93rd Academy Awards: The 2021 Oscar Prediction Post

Estimated Reading Time: 3 hours 47 minutes 22 seconds

The Academy Awards are once again upon us and the biggest question about them is…does anyone give a rat’s ass?

As the show’s dwindling ratings prove, interest in the once mighty Oscars has been in steep decline in recent years. It would seem the perfect storm of a plethora of streaming service tv shows and reduced attention spans, as well as a paucity of genuine movie stars and a plenitude of identity politics has wounded, maybe fatally, the once iconic awards.

As a denizen of Hollywood, I’ve never experienced an awards season that has generated so little interest. It appears that even though, due to streaming services, movies are more available to more people than ever before, they seem to have never mattered less.

Part of the reason for that is that, for a vareity of reasons - not the least of which was Covid, 2020 was just a cinematically lackluster year. A handful of good movies came out this year, but no truly great ones, and certainly no films that ignited the public’s passions.

With that said, the reality is that it is my sworn and solemn obligation to share with you my Oscar picks. Please remember that these picks are NOT TO BE USED FOR GAMBLING PURPOSES!!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Who will win: Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari) - Not a fan of this movie or this performance, but it checks a diversity box Academy members want to celebrate. I personally think Amanda Seyfried (Mank), Olivia Colman (The Father) and Maria Bakalove (Borat) are considerably more deserving. There’s an outside chance Bakalove pulls the upset…but don’t bet on it.

Who should win: Seyfried or Colman.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Who will win: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) - This is a slam dunk, and deservedly so. While I liked Paul Raci (Sound of Metal) and LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah), Kaluuya crushes his role as Fred Hampton.

Who should win: Kaluuya

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Who will win: Promising Young Woman - Emerald Fennel : This is one of the few interesting categories. I think Fennel wins because the Academy is desperate to to appease the woke wolves at its door, and Fennel is a woman so she qualifies. There’s a pretty good chance that they give the award to Aaron Sorkin for his atrocious The Trial of the Chicago 7. That movie is dreadful and the script a joke, but it taps into the whole self-righteousness of the moment. That said…I think Fennel gets the nod.

Who should win: Sound of Metal - Darius Marder

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Who will win: Nomadland - Chloe Zhao: I think Zhao and Nomadland are the big winners come Oscar night…but if Florian Zeller wins this award (which I think he should) for his adaptation of The Father, it could be a monkey wrench into the Nomadland dominance.

Who should win: The Father - Florian Zeller

ANIMATED FEATURE

Who will win: Soul. This is a no-brainer. I liked Soul and it is certainly an antidote to our tumultuous times. Also…the Pixar machine is unstoppable.

Who should win: Soul I guess.

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Who will win: Mank - I think Mank finally gets on the board here. if it loses this category it may very well get shut out of all awards. The big competition will come from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Who should won: Mank.

COSTUME DESIGN

Who will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - I think Ma Rainey and its popular costume crew win here for a variety of non-merit based reasons. If Mank wins, which it could, that is a big deal and could portend a mini-Mank run in some behind the camera categories.

Who should win: Mank.

MAKEUP AND HAIR

Who will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Same as above.

Who should win: Mank.

EDITING

Who will win: Sound of Metal - There’s a chance that Trial of the Chicago 7 could win (God help us), but I think Sound of Metal pulls it off. If Nomadland win then look out, that is a sign it will win a huge amount of hardware on Oscar night.

Who should win: Sound of Metal

SOUND

Who should win: Sound of Metal - Outside chance that Mank or Soul win, but that seems very unlikely. if Mank wins it is another sign of a big night for that movie…but that seems unlikely.

Who should win: Sound of Metal

VISUAL EFFECTS

Who will win: Tenet - This seems like it’s going to happen.

Who should win: I’ll be honest…I don’t know.

SCORE

Who will win: Soul - Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross: This seems like a slam dunk too. An outside chance Terence Blanchard wins for his bombastic score to the equally awful Da 5 Bloods.

Who should win: Soul.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Who will win: My Octopus Teacher - I’m not sure why but people love this movie and I think the votes for potential winners Collective, Crip Camp and Time get split and the octopus wins.

Who should win: No idea.

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Who will win: Another Round - I think this beats out Qou Vadis, Aida by a nose.

Who should win: Another Round.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Who will win: Nomadland - This is a bellwether award…if everything goes to plan then Nomadland should win and clean up at the Oscars. If Mank wins…its gonna be an interesting night because that signals Mank has a ground swell of support and Nomadland is floundering.

Who should win: Mank. Nomadland is extremely well shot by Joshua James Richards, no doubt about it, but my tastes run slightly more towards Erik Messerschmidt and Mank.

BEST ACTOR

Who will win: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) - This is set in stone. With Boseman’s tragic death and the narrative around the award, it would be an absolute shocker of the highest order if anyone else won. The only other potential winner is Anthony Hopkins for The Father…but that ain’t happening.

Who should win: Anthony Hopkins. Boseman is very good in Ma Rainey…but Hopkins is on another level in The Father.

BEST ACTRESS

Who will win: Viola Davis - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom : This is one of the very few interesting categories. Frances McDormand is the front runner but I think that the fact that she won recently (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and a win here would put her in Meryl Streep territory with 3 Oscar wins, the Academy will look to feed the diversity beast by awarding Davis for her sub-par performance in that dreadful movie.

Who should win: Carey Mulligan - Promising Young Woman : I thought Mulligan was better than everybody else.

BEST DIRECTOR

Who will win: Chloe Zhao - Nomadland : This too is a slam dunk. No way Fincher or Vinterberg pull of an upset. Just impossible.

Who should win: Fincher, Vinterberg or Zhao. Three different directors making very different films all did solid work.

BEST PICTURE

Who will win: Nomadland - This is happening. There is no stopping the Nomadland juggernaut. If Mank or (GOD HELP US ALL) The Trial of the Chicago 7 win, that is a sure sign of the apocalypse.

Who should win: Mank or Sound of Metal. They won’t win but I think they should. Nomadland is a good movie, but I thought these two were a little better.

Here’s the rest of the categories of which I have no opinion just a guess…

ORIGINAL SONG- One Night in Miami

LIVE ACTION SHORT - Two Distant Strangers

DOCUMENTARY SHORT - Concerto is Conversation

©2021

The Father and the Media's Dementia Simulation Machine

The Oscar-nominated The Father is a masterful film about living with dementia…and a reminder that the mainstream media is a dementia simulation machine.

The film immerses viewers in the confusion of dementia – the same sort of bewilderment caused by US media misinformation to disorient the public and make them easier to control and manipulate. 

The Father is a terrific movie that tells the story of an aging man struggling with dementia, and it has left me rattled as it’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the delusional and disorienting nature of American life.  

The film is rightfully nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards as it showcases a superb performance by Anthony Hopkins who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his stellar work.

What makes The Father such a poignant and insightful film is that director Florian Zeller doesn’t just show the effects of dementia on the screen, he immerses the audience in the excruciating experience of dementia.

Watching the film and experiencing that disease-imposed confusion, I couldn’t help but think about how, here in the U.S. at least, it feels as if our entire culture is suffering from a collective dementia. The disorientation and detachment from reality that come with that dreaded disease are entirely commonplace in America, where we seem incapable of remembering the past, or of clearly seeing the present.

This rapacious American dementia is fueled first and foremost by the mainstream media’s manipulation and misinformation.

The establishment media have long distorted reality in order to manufacture consent around a desired narrative. This is why Americans always see themselves as the “good guys” on the world stage and not as the imperialist aggressors and colonialist exploiters that we are.

For proof just look at the flag-waving coverage surrounding the Iraq war and the WMD nonsense, or the egregious media assaults on Julian Assange and Edward Snowden compared to the genuflecting coverage of infamous bs artists like Chris Kyle, George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.

This duplicitous media approach can often be so blatant as to be ridiculously absurd, such as when CNN described the rioting, looting and arson last Summer as “mostly peaceful” protests.

The same is true regarding the current wave of anti-Asian violence. The media blame the attacks on the ever-expanding yet conveniently amorphous label of “white supremacy”, but the videos and statistics regarding these repugnant attacks against Asians show black people are the majority of perpetrators, a fact the media steadfastly fail to mention.

Another dementia-like distortion caused by the media is the perception that police are killing black people en-masse.

As a 2021 Skeptic Research Poll found, most Americans greatly over-estimate the number of unarmed black people killed by police.

When asked “How many unarmed Black men were killed by police in 2019?”, 53.3 % of those self-described as “very liberal” estimated that over 1,000 unarmed black men had been killed by police, even though the actual number is believed to be between 60 – 100.

According to the same study, 24.9% of people killed by police are black, yet those self-describing as “liberal” or “very liberal” estimated the number to be 56% and 60% respectively.

This detachment from reality is no shock as according to a Gallup poll over half the country already over-estimates the size of the black population in general, believing it to be over 30% when in reality it is roughly 14%.

The over-estimation of police killings of unarmed black men is to be expected as every killing of a black person by the police or by a white person results in massive media coverage and a declaration that the only motivation for the incident is racism. In contrast the deaths of white people at the hands of police or by black perpetrators are not considered noteworthy.

The anti-Russia hysteria is another establishment media manufactured narrative that is directly at odds with reality, but that is deeply rooted in the American psyche.

Russiagate, hacking of electrical grids, using super-secret microwave weapons to attack U.S. diplomats, and putting bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, are just a few of the dominant pieces of anti-Russian disinformation devoid of fact that the media tout as gospel truth.

The immigration crisis is another bewildering story disorienting Americans. The media vehemently chanted the mantra “kids in cages” when Trump detained children at the border, but were silent when Obama did the exact same thing during his presidency. And now that Biden is doing it too, the media are back to downplaying its significance or ignoring it entirely.

