Into the Storm
Film Review by Kam Williams
Tornado Wreaks Havoc on Tiny Oklahoma Town in Thrill-a-Minute Disaster Flick
The skies are deceptively serene over Silverton, Oklahoma, offering no reminder of the fact that four people recently perished in a deadly tornado that touched down in a neighboring city. Consequently, we find the townfolk blissfully unaware of the rough weather bearing down on the area threatening to ruin high school graduation day.
Vice Principal Gary Morris (Richard Armitage), who is in charge of the commencement festivities, has assigned his sons, Trey (Nathan Kress), a sophomore, and Donnie (Max Deacon), a junior, the thankless task of filming the ceremony in order to preserve it for posterity in a buried time capsule. His younger boy complies with the request, but the elder is immediately distracted from the task at hand by an opportunity to assist acute classmate (Alycia Debnam Carey) salvage her own video project.
Meanwhile, a team of storm chasers is rushing towards Silverton at the direction of its meteorologist, Allison Stone (Sarah Wayne Callies), since her computer data has predicted that the next funnel cloud is likely to form somewhere in that vicinity. But because she’s a single-mom with a 5 year-old (Keala Wayne Winterhalt) back home, she’s a lot less enthusiastic about her job than their leader, Pete Moore (Matt Walsh).
Like a latter-day Captain Ahab, Moore is maniacal in his quest to capture the mother of all cyclones on camera. So, he exhorts Allison and the rest of the crew to risk life and limb in search of that elusive dream shot from inside the eye of a storm.
At least they have a couple of vehicles specially outfitted for such an occasion, including a glass turreted tank with grappling claws that can withstand winds of up to 170 mph. That’s more than can be said about local yokels Donk (Kyle Davis) and Reevis (John Reep), fate-tempting daredevils who have decided to try to capture footage by riding around in a pickup truck emblazoned on the back with a hand-painted sign that reads “TWISTA HUNTERZ.”
Once the colorful cast of soon-to-be imperiled archetypes has been introduced, Allison’s dire forecast proves uncannily accurate as ominous clouds form overhead. That’s when the fun starts in Into the Storm, a Seventies-style disaster flick reminiscent of such unnerving classics as Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).
This update of the genre benefits immeasurably from state-of-the-art CGI, a worthwhile investment for the eye-popping special f/x alone. A campy and cheesy yet visually-captivating roller coaster ride that makes Sharknado look like Sharknado 2!
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, sexual references, and scenes of intense peril and destruction
Running time: 89 minutes
Distributor: Warner Brothers
To see a trailer for Into the Storm, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_kj8EKhV3w
30 Years at Ballymaloe
by Darina Allen
Book Review by Kam Williams
Foreword by Alice Waters
Photographs by Laura Edwards
Kyle Books
Hardcover, $35.00
320 pages, Illustrated
ISBN: 978-1-909487-13-0
“Ballymaloe is Ireland’s longest established cookery school and a Mecca of international acclaim for those with a passion for food. Since it first opened in 1983, it has played host to an internationally diverse range of pupils from 16-69 years old and an impressive array of guest chefs…
Over the past 30 years the School has expanded its repertoire and now offers over 100 courses… Students can learn how to cure meat, make gluten-free meals and sushi, as well as discover forgotten skills such as producing butter and cheese, and beekeeping…
Featuring over 100 recipes, this book showcases the best of the Cookery School... [It] is a tribute to this unique place and the people that teach work and learn there.”
-- Excerpted from the Introduction (page vii)
What is an Irish seven-course meal? If you grew up prior to the arrival of political correctness, you probably know that the punch line of that ethnic joke is “A six-pack of beer and a potato.”
Of course, the Irish aren’t all alcoholics and they eat a lot more than taters when they sit down at the dinner table. Still, most of us are undoubtedly influenced in our thinking by the very limited menu most restaurants offer on St. Patrick’s Day, specifically, spuds, corned beef and cabbage, and Irish Soda Bread.
