“Tony” is Yet Another Good Biopic
The problem isn’t that it’s bad. It's good. But it fails to stand out from a crowd of similar films.

Max Plugin is a jaded but flamboyant relic of the 1960s. In his teens, Max ran away to California, where he met Teschlock, a charismatic ascetic and guru renowned among a small group of young followers. At that time, when Teschlock asked Max to join him and his disciples on an ashram in India, Max declined and returned home. Now, forty years later, at age 57, Max takes a journey to India to find Teschlock's grave-site, and also himself. His adventures in India, and his Castaneda-esque experiences back home, form the heart of this very unusual road movie.
The problem isn’t that it’s bad. It's good. But it fails to stand out from a crowd of similar films.
The 2019 film, Vai, takes us through eight stories across the islands of Oceania. The settings are unbelievably beautiful, the cast is beautiful, the languages are beautiful, and the stories are beautiful…but heartbreaking.
For those tranquil houses with white fences, what is happening behind every closed door?
The quiet ache of guilt sitting at the dinner table, the silence after a truth is buried, and the way pain is passed down like a name.
Adventure Time, Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, The Loud House, The Hollow, OK-K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes, The Dragon Prince, etc!
“And I think to myself….what a wonderful world”. Louis Armstrong sang about this notion via his classic 1967 song, an ode to witnessing elements of our life that should be but some reminders of exactly what that concluding line of each verse indicates. Now we see our contemporary realities and, just being honest, it makes a sentiment like this seem SO overtly far away….perhaps even impossible….to accept or believe could be. It sounds harsh, but again, so much of what is occurring speaks not to beauty, but bedlam.