And of course, the most perplexing media coverage surrounds the coronavirus. Originally the press excoriated anyone who raised the notion that the disease may have come from a lab in China, but now the truth that they aren’t sure where it initially came from is acknowledged.

The medical establishment is just as perfidious and deceitful as the media.

For example, Dr. Fauci knowingly lied early in the pandemic about the need for masks.

And last Summer a collection of medical professionals said that no large groups should gather, except for Black Lives Matter protests, making the obscene and absurd claim that the media manufactured “epidemic” of racism was just as bad as the coronavirus pandemic.  

In addition, concerns over vaccinations are broken down by race, with white concerns stigmatized and black concerns gently understood.

Just like dementia, this insidious media and medical duplicity creates stress, irritability and aggression among the populace.

In conclusion, The Father is a masterful film insightfully exploring the tragedy of dementia, and the hypocritical, pernicious, frivolous and mendacious establishment media are a relentless dementia simulation machine. The former is worth indulging, the latter is terminal and should be avoided at all costs.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT. 

©2021

Another Round: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A fascinating film featuring a terrific performance from Mads Mikkelson.

Language: Danish with English sub-titles.

Another Round, written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, tells the story of Martin, a teacher suffering a mid-life crisis. The film, which is nominated for Best International Feature Film at this year’s Academy Awards and is currently streaming on Hulu, stars Mads Mikkelsen as Martin, with supporting turns from Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe.

Director Thomas Vinterberg is a fascinating filmmaker. Vinterberg was, along with Lars von Trier, one of the founders of the Dogme 95 movement from the 1990’s which featured a bare bones cinematic aesthetic that emphasized story, acting and theme over elaborate special effects and technology.

His 1998 film The Celebration, which was the talk of the arthouse at the time, was the first of the Dogme 95 films and is not just a fantastic representation of that philosophy but also just a terrific film. If you have never seen The Celebration, I highly recommend you do.

Dogme 95 no longer exists, but the spirit of it lives on in Another Round, and the film is a wondrous example of that yearning for cinematic purity in action.

Another Round is an amazing film in that it is a dark comedy but also a profound drama. This merging of humor and profundity may be the result of the tumult and tragedy which surrounded the film’s production.

The idea for the film came from a play Vinterberg was writing which was partially inspired by stories his daughter Ida told him about drinking in Danish youth culture.

Ida was set to have a supporting role as one of Martin’s daughters in the film, but tragically, four days into filming, Ida was killed in a car crash. She was 19.

In this context it is no surprise that the existentialism of Another Round hangs over the film (which is dedicated to Ida) like a heavy, dark storm cloud, and gives it the gravitas that makes it such an interesting drama. And yet, Vinterberg is still able to masterfully turn the movie into a yearning for life rather than a commentary on death.

Vinterberg’s ability, both as writer and director, to create compelling characters and dynamic drama is extraordinary, and he is assisted in this endeavor on Another Round by the magnificent Mads Mikkelsen.

Mikkelsen as Martin adds to the weight of the project, as he opens the film looking like a man carrying the heavy cross of a lifeless existence, a burden under which he is suffocating. Martin’s fear of an empty life trapped within the prison of middle-class respectability make him a tortured soul, and a compelling character.

Mikkelsen is as unique an actor as Vinterberg a director. Mikkelsen is blessed as an actor, as he is impossibly handsome, yet not a pretty boy, and his face conveys a depth and complexity that draws in viewers and tells a story all its own. Mikkelsen brings a magnetism and power to the screen and combines it with a high level of craftsmanship, which results in a truly dynamic and captivating performance as Martin.

If you’re interested (and you should be), another Vinterberg/Mikkelsen film of note is 2012’s The Hunt. The Hunt, like Another Round, is a remarkable film and it highlights what is best about both Vinterberg and Mikkelsen as artists.

Another Round is also elevated by terrific supporting work from Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe. This trio, as well as Maria Bonnevie as Martin’s wife, bring a grounded complexity to roles that in lesser hands could have been caricature.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m intentionally being elusive about the plot of Another Round because I think it’s definitely worth seeing and it’s best seen with as little information about the story as possible.

In conclusion, Another Round is very deserving of both the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and of your attention. I highly recommend you see it. But be forewarned, it is an arthouse, foreign film (Denmark), so its pacing and plot may feel a little unconventional to viewers used to more mainstream fare, but also note that it isn’t so unorthodox as to be incomprehensible or off-putting. The bottom line is…if you like great cinema and great acting, you should see this movie.

©2021

The Father: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An astounding performance from Anthony Hopkins and skilled storytelling make this movie an arthouse gem.

The Father, written and directed by Florian Zeller (based on his stage play Le Pere), tells the story of Anthony, an aging man suffering from dementia. The film stars Anthony Hopkins with supporting turns from Olivia Colman, Imogen Poots and Rufus Sewell.

Anthony Hopkins has long been one of the very best actors on the planet. Ever the consummate craftsman, Hopkins has throughout his career managed to conjure remarkable performances in roles as dramatically diverse as Hannibal Lecter, Richard Nixon, John Quincy Adams and Pope Benedict, not to mention his measured and constrained brilliance in The Remains of the Day, Howards End and Shadowlands.

Now at age 83, Hopkins surpasses all of his previous brilliance in The Father.

Hopkins is not going to win the Best Actor Oscar this year solely because the late Chadwick Boseman is such an overwhelming sentimental favorite, but that doesn’t mean Hopkins’ loss will not be a travesty.

As the dementia-addled Anthony, Hopkins brings all his astounding talents, skill and craftsmanship to bear for what might be his final piece of artistic genius. Hopkins’ performance is utterly astounding and is an exquisite masterclass in precision, detail and specificity.

Hopkins’ Anthony is a modern day King Lear filled with a ferocity and fear that gives him a sharp edge and a pulsating fragility that is never flamboyant or showy, just devastating.

Hopkins has always been a master of placing emotional circles within physical straight lines, this is how his Hannibal Lecter is so frightening and his Nixon so compelling. It is the vibrant inner life within the controlled and contained outer facade that gives Hopkins his power as an actor, and in The Father, that power goes supernova.

Aiding Hopkins is Olivia Colman who is stellar as Anthony’s daughter and caregiver Anne. Colman too gives Anne a pulsating inner wound and emotional vibrancy that makes her a complicated, compelling and captivating In some ways screen presence.

Imogen Poots and Rufus Sewell bring their considerable talents to bear on smaller roles, but elevate them and the film considerably.

In some waysThe Father feels like a horror movie because it so viscerally immerses the audience into the terror of life with dementia. The disorientation Anthony and the audience experience is unnerving and leaves you praying that this movie is the closest you will ever come to that level of dreaded disorientation.

The credit for that experience is first time feature film writer/director Florian Zeller. Zeller is a playwright of some renown and The Father is his major first step/leap into the art of filmmaking. Zeller’s wonderfully constructed script and deft direction magnificently flesh out the intricacies and insanities of Anthony’s dementia-addled mind. His storytelling is confident and seamless, and his ability to never rush, push or over-explain, turn The Father from a potential movie-of-the-week afterthought into an arthouse masterwork.

With The Father Florian Zeller is declaring himself as a filmmaker to watch going forward, while Anthony Hopkins is simply proving he is one of the greatest actors of his generation. We should appreciate him while he is still with us.

If you have ever known or cared for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s, The Father will be a difficult but worthwhile watch, as art of this caliber can be greatly cathartic. For lovers of great acting and storytelling, The Father is definitely for you, and I highly recommend you seek it out.

The Father is currently in theatres and on VOD.

©2021

Exterminate All the Brutes: A Documentary Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!! THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A pretentious disappointment.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be stuck on a four-hour flight sitting next to a rambling, drunken college student who just read their first book about colonialism, genocide and white supremacy and mistakenly thinks they have some profound insights, have I got a documentary series for you…

Exterminate all the Brutes is the new unconventional, four-part docu-series from filmmaker Raoul Peck now available on HBO and HBO Max that explores the vast history of colonialism, genocide and white supremacy from a non-white and non-European perspective.

The documentary is based on the books Exterminate all the Brutes (Sven Lindqvist), An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz) and Silencing the Past (Michel-Rolph Trouillot), and chaotically mixes documentary footage, home movies, popular films, animation, and fictional scripted scenes to create a sort of experimental, impressionistic cinematic essay instead of a straight forward documentary.

Exterminate All the Brutes, a phrase which comes from Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece Heart of Darkness, highlights the greatest hits of horror in the history of humanity and is divided into four parts titled, “The Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance”, “Who the F*ck is Columbus?”, “Killing at a Distance”, and “The Bright Colors of Fascism”.

From Europeans explorers, to the plundering of Africa and the slave trade, to the eradication of the Native American population, to Hitler, the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima, the documentary leaves no stone of brutality, barbarity and white supremacy left unturned.

The series attempts to tie together the genocide of the American Indians, slavery and the Holocaust in order to expose the unique evil of white supremacy and its impact on modern Western civilization.

The writer and director Raoul Peck, who’s documentary on James Baldwin, I am Not Your Negro, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2017, should be applauded for his ambition on Exterminate All the Brutes, but certainly not his execution. Ultimately, in his attempt to create a profound, personalized poem, Peck instead produces a painfully pretentious polemic.

The series is not so much thorough as it cluttered, and while it has a specific topic, it is devoid of a distinct thesis. I would probably agree with Peck’s argument regarding colonialism if I could actually discern what exactly it was. As a result of this lack of a detailed thesis, the documentary comes across as a distracted, incoherent, stream of consciousness diatribe fueled by an adolescent, if not infantile, intellectualism. It feels more like a tantrum resulting from deep frustration and helplessness than a dissertation born out of intense study.

Peck’s journey into the heart of darkness of colonialism, slavery and genocide may very well be a noble venture but it is also egregiously narcissistic. Peck not only tells you what he knows but endlessly recites how and from whom he came to know it.

