TxMike

Set in the deep south, Yazoo City, (filmed in Mississippi) it starts with the inside of a catfish farm plant, ladies in a line using machines to process fish for sale.

One of those workers is Holly Hunter, about 30 during filming, as Carnelle Scott, with her dyed bright red hair. The yearly "Miss Firecracker" pageant is coming up soon and she decides to enter.

Her cousin is Mary Steenburgen as Elain Rutledge, former winner of the contest and back in town during some marital issues.

Her other cousin is Tim Robbins as Delmount Williams, we meet him as he works a county detail, using a shovel to pick up dead animal carcasses. Seems he is lacking in skills and ambition. Part of the comedy is the juxtaposition of the two characters, Hunter being very small and short, Robbins just the opposite.

Alfre Woodard has a good role as "Popeye" Jackson (because of her eyes and thick glasses), a local seamstress who helps Carnelle and has a crush on Delmount.

Yes, the overall theme of the movie is the 1988 "Miss Firecracker" contest but in the end that becomes incidental. It is more about the characters, especially Carnelle, coming to grips with who they really are and what they might want to do with their lives.

Hunter is great, I enjoy all her roles. At home, on DVD from my public library. A watched this maybe 20 or 25 years ago, today it was all fresh.

As my wife and I usually do, we look for a pleasant movie to watch after our Saturday evening steak and wine dinner, with chocolate cake for dessert of course. We found this movie on DVD from our public library.

It indeed is a pleasant movie with a nice story, nice voice actors, and superb animation.

We first see Mufasa as a young cub with his family in his homeland. Then it starts to rain, harder and harder, until the area floods and Mufasa is caught up in a furious river. He survives but is swept far away and finds himself in a strange place after the waters recede.

All that happens early and the rest of the movie is Mufasa becoming accepted by his new surroundings, his budding friendship with the cub that eventually becomes Scar. Then his journey back to his homeland, the need to overcome a rogue band of white lions that threaten them.

Nothing much new, just a pleasant movie.

As a B&W photographer myself during the 1970s I knew of Smith, however I was unaware of the scope of his photography. This is a movie about his final big assignment in 1972, returning to Japan 26 years after he was badly injured working as a war correspondent.

Johnny Depp is W. Eugene Smith. He is convinced to do this photo-essay project in Japan. It was a location where, it turns out, a large chemical corporation in Minamata was dumping rather high levels of mercury into waterways, contaminating everything and resulting in what became known as Minamata Disease, a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning. The issue is exacerbated because in pregnant women, the fetus ends up absorbing the mercury and it could result in microcephaly, extensive cerebral damage, and symptoms similar to those seen in cerebral palsy.

The movie depicts all this and the hard fight with the owners of the chemical corporation to acknowledge their role in causing the problem and the task of cleaning it up. Smith's photo-essay is credited with playing a major role.

This is a very good movie and Depp is superb as the photographer. My wife and I watched it at home streaming on Amazon Prime.