Thematically, these movies are two peas in a pod. They're both about families of terrible rich people who find their privilege threatened, and spend much of the movie trying to dispatch a female outsider who they view as a threat. One happens to be a murder mystery, and the other a pulpy horror film.
Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" is a delightful rarity - a modern day whodunnit with a big cast and a big house that plays out like an old Agatha Christie mystery crossed with a Hitchcock thriller. There is a sleuth, of course, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who is hired to investigate the death of mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), who leaves behind a large family of rich assholes, and one nervous young nurse, Marta (Ana De Armas), who knows more than she's letting on. The ensemble includes Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, Katherine Langford, and Toni Collette as members of the Thrombey family, plus Lakeith Stanfield and Noah Segan as police officers.
The plotting is sometimes a little too convoluted, and not all of the humor worked for me, but this is the most consistently enjoyable film that Rian Johnson has made yet. What he got right are the dialogue and characters, colorful and larger than life, with an ensemble that has a fantastic time clashing and playing off of each other. Craig is having a ball as a bloviating southern gentleman sleuth with a Foghorn Leghorn accent. Evans treads a very thin line between malevolent smarmy dick and redeemable smarmy dick. Plummer and de Armas manage to give the story a little heart, and thus real stakes. And at first I thought Stanfield was being wasted as the exasperated straight man to Blanc's antics - but he kept consistently getting the biggest laughs.
Through them, Johnson pokes a little fun at current American politics - but not too much. Mostly, he's calling out the ugly hypocrisies and cruelties of the Thrombey clan while happily playing with all the familiar pieces of a murder mystery. Elements like unreliable testimony, secret messages, disguises, and mistaken identity all get trotted out, some to be subverted, some to be given a twist. There's even a "stupidest car chase ever." The tone is light and snarky, and the movie never stops being fun. And good for Rian Johnson - he needed a win like this after the whole "Star Wars" mess.
Now, let's jump genres over to "Ready or Not," which sees another well-to-do clan, the Le Domas family, assembling for an important event. Lovely Grace (Samara Weaving) has just married long estranged son Alex (Mark O'Brien). Tradition dictates that she has to play a game with the family the night after the wedding, the specific game to be decided by drawing cards. Of course, Grace picks the wrong card, and find herself trying to escape the whole murderous lot of them in a sadistic game of hide and seek. Lots of blood and gore result, but there are also a lot of laughs, as the Le Domases are mostly a gang of spoiled, incompetent reprobates who have no idea what they're doing.
Adam Brody, Henry Czerny, and Andie MacDowell lead the rest of the ensemble, as Alex's brother, father, and mother respectively. Nobody does much real heavy lifting, as the film is built around its scare and action sequences, but they get in their juicy little moments of nastiness and villainy. Samara Weaving, however, is definitely making a play for stardom. She's easy to root for, and really sells all the physicality and cringiness and disgust of the body horror. Also, she has an amazing set of lungs. The film flirts with becoming a total cartoon, especially the splatterific ending, but there's enough substance in the performances and the social satire to keep it a notch above your average gorefest. I especially like the film's jabs at "innocent" kids.
"Ready or Not" was directed by the team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and scripted by relative newcomers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy. There are a lot of little awkward moments, and bits of story that seem to be missing - there's clearly more going on with the butler (John Ralston) that what we see - but all in all "Ready or Not" is a fun, murderous romp. Its messages and ideas are handled much more bluntly than "Knives Out," but then everything else is too, and that's the point.
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Thursday, February 27, 2020
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Once Upon a Time in… Tarantinoland
There are several narratives that "Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood" can be neatly slotted into. It's another of Quentin Tarantino's revisionist historical fantasies. It's another exercise in paying homage to Tarantino's favorite media, specifically the film and television of the late 1960s. It can be treated as a retrospective of all the films that Tarantino has made so far, referencing and sometimes outright borrowing elements that we've become familiar with over the years. For instance, there's a character named Pussycat, played by Margaret Qualley, whose bare feet are seen prominently in several shots.
I think the best description, however, is that the movie is primarily a trip to Hollywood in 1969 the way it exists in the fantasies of Quentin Tarantino. It's a Hollywood full of talented people who love movies and media as much as Tarantino does, where Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) happily visits a theater to see "The Wrecking Crew," a movie she appeared in, and fictional actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman/personal assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) giddily watch Rick's guest appearance on the latest episode of "FBI" together. It's a universe where Booth is so tough that he beats up Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) and fearlessly tangles with the Manson family. It's a universe where a career downturn for Rick means going off to Italy to make spaghetti westerns with Sergio Corbucci. Cameos abound, often familiar names like Damian Lewis and Timothy Olyphant, playing other familiar names like Steve McQueen and James Stacy.
All of this is a lot of fun, especially if you're a movie nerd or a history nerd, and I fit that description. The exhaustive detail of the production design, which often seems smothered in movie posters, advertisements, and period product placement, is a marvel. The carefully curated soundtrack, the fringe-heavy fashions, and the resurrected LA landmarks don't hurt either. You can tell that Tarantino had so much fun creating the snippets we see of Rick Dalton's career, from the black and white TV western where he rose to fame, to his fantasy of playing the Steve McQueen role in "The Great Escape." If you're not already fond of the subject matter, however, I'm not sure how well "Once Upon a Time… " is going to come across.
There's not much of a plot here to speak of, and it all pretty much hinges on the viewer knowing about the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends. Rick lives next door to Tate, creating the expectation that he and Cliff are eventually going to become involved in the terrible event. We see various Manson Family members hanging around town, notably Pussycat, but nobody ever explains who they are. For the most part, Rick and Cliff are just keeping busy working on Cliff's latest TV show, the pilot of a western called "Lancer." When events do ramp up toward a bloody finale, the results aren't very satisfying, even if you are familiar with the events of the Tate LaBianca murders. The final ten minutes of the film are ugly and violent and a jarring departure from everything that's gone on before. But on the other hand, it's very Quentin Tarantino.
And this makes it very difficult to parse the film. DiCaprio and Pitt are fun to watch as Rick and Cliff, both looking older than I remember, both spoofing their screen images and flirting with the kind of uber-masculine roles that we don't see them play very often anymore. Margot Robbie gets about one good scene as Sharon Tate, but actually isn't in the movie all that much. Everyone's insecure, and everyone's facing irrelevance, adding a little melancholy to the works. Maybe the director is starting to feel his age. It's nice to see some of Tarantino's regulars like Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, and Zoe Bell pop up, but nobody stays long enough to make much of an impression. The movie works best as a hangout film and a nostalgia trip, and stumbles whenever it approaches any other genre.
Frankly, this is the most indulgent of a long string of indulgent Quentin Tarantino movies. I still watch them, but they've been getting harder and harder for me to enjoy with each successive project. There are still fun little individual character moments, like Cliff interacting with his dog, or Rick chatting with a snippy child actress, but it takes a lot of patience to get there. And I wonder if I'm going to run out of patience before Tarantino runs out of films - apparently he's only planning to make one more.
---
I think the best description, however, is that the movie is primarily a trip to Hollywood in 1969 the way it exists in the fantasies of Quentin Tarantino. It's a Hollywood full of talented people who love movies and media as much as Tarantino does, where Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) happily visits a theater to see "The Wrecking Crew," a movie she appeared in, and fictional actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman/personal assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) giddily watch Rick's guest appearance on the latest episode of "FBI" together. It's a universe where Booth is so tough that he beats up Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) and fearlessly tangles with the Manson family. It's a universe where a career downturn for Rick means going off to Italy to make spaghetti westerns with Sergio Corbucci. Cameos abound, often familiar names like Damian Lewis and Timothy Olyphant, playing other familiar names like Steve McQueen and James Stacy.
All of this is a lot of fun, especially if you're a movie nerd or a history nerd, and I fit that description. The exhaustive detail of the production design, which often seems smothered in movie posters, advertisements, and period product placement, is a marvel. The carefully curated soundtrack, the fringe-heavy fashions, and the resurrected LA landmarks don't hurt either. You can tell that Tarantino had so much fun creating the snippets we see of Rick Dalton's career, from the black and white TV western where he rose to fame, to his fantasy of playing the Steve McQueen role in "The Great Escape." If you're not already fond of the subject matter, however, I'm not sure how well "Once Upon a Time… " is going to come across.
There's not much of a plot here to speak of, and it all pretty much hinges on the viewer knowing about the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends. Rick lives next door to Tate, creating the expectation that he and Cliff are eventually going to become involved in the terrible event. We see various Manson Family members hanging around town, notably Pussycat, but nobody ever explains who they are. For the most part, Rick and Cliff are just keeping busy working on Cliff's latest TV show, the pilot of a western called "Lancer." When events do ramp up toward a bloody finale, the results aren't very satisfying, even if you are familiar with the events of the Tate LaBianca murders. The final ten minutes of the film are ugly and violent and a jarring departure from everything that's gone on before. But on the other hand, it's very Quentin Tarantino.
And this makes it very difficult to parse the film. DiCaprio and Pitt are fun to watch as Rick and Cliff, both looking older than I remember, both spoofing their screen images and flirting with the kind of uber-masculine roles that we don't see them play very often anymore. Margot Robbie gets about one good scene as Sharon Tate, but actually isn't in the movie all that much. Everyone's insecure, and everyone's facing irrelevance, adding a little melancholy to the works. Maybe the director is starting to feel his age. It's nice to see some of Tarantino's regulars like Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, and Zoe Bell pop up, but nobody stays long enough to make much of an impression. The movie works best as a hangout film and a nostalgia trip, and stumbles whenever it approaches any other genre.
Frankly, this is the most indulgent of a long string of indulgent Quentin Tarantino movies. I still watch them, but they've been getting harder and harder for me to enjoy with each successive project. There are still fun little individual character moments, like Cliff interacting with his dog, or Rick chatting with a snippy child actress, but it takes a lot of patience to get there. And I wonder if I'm going to run out of patience before Tarantino runs out of films - apparently he's only planning to make one more.
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Sunday, February 23, 2020
"The Goldfinch" is an Interesting Flop
No film of the last year has been so obviously a prestige project as "The Goldfinch." The cast, lead by Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman, is star studded. The crew, including director John Crowley and cinematographer Roger Deakins, is highly regarded and unquestionably talented. The source material won a Pulitzer in 2014. However, as with too many projects that look so good on paper, this one just didn't work. A 784 page novel being adapted to roughly 150 minutes of film is a tall order in any circumstances, and perhaps no one should be surprised at the results. However, the finished film isn't a complete failure or unwatchable in the least, and I can't help picking it over.
Much of the trouble with "The Goldfinch" is that it comes in several very distinct parts, some significantly better than others. The first follows our main character, Theo Decker, as a thirteen year-old played by Oakes Fegley. He survives a terrorist bombing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, but his mother is killed. Since Theo's deadbeat father is out of the picture, he ends up in the care of the upper crust Barbour family, as he's friends with their son Andy (Ryan Foust), and soon becomes close to Andy's mother Samantha (Nicole Kidman). As an adult, Theo is played by Ansel Elgort, a troubled antiques dealer who is friends with Hobie (Jeffrey Wright), a furniture restorer, and harbors an unrequited love for a woman named Pippa (Ashleigh Cummings). Other important characters include Samantha's daughter Kitsey (Willa Fitzgerald), Theo's father Larry (Luke Wilson), his girlfriend Xandra (Sarah Paulson), and a Ukrainian named Boris (Finn Wolfhard as a child, Aneurin Barnard as an adult), who Theo befriends.
The sections where Theo is a child are so much better than the ones where he is an adult, that I half-wonder why they bothered to include the latter sections at all. It's clear that the filmmakers weren't nearly as interested in them either, as the present day material doesn't receive nearly the amount of attention, the plotting is ridiculous and unsatisfying, and none of the characters are particularly compelling, grown-up Theo included. Obsessions and conceits that work when the main characters are children look peculiar or just plain silly when they're grown-ups. Important connective tissue is missing, and the film is full of oddly shaped gaps. Part of this is due to the film being structured like a mystery, as Theo lost some memories in the bombing, but these elements are set up so poorly that most of the reveals fall flat.