Peck also vents his rage at individuals he dislikes, like Donald Trump, and groups he despises, like the Scots-Irish…boy does he have a bug up his ass about the Scots-Irish.

Peck’s anger also distorts his argument as he makes contradictory statements regarding his flawed premise. For instance, he brushes aside the “Guns, Germs and Steel” hypothesis and calls early Europeans backward and uncivilized, but then describes that Europeans came to dominate African peoples simply because they were able to create advanced technology and weapons that Africans could not.  

The greatest flaw of the documentary though, and there are many, is that as it guides viewers through the history of white European atrocities, it never breaks new ground or reveals unearthed truths. Anyone with half a brain in their head is aware of the horrors of colonialism, slavery and genocide by now. The fact that the U.S. was born on the back of African slaves and the genocide of American Indians isn’t exactly breaking news. But as Peck himself states in the film, “it is not knowledge that we lack”, which begs the question…if we don’t lack knowledge then what is the purpose of this four-hour monstrous mess of a docu-series?

Peck is also his own worst enemy as a storyteller as he narrates the series and his voice-over is, without exaggeration, the worst in the history of the spoken word. Never has someone talked so much (and so inaudibly) and said so little. Peck’s droning, garbled voice isn’t helped by the insipid platitudes he mutters like “neutrality is not an option” and “there are no alternative facts”.

That sort of overwrought emotionalism and intellectual vapidity is the life-blood of Exterminate All the Brutes. This is most evident in the cringe-inducing and laughably ludicrous scripted dramatic scenes haphazardly inserted throughout the series.

Actor Josh Hartnett is tasked with playing the embodiment of white supremacy and white privilege throughout history in the series of amateurish scenes, and his performance entails shooting a lot of brown people in the head and looking menacingly at the ones he hasn’t killed.

These scenes, and the scenes from Peck’s earlier dramatic films also shown, reveal the director to be a middling-at-best filmmaker, and Exterminate All the Brutes seems to be a case of an artist and pseudo-intellectual biting off considerably more than he could ever possibly chew.

In conclusion, I watched Exterminate All the Brutes so that you don’t have to. And trust me…you don’t have to…you really don’t have to.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Sound of Metal: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An insightful and captivating drama that boasts a simple but layered narrative, a fantastic performance from Riz Ahmed and some exquisite filmmaking craftsmanship.

Sound of Metal, written and directed by Darius Marder, tells the story of Ruben Stone, a drummer in a heavy metal duo that loses his hearing. The film stars Riz Ahmed as Ruben, with supporting turns from Olivia Cooke and Paul Raci.

Sound of Metal was released on Amazon Prime streaming service back in November of 2020. I would see the advertisement for it whenever I went online but was always hesitant to watch it as it looked like a rather predictable movie on its surface. I finally made the plunge last week and watched…and boy am I glad that I did.

Yes, Sound of Metal is about a drummer who loses his hearing, but it is infinitely more than that.

For some viewers, the premise of the movie and the opening scenes may be a hurdle, but I wholly encourage you to stick with the movie because it is a multi-layered, dramatically precise, profound and powerful piece of cinema well worth your time.

Director Darius Marder apparently developed this story for over a decade, and successfully navigated the minefield of Hollywood to get it made the way he wanted it made…and it shows.

Marder’s confidence as a filmmaker (this is his first feature) oozes through every scene of the film. The movie never takes the easy or predictable route in storytelling, and every time I thought I knew what was coming I was wrong. Marder’s refusal to rely on conventional narrative arcs and story turns makes Sound of Metal very compelling viewing.

The technical proficiency on display in the movie is impressive, as the film’s use of sound to propel the narrative and heighten the drama is masterful. The way the movie allows the audience to experience Ruben’s hearing loss creates a visceral intimacy that is captivating, jarring and mesmerizing.

The film is nominated for six Oscars, two of which include Best Sound and Best Editing and it should win both awards. The sound design on this movie is exquisite and is a pivotal part of the storytelling. The editing is seamless as scenes are never rushed nor linger too long and the film is perfectly paced.

The cast are terrific. Riz Ahmed is just one of those guys…he is an exceptional actor who has an innate presence to him that is compelling and undeniable. Ahmed is able to draw viewers into him rather than needing to be showy to attract their attention. His work as Ruben is specific and complex, and he never falls prey to the desire to overly emote. This role in lesser hands could have been a great deal of volcanic histrionics, but with Ahmed it is an exquisite exercise in subtlety and nuance.

Ahmed is nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance and while be probably won’t win, he certainly deserves to.

Paul Raci plays a counselor named Joe and is outstanding. Raci is a knock around type of actor who has been nibbling away at the periphery of the business for decades. This is the most prominent role in his career and he makes the most of the opportunity. Raci is so grounded and genuine as Joe I wasn’t sure he was a professional actor when I was watching him. I don’t say that as an insult, I say it to highlight how real he comes across and how devoid of performance his work truly is.

Olivia Cooke also acquits herself quite well as Lou, Ruben’s girlfriend and bandmate. Cooke is an intriguing screen presence and she makes the most of the small role she is given.

What makes Sound of Metal so profound is that it is extremely accurate and insightful when it comes to the issue of drug and alcohol recovery. The film expertly maneuvers through the choppy waters of recovery and never flounders.

Director Marder connects the audience to Ruben and we too fall under the spell of his unseen wound and issues. He seems fine to us because we want him to seem fine. When the reality of the situation is revealed it is a breathtaking moment and a staggeringly well executed piece of cinema.

I loved Sound of Metal because it’s a “simple” bit of filmmaking that makes use of the craft and skill of moviemakiing to create a piece of cinematic art. Obviously, just because something is simple does not make it easy. For instance, if you are an addict the simple solution to your problem is to stop using…but that ain’t easy.

The beautiful simplicity of the storytelling and filmmaking of Sound of Metal is why this movie is so impressive and this type of moviemaking so exceedingly rare.

I also loved Sound of Metal because of Riz Ahmed’s heartfelt and absurdly well-crafted performance. This is Ahmed at his very best and it is glorious to behold.

And finally, I loved Sound of Metal because it dramatically presents the important truth about the intricate process of recovery, one with which I am all too familiar and which America needs to learn in a hurry…that returning to normal isn’t the panacea the addicted mind thinks it is. Becoming sober doesn’t mean your life is perfect and you are instantly happy, it means life is still suffering but now you have to feel it because you aren’t drunk or high.

Recovery doesn’t end with sobriety, it BEGINS with sobriety. Once sober, you can start the journey of self-discovery to find the wounds that cause the pain you’ve been trying to self-medicate away. Returning to normal for the addict isn’t a return to a good place, it is a return to the place that instigated the drug and alcohol use in the first place (An example of which is establishment liberals wanting to ‘return to normal’ after the nightmare of Trump - well…the pre-Trump normal is what got us Trump!). Those in recovery must discover a new normal, one that is based on integrity and isn’t self-deceptive or self-destructive.

If you’re in recovery, Sound of Metal holds important lessons for you. If you love someone in recovery and want to understand what it is like, Sound of Metal is for you too. If you just like exceedingly well made movies, then Sound of Metal is for you too. Sound of Metal is just a terrific film and I highly recommend it.

©2021

Minari: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An over-hyped venture that ultimately underwhelms.

Minari, written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, tells the semi-autobiographical story of Chung’s South Korean immigrant family as it tries to achieve the American dream in 1980’s Arkansas. The film, which stars Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Youn Yuh-jung and Will Patton, has received six Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Yeun) and Best Supporting Actress (Youn).

Having survived the slog of cinema that was 2020, where even the very best films of the year like Mank, Nomadland and Judas and the Black Messiah are not great films, I held out hope for Minari to ride in on a white horse and save this year of cinema from death by a thousand mediocrities.

Unfortunately, Minari is not up to the task.

Minari is not a terrible movie, but it is not a very good one either. It suffers from many flaws, most notable being it doesn’t know what it is or what it wants to be and therefore ends up being a whole lot of nothing.

For example, in theory it has all the trappings of an arthouse movie but is so painfully conventional in execution it becomes devoid of interest and artistic credibility.

Minari is sort of like a working class Korean immigrant version of Marriage Story mixed with a culture clash/fish out of water/American Dream story, but it never successfully or even adequately tells any of those stories, preferring the approach of throwing everything into the stew yet creating no flavor.

A major flaw with the storytelling approach of Minari is that it has a generalized perspective, so there is no one particular protagonist to lead us through the story. Since Chung is writing auto-biographically, it would have been interesting to have his childhood perspective lead the way. But Chung seems incapable of the skill that would require, and therefore he halves the baby and spreads perspective around which saps the story of dramatic power.

Chung is also a rather unimaginative visual stylist, as Minari is a painfully flat film with sub-par framing and composition as well as a dull and stale color palette.

There are some interesting performances in the movie, most notably by Yeun and Will Patton of all people, but Chung’s lackluster direction is unable to contain these performances and therefore the drama dissipates even when the actors are running on all cylinders. Chung’s inability to break through the conventional leaves viewers detached and disinterested in the plight of these characters despite some skillful acting work.

Chung’s biggest failing though is as a writer, as he is incapable of trusting his audience with a pure arthouse experience and therefore sprinkles in narrative arcs and beats that are cookie-cutter conventionalities that fall dramatically flat. The contrast of this conventional story being wrapped in the deliberately paced trappings of an arthouse movie creates a frustrating movie decidedly at cross purposes with itself.

Ultimately, with the generalized perspective, the conventional narrative arcs and the tedious visual aesthetic, Minari feels like a bad tv drama more than a serious piece of cinema and Oscar contender.

As evidenced by the plethora of Oscar nominations and a stunning 98% critical score at Rotten Tomatoes, Minari is being lauded as a phenomenal film. But it seems to me that this is wishful thinking rather than accurate analysis of the film on screen.

In the wake of last year’s stirring success of Parasite, a spectacular piece of filmmaking by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, Minari has no doubt been given a boost among the critical elite in the hopes of bolstering “diversity and inclusion” and recreating Parasite’s stirring success.

