The Slow Summer of 2021

I skipped writing a "most anticipated movies" list this year.  I also refrained from predicting the top ten grossers of the summer back in April.  Everything felt too up in the air, and after watching so many films get pushed back and pushed back, I'm still wary about the announced release dates being as firm as they seem to be.  Looking forward seemed to be a sketchy prospect in general.  

And now we're halfway through the summer movie season already, and the box office is slowly but surely coming back to life.  There have been a couple of hits and a couple of flops.  However, we're nowhere close to seeing revenues return to the same level that they were pre-pandemic.  Part of this is by design.  The rollout of all the films that were delayed by the pandemic has been slow, and many of them like "Cruella" and "In the Heights" have been released via a hybrid model.  Theaters in the U.S. are mostly open, but they're still closed in other parts of the world, and even where they are open there's plenty of reason for potential audiences to remain cautious.

Hollywood and the exhibitors have been nervously watching the box office returns week after week, and there's a palpable worry that we're simply not going to see attendance levels ever return to what they were.  Streaming and VOD options have taken a big bite out of potential viewers, as distribution models seem to have permanently shifted in favor of online options.  Theatrical exclusivity has taken a significant battering.  The long-delayed "Black Widow," once poised to be one of the biggest box office hits of 2020, will be available in theaters and Disney+ simultaneously through their Premier Access service.  Wait three months, and anyone with a Disney+ subscription can watch it from home.  When "In the Heights" underperformed in theaters, Warner Bros. was quick to point out that the issue was lack of audience interest across all platforms, as the film also wasn't getting much attention on HBO Max.        

I still haven't been back to theaters, despite living in an area where there's not much risk.  It has less to do with any lingering pandemic worries and more to do with simply not having much interest in the current offerings.  "F9" was really the first highly anticipated big blockbuster to be released this year, at the very end of June.  To be fair, I've been less and less interested in the usual blockbuster fare over the last few years, but the only summer films I feel would be worth taking a trip to the theaters for this year are David Lowrey's "The Green Knight," "Free Guy," and maybe "Shang-Chi" on Labor Day weekend for Asian solidarity.  Other films I'm interested in like "Black Widow," PIXAR's "Luca," "Gunpowder Milkshake," "Suicide Squad," "Reminiscence," "Annette," and Sundance favorite "CODA" are all going to be available through streaming services.  I was expecting a big glut of delayed films hitting theaters that just doesn't seem to be there.  

It's not until October - traditionally prestige movie season - that it feels like theaters will have the better offerings: the new James Bond, "The French Dispatch," "The Last Duel," "Last Night in Soho," and I guess we'll see who wins the fight over "Dune."  Really, "Dune" is the only film out of all of these that I think is vital to see on the biggest screen possible, so I'll show up to the theater anyway.  The latest "Hotel Transylvania" movie also just moved into an early October berth, where it's expected to get into a fight with the "Addams Family" sequel.    Studios still seem to be holding some of their bigger films back, hoping that the box office will recover more before releasing titles like "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" and "Top Gun: Maverick," both slated for November.  

It feels less like we're waiting for the pandemic to wrap up, and more like we're all in an adjustment period to acclimate to the new normal, whatever that may be.  Some of the theaters will unfortunately stay closed.  The streamers are not going away soon.  I expect that Disney and Warner Brothers are going to cut back on the big films available for day and date PVOD purchases, but they'll continue to have an impact going forward.  All the movies that have been delayed will come out eventually - though it'll take some longer than others.  For now, a lot remains up in the air and uncertain, but I don't mind the wait so much anymore.  Summer will be over before we know it.

      

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And What Didn't Make My 2020 Top Ten List

As a companion piece to my Top Ten list, every year I write a post to discuss some of the other major films that got a lot of attention, in order to give some context to my own choices. I find that writing this type of analysis piece helpful when working out how I feel about my list and the year in film as a whole. It's also usually a lot of fun. Please note that I will not be writing about films listed among my honorable mentions, including "Tenet," "Da 5 Bloods," and "The Sound of Metal," which I've already written individual posts about anyway. 

So, the pickings were much slimmer this year due to COVID, and I'm disappointed that many films I was looking forward to have been delayed.  However, there were still plenty of films in the conversation, many of which inevitably fell a little short for me.  Documentaries got a lot of attention this season, including "Time," which charts the life of a mother of six, whose husband is serving out a long prison sentence.  It's a moving story, but I found many of its central arguments oddly framed, and never could shake the feeling that I was missing vital parts of the narrative.  Then there's "Dick Johnson is Dead," a playful and often very funny film about the filmmaker dealing with the inevitable loss of her beloved father.  And then, near the end, we find out that her ex-husband and *his* husband live next door to her, and I wondered why I wasn't watching *that* movie. "Crip Camp," "The Donut King," "Feels Good Man," and "The Truffle Hunters" were other docs I enjoyed this year that presented more typical looks at specific subjects.

I was surprised at the amount of support garnered by "Promising Young Woman," which I found very strong in certain aspects, but also kind of sketchy in others.  It straddles a weird line between serious business and larger-than-life that I don't feel was reconciled very well.  Another big favorite was "Lovers Rock," which never managed to work its spell on me.  I was never much of a fan of parties or big crowds, being an incurable introvert, so the "Small Axe" film that I gravitated toward was "Mangrove."  And speaking of trial movies, Probably my biggest disappointments this year were Aaron Sorkin's "Trial of the Chicago 7" and David Fincher's "Mank."  I appreciate that "Chicago 7" is a dramatization, but Sorkin really pushed the dramatic license too far, inventing courtroom antics that came off as distasteful.  As for "Mank," while I'm glad Fincher got to make a passion project, and it's good to see him trying a new genre, the film was a slog and Oldman was miscast.  "One Night in Miami" was good… but not that good, while "Judas and the Black Messiah" never lived up to its excellent performances.

Where I really feel like I was the most out of step this year was with the genre films.  "Palm Springs" is a lot of fun, and features what is probably Andy Samberg's best performance, but it's no "Groundhog's Day."  It's smart and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it's also very abrasive - too much so for my tastes.  "The Vast of Night" is an experimental throwback to '50s media that felt consumed by its own conceits.  The long monologues and longer tracking shots work as discrete pieces, but I found that they didn't cohere too well.  It's nice to see Brandon Cronenberg getting back into the game with "Possessor Uncut," but the film was such a stream-of-consciousness that I had trouble parsing what was going on.  "The Invisible Man" was very good, but the ending whiffed a bit.  Meanwhile, "Relic" has a good ending going for it, but honestly not much else.  The best horror film I saw this year was probably "Saint Maud."