There's also this off-putting strain of elitism throughout, where the rich and cultured Barnards are put in stark opposition to Theo's grifter father who lives in Las Vegas, portrayed as a literal cultural desert. I understand that the main themes of the film heavily involve art, antiques, and their preservation, but the themes are not handled well, and the discussion of art far too often remains totally surface level, resulting in some rushed scenes and unfortunate messaging that I don't think were intentional. There's also a crime story element that comes in way too late, throwing the film even further off balance, and substance abuse issues that are barely even acknowledged. The narrative suffers from trying to do far, far too much, and I suspect from following the gargantuan novel too closely.
Still, I liked some sections of the film and several of the performances. Oakes Fegley is a wonderful grounding presence who succeeds in making pretentious little Theo believable where other child actors would have stumbled. Finn Wolfhard is weirdly appealing as young Boris, outrageous accent and all. It's hard not to love Jeffrey Wright as one of the few sympathetic adults, who is also the one character able to reel off exposition about art with some degree of passion. Deakins' work is as beautiful as always, and the whole Las Vegas sequence is very memorable. There's about thirty minutes of a very good film here that I'm glad I saw.
What I'm most upset about is that "The Goldfinch" was a high profile, risky project made with a mid-range budget, and its failure is going to negatively impact filmmakers the next time something like this comes along. Then again, I suspect "The Goldfinch" would have been much better as a television miniseries, where it would have had the running time to more fully explore its sprawling story and assortment of promising characters.
---
Much of the trouble with "The Goldfinch" is that it comes in several very distinct parts, some significantly better than others. The first follows our main character, Theo Decker, as a thirteen year-old played by Oakes Fegley. He survives a terrorist bombing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, but his mother is killed. Since Theo's deadbeat father is out of the picture, he ends up in the care of the upper crust Barbour family, as he's friends with their son Andy (Ryan Foust), and soon becomes close to Andy's mother Samantha (Nicole Kidman). As an adult, Theo is played by Ansel Elgort, a troubled antiques dealer who is friends with Hobie (Jeffrey Wright), a furniture restorer, and harbors an unrequited love for a woman named Pippa (Ashleigh Cummings). Other important characters include Samantha's daughter Kitsey (Willa Fitzgerald), Theo's father Larry (Luke Wilson), his girlfriend Xandra (Sarah Paulson), and a Ukrainian named Boris (Finn Wolfhard as a child, Aneurin Barnard as an adult), who Theo befriends.
The sections where Theo is a child are so much better than the ones where he is an adult, that I half-wonder why they bothered to include the latter sections at all. It's clear that the filmmakers weren't nearly as interested in them either, as the present day material doesn't receive nearly the amount of attention, the plotting is ridiculous and unsatisfying, and none of the characters are particularly compelling, grown-up Theo included. Obsessions and conceits that work when the main characters are children look peculiar or just plain silly when they're grown-ups. Important connective tissue is missing, and the film is full of oddly shaped gaps. Part of this is due to the film being structured like a mystery, as Theo lost some memories in the bombing, but these elements are set up so poorly that most of the reveals fall flat.
There's also this off-putting strain of elitism throughout, where the rich and cultured Barnards are put in stark opposition to Theo's grifter father who lives in Las Vegas, portrayed as a literal cultural desert. I understand that the main themes of the film heavily involve art, antiques, and their preservation, but the themes are not handled well, and the discussion of art far too often remains totally surface level, resulting in some rushed scenes and unfortunate messaging that I don't think were intentional. There's also a crime story element that comes in way too late, throwing the film even further off balance, and substance abuse issues that are barely even acknowledged. The narrative suffers from trying to do far, far too much, and I suspect from following the gargantuan novel too closely.
Still, I liked some sections of the film and several of the performances. Oakes Fegley is a wonderful grounding presence who succeeds in making pretentious little Theo believable where other child actors would have stumbled. Finn Wolfhard is weirdly appealing as young Boris, outrageous accent and all. It's hard not to love Jeffrey Wright as one of the few sympathetic adults, who is also the one character able to reel off exposition about art with some degree of passion. Deakins' work is as beautiful as always, and the whole Las Vegas sequence is very memorable. There's about thirty minutes of a very good film here that I'm glad I saw.
What I'm most upset about is that "The Goldfinch" was a high profile, risky project made with a mid-range budget, and its failure is going to negatively impact filmmakers the next time something like this comes along. Then again, I suspect "The Goldfinch" would have been much better as a television miniseries, where it would have had the running time to more fully explore its sprawling story and assortment of promising characters.
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Friday, February 21, 2020
The Decade
I've been enjoying the many, many "Best of" lists of movies and television and other media that have been circulating, talking up the greats of the past decade. I've resisted, however, from writing my own. A yearly list I understand, especially as the entertainment industry has certain ebbs and flows and production cycles that follow an established calendar. A decade, however, is a much trickier thing to quantify - this past decade in particular.
The 2000s had a very obvious starting point: the 9/11 attacks. The 2010s are less defined, though it's certainly been a tumultuous and transformative era for everyone. You could pick so many inflection points like the 2008 financial crisis, the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, the rise of the alt-right with Gamergate in 2014, or just skip straight to the political upheavals of 2016. Though it feels like Donald Trump has been in office forever, most of the decade was actually spent with the Obama administration.
In the entertainment world, however, I think the big ones are clear: Disney buying Lucasfilm and the success of the first "Avengers" movie in 2012, and the first Netflix original programming and "Game of Thrones" premiering in 2013. This was also roughly around the time that cord-cutting really started taking off, digital media sales and streaming subscriptions were booming, and it was clear that the DVD market was truly dead. International markets became more important, particularly China, which fully emerged as a massive new audience. This all lead to the era of Peak TV, a franchise-dominated box office, and growing globalization.
I've been going back through the early posts I made on this blog, which I coincidentally started in 2010, and the differences in how I consume media are pretty stark. Nearly everything is online now. I barely watch live television or even cable television anymore. Due to certain lifestyle changes, trips to the theater and physical rental stores are rare. Physical media is simply not a big part of my life anymore. I'm consuming more media than ever, but my relationship with media has changed. I hardly rewatch anything anymore. I rarely sit down not knowing exactly what I'm going to be watching in advance, because I have a "To Watch" list a mile long.
And the media itself? Well, it worries me that our celebrated directors seem to go years between projects, and the only ones willing to spend are either the Chinese or the streaming services. I love that television had made such creative leaps, and people are funding really ambitious things like "The Crown," but I'm worried that it's coming at the expense of feature films. It can't be healthy that the entire mid-budget category has almost totally disappeared, or that Disney has turned into a nostalgia repackaging machine that just ate Twentieth Century Fox. And sure, it's nice that all these different streaming services are courting us, but the low prices can't last for long and it's worrying how access to anything online can disappear overnight. Ultimately the streaming revolution doesn't mean "better," but "different."
After 9/11 happened there was a shift toward more conservative and reactionary media. I'm glad that the pendulum is now swinging in the opposite direction, especially after the Weinstein scandal and #Metoo created opportunities for more female creative talent behind the cameras. We've also seen more racial diversity and gains in LGBT representation, especially trans representation. It took far too long for us to get a "Wonder Woman" movie, but it finally arrived in 2017, and it'll have plenty of company in the years to come. So many of the new generation of auteurs are black or Asian or Latino, and there are more women than ever. I can't wait to see how they'll change the film landscape in the 2020s.
Looking ahead, I expect that we'll look back on 2016-2020 as a real turning point, but we're far too close to see the shape of it now, and the reverberations are still being felt. They'll be dramatizing the antics of the Trump administration for decades. With the way things are going, and some of the romanticism of digital media is wearing off, my one big prediction is that physical media might mount a comeback. Television distribution, however, feels like it's permanently changed. I don't know how long the streaming era will last, but remember that the DVD age lasted about 20 years.
I may write those decade "Best of" lists eventually, but not for a long while, until I've got a better sense of the decade itself. I've got to digest 2019 first, and those lists will be out as usual, in July for films and September for television.
---
The 2000s had a very obvious starting point: the 9/11 attacks. The 2010s are less defined, though it's certainly been a tumultuous and transformative era for everyone. You could pick so many inflection points like the 2008 financial crisis, the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, the rise of the alt-right with Gamergate in 2014, or just skip straight to the political upheavals of 2016. Though it feels like Donald Trump has been in office forever, most of the decade was actually spent with the Obama administration.
In the entertainment world, however, I think the big ones are clear: Disney buying Lucasfilm and the success of the first "Avengers" movie in 2012, and the first Netflix original programming and "Game of Thrones" premiering in 2013. This was also roughly around the time that cord-cutting really started taking off, digital media sales and streaming subscriptions were booming, and it was clear that the DVD market was truly dead. International markets became more important, particularly China, which fully emerged as a massive new audience. This all lead to the era of Peak TV, a franchise-dominated box office, and growing globalization.
I've been going back through the early posts I made on this blog, which I coincidentally started in 2010, and the differences in how I consume media are pretty stark. Nearly everything is online now. I barely watch live television or even cable television anymore. Due to certain lifestyle changes, trips to the theater and physical rental stores are rare. Physical media is simply not a big part of my life anymore. I'm consuming more media than ever, but my relationship with media has changed. I hardly rewatch anything anymore. I rarely sit down not knowing exactly what I'm going to be watching in advance, because I have a "To Watch" list a mile long.
And the media itself? Well, it worries me that our celebrated directors seem to go years between projects, and the only ones willing to spend are either the Chinese or the streaming services. I love that television had made such creative leaps, and people are funding really ambitious things like "The Crown," but I'm worried that it's coming at the expense of feature films. It can't be healthy that the entire mid-budget category has almost totally disappeared, or that Disney has turned into a nostalgia repackaging machine that just ate Twentieth Century Fox. And sure, it's nice that all these different streaming services are courting us, but the low prices can't last for long and it's worrying how access to anything online can disappear overnight. Ultimately the streaming revolution doesn't mean "better," but "different."
After 9/11 happened there was a shift toward more conservative and reactionary media. I'm glad that the pendulum is now swinging in the opposite direction, especially after the Weinstein scandal and #Metoo created opportunities for more female creative talent behind the cameras. We've also seen more racial diversity and gains in LGBT representation, especially trans representation. It took far too long for us to get a "Wonder Woman" movie, but it finally arrived in 2017, and it'll have plenty of company in the years to come. So many of the new generation of auteurs are black or Asian or Latino, and there are more women than ever. I can't wait to see how they'll change the film landscape in the 2020s.
Looking ahead, I expect that we'll look back on 2016-2020 as a real turning point, but we're far too close to see the shape of it now, and the reverberations are still being felt. They'll be dramatizing the antics of the Trump administration for decades. With the way things are going, and some of the romanticism of digital media is wearing off, my one big prediction is that physical media might mount a comeback. Television distribution, however, feels like it's permanently changed. I don't know how long the streaming era will last, but remember that the DVD age lasted about 20 years.
I may write those decade "Best of" lists eventually, but not for a long while, until I've got a better sense of the decade itself. I've got to digest 2019 first, and those lists will be out as usual, in July for films and September for television.
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Wednesday, February 19, 2020
"Bernadette" and "Brittany"
Let's spotlight some overlooked summer indies today.
I never know what I'm going to get from Richard Linklater, but the idea of him teaming up with Cate Blanchette sounded interesting. And the title character of"Where'd You Go Bernadette"?" - Bernadette Fox - is a very interesting woman to get to know. She's a celebrated architect who transplanted herself to Seattle after a major trauma, stopped working, and has been an antisocial grump ever since. She suffers an existential crisis when her precocious daughter Bee (Emma Nelson), who is about to head off to prep school, wants her and Bernadette's workaholic husband Elgin (Billy Crudup) to take a family trip to Antarctica first.