In the flat earth society that is our culture, Parasite and Minari are in the same category despite having nothing in common except that they share the same language and ethnicity of director. This is absurd, but it is how our culture thinks and works, especially in the era of identity politics.

If Minari were the same story but centering around the struggles of some white family, critics would rightfully ignore it for the uninspired, middling movie that it is. The fact that mediocrities like Chung and Minari are nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay speaks to how precipitous the decline in the art of cinema has become and to the hyper-delusional nature of a film business glorifying “diversity and inclusion” instead of talent, skill and craftsmanship.

In conclusion, there is absolutely nothing interesting or remarkable about Minari. It is an underwhelming and instantly forgettable film that is not deserving of any accolades or praise. If you want to see a mundane, middle-of-the-road movie, Minari is definitely for you.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 31 - Nomadland

On this weeks episode of everybody's favorite cinema podcast, Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, Barry and I hop in a van and hit the road with Chloe Zhao's film Nomadland starring Frances McDormand. This episode contains discussions on grief and the meditative nature of the film, the required arthouse mindset, and the power of non-actors on-screen. Also featured are scintillating conversations about Jeff Bridges' Snicker bar diet, Chocolatey Chocolate Balls, Amazon's nefariousness and a live blow-by-blow account of a Wild Kingdom moment in Mike's backyard.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 31 - Nomadland

Thanks for listening!

©2021

Nomadland: A Review and Commentary

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An exquisitely crafted film that boasts a powerful yet grounded performance from Frances McDormand.

Oscar front-runner Nomadland chronicles the working class despair wrought by American capitalism, but still manages to kiss Amazon’s ass.

The film gives a gritty glimpse into the struggle of the working poor but genuflects to corporate power instead of exposing it.

Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand and written and directed by Chloe Zhao, tells the story of Fern, an older woman who lives in a van and survives as a seasonal worker in various locales across America.

The film, which is currently in theatres and streaming on Hulu, is based on the non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century and uses some of the real people from the book to play themselves in the movie.

Nomadland is fantastic and an Oscar front-runner, but it’s not for everybody as it’s an arthouse, verite style film with a loose narrative structure that lacks predictable dramatic beats. It is less a straightforward story than it is a melancholy and mournful meditation.

It is the topic of that meditation - American capitalism, impermanence and grief that makes Nomadland such an intriguing piece of cinema.

The story begins with Fern being forced to leave her long time residence in Empire, Nevada after the town’s US Gypsum plant closes and the once bustling area is abandoned.

Fern then takes to the road to run from her grief over losing Empire and her husband and travels throughout the west searching for seasonal employment.

She makes friends with fellow travelers, all suffering in similar circumstances, as she lives out of her van while working menial jobs in Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Chloe Zhao’s deft directorial touch gives the film a looser pace which results in a narrative with great space to breath. Zhao allows space, silence, framing, lighting and a very effective soundtrack work in unison to finely cultivate the drama instead of imposing it upon viewers.

The sense of isolation and desperation felt by Fern is heightened by cinematographer Joshua James Richards’ gorgeous panoramic shots of the vast and beautifully bleak western landscape.

Like the desolate landscapes, the deep lines in McDormand’s gloriously cinematic face also tell the story of all the hardships and heartbreaks throughout the years that have brought Fern and her working class kind to the brink of extinction.

Speaking of extinction, the film repeatedly refers to dinosaurs, and the sub-text is clear, the meteor of globalization, financialization and anti-unionism has hit and Fern and the working class in America are dinosaurs destined to aimlessly walk the darkened earth searching for scraps until they drop dead from exhaustion.

The film also frequently references carnivores, the symbolism of which is that American capitalism eats up and spits out working class people like Fern. In one scene Fern is horrified watching a crocodile in a zoo devour skinned rabbits for lunch, her primordial horror is driven by the fact that American capitalism is the crocodile, and she and all the poor people she loves are the rabbits.

Fern and her friends all bought into the lie that is the American dream, and now they find themselves older with dwindling energy and resources, alone and vulnerable living out the American nightmare. They’ve worked hard their whole lives and have nothing to show for it except for the existential terror of life without any safety net.

Despite the finely crafted filmmaking, McDormand’s powerfully grounded performance and the film’s chronicling of the wandering underclass and rightfully bemoaning the Titanic-esque economic state of America, it disappoints because it refuses to name or chastise the corporate villains hiding in plain sight.

For example, Fern works every Christmas season at an Amazon warehouse. The film actually got permission to shoot in a real Amazon fulfillment center, and that undoubtedly compromised its integrity.

The Amazon related scenes seem as if they were scripted by the company’s human resources and marketing departments as they’re basically shameless ads for the corporate behemoth.

Fern is shown leisurely meandering down vast warehouse walkways smiling and waving to other employees, and having fun in the break room with new friends, and telling others about how much money she makes and how the company covers the cost of her long-term van parking while she is an employee. The reality of employment at Amazon is much different, as the union busting, worker exploiting Bezos beast brutally cracks the whip on its employees like a frantic pharaoh building a pyramid one box at a time.

On its surface Nomadland is a descendant of the Sean Penn directed film Into the Wild and John Ford’s famed adaptation of Steinbeck’s working class masterpiece Grapes of Wrath.

Fern is somewhat a cross between Into the Wild’s free-spirited protagonist Alexander Supertramp and The Grapes of Wrath’s Tom Joad. The problem though, as highlighted by Nomadland’s shameless acquiescence to Amazon, is that Fern is Supertramp without spirit and Joad without spine.

Maybe the film’s lack of testicular fortitude in regards to Amazon is just another piece of sub-text, surreptitiously alerting viewers that the real problem is the modern demonization of masculinity and the feminization of America. In this way Fern is a castrated Tom Joad, not only unable, but unwilling, to fight against oppressors, instead preferring to collaborate in her own exploitation and denigration. 

More likely though is that the film’s Amazon ass-kissing is a function of that corporate monstrosity’s massive influence over Hollywood. Amazon is now a major movie and tv studio, and the suck ups and sycophants in Hollywood know that to get on Amazon’s bad side is a potentially fatal career move…so they pucker up and play act at caring about working class concerns rather than actually doing something about them.

Nomadland will probably win a bunch of well-deserved Oscars, but unfortunately the film is The Grapes of Wrath without the wrath, as it ultimately genuflects to the corporate power that created the working class tragedy it masterfully chronicles.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Promising Young Woman: Review and Commentary

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. This flawed, very dark comedy has a certain cinematic vitality to it that is compelling, and it also features a stellar performance from the beguiling Carey Mulligan.

Promising Young Woman is a #MeToo revenge fantasy that is both galling for its hatred of men but glorious for its artistry

****This article contains spoilers for the film Promising Young Woman****

Sometimes a movie says something you intensely dislike, but it says it so well you have to tip your cap. A case in point is the darkly comedic #MeToo revenge fantasy Promising Young Woman,

The film, written and directed by Emerald Fennell, tells the story of Cassie (Carey Mulligan), a med-school dropout consumed with grief and anger over her best friend’s rape and death.

In search of cathartic revenge, Cassie spends her time trolling bars pretending to be drunk to the point of incapacitation so that predatory men will attempt to prey upon her. Once they try and take full advantage of her she transforms to reveal herself to be a sober social vigilante shaming men for their repulsive behavior towards women.

Not surprisingly considering the subject matter, Promising Young Woman seethes with vicious misandry that is as disturbing as it is relentless. The film is an unabashed girl power polemic and propaganda piece that espouses the imaginary boogeyman of a pervasive “rape culture” that has only ever existed in the warped minds of Woman’s Studies majors and feminist fanatics. 

The film’s approach re-imagines the misogynistic tropes of Hollywood’s old male dominated storytelling by replacing it with an aggressive man-hating that manifests itself as every male character in the film being an utterly irredeemable predator, a sniveling coward, or both.

In this way it is like a feminist dark comedy version of an old Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly Stallone, Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood movie where one identity group, be it blacks, Mexicans, Russians or Arabs are reduced to stereotypes and are all the bad guys, except in this movie every guy is the bad guy.

Another movie that I kept thinking about while watching Promising Young Woman was Falling Down, the flawed but intriguing 1993 Michael Douglas film directed by Joel Schumacher. In Falling Down Douglas plays William Foster, a rampaging regular guy who keenly feels that modern life is unjust toward him. Promising Young Woman is the #MeToo version of Falling Down in that it takes a person’s frustrations at perceived injustice and pushes it to absurd extremes.

Besides finding all men deplorable, Promising Young Woman film does have some other flaws. For instance it runs about a half hour too long in an attempt to find a satisfying conclusion, but the ending is ultimately unsatisfying because it tries so hard to be satisfying. 

The film’s yearning for ultimate girl power catharsis also transforms it from biting satire into pure revenge fantasy, which ironically ends up neutering the film’s feminist/anti-male social commentary. 

When Cassie finally gets her revenge at the end of Promising Young Woman, this actually proves the alleged problem of a dominant patriarchal rape culture is just an imaginary dragon slain by Cassie in a Quixotic fantasy. But if the film had stuck to its artistic guns and let Cassie fail and be left to stew in her rage, fury and failure until the end of time, then the movie would’ve succeeded in highlighting the prevalence and power of the patriarchal rape culture its premise so adamantly claims.

It may come as a surprise after reading what I’ve already written that while I found the cultural politics of Promising Young Woman to be as repulsive as the film finds my gender, I also found that the movie possessed a rage-fueled vitality and artistry that at times was intoxicatingly entertaining, which is a credit to first time feature director Emerald Fennell.

My appreciation of the film is also a testament to the beguiling work of Carey Mulligan. Mulligan gives an incisive and insightful Oscar-worthy performance that is stunning to behold for its dynamism and detail. Mulligan masterfully imbues Cassie with a seething and righteous fury that animates her every action and it results in a gloriously magnetic performance.

