So, we're close to three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, great swathes of the country are still under shelter-in-place orders, and everybody's getting a little stir-crazy, including the entertainment industry. There's a good reserve of already filmed and completed content being carefully parceled out by various platforms, and many news and talk shows have made adjustments so that hosts can film from home, or with carefully socially-distanced skeleton crews. John Oliver and Charlie Brooker have adapted particularly well. However, everyone wants to work, even with limited resources. This has lead to various talented folks doing their best to produce content, by thinking outside the box.
First, a few thoughts on Zoom, which has become the leading online chat and videoconferencing app practically overnight as so many people have transitioned to working from home. In the future, the Zoom interface is almost certainly going to be the common visual shorthand for the year 2020, along with face masks and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Media being produced with Zoom and other videoconferencing technology are suddenly all over Youtube and mainstream outlets. Everyone has gotten used to seeing videos with screens divided into multiple boxes, streaming up to nine video feeds at a time. This allows some measure of interaction among the participants, enough to stage some amusing skits for "SNL" and for Disney to throw together some quick "Family Sing-a-long" specials.
Because we're in the middle of a national crisis, we've had the usual charity concerts and celebrity telethon-type stunts, including the marathon eight-hour "One World" fundraiser. The big, virtual graduation ceremony with President Obama's commencement address got a lot of press. However, because the crisis is so extended, there have been more of-the-beaten-path types of media getting the spotlight. A ton of celebrities are reading books for kids online, including a star-studded new version of "James and the Giant Peach," or participating in virtual jam sessions. Zoom lends itself well to reunions, with its ability to conference so many people at once, so we've seen a lot of specials for charity popping up, often reuniting TV show or movie casts. Josh Gad started up a web series called "Reunited Apart" to check in on the stars of "The Goonies" and "Back to the Future." "Parks & Rec" did a reunion special based around all the characters being in a Zoom calling tree. My favorite so far has been the "Community" table read, which nicely ties into the webcast/podcast that Joel McHale and Ken Jeong started, "The Darkest Timeline."
What's especially fun about the reunions, is that everyone is available for just about everything. Since even the most high profile, busy actors are stuck at home with all their projects on hold, and travel distance is no longer a consideration, suddenly it becomes very feasible to schedule virtual playdates for the scattered casts of "The Office" or "The Nanny" or even the wacky old NBC soap opera "Passions." Suddenly, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt are pitching in skits to "SNL." Suddenly, Robert Downey Jr. is dropping in on a "quarantine watch party" for "Avengers: Endgame." Suddenly Cameron Diaz - who has been retired since 2014 - is throwing down in Zoe Bell's all-girl virtual fight video.
And then there's John Krasinski, who whipped up his own short-lived webseries called "Some Good News" to counter the gloom and doom of the early weeks of the pandemic. He threw a virtual prom, got himself ordained to marry a couple online, and even persuaded Oprah and Malala to join in the fun. His efforts seemed to best embody the sentiment that these projects are about fostering a sense of togetherness in tough times, and providing some welcome distractions. Unfortunately, his decision to license the show to CBS All-Access with a different host suggests otherwise. Is anyone going to want to want to watch this kind of content when things get back to normal? I doubt it.
Not all of these efforts have gone well - see Gal Gadot's well-meaning but tone-deaf "Imagine" video, but I've enjoyed more of these stuck-at-home projects than I expected to. There's something charming about a familiar celebrity showing up in these videos, with their crummy production values and severely limited camera operation, knowing that they're in the same situation as everybody else. And there's a strange, intriguing ephemerality to the videos that have been produced. Shelter-in-place restrictions look to be slowly coming to an end, and we'll no doubt be back to our regularly scheduled mass media soon enough. But for now, during uncertain times - well, standards for entertainment are different. And I really do appreciate everyone's efforts to keep us distracted.
---
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Thursday, May 28, 2020
"Charlie's Angels" and "Terminator" Post #Metoo
There's been a spike in female ensemble films lately, mostly due to the recent success of "Wonder Woman" and "Captain Marvel." Many of them are also being spun as projects addressing the criticisms of the #Metoo movement, putting more women onscreen in more empowering roles. What this has meant in practical terms is remaking a lot of older films that featured women originally, including titles as disparate as "Black Christmas" and "Little Woman," but with more modern, more feminist messaging. Two of the more prominent examples have been action franchise films "Terminator: Dark Fate" and a new "Charlie's Angels" reboot.
"Terminator: Dark Fate" has the distinction of being the best installment of the "Terminator" franchise since "Terminator 2: Judgement Day," with James Cameron finally returning as a producer, and "Deadpool's" Tim Miller directing. More importantly, Linda Hamilton is back as Sarah Connor, still a hard-living vigilante, and still hunting down killer androids from the future after all this time. Arnold Schwarzenegger's back too, though I won't say in what capacity to preserve the story surprises. Just the presence of these two actors goes a long way towards connecting "Dark Fate" directly to the early "Terminator" movies, and helping us to forget the lows, and very lows of the franchise's past few misfires.
Sarah Connor joins forces with a cyborg soldier from the future named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), who is trying to protect a young woman named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) from a Terminator called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). We learn that Connor successfully defeated Skynet after the events of T2, but another AI called Legion ended up sparking the machine uprising instead. The new characters are solid, especially the enhanced human, Grace, who is central to most of the fight and action sequences in the early running. Hamilton gets a fantastic re-introduction here, but she's in her sixties and Arnold's in his seventies, and the special effects can only compensate for so much when it comes to the action. And boy, the "Dark Fate" action sequences are something to see, directly riffing off of famous sequences in "Terminator 2" with considerable success. Rev-9's big gimmick is that it's a liquid metal Terminator with a hard metal skeleton, and both components can act independently. This makes for some very cool visuals. "Dark Fate" is worth a watch for the spectacle alone.
As for the story, it's serviceable but not great. I expect some fans will be upset that the franchise abandons Skynet and much of the series' existing mythology. However, after so many convolutions of the timeline in previous movies, it's a relief to see them going in a new direction and bringing in some fresh blood. Sarah Conner was always central to the franchise - one of the few action heroines of her era - and it feels very fitting that "Dark Fate" gives us more female characters in the same vein. The girl power messaging is obvious, but I didn't find it overbearing. There's also a lot of evoking of present day social issues - we start off in Mexico with several Spanish-speaking characters, one major scene takes place in a border detention facility, and another on a factory floor that's automating parts of its workflow. There's no direct commentary about these elements, so "Dark Fate" couldn't be called remotely political, but the movie's sympathies are pretty clear.
More explicitly and self-consciously a product of the #Metoo era is the new "Charlie's Angels," which sees its central premise reworked to expand the operations of "Charlie" and his Townsend Agency, which employs the Angels as private investigators. Now there are multiple Bosleys, recruiting and managing multiple teams of Angels around the world, who have access to all kinds of high tech gadgets and weaponry and other resources. The Angels are now more or less secret agents, righting wrongs that nobody else can. The movie focuses on two Angels, wild child Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and no-nonsense Jane (Ella Balinska), helping an engineer named Elena (Naomi Scott) stop her shady corporate bosses from weaponizing her latest invention. Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Honsou, and Patrick Stewart play various Bosleys handling most of the exposition and plotty bits.
Like the previous "Angels" movie series, this is an action-comedy, heavy on the fantasy wish-fulfillment. The ladies quip, tease each other, and enjoy themselves as they're saving the world. So while the girl power elements are much more prominent here, including an opening title montage literally showing little girls doing cool stuff, the messaging is also very lighthearted and accentuates the positive. While Elena gets talked over and minimized by her awful bosses (Nat Faxon and Sam Claflin), she's quickly recruited to go on secret missions and hang out with much cooler people. Nobody dwells on the misogyny of the villains, or puts the Angels in the position of having to explain or justify themselves. They just go and kick ass, and have some fun along the way. There's less camp and silliness than there was in the previous installments, but still plenty of energy and verve and snazzy spycraft.
It helps that this is a very appealing set of characters. Kristen Stewart is clearly having a ball being the loose cannon, Naomi Scott's bloody adorable, and Elizabeth Banks has just the right amount of world weary cynicism and maternal toughness. I like that the viewers get their backstories in bits and pieces, and are left to connect many of the dots themselves. I like that the leads have real chemistry with each other, and the banter actually works. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these girl-power action movies where the banter actually works. And there's still room for a little sexiness and glamour too.
Elizabeth Banks wrote, produced, and directed the movie, and deserves the bulk of the credit for its successes. This is a big step up from her work on "Pitch Perfect 2," and I hope she makes more films like it.
---
"Terminator: Dark Fate" has the distinction of being the best installment of the "Terminator" franchise since "Terminator 2: Judgement Day," with James Cameron finally returning as a producer, and "Deadpool's" Tim Miller directing. More importantly, Linda Hamilton is back as Sarah Connor, still a hard-living vigilante, and still hunting down killer androids from the future after all this time. Arnold Schwarzenegger's back too, though I won't say in what capacity to preserve the story surprises. Just the presence of these two actors goes a long way towards connecting "Dark Fate" directly to the early "Terminator" movies, and helping us to forget the lows, and very lows of the franchise's past few misfires.
Sarah Connor joins forces with a cyborg soldier from the future named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), who is trying to protect a young woman named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) from a Terminator called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). We learn that Connor successfully defeated Skynet after the events of T2, but another AI called Legion ended up sparking the machine uprising instead. The new characters are solid, especially the enhanced human, Grace, who is central to most of the fight and action sequences in the early running. Hamilton gets a fantastic re-introduction here, but she's in her sixties and Arnold's in his seventies, and the special effects can only compensate for so much when it comes to the action. And boy, the "Dark Fate" action sequences are something to see, directly riffing off of famous sequences in "Terminator 2" with considerable success. Rev-9's big gimmick is that it's a liquid metal Terminator with a hard metal skeleton, and both components can act independently. This makes for some very cool visuals. "Dark Fate" is worth a watch for the spectacle alone.
As for the story, it's serviceable but not great. I expect some fans will be upset that the franchise abandons Skynet and much of the series' existing mythology. However, after so many convolutions of the timeline in previous movies, it's a relief to see them going in a new direction and bringing in some fresh blood. Sarah Conner was always central to the franchise - one of the few action heroines of her era - and it feels very fitting that "Dark Fate" gives us more female characters in the same vein. The girl power messaging is obvious, but I didn't find it overbearing. There's also a lot of evoking of present day social issues - we start off in Mexico with several Spanish-speaking characters, one major scene takes place in a border detention facility, and another on a factory floor that's automating parts of its workflow. There's no direct commentary about these elements, so "Dark Fate" couldn't be called remotely political, but the movie's sympathies are pretty clear.
More explicitly and self-consciously a product of the #Metoo era is the new "Charlie's Angels," which sees its central premise reworked to expand the operations of "Charlie" and his Townsend Agency, which employs the Angels as private investigators. Now there are multiple Bosleys, recruiting and managing multiple teams of Angels around the world, who have access to all kinds of high tech gadgets and weaponry and other resources. The Angels are now more or less secret agents, righting wrongs that nobody else can. The movie focuses on two Angels, wild child Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and no-nonsense Jane (Ella Balinska), helping an engineer named Elena (Naomi Scott) stop her shady corporate bosses from weaponizing her latest invention. Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Honsou, and Patrick Stewart play various Bosleys handling most of the exposition and plotty bits.
Like the previous "Angels" movie series, this is an action-comedy, heavy on the fantasy wish-fulfillment. The ladies quip, tease each other, and enjoy themselves as they're saving the world. So while the girl power elements are much more prominent here, including an opening title montage literally showing little girls doing cool stuff, the messaging is also very lighthearted and accentuates the positive. While Elena gets talked over and minimized by her awful bosses (Nat Faxon and Sam Claflin), she's quickly recruited to go on secret missions and hang out with much cooler people. Nobody dwells on the misogyny of the villains, or puts the Angels in the position of having to explain or justify themselves. They just go and kick ass, and have some fun along the way. There's less camp and silliness than there was in the previous installments, but still plenty of energy and verve and snazzy spycraft.
It helps that this is a very appealing set of characters. Kristen Stewart is clearly having a ball being the loose cannon, Naomi Scott's bloody adorable, and Elizabeth Banks has just the right amount of world weary cynicism and maternal toughness. I like that the viewers get their backstories in bits and pieces, and are left to connect many of the dots themselves. I like that the leads have real chemistry with each other, and the banter actually works. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these girl-power action movies where the banter actually works. And there's still room for a little sexiness and glamour too.