I'm still catching up on foreign films, as I always am, but pickings feel much leaner this year, probably because of all the distribution turmoil.  One notable title that hit me in completely the wrong way was "Martin Eden," which features a great performance from Luca Martinelli and a lot of railing against social conventions and politics that did absolutely nothing for me.      

"American Utopia" and "Hamilton" were both a lot of fun, but I can't justify treating them as movies.  I'm grateful that we got them this year though, to offset things like "The Prom."

Films that just missed the honorable mentions include "Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always," "You Cannot Kill David Arquette," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "First Cow," and "Soul."  And "Bacurau" was on last year's list.

And that's my 2020 in film.

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My Top Ten Films of 2020

It's the odd case this year that the last group of films I was waiting for were all the U.S. films that had been delayed to take advantage of Oscar hype, instead of the foreign films that are the ones that I usually have to wait months and months for.  I'm not a fan of the Academy's decision to muck around with the eligibility dates, but we've all gotta do what we've gotta do.

My criteria for eligibility require that a film must have been released in its own home country during 2020, so film festivals and other special screenings generally don't count, but this year there's a lot of wiggle room for obvious reasons. Picks are unranked and listed in no particular order, previously posted reviews are linked where available, and the "Plus One" spot is reserved for the best film of the previous year that I didn't manage to see in time for the last list. And here we go.

Nomadland - Easily does the best job of capturing the mood of present-day, post-COVID America, though it originally came out of material exploring the post-Recession landscape.  Chloe Zhao combines fiction and documentary elements to capture the lives of modern-day nomads, the elderly workers scraping by in an America where economic security is now out of reach.  It often feels like "Nomadland" is closing out an era of American prosperity, and American film.  

Minari - The best characters don't speak much English, but it's hard to think of another film this year more emblematic of the American experience.  Every immigrant and child of immigrants will find commonalities with the Yi family, even though their journey is so culturally specific, and so fiercely personal.  For me, it evoked long-forgotten memories of growing up in the 1980s, of scattered relatives, and constantly searching for our far-flung tribe.  

Wendy -  I couldn't help falling a little in love with "Wendy," with it's overwhelming immature emotions, it's child-eye view of the great big world, and its sheer untamed vision. It gave me an earnest, joyous game of pretend in a year when I needed it the most.  I understand why the story changes didn't work for everyone, but I loved how they opened up the "Peter Pan" mythos and brought the characters to a rougher, more fragile present day milieu. 

Wolfwalkers - Cartoon Saloon finally feels like it's standing on its own two feet stylistically and narratively, delivering a film that is ambitious in scope and beautifully cohesive in its animation and design sensibilities.  The film is stuffed with color and design and allusions to Irish history in a way that gives it so much texture and so much resonance.  And the "wolfvision" sequences give it just the right amount of pure, undiluted animated spectacle.

The 40 Year Old Version - Radha Mitchell draws from her own life experiences to depict the misadventures of a black playwright trying to navigate the theater scene in New York.  Her POV is so refreshing, so self-aware, and so deft in its skewering of common stereotypes, that it manages to strike a real nerve.  The constant struggles for artistic, professional, and personal fulfillment are wonderfully balanced, and the cast of virtual unknowns are just perfect.

Mangrove - My favorite of Steve McQueen's "Small Axe" films, because it feels the most vital and the most immediate.  McQueen doesn't just examine the lives of the major characters involved in the trial of the Mangrove Nine, but gives us a good picture of the Black Caribbean community, and origins of the social movement that they helped to accelerate.  As melodrama, it's simple but wonderfully rousing stuff that never loses sight of its aims or what is at stake.    

The Painter and the Thief - There were so many strong documentaries this year, but I have a soft spot for stories about artists, and the film's argument for the power of empathy and forgiveness is irresistible.  While I have reservations about some of the storytelling tactics employed, it's breathtaking to see some of the moments of human connection and emotional catharsis that the film manages to capture.  This is one of the most uplifting stories I've seen in ages.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things - I don't think this is the best Charlie Kaufman film, but it's clearly a film that only Charlie Kaufman could have made, featuring all of his favorite preoccupations and executed in his inimitable, self-referential, endlessly self-obsessed style.  The talent involved in this venture is off the charts, and Kaufman manages to keep the screen filled with interesting things to look at.  So even if the material is impenetrable, the mise-en-scene remains entrancing. 

Another Round - A midlife crisis film disguised as a substance abuse comedy, from Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg.  However, what makes the film such a winner is that its attitude toward alcohol remains so ambiguous, and there's a wry sort of delight in the characters' stupid self-destructive behavior throughout, even when things take a darker turn.  The final sequence with Mads Mikkelson rediscovering his terpsichorean powers is just the icing on the cake.  

The Father - I initially filed this away in my mind as a very good gimmick film, anchored by the excellent performance of Athony Hopkins.  It's one of those pieces of filmmaking that is so conceptually clever, and so immaculately executed, it kept me at a distance.  However, the more I thought about the film, the harder it was to stop thinking about it.  The real beauty of this one is its empathy, its ability to convey the deeply personal tragedy of a man losing his battle against age and infirmity.

Plus One

And then We Danced

Honorable Mentions:

Collective

Tenet

Swallow

Emma.

Blow the Man Down

Da 5 Bloods

Vitalina Varela

Ammonite

Sound of Metal

His House 

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Two Seasons Into "Parks and Recreation"

I knew that "Parks and Recreation" was a sitcom that I would probably like, because it's a Mike Schur property, and I've liked everything I've seen from him to date.  However, "Parks" is seven seasons long, and while it doesn't have a particularly high episode count, it's still considerable for someone who has been out of practice watching sitcoms for a while.  I was also warned that the first six-episode season was not a great start to the show - like so many other great sitcoms, it took a while for the creators to find their footing.

So, welcome to the little town of Pawnee, Indiana, and the Parks and Recreation department headed up by the eternally optimistic deputy director Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), and her curmudgeonly boss Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman).  Initially, the show comes off as a "The Office" clone, leaning into the mockumentary format and cringe humor, mined from the misery of the endless bureaucracy of local government.  The first season is almost entirely concerned with Leslie deciding to turn an abandoned development site with a gaping pit into a new park, and getting nowhere with it.  The second season makes the important decision to background this storyline immediately, giving the department more events to wrangle, and tweaking Leslie so that she's less of a sad sack and more fun and competent.