Supporting actor Bo Burnham is also terrific as Ryan, a man with a crush on Cassie. Burnham, a comedian and director himself, is compelling as he tries to be both charming and passive in Cassie’s presence. The chemistry between the two actors comes across as grounded and genuine, and it elevates the film considerably.

It may seem odd that I am praising a film that has such a pronounced cultural and political perspective that I find distasteful and with which I vehemently disagree. But unlike so many writers and critics of today who find it impossible to tolerate anything or anyone in life that doesn’t agree with them fully, I am not only able to tolerate things I disagree with, I can actually appreciate them.

Promising Young Woman is both a testament to the worst totalitarian and draconian instincts of modern feminism and the #MeToo movement but also a glorious monument to Emerald Fennell’s bold direction and Carey Mulligan’s mesmerizing acting.

I recommend you see the film and judge it for yourself, and even though it viciously judges all men, audiences should have enough integrity to honestly judge it on its merits, not just on its pernicious cultural politics.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Pieces of a Woman: Review and Commentary

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. After the first thirty minutes the film isn’t very good but Vanessa Kirby is very good in it.

Pieces of a Woman is a story of forgiveness… so why is Netflix so keen to cancel its star, Shia LaBeouf?

Pieces of a Woman, the new arthouse film starring Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf that is garnering some Oscar buzz, premiered on Netflix on January 7.

The film, written by Kata Wéber and directed by Kornél Mundruczó tells the story of a Boston couple who suffer a traumatic home birth of their daughter. 

The film’s theme is the power of forgiveness, even for the most egregious of injuries. This would seem a prescient and poignant lesson in our current age of relentless cancel culture and shameless embrace of victimhood. Unfortunately, while that is a theme we need right now, this muddled misfire of a movie is not an adequate delivery system.

Pieces of a Woman starts off spectacularly, with a masterfully executed, compelling and captivating opening thirty minutes. But after that it quickly deteriorates into a maudlin, melodramatic exercise chock full of every dramatic cliché imaginable.

On the bright side, the film is an actor’s showcase and the luminous Vanessa Kirby makes the very most of the opportunity. Kirby, best known for her work on Netflix’s The Crown, gloriously transcends the mundane script and middling direction by giving a subtle, specific, dynamic and magnetic performance as the grieving yet resilient Martha.

Netflix is pushing for Kirby, already a Best Actress winner at the Venice Film Festival, to get a much-deserved Oscar nomination.

Netflix is also promoting the rest of the cast to get awards consideration… well, almost all of the rest of the cast. Every cast member is featured on Netflix’s “For Your Awards Consideration” webpage, except for Shia LaBeouf.

Why has LaBeouf, the main supporting actor in the movie who some critics – not me – claim is “remarkable”, been excluded from Netflix’s awards consideration material?

The answer is that LaBeouf’s former girlfriend, singer FKA Twigs, filed suit against him in December of 2020 for past sexual, physical and emotional abuse. In the wake of this lawsuit other women, including singer Sia, have come forward making varying claims of mistreatment.

In response LaBeouf wrote to the New York Times, “I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behavior made them feel. I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years…I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I'm ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt."

He later stated that many of the allegations were not true but that he owed the women “the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done.”

He added that he was “a sober member of a 12-step program” and in therapy. “I am not cured of my PTSD and alcoholism, but I am committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way.”

So, in a surreal twist, LaBeouf’s character in Pieces of a Woman is an at-times abusive alcoholic and in real life the actor is now accused of being an abusive alcoholic.

This is obviously a complex situation, one that requires a foregoing of our culture’s compulsive and muscular Manichaeism. But it would seem Netflix has not absorbed the nuanced message of forgiveness highlighted in Pieces of a Woman and are, ironically, purging LaBeouf from promotional material for a film about the power of radical forgiveness.

LaBeouf is not alone in being tossed into the memory hole by Netflix over allegations of past misdeeds. Johnny Depp recently lost a libel case against The Sun whom he sued for calling him a “wife beater”. In response, Netflix removed all of Depp’s films from its service.

It’s important to note that neither LaBeouf nor Depp have been proven to have committed any crime, they’ve only been accused. And yet Netflix didn’t hesitate to swiftly punish them anyway.

It’s also curious that Depp’s former wife and alleged victim, Amber Heard, has also been accused of abuse (by Depp) but has faced no public consequences from Netflix or anyone else.

Another indicator of our culture’s victimhood bias is in nearly every internet article I’ve read detailing FKA Twigs’ lawsuit against LaBeouf and Netflix’s punitive actions, there was a notice informing readers of specific resources available to them if they ever “experience domestic violence”.

This is a commendable public service, but it’s striking that despite these articles also referencing LaBeouf’s alcoholism and mental health issues, none of them ever direct readers suffering from those conditions to equally helpful resources.

The reality is that these notices and Netflix’s punitive disappearing of LaBeouf and Depp are simply exercises in virtue signaling and pandering to the online outrage mob.

LaBeouf and Depp may be terrible people who’ve done terrible things, but dispensing punishment and condemnation before accusations are proven is unwise and unhealthy. Even after findings of guilt, we should attempt the difficult but imperative task of foregoing vengeance and victimhood in favor of cultivating repentance and forgiveness, which would have longer lasting effects and be a path to a more decent, kind and compassionate culture.

In conclusion, Pieces of a Woman doesn’t live up to the stellar work Vanessa Kirby does in it, just like Netflix doesn’t live up to the enlightened principle of forgiveness at the heart of the film.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 26 - Mank

In this episode of everybody’s favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I debate David Fincher’s polarizing new film Mank. Topics discussed include Gary Oldman’s brilliance, Fincher’s frustratingly complex genius and an obscure old movie named Citizen Kane.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Ep. 26 - Mank

Thank you for listening!

©2020

Mank is a Tale of Old Hollywood - and of our Corrupted Modern Age

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 42 seconds

Hollywood loves stories about Hollywood but Mank doesn’t glamorize Tinsel Town’s golden age but rather reveals the wound festering beneath the mythology…the same wound inflicting modern America.

On its surface, Mank, the new film by esteemed director David Fincher, chronicles the life and times of famed screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, most notably his struggle to write the Oscar winning screenplay for Citizen Kane.

Just below that gloriously photographed black and white surface though, a complex story of class struggle, financial control and political corruption lives, and it is that narrative that makes Mank a story for our time.

Herman Mankiewicz a.k.a Mank, brilliantly portrayed by Oscar winner Gary Oldman, is a disheveled drunkard and degenerate gambler with an undeniable roguish charm. A brilliant wordsmith, Mank’s quick and erudite wit gets him in the good graces of the media mogul William Randolph Hearst, and by extension, the Hollywood heavyweights at MGM, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg.

It is from this privileged perch at the luxurious dining tables of W.R. Hearst and in the offices of L.B. Mayer and Thalberg, that Mank is shown the diabolically deceptive practices and devious machinations of those in power. Mank’s growing discomfort and disgust at the charade of these powerful but hollow men eventually manifests in some alcohol-fueled, but extremely insightful diatribes.

But Mank, ever the slave to his own destructive impulses, is impotent to do anything about these men…until the opportunity to write a screenplay for the “boy genius” Orson Welles comes along.

With Citizen Kane, Mank uses his mighty pen to embarrass and eviscerate the all-powerful Hearst while also extending a middle finger to the repugnant Mayer.

Mank resonates in our current time because like Hearst and Mayer in the time of Citizen Kane, the new generation of decadent robber barons from Wall Street to Silicon Valley (Netflix – the film’s producer and distributor, prominent among them) wield their financial, cultural and political power to dominate and control society from their gilded castles while the rest of us scratch and claw just to stay alive.

In Mank there is a terrific scene where Louis B. Mayer tearfully speaks to a collection of MGM workers, whom he calls family, asking them to take a 50% pay cut in order to save the company. Mayer’s performance in that meeting is better than any acting he financed during his long reign at the movie studio, as he gets the workers to give up their money while he walks away giving up nothing.

That scene speaks to the nefarious political and media narrative of the last forty years since the Reagan (and Thatcher) revolution brought us the unmitigated horrors of financialization and trickle-down economics cloaked in the waving flag of an empty patriotism. It also perfectly encapsulates America since the financial collapse of 2007-08, where a plethora of too big to fail corporations with big bosses receiving huge bonuses got bailed out while working people picking up the tab got financially beaten down and will never recover.

It is the anger over that blatant economic unfairness and injustice that fueled movements as disparate as the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Bernie Sanders and even Trump’s rise to power. But as Mank shows us, the game is rigged, as the propaganda mills promise to strangle any working class movement in its crib.

As the last two presidential elections proved, oligarchs and their media minions will relentlessly wield identity politics like a cudgel to bludgeon the working class and cease any chance at any economic change. Divide and conquer has never been so easy as in our current age of manufactured victimhood.

The character Mank embodies the impotent confusion of so many American voters. He is a compulsive contrarian and as much as he loathes the malignant management class he is also wary of labor unions. Intuitively a man of the left, Mank is still clear-eyed enough to see that both sides of the duopoly are thoroughly compromised.

The devil’s bargain Mank makes with the power structure costs him his soul, and Citizen Kane is his attempt at personal redemption and revenge for the little guy. Like the rest of us, all Mank is able to do is take pleasure in his small and ultimately inconsequential victory.

Mank’s triumph with Citizen Kane is public but completely personal, as it garners him an Oscar but leaves the power structure that so infuriates him, unbowed, unbent and unbroken…even to this day.

For proof of this one need look no further than the recent election. Americans were forced once again to choose between two vacuous avatars for the same oligarchical ruling class.

Even in the midst of a pandemic and government forced shut down resulting in an economic holocaust for working class people, both parties in Washington steadfastly refuse to consider universal healthcare, universal basic income, or even stimulus payments but are united in their insatiable desire to fellate the corporate class. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, same as every boss we’ve ever had.

