Millie Bobby Brown shines as the title character in Enola Holmes, a bubbly, fun detective yarn that gives the little sister of Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill) her own vehicle. Let’s hope it’s the first of many such mysteries.
Brown, who has been gloomy in most of her biggest roles thus far (Stranger Things, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), gets to show she’s a full-force movie star with complete control of the camera. The movie has her talking to the camera, à la Ferris Bueller, at many turns, and it works like a charm. The film’s mysteries, involving Enola’s missing mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and a runaway boy (Louis Partridge), are fine as starters, but the film is more of a place-setter for future installments than anything else.
Cavill adds class as Sherlock, imbibing his few scenes with plenty of oomph, but never stealing them from the movie’s true star. Brown—who has already proven that she has major dramatic chops, which are on further display here—has impeccable comic timing. I see pure comedies and musicals in her future.
It’s a fair guess to say sequels will be in order, because this is too much fun to stop here. (The film was intended for a theatrical release, but it was sold to Netflix due to the pandemic.) Brown (who has another Godzilla movie and a new Stranger Things season coming up) has another franchise, and this is the one that will show what she really brings to the party. Watch with the whole family, and enjoy.
Enola Holmes is now streaming on Netflix.
The struggle to expand the electorate to all Americans and restrictions of who is allowed to cast their ballot are two competing stories at the center of the latest and perhaps last documentary by Tucsonan Steve Waxman of ShadowWave Media, Vote Here: A film for the people by the people.
Vote Here is a nonpartisan documentary that tells the story of the electoral process and current issues facing voters. Waxman said the three-year filmmaking journey was inspired by the book “The Fight to Vote” by Michael Waldmen. However, the film took a different turn after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 when Waxman was living in Florida.
Seeing 14-year-old Parkland students telling their senior classmates they could pre-register to vote inspired Waxman; it cut to one of the film’s major focuses: That youth political involvement is a rediscovered American movement and that positive peer pressure works.
“This was just a fascinating thing that I had not seen in my lifetime which was a dedication of young people to make voting part of their cultural DNA,” he said.
Vote Here looks beyond our own lifetimes to the early days of the nation and reveals a different demographic of citizens heading to the polls and offers some tantalizing insights into how current political movements may reawaken the coveted youth vote.
America’s youth were the driving force of the mid 19th century political process, according to historian Jon Grinspan in Vote Here.
“What makes this era so exciting,” Grinspan said. “Voter turnout for eligible voters is often in the high ‘70s and gets up over 80 percent in some states that are particularly engaged in politics have turnout over 90 percent in five or six presidential elections in a row, but that high turnout was driven by these 21-year-olds who are so excited to go vote.”
Grinspan said several different motivations drove these youth to the polls: the desire to find a romantic partner, the political process being the main shared cultural experience and voting seen as a rite of passage into adulthood.
“What I had found out and what I think is true in a transcending way is that the most driving force for people to register to vote I believe now is peer pressure,” Waxman said.
In the film, executive director of the Environmental Voter Project Nathaniel Stinnett said that peer and social pressure to vote are the biggest tools to get registered voters to actually vote.
However, peer pressure is not the only challenge in getting people to the polls. Vote Here also tells of minority groups’ struggles to gain their franchisement with a focus on Pima County and the efforts of local group Mi Familia Vota to register Latino voters.
“They are very hesitant to want to turn out and get involved in the system at all either being concerned that they themselves will be scrutinized or as somebody who they might know would then be scrutinized and deported,” Waxman said.
These fears can be exacerbated by COVID-19 because of lack of healthcare or access to healthcare, according to Mi Famila Vota coordinator Ulises Ventura. In Pima County, Mi Famila Vota registered 7,000 voters during the 2016 election cycle according to the film, this year they have registered 4,530, with 460 digitally registered according to coordinator Sandy Ochoa.
Arizona’s battleground status is anticipated to play a critical role in the presidential election. Additionally, with the recent passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the senate race between Martha McSally and Mark Kelly takes on a new dimension. Because the senate race is a special election to fill the rest of John McCain’s term, the winner could be sworn in once the votes become certified according to the Associated Press.
Just as the filmmakers believe voting should be accessible as possible, they’re also offering Vote Here for free on YouTube . Register to vote online before the Oct. 5 deadline at servicearizona.com/VoterRegistration
Some movies are made to make viewers miserable. It’s what they set out to do, and if done well, cinema geeks such as myself will tip our hats to them.
The Devil All the Time is one of those movies. It’s an ugly film—and it’s supposed to be. I understand that a lot of people do not need this sort of movie in their lives right now. I, for one, found it a mildly rewarding viewing experience, even though I had to take two showers afterward.
The film starts in World War II, where soldier Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgard) makes a discovery that will pretty much fuck him up for the rest of his life. Upon returning stateside, he tries to live the American life: He gets married to Charlotte (Haley Bennett) and has a boy named Arvin (Tom Holland, when the character grows up). Try as Willard might to live a good, pious life, tragedy strikes multiple times.
Arvin grows up with a decent-enough head on his shoulders despite the trauma, and has a strong bond with his stepsister, Lenora (Eliza Scanlen). When a creepy preacher (Robert Pattinson) moves to town, things—rather predictably—go bad again.
Meanwhile, in another subplot, a sadistic couple (Jason Clarke and Riley Keough) drives around picking up hitchhikers and asking them to do some strange things. There’s also a corrupt sheriff (Sebastian Stan), the brother to the woman doing the strange hitchhiking things. There are a lot of other characters in the mix as well.
Bottom line: The film has way too much going on. It needed to be a miniseries rather than a single 138-minute film. That said, Holland and Pattinson are especially good, and the film is worth seeing for them. Skarsgard, Keough, Clarke and Scanlen all do just fine, but the movie is way too crowded.
The Devil All the Time is streaming on Netflix.