It's so satisfying to watch all of the characters really develop as human beings over the course of the second season.  Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) goes from the token normal citizen to Leslie's bestie, and their friendship is definitely in the running for the biggest heartwarmer of the show.  I love April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), the department intern who starts out a sullen cynic, and slowly warms up to Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt), who levels up from Ann's idiot boyfriend into City Hall's idiot shoeshine guy.  Then there's Ron Swanson, the Oscar the Grouch to Leslie's Big Bird, whose Libertarian worldview is more fleshed out with each additional appearance, to the point where you've got to love and root for him, no matter how terrible he's being.  

The one major character I'm not really gelling with is Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), because he's playing the kind of would-be ladies' man character I'm not generally too sympathetic towards - though he's a very well-rounded, and well-considered version of this kind of guy.  Then there are Donna (Retta) and Jerry (Jim O'Heir), who are very broad co-worker caricatures, and I suspect will probably stay that way.  I should say something about  Paul Schneider as Mark Brendanawicz, who only appears in these two seasons.  He was clearly meant to be a much bigger part of the show, and Leslie's primary love interest, at the start, but was so bland in the second season that I'm not sorry to see him go.

I'm even more impressed with the show's worldbuilding, which presents Pawnee as this lovely hub of Midwestern absurdity.  We get to know the local night life, the zoo, the local public access talk show, and of course the parks.  Then there's the evil librarians, nutty sanitation workers, local business moguls, that one sexy reporter, and the endless parade of terrible Pawnee citizens who come to public forums to air their grievances.  There's a running joke with the city's mural art depicting awful, usually racist scenes from Pawnee history.  And I love the little details like the pigeons constantly outside the department's windows, and Leslie and Ron's incredibly unhealthy dietary choices. 

What I find especially appealing about "Parks and Recreation" is its lightness of tone.  I don't think it's a coincidence that the show's run was roughly concurrent with the Obama administration, when everyone briefly had a more positive outlook on the role of government.  There's also a wonderfully nostalgic aura around it, with so much good talent involved.  It's fun to see Ansari before "Master of None," Pratt before the MCU, and Aubrey Plaza before "Legion."  I'm also regularly recognizing the bulk of the guest stars, who are mostly a combination of SNL vets, and actors from other Mike Schur shows.  

I'm looking forward to the rest of "Parks and Recreation."  Rob Lowe and Adam Scott have only just showed up, and no one has made a "Star Wars" reference yet, so I know I have a long way to go.  I'll do my best not to binge it too hard, but it may be difficult.

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Rank 'Em: "A Nightmare on Elm Street" Part 2

Continuing from last time...

5. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) - This had a great concept.  Wes Craven returned to write and direct a meta film about the stars of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" being menaced by Freddy Krueger in the real world as they prepare for yet another "Elm Street" sequel.  Unfortunately, Heather Lagenkamp really isn't all that good of an actress, and the first hour of the film is seriously bogged down by a lot of stale, manufactured family drama.  It's great to see Englund and John Saxon and other familiar faces in a different context, and Freddy gets a good makeover, but I had a hard time taking anything here at face value.  I've seen meta films done so much better by so many others over the years - including by Craven himself - that there wasn't much novelty in this one.  

6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) - The one Renny Harlin directed.  I appreciate that this installment has some of the most memorable kills in the series, and some of the better effects, but the writing and performances are pretty awful.  I'm surprised at the sad state of the script, considering Brian Helgeland and William Kotzwinkle contributed to it.  Making this a direct sequel to "Dream Warriors" wasn't a bad idea, but the elements carried over from the last film are handled poorly, and the characters are totally flat.  Individual sequences are very watchable, and kudos to Harlin for pulling off some of the wilder concepts - the repeated scene got me - but a lot of the film is also pretty forgettable.  And compared to the movies that came before and after it, it's aged poorly.    

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) - I have a tremendous amount of affection for this sequel, even though it frequently wanders into so-bad-it's-good territory.  There are glaring holes in the plotting, some of the dream logic is absurd, and then there's the whole business with the homoerotic subtext that has lead to "Freddy's Revenge" becoming a cult favorite with the LGBT crowd.  I'm also a fan of some of the effects sequences and the more ambitious dream imagery, especially all the stuff with the schoolbus bookends.  However, there's no getting away from the fact that there's an exploding bird, the gym teacher is apparently into S&M, and Freddy seems to be awfully upset with lawn chairs for some reason.  The "Scream, Queen!" documentary about the film's behind-the-scenes drama, is also worth a look.    

8. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) - The last of the original "Nightmare" films is also probably the worst.  The new mythology for Freddy - his childhood, his family, and his demon friends - are all shallow and uninteresting.  The new batch of victims and heroes are similarly dull - except Yaphet Kotto, who does a lot with very limited screen time.  Between the silly cameos and the wooden actors, it's hard to stay invested in anything going on.  Still, I do really like some of the dream sequences, especially the opening with the flying houses and the fake outs.  The idea that Springwood is now this kid-free town where all the adults are going crazy is also promising, but not developed enough.  I can't help wondering what a proper seventh "Nightmare" film would have looked like.  

9. Freddy vs. Jason (2003) - Oh, right.  The "Friday the 13th" series does that whole R-rated teen skin-flick thing.  It's a little jarring to see so much of that sensibility in this crossover, since "Nightmare" never had much interest in sex.  I was never a Jason fan, so I didn't get much out of the more splatterific kills, and the epic clash between the two horror icons is disappointingly quick.  What really sank the film is that it's such a product of its time.  Gone are all the practical effects that made the "Nightmare" franchise such a great source of visceral thrills and chills, replaced with CGI that looks horribly dated and cheap.  It saddens me that Robert Englund's last film outing as Freddy is likely going to be this one.     

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Rank 'Em: "A Nightmare on Elm Street" Part 1

Here we go.  All nine cinematic appearances of Freddy Krueger and friends, including "Freddy vs. Jason" and the 2010 reboot, ranked below from best to worst.  Before we begin, I want to make it clear that I had fun watching all nine of these movies.  Because the number of films is higher than I normally cover for these features, I'm splitting the post into two parts.  

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - The original "Nightmare" is still easily the best.  I'm not just saying that because Johnny Depp gets eaten by a bed.  Wes Craven really digs into the premise, spends time setting up his characters, and finding all these ways to break the usual rules of movie reality.  It's an absolute delight every time Freddy or his claws show up somewhere unexpected, especially the famous bathtub scene.  That's why I love this series in particular - it presents so many opportunities for creative visuals and lets the story traipse off into the fantasy genre occasionally.  While I love that Nancy gets to be a badass in the end, and is truly one of the best "Final Girls" in horror movie history, I admit that I absolutely love how mean the ending is to her.   

2. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - The idea of Freddy's victims being able to control their dreams and fight back on Freddy's turf changed the direction of the franchise, and would heavily influence the later films.  With Nancy and her father returning, Amanda making her first appearance, and a few extra kids surviving to be in the sequel, "Nightmare" started building a bigger mythology, for better or for worse.  However, this installment stands out in particular because I think that it has the best death sequences and special effects work in the whole series.  The puppeteer Freddy, the death by television, and the various dream world showdowns all happen here, and they still hold up beautifully.  "Dream Warriors" also has one of the best settings - an imposing  mental facility for troubled youth.  

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) - Probably my most controversial placement, but I was struck by how well put together this film is.  The editing is great, especially the transitions, and it has some really strong, interesting visuals in the dreams.  There's the M.C. Escher stairs sequence, the motorcycle that eats a kid, and the comic book scene - admittedly very silly, but it looks great.  The execution is shaky at times, but Stephen Hopkins makes a film with a clear, simple narrative, characters with some signs of inner life, and wrangles all the thematic stuff involving pregnancy and motherhood fairly well.  As a slasher, it's very mediocre, but as a fantasy film it accomplishes some good things.  Of all the older "Elm Street" films, I think this one is most in need of some rediscovering and reevaluation.     

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - First things first.  Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy Krueger does nothing for me.  There's something about the makeup, about the performance, that falls straight into uncanny valley for me.  I wish they'd updated the look, the costume, or something to differentiate him from Robert Englund's Freddy more.  Otherwise, the rest of the movie does what it sets out to.  I think it's an effective thriller with some good scare sequences, and the performances from Rooney Mara and Kyle Gallner are a big step up from other installments of the series.  With a dearth of interesting dream sequences and a Freddy that doesn't really work, I don't think this is a very good "Nightmare on Elm Street" film.  However, it's a perfectly solid movie in its own right.     

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The First "Lupin" and Ghibli CGI Features

The anime industry has been making CGI animated films for a while, but we've recently seen the release of two major titles that are higher profile than anything we've seen so far.  Studio Ghibli has released their first CGI feature, "Earwig and the Witch," based on the last book written by Diana Wynne Jones, and directed by Goro Miyazaki.  Meanwhile, Marza Animation Planet, which gave us the "Harlock" movie a few years ago, is responsible for the first CGI "Lupin III" feature, titled "Lupin III: The First," and directed by Takashi Yamazaki.

From everything that I'd heard about "Earwig and the Witch," I was expecting a disaster.  Goro Miyazaki had the unenviable task of trying to make a film using an entirely different system of animation at the famously old-school  Studio Ghibli, and he hasn't had the greatest track record as a director.  However, despite a few bumps and snags, I found "Earwig" a perfectly charming, modest little Ghibli movie.  A bratty orphan girl named Earwig (Kokoro Hirasawa), is adopted by a demanding witch named Bella (Shinobu Terajima) and an unfriendly fellow named Mandrake (Etsushi Toyokawa), who can control demons.  They live in a magical house with a lot of secrets.  Though her new guardians initially seem frightening and harsh, Earwig soon takes advantage of the situation, befriends Bella's feline familiar Thomas (Gaku Hamada), and starts learning magic. 

You can tell that "Earwig" is a Ghibli film from its design sensibility, which takes all the familiar visual cues we associate with Ghibli and translate them into CGI forms, sometimes rather awkwardly.  While the lush vegetation and the cluttered interiors are passable, the character designs leave a lot to be desired.  Earwig and her friends are plasticine and stiff, and look about a decade behind, technically, than the other major studios.  The only character who really comes across right is the cat, Thomas, who looks  exactly how you'd want a Ghibli cat to look in CGI.  I appreciate that pains were taken to try and preserve some of the little animation tics and design features that always helped to set Ghibli films apart, but I think that the artists played it too safe.  The camera stays stubbornly static for most of the film, and compositions are clearly still designed for two dimensions instead of three.     

I've heard some complaints about how short the film is, and how it seems to be missing a third act where Earwig finally gets some of her questions answered.  I would have liked a more concrete ending as well, but I found the characters and the story charming enough that I didn't mind that it stopped where it did.  Other Ghibli films like "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Kiki's Delivery Service" have had similar non-endings.  "Earwig and the Witch" is clearly one of the studio's cheaper, less ambitious features, made by mostly younger members of the staff, and often feels like a training exercise or a test run of the animation technology.  However, I still found it entertaining, and enjoyed spending some time with Earwig and her strange little family.  I think it would have been better if it had been traditionally animated, because Ghibli still has a lot of kinks in the CGI to work out, but it's still a perfectly good piece of work.

"Lupin III: The First," on the other hand, looks absolutely fantastic.  I was a little worried about this project, because the "Harlock" film was so dark and murky, and the character animation wasn't much to talk about.  "Lupin III" is a huge improvement, beautifully translating the cartoon designs and movements of the goofy Arsene Lupin III (Kanichi Kurita)  and his band of merry cohorts into dazzling CGI forms.  All the old physical gags, famous poses, and the most importantly the facial expressions are perfect.  Lupin goofs and blusters and banters in CGI as well as he ever did in traditional animation, and he's as charismatic and fun to watch as ever.  Takashi Yamazaki takes full advantage of the CGI animation, staging huge, complex action sequences, using lots of different environments, and executing plenty of complicated shots.  

Once you get past the fun of the visuals, however, "Lupin III: The First" is a pretty typical "Lupin III" adventure.  A young woman named Laetitia (Suzu Hirose) teams up with Lupin, in pursuit of the famous Bresson diary, a book that will lead them to a mysterious treasure.  Lupin gets help from his usual crew - Jigen (Kiyoshi Kobayashi), Goemon (Daisuke Namikawa), Fujiko (Miyuki Sawashiro), and even Inspector Zenigata (Koichi Yamadera).  The villains this time out are an unscrupulous archaeologist, Lambert (Kotaro Yoshida), who is backed by a Nazi revivalist, Gerard (Tatsuya Fujiwara).  The film is set in the 1960s, and has fun with vintage vehicles and period touches.  It takes its cues from Indiana Jones, Tintin, and James Bond, of course.  Compared to other "Lupin" media, it feels toned down to appeal to general audiences.  The recent traditionally animated Lupin shows and movies have been geared more toward adults.  In this outing, Lupin barely bothers flirting with Fujiko.

