‘Next Goal Wins’: This soccer movie should be an easy score, but the ball sails over the crossbar

Jeff Mitchell

“Next Goal Wins” (2023) – 2,555, 44,620, 77, 2,073, and 31-0. American Samoa is an unincorporated U.S. territory, an island locale in the Pacific Ocean that sits 2,555 miles southwest of Hawaii.  44,620 people live on 77 square miles of tropical paradise.  Taika Waititi (“Boy” (2010), “What We Do in the Shadows” (2014), “Jojo Rabbit” (2019)) was born in Wellington, New Zealand, 2,073 miles southwest of American Samoa.  In “Next Goal Wins”, this whimsical, creative mind directs and cowrites an American Samoan tale based on actual events involving the world’s…

‘The Marvels’: A messy, confounding story grounds this MCU space odyssey

Jeff Mitchell

“The Marvels” (2023) – “The jump point is still leaking energy.” If that quote seems confusing, you aren’t alone.  “The Marvels” – the sequel to “Captain Marvel” (2019), starring Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani – has a confounding plot, one that completes its cooked chronicle through several conveniences over an (approximate) 95-minute runtime. It’s a messy space odyssey that shoehorns two Disney+ characters on the MCU’s big screen – Monica Rambeau (Parris), who works for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and a 16-year-old Jersey City kid, Kamala Khan…

‘The Persian Version’: Too many shifts in tones, times, and ideas crowd the earnest intentions

Jeff Mitchell

“The Persian Version” (2023) – “Oh girls.  Girls just wanna have fun.  They just wanna.  They just wanna.” – “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (1983), performed by Cyndi Lauper and written by Robert Hazard Within the first 10 minutes (or so) of director/writer Maryam Keshavarz’s “The Persian Version” – with a “Based on a True Story…Sort Of” tagline on the movie poster – a pre-teen Leila (Chiara Stella) sneaks Michael Jackson, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper cassette tapes on a New York City trip to Iran. She then leads an…