Elizabeth Banks wrote, produced, and directed the movie, and deserves the bulk of the credit for its successes. This is a big step up from her work on "Pitch Perfect 2," and I hope she makes more films like it.
---
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
About that Harley Quinn Movie
When I was a kid, and liked to watch action and superhero cartoons, I noticed that there was always that episode that was designed to feature the show's female characters as the leads, often battling female villains. TVTropes calls this the "Girls' Night Out" episode, and in fact the animated '90s "Batman" series literally had one of these episodes titled "Girls' Night Out."
This is what "Birds of Prey" feels like to me, that one outing where the folks in charge of the DC Universe movies have decided to turn over the franchise to its female characters, to remind us all of how awesome they can be. And "Birds of Prey" occasionally has that same sort of feel of heavy pandering, self-conscious messaging, and deeply contrived circumstances that the old cartoons did. Note that despite the movie taking place in Gotham City, Batman and the Joker are nowhere in sight - though Joker is constantly namechecked, because he sets the events of "Birds of Prey" in motion by breaking up with our leading lady, Harley Quinn.
Harley (Margot Robbie) is in full anti-heroine mode, suddenly being pursued by a laundry list of enemies when the Joker's protection is withdrawn. She becomes involved in a messy situation where a young pickpocket, Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) has stolen a diamond from the crime boss Black Mask (Ewan MacGregor), and now there's a price on her head. Also in the mix are a police detective, Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), Black Mask's reluctant nightclub chanteuse/driver Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smolett-Bell), and a mysterious assassin who keeps showing up to snipe people with a crossbow (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Harley's initially only interested in saving her own skin, but discovers playing nice with others has its advantages.
The best thing I can say about "Birds of Prey" is that it occasionally got me to forget about Batman entirely. Margot Robbie energetically throws herself into the role of Harley, who serves as our very unreliable narrator, happily telling the story all out of order, going off on wild tangents, and keeping the film at a level of hyperactive zaniness we haven't seen in the "Batman" film universe since Joel Schumancher was in the director's chair. And this time around, it mostly works, because the film really commits to its campy madness, but is also deft enough to keep everything coherent and entertaining. If you're not a fan of Harley Quinn, this probably isn't a movie for you, because she dominates the narrative and comes on very strong. However, I like that the movie lets her be an R-rated villain and pain in the ass on her own terms.
The film also boasts strong action scenes, an array of fun performances, and a noticeably different take on a lot of familiar characters. The Gotham of "Birds of Prey" is a grungier, more eclectic place, populated by a more diverse cast. It recognizably shares DNA with parts of present day New York City, as Harley fetishizes bodega breakfast sandwiches, and lives above a sketchy Chinese takeout place. However, this is still a comic book movie and the filmmakers happily indulge in all the wild set design, garish costuming, and impossible fight choreography they can. So, you've got Ewan MacGregor in full sleazebag mode, wearing a shirt with a print of his own face on it, Harley weaponizing canisters of colored powder and glitter, and a hyena named Bruce in the mix. The finale takes place in an abandoned amusement park, of course, with action set pieces designed around carnival and funhouse visuals.
The movie is too much - too raucous, too whimsical, too aggressive and too silly. However, it's also much more fun than I was expecting. I've heard some complaints that "Birds of Prey" shouldn't have been R-rated because its target audience of Harley Quinn fans is mostly comprised of teenage girls. However, I like that the movie is harder edged and more mean-spirited than the mainstream "Batman" media right now. It helps the film feel just a little more transgressive and rude and biting in all the right ways. At the same time, director Cathy Yan keeps all the violence and abuse from slipping into more troubling territory.
Harley pines after Mr. J, but only up to a point. When the time comes to kick ass, it's gratifying that she doesn't hold back. And yes, the movie is a "Girl's Night Out" episode at its core, but it's also one of the few high points of the modern DC film series so far.
---
This is what "Birds of Prey" feels like to me, that one outing where the folks in charge of the DC Universe movies have decided to turn over the franchise to its female characters, to remind us all of how awesome they can be. And "Birds of Prey" occasionally has that same sort of feel of heavy pandering, self-conscious messaging, and deeply contrived circumstances that the old cartoons did. Note that despite the movie taking place in Gotham City, Batman and the Joker are nowhere in sight - though Joker is constantly namechecked, because he sets the events of "Birds of Prey" in motion by breaking up with our leading lady, Harley Quinn.
Harley (Margot Robbie) is in full anti-heroine mode, suddenly being pursued by a laundry list of enemies when the Joker's protection is withdrawn. She becomes involved in a messy situation where a young pickpocket, Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) has stolen a diamond from the crime boss Black Mask (Ewan MacGregor), and now there's a price on her head. Also in the mix are a police detective, Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), Black Mask's reluctant nightclub chanteuse/driver Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smolett-Bell), and a mysterious assassin who keeps showing up to snipe people with a crossbow (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Harley's initially only interested in saving her own skin, but discovers playing nice with others has its advantages.
The best thing I can say about "Birds of Prey" is that it occasionally got me to forget about Batman entirely. Margot Robbie energetically throws herself into the role of Harley, who serves as our very unreliable narrator, happily telling the story all out of order, going off on wild tangents, and keeping the film at a level of hyperactive zaniness we haven't seen in the "Batman" film universe since Joel Schumancher was in the director's chair. And this time around, it mostly works, because the film really commits to its campy madness, but is also deft enough to keep everything coherent and entertaining. If you're not a fan of Harley Quinn, this probably isn't a movie for you, because she dominates the narrative and comes on very strong. However, I like that the movie lets her be an R-rated villain and pain in the ass on her own terms.
The film also boasts strong action scenes, an array of fun performances, and a noticeably different take on a lot of familiar characters. The Gotham of "Birds of Prey" is a grungier, more eclectic place, populated by a more diverse cast. It recognizably shares DNA with parts of present day New York City, as Harley fetishizes bodega breakfast sandwiches, and lives above a sketchy Chinese takeout place. However, this is still a comic book movie and the filmmakers happily indulge in all the wild set design, garish costuming, and impossible fight choreography they can. So, you've got Ewan MacGregor in full sleazebag mode, wearing a shirt with a print of his own face on it, Harley weaponizing canisters of colored powder and glitter, and a hyena named Bruce in the mix. The finale takes place in an abandoned amusement park, of course, with action set pieces designed around carnival and funhouse visuals.
The movie is too much - too raucous, too whimsical, too aggressive and too silly. However, it's also much more fun than I was expecting. I've heard some complaints that "Birds of Prey" shouldn't have been R-rated because its target audience of Harley Quinn fans is mostly comprised of teenage girls. However, I like that the movie is harder edged and more mean-spirited than the mainstream "Batman" media right now. It helps the film feel just a little more transgressive and rude and biting in all the right ways. At the same time, director Cathy Yan keeps all the violence and abuse from slipping into more troubling territory.
Harley pines after Mr. J, but only up to a point. When the time comes to kick ass, it's gratifying that she doesn't hold back. And yes, the movie is a "Girl's Night Out" episode at its core, but it's also one of the few high points of the modern DC film series so far.
---
Saturday, May 23, 2020
What Bothers Me About "Evil"
After being recommended CBS's supernatural crime procedural "Evil" multiple times by multiple people, I watched the first two episodes. And I came to the conclusion pretty quickly that they were pretty good and absolutely not for me. I understand why people thought this would be a show I would like. I'm a big "X-files" fan and I'm an especially big Agent Scully fan. The main character of "Evil" is the outwardly similar Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), a forensic psychologist and working mom who is recruited by the Catholic Church to investigate claims of supernatural activity such as possessions and miracles. She works with a priest in training, David Acosta (Mike Colter), and an atheist technical expert, Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi).
On a surface level, the show tries to balance the views of the skeptics and the believers. More often than not there's a rational explanation for supernatural activity in each week's case - technical glitches, medical anomalies, and plenty of human error and wishful thinking. The first episode's possible demon possession is being faked by the episode's baddie. However, much like "The X-files," it's made very clear that this is a universe where the supernatural exists and actively affects everyday people. Kristen experiences disturbing night terrors where she's visited by a chatty demon named George (Marti Matulis). The show's real world big bad is Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), a cartoonishly evil psychopath who is guided by demons to enable others to follow their worst impulses. And by the second episode he's already wormed his way into the District Attorney's employ to wreak havoc on the justice system.
It's ironic, but the show's overtures toward even-handedness are what's putting me off the most strongly. I have no issue with religious supernatural shows featuring demons and angels. I have no issue with crime procedurals. I do like that sometimes the culprit is just regular old social ills, bad mental health, or human prejudice. However, I feel like "Evil" is being coy and trying to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability about its supernatural themes that is misleading. I mean, "The X-files" was always clearly on Mulder's side, and Scully's skeptical explanations were mostly a storytelling device to further along Mulder's theorizing about the Flukeman or Shroomdude of the week. "Evil" showing that sometimes science does have the answers just seems to emphasize that sometimes science doesn't, which strikes me as a troubling message. If you're going to be a fantasy show, just embrace being a fantasy show.
Part of my negative reaction is also due to me having watched these episodes right after seeing Netflix's "Horse Girl," which had a great parody of a supernatural crime procedural, not too unlike "Evil." The heroine of "Horse Girl" was obsessed with the parody show, and it fed into her growing inability to tell reality from fiction as she experienced a mental break and destructive downward spiral. I'm not trying to suggest that the creators of "Evil" have any particular nefarious aims in making a program that puts forth some themes of scientific skepticism. However, it does bother me that the show maintains such a paranoid atmosphere and puts so much emphasis on questioning rational systems of inquiry, while clearly not being all that scientifically rigorous. It makes the whole thing feel a little disingenuous and distasteful.
To its credit, "Evil" is a very well made piece of genre television. Episodes are fun and exciting, with content that pushes at the usual restrictions of network television. There's some real intensity to the shocks, disturbing themes and outcomes, and the pilot features George cutting Kristen's fingers off in a dream sequence. The leads are tremendously appealing - Katja Herbers has no trouble selling all the contradictory parts of Kristen, I'm so relieved to see Mike Coulter in something so high profile after "Luke Cage" ended, and Michael Emerson in anything is always a treat.
Part of me wishes I could just turn off those nagging parts of my brain that keep seeing the problematic parts of the show, and just enjoy the slick, goofy melodrama for what it is. However, there's an awful lot of television out there, and plenty of other wacky demon horrors if I'm in the mood for them. Speaking of which, I'll be trying the adaptation of Stephen King's "The Outsider" next.
---
On a surface level, the show tries to balance the views of the skeptics and the believers. More often than not there's a rational explanation for supernatural activity in each week's case - technical glitches, medical anomalies, and plenty of human error and wishful thinking. The first episode's possible demon possession is being faked by the episode's baddie. However, much like "The X-files," it's made very clear that this is a universe where the supernatural exists and actively affects everyday people. Kristen experiences disturbing night terrors where she's visited by a chatty demon named George (Marti Matulis). The show's real world big bad is Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), a cartoonishly evil psychopath who is guided by demons to enable others to follow their worst impulses. And by the second episode he's already wormed his way into the District Attorney's employ to wreak havoc on the justice system.
It's ironic, but the show's overtures toward even-handedness are what's putting me off the most strongly. I have no issue with religious supernatural shows featuring demons and angels. I have no issue with crime procedurals. I do like that sometimes the culprit is just regular old social ills, bad mental health, or human prejudice. However, I feel like "Evil" is being coy and trying to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability about its supernatural themes that is misleading. I mean, "The X-files" was always clearly on Mulder's side, and Scully's skeptical explanations were mostly a storytelling device to further along Mulder's theorizing about the Flukeman or Shroomdude of the week. "Evil" showing that sometimes science does have the answers just seems to emphasize that sometimes science doesn't, which strikes me as a troubling message. If you're going to be a fantasy show, just embrace being a fantasy show.
Part of my negative reaction is also due to me having watched these episodes right after seeing Netflix's "Horse Girl," which had a great parody of a supernatural crime procedural, not too unlike "Evil." The heroine of "Horse Girl" was obsessed with the parody show, and it fed into her growing inability to tell reality from fiction as she experienced a mental break and destructive downward spiral. I'm not trying to suggest that the creators of "Evil" have any particular nefarious aims in making a program that puts forth some themes of scientific skepticism. However, it does bother me that the show maintains such a paranoid atmosphere and puts so much emphasis on questioning rational systems of inquiry, while clearly not being all that scientifically rigorous. It makes the whole thing feel a little disingenuous and distasteful.