But while I enjoyed Blanchette as the troubled, prickly Bernadette, and I think her character is pretty sound in construction, everything around her is pretty half-baked, and sometimes just downright preposterous. There is Bernadette's gossipy next door neighbor Audrey (Kristen Wiig), who Bernadette antagonizes to troubling extremes. There is Bernadette's habit of dictating long E-mails to an unseen virtual personal assistant, Manjula. Bee is one of those terrible cinema children who are not only wiser than their years, but wiser than their parents and everyone else in the movie. Also, Judy Greer pops up as a psychiatrist, and Laurence Fishburne pops up as an old friend of Bernadette's, just to give other characters an excuse to explain backstories and set up other parts of the plot. And then an FBI agent (James Urbaniak) shows up.
There are some fun twists and turns, and a good chunk of the film actually takes place in and around Antarctica. The scenery is gorgeous, but Linklater has difficulty keeping his tone consistent. Whenever the film switches from Bernadette to Bee's perspective, it gets much more saccharine and wide-eyed, and all the adults seem to lose a few IQ points. I suspect if the film had just stuck with one or the other, it would have worked better. As it is, this is a weird little film about a dysfunctional family that doesn't feel remotely plausible, and isn't quite colorful enough to make any sort of allegory work either. And that's a shame because Bernadette is a fascinating character who I was happy to get to know over the course of the film's running time.
From Bernadette we go to Brittany, of "Brittany Runs a Marathon." It's a feel-good comedy with some lightly raunchy humor, charting the efforts of overweight New Yorker Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell) to better herself. Brittany starts out as an immature partier whose life is a mess. After being ordered by her doctor to lose fifty pounds for her health, Brittany takes up running and eventually befriends fellow runners Catherine (Michaela Watkins) and Seth (Micah Stock). A new job puts the scuzzy but lovable Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar) into her orbit too.
This is easily the best self-improvement movie that I've seen in a long time, even though it's clearly the work of a first time director on a limited budget. The filmmaking isn't much to write home about. The script, however, is fantastic. Brittany is overweight, but that isn't her biggest problem by a longshot, and getting healthy and fit only serves to highlight other areas of her life that need work. I was happily surprised that the film even went as far as to show how Brittany's workout habits could lead to self-harm, and her weight obsession becomes unhealthy. The handling of all the running and training and lifestyle impact pings as unusually genuine too, including moments of backsliding, people's different attitudes toward Brittany's new activities, and the economic realities of actually running a marathon.
Jillian Bell does wonderful work here, bringing us along on each step of Brittany's journey as she both physically and emotionally transforms. From the start, Brittany is charming but behaves terribly. She makes fun of people alongside mean girl gal-pal Gretchen (Alice Lee). She's initially wary and dismissive of Catherine due to her own insecurities. She can't stand real intimacy and counters criticisms with jokes or hostility. Any whiff of pity or condescension sets her off. And it's these obvious personality flaws that make Brittany much more compelling than similar characters like Amy Schumer in "Trainwreck." I like how the movie gradually addresses these issues more and more as the film goes on, as Brittany gets thinner and less able to hide behind her physical flaws. And thanks to Bell, the worse she acts, the more you root for her to improve.
"Brittany Runs a Marathon" is one of the nicer surprises I've had at the movies this year, and a good reminder that smaller films have lots to offer these days.
---
I never know what I'm going to get from Richard Linklater, but the idea of him teaming up with Cate Blanchette sounded interesting. And the title character of"Where'd You Go Bernadette"?" - Bernadette Fox - is a very interesting woman to get to know. She's a celebrated architect who transplanted herself to Seattle after a major trauma, stopped working, and has been an antisocial grump ever since. She suffers an existential crisis when her precocious daughter Bee (Emma Nelson), who is about to head off to prep school, wants her and Bernadette's workaholic husband Elgin (Billy Crudup) to take a family trip to Antarctica first.
But while I enjoyed Blanchette as the troubled, prickly Bernadette, and I think her character is pretty sound in construction, everything around her is pretty half-baked, and sometimes just downright preposterous. There is Bernadette's gossipy next door neighbor Audrey (Kristen Wiig), who Bernadette antagonizes to troubling extremes. There is Bernadette's habit of dictating long E-mails to an unseen virtual personal assistant, Manjula. Bee is one of those terrible cinema children who are not only wiser than their years, but wiser than their parents and everyone else in the movie. Also, Judy Greer pops up as a psychiatrist, and Laurence Fishburne pops up as an old friend of Bernadette's, just to give other characters an excuse to explain backstories and set up other parts of the plot. And then an FBI agent (James Urbaniak) shows up.
There are some fun twists and turns, and a good chunk of the film actually takes place in and around Antarctica. The scenery is gorgeous, but Linklater has difficulty keeping his tone consistent. Whenever the film switches from Bernadette to Bee's perspective, it gets much more saccharine and wide-eyed, and all the adults seem to lose a few IQ points. I suspect if the film had just stuck with one or the other, it would have worked better. As it is, this is a weird little film about a dysfunctional family that doesn't feel remotely plausible, and isn't quite colorful enough to make any sort of allegory work either. And that's a shame because Bernadette is a fascinating character who I was happy to get to know over the course of the film's running time.
From Bernadette we go to Brittany, of "Brittany Runs a Marathon." It's a feel-good comedy with some lightly raunchy humor, charting the efforts of overweight New Yorker Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell) to better herself. Brittany starts out as an immature partier whose life is a mess. After being ordered by her doctor to lose fifty pounds for her health, Brittany takes up running and eventually befriends fellow runners Catherine (Michaela Watkins) and Seth (Micah Stock). A new job puts the scuzzy but lovable Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar) into her orbit too.
This is easily the best self-improvement movie that I've seen in a long time, even though it's clearly the work of a first time director on a limited budget. The filmmaking isn't much to write home about. The script, however, is fantastic. Brittany is overweight, but that isn't her biggest problem by a longshot, and getting healthy and fit only serves to highlight other areas of her life that need work. I was happily surprised that the film even went as far as to show how Brittany's workout habits could lead to self-harm, and her weight obsession becomes unhealthy. The handling of all the running and training and lifestyle impact pings as unusually genuine too, including moments of backsliding, people's different attitudes toward Brittany's new activities, and the economic realities of actually running a marathon.
Jillian Bell does wonderful work here, bringing us along on each step of Brittany's journey as she both physically and emotionally transforms. From the start, Brittany is charming but behaves terribly. She makes fun of people alongside mean girl gal-pal Gretchen (Alice Lee). She's initially wary and dismissive of Catherine due to her own insecurities. She can't stand real intimacy and counters criticisms with jokes or hostility. Any whiff of pity or condescension sets her off. And it's these obvious personality flaws that make Brittany much more compelling than similar characters like Amy Schumer in "Trainwreck." I like how the movie gradually addresses these issues more and more as the film goes on, as Brittany gets thinner and less able to hide behind her physical flaws. And thanks to Bell, the worse she acts, the more you root for her to improve.
"Brittany Runs a Marathon" is one of the nicer surprises I've had at the movies this year, and a good reminder that smaller films have lots to offer these days.
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Monday, February 17, 2020
"The Last Black Man in San Francisco" and "The Peanut Butter Falcon"
I feel guilty about not liking "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" as much as I feel like I should. I'm a long time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, even though I only managed to stick it out as a proper city dweller for less than a year. I've been hearing friends and acquaintances grumbling about the gentrification of their neighborhoods for years now, and sadly watching their exodus to more welcoming pastures. And I know people in the same boat as Jimmie Falls, playing a character of the same name, who just can't seem to let go of the beautiful Victorian house in the Fillmore where he grew up, despite having no hope of living there again.
The movie is an elegiac farewell to a passing era of San Francisco, a certain culture and community that is quickly disappearing as the hipsters and tech workers displace them. In the opening scenes we watch Jimmie and his friend Mont (Jonathan Majors) skateboard through the city, encountering colorful characters and taking in the idiosyncracies of their coastal neighborhood. The soundtrack is an eclectic mix of Michael Nyman-inspired instrumentals and reimagined hippie standards, including a spectacular version of "San Francisco" with vocals by Michael Marshall. There's a fiercely personal POV to the film and a complexity to the portrayal of the city that is neatly embodied by a line of dialogue Jimmie speaks toward the end of the film: "You don't get to hate it unless you love it."
And I suppose that's where I fail to connect to "The Last Black Man in San Francisco." I can appreciate the hell out of the artistry and authenticity of the story, and the ambitiousness of the filmmaking. I love the idea of Jimmie, grappling with his identity and trying to recapture a bygone happiness and sense of legacy that perhaps never existed in the first place. We learn more and more about him as we watch him try to reconnect to his estranged and scattered family members, and reevaluate his priorities. However, in the moment I didn't find much of it compelling. Individual instances of beauty and profundity are wonderful to see, but it feels like they happen in spite of the middling performances and on-the-nose scripting. I suspect there is also a cultural gap here. I don't really love San Francisco or consider it part of my identity the way the characters in the film do, so some of its overtures just left me cold. A few details also felt awkward, like naming a scumbag real estate agent after Governor Newsom. "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" is a beautiful feature, and I understand why it has such ardent supporters, but this one's just not for me.
Another film meant for a certain audience that I feel much more warmly towards, is "The Peanut Butter Falcon." It's the feel-good story of a young man with Down's Syndrome, Zak (Zack Gottsagen), who busts out of the North Carolina nursing home where he's been dumped, and latches on to a local fisherman, Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), who is in trouble with the authorities. The pair sail off on a stolen boat, in search of a wrestling school run by the pro wrestler Zak is obsessed with. Dakota Johnson plays Zak's carer, Eleanor, who gives chase. She's one of several familiar names lending their talents to a very small film, including Bruce Dern, John Hawkes, and Thomas Hayden Church in smaller roles. A few famous wrestling stars also put in good-natured cameos.
I love the grungy naturalism of the film, where Zak spends most of his screen time in and around nature, often drenched and often mostly naked. He's got a genial personality, but Zak isn't a caricature of a differently abled person. There's a stubbornness and an irascibility to him, and he doesn't let himself be pushed into doing what he doesn't want to. Sure, he needs a lot of help, but it's his determination that wins over the doubtful Tyler, and leads to a real measure of growth and glory for both of them. Speaking of which, this may be my favorite Shia LaBeouf performance. It's been such a joy watching LaBeouf develop over the past few years into a really strong, interesting screen presence. Here, he's playing a pretty standard hard-case who softens up when somebody who needs him comes along. However, the way he interacts with and learns to take care of Zak is so gratifying to watch. It's cinematic male bonding at its finest.
Now, it's pretty obvious that the film was made to showcase Zack Gottsagen as an actor with Down's Syndrome, and there are certain limitations that the filmmakers deftly work around, as well as a pretty indulgent story and sensibility. However, in this case I don't think the sentiment is overdone, and the fantasy manages to be broadly appealing. I have no particular interest in wrestlers or boat trips down the Eastern seaboard, but the movie got me to connect with Zak and Tyler, and that made all the difference.
---
The movie is an elegiac farewell to a passing era of San Francisco, a certain culture and community that is quickly disappearing as the hipsters and tech workers displace them. In the opening scenes we watch Jimmie and his friend Mont (Jonathan Majors) skateboard through the city, encountering colorful characters and taking in the idiosyncracies of their coastal neighborhood. The soundtrack is an eclectic mix of Michael Nyman-inspired instrumentals and reimagined hippie standards, including a spectacular version of "San Francisco" with vocals by Michael Marshall. There's a fiercely personal POV to the film and a complexity to the portrayal of the city that is neatly embodied by a line of dialogue Jimmie speaks toward the end of the film: "You don't get to hate it unless you love it."