As for Mank, it is a slightly flawed, but thoroughly worthwhile, art house film that boasts some A-list talent, chief among them Fincher and Oldman. For those with the patience to stick with it, Mank does what very few movies attempt to do, never mind accomplish…it tells the uncomfortable, complicated and ugly truth about America and Americans. Bravo.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A complicated film that pulls no political punches. Gary Oldman and David Fincher flex their consider artistic muscles in this challenging but worthwhile drama.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

The Vast of Night: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A well directed film that starts slow but once it gets going is well worth the wait.

The Vast of Night, written and directed by Andrew Patterson, is the science fiction story of two teenagers, Fay and Everett, and the very strange night they experience in New Mexico in the 1950’s. The film stars Sierra McCormick (Fay) and Jake Horowitz (Everett).

I had not heard of The Vast of Night until my podcast co-host Barry told me to give it a watch. I had no expectations and even less information about the movie before I watched it on Amazon Prime streaming…but boy am I glad I did watch, as it is a little gem of a movie.

To be clear, The Vast of Night isn’t going to change your life, and it isn’t a perfect movie…but it is an exceedingly well made one that highlights a confident filmmaker with a distinct vision and the skill to pull it off.

The movie is set in a small town in 1950’s New Mexico and perfectly captures the rhythm and pace of that time and place. One of the struggles of the film is that the pace of the first half hour is very deliberate, and that may be off-putting to some viewers conditioned on the more frenetic style of modern day entertainment. I would recommend viewers who feel this way stick with the movie…it ends up being worth it.

Speaking of the modern day, the movie is very effective in re-creating the sense of community but also the palpable isolation of the 1950’s, particularly in a rural area, due to the lack of technology. Patterson plays up this dearth of technology by having Fay work the switchboard in town and preferring to run from place to place rather than drive. She also reads science magazines with predictions of the future’s technology (where is my flying car by the way?) and has an acute interest in tape recorders - which seem horrifyingly primitive to us iPhone addicted fiends but that were marvels in their time.

Part of what makes the The Vast of Night so compelling is that it is visually so striking. It is absolutely stunning that this film was made for $700,000, as it looks like it has a budget a hundred times that.

They used a small town in Texas to shoot the film and it is just the perfect set, and the costumes and the props are equally fantastic as every detail in the film is deliciously specific.

The film also looks more expensive because of the clever and courageous Andrew Patterson uses complex camera movements and extended scenes that are remarkably well-done. In multiple sequences Patterson does extended and elaborately choreographed camera movements that cover vast swaths of ground and large numbers of actors and movement. It is really something to behold, and anybody who has ever worked on a movie will appreciate the extraordinary technical difficulty of what Patterson pulls off.

Patterson also extracts outstanding performances from his cast of unknowns.

Sierra McCormick in particular is outstanding as the switch board operator Fay, who is plugged into the town and maybe the truth. McCormick has some extended scenes where it is just her in a close up talking on the phone…and they are mesmerizing. She is able to perfectly embody the clash between the innocence of 1950’s youth and the burden of adult responsibility thrust upon her.

Jake Horowitz plays Everett, the hot shot radio guy, and does terrific work as well. There is one scene in particular, which I won’t give away, where he enters the scene with one distinct expectation and then you watch him transform as his expectation is met, yet he is left unsatisfied. It is a stunning scene to watch and he is complex work in it is outstanding in it (you’ll know the scene when you see it).

Gail Cronauer has a small, but pivotal, role and she is utterly magnificent. Cronauer (and Patterson) make the wise choice to embrace a centered stillness in her scene, and she fills this stillness with a vibrancy and dynamic inner life that is palpable.

At times this movie felt like a gloriously bizarre amalgamation of The Last Picture Show, a Robert Altman movie and a Twilight Zone episode. That cinematic stew was mostly well executed, but there were a few minor bumps. For instance, the Altman-esque scenes of overlapping dialogue were done with aplomb but the dialogue in them was not as technically crisp (in part due to Horowitz having a cigarette in his mouth) as it needed to be and thus was a bit muddled. Also, The Twilight Zone part of the this cinematic science fiction concoction was a storytelling device that Patterson uses throughout, that frankly I felt didn’t work particularly well and could have been eliminated entirely.

That criticism though is just splitting hairs, as once the movie got rolling it was entirely engrossing and really a joy to behold as Patterson uses multiple savvy maneuvers to wring as much tension, suspense and drama out of his story as possible.

Andrew Patterson is obviously a director to watch, and could very well be the next big thing. If he can pull off what is essentially a stage play, in such a visually intricate and dynamic way with such a tiny budget, then goodness knows what he can do when Hollywood opens the coffers for him.

One can’t help but worry though that he will get sucked into the Hollywood machine and end up swimming up stream in a river of shit on some big budget Jurassic World sequel or something, where the studio suffocates his creativity while filling his pockets.

My hope is that Patterson will, like Darren Aronofsky before him, turn his small budget success into a mildly larger budget, with bigger names, for a film that still speaks to his vision. Aronofsky followed up his indie hit Pi, with Requiem for a Dream. Requiem for a Dream wasn’t a box office smash, but it was a cinematic statement that cemented Aronofsky’s status as an artistically powerful filmmaker who told original stories in a unique way. I hope Andrew Patterson is a similar type of creative force with an equal amount of artistic integrity.

In conclusion, The Vast of Night was a glorious little cinematic surprise to stumble upon in these dark days of retreads and repeats. The movie is not perfect, and its slow opening pace may feel impenetrable to those not accustomed to it, but it is well worth the wait if you can stick with it. If you are desperate to escape the suffocating madness of our current moment and want to go to a seemingly simpler time that wasn’t quite as simple as we think it was…then you should escape to 1950’s New Mexico via the delightfully intriguing The Vast of Night.

©2020

Mr. Jones: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****

My Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Not worth paying to see, but the striking and unnerving scenes of the Holomodor are worthy of your time to watch when it comes out on Netflix or cable.

Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland and written by Andrea Chalupa, is the true story of British journalist Gareth Jones as he discovers and then reveals the horrors of Stalin’s genocidal famine in Ukraine in 1933. The film stars James Norton as Jones, with supporting turns from Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard.

Agnieszka Holland is an interesting cinematic figure. In 1990 she wrote and directed Europa, Europa, a staggeringly brilliant film about the remarkable life of Solomon Perel during World War II for which Holland garnered a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Ever since Europa, Europa though, Holland has churned out absolutely nothing of note.

The tepid mediocrity of Ms. Holland’s filmography from 1991 to present day may explain why I had never even heard of Mr. Jones until I was assigned to watch it and write about it.

That said, as a big fan of Europa, Europa, Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard, as well as being a Russophile and an admirer of good journalism, I thought Mr. Jones might just hit my sweet spot and be a new cinematic feast amidst the current coronavirus movie famine.

Sadly…while there were certainly some powerful sequences, overall the lackluster direction and script left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

The biggest problem with Mr. Jones is that it is wildly uneven, with a devastatingly poor narrative structure.

The first half of the film plays out like a PBS melodrama…and not a very good one. Holland attempts to give a stylized view of the suffocating conformity of the British establishment, and then the debased debauchery of Walter Duranty’s Moscow, but is never quite able to adequately pull it off.

Another major structural issue is Holland’s choice to weave George Orwell’s writing of Animal Farm into the story. Shockingly, Orwell actually opens the movie and is used as a landmark throughout the narrative. The snippets of Orwell are at best frivolous and do nothing more than distract from the main dramatic thrust of the story.

The second half of the film is much, much better than the first. Midway through the film shifts to the devastation in Ukraine, and this is where Holland finds her footing. The scenes of starvation and desperation are exceedingly well-done and uncomfortable to watch. There is one sequence that is so brutal it left me unnerved for days. Holland’s use of the bleak and foreboding Ukrainian winter exquisitely conveys the existential depth and expanse of the ocean of suffering that was the Holomodor.

The problem though is that Holland failed to adequately build a dramatic foundation upon which to lay the tragedy of the Holomodor. I think the film actually would’ve been better served if it started with the trip to Ukraine, as that approach would have emphasized the brutal nature of the topic at hand from the get go. It also would have given context to Jones’ struggle and maybe even better fleshed out his character, which is remarkably paper-thin in the film.

Make no mistake though that Gareth Jones’ story is compelling and definitely worthy of a major movie, just that Ms. Holland is unable to tell the story with enough dramatic vigor or cinematic verve to do it justice. I couldn’t help but think that Gareth Jones life was worthy of an HBO or Netflix mini-series, as there is awful lot of meaningful story to tell.

In terms of the acting, the cast all do solid, if unspectacular, work.

James Norton brings an every man sort of energy to his Gareth Jones, which makes sense, but he definitely suffers from a charisma deficit, makes is a hindrance to his carrying the entirety of the movie. Norton never commands the screen or demands the audience’s attention, which at times undermines the film’s dramatic power.

The luminous Vanessa Kirby plays Ada Brooks, a sort of love interest to Jones. Kirby is an alluring and at times intoxicating screen presence, but is vastly misused and under utilized in Mr. Jones. Kirby is blessed with a striking screen magnetism but never gets to put meat on the bones of her character, which is a terrible waste of her prodigious talents.

Peter Sarsgaard is always an intriguing and emotionally complicated actor, and his morally compromised and diseased Walter Duranty is no exception. Sarsgaard has minimal screen time but makes the most of it as he limps and slithers through the scenery like the devil with whom Duranty made his deal.

Mr. Jones premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival back in 2019, and debuted for British audiences in February of 2020 and was scheduled to be released in the U.S. in April of 2020…but coronavirus rudely intervened.

The film was then released for purchase (but not for rent!) on streaming services in mid-June…and since I was hired to write about it, I reached into my expense account cookie jar and bought the movie for $14.99. Maybe it is my coronavirus budget talking but even though $14.99 is basically the price of a movie ticket here in the City of Angels, I found that price to be excessive.