I got a little impatient with "Lupin III: The First" toward the end.  The film puts Laetitia front and center as often as Lupin, and her story is pretty bland and predictable.  I don't think we got nearly enough of Zenigata, Jigen, Goemon, or Fujiko, though I was happy with what we did see of them.  There are a few winks and homages for Lupin fans to look out for, but this outing seems more interested in catching the eyes of new viewers.  And there's nothing wrong with that, especially when it's a feature as beautifully put together as this newest "Lupin III" film. 

    

  

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"Wolfwalkers" is a Win

"Wolfwalkers" is the latest feature from Cartoon Saloon, and it's their best by a significant margin.  While I've enjoyed their previous features, especially their commitment to using traditional animation and Irish folklore in many of their projects, their films always felt a bit limited by budget and resources.  "Wolfwalkers" is their biggest and most ambitious film to date, with an epic story and scope to match.  Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, this is the first Cartoon Saloon film that feels on par with the output of the bigger animation studios like Ghibli and PIXAR.  

The story takes place in 17th century Ireland, when an English hunter, Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean) and his daughter Robyn (Honor Kneafsey) come to the city of Kilkenny.  Bill is there under the command of the Lord Protector (Simon McBurney) to rid the surrounding forest of a troublesome pack of wolves.  Robyn is expected to stay home and mind house, which she chafes against immediately, as she views herself as an "apprentice hunter."  She follows her father into the woods and meets Mebh, a wild little "wolfwalker" girl who can change into the form of a wolf at night and command the other wolves.  She's the daughter of the pack leader, Moll (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who has gone missing.  

"Wolfwalkers" is absolutely gorgeous.  It takes its main visual inspiration from woodblock prints and celtic symbols, often weaving them into the film's visual language.  The scenes with Robyn in Kilkenny, working in a scullery, are designed to look like medieval illumination panels, rigidly segmented, with repetitive, angular images.  Scenes from the POVs of the wolves, dubbed "wolfvision" in the credits, feature beautifully raw, free-form animation that lean into its messy, hand-drawn nature.  You can actually see the pencil lines on the wolves as they move, emphasizing their fluidity and roughness.  Mebh is the standout character here, a marvelous little ball of energy and sharp teeth, who sports a big mane of red hair in her human form.  As she zooms around the screen, she's often little more than a round or ovoid  shape, bouncing around in constant motion.

I will caution that "Wolfwalkers" is easily the most violent of Cartoon Saloon's films, with much of the plot centered on the deep enmity between the human and wolf characters.  The leads are a little older than the kids in the previous Cartoon Saloon features, and facing problems that are bigger and thornier.  The finale is a big battle sequence full of action and mayhem.  As a result, there are bites, stabbings, getting shot with arrows, and the traditional plunging off of tall cliffs with sharp rocks at the bottom.   The story also gets very dark, often due to the involvement of the oppressive villain, the Lord Protector, who is based off of Oliver Cromwell.  Though not addressed directly, there are definitely allusions to Britain's historical repression of Ireland in the mix here, as well a big emphasis on the sexism of the time period.  Of course, it all ends happily after ever, but getting there might be rough on younger kids.

However, "Wolfwalkers" is far from glum.  The filmmakers use humor very well here, especially in the scenes where Robyn and Mebh learn about each other and become friends.  The young actresses supplying the voices for the girls are a lot of fun, and bring a lot of energy and verve.  The sequences featuring wolves and wolfvision are mostly joyous and exuberant, full of jaw-dropping visuals that serve as a good reminder of what 2D animation is so good at.  Bruno Coulais and the folk group Kíla are back for the score, their third for Cartoon Saloon, with some lovely vocal contributions by Aurora and Maria Doyle Kennedy.    

It's been a very good year for animation, and currently "Wolfwalkers" is at the top of my list.  It's a big step up for Cartoon Saloon, and I look forward to whatever they've got coming next.  

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Cheers to "Ted Lasso"

At first glance, "Ted Lasso" looks easy to quantify. A folksy, eternally optimistic football coach from Kansas, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudiekis), is hired to manage a struggling Premiere League soccer team in the UK, AFC Richmond. Nobody likes the idea, not the team, not the fans, and not the media, especially as Lasso readily admits that he knows nothing about soccer. The team's owner, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), clearly has ulterior motives. However, Ted is able to gradually win people over as the season progresses, because of his relentless positivity and shrewd method of coaching.

Jason Sudeikis has finally found his iconic character, and I'm so happy for him. Ted Lasso is the perfect hero for the COVID era, not just a blind optimist, but someone who has plenty of doubts and frustrations, and is very self-aware and discerning. He understands that there is a cost to applying his philosophy to real life, and we watch him struggle mightily with many decisions as the team continues to flounder all season. We can tell that it bothers him when every fan in Richmond rains abuse on him wherever he goes, but he almost never fails to be polite and upbeat. Almost. He's everything we want an American abroad to be - considerate, charming, self-effacing, and truly open-minded. He spouts dad-jokes, Midwestern aphorisms, and a wide variety of cultural references - everything from Kanye albums to Scorsese films. His assistant, Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), is along for the gig, to be Lasso's stalwart best friend and unconditional support - unless Lasso's really doing something stupid.

It's an absolute joy to watch Ted Lasso win over the Brits, person by person, and reveal along the way that the most hostile characters on the show are actually quite sympathetic human beings. AFC Richmond is dominated by two major personalities - conceited rising star Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), and gruff, past-his-prime team captain Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). Ted is less interested in inspiring them to play better than inspiring them to be better, which drives them crazy. They both know they're being manipulated, especially Roy, but they can't help going along with it anyway. You can predict most of the plot beat by beat, but it's still so much fun to watch these characters come out of their shells, turn a corner, and self-actualize. One of Ted's first successes is with Nathan (Nick Mohammed), the bullied equipment manager who is adopted into the coaching team. Or there's Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Rebecca's corporate toady, who gradually learns to grow an admirable spine.

Speaking of Rebecca, she's the show's other great character, and great performance. Coming off a bitter divorce and still processing a lot of pain, Rebecca has some truly despicable plans for the team. However, the show never treats her as a villain. You can always see the poised, brilliant, capable woman that she is under the thick armor, who is still figuring out who she wants to be. I love Hannah Waddingham's ability to play so many emotions at once. Rebecca's relationship with Ted is one of the show's highlights, and it's a joy to watch it being built on mutual respect and biscuits. The other big female figure on "Ted Lasso" is Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), a model dating Jamie. Far from a gold digger, she's one of the most loveable and mentally healthy people on the show. I'm so happy that she and Rebecca develop a gal pal dynamic, and that she always ends up being the mature one in any interactions with Jamie.