And I suppose that's where I fail to connect to "The Last Black Man in San Francisco." I can appreciate the hell out of the artistry and authenticity of the story, and the ambitiousness of the filmmaking. I love the idea of Jimmie, grappling with his identity and trying to recapture a bygone happiness and sense of legacy that perhaps never existed in the first place. We learn more and more about him as we watch him try to reconnect to his estranged and scattered family members, and reevaluate his priorities. However, in the moment I didn't find much of it compelling. Individual instances of beauty and profundity are wonderful to see, but it feels like they happen in spite of the middling performances and on-the-nose scripting. I suspect there is also a cultural gap here. I don't really love San Francisco or consider it part of my identity the way the characters in the film do, so some of its overtures just left me cold. A few details also felt awkward, like naming a scumbag real estate agent after Governor Newsom. "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" is a beautiful feature, and I understand why it has such ardent supporters, but this one's just not for me.
Another film meant for a certain audience that I feel much more warmly towards, is "The Peanut Butter Falcon." It's the feel-good story of a young man with Down's Syndrome, Zak (Zack Gottsagen), who busts out of the North Carolina nursing home where he's been dumped, and latches on to a local fisherman, Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), who is in trouble with the authorities. The pair sail off on a stolen boat, in search of a wrestling school run by the pro wrestler Zak is obsessed with. Dakota Johnson plays Zak's carer, Eleanor, who gives chase. She's one of several familiar names lending their talents to a very small film, including Bruce Dern, John Hawkes, and Thomas Hayden Church in smaller roles. A few famous wrestling stars also put in good-natured cameos.
I love the grungy naturalism of the film, where Zak spends most of his screen time in and around nature, often drenched and often mostly naked. He's got a genial personality, but Zak isn't a caricature of a differently abled person. There's a stubbornness and an irascibility to him, and he doesn't let himself be pushed into doing what he doesn't want to. Sure, he needs a lot of help, but it's his determination that wins over the doubtful Tyler, and leads to a real measure of growth and glory for both of them. Speaking of which, this may be my favorite Shia LaBeouf performance. It's been such a joy watching LaBeouf develop over the past few years into a really strong, interesting screen presence. Here, he's playing a pretty standard hard-case who softens up when somebody who needs him comes along. However, the way he interacts with and learns to take care of Zak is so gratifying to watch. It's cinematic male bonding at its finest.
Now, it's pretty obvious that the film was made to showcase Zack Gottsagen as an actor with Down's Syndrome, and there are certain limitations that the filmmakers deftly work around, as well as a pretty indulgent story and sensibility. However, in this case I don't think the sentiment is overdone, and the fantasy manages to be broadly appealing. I have no particular interest in wrestlers or boat trips down the Eastern seaboard, but the movie got me to connect with Zak and Tyler, and that made all the difference.
---
Saturday, February 15, 2020
"Klaus," "Noelle," and the Streaming Wars
Something's been bothering me about Disney+, and it took two Christmas movies for me to figure it out. Now, keep in mind that Disney+ is just getting started, and much of its content is still being rolled out. I've already heard some grumbles about content that's being advertised as available, but currently not actually available on the service due to legal or technical issues. They deserve some patience to get the kinks worked out. Personally, I'm already pretty happy with Disney+. Despite all the technical bugs, their existing library of content is vast and wonderfully nostalgic - as a Disney Afternoon kid, I'm in heaven - but it feels like there's something that's missing.
I watched one of the Disney+ exclusives over the weekend, a Christmas movie titled "Noelle," starring Anna Kendrick as Santa Claus's daughter. It was originally supposed to be a theatrical release, but last year was rejiggered to be one of the first wave of Disney+ releases, along with the live action "Lady and the Tramp." Frankly, it's not great, bordering on TV movie quality, but it's a pleasant enough watch for family Christmas viewing. Netflix's 2019 holiday offerings include no less than five cuddly, Christmas-themed romantic comedies in the same vein as the popular Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, so clearly there's an audience for this type of content.
But then, there is also "Klaus," Netflix's first foray into animation production. It's a Santa Claus origin story, featuring an unscrupulous young mailman who gets the whole tradition of letters to Santa started. Written and directed by Sergio Pablos, a former Disney animator who went on to create the "Despicable Me" franchise, "Klaus" is unusual for a couple of reasons. The main one is that it utilizes an eye-catching animation style that combines 2D drawings with certain digital enhancements, similar to the short "Paperman." Second, it's unusually dark and cynical for a Christmas movie, with a selfish mailman protagonist, Jesper, voiced by Jason Schwartzman, and a lonely Santa Claus with a bleak past, voiced by J.K. Simmons. Everything turns out well and the ending is a heartwarming one, but the one descriptor that kept coming up in my head was "risky." Everything about "Klaus" feels like a risk.
And that's the difference. I don't want to say that "Klaus" is a movie that Disney should have made, but it's definitely not the kind of content that I can expect to be appearing on Disney+ any time soon. Nearly everything on Disney+, including their highly touted original shows like "The Mandalorian" and all the announced Marvel series, are derivative spinoffs of existing franchises. The few pieces of content that are completely original, like "Noelle," and the upcoming "Togo" and "Magic Camp," are projects that were developed to be theatrical releases, but were found lacking for one reason or another, and are essentially being dumped on the service. The list of upcoming films in development for Disney+ is almost entirely reboots and sequels.
So, Disney+ is more or less a nostalgia-centric platform, full of all the old Disney stuff that I'm glad to see out of the vault at last, and a handful of new content that is keen on profiting directly off of viewers' affection for the classics. And sure, they'll get plenty of subscribers based on that, but there are going to be limits. I don't see Disney+ ever having a real, game-changing hit on its hands on the level of a "Stranger Things" or a "Game of Thrones," or even a "Handmaid's Tale." It's never going to surprise us or give up something really novel, at least not while it still has this mindset of its streaming content being second stringers to its theatrical and television content.
Netflix, for all its problems, is committed to putting the streaming experience first, even though it's ticked off pretty much every theatrical exhibitor in the process. Many of its crazy risks haven't paid off, but others have. As a result, I can't go two weeks without something popping up on Netflix that I want to watch. Sure, there's plenty of dreck, but the romantic comedy revolution has been propelled by its efforts. And they gave Eddie Murphy his big comeback. And the latest season of "The Crown" is as good as ever.
Again, I caution that this is early days for Disney+. However, I think it's saying something that I'd happily trade every Disney+ original for "Klaus," which was a total delight and really felt like it came out of nowhere. I was only after I did some digging that I realized that I had seen Sergio Pablos's original teaser for "Klaus" way back in 2015. At the time I thought it would never actually be made, as so many other promising teasers of its kind never went anywhere. And I'm grateful to Netflix for making the movie happen.
Nostalgia's all well and good, but never count out innovation or the power of a good surprise.
---
I watched one of the Disney+ exclusives over the weekend, a Christmas movie titled "Noelle," starring Anna Kendrick as Santa Claus's daughter. It was originally supposed to be a theatrical release, but last year was rejiggered to be one of the first wave of Disney+ releases, along with the live action "Lady and the Tramp." Frankly, it's not great, bordering on TV movie quality, but it's a pleasant enough watch for family Christmas viewing. Netflix's 2019 holiday offerings include no less than five cuddly, Christmas-themed romantic comedies in the same vein as the popular Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, so clearly there's an audience for this type of content.
But then, there is also "Klaus," Netflix's first foray into animation production. It's a Santa Claus origin story, featuring an unscrupulous young mailman who gets the whole tradition of letters to Santa started. Written and directed by Sergio Pablos, a former Disney animator who went on to create the "Despicable Me" franchise, "Klaus" is unusual for a couple of reasons. The main one is that it utilizes an eye-catching animation style that combines 2D drawings with certain digital enhancements, similar to the short "Paperman." Second, it's unusually dark and cynical for a Christmas movie, with a selfish mailman protagonist, Jesper, voiced by Jason Schwartzman, and a lonely Santa Claus with a bleak past, voiced by J.K. Simmons. Everything turns out well and the ending is a heartwarming one, but the one descriptor that kept coming up in my head was "risky." Everything about "Klaus" feels like a risk.
And that's the difference. I don't want to say that "Klaus" is a movie that Disney should have made, but it's definitely not the kind of content that I can expect to be appearing on Disney+ any time soon. Nearly everything on Disney+, including their highly touted original shows like "The Mandalorian" and all the announced Marvel series, are derivative spinoffs of existing franchises. The few pieces of content that are completely original, like "Noelle," and the upcoming "Togo" and "Magic Camp," are projects that were developed to be theatrical releases, but were found lacking for one reason or another, and are essentially being dumped on the service. The list of upcoming films in development for Disney+ is almost entirely reboots and sequels.
So, Disney+ is more or less a nostalgia-centric platform, full of all the old Disney stuff that I'm glad to see out of the vault at last, and a handful of new content that is keen on profiting directly off of viewers' affection for the classics. And sure, they'll get plenty of subscribers based on that, but there are going to be limits. I don't see Disney+ ever having a real, game-changing hit on its hands on the level of a "Stranger Things" or a "Game of Thrones," or even a "Handmaid's Tale." It's never going to surprise us or give up something really novel, at least not while it still has this mindset of its streaming content being second stringers to its theatrical and television content.
Netflix, for all its problems, is committed to putting the streaming experience first, even though it's ticked off pretty much every theatrical exhibitor in the process. Many of its crazy risks haven't paid off, but others have. As a result, I can't go two weeks without something popping up on Netflix that I want to watch. Sure, there's plenty of dreck, but the romantic comedy revolution has been propelled by its efforts. And they gave Eddie Murphy his big comeback. And the latest season of "The Crown" is as good as ever.
Again, I caution that this is early days for Disney+. However, I think it's saying something that I'd happily trade every Disney+ original for "Klaus," which was a total delight and really felt like it came out of nowhere. I was only after I did some digging that I realized that I had seen Sergio Pablos's original teaser for "Klaus" way back in 2015. At the time I thought it would never actually be made, as so many other promising teasers of its kind never went anywhere. And I'm grateful to Netflix for making the movie happen.
Nostalgia's all well and good, but never count out innovation or the power of a good surprise.
---
Thursday, February 13, 2020
"The Good Place," Year Four
Spoilers ahead.
After a bumpy third year of "The Good Place," and a season finale that seemed to send all the characters back to square one, I was worried about Season Four. The premise changed again, but more or less settled on the idea of our heroes trying to fix the afterlife, and more specifically on trying to use a Good Place neighborhood setup to reform a group of recently deceased humans, including gay gossip columnist John (Brandon Scott Jones), and the arrogant, overprivileged Brent (Ben Koldyke). And the season's first chunk of episodes were pretty strong as a result. The show brought back the weekly cliffhangers, shook up the character dynamics, and felt more of a piece with the early seasons. I liked the new characters, and wish we'd gotten more of them.
The second half of the season, however, left me far more mixed. I like that "The Good Place" has emerged as a series with these big, lofty ambitions, and that takes its themes of philosophy appreciation and moral questioning so seriously. However, within the confines of a sitcom structure, there was no way Mike Schur was going to wrap up everything and not have it feel too easy and too pat. One of my biggest issues with "The Good Place" since the second season is its habit of eliding over the rough bits - giving Michael a sped-up redemption, using a heightened, cartoony version of Earth instead of something more grounded, drastically simplifying major quandries, and never seeming to follow through on harsh consequences. The character development for all the leads also got pretty static after Chidi and Eleanor got together, and many of the complications and hurdles felt increasingly contrived.
I'm still trying to parse this, but after the finale I was left very unsatisfied. The series has never promised real profundity, and never passed up an opportunity for an easy laugh, but I was expecting more. Maybe it was because they were too explicit and literal and didn't leave enough cosmic mystery - even though the whole point of the ending was reintroducing a sense of cosmic mystery to "The Good Place." Maybe it was because the show's publicity campaigns seriously overpromised, and only delivered Lisa Kudrow and Timothy Olyphant as the season's big celebrity guest stars. Maybe it's because "The Good Place" conception of the universe just doesn't ring true to me in the end. Maybe it's because the finale was paced so slowly, and kept stuffing in more goodbyes, that that the whole thing kind of dragged.