Truth be told, their cuisine is much more refined than mere meat and potatoes. In fact, corned beef and cabbage is an American invention which most Irish natives never try before arriving in the States.
If you want to get a sense of the best that Ireland has to offer in terms of culinary delights, check out 30 Years at Ballymaloe, a combination memoir and cookbook replete with recipes, history lessons and glorious photographs of both mouth-watering dishes and lush photographs of the Emerald Isle’s verdant countryside.
The elegant and practical coffee table opus is the labor of love of Darina Allen, co-founder with her brother Rory of the famed Ballymaloe Cookery School. Long esteemed as the Julia Child of Ireland, Darina staked her career ages ago on a health-oriented, “Slow Food” approach emphasizing organic, locally-grown, seasonal produce and cooking in wood-burning stoves.
So, the sort of Irish food you’ll see trumpeted here ranges from “Ballycotton Shrimp with Watercress and Homemade Mayonnaise” to “Carrageen Moss Pudding with Poached Apricot and Sweet Geranium Compote.” The author also offers tips on keeping cows which, in turn, enables her to make such fresh favorites as “Virgin Jersey Butter” and “Caramel Ice Cream.”
Darina has a fruit garden, too, of course, where figs, gooseberries, raspberries, figs, plums and green almonds can be found in abundance. And she bakes everything from brown bread to a chicken pot pie that sticks to the ribs, although the irresistible entrée that I just have to attempt is the pizza with roast peppers, olives and gremolata.
A practical primer on the farm to fork philosophy proving Irish culinary fare to be far more sophisticated than the sorry slop and green beer celebrated all across the U.S. every St. Patty’s Day.
To order a copy of 30 Years at Ballymaloe, visit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1909487139/ref%3dnosim/thslfofire-20
Rich Hill
Film Review by Kam Williams
Rust Belt “New Normal” Chronicled in Diminished Dreams Documentary
Rich Hill, Missouri is a ghost town on hard times. Located about seventy miles south of Kansas City, the population of this once-thriving mining metropolis has dwindled down to 1,393 since the last of the coal was unearthed from the ground.
The lack of a sufficient tax base to maintain the city’s infrastructure is reflected in such urban blight as boarded up storefronts, potholed roads, abandoned farms, and the corner pharmacy and company bank reduced to rubble. Today, the remaining residents find themselves stuck in a godforsaken no man’s land marked by social dysfunction and high unemployment.
Nevertheless, there is an undeniable optimism among young Andrew, Harley and Appachey. These three boys are the subject of Rich Hill, a heartbreaking expose chronicling Rich Hill’s new normal in terms of the American Dream.
Co-directed by Andrew Droz Palermo and Tracy Droz Tragos, the picture won the 2014 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in the Best Documentary category. As the cousins’ camera follows the trio around, you can’t help but notice the crumbling exoskeleton in the background that looks almost post-apocalyptic. Could this really be the good ole U.S. of A?
Meanwhile, each kid has a quite compelling story to share. 13 year-old Andrew worries about his family subsisting when not practicing the latest dance steps with his sister. Appachey, 12, wants to teach art in China when he grows up. But first, he has to repeat the 6th grade. And 15 year-old Harley has a great sense of humor despite the fact that he misses his convict mother imprisoned for the attempted murder of the sick stepfather who’d molested him.
The Rust Belt’s “New Normal” depicted as a desolate, depressed dystopia dotted with street urchins a tad too naïve to appreciate their dire life prospects.
Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 91 minutes
Distributor: The Orchard
To see a trailer for Rich Hill, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHml65Du-Ug
Web Junkie
Film Review by Kam Williams
How long do you think you could you survive without access to a cell phone or computer? A few hours? A day? A week? How about three months? That’s the degree of deprivation awaiting adolescents diagnosed as addicted to the internet over in China, the first country to officially recognize the burgeoning malady as a clinical disorder.