My recommendation regarding Mr. Jones is not to purchase it…the cost is too high and it simply isn’t worth it. But I do think it might be worth watching for free on Netflix or cable when it comes out. The scenes of the Holomodor alone are worth the investment of time.

The bottom line is this…Mr. Jones is a great story (and Gareth Jones was a great man) but not a great film.

©2020

Top 5 World War II Films of All-Time

IN CELEBRATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF V-E DAY, HERE’S THE DEFINITIVE LIST OF BEST WORLD WAR II FILMS OF ALL TIME.

Some of the greatest films ever made have been about World War II, so narrowing it down to a top five wasn’t exactly storming the beaches at Normandy, but it also wasn’t easy.

75 years ago the Allies officially defeated the Axis menace in Europe. To honor those who sacrificed and made that momentous victory possible, I have decided to do something ridiculously less heroic…rank the top five World War II films of all time.

Without further ado…here is the list.

5. Europa, Europa (1990) – Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, the story follows the travails of a German Jewish boy who in trying to escape the Holocaust goes from being a hunted Jew to a Soviet orphan to a German war hero to a Nazi Youth. Perel runs from Germany to Poland to the Soviet Union then back to Germany, but no matter where he goes the war relentlessly follows.

A magnetic lead performance from Marco Hofschneider and skilled direction by Agnieszka Holland make Europa, Europa a must see for World War II cinephiles.

4. Downfall (2004) – Set in Hitler’s bunker during the final days of the Third Reich, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film focuses on the Fuhrer’s struggle to maintain his delusions of grandeur as the cold hand of reality closes around his neck.

The glorious Bruno Ganz gives a transcendent performance as Hitler descending into the grasp of a mesmerizing madness.

Downfall masterfully reveals Hitler’s bunker to be the maze of his mind, and a prison to those who fully bought into his cult of personality.

3. Dunkirk (2017) – In Christopher Nolan’s perspective jumping cinematic odyssey, we are taught the hard but important lessons that survival is not heroic, but rather instinctual, and that it is in defeat, and not victory, where character is revealed.

Dunkirk is a visual feast of a film, exquisitely shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and magnificently directed Nolan, that boasts a stellar cast and terrifically effective sound design, sound editing and soundtrack. 

Dunkirk succeeded not only as a pulsating World War II masterpiece, but upon its release in 2017, also as a deft metaphor for Brexit.

2. Das Boot (1981) – A taut and at times terrifying, psychological thriller set on a German U-boat, U-96, as it wages war in the Atlantic.

Like a sea serpent , Wolfgang Peterson’s film dramatically wraps itself around you and then slowly constricts, leaving you gasping for air.

Das Boot is as viscerally imposing a war film as has ever been made as Peterson’s directing mastery makes U-96 feel like a claustrophobic, underwater tomb.

1.The Thin Red Line (1998) – After a 20-year hiatus, iconic director Terence Malick returned to cinema with this staggeringly profound and insightful meditation on war.

Unlike Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, which came out that same year and was a highly popular, flag-waving hagiography to the Greatest Generation that focused on the physical toll of war, Malick’s masterpiece concerns itself not with physical carnage, but the emotional, psychological and spiritual cost of war.

The Thin Red Line isn’t so much about fighting a war as it is about how living with war ravages your soul. This is exemplified by the most heroic act in the movie being when a soldier risks his life to administer morphine to a wounded comrade just so he could die more quickly.

The Thin Red Line is unconventional in its storytelling approach, and refuses to conform to the strictures of Hollywood myth making, preferring instead to force audiences to confront their own complicity in the evil insidiousness of war.

In the movie, Private Edward Train eloquently gives voice to the film’s philosophical perspective with the following monologue on the inherent evil of war.

“This great evil, where's it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doing this? Who's killing us, robbing us of life and light, mocking us with the sight of what we might've known? Does our ruin benefit the earth, does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?”

The Thin Red Line is the best World War II film ever made because it is the most poignantly human World War II movie ever made. 

As you may have noticed, my list leans more toward modern cinema, the reason being that the art and technology of filmmaking have advanced enormously over the last 75 years.

I also favor more serious fare over populist entertainment, so terrific movies like The Dirty Dozen or Inglorious Basterds, fail to make the cut.

Classics like Casablanca and From Here to Eternity were left on the cutting room floor because they are more set in WWII than about WWII.

Movies like Schindler’s List weren’t considered because I somewhat irrationally consider them to be “Holocaust films” rather than “WWII films” – which may be a distinction without a difference – but it is a distinction I make.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Bridge Too Far, The Enemy at the Gates, Stalingrad (1993), Patton, and The Great Escape, all just missed the cut and had to settle for honorable mention even though I love them.

In regards to my definitive list I will quote Nick Nolte’s bombastic Lt. Col. Tall from The Thin Red Line, “It's never necessary to tell me that you think I'm right. We'll just... assume it.”

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: A Review

***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Cinephiles sholuld see this in the theatre and marvel at director Sciamma’s confidence and cinematographer Mathon’s deft touch. Regular folks should at least see it on Netflix or cable if not in the theatre…and should stick with the movie even when the pace is slow…as the ending is worth it.

Language: French with English Sub-titles.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire, written and directed by Celine Sciamma, is the story of Marianne, a portrait painter in late 18th century France, who is hired to paint the enigmatic aristocrat, Heloise. The film stars Noemie Merlant as Marianne and Adele Haenel as Heloise.

February is typically a pretty barren time of year to go to the movies as the big blockbusters haven’t started their early Spring blossoming and the prestige pictures of Autumn are a long way away. That said, this time of year is usually pretty good to catch foreign films from last year that are just now getting released in the U.S. And so it was with me and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a French film and while it was adored by critics it failed to be France’s choice to represent the nation at the recent Academy Awards, with the choice being the rather middling cop drama Les Miserable instead. After seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire I have to say I am genuinely shocked at what a poor choice it was by France to over look it for the Oscars.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a strange film, at times beguiling, at other times boring, and sometimes both of those things at once. It is above all else a very French film, as its pacing is very deliberate, and may be too slow for American audiences weened on more frenetically driven films and narratives.

What is truly amazing about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that while the first hour and a half can be slow going, maybe too slow, the last twenty to thirty minutes of the movie are absolutely exquisite. I cannot remember a film in recent memory that so effectively elevated itself by crafting a perfectly sublime final few scenes.

Without giving anything away I simply say that everything is beautifully tied together in the last few scenes, and the ending scene is as subtle, well-acted, poignant, insightful and dramatically palpable as any you’ll come across.

What makes the final scene so good, and the rest of the film bearable, is the acting of Adele Haenel as Heloise. Haenel is a mesmerizing and intriguing screen presence. Her eyes radiate a vivid and vibrant inner life that her stoic face beautifully restrains. She is an actress who conveys an ocean of turmoil beneath a porcelain veneer of detached cool.

Sadly, what makes the film at times a difficult slog, is that Haenel and her co-lead, Noemie Merlant, do not have the least bit of romantic chemistry. As magnetic as Haenel is on screen, Merlant is just as anti-charismatic. The two of them never seem to fully coalesce as romantic equals, and the film does suffer for it.

Unlike Haenel, Merlant is a bit dead-eyed, and does not convey any sense of an inner life or much life at all and is a bit of a dramatic dullard. All of the dramatic imperative of the film is conjured by Haenel and her desperation and desolation, and thus Merlant is left being more an observer than an active participant.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the story of forbidden love between two women, and the narrative places a plethora of powerful obstacles between the two protagonists. In this way, it is somewhat reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain…it isn’t as good as Brokeback, but it is in the same ball park thematically. It is miles and miles ahead of say, Call me By Your Name, which was an abysmally awful piece of pandering garbage that posed at being drama, but never actually was.

The cinematography on Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Claire Mathon is spartan and austere but extremely well done to the point of being elegant. Mathon uses minimal camera movement, fantastic framing, and natural and low light to not only paint a pretty picture that could easily hang in the Tate Gallery, but also buttress and enhance the emotional narrative of the movie.

Director Sciamma makes some very bold choices throughout the movie, most of which work extremely well. Fore instance, Sciamma’s decision to use no music and only natural sound (for the most part), is extraordinarily effective.

Sciamma’s writing is top-notch as well, as she is never in a rush and with her ending, forces viewers to re-evaluate in hindsight everything they just saw…and leave the theatre pondering the depth and breadth of it all.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is undeniably a feminist film, in terms of its politics, but it never panders or takes the easy road. In one scene, which I won’t spoil, Sciamma directly addresses a very controversial topic and does so with remarkable artistic, dramatic and philosophical courage. I thought this scene (you’ll know it when you see it), and the ending, were absolute proof that Sciamma is an artistic powerhouse.

I think that cinephiles will enjoy Portrait of a Lady on Fire, especially if they adore French cinema. I think regular folks might find the pacing to be a bit too slow and thus may find the film impenetrable. I would say this though, I wholly encourage people to give this film a try, either in the theatre or on Netflix/cable, and stick with it to the end…as you may find yourself liking it more in retrospect than you did in the moment…I know I did.

For an in-depth discussion of Portrait of a Lady on Fire…with spoilers…check out episode 9 of Looking California and Feeling Minnesota.

©2020

Les Miserables (2019): A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!1 THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Not worth seeing on the big screen but if you stumble across on Netflix you can give it a shot.

Language: French with English subtitles

Les Miserables, written and directed by Ladj Ly, tells the story of a police officer’s tumultuous first day on the job with an elite street crimes unit in a Paris slum. The film stars Damien Bonnard along with Alexis Mantenti, Issa Percia, Djibril Zonga, Al-Hassan Ly and Steve Tientcheu.