Still, I liked that the ending was thoughtful and had a good sense of finality to it. The characters have been through enough that I've gotten attached to them and become invested in their fates. The answers to some of the big questions struck me as awfully convenient and not particularly well thought out. On the other hand, at least they were thorough and did a good job of cleaning up some of the numerous loose threads that the series has accumulated over multiple seasons. Also, the actors remain wonderfully committed. MVP award goes to William Jackson Harper, as Chidi is the only lead to really get anything interesting to do in the final set of episodes. He and Eleanor are one of the better screen couples of the past decade (Sorry Jason and Janet).
Looking back over the whole series, I'm still astonished that "The Good Place" aired on network television in the form that it did. There's so much I appreciate about it - the actors, the philosophy, the nutty humor, and the commitment to playing out its high-minded premise all the way through to the end. It's such a thoughtful, optimistic fantasy show in a television landscape that is too often cynical and defeatist. It's such an approachable piece of media too, making big ideas and concepts more digestible and relatable for its audience. I love that it's essentially a gateway for moral philosophy - and Jaguars fandom, of course.
On a personal note, it's also the end of an era for me. "The Good Place" was the very last currently running show on network television that I was watching weekly - and even then it was rarely live.
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Tuesday, February 11, 2020
What Do We Do With "Joker"?
"Joker," as a character piece about a man named Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a fine and moving piece of cinema, bolstered by Phoenix's performance in particular. However, the film also sits in the complicated intersection of several cinematic legacies and influences that make its digestion much more difficult. And then there's the matter of the terrible timing of its release, as it is none-too-subtly capitalizing off of various strains of present day social unrest, and has several media commentators so spooked, "Joker" is being treated like the next "Do the Right Thing" in some circles.
So what do we do with a "Batman" prequel that is also an homage to Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy," and problematically glorifies the vigilante outsider in 2019? Well, let's take this thing apart piece by piece. First and foremost, the idea that "Joker" is an incitement to violence and anarchy is overblown. "Joker" contains a few allusions to Bernie Goetz and Occupy Wall Street, the same as "The Dark Knight Rises"and "Taxi Driver," but its messages are too muddled to really connect to the real world. You can definitely read the triumph and elevation of the Joker character, who inspires riots and other acts violence against the privileged, as encouraging of fringe actors, but not more so than most "man against the system" films. I'm sure that certain Joker fans could take the movie as a call to action, but it's a stretch. The Joker in this film may be more sympathetic, but as antiheroes go, he's still a pretty horrific one.
Also, "Joker" is a period film, which has a certain distancing effect. It takes place in the grungy, crime-riddled New York City-playing-Gotham of the 1970s and 1980s. Director Todd Phillips borrows a lot from Scorsese cinematically, and makes no secret of it. Arthur Fleck haunts many of the same trash-strewn streets and echoes many of the same antisocial thoughts that Travis Bickel and Rupert Pupkin once did. Robert DeNiro even plays the pivotal role of Murray Franklin, a talk show host who Arthur watches obsessively and fantasizes about interacting with. But though Phillips successfully employs some of Scorsese's techniques, and Lawrence Sher's doing career best work as cinematographer, it's only the rare moment that they capture anything close to the same verve and psychological insight. This is a very shallow film, lacking in irony, and without much of an ideology beyond generating a little sympathy for the clown.
The bulk of the film's pleasures come down to the performance of Joaquin Phoenix, as this damaged, tortured creature who inhabits the same existential real estate as a Scorsese character, but is far more wretched. There's a rawness and uncomfortable physicality to everything he does, similar to his work in "The Master." The way his mental illness manifests, the use of the clown makeup as a motif, and the constant, physical abuse that he suffers and learns to dish out, are fascinating to watch. The famous Joker laugh is reframed as the product of a neurological condition, something that Arthur can't control. The first sections of the film, where he struggles to take care of his ailing mother (Frances Controy) and survive the whims of a cruel social order, are by far the most successful. As the film gets into comic book territory, it takes a turn for the worse.
Finally, we have to reckon with "Joker" as a Batman film, and this is the least successful and satisfying part of the whole venture. Phoenix successfully pulls off a new take on the Joker that references the best parts of the previous incarnations - Cesar Romero's whimsy, Jack Nicholson's menace, and Heath Ledger's anarchy. However, the attempts to tie the character to the Wayne family and all the little easter eggs and references that appear throughout aren't too compelling. The script toys with adding certain relationships and connections, but mostly doesn't follow through, content to let certain pivotal events play out exactly as we expect them to. Having Arthur's story set in Gotham makes little difference at all, and seems to exist as an excuse to let Phillips and crew flirt with superhero imagery. The third act has some huge riffs on the Joker sequences in "The Dark Knight."
"Joker" does, however, create some entirely original moments that are difficult to shake. There's the scene where Arthur empties the refrigerator and climbs into it, trying to his escape his miseries. There's the already iconic dance on the stairs, the escape of the midget, and a trail of bloody footprints. Once you cut away all the excess and the nostalgia, there's still a worthwhile movie here. It's a smaller, sadder film than it's billing itself to be, and the ending is a bit of a mess, but it's worth seeing.
It is not, however, worth nearly the amount of fuss that it's caused.
---
So what do we do with a "Batman" prequel that is also an homage to Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy," and problematically glorifies the vigilante outsider in 2019? Well, let's take this thing apart piece by piece. First and foremost, the idea that "Joker" is an incitement to violence and anarchy is overblown. "Joker" contains a few allusions to Bernie Goetz and Occupy Wall Street, the same as "The Dark Knight Rises"and "Taxi Driver," but its messages are too muddled to really connect to the real world. You can definitely read the triumph and elevation of the Joker character, who inspires riots and other acts violence against the privileged, as encouraging of fringe actors, but not more so than most "man against the system" films. I'm sure that certain Joker fans could take the movie as a call to action, but it's a stretch. The Joker in this film may be more sympathetic, but as antiheroes go, he's still a pretty horrific one.
Also, "Joker" is a period film, which has a certain distancing effect. It takes place in the grungy, crime-riddled New York City-playing-Gotham of the 1970s and 1980s. Director Todd Phillips borrows a lot from Scorsese cinematically, and makes no secret of it. Arthur Fleck haunts many of the same trash-strewn streets and echoes many of the same antisocial thoughts that Travis Bickel and Rupert Pupkin once did. Robert DeNiro even plays the pivotal role of Murray Franklin, a talk show host who Arthur watches obsessively and fantasizes about interacting with. But though Phillips successfully employs some of Scorsese's techniques, and Lawrence Sher's doing career best work as cinematographer, it's only the rare moment that they capture anything close to the same verve and psychological insight. This is a very shallow film, lacking in irony, and without much of an ideology beyond generating a little sympathy for the clown.
The bulk of the film's pleasures come down to the performance of Joaquin Phoenix, as this damaged, tortured creature who inhabits the same existential real estate as a Scorsese character, but is far more wretched. There's a rawness and uncomfortable physicality to everything he does, similar to his work in "The Master." The way his mental illness manifests, the use of the clown makeup as a motif, and the constant, physical abuse that he suffers and learns to dish out, are fascinating to watch. The famous Joker laugh is reframed as the product of a neurological condition, something that Arthur can't control. The first sections of the film, where he struggles to take care of his ailing mother (Frances Controy) and survive the whims of a cruel social order, are by far the most successful. As the film gets into comic book territory, it takes a turn for the worse.
Finally, we have to reckon with "Joker" as a Batman film, and this is the least successful and satisfying part of the whole venture. Phoenix successfully pulls off a new take on the Joker that references the best parts of the previous incarnations - Cesar Romero's whimsy, Jack Nicholson's menace, and Heath Ledger's anarchy. However, the attempts to tie the character to the Wayne family and all the little easter eggs and references that appear throughout aren't too compelling. The script toys with adding certain relationships and connections, but mostly doesn't follow through, content to let certain pivotal events play out exactly as we expect them to. Having Arthur's story set in Gotham makes little difference at all, and seems to exist as an excuse to let Phillips and crew flirt with superhero imagery. The third act has some huge riffs on the Joker sequences in "The Dark Knight."
"Joker" does, however, create some entirely original moments that are difficult to shake. There's the scene where Arthur empties the refrigerator and climbs into it, trying to his escape his miseries. There's the already iconic dance on the stairs, the escape of the midget, and a trail of bloody footprints. Once you cut away all the excess and the nostalgia, there's still a worthwhile movie here. It's a smaller, sadder film than it's billing itself to be, and the ending is a bit of a mess, but it's worth seeing.
It is not, however, worth nearly the amount of fuss that it's caused.
---
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Oscar Aftermath 2020
It feels like despite the showrunners' best efforts, the Oscars are a slow-moving trainwreck every year, yet always get redeemed by a couple of interesting artistic choices and some good moments of real human drama. There was an undeniable awkwardness to having four awards speeches delivered in Korean with a translator on hand, but Bong Joon-Ho is a charismatic and lovable winner, and the audience was so enthusiastically on his side. When he won Best Director, and then "Parasite" took Best Picture, it was a perfect underdog victory. It was hard to resist the urge to stand up and cheer.
The evening certainly didn't start out that way. First, there was Janelle Monae's aggressive opening number, where her attempts at audience participation mostly felt flat, and there was the odd choice of featuring elements form films that notably didn't get any love from the Academy, like "Midsommar," "Us," "Queen and Slim," and "Dolemite is My Name." There was a running theme throughout the night of the show acknowledging that it had to do better by the non-white, non-male creative community, and then expressing that in the most awkward way possible. Chris Rock and Steve Martin took the stage for some opening remarks that were tepid and strained, leaning way too hard on the angry black man v. sheepish white man divide. I still don't know if Steve Martin mispronouncing Cynthia Erivo's name was legit, or part of a bit.
However, for every pointed, self-congratulatory choice, like making a big deal of the Oscars' first maestra, Eimear Noone, ("All women are superheroes"? Really?) you had the Best Score award actually going to Hildur Guðnadóttir, who delivered a truly heartfelt and inspirational acceptance speech. There were far too many celebrities introducing each other, but it did net us good comic bits from Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfus, and Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig. Even Rebel Wilson and James Corden were smart enough to deliver their one joke and get out. The "Into the Unknown" stunt where multiple international singers sang parts of the song in different languages, showing off Disney's localization efforts, was quickly made up for by spine-tingling performances from Elton John, Cynthia Erivo, and a surprise Eminem (famously a no-show in 2002). No comment on Billie Eilish - I'm still figuring out whether I enjoy her style of performance or not.
Aside from the "Parasite" wins, most of the other races had been decided for ages. None of the acting races shook out the way I was hoping, but the actual winners were very unobjectionable choices, and the same ones who had been winning everything all season. Brad Pitt's speech was great, Joaquin Phoenix's was very earnest if a bit unhinged (appropriate, given he won for "Joker"), I'm happy Dern is being recognized for anything, and it's good to have Renee Zellwegger back, even if her speech was rambly and blah. The one win that did bother me was Taika Waititi getting Best Adapted Screenplay for "Jojo Rabbit," which leaves me conflicted because I'm a staunch defender of "Jojo Rabbit" and I've been singing its praises for weeks - however, Greta Gerwig was clearly robbed. I'm also aghast that "The Irishman" walked away with nothing, even though Bong Joon-ho very graciously paid his respects to Scorsese.
Some of my reactions to the ceremony have undeniably been colored by the fact that I finally finished reading Mark Harris's "Pictures at a Revolution," which spent its final chapter delivering a blow-by-blow account of the 1968 Oscars. It's fascinating to see how so many of the same old issues and bad habits are still plaguing the ceremony - tone deaf and overbearing presenters, self-congratulatory social messaging, and a visible clash between the old generation and the new. Still, this time around the right picture won, striking an important blow for the increasingly prominent international film community. Yeah, they cut off the Makeup/Hairstyling ladies, and yeah, the "In Memoriam" graphics were awful, but in the end the night was a triumph for the Academy Awards. It was a good year for the movies, and the ceremony reflected that, no matter how hard they seemed to try to sabotage themselves.
Watching Charlize Theron, Tom Hanks and several others shouting and waving for the microphone and lights to come back up for the "Parasite" winners was a great capper to the night.
Until next year.
---
The evening certainly didn't start out that way. First, there was Janelle Monae's aggressive opening number, where her attempts at audience participation mostly felt flat, and there was the odd choice of featuring elements form films that notably didn't get any love from the Academy, like "Midsommar," "Us," "Queen and Slim," and "Dolemite is My Name." There was a running theme throughout the night of the show acknowledging that it had to do better by the non-white, non-male creative community, and then expressing that in the most awkward way possible. Chris Rock and Steve Martin took the stage for some opening remarks that were tepid and strained, leaning way too hard on the angry black man v. sheepish white man divide. I still don't know if Steve Martin mispronouncing Cynthia Erivo's name was legit, or part of a bit.
However, for every pointed, self-congratulatory choice, like making a big deal of the Oscars' first maestra, Eimear Noone, ("All women are superheroes"? Really?) you had the Best Score award actually going to Hildur Guðnadóttir, who delivered a truly heartfelt and inspirational acceptance speech. There were far too many celebrities introducing each other, but it did net us good comic bits from Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfus, and Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig. Even Rebel Wilson and James Corden were smart enough to deliver their one joke and get out. The "Into the Unknown" stunt where multiple international singers sang parts of the song in different languages, showing off Disney's localization efforts, was quickly made up for by spine-tingling performances from Elton John, Cynthia Erivo, and a surprise Eminem (famously a no-show in 2002). No comment on Billie Eilish - I'm still figuring out whether I enjoy her style of performance or not.
Aside from the "Parasite" wins, most of the other races had been decided for ages. None of the acting races shook out the way I was hoping, but the actual winners were very unobjectionable choices, and the same ones who had been winning everything all season. Brad Pitt's speech was great, Joaquin Phoenix's was very earnest if a bit unhinged (appropriate, given he won for "Joker"), I'm happy Dern is being recognized for anything, and it's good to have Renee Zellwegger back, even if her speech was rambly and blah. The one win that did bother me was Taika Waititi getting Best Adapted Screenplay for "Jojo Rabbit," which leaves me conflicted because I'm a staunch defender of "Jojo Rabbit" and I've been singing its praises for weeks - however, Greta Gerwig was clearly robbed. I'm also aghast that "The Irishman" walked away with nothing, even though Bong Joon-ho very graciously paid his respects to Scorsese.
Some of my reactions to the ceremony have undeniably been colored by the fact that I finally finished reading Mark Harris's "Pictures at a Revolution," which spent its final chapter delivering a blow-by-blow account of the 1968 Oscars. It's fascinating to see how so many of the same old issues and bad habits are still plaguing the ceremony - tone deaf and overbearing presenters, self-congratulatory social messaging, and a visible clash between the old generation and the new. Still, this time around the right picture won, striking an important blow for the increasingly prominent international film community. Yeah, they cut off the Makeup/Hairstyling ladies, and yeah, the "In Memoriam" graphics were awful, but in the end the night was a triumph for the Academy Awards. It was a good year for the movies, and the ceremony reflected that, no matter how hard they seemed to try to sabotage themselves.
Watching Charlize Theron, Tom Hanks and several others shouting and waving for the microphone and lights to come back up for the "Parasite" winners was a great capper to the night.
Until next year.
---
Friday, February 7, 2020
My Top Ten Films of 1970
This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.
Little Big Man - It's easy to describe "Little Big Man" as the Old West version of "Forrest Gump," where our main character stumbles through major events in American history. However, "Little Big Man" is far more daring and subversive than "Forrest Gump." It's a revisionist Western that sympathizes with the Native Americans, often portrays the encroaching pioneers as villains, and satirizes figures like General Custer and Wild Bill Hickock. It's frequently funny and absurd, but also remarkably touching at times, featuring excellent performances from Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George.
Tora! Tora! Tora! - Darryl F. Zanuck and crew tried to replicate the success of "The Longest Day" with a massively ambitious war epic about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, told from the POVs of both the Americans and the Japanese, with multiple productions carried out by different countries. The resulting docudrama provides an intriguing macroscopic view of events, coupled with one of the most terrifically destructive battle recreations ever filmed. We'll probably never see a production of this size and scope again - which is likely why they're still reusing clips of the film in other projects.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue - One of Sam Peckinpah's gentler films follows the career of Cable Hogue, a ruffian who discovers water in the desert in the waning days of the Old West. The film is a Western, but largely non-violent and incidental. It's mostly concerned with charting Hogue's evolution from vengeful, selfish varmint to a more enlightened breed of human being. The filmmaking is playful, the tone easygoing, and the performances of Jason Robards and Stella Stevens are delightful. The offbeat romance and comedy sneak up on the viewer, and prove very enjoyable.
The Conformist - A portrait of a man with a coldly Fascist worldview that is equally damning and sympathetic, but above all gorgeous. The art direction and Vittorio Storaro's cinematography are stunning. The non-linear storytelling, editing, and mise-en-scene are beautifully executed, creating a psychologically fraught world of spies and secrets, where our hero can't ever seem to escape his lingering demons. I love the way Bernardo Bertolucci often ends scenes on these little visual punchlines and grace notes, and the way they add little shadings and ironies to the narrative.
Diary of a Mad Housewife - Frank and Eleanor Perry continue to explore the American psyche, this time through Carrie Snodgrass's endlessly put-upon housewife, Tina Balser. Snodgrass's performance, her film debut, is what drives the film and gives it so much bite. The defeat on her face and the placating tone of her voice tell you everything you need to know about Tina in the first five minutes. And I still can't help wanting to wring Richard Benjamin's neck every time I see him in anything. His narcissistic husband is one of the most aggravating characters I've ever seen onscreen.
Deep End - It's difficult to describe "Deep End," or even put it into a proper genre. It's mostly a coming-of age story, set in and around a London bath house, but contains elements of comedy, thriller, melodrama, and perhaps satire. Jerzy Skolimowski makes great use of setting and space - the empty swimming pool, the labyrinthine baths, and the London Underground. As the young hero's frustrations mount, so do the dangers that he keeps encountering, both internal and external. It's a rare film that kept me guessing as to its intentions for the entire running time, but also left me entirely satisfied.
Even Dwarfs Started Small - Is this an experimental film? A satire? A farce? A cruel joke? But if it is a joke, at whose expense? Ninety minutes of dwarfs running amok on a remote island, rebelling against society and enjoying their own outrageousness - is there a point? Filming was reportedly extremely dangerous, resulting in multiple injuries. Clearly, there are some serious questions about the exploitation of the cast and the nature of the production that need to be addressed. And yet, I can't help but look on Werner Herzog's finished product with great admiration, for his vision, for his wildness, and for his utter lack of apparent limits.
Patton - It's George C. Scott's show from beginning to end, as magnificent a biography and a war film as General Patton himself could ever wish for. Scott's Oscar-winning performance is legendary, of course, but it's Francis Ford Coppola's script and Franklin J. Schaffner's direction that do a lot of the heavy lifting, creating an unusually candid portrait of a major historical figure, and positioning him in such a way that makes the audience love him for his faults and foibles. At the same time, Patton remains very much a mystery in the end, both to his comrades and to the audience.
The Wild Child - One of the more accessible Truffaut films recounts the history of a feral boy and the attempts to reintegrate him into society. Truffaut himself takes the lead role as the boy's doctor and caretaker. It's a very thoughtful, sensitively made feature where Truffaut is once again examining the lives of children and their process of socialization. The situation here is more intense, creating a more dramatic, allegorical experience. At the same time, realism is carefully preserved - the narrative is a direct dramatization of the real doctor's journals and observations.
Zabriskie Point - Michelangelo Antonio's foray into American subject matter was widely panned at the time of release, and remains divisive, but I love its weirdness and its psychedelia, its vision of the American counterculture through the eyes of a curuious foreigner. From the soundtrack full of familiar rockers to the anonymous lead actors froliking in the dunes to the hypnotic finale scenes of suburban detritus literally being blown to bits, there's nothing else like it.
Honorable Mention
Scrooge
---
Little Big Man - It's easy to describe "Little Big Man" as the Old West version of "Forrest Gump," where our main character stumbles through major events in American history. However, "Little Big Man" is far more daring and subversive than "Forrest Gump." It's a revisionist Western that sympathizes with the Native Americans, often portrays the encroaching pioneers as villains, and satirizes figures like General Custer and Wild Bill Hickock. It's frequently funny and absurd, but also remarkably touching at times, featuring excellent performances from Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George.
Tora! Tora! Tora! - Darryl F. Zanuck and crew tried to replicate the success of "The Longest Day" with a massively ambitious war epic about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, told from the POVs of both the Americans and the Japanese, with multiple productions carried out by different countries. The resulting docudrama provides an intriguing macroscopic view of events, coupled with one of the most terrifically destructive battle recreations ever filmed. We'll probably never see a production of this size and scope again - which is likely why they're still reusing clips of the film in other projects.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue - One of Sam Peckinpah's gentler films follows the career of Cable Hogue, a ruffian who discovers water in the desert in the waning days of the Old West. The film is a Western, but largely non-violent and incidental. It's mostly concerned with charting Hogue's evolution from vengeful, selfish varmint to a more enlightened breed of human being. The filmmaking is playful, the tone easygoing, and the performances of Jason Robards and Stella Stevens are delightful. The offbeat romance and comedy sneak up on the viewer, and prove very enjoyable.
The Conformist - A portrait of a man with a coldly Fascist worldview that is equally damning and sympathetic, but above all gorgeous. The art direction and Vittorio Storaro's cinematography are stunning. The non-linear storytelling, editing, and mise-en-scene are beautifully executed, creating a psychologically fraught world of spies and secrets, where our hero can't ever seem to escape his lingering demons. I love the way Bernardo Bertolucci often ends scenes on these little visual punchlines and grace notes, and the way they add little shadings and ironies to the narrative.
Diary of a Mad Housewife - Frank and Eleanor Perry continue to explore the American psyche, this time through Carrie Snodgrass's endlessly put-upon housewife, Tina Balser. Snodgrass's performance, her film debut, is what drives the film and gives it so much bite. The defeat on her face and the placating tone of her voice tell you everything you need to know about Tina in the first five minutes. And I still can't help wanting to wring Richard Benjamin's neck every time I see him in anything. His narcissistic husband is one of the most aggravating characters I've ever seen onscreen.
Deep End - It's difficult to describe "Deep End," or even put it into a proper genre. It's mostly a coming-of age story, set in and around a London bath house, but contains elements of comedy, thriller, melodrama, and perhaps satire. Jerzy Skolimowski makes great use of setting and space - the empty swimming pool, the labyrinthine baths, and the London Underground. As the young hero's frustrations mount, so do the dangers that he keeps encountering, both internal and external. It's a rare film that kept me guessing as to its intentions for the entire running time, but also left me entirely satisfied.
Even Dwarfs Started Small - Is this an experimental film? A satire? A farce? A cruel joke? But if it is a joke, at whose expense? Ninety minutes of dwarfs running amok on a remote island, rebelling against society and enjoying their own outrageousness - is there a point? Filming was reportedly extremely dangerous, resulting in multiple injuries. Clearly, there are some serious questions about the exploitation of the cast and the nature of the production that need to be addressed. And yet, I can't help but look on Werner Herzog's finished product with great admiration, for his vision, for his wildness, and for his utter lack of apparent limits.
Patton - It's George C. Scott's show from beginning to end, as magnificent a biography and a war film as General Patton himself could ever wish for. Scott's Oscar-winning performance is legendary, of course, but it's Francis Ford Coppola's script and Franklin J. Schaffner's direction that do a lot of the heavy lifting, creating an unusually candid portrait of a major historical figure, and positioning him in such a way that makes the audience love him for his faults and foibles. At the same time, Patton remains very much a mystery in the end, both to his comrades and to the audience.
The Wild Child - One of the more accessible Truffaut films recounts the history of a feral boy and the attempts to reintegrate him into society. Truffaut himself takes the lead role as the boy's doctor and caretaker. It's a very thoughtful, sensitively made feature where Truffaut is once again examining the lives of children and their process of socialization. The situation here is more intense, creating a more dramatic, allegorical experience. At the same time, realism is carefully preserved - the narrative is a direct dramatization of the real doctor's journals and observations.
Zabriskie Point - Michelangelo Antonio's foray into American subject matter was widely panned at the time of release, and remains divisive, but I love its weirdness and its psychedelia, its vision of the American counterculture through the eyes of a curuious foreigner. From the soundtrack full of familiar rockers to the anonymous lead actors froliking in the dunes to the hypnotic finale scenes of suburban detritus literally being blown to bits, there's nothing else like it.
Honorable Mention
Scrooge
---
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Rank 'Em: The 2020 Best Picture Nominees
This was a tough post to write, mostly because it was an excellent year at the movies, and because how much I liked certain films didn't match up with how good I thought they were. I mostly erred on the side of my personal tastes, because this is my list, dammit, and I shouldn't be discounting my own preferences and point of view. So, here we go. From best to least best, here are the Best Picture nominees of 2020, ranked.
Little Women - It was a close fight between this and "Parasite" for the top spot. I'm giving it to "Little Women" for so thoroughly upending my expectations. I expected a period piece from Greta Gerwig to be much more formal and restrained. Instead, there's such a vitality to the story, which has been taken apart and rebuilt to highlight different themes, updated ideas, and Gerwig's own, more expansive sensibilities. The result is the best screen version of "Little Women" to date, and the best film of 2019.
Parasite - As far as social allegories about class and privilege go, it's hard to top this one. It's such a beautifully conceived film, full of little twists and surprises that blur genres and traditions. There are just the right amounts of Bong Joon-ho's usual grotesquerie and black humor. There are just enough relatable human foibles. And after years of Korean cinema being all but ignored by the Academy, I love that something has finally broken through and may very well win the whole shebang.
Marriage Story - A remarkably empathetic film about a broken relationship, essentially a love story that ends with separation instead of a union. It's been so rewarding to see Noah Baumbach arrive at this point artistically and emotionally. If he'd made this film ten years ago, it would have been far more bitter and unpalatable. Instead, he's given Adam Driver and Scarlett Johanssen the chance to do some of their best, most affecting work yet, and everyone a reason to revisit Sondheim's back catalog.
Jojo Rabbit - This is probably higher in the rankings than it should be, but "Jojo" is one of my favorite films of the year in spite of its clear weaknesses. What ameliorates a lot of my misgivings is that I see the film as being directed toward the young and impressionable, and I love the way that Taika Waititi finds all these ways to connect the WWII experience with modern culture and get viewers into the same head space as the young leads. The film also surprised me multiple times - and that's always a plus.
The Irishman - I wish I liked this movie more. I admire Martin Scorsese and his collaborators so much for committing to this big, difficult gangster elegy. I don't mind the limits of the de-aging technology, and I don't mind the three hour running time. The performances are fantastic all around, with special kudos to Joe Pesci, who I hope enjoys a late career resurrection. Unfortunately, as with many of Scorsese's other gangster pictures, I didn't find the material compelling. So into the middle of the pack it goes.
1917 - The technical aspects of this film are absolutely impeccable, and I wouldn't be at all surprised it it ended up winning all the major awards. That said, it's hard to get away from the fact that the film is built on a gimmick, and the characters are very thinly drawn. I'm very happy to see it doing so well at the box office, and showing that a good original film can be as effective an action spectacular as any superhero franchise film. I'm just not convinced that it deserves to take home the prize this year.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood… - Even if I set aside the ending as a matter of taste, I still can't summon up much enthusiasm for Quentin Tarantino's vision of '60s Hollywood. I'm impressed by how lovingly he recreated the parties and the street life, and his takes on the TV and movie production of the times is a lot of fun. However, there's so much self-indulgence here that it grates, and the characters aren't particularly compelling. I wish there were more substance under all the references and glitz.
Joker - And here's the most nominated film of the year, which seems to position it as the frontrunner, but the backlash has been pretty overwhelming. I don't think it's getting anything but Joaquin's Best Actor trophy. I think "Joker" is a perfectly good film overall, a middling Scorsese homage (certainly better than something like "American Hustle"), and a poor "Batman" story. It gets a few extra points for audacity, but it's not remotely as effective of any of the films it takes its influences from.
Ford v Ferrari - It's a solid, well-made sports movie that has both Matt Damon and Christian Bale doing good work. The story is interesting and I like that the conflict is more about the behind-the-scenes clashes than anything going on at Le Mans - though it's Le Mans that delivers all of the big, exciting race sequences. There's just not enough here to really make the film exceptional. I don't think it deserved a nomination, not in a year like this with so many better choices.
---
Little Women - It was a close fight between this and "Parasite" for the top spot. I'm giving it to "Little Women" for so thoroughly upending my expectations. I expected a period piece from Greta Gerwig to be much more formal and restrained. Instead, there's such a vitality to the story, which has been taken apart and rebuilt to highlight different themes, updated ideas, and Gerwig's own, more expansive sensibilities. The result is the best screen version of "Little Women" to date, and the best film of 2019.
Parasite - As far as social allegories about class and privilege go, it's hard to top this one. It's such a beautifully conceived film, full of little twists and surprises that blur genres and traditions. There are just the right amounts of Bong Joon-ho's usual grotesquerie and black humor. There are just enough relatable human foibles. And after years of Korean cinema being all but ignored by the Academy, I love that something has finally broken through and may very well win the whole shebang.
Marriage Story - A remarkably empathetic film about a broken relationship, essentially a love story that ends with separation instead of a union. It's been so rewarding to see Noah Baumbach arrive at this point artistically and emotionally. If he'd made this film ten years ago, it would have been far more bitter and unpalatable. Instead, he's given Adam Driver and Scarlett Johanssen the chance to do some of their best, most affecting work yet, and everyone a reason to revisit Sondheim's back catalog.
Jojo Rabbit - This is probably higher in the rankings than it should be, but "Jojo" is one of my favorite films of the year in spite of its clear weaknesses. What ameliorates a lot of my misgivings is that I see the film as being directed toward the young and impressionable, and I love the way that Taika Waititi finds all these ways to connect the WWII experience with modern culture and get viewers into the same head space as the young leads. The film also surprised me multiple times - and that's always a plus.
The Irishman - I wish I liked this movie more. I admire Martin Scorsese and his collaborators so much for committing to this big, difficult gangster elegy. I don't mind the limits of the de-aging technology, and I don't mind the three hour running time. The performances are fantastic all around, with special kudos to Joe Pesci, who I hope enjoys a late career resurrection. Unfortunately, as with many of Scorsese's other gangster pictures, I didn't find the material compelling. So into the middle of the pack it goes.
1917 - The technical aspects of this film are absolutely impeccable, and I wouldn't be at all surprised it it ended up winning all the major awards. That said, it's hard to get away from the fact that the film is built on a gimmick, and the characters are very thinly drawn. I'm very happy to see it doing so well at the box office, and showing that a good original film can be as effective an action spectacular as any superhero franchise film. I'm just not convinced that it deserves to take home the prize this year.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood… - Even if I set aside the ending as a matter of taste, I still can't summon up much enthusiasm for Quentin Tarantino's vision of '60s Hollywood. I'm impressed by how lovingly he recreated the parties and the street life, and his takes on the TV and movie production of the times is a lot of fun. However, there's so much self-indulgence here that it grates, and the characters aren't particularly compelling. I wish there were more substance under all the references and glitz.
Joker - And here's the most nominated film of the year, which seems to position it as the frontrunner, but the backlash has been pretty overwhelming. I don't think it's getting anything but Joaquin's Best Actor trophy. I think "Joker" is a perfectly good film overall, a middling Scorsese homage (certainly better than something like "American Hustle"), and a poor "Batman" story. It gets a few extra points for audacity, but it's not remotely as effective of any of the films it takes its influences from.
Ford v Ferrari - It's a solid, well-made sports movie that has both Matt Damon and Christian Bale doing good work. The story is interesting and I like that the conflict is more about the behind-the-scenes clashes than anything going on at Le Mans - though it's Le Mans that delivers all of the big, exciting race sequences. There's just not enough here to really make the film exceptional. I don't think it deserved a nomination, not in a year like this with so many better choices.
---
Monday, February 3, 2020
Finding "Fleabag"
I got overhyped by all the press and awards chatter around "Fleabag," and I'm sorry to say that raised expectations dampened some of my reaction to it, especially the second season. However, I am suitably impressed with everyone involved, especially writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who plays the unnamed title character.
Our heroine, listed in the credits as Fleabag, is a Londoner in her early thirties, whose life is a mess. She's running a failing business, in a failing relationship, her family situation is depressing, and most of it is her own fault. She's obsessed with sex, loves being inappropriate, is chronically irresponsible, and can't seem to get her life together on any level. Her sister Claire (Sian Clifford) is a type A overachiever, inexplicably married to a drunken lout, Martin (Brett Gelman). Her widowed father (Bill Paterson), has remarried to his daughters' Godmother (Olivia Colman), an insufferable painter and sculptor. And, we learn at the end of the first episode, Fleabag's best friend and business partner Boo (Jenny Rainsford), is recently deceased.
A lot of the fun of "Fleabag" is its fourth wall breaking format. Fleabag will regularly deliver little asides to the audience, Ferris Bueller style, or just glance over at the camera whenever something cringey or juicy happens, to share a conspiratorial moment with the viewer. Most of her love interests are never given names, just listed as Arsehole Guy (Ben Aldridge) or Bus Rodent (Jamie Demetriou) in the credits. This immediately gets the viewer intimately situated into Fleabag's skewed worldview. She candidly shares her views on sex, often pretty graphically. She mercilessly tears down everyone she encounters, and often predicts what people will say before they say it. Despite her long list of faults, it's pretty enjoyable sharing Fleabag's headspace because she's so open and honest in it - well, up to a point.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's work as a performer goes a long way towards making the material palatable. Fleabag msturbating to a Barack Obama speech may sound overly crass on paper, but watching her do it, and then try to hide the fact from her annoyed boyfriend Harry (Hugh Skinner) is hysterical. It helps that though the dialogue is no-holds-barred, the visuals are pretty tame. A lot of humor comes from the juxtaposition of Fleabag looking perfectly ordinary, in ordinary situations, and the filthiness of her internal monologue. She's charming and assured in her delivery too, which makes it all the more delightful. I don't think there's any actual nudity in the show aside from a few of Godmother's plaster genitalia displays.
Of course, "Fleabag" isn't all vulgarity and perversity. Underlying all of her antics is a deeply sad situation where Fleabag is dealing with grief, guilt, and family dysfunction in some very unhealthy ways. In the second season, the show shifts gears noticeably when Fleabag starts falling for a Hot Priest (Andrew Scott). She's still obsessed with sex, but since the physical act is out of bounds, her attention starts turning to other areas of the relationship, and the show's little structural conceits start to change with them. The most obvious is the fourth wall breaking. As Fleabag and the Hot Priest grow closer, he starts to notice when she makes her asides to the audience, and eventually starts calling her out on it. Watching their relationship develop is such an intimate, bittersweet joy.
