed by
Jonze himself).&nbsp; The fact that Yauch died
of cancer in 2012 gives the entire documentary unexpected gravity. </p>



<p><em>Beastie Boys Story</em> was originally planned as a theatrical release until COVID-19. It&#8217;s streaming now on Apple TV+, but ideally it should be seen in a theater crowded with fans. Maybe that will happen someday.</p>
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		<title>Review: Chess as a means of escape in Critical Thinking</title>
		<link>https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2020/04/13/review-chess-as-a-means-of-escape-in-critical-thinking/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2020 17:42:52 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Biopic]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[Modest but effective drama with a worthy message from director and actor John Leguizamo. Set in Miami in 1998, Critical Thinking tells the true story of underprivileged high school students who beat the odds to win a national chess tournament. &#8230; <a href="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/2020/04/13/review-chess-as-a-means-of-escape-in-critical-thinking/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<p>Modest
but effective drama with a worthy message from director and actor John
Leguizamo.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="247" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Gil-Wins-the-Local-copy.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-621" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Gil-Wins-the-Local-copy.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Gil-Wins-the-Local-copy-300x124.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Gil-Wins-the-Local-copy-250x103.jpg 250w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption>Teacher and coach &#8220;T&#8221; Maritnez (John Leguizamo) ponders his student&#8217;s move.</figcaption></figure>



<p>Set
in Miami in 1998, <em>Critical Thinking</em>
tells the true story of underprivileged high school students who beat the odds
to win a national chess tournament. Directed with earnest sincerity by John
Leguizamo, it&#8217;s the kind of movie that embraces genre expectations. And like
the kids it portrays, it works hard to reach its happy ending.</p>



<p>Leguizamo
plays Mr. &#8220;T&#8221; Martinez, a beleaguered teacher fighting on several
fronts to keep his elective course—ostensibly about critical thinking but in
reality lessons for his chess team—alive. First he has to overcome the
indifference of his students, almost all Latinx and black kids from lower-class
homes. Then he has to battle bureaucracy in the form of hard-bitten principal Kestel
(Rachel Bay Jones). Finally he has to convince other school districts and
eventually states that his team deserves to compete against wealthier schools.</p>



<p>It
could have been a showy role, but Leguizamo tamps down his typical energy,
letting his character&#8217;s doubts emerge along with his combativeness. The actor
directs in a similar manner, staging and framing his cast to focus on their
performances, trusting them to animate the bare-bones script by Dito Montiel.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="250" src="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mind-Chess-copy.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-622" srcset="https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mind-Chess-copy.jpg 600w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mind-Chess-copy-300x125.jpg 300w, https://www.filmlegacy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mind-Chess-copy-250x104.jpg 250w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption>Marcel (Jeffry Batista) plays four games in his head.</figcaption></figure>



<p>Production
values are basic: a few period cars and lots of late nineties pop music.
Cinematographer Zach Zamboni offers an occasional tracking shot or surprise
angle, but the visuals are straightforward, with a documentary realism and
television simplicity. </p>



<p>The
plot to <em>Critical Thinking</em> is as
predictable as any sports movie: aspirations, setbacks, victory, with
incidental character development. That the film succeeds as well as it does is
due in largely to its young performers, who bring a freshness and vitality to
predictable roles.</p>



<p><em>Critical Thinking </em>was developed by executive
producer Carla Berkowitz, who met with Martinez and his students as they were
competing in the 1990s. Their cooperation gives the film its authenticity, but
may have also sanded off rough edges. To their credit, the movie is tougher
than you might expect, even if it resolves some subplots too easily.</p>



<p>Among
the competitors, Jeffry Batista makes a strong impression as Marcel, a Cuban émigré
with uncanny abilities. And Jorge Lendeborg, Jr. does the best he can as
&#8220;Ito,&#8221; a victim of drug violence. </p>



<p><em>Critical Thinking </em>was supposed to premiere at
this year&#8217;s SXSW before COVID-19 upended the film industry. Its real-life angle
and Leguizamo&#8217;s participation might have won the project a small theatrical
window followed by a streaming deal. Now it&#8217;s another unsung casualty, left in
the same limbo as releases from major studios. <em>Critical Thinking</em> is honest and moving but not exceptional. It&#8217;s an
example of the kind of middlebrow festival feature that may not make as much
financial sense in the future.</p>
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