To its credit, "Evil" is a very well made piece of genre television. Episodes are fun and exciting, with content that pushes at the usual restrictions of network television. There's some real intensity to the shocks, disturbing themes and outcomes, and the pilot features George cutting Kristen's fingers off in a dream sequence. The leads are tremendously appealing - Katja Herbers has no trouble selling all the contradictory parts of Kristen, I'm so relieved to see Mike Coulter in something so high profile after "Luke Cage" ended, and Michael Emerson in anything is always a treat.
Part of me wishes I could just turn off those nagging parts of my brain that keep seeing the problematic parts of the show, and just enjoy the slick, goofy melodrama for what it is. However, there's an awful lot of television out there, and plenty of other wacky demon horrors if I'm in the mood for them. Speaking of which, I'll be trying the adaptation of Stephen King's "The Outsider" next.
---
Thursday, May 21, 2020
"Locke & Key," Year One
I've always had a penchant for the lost causes, and I guess "Locke & Key" is the latest one. The beloved comics series penned by Joe Hill has been on the verge of being adapted as a film or series for nearly a decade. It came very close twice, before Netflix finally got a ten-episode series produced. However, this clearly isn't the adaptation many of the comic's fans were hoping for. Instead of a gloomy horror piece, "Locke & Key" is now a teen-centric adventure series.
The Locke family consists of mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), older teenage son Tyler (Connor Jessup), teenage daughter Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and precocious younger son Bode (Jackson Robert Scott). They're uprooted from Seattle after the traumatic death of the Locke patriarch, Rendell (Bill Heck), to move to the Lockes' old homestead, Key House, in Massachusetts. Bode quickly discovers that Key House is full of magical keys that convey all kinds of magical powers. The Anywhere Key can open a door to any location. The Ghost Key can let you leave your body and become a phantom. However, there's also a lurking, nasty presence, who Bode dubs "The Well Lady" (Laysla De Oliveira), who wants to get her hands on the keys and use them for her own ends.
There's a lot of tonal clash from the outset. Bode's fun to watch as a curious kid who jumps headfirst into all the magic and danger of experimenting with the keys. Unfortunately, he's not the main character most of the time. We also have Tyler and Kinsey grappling with adolescent angst and relationship troubles, while their mother digs into their father's secretive past. Depending on what scene you're watching, "Locke & Key" feels like "Harry Potter," a CW supernatural teen soap, or a Lifetime mystery thriller. And then there's a villain who is too powerful and too far ahead of the game than anyone else. And the frustration of the Lockes consistently failing to communicate important information to each other.
I like the premise fine, and there are a lot of interesting ideas and mysteries to pick apart. However, the narrative isn't constructed well, and feels amateurish and sloppy in ways that can't simply be chalked up to the story being adapted for a younger audience or to fit a lighter tone. A big problem is the pacing, which doggedly insists on introducing one or two keys per episode, and spending endless scenes with Kinsey reluctantly getting to know budding filmmaker Scot (Petrice Jones), or Tyler cozying up to a girl named Jackie (Genevieve Kang). The teen melodrama wouldn't be so bad in smaller doses, or if it were tied into the plot more, but the high school material often feels like filler, designed to stretch the series out to ten episodes. I noticed multiple scenes with a lot of dead space and extraneous dialogue, and I suspect that you could cut about ten minutes out of each episode without anyone noticing. And dear god, some of the teen blather is so deadly dull, it made me miss Joss Whedon and his crew something fierce.
And it's a shame, because Netflix clearly committed some serious resources to "Locke & Key." The set design is great, and Key House looks amazing. The individual keys have been lovingly designed and do suitably fantastic things involving all sorts of fancy effects work. My favorite is the Head Key, which allows the holder to enter the minds of people as if they were physical places - Bode's mind is designed like a funhouse, and Kinsey's looks like a shopping mall. However, the series also commits one of the classic blunders - it has all these magical concepts set up and never uses most of them in any meaningful way. The finale is full of glaring plot holes and convenient Macguffins that make all the characters involved come across as forgetful idiots. As a result, the basic thrills and chills never really work.
It's hard not to wonder how "Locke & Key" might have fared in other hands. Then again, the existing version isn't unsalvageable. In fact, it's so close to being something good and compelling, it's irresistible to want to nitpick all the little flaws and wrong turns that it makes. And the show is entertaining in fits and starts, and Petrice Jones is charming as hell. This one clearly should have stayed on the drawing board a lot longer, but I'm glad the creators took their shot. It's a miss, but it's a well-intentioned miss.
---
The Locke family consists of mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), older teenage son Tyler (Connor Jessup), teenage daughter Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and precocious younger son Bode (Jackson Robert Scott). They're uprooted from Seattle after the traumatic death of the Locke patriarch, Rendell (Bill Heck), to move to the Lockes' old homestead, Key House, in Massachusetts. Bode quickly discovers that Key House is full of magical keys that convey all kinds of magical powers. The Anywhere Key can open a door to any location. The Ghost Key can let you leave your body and become a phantom. However, there's also a lurking, nasty presence, who Bode dubs "The Well Lady" (Laysla De Oliveira), who wants to get her hands on the keys and use them for her own ends.
There's a lot of tonal clash from the outset. Bode's fun to watch as a curious kid who jumps headfirst into all the magic and danger of experimenting with the keys. Unfortunately, he's not the main character most of the time. We also have Tyler and Kinsey grappling with adolescent angst and relationship troubles, while their mother digs into their father's secretive past. Depending on what scene you're watching, "Locke & Key" feels like "Harry Potter," a CW supernatural teen soap, or a Lifetime mystery thriller. And then there's a villain who is too powerful and too far ahead of the game than anyone else. And the frustration of the Lockes consistently failing to communicate important information to each other.
I like the premise fine, and there are a lot of interesting ideas and mysteries to pick apart. However, the narrative isn't constructed well, and feels amateurish and sloppy in ways that can't simply be chalked up to the story being adapted for a younger audience or to fit a lighter tone. A big problem is the pacing, which doggedly insists on introducing one or two keys per episode, and spending endless scenes with Kinsey reluctantly getting to know budding filmmaker Scot (Petrice Jones), or Tyler cozying up to a girl named Jackie (Genevieve Kang). The teen melodrama wouldn't be so bad in smaller doses, or if it were tied into the plot more, but the high school material often feels like filler, designed to stretch the series out to ten episodes. I noticed multiple scenes with a lot of dead space and extraneous dialogue, and I suspect that you could cut about ten minutes out of each episode without anyone noticing. And dear god, some of the teen blather is so deadly dull, it made me miss Joss Whedon and his crew something fierce.
And it's a shame, because Netflix clearly committed some serious resources to "Locke & Key." The set design is great, and Key House looks amazing. The individual keys have been lovingly designed and do suitably fantastic things involving all sorts of fancy effects work. My favorite is the Head Key, which allows the holder to enter the minds of people as if they were physical places - Bode's mind is designed like a funhouse, and Kinsey's looks like a shopping mall. However, the series also commits one of the classic blunders - it has all these magical concepts set up and never uses most of them in any meaningful way. The finale is full of glaring plot holes and convenient Macguffins that make all the characters involved come across as forgetful idiots. As a result, the basic thrills and chills never really work.
It's hard not to wonder how "Locke & Key" might have fared in other hands. Then again, the existing version isn't unsalvageable. In fact, it's so close to being something good and compelling, it's irresistible to want to nitpick all the little flaws and wrong turns that it makes. And the show is entertaining in fits and starts, and Petrice Jones is charming as hell. This one clearly should have stayed on the drawing board a lot longer, but I'm glad the creators took their shot. It's a miss, but it's a well-intentioned miss.
---
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
My Top Ten Films of 1967
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.
The Graduate - And here's to you, Mike Nichols and Buck Henry, for giving us Benjamin Braddock, hero of the post-grad Boomers in crisis, grappling with the unknown future and tricky generational divides. And for giving Dustin Hoffman his first major screen outing. Fifty years on, it's still hard to quantify the sense of preppy West Coast satire, outsider ennui, and black humor that make this such a striking piece of work. Back in 1967, it was exactly the right movie for exactly the right moment, but it still hits a nerve today. It's become such a part of the culture, I can't imagine where we'd be without it.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - The film's attitudes toward race and its kid-glove treatment of the too-perfect interracial couple were already considered retrograde at the time of the film's release, and some critics weren't too kind to the film. However, I find it impossible to not be moved by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn's final appearance on screen together. The movie simply would not work without their inimitable presence and their history. And while I don't think Katherine Hepburn really deserved that Oscar win, I'm glad that it propelled her to many better roles.
Dragon Inn - One of the classics of the Wuxia genre from King Hu, a feature that beautifully juggles multiple characters, many different action and suspense sequences, and makes great use of its iconic location. "Dragon Inn" has been remade twice over the years with far more elaborate productions, but the original remains a touchstone because of its strong core story and conflicts, fuelling the dazzling action. All the different versions are worth watching, since they all manage to find a different take on the material. I'm stunned that no one has tried reworking this one as a Western yet.
Playtime - The most ambitious film project that Jacques Tati ever pulled off, involving some of the most complicated and large scale comedy sequences ever filmed. Essentially an entire city, "Tativille," was constructed for this purpose, allowing Tati's whimsical and stylized design choices to ascend to new heights. The film itself is really a series of sketches, some of them packed with multiple stories and sight gags all unfolding at once. The nightclub sequence runs fifty minutes by itself, nearly the entire second half of the film. It's a comedy that fully embraces spectacle, and it's magnificent.
Le Samourai - Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece, a character portrait of a peculiar hit-man who operates by his own personal code of behavior and morality. It's a film full of silences and ellipses, spinning its mysteries with spartan sets and Alain Delon's minimalist performance. It's also a film of great precision, each element perfectly chosen and executed to create an atmosphere of rising tension and anticipation. Our hero, Jef Costello, is an icon of cool, with his flawless gangster image and perfectly neutral detachment. There have been many imitators, but nobody quite matches the original.
Samurai Rebellion - Masaki Kobayashi is a lesser known Japanese director, though his films, especially his samurai films, rival any of his contemporaries. Here he casts Toshiro Mifune as his aging hero, a loyal samurai driven to rebellion and insurrection in the wake of cruel injustices to his family. Despite the title and the amount of bloody action, this is a film driven by its characters' domestic struggles and family relationships. Much of Kobayashi's work had anti-establishment themes, and here he pits the demands of family loyalty against those of a rigid social order, to fantastic, moving effect.
Wait Until Dark - It's a long, slow build to get to the thrills and chills, but when the climax comes, it's a real scream. Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who is being targeted by a trio of menacing criminals, resulting in one of the tensest home invasion films ever made. I love that it's totally a genre film, not particularly concerned with character depth or plausibility. Hepburn is the goodiest of goodies, Alan Arkin is the nasties of baddies, and director Terence Young takes full advantage of the film's conceits - particularly the famous blackout sequence - to bring the audience to the brink.
Two For the Road - And on the other opposite end of the spectrum we have another Audrey Hepburn film, this one a bittersweet melodrama about the end of a couple's relationship juxtaposed with its beginning. The non-linear narrative and travelogue format were unorthodox storytelling choices at the time, but it's the psychological complexity of the characters and the performances that are really a break from form. Stanley Donen ensures that "Two For the Road" looks like the typical, beautiful Hollywood picture, but the love story that he tells is something truer to the real world.
The Young Girls of Rochefort - Jacques Demy's tribute to the big Hollywood style musical is an effervescent, colorful confection that tracks the stories of multiple young people looking for love. Michel Legrande's music is jazzy and impossible to get out of your head. Catherine Deneauve and Francoise Dorleac are the perfect, carefree leading ladies. Gene Kelly doesn't look a day older than when he made "An American in Paris." The scale of the production is occasionally too much for the filmmakers, but they also pull off some truly memorable feats of cinema.
In the Heat of the Night - As a detective story, "In the Heat of the Night" is well executed, but nothing special. As an examination of race relations and a showcase for the talents of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, it's clear to see why this one left an impression. From the Quincy Jones arranged soundtrack to the Haskell Wexler cinematography, this is a film that is determined to subvert the accepted way of doing things and establish its own voice. At the same time, director Norman Jewison ensures that it's such a crowd-pleaser that the strident social messaging actually works in its favor.
Honorable Mention
Bonnie and Clyde
---
The Graduate - And here's to you, Mike Nichols and Buck Henry, for giving us Benjamin Braddock, hero of the post-grad Boomers in crisis, grappling with the unknown future and tricky generational divides. And for giving Dustin Hoffman his first major screen outing. Fifty years on, it's still hard to quantify the sense of preppy West Coast satire, outsider ennui, and black humor that make this such a striking piece of work. Back in 1967, it was exactly the right movie for exactly the right moment, but it still hits a nerve today. It's become such a part of the culture, I can't imagine where we'd be without it.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - The film's attitudes toward race and its kid-glove treatment of the too-perfect interracial couple were already considered retrograde at the time of the film's release, and some critics weren't too kind to the film. However, I find it impossible to not be moved by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn's final appearance on screen together. The movie simply would not work without their inimitable presence and their history. And while I don't think Katherine Hepburn really deserved that Oscar win, I'm glad that it propelled her to many better roles.
Dragon Inn - One of the classics of the Wuxia genre from King Hu, a feature that beautifully juggles multiple characters, many different action and suspense sequences, and makes great use of its iconic location. "Dragon Inn" has been remade twice over the years with far more elaborate productions, but the original remains a touchstone because of its strong core story and conflicts, fuelling the dazzling action. All the different versions are worth watching, since they all manage to find a different take on the material. I'm stunned that no one has tried reworking this one as a Western yet.
Playtime - The most ambitious film project that Jacques Tati ever pulled off, involving some of the most complicated and large scale comedy sequences ever filmed. Essentially an entire city, "Tativille," was constructed for this purpose, allowing Tati's whimsical and stylized design choices to ascend to new heights. The film itself is really a series of sketches, some of them packed with multiple stories and sight gags all unfolding at once. The nightclub sequence runs fifty minutes by itself, nearly the entire second half of the film. It's a comedy that fully embraces spectacle, and it's magnificent.
Le Samourai - Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece, a character portrait of a peculiar hit-man who operates by his own personal code of behavior and morality. It's a film full of silences and ellipses, spinning its mysteries with spartan sets and Alain Delon's minimalist performance. It's also a film of great precision, each element perfectly chosen and executed to create an atmosphere of rising tension and anticipation. Our hero, Jef Costello, is an icon of cool, with his flawless gangster image and perfectly neutral detachment. There have been many imitators, but nobody quite matches the original.
Samurai Rebellion - Masaki Kobayashi is a lesser known Japanese director, though his films, especially his samurai films, rival any of his contemporaries. Here he casts Toshiro Mifune as his aging hero, a loyal samurai driven to rebellion and insurrection in the wake of cruel injustices to his family. Despite the title and the amount of bloody action, this is a film driven by its characters' domestic struggles and family relationships. Much of Kobayashi's work had anti-establishment themes, and here he pits the demands of family loyalty against those of a rigid social order, to fantastic, moving effect.
Wait Until Dark - It's a long, slow build to get to the thrills and chills, but when the climax comes, it's a real scream. Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who is being targeted by a trio of menacing criminals, resulting in one of the tensest home invasion films ever made. I love that it's totally a genre film, not particularly concerned with character depth or plausibility. Hepburn is the goodiest of goodies, Alan Arkin is the nasties of baddies, and director Terence Young takes full advantage of the film's conceits - particularly the famous blackout sequence - to bring the audience to the brink.
Two For the Road - And on the other opposite end of the spectrum we have another Audrey Hepburn film, this one a bittersweet melodrama about the end of a couple's relationship juxtaposed with its beginning. The non-linear narrative and travelogue format were unorthodox storytelling choices at the time, but it's the psychological complexity of the characters and the performances that are really a break from form. Stanley Donen ensures that "Two For the Road" looks like the typical, beautiful Hollywood picture, but the love story that he tells is something truer to the real world.
The Young Girls of Rochefort - Jacques Demy's tribute to the big Hollywood style musical is an effervescent, colorful confection that tracks the stories of multiple young people looking for love. Michel Legrande's music is jazzy and impossible to get out of your head. Catherine Deneauve and Francoise Dorleac are the perfect, carefree leading ladies. Gene Kelly doesn't look a day older than when he made "An American in Paris." The scale of the production is occasionally too much for the filmmakers, but they also pull off some truly memorable feats of cinema.
In the Heat of the Night - As a detective story, "In the Heat of the Night" is well executed, but nothing special. As an examination of race relations and a showcase for the talents of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, it's clear to see why this one left an impression. From the Quincy Jones arranged soundtrack to the Haskell Wexler cinematography, this is a film that is determined to subvert the accepted way of doing things and establish its own voice. At the same time, director Norman Jewison ensures that it's such a crowd-pleaser that the strident social messaging actually works in its favor.
Honorable Mention
Bonnie and Clyde
---
Sunday, May 17, 2020
My Favorite Jean-Pierre Melville Film
Jean-Pierre Melville's work was an important precursor to the French New Wave, with his love of film noir and his coolly stylish sensibilities. Heavily influenced by American gangster pictures of the 1930s and 1940s, he became France's greatest director of hard-boiled crime dramas. He was even known to dress the part, often seen in raincoats, a Stetson, and obscuring dark glasses. In his early days he acquired a reputation for being a filmmaking maverick, working independent of the French studio system, preferring amateur actors, and using unorthodox filmmaking techniques, like using natural lighting and shooting on location.
Over time, however, as Melville found greater success and embraced larger budgets and mainstream acting talent, a strong sense of lyricism and stylization emerged in his work. Nowhere was this more apparent than with "Le Samouraï," one of Melville's later films. The opening scenes contain no dialogue, simply looking in on the apartment of the hero, Jef Costello, played by Alain Delon. He has an American name and a preoccupation with the Orient. You understand his psyche just by looking at his environs: minimalist, quiet, spare, and exact. The palette is all cool blues and grays. The delicate notes of a lilting main theme and chirps form his pet bird, however, make it clear that Costello is also very much in possession of a romantic soul, one hidden beneath a placid exterior and a long history of violent deeds. We soon learn that he works as a hit-man, executing his jobs with careful skill and precision, but his life unravels when he's betrayed by his employers.
Jef Costello is an extraordinary film character, a criminal employed by the underworld, and yet also a man of consummate professionalism. The image he presents to the world is perfect, never a stitch out of place nor a movement wasted. We first see him smoking in bed, not resting, but simply waiting. His handsome face barely expresses any emotion, and yet it's hard to take your eyes off him. Costello's actions speak for him, his detached demeanor and his coldly flippant exchanges of dialogue with other characters. It's fun to watch him play cat and mouse with the cops, including a vociferous police inspector who is as impassioned as Costello is aloof. The film follows its protagonist's lead, meticulously observing how he carries out his work, step by step. Later, the same care is taken in showing us how the cops set up surveillance and bug Costello's apartment.
The pacing is deliberate, but never slow. There's some violence, but far more tension, slowly escalating from scene to scene. And while the usual trappings of a gangster picture are all present and accounted for - the cops, the girlfriend, the chases, and the complicated double-crosses - the primary conflict is totally internal, playing out in Delon's silences and the ellipses of his performance. Perhaps the most shocking action he undertakes is the simple act of a man putting on a pair of gloves. Costello has a loyal girlfriend, Jane, played by Delon's wife Nathalie, but their connection appears to be tenuous - perhaps only convenient. It's his relationship with the elusive dark-skinned pianist, played by Cathy Rosier, that dominates the narrative. She evokes all his guilt and compassion, perhaps representing another outsider he feels kinship for, or simply a line that his personal code will not allow to be crossed.
The original ending of the film had Costello finally show emotion, but Melville nixed it because Delon had previously made a film with a similar resolution. I'm glad that he did, because so much of the power of Jef Costello is the ambiguity of his nature and the mystery of his motives. Only an opening quote from a fictional Book of Bushido hints at his internal philosophy and state of mind. Over the years, "Le Samouraï" has influenced a fair number of imitators and homages, and they've almost all made the mistake of making their heroes more relatable to the audience, and their reasons for their actions more explicit. Jef Costello, however, remains one of cinema's most intriguing enigmas.
So Melville's gangster films were love letters to American cinema, but only up to a point. In reflecting their director's spiritual and poetic aims, I find most of them very French films. And still wonderfully vital ones at that.
What I've Seen - Jean-Pierre Melville
Les Enfants Terribles (1950)
Bob le Flambeur (1956)
Léon Morin, Priest (1961)
Le Doulos (1963)
Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)
Le Samouraï (1967)
Army of Shadows (1969)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
---
Over time, however, as Melville found greater success and embraced larger budgets and mainstream acting talent, a strong sense of lyricism and stylization emerged in his work. Nowhere was this more apparent than with "Le Samouraï," one of Melville's later films. The opening scenes contain no dialogue, simply looking in on the apartment of the hero, Jef Costello, played by Alain Delon. He has an American name and a preoccupation with the Orient. You understand his psyche just by looking at his environs: minimalist, quiet, spare, and exact. The palette is all cool blues and grays. The delicate notes of a lilting main theme and chirps form his pet bird, however, make it clear that Costello is also very much in possession of a romantic soul, one hidden beneath a placid exterior and a long history of violent deeds. We soon learn that he works as a hit-man, executing his jobs with careful skill and precision, but his life unravels when he's betrayed by his employers.
Jef Costello is an extraordinary film character, a criminal employed by the underworld, and yet also a man of consummate professionalism. The image he presents to the world is perfect, never a stitch out of place nor a movement wasted. We first see him smoking in bed, not resting, but simply waiting. His handsome face barely expresses any emotion, and yet it's hard to take your eyes off him. Costello's actions speak for him, his detached demeanor and his coldly flippant exchanges of dialogue with other characters. It's fun to watch him play cat and mouse with the cops, including a vociferous police inspector who is as impassioned as Costello is aloof. The film follows its protagonist's lead, meticulously observing how he carries out his work, step by step. Later, the same care is taken in showing us how the cops set up surveillance and bug Costello's apartment.
The pacing is deliberate, but never slow. There's some violence, but far more tension, slowly escalating from scene to scene. And while the usual trappings of a gangster picture are all present and accounted for - the cops, the girlfriend, the chases, and the complicated double-crosses - the primary conflict is totally internal, playing out in Delon's silences and the ellipses of his performance. Perhaps the most shocking action he undertakes is the simple act of a man putting on a pair of gloves. Costello has a loyal girlfriend, Jane, played by Delon's wife Nathalie, but their connection appears to be tenuous - perhaps only convenient. It's his relationship with the elusive dark-skinned pianist, played by Cathy Rosier, that dominates the narrative. She evokes all his guilt and compassion, perhaps representing another outsider he feels kinship for, or simply a line that his personal code will not allow to be crossed.
The original ending of the film had Costello finally show emotion, but Melville nixed it because Delon had previously made a film with a similar resolution. I'm glad that he did, because so much of the power of Jef Costello is the ambiguity of his nature and the mystery of his motives. Only an opening quote from a fictional Book of Bushido hints at his internal philosophy and state of mind. Over the years, "Le Samouraï" has influenced a fair number of imitators and homages, and they've almost all made the mistake of making their heroes more relatable to the audience, and their reasons for their actions more explicit. Jef Costello, however, remains one of cinema's most intriguing enigmas.
So Melville's gangster films were love letters to American cinema, but only up to a point. In reflecting their director's spiritual and poetic aims, I find most of them very French films. And still wonderfully vital ones at that.
What I've Seen - Jean-Pierre Melville
Les Enfants Terribles (1950)
Bob le Flambeur (1956)
Léon Morin, Priest (1961)
Le Doulos (1963)
Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)
Le Samouraï (1967)
Army of Shadows (1969)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
---
Friday, May 15, 2020
Rank 'Em: The Disney Era "Star Wars" Films
Looking back at "Star Wars" films that Disney pumped out these last few years, I'm amazed at how quickly they've squandered so much of the good will people have for this franchise in such a short period of time. They released five films in five years, ranging from very good to unfortunate, and no more are coming in the foreseeable future. All five have their problems, and all of them could have used more time and thoughtful construction. I'm glad that they were made, but at the same time I'm bitterly disappointed in what could have been.
Below, from best to least, are my rankings of the "Star Wars" films of 2015 to 2019. Spoilers everywhere.
"The Last Jedi" - The movie that threw the fanboys into a tizzy, but was also easily the best conceived of the new trilogy. Not everything about it worked, but I appreciated the fresh POV, the new takes on familiar characters, and the willingness of Rian Johnson to throw established mythology out the window, and subvert formula. It was also the installment with the best visuals, including the planet Crait, the throne room fight, and Holdo's lightspeed maneuver. I enjoyed the cynical version of Luke Skywalker, and thought his final standoff with Kylo Ren was easily the best moment in the entire run of new films.
"The Force Awakens" - I don't like this film as much as most, because it's full of J.J. Abrams' bad habits. The callbacks to the original trilogy really get to be too much, and some of the performances and writing don't feel up to snuff. I like the way the new characters are introduced and the humor all works, but any time Harrison Ford or Carrie Fisher were on the screen felt awkward. My biggest complaint is that the film is too self-aware that it's setting up a big, epic story, and isn't very successful at being a stand-alone adventure movie. It was easy to overlook its flaws, though, with so much hype and nostalgia behind it.
"Rogue One" - The first half the of the film is an unqualified mess. There are awkward bits of plotting everywhere you look. Forrest Whitaker' character should have been left on the cutting room floor. The film tries and fails repeatedly to make Jyn Erso sympathetic. The digital doubles just aren't good enough for what the creators want them to do. The back half, however, with the planet Scarif and the big mission to steal the Death Star plans, is fabulous. It's one big, long, multiprong battle sequence that gives everyone something to do and doesn't chicken out with the consequences. And the Vader cameo is just enough to be a real thrill.
"The Rise of Skywalker" - As much as I enjoy a lot of the various different parts and pieces of this film, there's no denying that J.J. Abrams whiffed it. Rey and Kylo are the only two characters to emerge mostly unscathed, while Finn, Poe, Rose, and Leia all suffer at the whims of a rocky, often schizophrenic script. And even when the ideas are good, the execution is often lamentable. I don't object to the film's Big Bad, for instance, but everything about his plans, his goals, and how he got to the point where we see him is so lazily slapdash and incompletely rendered. The only reason I have this ranked higher than "Solo," is because the performances are better and I'm a sucker for tragic romance.
"Solo" - Again, I like a lot of things in this film while being very cool on the film itself. Alden Ehrenreich makes a perfectly fine young Han, Donald Glover is a swell Lando, and the early parts of the film are fast-paced and diverting. The trouble comes when the creators try to stuff way too much into the story. There's the proto-Rebellion, the Crimson Dawn shenanigans, and a wooden Emilia Clarke as Han's terribly underwritten girlfriend Qi'ra. The depiction of the Kessel Run is a massive letdown. The surprise cameo just plain didn't work. I don't know what was really going on behind the scenes, but I think I'd have much preferred the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller version of "Solo" that was never made.
---
Below, from best to least, are my rankings of the "Star Wars" films of 2015 to 2019. Spoilers everywhere.
"The Last Jedi" - The movie that threw the fanboys into a tizzy, but was also easily the best conceived of the new trilogy. Not everything about it worked, but I appreciated the fresh POV, the new takes on familiar characters, and the willingness of Rian Johnson to throw established mythology out the window, and subvert formula. It was also the installment with the best visuals, including the planet Crait, the throne room fight, and Holdo's lightspeed maneuver. I enjoyed the cynical version of Luke Skywalker, and thought his final standoff with Kylo Ren was easily the best moment in the entire run of new films.
"The Force Awakens" - I don't like this film as much as most, because it's full of J.J. Abrams' bad habits. The callbacks to the original trilogy really get to be too much, and some of the performances and writing don't feel up to snuff. I like the way the new characters are introduced and the humor all works, but any time Harrison Ford or Carrie Fisher were on the screen felt awkward. My biggest complaint is that the film is too self-aware that it's setting up a big, epic story, and isn't very successful at being a stand-alone adventure movie. It was easy to overlook its flaws, though, with so much hype and nostalgia behind it.
"Rogue One" - The first half the of the film is an unqualified mess. There are awkward bits of plotting everywhere you look. Forrest Whitaker' character should have been left on the cutting room floor. The film tries and fails repeatedly to make Jyn Erso sympathetic. The digital doubles just aren't good enough for what the creators want them to do. The back half, however, with the planet Scarif and the big mission to steal the Death Star plans, is fabulous. It's one big, long, multiprong battle sequence that gives everyone something to do and doesn't chicken out with the consequences. And the Vader cameo is just enough to be a real thrill.
"The Rise of Skywalker" - As much as I enjoy a lot of the various different parts and pieces of this film, there's no denying that J.J. Abrams whiffed it. Rey and Kylo are the only two characters to emerge mostly unscathed, while Finn, Poe, Rose, and Leia all suffer at the whims of a rocky, often schizophrenic script. And even when the ideas are good, the execution is often lamentable. I don't object to the film's Big Bad, for instance, but everything about his plans, his goals, and how he got to the point where we see him is so lazily slapdash and incompletely rendered. The only reason I have this ranked higher than "Solo," is because the performances are better and I'm a sucker for tragic romance.
"Solo" - Again, I like a lot of things in this film while being very cool on the film itself. Alden Ehrenreich makes a perfectly fine young Han, Donald Glover is a swell Lando, and the early parts of the film are fast-paced and diverting. The trouble comes when the creators try to stuff way too much into the story. There's the proto-Rebellion, the Crimson Dawn shenanigans, and a wooden Emilia Clarke as Han's terribly underwritten girlfriend Qi'ra. The depiction of the Kessel Run is a massive letdown. The surprise cameo just plain didn't work. I don't know what was really going on behind the scenes, but I think I'd have much preferred the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller version of "Solo" that was never made.
---
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
"Portrait of a Lady on Fire" and "The Two Popes"
There are many different ways to admire Celine Sciamma's "Portrait of a Lady on Fire." Most obviously, it's the story of two young women who fall in love, set in the 18th century. Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is an artist who is hired to come to a remote isle and surreptitiously paint the portrait of a woman, Heloise (Adèle Haenel), who is soon to be married off to a Milanese nobleman. Initially Marianne and Heloise become friends, but after the ruse is discovered, their relationship becomes more complicated. All the primary characters in the film are female, including Heloise's maid Sophie (Luàna Bajrami), and stern mother, the Countess (Valeria Golina), who hires Marianne.
The romance is a lovely, intimate thing, carried out largely through looks and glances at first. The two women explore the craggy, beautiful seaside, two romantic windswept figures inexorably coming together against a lonely expanse. Their conversations are often elusive, but increasingly intimate. I like the way that personal items are treated as totemic - a dress, a book, and of course the fateful painting. I appreciate that the film is full of indirect expressions of beauty and feeling, pain over missed or fleeting connections, and many different facets of femininity. However, I have to admit that I found the greatest pleasure from the film in its depiction of art - both the creation of pieces like the portraits of Heloise, and the consumption of art, such as the women's connection over Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."
It's the early segments of the film that thrilled me most, the way it presents its mysteries and builds dramatic tension. Much of this is hinged on the decision not to show Heloise's uncovered face until well into the film, instead giving Marianne only hints and glimpses of her subject, including the unfinished portrait left by a previous artist. The approach puts the viewer in the same frame of mind as Marianne, watchful and curious. Then the story shifts to Marianne's attempts to reconcile and express her own views and feelings through her art. I've always found the act of painting fascinating, and the painting sequences here depicting Marianne's process are mesmerizing. It's not often these days that I wish a film were longer, but I could have watched "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" for another few hours beyond its 120 minute length.
Now on to "The Two Popes," Fernando Meirelles's historical drama about the current and former Popes, now known as Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI. We first meet the pair back in 2005, when they were Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires (Jonathan Pryce) and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany (Anthony Hopkins). They are depicted as rivals, a reformist and a traditionalist with very different experiences with the with the church. The narrative is far more concerned with Bergoglio than Ratzinger, devoting significant time to his past, his career, and his troubled history during the Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s.
Based on an Anthony McCarten play, the majority of the film is taken up by meetings and conversations between Bergoglio and Pope Benedict XVI, shortly before the latter decides to resign from his position. The pair debate about the direction of the church, about the nature of their faith, and their approaches to spiritual difficulties. As they reminisce and share experiences, we see them start to bond and form a friendship, leading up to a delightful epilogue where they watch the Germany-Argentina World Cup match in 2014 together. Meirelles delights in the moments where he brings the two men down to earth - Pope Benedict likes a goofy television show about the adventures of a police dog named Komissar Rex - but he's largely respectful and considerate of both men.
I'm always a little wary of biopics that invent so much out of whole cloth, and I'm very aware of critiques that are circulating about the characterization of the film's central duo being too lenient and cuddly. Still, the performances of Hopkins and Pryce are excellent, and the film presents a very thoughtful attempt by the filmmakers to dig into contemporary religious, spiritual, and moral issues through their interrogation of the Popes. It's a film that isn't afraid to ask questions and express its opinions, and I think that's valuable even when the viewpoints are not particularly controversial. There's a pleasant casualness about the film's atmosphere which I also found very welcoming. If "The Two Popes" accomplishes anything, it's to demystify the papacy a bit, in the best way.
---
The romance is a lovely, intimate thing, carried out largely through looks and glances at first. The two women explore the craggy, beautiful seaside, two romantic windswept figures inexorably coming together against a lonely expanse. Their conversations are often elusive, but increasingly intimate. I like the way that personal items are treated as totemic - a dress, a book, and of course the fateful painting. I appreciate that the film is full of indirect expressions of beauty and feeling, pain over missed or fleeting connections, and many different facets of femininity. However, I have to admit that I found the greatest pleasure from the film in its depiction of art - both the creation of pieces like the portraits of Heloise, and the consumption of art, such as the women's connection over Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."
It's the early segments of the film that thrilled me most, the way it presents its mysteries and builds dramatic tension. Much of this is hinged on the decision not to show Heloise's uncovered face until well into the film, instead giving Marianne only hints and glimpses of her subject, including the unfinished portrait left by a previous artist. The approach puts the viewer in the same frame of mind as Marianne, watchful and curious. Then the story shifts to Marianne's attempts to reconcile and express her own views and feelings through her art. I've always found the act of painting fascinating, and the painting sequences here depicting Marianne's process are mesmerizing. It's not often these days that I wish a film were longer, but I could have watched "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" for another few hours beyond its 120 minute length.
Now on to "The Two Popes," Fernando Meirelles's historical drama about the current and former Popes, now known as Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI. We first meet the pair back in 2005, when they were Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires (Jonathan Pryce) and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany (Anthony Hopkins). They are depicted as rivals, a reformist and a traditionalist with very different experiences with the with the church. The narrative is far more concerned with Bergoglio than Ratzinger, devoting significant time to his past, his career, and his troubled history during the Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s.
Based on an Anthony McCarten play, the majority of the film is taken up by meetings and conversations between Bergoglio and Pope Benedict XVI, shortly before the latter decides to resign from his position. The pair debate about the direction of the church, about the nature of their faith, and their approaches to spiritual difficulties. As they reminisce and share experiences, we see them start to bond and form a friendship, leading up to a delightful epilogue where they watch the Germany-Argentina World Cup match in 2014 together. Meirelles delights in the moments where he brings the two men down to earth - Pope Benedict likes a goofy television show about the adventures of a police dog named Komissar Rex - but he's largely respectful and considerate of both men.
I'm always a little wary of biopics that invent so much out of whole cloth, and I'm very aware of critiques that are circulating about the characterization of the film's central duo being too lenient and cuddly. Still, the performances of Hopkins and Pryce are excellent, and the film presents a very thoughtful attempt by the filmmakers to dig into contemporary religious, spiritual, and moral issues through their interrogation of the Popes. It's a film that isn't afraid to ask questions and express its opinions, and I think that's valuable even when the viewpoints are not particularly controversial. There's a pleasant casualness about the film's atmosphere which I also found very welcoming. If "The Two Popes" accomplishes anything, it's to demystify the papacy a bit, in the best way.
---
Monday, May 11, 2020
When "Trolls" Cracked the Theatrical Window
I'm a little late on this post, but this is still very much a developing situation, and a fascinating one. So, unless you've been under a rock for the past few weeks, you know that the situation is dire for the movie industry right now. We're anticipating at least a full quarter of 2020 with movie theaters nonoperational, and the studios are busy trying to figure out what to do with multiple tentpoles in the pipeline, while the theaters themselves are looking at potential bankruptcy.
NBCUniversal wasted no time putting all their current theatrical releases on early VOD, and then decided to premiere "Trolls: World Tour" on "premium" VOD (PVOD) as well, a few weeks ago, at $20 bucks for a 48 hour rental. According to NBCUniversal, it's made north of $100 million so far, prompting Universal to declare that they'll look into simultaneous theatrical and PVOD releases in the future. The theaters are apoplectic, and AMC has promised to boycott future NBCUniversal releases. Opinion pieces have weighed in on both sides, and speculation is rampant. I figured it couldn't hurt to throw in my own two cents.
First, the success of "Trolls: World Tour" is almost certainly an outlier thanks to the unique crisis we're in. There's no guarantee that once theaters are back in business, we'll see nearly the same kind of demand for PVOD releases. And even if there is, PVOD is never going to kill off movie theaters entirely. However, the worry is that since many people have now been introduced to PVOD through the "Trolls: World Tour" release, the theaters are going to take a significant hit as audience behavior shifts. Keep in mind that PVOD has been around as a concept for at least a decade, but the theaters have fought off every attempt to threaten their exclusive access to new studio films. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has finally provided the opportunity for studios to experiment with the concept.
