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      ‘Beans’ Review: Growing Up Fast in the ’90s

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      A middle school student comes of age during a standoff between the police and Mohawk residents during the 1990 Oka crisis in Canada.The drama “Beans” sets its coming-of-age story during the 1990 Oka crisis, when Mohawk residents of Oka, Quebec, began protesting the expansion of a golf course into Native burial ground. The characters in the story are fictional, but “Beans” takes place during a real period of turbulence in Eastern Canada, as Mohawk people were harassed by their neighbors and the police.The film’s heroine, Tekehentahkhwa (Kiawentiio), is a Mohawk middle schooler with a bright smile and braids. Her family calls her Beans. She’s still learning about the world when her hometown suddenly becomes the site of a major conflict. Gunshots ring out in the forest where she plays. People throw rocks at her mother’s car. Beans seeks out guidance from an older girl, April (Paulina Alexis), but no matter how much April pretends to be in control, she and Beans are still children. And this crisis has rattled even their elders, even Beans’s dauntless mother, Lily (Rainbow Dickerson).This is the first fictional film directed by the documentarian Tracey Deer, and she brings a good eye for which characters might make a compelling story. Deer emphasizes the styles of the period — the high ponytails and neon windbreakers opposite police uniforms. But her heroes aren’t fighters; they are the children and mothers who must navigate empty grocery shelves and taunting mobs.In choosing her protagonists as she has, Deer has made a canny portrait of Mohawk domestic life during a modern conflict. The difference between this and other homefront movies is that usually war is depicted as happening far away. Here, Beans has to make sense of a fight where her home is the battlefield, too.BeansNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Six Minutes to Midnight’ Review: A Finishing School for the Nazi Elite

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      In this suspense thriller set in the 1930s, Judi Dench and Eddie Izzard are stalwart Brits at a sinister girl’s school in England.There have been an awful lot of movies made not just about World War II but about the days leading up to it. So new angles can be hard to find. How about this: a Nazi girl’s school in a seaside town in England in the 1930s?Such a place did exist: the Augusta Victoria College at Bexhill-on-Sea. Its school badge contained both a Union Jack and a swastika. It was here that daughters of the Nazi elite went for finishing. Out of this peculiar fact, Eddie Izzard, whose family hails from Bexhill, determined to forge a film; Izzard not only stars in “Six Minutes to Midnight” but is also one of the writers of the screenplay as well as an executive producer.The scenario grafts a fictional Hitchcock-redolent suspense thriller to the reality of the school’s existence. “Midnight” opens with the disappearance of an instructor at the school, under sinister circumstances. Enter Izzard as Thomas Miller, come to replace him. Like his predecessor, Miller is a British spy really sent to gather intelligence on the school. While the activities of the students, their German instructor Ilse (Carla Juri) and their British headmistress (Judi Dench) seem on the up-and-up, pedagogy-wise, the environment nevertheless looks ripe for espionage. And when Miller witnesses the student body’s enthusiastic response to a speech by Adolf Hitler on the wireless, he figures the suspicions of his superiors are correct.Classified lists, a secret evacuation plan and a murder frame-up all come into play. The double-crosses are depicted by the director Andy Goddard with better-than-average craft, but the more the movie leans into old suspense conventions the more interest it loses, alas.Six Minutes to MidnightRated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More

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      Six Great Movies About Presidents

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySix Great Movies About PresidentsIf you’re looking for some escapism, these films are a good reminder that democracy works.Daniel Day-Lewis took an Oscar-winning turn as President Abraham Lincoln in the 2012 film “Lincoln.”Credit…DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century FoxJan. 16, 2021When a new president is inaugurated, it’s traditionally an occasion for pageantry and pomp, showcasing the splendor of Washington and reminding the country and the world of the United States’ democratic promise: that power ultimately rests in the will of the people. As we head into these ceremonies next week, it’s a good time to let these movies remind us that the mechanisms of American politics and the institution of the presidency — at their best and worst — have endured for centuries.These six entertaining films are about real and fictional presidents, and are set against the backdrop and complicated culture of our nation’s capital.‘Lincoln’The director Steven Spielberg and the screenwriter Tony Kushner take an unusual approach to telling the story of one of America’s most beloved presidents, focusing mostly on the first months of Abraham Lincoln’s second term, when he cajoled a reluctant Congress into passing a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Daniel Day-Lewis gives an Oscar-winning performance as Lincoln, capturing the man’s gentle good humor and shrewd — sometimes ruthless — political instincts. The “Lincoln” creative team make the figures from history books look and feel like real people, with complex personalities and motives.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘Thirteen Days’The title of this film refers to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet deployment of nuclear weapons not far from the Florida coast pitted John F. Kennedy and his inner circle against both the Russians and their own Joint Chiefs of Staff. The outcome of this story is well-known. (Spoiler alert: The missiles were removed and a potential catastrophe was averted.) But the director Roger Donaldson and the screenwriter David Self still successfully dramatize the tension and paranoia brewing when Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood), his brother Robert (Steven Culp) and his adviser Kenneth O’Donnell (Kevin Costner) scrambled to out-negotiate their rivals.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘Seven Days in May’The characters in this jittery 1964 thriller are fictional, but the situation — particularly of late — feels all too real. Kirk Douglas plays a Marine colonel who suspects that a hawkish Air Force general (Burt Lancaster) is organizing a coup against a pacifist president (Frederic March). The director John Frankenheimer (who two years earlier made the similarly pulse-pounding “The Manchurian Candidate”) and the screenwriter Rod Serling adapt a novel by Charles W. Bailey II and Fletcher Knebel into an offbeat war movie, where the soldiers fight in boardrooms instead of battlefields, attacking using clandestine meetings and phone calls.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘All the President’s Men’Richard Nixon is at the center of this newspaper drama, even though he mostly stays offscreen. Based on Carl Bernstein’s and Bob Woodward’s account of how they investigated the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post, this film conveys the day-to-day business of gossip, leaks and social networking in the nation’s capital. But it’s also a rousing story about how citizens and journalists can serve as a check on the executive branch, whenever presidents and their staff start imperiously ignoring or bulldozing over federal laws.Watch it on HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘Dave’One big appeal of movies about presidents is the chance to see how the leader of the free world lives. In this 1993 comedy “Dave,” Kevin Kline plays an ordinary guy who looks just like the president. When the White House staff asks him to pose as POTUS while the real one recovers from a stroke, Dave soon finds himself embroiled in a plot involving scandal, chicanery and romance. What makes this picture so delightful is Kline’s endearingly upbeat performance as someone who genuinely enjoys the privileges of the presidency — from the perks of the White House to the power to improve people’s lives.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘The American President’The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has a knack for creating charismatic and inspiring politicians, as seen in his hit TV series, “The West Wing.” In this 1995 romantic drama, Michael Douglas plays the title character, a Bill Clinton-like centrist Democrat prone to push for popular legislation rather than taking controversial stands. Sorkin’s story (directed by Rob Reiner) is mostly about the widowed president’s love affair with an environmental lobbyist played by Annette Bening. But the movie also imagines an idealized Washington, where the right speech at the right time can change minds and perhaps save a nation.Watch it on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More