The Rx for the afflicted is 90 days of rehab at one of 400 paramilitary boot camps where one must adhere to a Spartan daily regimen sans any electronic stimuli. Going cold turkey is not an easy thing to adjust to for kids used to playing video games for hours on end.
But that is precisely the goal of the shrinks in Web Junkie, a cautionary tale making one wonder whether America might not be far behind. The documentary was directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia who were afforded extraordinary access to the intervention and treatment of a trio of teenage boys whose exasperated parents sought help from a facility in Beijing.
The film traces the transformation of Hope, Hacker and Nicky from insufferable, anti-social jerks who barely communicate with their families, teachers and classmates into sensitive souls truly changed by therapy and the period offline. It’s nothing short of miraculous to see the same kid who couldn’t be bothered to talk to his father eventually melt into a touchy-feely hugger who upon reuniting tearfully says, “I love you, Dad.”
Overall, the movie makes a convincing case that cell phone use ought to be limited during a child’s formative years when the social part of the brain is still developing. For, the subjects of this telling expose certainly seem to suffer from stunted development due to too much time spent playing computer games and surfing the ‘net.
A tough love remedy from the Orient designed for impressionable young minds which prefer virtual reality to relating in the flesh.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
In Mandarin with subtitles
Running time: 76 minutes
Distributor: Kino Lorber
To see a trailer for Web Junkie, visit
Get on Up
Film Review by Kam Williams
Chadwick Channels James Brown in Nostalgic Jukebox Musical
Just last year, Chadwick Boseman successfully channeled the spirit of Jackie Robinson in 42, a powerful biopic about the Hall of Fame great who made history when he integrated Major League Baseball in 1947. In Get on Up, the gifted young actor is already impersonating another legendary African-American, the Godfather of Soul, James Brown (1933-2006).
Unfortunately, this revisionist fairytale works better as a jukebox musical than as an accurate recitation of the late crooner’s checkered past. The problem is that Brown simply is hard to portray sympathetically, despite his overcoming abject poverty and a dysfunctional childhood on the road to superstardom.
Yes, he was abandoned by abusive parents (Viola Davis and Lennie James) at the home of an aunt (Octavia Spencer) in Augusta, Georgia who did her best to raise him in the absence of a father figure. Nevertheless, James dropped out of school in the 7th grade, took to the streets, and spent several years behind bars for an armed robbery committed at just 16.
Upon parole, he made a foray into showbiz after joining the Famous Flames, the first of numerous R&B groups he would headline over the course of a career marked again and again by bad break-ups due to disagreements he had over salary with disgruntled sidemen. Brown would also have further run-ins with the law, ranging from repeated arrests for domestic violence against three different battered wives, to embezzlement, tax evasion and bankruptcy, to another three years in prison for illegal drug and weapons possession, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
Somehow, Tate Taylor (The Help) has figured a way to put a positive spin on the tarnished legacy of this terribly-flawed figure. Rather than have the film unfold chronologically, the inventive director has crafted an oft-confusing flashback flick which jumps backwards and forwards in time in dizzying fashion with no apparent rhyme or reason.
That scattershot approach ostensibly enables Get on Up to sidestep the more tawdry episodes on Brown’s resume without appearing to leave gaping holes in his life story. Consequently, the movie sits on solid ground during gyrating Boseman’s lip-synched, onstage performances of such James Brown hits as “I Feel Good,” “It’s a Man’s World,” “Super Bad” and “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” but not so much whenever it shifts its focus to its morally-objectionable protagonist’s poor people skills.
A nostalgic indulgence which, like the cinematic equivalent of a fluffy fanzine, eschews serious criticism of a revered icon in favor of a pleasant parade of his most memorable classics.
Very Good (2.5 stars)
Rated PG-13 for sexuality, drug use, profanity and violence
Running time: 138 minutes
Distributor: Universal Pictures
To see a trailer for Get on Up, visit: