Luce: Did he or didn't he?

The first time we see Luce (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) he's a high school senior, handsome, smart, popular. He's delivering a speech with his Mom (Naomi Watts) and Dad (Tim Roth) beaming in the audience.

We soon learn that he was adopted at the age of seven. In his earlier years, he was a conscripted child soldier in Africa. The central question in this controversial and thought provoking film is simply this:  Can such a child be rehabilitated?

The movie zigs and zags between the answers to that question.

Enter Luce's high school teacher (Octavia Spencer.) She assigns an essay which Luce completes in a disturbing fashion. Now she's convinced he's not the teenager he appears to be. But, hey, she's got some heavy baggage of her own. Should we believe her?

Luce is a movie that delves into the thorny issue of race in America. Talk about thought provoking. At the same time it must be remembered that Luce is hardly a typical teenager, black or white.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

With Once upon a time Quentin Tarantino brings a fairy tale to the multiplex. He sets it in 1969, sprinkles it with with real people and real news stories, and saturates it with upbeat, bouncy '60s music.

The story involves two buddies (Brad Pitt & Leonardo DeCaprio) who fulfill their roles on and off the screen. A diva of an actor and his stunt double, who doubles as his cleanup guy and heavy lifter in real life.

Like many fairy tails, this one  has some grim, dark moments and some characters who mess
with our heroes.( Boo.) But Tarantino does not give us a Grimm's fair tale ending. Thank you very much, Quentin. 
 
The Movie Slut loved the ending. Sure it was alternative history. So were the endings in Inglorious Basterds when he killed off all the Nazis and in Django Unchained when he massacred the slave owners. The difference here is that he showed some restraint and maturity. While there are violent scenes in Once..., it's not an over-the-top gore-fest.