The show is so well written, and I love how it doesn't let you forget or dismiss anyone, even though Fleabag frequently does. Godmother is a presumptuous ass, but genuinely loves Fleabag's father. Martin eventually becomes a major antagonist, but it's hard not to sympathize with his impotent frustration. The Hot Priest may be dreamy, but clearly there are a lot of demons in his closet, including a worrying drinking problem. There's even a heartbreaking moment when the seemingly oblivious Bus Rodent reveals that he's perfectly aware that everyone, including Fleabag, is making fun of his teeth. Everyone in the show is sympathetic to some degree, and also very capable of being awful.
The cast is great all around, and the second season features a lot of little one-episode or one-scene roles for big names like Fiona Shaw and Kristen Scott Thomas. Sian Clifford, however, is the MVP as the increasingly lovable Claire. She's so uptight and so miserable, it takes a while to realize that she's actually as much of a mess as Fleabag, except in a totally different way. Olivia Colman is, of course, a treasure, even playing a part where her whole modus operandi is to infuriate you. And the Hot Priest may be the best, and certainly the most likeable role that Andrew Scott has ever had.
We've been informed that there will be no third series of "Fleabag." And in this case, I'm perfectly okay with that. I imagine it would all be downhill from here.
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Our heroine, listed in the credits as Fleabag, is a Londoner in her early thirties, whose life is a mess. She's running a failing business, in a failing relationship, her family situation is depressing, and most of it is her own fault. She's obsessed with sex, loves being inappropriate, is chronically irresponsible, and can't seem to get her life together on any level. Her sister Claire (Sian Clifford) is a type A overachiever, inexplicably married to a drunken lout, Martin (Brett Gelman). Her widowed father (Bill Paterson), has remarried to his daughters' Godmother (Olivia Colman), an insufferable painter and sculptor. And, we learn at the end of the first episode, Fleabag's best friend and business partner Boo (Jenny Rainsford), is recently deceased.
A lot of the fun of "Fleabag" is its fourth wall breaking format. Fleabag will regularly deliver little asides to the audience, Ferris Bueller style, or just glance over at the camera whenever something cringey or juicy happens, to share a conspiratorial moment with the viewer. Most of her love interests are never given names, just listed as Arsehole Guy (Ben Aldridge) or Bus Rodent (Jamie Demetriou) in the credits. This immediately gets the viewer intimately situated into Fleabag's skewed worldview. She candidly shares her views on sex, often pretty graphically. She mercilessly tears down everyone she encounters, and often predicts what people will say before they say it. Despite her long list of faults, it's pretty enjoyable sharing Fleabag's headspace because she's so open and honest in it - well, up to a point.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's work as a performer goes a long way towards making the material palatable. Fleabag msturbating to a Barack Obama speech may sound overly crass on paper, but watching her do it, and then try to hide the fact from her annoyed boyfriend Harry (Hugh Skinner) is hysterical. It helps that though the dialogue is no-holds-barred, the visuals are pretty tame. A lot of humor comes from the juxtaposition of Fleabag looking perfectly ordinary, in ordinary situations, and the filthiness of her internal monologue. She's charming and assured in her delivery too, which makes it all the more delightful. I don't think there's any actual nudity in the show aside from a few of Godmother's plaster genitalia displays.
Of course, "Fleabag" isn't all vulgarity and perversity. Underlying all of her antics is a deeply sad situation where Fleabag is dealing with grief, guilt, and family dysfunction in some very unhealthy ways. In the second season, the show shifts gears noticeably when Fleabag starts falling for a Hot Priest (Andrew Scott). She's still obsessed with sex, but since the physical act is out of bounds, her attention starts turning to other areas of the relationship, and the show's little structural conceits start to change with them. The most obvious is the fourth wall breaking. As Fleabag and the Hot Priest grow closer, he starts to notice when she makes her asides to the audience, and eventually starts calling her out on it. Watching their relationship develop is such an intimate, bittersweet joy.
The show is so well written, and I love how it doesn't let you forget or dismiss anyone, even though Fleabag frequently does. Godmother is a presumptuous ass, but genuinely loves Fleabag's father. Martin eventually becomes a major antagonist, but it's hard not to sympathize with his impotent frustration. The Hot Priest may be dreamy, but clearly there are a lot of demons in his closet, including a worrying drinking problem. There's even a heartbreaking moment when the seemingly oblivious Bus Rodent reveals that he's perfectly aware that everyone, including Fleabag, is making fun of his teeth. Everyone in the show is sympathetic to some degree, and also very capable of being awful.
The cast is great all around, and the second season features a lot of little one-episode or one-scene roles for big names like Fiona Shaw and Kristen Scott Thomas. Sian Clifford, however, is the MVP as the increasingly lovable Claire. She's so uptight and so miserable, it takes a while to realize that she's actually as much of a mess as Fleabag, except in a totally different way. Olivia Colman is, of course, a treasure, even playing a part where her whole modus operandi is to infuriate you. And the Hot Priest may be the best, and certainly the most likeable role that Andrew Scott has ever had.
We've been informed that there will be no third series of "Fleabag." And in this case, I'm perfectly okay with that. I imagine it would all be downhill from here.
---
Saturday, February 1, 2020
"The Farewell" Brings Everyone Together
"The Farewell" is a movie after my own heart, about a Chinese-American immigrant woman named Billi (Awkwafina) who learns her beloved grandmother, her Nai-Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), is dying of lung cancer. The resulting trip back to China to see her is full of culture clash and family drama, as Billi's relatives have decided to lie to Nai-Nai and pretend that nothing is wrong to avoid upsetting her. Billi, however, has deep misgivings about this approach.
I've never been in this specific situation myself, but I've been adjacent to it before, and likely will have to face something like it in the future. Billi's family situation and awkward straddling of two cultures is certainly familiar, and all her relatives remind me of all my relatives, from the spry matriarch ordering everyone around, to the younger cousins who can't speak Chinese very well, so they rarely say anything. Billi speaks Mandarin with a heavy accent, and is sensitive about it. Still, she does voice her opinions and pushes back against her parents and other relatives, asking uncomfortable questions.
There's no quick and easy guide to all the relationships and history of the family members, but part of the fun of the film is working out how everyone is connected. You have Nai Nai and her younger sister (Lu Hong). There's Billi's parents Haiyan (Tzi Ma) and Lu Jian (Diana Lin), her aunt and uncle (Jiang Yongbo, Li Xiang), and cousin Hao Hao (Chen Han) and his Japanese girlfriend Aiko (Aoi Mizuhara. Hao Hao and Aiko's wedding is being used as an excuse for the family to reunite and say goodbye to Nai-Nai, an awkward endeavor since the bride and groom have only been dating for three months. As you might expect, things occasionally take a turn for the absurd.
I was expecting the movie to be more of a comedy. There's certainly plenty of gentle humor in it. However, it's also a deeply touching, very heartfelt examination of grief and separation. Both of Nai-Nai's sons live overseas, and the reunion is the first time they've both been home at the same time in years, stirring up old conflicts. At a dinner with Nai Nai's niece Yuping (Zhang Jing), there's some pointed jabbing between the family members who left China and the ones who stayed. And as the situation grows more dire, and emotions start rising to the surface, we see several breakdowns and outbursts. The wedding reception sequence in particular is a great mix of farce and melodrama, as several characters reach their limits. Plus, it does a great job of showcasing the pleasures of major Chinese celebrations, with all the food and drinking and a bonus kitschy talent showcase.
The performances drive the film, and the ensemble is a strong one. Zhao Shuzhen is absolutely delightful, playing Nai Nai as bossy and incorrigible, but the one who understands and supports Billi the most. Awkwafina is solid, but the language barriers trip her up a bit at times. I found Diana Lin as Billi's mother and Jiang Yongbo as her uncle were both very strong, providing the necessary counterpoints to Billi's point of view. It's through them that the audience sees the toll of the lie on the rest of the family and learns more of the reasoning behind it. It's very easy to get attached to the whole lot of them, and I was a little sad when the movie ended as I would have liked to get to know them all better.
This is Lulu Wang's first feature, and there are a few bits of indie film frippery that stick out, like odd song choices and a slo-mo walk sequence. However, for the most part, the movie looks and sounds great, really taking advantage of the Changchun locations. I love the casualness with which she captures modern China, the shots of a dragon dancer taking a smoke break halfway out of his costume, or the photography session where the happy couple is posed in front of gaudy backdrops. There are so many little details included that give "The Farewell" a great sense of timeliness and authenticity.
I wish I emotionally connected to the movie more than I did, since it's so often speaking to my own experience. I can say, however, that I am very, very appreciative of it, and glad to see this story on film. Easily my favorite thing about it is that ultimately nobody is wrong, East or West. Everyone acts out of love, and everyone is shown to depend on their own little fictions in the end.
---
I've never been in this specific situation myself, but I've been adjacent to it before, and likely will have to face something like it in the future. Billi's family situation and awkward straddling of two cultures is certainly familiar, and all her relatives remind me of all my relatives, from the spry matriarch ordering everyone around, to the younger cousins who can't speak Chinese very well, so they rarely say anything. Billi speaks Mandarin with a heavy accent, and is sensitive about it. Still, she does voice her opinions and pushes back against her parents and other relatives, asking uncomfortable questions.
There's no quick and easy guide to all the relationships and history of the family members, but part of the fun of the film is working out how everyone is connected. You have Nai Nai and her younger sister (Lu Hong). There's Billi's parents Haiyan (Tzi Ma) and Lu Jian (Diana Lin), her aunt and uncle (Jiang Yongbo, Li Xiang), and cousin Hao Hao (Chen Han) and his Japanese girlfriend Aiko (Aoi Mizuhara. Hao Hao and Aiko's wedding is being used as an excuse for the family to reunite and say goodbye to Nai-Nai, an awkward endeavor since the bride and groom have only been dating for three months. As you might expect, things occasionally take a turn for the absurd.
I was expecting the movie to be more of a comedy. There's certainly plenty of gentle humor in it. However, it's also a deeply touching, very heartfelt examination of grief and separation. Both of Nai-Nai's sons live overseas, and the reunion is the first time they've both been home at the same time in years, stirring up old conflicts. At a dinner with Nai Nai's niece Yuping (Zhang Jing), there's some pointed jabbing between the family members who left China and the ones who stayed. And as the situation grows more dire, and emotions start rising to the surface, we see several breakdowns and outbursts. The wedding reception sequence in particular is a great mix of farce and melodrama, as several characters reach their limits. Plus, it does a great job of showcasing the pleasures of major Chinese celebrations, with all the food and drinking and a bonus kitschy talent showcase.
The performances drive the film, and the ensemble is a strong one. Zhao Shuzhen is absolutely delightful, playing Nai Nai as bossy and incorrigible, but the one who understands and supports Billi the most. Awkwafina is solid, but the language barriers trip her up a bit at times. I found Diana Lin as Billi's mother and Jiang Yongbo as her uncle were both very strong, providing the necessary counterpoints to Billi's point of view. It's through them that the audience sees the toll of the lie on the rest of the family and learns more of the reasoning behind it. It's very easy to get attached to the whole lot of them, and I was a little sad when the movie ended as I would have liked to get to know them all better.
This is Lulu Wang's first feature, and there are a few bits of indie film frippery that stick out, like odd song choices and a slo-mo walk sequence. However, for the most part, the movie looks and sounds great, really taking advantage of the Changchun locations. I love the casualness with which she captures modern China, the shots of a dragon dancer taking a smoke break halfway out of his costume, or the photography session where the happy couple is posed in front of gaudy backdrops. There are so many little details included that give "The Farewell" a great sense of timeliness and authenticity.
I wish I emotionally connected to the movie more than I did, since it's so often speaking to my own experience. I can say, however, that I am very, very appreciative of it, and glad to see this story on film. Easily my favorite thing about it is that ultimately nobody is wrong, East or West. Everyone acts out of love, and everyone is shown to depend on their own little fictions in the end.
---
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