And it's no surprise that some audiences are responding positively. Movie theater trips can be prohibitively expensive or too much of a hassle for many movie fans. The "Trolls" movies are aimed at exactly the audience of small children and their families who would appreciate the option of being able to watch these films at home, on their own time, with the ability to pause for bathroom breaks. Nothing can replace the theatrical experience, but the theatrical experience is not for everyone. However, we should also keep in mind that the success of "Trolls: World Tour" is a bit of a mirage, because though the returns are huge for a PVOD release, they're not great for a theatrical one. And it's even less of a success when you consider that the PVOD gains are likely to be at the expense of later digital rentals, purchases, and revenues from other downstream sources. NBCUniversal has been backpedaling recently as to how well "Trolls: World Tour" has actually been doing, because the film has yet to turn a profit. I wouldn't be too worried about them though, considering the bulk of revenue from kids' films come from merchandise and licensing.
Other studios have been cautiously following NBCUniversal's lead, with Warners' new Scooby Doo prequel "Scoob!" next in line for a PVOD release. Nobody else has made the same bold announcements about trying to incorporate PVOD releases into their long term plans, though. I don't think PVOD is going to become as prevalent as the major theater chains fear it will - you're never going to have billion dollar blockbusters without the theaters. On the other hand, I also don't think they'll be able to force the genie back into the bottle. Even after shelter-in-place orders lift, the general public may not be ready to flock back into theaters for some time - possibly not until COVID-19 vaccines become available next year. That's an awfully long time to delay movies that are already finished, like "Black Widow" and "No Time to Die."
I sympathize with the theater owners, but personally I'm not going to be taking any chances. I don't see myself setting foot in a movie theater again any time soon, and I'll happily shell out twenty bucks to watch "Dune" or the "Bill and Ted" sequel from the safety of my own couch. Or I'll wait a few more months and shell out six bucks, which is what I've been doing for years already.
---
Saturday, May 9, 2020
About That "Cats" Movie
Oh boy. This one's a doozy.
I was well aware of the film's flaws going in, having followed the coverage of the disastrous CGI production troubles, the unprecedented graphics patch released by Universal, and the critical community having a field day writing shellshocked reviews. However, I grew up with the "Cats" musical and still unironically enjoy it. I even have a copy of the version they filmed for PBS back in 1998 somewhere. I figured that if anyone was going to get any enjoyment out of Tom Hooper's "Cats," it would be me.
And I was more or less right. I did enjoy certain parts of "Cats," specifically the performances of Jennifer Hudson and Ian McKellan, some of the dance choreography, and the elaborate production design. But good grief, the fundamental visual conception of the cat characters is so wrongheaded, and so off-putting that I couldn't believe the film was actually released in this state. If you've seen the trailers you already know the problem - instead of performers in makeup and costumes, the filmmakers opted to use CGI to turn actors like Judi Dench and Idris Elba into "The Island of Dr. Moreau" style half-cat, half-human hybrids. The effect varies from cat to cat, but too often you've got a performer who looks practically naked, with human anatomy but no genitalia, furry hands, human feet, twitchy cat ears on a human head, and a tail that is constantly moving in unnatural ways. I was able to focus on other aspects of the film and appreciate them, but the sense of profound wrongness never really went away.
As an adaptation of the stage musical, "Cats" doesn't make many major changes. I was surprised that the songs were left unaltered, even with their increasingly obscure T.S. Eliot lyrics. Victoria (Francesca Hayward), a newly abandoned kitten, is rewritten to be our POV character, who is brought to the yearly Jellicle Ball by the other cats, and befriends the outcast Grizabella (Hudson). The villain Macavity (Elba) is made more active, going around and kidnapping the other candidates vying for a chance to ascend to the cat heaven of the Heavyside Layer. There's still almost no spoken dialogue, but concessions are made for much needed exposition and some laugh lines for comic characters like Jennyanydots (Wilson) and Bustopher Jones (James Corden). The only new song, the tinny "Beautiful Ghosts," is given to Victoria for a bonding moment with Grizabella.
Otherwise, it's one song and character spotlight after another, featuring constant dancing, clowning, and cavorting. Some are charming, like the "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser" number, which relies on colorful, oversized sets and props. And some are tedious or downright nightmarish, like Jennyanydots' segment full of dancing mice and roaches with human faces. Pretty much any time Tom Hooper and company try to use CGI to upgrade the visuals, we end up with eldritch horrors. To their credit, the cast is a good mix of film and music stars and professional dance and theater performers. There are some longer group dance sequences toward the middle of the film that are more in line with the spectacle of the theater production, and give you a sense of what was appealing about "Cats" in the first place. Taylor Swift shows up to sing and vamp a bit, to good effect.
And then the head of Idris Elba appears on a bipedal chocolate pit-bull, and I just about curled up and died. There is no defending the movie, even if it's clear that a lot of talented people put a lot of time and effort into this. I haven't even gotten to the unnecessarily claustrophobic cinematography, the schizophrenic editing, the rough handling of the music, or the final number that is just Judi Dench singing the awful "The Ad-Dressing of Cats" directly into the camera.
I'm left wondering if "Cats" qualifies as an animated film, and if we can use this as an exemplar of the worst case scenario whenever anyone talks about making stylized characters more "realistic." See also the original design of "Sonic the Hedgehog." In a funny way, I'm impressed with the amount of ambition and go-for-broke daring that it took for the filmmakers to commit to this, uh, vision. You don't end up with a disaster on this scale by playing it safe.
It's no wonder "Cats" is quickly becoming a cult film. And dammit, now I kinda want to see Tom Hooper's "Starlight Express." Talk about another potential trainwreck...
---
I was well aware of the film's flaws going in, having followed the coverage of the disastrous CGI production troubles, the unprecedented graphics patch released by Universal, and the critical community having a field day writing shellshocked reviews. However, I grew up with the "Cats" musical and still unironically enjoy it. I even have a copy of the version they filmed for PBS back in 1998 somewhere. I figured that if anyone was going to get any enjoyment out of Tom Hooper's "Cats," it would be me.
And I was more or less right. I did enjoy certain parts of "Cats," specifically the performances of Jennifer Hudson and Ian McKellan, some of the dance choreography, and the elaborate production design. But good grief, the fundamental visual conception of the cat characters is so wrongheaded, and so off-putting that I couldn't believe the film was actually released in this state. If you've seen the trailers you already know the problem - instead of performers in makeup and costumes, the filmmakers opted to use CGI to turn actors like Judi Dench and Idris Elba into "The Island of Dr. Moreau" style half-cat, half-human hybrids. The effect varies from cat to cat, but too often you've got a performer who looks practically naked, with human anatomy but no genitalia, furry hands, human feet, twitchy cat ears on a human head, and a tail that is constantly moving in unnatural ways. I was able to focus on other aspects of the film and appreciate them, but the sense of profound wrongness never really went away.
As an adaptation of the stage musical, "Cats" doesn't make many major changes. I was surprised that the songs were left unaltered, even with their increasingly obscure T.S. Eliot lyrics. Victoria (Francesca Hayward), a newly abandoned kitten, is rewritten to be our POV character, who is brought to the yearly Jellicle Ball by the other cats, and befriends the outcast Grizabella (Hudson). The villain Macavity (Elba) is made more active, going around and kidnapping the other candidates vying for a chance to ascend to the cat heaven of the Heavyside Layer. There's still almost no spoken dialogue, but concessions are made for much needed exposition and some laugh lines for comic characters like Jennyanydots (Wilson) and Bustopher Jones (James Corden). The only new song, the tinny "Beautiful Ghosts," is given to Victoria for a bonding moment with Grizabella.
Otherwise, it's one song and character spotlight after another, featuring constant dancing, clowning, and cavorting. Some are charming, like the "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser" number, which relies on colorful, oversized sets and props. And some are tedious or downright nightmarish, like Jennyanydots' segment full of dancing mice and roaches with human faces. Pretty much any time Tom Hooper and company try to use CGI to upgrade the visuals, we end up with eldritch horrors. To their credit, the cast is a good mix of film and music stars and professional dance and theater performers. There are some longer group dance sequences toward the middle of the film that are more in line with the spectacle of the theater production, and give you a sense of what was appealing about "Cats" in the first place. Taylor Swift shows up to sing and vamp a bit, to good effect.
And then the head of Idris Elba appears on a bipedal chocolate pit-bull, and I just about curled up and died. There is no defending the movie, even if it's clear that a lot of talented people put a lot of time and effort into this. I haven't even gotten to the unnecessarily claustrophobic cinematography, the schizophrenic editing, the rough handling of the music, or the final number that is just Judi Dench singing the awful "The Ad-Dressing of Cats" directly into the camera.
I'm left wondering if "Cats" qualifies as an animated film, and if we can use this as an exemplar of the worst case scenario whenever anyone talks about making stylized characters more "realistic." See also the original design of "Sonic the Hedgehog." In a funny way, I'm impressed with the amount of ambition and go-for-broke daring that it took for the filmmakers to commit to this, uh, vision. You don't end up with a disaster on this scale by playing it safe.
It's no wonder "Cats" is quickly becoming a cult film. And dammit, now I kinda want to see Tom Hooper's "Starlight Express." Talk about another potential trainwreck...
---
Thursday, May 7, 2020
My Top Ten Episodes of "The Good Place"
Here we go. It's been a while since I've done one of these, but the show is done and it's time to take stock. Below, find my ten favorite episodes of "The Good Place," unranked and listed in chronological order. Many, many spoilers lie ahead. And everything is fine.
"Jason Mendoza" - The introductory episodes of "The Good Place" were fine, but it was when Jianyu revealed himself to be Jason that I felt that the show really kicked into gear. Manny Jacinto's performance as a genial dumbbell was such a great surprise, I spent most of this episode just grinning at him and anticipating what else the writers had in store. This was the first major twist that I felt the show successfully pulled off - one of many, it would turn out.
"Chidi's Choice" - Chidi is stuck between the two Eleanors, and we get some insight into the horrible indecision that's plagued his life. It also continues the multiple-Eleanor storylines from the prior two episodes, resulting in some important character development for "Fake" Eleanor. This is all well and good, but the real reason this episode is on the list is because it's the one where Jason and Janet get married in the most delightfully adorable wedding ever.
"Michael's Gambit" - I wasn't quite won over by the big reveal to start with, because the implications didn't quite sink for me immediately. However, Ted Danson's evil demon smile was so great, and I love the way that Eleanor seizes control of the narrative for a few moments, and keeps the audience in suspense while seemingly courting disaster. And knowing what I know now about what the writers were going to do with their "reboot" makes this development so much better in hindsight.
"Dance Dance Resolution" - My favorite episode, where Michael reboots The Good Place hundreds of times to try and torture the humans, only to fail each time and finally give up in frustration. All the different reboots are a delight, Michael's increasing desperation is amazing, and Megan Amram's legendary food puns are off the charts. And Jason figured it out? Jason? The episode is like a mini-"Groundhog's Day" packed into twenty-odd minutes.
"The Trolley Problem" - This was my first wake-up call that the show was taking moral philosophy much more seriously than I had anticipated, going so far as to build a whole episode around one of the classic philosophical thought experiments. And also to make it absolutely hysterical to watch, nicely calling back Chidi's problems with indecision. I wasn't a big fan of the Michael redemption storyline, but the writers sure managed to mine some good humor from it.
"Derek" - Comedian Jason Mantzoukas can be an acquired taste. He's perfect casting for Janet's rebound boyfriend and first attempt at creating a human, though. The second season is full of these wacky conceptual surprises that the show would spring on us at random. Derek was one of the best, and the show's creators were very good about how they used him throughout the show. His introduction was the show at its most metaphysical and silly.
"Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent" - If you couldn't tell, the second season of "The Good Place" is my favorite for all the ways it kept breaking the structure of the show and speeding through massive amounts of plot. Having abandoned the original Good Place neighborhood in the previous episode, the gang take the train to the Bad Place. Everyone's undercover, the mood is tense, and it's all terribly exciting and very funny. And Michael does the thing.
"Jeremy Bearimy" - Chidi goes off his rocker upon learning the truth about his existence, giving William Jefferson Harper the chance to really go over the top in the best way. The rest of the episode isn't too interesting, because the season's larger plot had gone a little sideways, but the actors still do a fine job with the material. If nothing else, Janet and Michael's "Jeremy Bearimy" explanation of how afterlife time functions is one of the show's iconic moments.