I can't get over how well written Ted Lasso is. It's full of little asides, lines that take a minute to fully register, and all of these beautifully wry, humane observations. Of course there's not time to get to know every member of the team, but the writers slip in these precise little moments of character building that are so much fun - witness Sam (Toheeb Jimoh) explaining he's obsessed with curses, not because he's African, but because he's a "Harry Potter" nut. Or the introduction of Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández), who constantly has a giant smile on his face and can't stop singing his own theme song. And when you look at the bigger picture, the way that the writers subvert certain parts of the usual inspirational team sports narrative is so effective. The ending of the first season really is one for the ages.  

         

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"For All Mankind" Reaches for the Stars

The premise of "For All Mankind" is absolutely fascinating.  What if the Space Race between the United States and the USSR never ended?  The answer is a mix of historical fiction and science fiction, charting an alternate timeline where the American and Soviet space programs were truly competitive.  In the opening moments of the premiere episode, we watch the iconic 1969 moon landing, but this time achieved by a Soviet cosmonaut.  The first season covers the following five years of the American space program and the Apollo missions, which see some drastic alterations thanks to the changed circumstances.

There are a lot of "Star Trek" alumni involved with the show, including co-creator Ronald D. Moore, but "For All Mankind" couldn't be farther from a "Trek" series.  It's a period piece first and foremost, taking pains to recreate the culture of NASA in the 1970s.  Some of the characters are real people, like Wernher von Braun (Colm Feore), or based on real people, and stock footage of Nixon and other major cultural figures appear regularly.  Secondly, it takes pains to examine the Space Race from multiple points of view, putting a handful of important characters and relationships at the forefront.  This includes astronaut Edward Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) and his wife Karen (Shantel VanSanten), astronaut Gordo Stevens (Michael Dorman) and his wife Tracy (Sarah Jones), senior manager Deke Slayton (Chris Bauer), Mission Control worker Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt),  astronaut trainees Molly (Sonya Walger), Dani (Krys Marshall), and Ellen (Jodi Balfour), and a teenage girl named Aleida Rosales (Olivia Trujillo), an illegal Mexican immigrant with dreams of joining NASA.

This macroscopic approach yields some wonderful things, allowing the show to juxtapose the thrilling Apollo missions with "Mad Men" style character drama at home, and touch on issues of racism, women's rights, and LGBT acceptance.  There is an emphasis on keeping the experiences of the astronauts as realistic as possible, so we only ever see technology that is appropriate to the era, and candidates have to worry about adhering to stringent standards and expectations, both on the job and off.  At the height of the Cold War, there's still constant paranoia about Communism, drugs, and appearing in any way un-American.  I think the writers do a good job of balancing the melodrama with the spectacle for most of the first season, but I have some reservations about the last two episodes, where too many unlikely events are piled on one another, breaking my suspension of disbelief.  I really adore some of the earlier installments though, including the one focusing on astronaut training, and another where an astronaut suffers a mental breakdown during a mission.           

The cast is very good, with a lot of interesting smaller parts.  The focus shifts to different characters from episode to episode, so you really get to appreciate the whole ensemble.  I think Wrenn Schmidt is probably my favorite, playing Margo Madison, an antisocial woman scientist who is the protege of the notorious Wernher von Braun.  Margo is a good stand-in for women in science, and really all scientists who may have had mixed feelings toward von Braun's involvement at NASA.  There's also Shantel VanSanten as Karen, trying to play the perfect image of wife and mother to support her husband Ed, but she has such interesting angles and nuances.  She really shoulders a lot of the weight of the back half of the season, and I love the relationship between her and Wayne (Lenny Jacobson), the bohemian artist who winds up in her social circle.         

The production values of the series are fantastic, and Apple and Sony clearly spared no expense.   What I think really sets "For All Mankind" apart, however, is that it does such a good job of evoking the nostalgic '60s and '70s visual iconography of the American space race.  The various vehicles, rockets, spacesuits, and other paraphernalia look straight out of documentary footage.  Mission Control, in particular, is a wonderfully familiar sight.   I think this is why it feels so off whenever the show veers too far away from reality - not the history, but the tone.  "For All Mankind" resists being a typical, sensationalist space adventure program for so long, it's a little disappointing to realize that's ultimately what it is.  I think the dissonance will be reduced in future seasons as the show moves further and further away from actual history.    

  

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"News of the World" and "The White Tiger"

Paul Greengrass's latest film is a western, set in 1870, about a man named Captain Kidd (Tom Hanks), who rides from town to town, charging far-flung settlers a dime to hear the news read.  One day he comes across an upturned wagon and a blonde girl named Johanna (Helena Zengel), who speaks only Kiowa.  She was abducted and raised by Indians, and now needs to be transported back to her surviving relatives.  Johanna is not keen on this idea, and despite Kidd's repeated attempts to pass her off into the care of others, he finds himself pressed into the role of her temporary guardian.  The journey is an eventful one, and the pair face many dangers on their way.

"News of the World" is a fantastic looking film, shot by Dariusz Wolski.  Frontier towns, lonely homesteads, and an endless expanse of rough country have been painstakingly recreated.  The elements are out in full force, including pouring cloudbursts and a dust storm in the third act.  Greengrass keeps the pace brisk and the central odd couple moving from one exciting event to the next.  As modern westerns go, the story is fairly sentimental and uplifting.  You have two lost souls making their way together through a hostile world together, trying to recover from tragedy.  The material is often sobering, acknowledging the bleaker, harsher realities of life in this era, and alluding to much worse.  What's actually onscreen, however,  is strictly PG-13 and fairly action-oriented.  The narrative is really a bunch of larger-than-life vignettes strung together, where Captain Kidd and Johanna make it out of various scrapes through their combined wits, luck, and daring.     

The performances are good, and Helena Zengel is an especially strong, energetic presence.  Her wild child antics are easily the most entertaining element of the film, and I like how it's so sympathetic to her situation.   Much of her dialogue is in Kiowa, and she's constantly doing very physical things - running away, fighting people twice her size, and loudly protesting against whatever civilized nonsense someone is trying to force upon her.  Tom Hanks is dependably solid here, but he's essentially playing a variation on the same character he's been playing for the last twenty years.  Nobody is breaking any new ground here, but it's a charming film, well made, and an audience pleaser in a season that needs them more than ever.  I'd put this first on the list of recent movies safe to watch with my parents, and that's not a long list these days.  

Far more ambitious and interesting is "The White Tiger," written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, who I've long associated with tiny American indie films like "Chop Shop" and "99 Homes."  This is his first film set in India, that deals with Indian society and social issues.  And he tackles the material with a ferocity that is very exciting.  "The White Tiger" adapts the novel by Arvind Adiga, following the rise of a young man named Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav) from a life of poverty in a rural village to success as a self-described entrepreneur in a quickly globalizing India.  Balram narrates the story for us through a letter he is writing to visiting Chinese premiere Wen Jiabao, explaining how he was able to escape the "rooster coop" of Indian social customs.     

