Las Vegas film critic Josh Bell takes a look at 2 movies this week.
Bell has a couple of under-the-radar picks this week starting with the documentary Playing With Sharks, now streaming on Disney Plus. A selection at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Playing With Sharks spotlights Australian conservationist and diver Valerie Taylor, a pioneering underwater photographer who's devoted her life to correcting dangerous misconceptions about sharks. Taylor and her husband worked on nature documentaries for decades, and they shot underwater footage for Hollywood movies including the scenes of actual sharks in Jaws. There's plenty of that amazing footage in the movie, as well as engaging interviews with Valerie Taylor, who's still passionate and charismatic and active as a diver in her 80s. That's Playing With Sharks, now on Disney Plus.
Las Vegas native and Las Vegas Academy of the Arts graduate Molly Bernard stars in the indie dramedy Milkwater, now streaming on Netflix. She plays Milo, an aimless Brooklyn 20-something hipster who impulsively decides to become a surrogate for an older gay man she barely knows. Milo's entire life is thrown into chaos by her decision to bear a child for someone else, and her behavior is a bit extreme at times, especially as she inserts herself into the life of the man whose baby she's carrying. But Molly Bernard remains charming even when Milo is acting like a jerk, and the movie remains charming as well, telling a satisfying story about maturity and indivduality.