"Janet(s)" - All hail D'Arcy Carden for pulling off a real acting feat, playing all the characters stuck in Janet forms in Janet's void, plus a new Neutral Janet for good measure. This is also the episode where Michael visits the Kafkaesque Accounting and finally gets some answers about the points system, introducing some real stakes for the rest of the show. Bonus points for the technical difficulty of juggling all those different Janet characters, and the great sight gags.
"The Funeral to End All Funerals" - I'm still getting my mind around the final season, but I've settled on my favorite episode - the reveal of the experiment's results and the setup for the show's last big existential crises. There are some fun surprises like the Janet army, but I like that a big part of this episode is its hangout nature for the humans, with all the different funerals. It's an important pause before the climax, and a nice way to refocus on the core characters.
Honorable mentions: "Most Improved Player," "Mindy St. Clair," "Existential Crisis," "Best Self," "Somewhere Else," "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By," "The Book of Dougs," "The Answer," and "Patty."
---
"Jason Mendoza" - The introductory episodes of "The Good Place" were fine, but it was when Jianyu revealed himself to be Jason that I felt that the show really kicked into gear. Manny Jacinto's performance as a genial dumbbell was such a great surprise, I spent most of this episode just grinning at him and anticipating what else the writers had in store. This was the first major twist that I felt the show successfully pulled off - one of many, it would turn out.
"Chidi's Choice" - Chidi is stuck between the two Eleanors, and we get some insight into the horrible indecision that's plagued his life. It also continues the multiple-Eleanor storylines from the prior two episodes, resulting in some important character development for "Fake" Eleanor. This is all well and good, but the real reason this episode is on the list is because it's the one where Jason and Janet get married in the most delightfully adorable wedding ever.
"Michael's Gambit" - I wasn't quite won over by the big reveal to start with, because the implications didn't quite sink for me immediately. However, Ted Danson's evil demon smile was so great, and I love the way that Eleanor seizes control of the narrative for a few moments, and keeps the audience in suspense while seemingly courting disaster. And knowing what I know now about what the writers were going to do with their "reboot" makes this development so much better in hindsight.
"Dance Dance Resolution" - My favorite episode, where Michael reboots The Good Place hundreds of times to try and torture the humans, only to fail each time and finally give up in frustration. All the different reboots are a delight, Michael's increasing desperation is amazing, and Megan Amram's legendary food puns are off the charts. And Jason figured it out? Jason? The episode is like a mini-"Groundhog's Day" packed into twenty-odd minutes.
"The Trolley Problem" - This was my first wake-up call that the show was taking moral philosophy much more seriously than I had anticipated, going so far as to build a whole episode around one of the classic philosophical thought experiments. And also to make it absolutely hysterical to watch, nicely calling back Chidi's problems with indecision. I wasn't a big fan of the Michael redemption storyline, but the writers sure managed to mine some good humor from it.
"Derek" - Comedian Jason Mantzoukas can be an acquired taste. He's perfect casting for Janet's rebound boyfriend and first attempt at creating a human, though. The second season is full of these wacky conceptual surprises that the show would spring on us at random. Derek was one of the best, and the show's creators were very good about how they used him throughout the show. His introduction was the show at its most metaphysical and silly.
"Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent" - If you couldn't tell, the second season of "The Good Place" is my favorite for all the ways it kept breaking the structure of the show and speeding through massive amounts of plot. Having abandoned the original Good Place neighborhood in the previous episode, the gang take the train to the Bad Place. Everyone's undercover, the mood is tense, and it's all terribly exciting and very funny. And Michael does the thing.
"Jeremy Bearimy" - Chidi goes off his rocker upon learning the truth about his existence, giving William Jefferson Harper the chance to really go over the top in the best way. The rest of the episode isn't too interesting, because the season's larger plot had gone a little sideways, but the actors still do a fine job with the material. If nothing else, Janet and Michael's "Jeremy Bearimy" explanation of how afterlife time functions is one of the show's iconic moments.
"Janet(s)" - All hail D'Arcy Carden for pulling off a real acting feat, playing all the characters stuck in Janet forms in Janet's void, plus a new Neutral Janet for good measure. This is also the episode where Michael visits the Kafkaesque Accounting and finally gets some answers about the points system, introducing some real stakes for the rest of the show. Bonus points for the technical difficulty of juggling all those different Janet characters, and the great sight gags.
"The Funeral to End All Funerals" - I'm still getting my mind around the final season, but I've settled on my favorite episode - the reveal of the experiment's results and the setup for the show's last big existential crises. There are some fun surprises like the Janet army, but I like that a big part of this episode is its hangout nature for the humans, with all the different funerals. It's an important pause before the climax, and a nice way to refocus on the core characters.
Honorable mentions: "Most Improved Player," "Mindy St. Clair," "Existential Crisis," "Best Self," "Somewhere Else," "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By," "The Book of Dougs," "The Answer," and "Patty."
---
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
"1917" and "A Hidden Life"
What Sam Mendes has accomplished with "1917" is nothing short of astonishing. The whole film is a technical marvel, designed to look like one continuous shot that runs almost two hours in length. In that time, we follow a pair of WWI British soldiers, Lance Corporal Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), as they traverse the trenches and battlefields of northern France, trying to deliver a message from General Erinmore (Colin Firth), to prevent a massacre. The journey is punctuated by large scale action and thrills, and encounters with officers played by familiar faces, including Andrew Scott, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
As a visceral spectacle, "1917" is great cinema. The long, long shots are wonderfully immersive, and there's such a tactility to all the different environments - the claustrophobic trenches, a bombed out French village, the desolate No Man's Land, and an abandoned farm that isn't quite as peaceful as it looks. The sheer scale of the events we see unfold is boggling, sometimes involving dozens of extras, or the careful choreography of unpredictable elements like animals and small children. Roger Deakins' cinematography is some of the best he's ever done, going from one complicated shot to another, to another. There's seamless transitioning between first and third person perspectives more commonly seen in video games.
Once the action slows down, however, it becomes clear how simple the characters are and how slight and stylized the narrative is. Though it takes place in real wartime locations, involves real conflicts, and gets many of the details right, it's obvious that the sequence of events is far more allegorical than representational. In fact, it often feels like the movie is attempting to compress the experience of the entire war into two hours. Having the recognizable actors popping up at regular intervals, and the entire encounter with the Frenchwoman played by Claire Duburcq come off as far too contrived. "1917" is wonderful as a filmgoing experience, and lands its emotional punches, but doesn't quite manage the power of similar films like "Son of Saul" or "Come and See."
I also feel it suffers a bit in comparison to Terrence Malick's latest, "A Hidden Life," a biopic of German WWII conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl). Malick wants to put the viewer in the same headspace as his protagonist too, but goes about it differently. Interior monologues, dreamy montages of daily life, and the occasional first person shot reveal the intimate details of Franz's world - Malick's usual modus operandi. The film also shares with "1917" the amusing habit of having the protagonist meet one famous face after another along his journey, this time Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Bruno Ganz, among others.
Franz lives with his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) and their three children on a farm in the Austrian town of St. Radegund. Their life is simple and idyllic until the town's men are conscripted to fight in WWII. Franz refuses, even declining non-combat service, because he will be required to pledge loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Eventually, he's arrested and his family become pariahs. If you've seen any of Terence Malick's films in the last decade, the style and themes will be familiar. Franz's internal struggles against doubt and oppression have a strong spiritual dimension, and he seeks guidance from unhelpful religious figures. His decision creates strife for the entire family, including his mother and sister-in-law. A significant part of the narrative is given over to Fani during the separation, charting the decline and despair that she suffers in Franz's absence.
"A Hidden Life" is Malick's best work since "The Tree of Life," because he's finally found subject matter and characters who are compatible with his cinematic preoccupations. The dreamy reveries and existential searching are so much more powerful in the context of these specific characters living through this specific crisis. Ironically, the film is more timely and relevant than any of his recent contemporary work, as it presents a story with very clear and recognizable stakes - a good man making a personal stand against Fascism. Diehl and Pachner both deliver very strong performances, despite an obvious language barrier, and Malick's longtime camera operator Jörg Widmer does exceptional work as cinematographer.
This one surprised me. Just when I thought I was at the end of my patience with Terrence Malick, he found a way to win me over completely.
---
As a visceral spectacle, "1917" is great cinema. The long, long shots are wonderfully immersive, and there's such a tactility to all the different environments - the claustrophobic trenches, a bombed out French village, the desolate No Man's Land, and an abandoned farm that isn't quite as peaceful as it looks. The sheer scale of the events we see unfold is boggling, sometimes involving dozens of extras, or the careful choreography of unpredictable elements like animals and small children. Roger Deakins' cinematography is some of the best he's ever done, going from one complicated shot to another, to another. There's seamless transitioning between first and third person perspectives more commonly seen in video games.
Once the action slows down, however, it becomes clear how simple the characters are and how slight and stylized the narrative is. Though it takes place in real wartime locations, involves real conflicts, and gets many of the details right, it's obvious that the sequence of events is far more allegorical than representational. In fact, it often feels like the movie is attempting to compress the experience of the entire war into two hours. Having the recognizable actors popping up at regular intervals, and the entire encounter with the Frenchwoman played by Claire Duburcq come off as far too contrived. "1917" is wonderful as a filmgoing experience, and lands its emotional punches, but doesn't quite manage the power of similar films like "Son of Saul" or "Come and See."
I also feel it suffers a bit in comparison to Terrence Malick's latest, "A Hidden Life," a biopic of German WWII conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl). Malick wants to put the viewer in the same headspace as his protagonist too, but goes about it differently. Interior monologues, dreamy montages of daily life, and the occasional first person shot reveal the intimate details of Franz's world - Malick's usual modus operandi. The film also shares with "1917" the amusing habit of having the protagonist meet one famous face after another along his journey, this time Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Bruno Ganz, among others.
Franz lives with his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) and their three children on a farm in the Austrian town of St. Radegund. Their life is simple and idyllic until the town's men are conscripted to fight in WWII. Franz refuses, even declining non-combat service, because he will be required to pledge loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Eventually, he's arrested and his family become pariahs. If you've seen any of Terence Malick's films in the last decade, the style and themes will be familiar. Franz's internal struggles against doubt and oppression have a strong spiritual dimension, and he seeks guidance from unhelpful religious figures. His decision creates strife for the entire family, including his mother and sister-in-law. A significant part of the narrative is given over to Fani during the separation, charting the decline and despair that she suffers in Franz's absence.
"A Hidden Life" is Malick's best work since "The Tree of Life," because he's finally found subject matter and characters who are compatible with his cinematic preoccupations. The dreamy reveries and existential searching are so much more powerful in the context of these specific characters living through this specific crisis. Ironically, the film is more timely and relevant than any of his recent contemporary work, as it presents a story with very clear and recognizable stakes - a good man making a personal stand against Fascism. Diehl and Pachner both deliver very strong performances, despite an obvious language barrier, and Malick's longtime camera operator Jörg Widmer does exceptional work as cinematographer.
This one surprised me. Just when I thought I was at the end of my patience with Terrence Malick, he found a way to win me over completely.
---
Sunday, May 3, 2020
The First Five of "The West Wing"
Well, I haven't done one of these in a while.
I've been meaning to take the plunge with "The West Wing" for years. I was a big fan of Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night" while it was airing, and I've mostly enjoyed his subsequent forays into film. "The West Wing," however, is by far his most popular and influential piece of work. I still constantly hear it referenced in discussions about great drama television, and a lot of acting careers were launched by the show. Also, I make no effort to hide that I'm a staunch progressive, and "The West Wing" has been a favorite among left-leaning public servants since it premiered - and has since been treated as comfort viewing during the more trying periods of the Trump Administration.
The show has aged significantly, however. It premiered in 1999 and ran until 2006. The first thing I noticed about the pilot was the chintzy soundtrack, peppered with the kind of cutesy orchestral cues that nobody uses anymore. The title sequence that debuts with the second episode looks downright prehistoric. Also, post-Trump, post-"House of Cards," and post-"Veep," the show's incredibly articulate, forthright, intelligent, principled, and witty cast of White House staffers feel like they're from another planet. I completely understand why the show has been described as "competency porn" by some observers. There's something very comforting about watching the show's President of the United States, Jed Bartlett (Michael Sheen), his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer), and all their underlings tackling crisis after crisis, big and small, with so much grace and efficiency. However, the relative lack of bureaucratic fumblings and flat-footedness also make it come across as a fantasy of Sorkin's sentimental wishful thinking.