The primary relationship explored by the film is that of the master and servant.  Balram is shrewd enough to get himself hired as a driver for a young man named Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra Jonas).  Both are American educated and progressive minded, but are caught up in the bribery schemes of Ashok's father (Mahesh Manjrekar) and brother Mukesh (Vijay Maurya).  As Balram gains the trust of his employers, he sees more and more of their faults and vices, and learns how expendable he is to them.  Adarsh Gourav does a fantastic job of carrying the film, embodying Balram's conflicting loyalties and his growing dissatisfaction with his place in life.  The tone of the film is similar to off-kilter crime thrillers like "Filth" and "Nightcrawler," making good use of black comedy and bitter social commentary.  There's something very Travis Bickle about Balram, who is able to justify the unthinkable to himself through perceptive critiques of the system. 

I also love the look of the film, which takes us from the poorest villages to the luxury hotels of New Delhi.  The cinematography often highlights the absurd juxtaposition of India's richest and poorest, and all the little ways that the hierarchy is enforced.  Balram is often expected to behave in an unnervingly subservient way to Ashok and his family, and never complain about his abuse or exploitation.  "The White Tiger" also touches on the hypocrisy and complicity of the more enlightened new generation, through Ashok and Pinky.  One of my favorite minor characters is a social reformer politician, dubbed The Great Socialist (Swaroop Sampat), who is a champion of the poor, but participates in the political bribery system with alarming gusto.            

It feels like Ramin Bahrani has been building up the "The White Tiger" for much of his career, after so many films about the working poor and dispossessed.  I certainly hope he gets to make more like it.  

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A Visit With "The Father"

Minor spoilers ahead.

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is an aging man developing severe cognitive and memory problems, who has just driven away his latest carer.  His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) moves him into the flat that she shares with her husband (Rufus Sewell), and hires a new carer, Laura (Imogen Poots), to stay with him during the day.  However, the situation quickly becomes untenable.    

 Anthony can't keep straight whether he is in his own flat or Anne's, what time of day it is, or what order things are happening in.  Sometimes Anne and her husband look like Olivia Williams and Mark Gatiss, and he doesn't recognize them.   The film is so effective because it shows most things happening from Anthony's point of view, so the audience shares in his confusion and frustration.  He has no idea who the man played by Mark Gatiss is, and neither does the audience, until he's introduced to us.  Anthony can't keep the name of Anne's husband straight, because it keeps changing from scene to scene.  He keeps losing his watch, and suspects others of stealing it.  

Anthony struggles mightily to keep on top of the ever-shifting circumstances of his life, never quite grasping everything.  On some level he knows what's going on and comprehends all the information he's been given, but can't make all the pieces fit together correctly anymore.  He's very intelligent and strong-willed, and used to getting his own way, so he's very resistant to being helped.  Hopkins is wonderful in the role, not afraid to make Anthony unlikeable in some scenes, and deeply vulnerable in others.  He's able to be wonderfully charming and charismatic, but also menacing and possibly dangerous.  It's awful to watch him deteriorate from his first appearance, where he insists to Anne that he doesn't need a carer, to the ending, where he's totally lost control of his life and has had to part with nearly everything he's familiar with.

Likewise, the rest of the cast does a great job juggling tricky roles.  Multiple characters share actors, and the details of their lives are always in flux.  Olivia Colman has the most cohesive of the supporting parts, playing Anne as a woman who has to make very difficult, emotionally devastating decisions about her father's care. So much of the film's effectiveness comes from watching her reactions to Anthony at his best and worst.  They clearly haven't had the best relationship, and despite Anthony's growing incapacity, he still has the ability to hurt his daughter emotionally.  And Anne is smart enough and kind enough to understand that he both does and doesn't mean it.  I also like Rufus Sewell as her husband, because he plays him as so ambiguous - how much of his animosity is driven by selfishness, and how much by his desire to protect Anne?

This is the first film directed by Florian Zeller, based on his own play.  There are plenty of stylistic flourishes and cinematic tricks in play, such that this easily could have been a gimmicky exercise in form, but Zeller keeps it very grounded, with the emotional conflicts always at the forefront.  There are key moments when we don't see the action from Anthony's POV, when we get those vital glimpses of Anne's struggle to support her father, or how Anthony's condition appears to someone outside the family.  I like that we don't get all the answers, and that the puzzle pieces don't all fit together.  We never do learn if Anne's husband is named James or Paul or something else.   

And I like that ultimately, the film is so empathetic, all about getting the viewer into Anthony's fracturing world, and forced to confront so many aspects of loss and grief.  It reminds me of "Amour" more than any other film, in its quiet brutality and use of the cinematic language in such unnerving ways.  

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"Judas and the Black Messiah" and "The Mauritanian"

I've spent a significant amount of time trying to figure out why "Judas and the Black Messiah," directed and co-written by Shaka King, didn't work for me.  It's a film that I've been looking forward to seeing for a while, with a fantastic cast that delivers excellent performances.  The subject matter is timely and involving, giving us a pointedly different take on the assasination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), and everyone involved seems to be deeply invested in getting things right.   

Lakeith Stanfield stars as Bill O'Neal, a petty criminal who is manipulated by the FBI to become their informant.  He works with a handler, Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemmons), to infiltrate the Black Panther Party in Chicago, becoming close to Hampton.  From this vantage point, the film presents a sympathetic profile of Hampton as a rising civil rights leader, and the Black Panther Party as an organization concerned with community betterment and outreach, as well as with more revolutionary aims.  Kaluuya's Hampton is a charismatic, passionate man with the potential for greatness.  We watch him fall in love with his girlfriend Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), suffer an endless onslaught of adversity and tragedy, and earn his place as the messiah figure of the piece.  Lakeith Stanfield has most of his best moments in reaction shots, stewing in his guilt as he becomes more and more aware of the role he's being forced to play.  

It's good to see the FBI portrayed as the unquestionable villains here, with Martin Sheen appearing briefly as a deeply racist J. Edgar Hoover.  The actions of law enforcement to combat the Panthers, and their orchestration of various murders and killings is appalling to see.  Wisely, the FBI is not treated as a monolithic entity of injustice.  Plemmons' Agent Mitchell is in a role similar to O'Neal's, stuck carrying out orders that he doesn't agree with.  However, Shaka King is so focused on reorienting the narrative to reveal the injustices perpetrated by the FBI, it's detrimental to the impact of the message.  O'Neal gets lost in the aftermath, as the focus shifts to Johnson.  The film ends with an extended summary of what happened to the surviving characters after Hampton's death, making it feel like the film ended too abruptly.  This is King's second film, and while I admire his ambitions, the filmmaking doesn't quite live up to them.

 

"The Mauritanian" is a more familiar kind of film showing the injustices and abuses of the U.S. government.  We've racked up quite a few titles about the abuses of the post-9-11 Bush administration.  "The Mauritanian" can be slotted in right next to "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Report," though it takes the form of a legal drama instead of a political thriller.  What "The Mauritanian" offers, however, is a film that finally gives us a detainee narrative primarily from the detainee's point of view, one that humanizes him in a way that doesn't feel insincere or gimmicky.  The film is based on "Guantanamo Diary" by Mohamedou Ould Salahi, the Mauritanian of the title who was held at Guantanamo for fourteen years without charges.

The film uses a bit of a bait and switch.  At first, American lawyers Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley) are set up as the leads, who take on the case of Salahi (Tahar Rahim), after he's already been held at Guantanamo for some time.  Simultaneously, there's the case against Salahi being prosecuted by Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Cumberbatch), who believes Salahi was a major Al Qaeda recruiter.  Both sides gradually uncover the truth about Salahi's innocence and his treatment by the CIA.  As the film goes on, Salahi himself becomes more and more prominent, relaying the most painful parts of his story directly and through flashbacks.  It really is Tahar Rahim's movie, showcasing his excellent performance throughout. 

Kevin Macdonald directed, from a screenplay by newcomers M.B. Traven, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani.  I appreciate how straightforward and easily approachable the film is, especially the way Guantanamo is depicted as a fairly mundane place with a gift shop and fast food restaurant.  It takes away so much of the aura of mystery away from the place, when you see it as just another extension of U.S. government institutions.  In contrast, Salahi's flashbacks to his life in Mauritania and Germany are beautifully idyllic and poignant.  When the scenes of torture do occur, late in the film, they hit with unusual impact because the dehumanization of the victim in this context is impossible.  The most touching scenes take place in the film's coda - similar, but far better executed to than the one in "Judas in the Black Messiah."  And I leave you to discover why for yourself.

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"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," in the Rear View

Peter Biskind's 1998 book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" has long been held up as the pre-eminent chronicle of the New Hollywood era, when the declining studio system temporarily ceded power to a group of young upstart filmmakers, who would invigorate American filmmaking in the late '60s and '70s.  It follows the ups and downs of roughly fifteen filmmakers, and profiles many of the producers, actors, writers, and editors in their spheres.  And their endless parade of wives, girlfriends, and paramours.  

The book is about the making of films, and structured around the creation of various films, but rarely has much to say about the films themselves.  The focus of the book is on the filmmakers, on their relationships and their friendships.  Biskind often seems obsessed with the minutiae of their lives - what real estate they bought, what cars they drove, what drugs they were doing, and so much gossip about their love lives.  Few of the profiled producers and directors come off well.  Biskind characterizes them collectively as a gang of talented, enthusiastic young revolutionaries who were all corrupted or compromised eventually by fame, money, and power.  Individually, they were all their own special brand of brilliant maniac - Dennis Hopper was a violent madman, William Friedkin was a cold monster, Peter Bogdanovich was an obnoxious egomaniac, Hal Ashby was a paranoid eccentric, and Francis Ford Coppola was a self-styled mogul with delusions of grandeur.  Everyone was horrible to their wives and partners.  Keep in mind, however, that a good chunk of Biskind's interviews were with those wives and partners, as well as the many, many enemies that everyone accumulated by the end of the 70s.  

While Biskind romanticizes the New Hollywood era to some extent, I found the book very effective at puncturing the enduring myth of the '70s being this wonderful Nirvana for American filmmaking.  The hard-won independence and the power always came at a price, and the vast majority of the directors involved couldn't handle it, often self-destructing like Hopper and Bogdanovich after only a few films.  Budgets always ballooned.  Egos always took over.  Loyalties were always destroyed by squabbles over money.  The survivors of the era, like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, were outliers who learned to get along with the blockbuster-obsessed studios in the '80s.  The only filmmaker who established real lasting independence was George Lucas, who famously couldn't do anything with it except to make more "Star Wars" pictures.  Nearly everyone else met with irrelevance, decline, and sometimes truly tragic ends.   

I appreciated the book for putting many of the films I grew up admiring in a more thoughtful cultural context.  Part of the success of "The Godfather" was due to its experimental wide release pattern, then unheard of for a studio film.  "Star Wars" was mocked by the other New Hollywood directors - except Steven Spielberg.  "The Conversation," and "Raging Bull" were critical favorites, but financial disappointments.  I still don't like or understand "Shampoo," but I think I have a better idea of what people think it is.  I got the most out of the material about BBS, Raybert, the Director's Company - production entities that only seemed to exist for a minute - and all the bombs that nobody talks about  - "The Last Movie," "Daisy Miller," "New York, New York," and "Sorcerer."  And it's good to have any kind of retrospective of Robert Evans that isn't coming from Robert Evans.

The "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" documentary, produced by the BBC in 2003, and directed by Kenneth Bowser, is a different animal.  It hits many of the major themes of the Biskind book, and covers most of the same material, but a two hour documentary can't be what a 400 page book is, obviously.  The documentary is structured very differently, with new material devoted to Roger Corman, Sam Peckinpah, and "Midnight Cowboy." There's almost nothing about the directors' personal lives, and the salacious details and gossip are mostly gone.  Instead, this is a more film-focused, well-rounded  history of the New Hollywood era - in short what I expected that the book was going to be.

There's also a much more nostalgic tone, likely owing to the interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Paul Schrader, Dennis Hopper, John Milius, Polly Platt, Cybil Shepherd, Gloria Katz, Peter Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, and Peter Bart.  It uses a ton of movie clips and old promotional footage, and it's fun seeing Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt talk about their Malibu Beach house, the nexus of the movie brats during the early 70s.  The only quibble I have with it is that the emphasis is on the successes of New Hollywood to a much greater extent than failures.  Only the last half hour of the documentary says much about the decline, while Biskind gave it much more attention.  

As much as Biskind made his subject seem like terrible, self-indulgent addicts and abusers, in the end he also makes them very poignant figures.  The book closes with the bleak death and funeral of Hal Ashby.  The documentary closes with the release of "Raging Bull," described as New Hollywood's "one last scream of primal defiance." 

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