Stro movie review

MOVIE TITLE: STRO

Available this Friday, October 9^th, at the Marina Del Rey Film Festival, which will be aired exclusively on Roku on the @ShortsDaily channel. For only $5.99, you’ll gain access to almost 300 films at the festival! Sounds like a really good deal, eh? That’s cheaper than the streaming movie you probably rented last night!

RATING: R for multiple F-bombs

LENGTH: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: A

IN A NUTSHELL:

The film opens with an intriguing quote by Carl Jung. It states, “Nature herself demands a death and rebirth, a process of inner transformation and rebirth into another being.”

In full disclosure, my old high school buddy, Greg Lynch Jr, wrote and co-directed this film! Doug Nichols co-directed the film and together, they also created the fencing documentary THE LAST CAPTAIN. I tried really hard not to be biased. It truly is a great documentary. I’m so proud of him! You can watch the 2-part interview with him on my Movie Review YouTube channel.

It’s an insightful tribute to the fencing legend, Michael D’Asaro.

It has already been accepted into six film festivals, the most prestigious is the Warsaw International Film Festival, part of the group that includes Cannes, Venice, and Berlin!

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Some profanity, including multiple F-bombs
Unless kids are interested in fencing, they’ll be bored. If they do watch it, they’ll learn a lot about the various styles of fencing, swords, and the hard work it takes to be a champion.
Talk of marijuana, drugs, and alcohol

THEMES:

Determination and persistence
Teamwork
Sportsmanship
Standing for one’s principles
Coaching techniques
Recreating your life

THINGS I LIKED:

I loved the creative ways some of the interviews were featured. For example, a series of written sports programs/pamphlets were shown and inside one of them, a clip played from an interview, reminiscent of the talking portraits in the Harry Potter movies. Clever!

* The film doesn’t shy away from the darker sides of Michael D’Asaro’s career and personal life. It was also interesting to see how Michael coached with the same abusive style his own coach had used to train him. Back then, a coach tried to toughen up his students in ways that are considered quite unacceptable today. The comments from Michael’s students were insightful.

It was great to learn about the positive impact Michael had on women in fencing and how his coaching efforts truly opened doors for women in the sport.
Documentaries like this always make me wonder what people would have to say about my life’s contributions and legacy. Which old photos of me would be shown? That aspect, alone, should inspire us all to live our best lives now.
I enjoyed seeing interviews with a variety of people who knew Michael from the different stages of his life from teammate to student and even spouse.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and often wandered through the Haight Ashbury area as a tourist, wondering what kind of people used to live there in the ’60s and ’70s at the height of the hippie mecca. It was interesting to learn about Michael during that period of his life as he used controversial coaching techniques, coached while high on drugs, and even offered drugs to his students. The interviews and selected pictures really painted a colorful picture of that time. It was fascinating to see the physical transformation of Michael throughout his life.
Wonderful music by Philip Kreyche. It feels like a “real” movie as soon as you hear his music.
Greg Lynch, Jr. was hilarious back when we were on the Speech & Debate team together in high school. He still is. I love that he shares his personal insights on the film’s website where you can read about how the film was made. Indie filmmakers will especially appreciate his comments on the ups and downs of the moviemaking business. He spent 25 years building sets for such movies as Tremors and Angels & Demons. He also directed hundreds of short videos for Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine. All films have to be edited, so if you’re dying to see what you missed, you can watch a bunch of the deleted scene videos at www.strothemovie.com
I really love the movie poster. That one image of Michael in the lower right-hand side of the poster really makes him look like a French Muskateer from the movies, right? I think he would have loved the poster. I asked Greg Lynch, Jr. about it and he explained, “My friend Lyndell Wolff did the poster. I’ve worked with him in the film industry since I started. He’s an excellent sculptor as well. Currently, he’s making headway doing paintings of old motorcycles.”
I signed up my family for fencing lessons a couple of times just to see what it was all about. One of the interviewed students in the film talked about all of those painful lunges and I could absolutely relate. I could hardly walk the day after our first fencing lesson! Most cities have some kind of fencing program, so you should definitely check it out!

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

I’m a big Neil Diamond fan, so it would have been fun to learn more about his relationship with Michael D’Asaro in the movie. The director told me, “One of our bigger regrets for the film was that the connection to Neil Diamond wasn’t bigger. Yes, that Neil Diamond. D’Asaro and Diamond were both teammates on the 1960 NYU Championship team. But the relationship wasn’t as close as we hoped, so I left that story out as it was more of a distraction.” You can find those outtakes here: https://youtu.be/wAN8uahnDn8
The stylish editing was prevalent in the first part of the movie, but it decreased as the movie progressed. There were a few choppy editing cuts within interviews that were noticeable.
Maybe I blinked, but I don’t remember hearing anyone explain why Michael D’Asaro was nicknamed Stro.

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