And there's so much Aaron Sorkin all over this show. It has all of the earmarks of his writing, bad and good. The monologues and rapid-fire conversations come so fast and furious that Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme had to invent the walk-and-talk in order to accommodate them. There are some good female characters, most notably press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) and media consultant Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly), but the vast majority of the screen time goes to loose cannon idealist Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), the Deputy Chief of Staff, and his uber-competent colleagues Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) and Toby's Deputy, Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), responsible for writing many of the president's speeches. Anything involving gender relations tends to come across a little tone deaf and patronizing toward the women, and Sorkin literally recycles a call girl subplot from "Sports Night." There's also a single African American character, Charlie Young (Dulé Hill), who is hired on as the President's personal aide, but not without Josh worrying over the optics of an African-American holding the President's bags first. The show's politics are, of course, also very left wing, and many of the characters are prone to myopic speechifying. Occasionally it comes back bite them on the ass, but not as much as it probably should.
Still, the performances are uniformly great, and the show is a marvel of beautifully choreographed chaos. It's a lot funnier than I expected, with the staffers constantly bringing their personal problems into the White House, and a lot of humor being mined from events like the publication of the administration's annual financial disclosure report, revealing everybody's embarrassing gifts and stock trades. I find the portrayal of many issues incredibly glib, but at the same time I'm constantly impressed by the thoughtfulness and the balance that Sorkin tries to bring to the table. Not everything works or comes off well, but there's a lot of more nuance here than I was expecting. Jed Bartlett isn't perfect and needs help and counsel constantly. The staffers are capable of superhuman things, but they also make stupid human mistakes. Easily the most appealing part of the show isn't the peek behind the curtain at the inner workings of the White House, but the camaraderie of everyone who keeps Bartlett's administration going.
I don't know how much of "The West Wing" I'm going to end up watching. It's one of the longest shows I've tackled in a while, and I've heard mixed things about some of the later seasons. I suspect I may compromise and stop after the fourth season, when Aaron Sorkin famously quit the show. "West Wing" episodes are also going to take a back seat to currently airing series, which means it's going to take a long while to work through the eighty-odd episodes. But I'm glad that I've started the trip.
---
I've been meaning to take the plunge with "The West Wing" for years. I was a big fan of Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night" while it was airing, and I've mostly enjoyed his subsequent forays into film. "The West Wing," however, is by far his most popular and influential piece of work. I still constantly hear it referenced in discussions about great drama television, and a lot of acting careers were launched by the show. Also, I make no effort to hide that I'm a staunch progressive, and "The West Wing" has been a favorite among left-leaning public servants since it premiered - and has since been treated as comfort viewing during the more trying periods of the Trump Administration.
The show has aged significantly, however. It premiered in 1999 and ran until 2006. The first thing I noticed about the pilot was the chintzy soundtrack, peppered with the kind of cutesy orchestral cues that nobody uses anymore. The title sequence that debuts with the second episode looks downright prehistoric. Also, post-Trump, post-"House of Cards," and post-"Veep," the show's incredibly articulate, forthright, intelligent, principled, and witty cast of White House staffers feel like they're from another planet. I completely understand why the show has been described as "competency porn" by some observers. There's something very comforting about watching the show's President of the United States, Jed Bartlett (Michael Sheen), his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer), and all their underlings tackling crisis after crisis, big and small, with so much grace and efficiency. However, the relative lack of bureaucratic fumblings and flat-footedness also make it come across as a fantasy of Sorkin's sentimental wishful thinking.
And there's so much Aaron Sorkin all over this show. It has all of the earmarks of his writing, bad and good. The monologues and rapid-fire conversations come so fast and furious that Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme had to invent the walk-and-talk in order to accommodate them. There are some good female characters, most notably press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) and media consultant Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly), but the vast majority of the screen time goes to loose cannon idealist Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), the Deputy Chief of Staff, and his uber-competent colleagues Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) and Toby's Deputy, Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), responsible for writing many of the president's speeches. Anything involving gender relations tends to come across a little tone deaf and patronizing toward the women, and Sorkin literally recycles a call girl subplot from "Sports Night." There's also a single African American character, Charlie Young (Dulé Hill), who is hired on as the President's personal aide, but not without Josh worrying over the optics of an African-American holding the President's bags first. The show's politics are, of course, also very left wing, and many of the characters are prone to myopic speechifying. Occasionally it comes back bite them on the ass, but not as much as it probably should.
Still, the performances are uniformly great, and the show is a marvel of beautifully choreographed chaos. It's a lot funnier than I expected, with the staffers constantly bringing their personal problems into the White House, and a lot of humor being mined from events like the publication of the administration's annual financial disclosure report, revealing everybody's embarrassing gifts and stock trades. I find the portrayal of many issues incredibly glib, but at the same time I'm constantly impressed by the thoughtfulness and the balance that Sorkin tries to bring to the table. Not everything works or comes off well, but there's a lot of more nuance here than I was expecting. Jed Bartlett isn't perfect and needs help and counsel constantly. The staffers are capable of superhuman things, but they also make stupid human mistakes. Easily the most appealing part of the show isn't the peek behind the curtain at the inner workings of the White House, but the camaraderie of everyone who keeps Bartlett's administration going.
I don't know how much of "The West Wing" I'm going to end up watching. It's one of the longest shows I've tackled in a while, and I've heard mixed things about some of the later seasons. I suspect I may compromise and stop after the fourth season, when Aaron Sorkin famously quit the show. "West Wing" episodes are also going to take a back seat to currently airing series, which means it's going to take a long while to work through the eighty-odd episodes. But I'm glad that I've started the trip.
---
Friday, May 1, 2020
The Lovely "Little Women"
I have an interesting relationship with "Little Women." It was one of my favorite books as a child, but the copy I had only contained what some would consider the first half of the story, about the March sisters as children. It wasn't until I was much older that I got my hands on the second volume, where they grow up and deal with suitors and separations and death. I didn't like it very much, finding the Marches all less interesting when they were separated. I never had much curiosity about any of the adaptations either, after seeing bits of the Hepburn version which seemed entirely too concerned with the romances instead of the sisterhood.
So I wasn't looking forward to Greta Gerwig's adaptation, as much as I've enjoyed her work and as much as I thought Saoirse Ronan was the perfect Jo March. Fortunately, it seems that Gerwig had some of the same issues with the original material that I did, and sought to address them. The best choice she made here was starting with the March sisters as adults, and then having the events of their childhood introduced via Jo's flashbacks.
For the uninitiated, "Little Women" is about the four talented March sisters, Meg (Emma Watson), Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy (Florence Pugh). Jo March is the aspiring writer and most fiercely independent of her sisters, who we first meet working as a teacher in New York in the 1860s. She travels home to Concord to take care of an ailing Beth, while Meg struggles with domestic life, and Amy is traveling in Europe with their aunt (Meryl Streep). Jo looks back on their childhood together, with their do-gooder mother, Marmee (Laura Dern), while deliberating over her own future. Others in their circle include their housekeeper Hannah (Jayne Houdyshell), a brooding neighbor boy, Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) and his reclusive uncle (Chris Cooper).
Gerwig really brings out all the bits of "Little Women" that I loved, treating them as precious childhood memories, while drastically reworking the particulars of the girls' adventures as adults. The entire story is now framed by Jo's struggles to become a writer, and her attempts to reconcile her desire for independence and creative fulfillment with her need for emotional support, companionship, and even the much dreaded prospect of love. Attempts to modernize older classics have often fallen flat due to the clumsy integration of revisionist POVs and updated themes. It works in this version of "Little Women," however, because most of those themes are already there - Jo March's dissatisfaction with her options, Meg's disappointment with married life, and Amy's pragmatism. Gerwig also took a lot from the life of "Little Women" author Louisa May Alcott, who was a feminist and abolitionist. So yes, there's romance for Jo in the end, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of healthy negotiation to get to it.
The entire production is fabulous. I adore the cast, especially Ronan as stubborn and temperamental Jo, and Dern as ever-patient Marmee. However, I think the lynchpin here is Florence Pugh as Amy, playing her both as a bratty thirteen year old and a much more mature twenty year-old woman. Amy was Jo's major antagonist in the book, but the film gives her an entirely separate narrative to flesh her out, and shows us important events from her point of view. She's still not as likeable as Jo, but much more sympathetic and deserving of respect and forgiveness. Everyone gets these vital little character moments throughout, similar to "Ladybird," suggesting other stories playing out just offscreen. The best scenes are of the four sisters together - the girls putting on their fantastical plays, clamoring over a new letter from their father, and creating a cheerful chaos during visits and celebrations. There's nothing staid or stuffy about them. Their language sounds old, but their dialogue doesn't.
The filmmaking is utterly gorgeous throughout too. Gerwig dramatizes so many incidents and events from the March family's history so deftly, cutting from past to present, contrasting characters in different situations and points during their lives. The cinematography is to die for, full of beautifully framed period sets, natural scenery, and immaculately costumed characters. The March home is cozy and inviting one moment, and then dark and desolate the next. There's a real sense of place and history about the film, and a very welcome moral center that isn't remotely dogmatic. And best of all, despite all the little changes, the book's underlying sweetness and optimism has been perfectly preserved without ever feeling cloying.
"Little Women" is not what I expected, but it's everything I should have expected from Greta Gerwig and her collaborators. And it's made me want to go back and give the back half of the "Little Women" novel another shot.
----
So I wasn't looking forward to Greta Gerwig's adaptation, as much as I've enjoyed her work and as much as I thought Saoirse Ronan was the perfect Jo March. Fortunately, it seems that Gerwig had some of the same issues with the original material that I did, and sought to address them. The best choice she made here was starting with the March sisters as adults, and then having the events of their childhood introduced via Jo's flashbacks.
For the uninitiated, "Little Women" is about the four talented March sisters, Meg (Emma Watson), Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy (Florence Pugh). Jo March is the aspiring writer and most fiercely independent of her sisters, who we first meet working as a teacher in New York in the 1860s. She travels home to Concord to take care of an ailing Beth, while Meg struggles with domestic life, and Amy is traveling in Europe with their aunt (Meryl Streep). Jo looks back on their childhood together, with their do-gooder mother, Marmee (Laura Dern), while deliberating over her own future. Others in their circle include their housekeeper Hannah (Jayne Houdyshell), a brooding neighbor boy, Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) and his reclusive uncle (Chris Cooper).
Gerwig really brings out all the bits of "Little Women" that I loved, treating them as precious childhood memories, while drastically reworking the particulars of the girls' adventures as adults. The entire story is now framed by Jo's struggles to become a writer, and her attempts to reconcile her desire for independence and creative fulfillment with her need for emotional support, companionship, and even the much dreaded prospect of love. Attempts to modernize older classics have often fallen flat due to the clumsy integration of revisionist POVs and updated themes. It works in this version of "Little Women," however, because most of those themes are already there - Jo March's dissatisfaction with her options, Meg's disappointment with married life, and Amy's pragmatism. Gerwig also took a lot from the life of "Little Women" author Louisa May Alcott, who was a feminist and abolitionist. So yes, there's romance for Jo in the end, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of healthy negotiation to get to it.
The entire production is fabulous. I adore the cast, especially Ronan as stubborn and temperamental Jo, and Dern as ever-patient Marmee. However, I think the lynchpin here is Florence Pugh as Amy, playing her both as a bratty thirteen year old and a much more mature twenty year-old woman. Amy was Jo's major antagonist in the book, but the film gives her an entirely separate narrative to flesh her out, and shows us important events from her point of view. She's still not as likeable as Jo, but much more sympathetic and deserving of respect and forgiveness. Everyone gets these vital little character moments throughout, similar to "Ladybird," suggesting other stories playing out just offscreen. The best scenes are of the four sisters together - the girls putting on their fantastical plays, clamoring over a new letter from their father, and creating a cheerful chaos during visits and celebrations. There's nothing staid or stuffy about them. Their language sounds old, but their dialogue doesn't.
The filmmaking is utterly gorgeous throughout too. Gerwig dramatizes so many incidents and events from the March family's history so deftly, cutting from past to present, contrasting characters in different situations and points during their lives. The cinematography is to die for, full of beautifully framed period sets, natural scenery, and immaculately costumed characters. The March home is cozy and inviting one moment, and then dark and desolate the next. There's a real sense of place and history about the film, and a very welcome moral center that isn't remotely dogmatic. And best of all, despite all the little changes, the book's underlying sweetness and optimism has been perfectly preserved without ever feeling cloying.
"Little Women" is not what I expected, but it's everything I should have expected from Greta Gerwig and her collaborators. And it's made me want to go back and give the back half of the "Little Women" novel another shot.
----
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