After seeing the trailer for Les Miserables (2019), which is not to be confused with the 2012 Hugh Jackman movie musical of the same name based on the famous Victor Hugo novel, I was indifferent about seeing it. The trailer was a bit visually flat and did not capture my interest or imagination, but since the film is nominated for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards, I decided to roll the dice and check it out.

Les Miserables is not a bad movie, but it also isn’t a great one either. The film is named Les Miserables because it is set in the section of Paris where Victor Hugo wrote his famous book, and also because the movie highlights the same powder keg of revolutionary ingredients that are primed to combust now just as they were in Hugo’s time.

The film opens with the streets of Paris filled with celebration over a World Cup victory for France, but that unity quickly dissolves and battle lines are drawn between cop and criminal, blacks and whites, Muslims and non-Muslims, immigrants and natives.

Les Miserables is a rather conventional narrative that chronicles a day in the life of a bad neighborhood riddled with crime and injustice of all types. Police are thuggish bullies, warring factions of ethnic and religious gangs carve out small fiefdoms through brute force and intimidation, and children and young adults just try to survive in the suffocatingly tumultuous urban jungle they call home.

Director Ladj Ly’s script does a decent job of highlighting the factionalism that runs rampant in the slum. The Muslim Brotherhood looms large as an imposing and moderating force in the slums, and as a counterbalance to dueling ethnic drug gangs and the authoritarian police.

The slum is even divided by age as the children and teens of the housing projects resent the grown men who make deals with the police and each other in order to rule their kingdoms and line their pockets. This corruption of both cop and criminal turns the children of the slum into potential radicals eager to burn the whole rotten place to the ground.

Where Ly’s script stumbles though is in piecing together a coherent narrative that can drive the story from beginning to end. While the movie is filled with multiple interesting characters, such as “the Mayor”, a terrific Steve Tientcheu, or Salah, the formidably captivating Almamy Kanoute, they aren’t utilized well enough or often enough for the tale to be thoroughly compelling.

Ly’s direction and storytelling are both ambitious and admirable, but ultimately the film’s political and social sub-text feels a wee bit heavy handed and too on the nose to be artistically satisfying. The lack of subtlety regarding the film’s social commentary reduces the power and impact of it, and makes it all seem very trite. The film may very well be politically prescient, but that doesn’t make it dramatically potent.

This sort of obviousness regarding social and political commentary all feels very “French”, and the French-ness of the story and setting, such as the way Paris cops operate, their rules of engagement and all of that, reduces a great deal of tension, especially for American audiences. As I watched some pivotal scenes I couldn’t help but see it through my jaundiced American eyes and wonder why the hell these cops were behaving the way they were. To put it mildly, American cops would behave very differently when threatened. This disconnect, right or wrong, definitely had a negative effect on the dramatic impact of the film and the believability of the story.

As for the cast, Bonnard does really solid work as Pento, the main protagonist. As previously mentioned Steve Tientcheu and Almamy Kanoute are terrific, as is Issa Percia in a very difficult role.

In conclusion, as a calling card for director Ly, Les Miserables is a solid first feature film and it makes me intrigued to see what he does next, but in terms of being worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best International Film….not at all.

As for my recommendation regarding this movie…I think that cinephiles might find it to be a bit too conventional and politically obvious and regular cineplexers will find it frustratingly obtuse and a bit dull. The best bet is to wait for it to come out on Netflix or Amazon and then check it out there for free…because it simply does not rise to the level of being worth seeing in the theatre.

©2020

Hollywood's Arrogant and Ignorant Pandering to Chinese Audiences

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 42 seconds

Hollywood shamelessly panders to China to make money, but they are absolutely terrible at it.

Hollywood thinks that by telling Chinese stories they will woo the Chinese market they so crave…they couldn’t be more wrong, as the failure of The Farewell amply illustrates.

This past weekend The Farewell, a critically adored American film which tells the story of a Chinese-American woman who returns to China to visit her dying grandmother, opened in China.

Due to The Farewell being written and directed by a Chinese American woman, Lulu Wang, and starring Chinese-American, Golden Globe winning actress, Awkwafina, as well as the film’s dialogue being mostly spoken in Mandarin, Hollywood’s expectations were that the movie would be well received in China.

Those expectations proved to be very misguided. The Farewell has been largely ignored by Chinese audiences as evidenced by its embarrassingly dismal take at the Chinese box office of just $580,000.

The Farewell’s failure is reminiscent of the poor showing in China by another Asian themed Hollywood movie, Crazy Rich Asians, which was a break out smash hit in America in 2018, bringing in $174 million at the U.S. box office. American audiences cheered Crazy Rich Asians largely due to its Asian cast, which was deemed a great success for representation and diversity for Hollywood. In contrast, China, which has plenty of its own movies with all-Asian casts, had no such love for the film as proven by its tepid box office receipts.

Crossing the cultural divide and tapping into the Chinese market has long been the Holy Grail of Hollywood, as every studio executive in town is constantly trying to crack the Chinese code in order to fill their coffers. Of course, studio executives are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, so the only plan they’ve been able to come up with thus far is to pander. Not surprisingly, Hollywood’s ham-handed attempts to cater to Chinese audiences have consistently backfired.

Disney thought Asian representation would attract Chinese audiences when they cast Asian-American actress Kelly Marie Tran in a major role in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. The problem was that Ms. Tran (who is of Vietnamese descent) did not conform to classical Chinese standards of beauty and thus Chinese audiences never warmed to her.

Chinese audiences have voiced similar complaints regarding Akwafina, with some Chinese people on social media going so far as to call her “very ugly”, which may be one of the reasons why The Farewell is doing so poorly. And this is before we get to her Mandarin, which was widely considered laughable for a first-generation immigrant, even one who left China early, according to the plot (the actress herself did not speak Chinese fluently before the film).

Another example of this cultural divide is Simu Liu, a Canadian-Chinese actor who was recently cast in the lead of the upcoming Marvel movie Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Liu is considered handsome by Western standards but some Chinese people say he is “not handsome by Chinese standards”, which means Shang-chi might face an uphill battle at the Chinese box office when it comes out. 

Hollywood has had some success in China, for instance, of the top 15 highest grossing films in Chinese box office history, four are Hollywood productions. They are Avengers: Endgame, The Fate of the Furious, Furious 7 and Avengers: Infinity War. It seems Hollywood has not learned the lesson of their Chinese successes though because unlike Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell and even to a certain extent the poorly received latest Star Wars trilogy, the Hollywood films that have found success in China are gigantic franchises telling American stories filled to the brim with spectacle and movie stars…and none of those stars are Chinese.

In 2020 Disney is once again making a major attempt to court the Chinese market by releasing Mulan, a live action adaptation of the 1998 animated film of the same name. While Mulan is based on the Chinese folk story “The Ballad of Mulan” and will boast a very attractive cast of Asian actors, including star Liu Yifei, that is no guarantee of box office success. The 1998 animated Mulan financially flopped in China and one wonders if the live action version is just another culturally tone deaf attempt by Hollywood to try to tell and sell a Chinese story back to the Chinese.

Hollywood’s misguided belief that Chinese audiences want to see Hollywood make Chinese themed-movies with Chinese stars seems to be staggeringly obtuse. China has a thriving film industry all its own and Chinese audiences don’t clamor to see Chinese stories told from Hollywood’s perspective (even if they’re made by Chinese-American artists) anymore than Americans yearn to see American stories told by foreign artists. The bottom line is this…Chinese audiences want to see American movies from America, not Chinese movies from America.

At its best the art form of cinema is a universal language that speaks eloquently across cultural boundaries. For example, American audiences this year have embraced the South Korean film Parasite. Parasite didn’t try to tell an American story with American actors in an attempt to cash in with U.S. audiences, instead it tells a dramatically and artistically profound Korean story about family and class that connects to people of all cultures. Hollywood would be wise to emulate that approach when trying to woo Chinese audiences.

And if it does want to make what it thinks are “Asian” stories, it should be culturally humble enough to know that it’s making them primarily for the art house cinemas in Brooklyn, rather than the multiplexes in Beijing.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Pain and Glory: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. If you adore director Pedro Almodovar’s work, then you’ll love this movie. For everyone else, wait to watch it for free on Netflix or cable.

Language: Spanish with English subtitles.

Pain and Glory, written and directed by two-time Academy Award winner Pedro Almodovar, is an autobiographical drama that tells the story of a director looking back upon his life’s journey. The film stars Antonio Banderas, who has been nominated for Best Actor at the this year’s Academy Awards, with supporting turns from Penelope Cruz, Asier Etxeandia and Leonardo Sbaraglia.

Pedro Almodovar is a master filmmaker who has made such classics as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Volver. This past September Almodovar turned 70, and much like others entering the final stretch of their existence here on earth, he is now contemplating his life and trying to make sense of the patchwork of memories that inform his identity. Pain and Glory is Almodovar’s attempt to understand himself and the long and winding journey that brought him to his current destination.

I am pretty neutral when it comes to Almodovar’s films. I respect and admire his artistry and his artistic insights, but I have never deeply connected with his subject matter or his characters. That said, I have always found Almodovar to be an interesting filmmaker almost solely because he seems to be an interesting person. Whether blatantly or covertly, Almodovar’s films feel both joyously and painfully autobiographical, and Pain and Glory is no exception.

Pain and Glory is, like many of Almodovar’s works, filled with the usual fond remembrances of a golden, sun-drenched youth, where Almodovar’s admiration of women and attraction toward men is born. In Almodovar’s cinematic adulthood, as strikingly evidenced in Pain and Glory, there is a recurring theme of a complicated, near self-pitying relationship with other men, himself and his work.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed Pain and Glory, but it is certainly interesting, if a bit self indulgent. Almodovar’s autobiographical movie suffers because it is, like his memory, unfocused and fuzzy. This is accentuated by numerous journeys down differing narrative paths that never quite come to any logical or dramatically satisfying conclusions. Much like real life, Pain and Glory’s themes are clear and precise but its narrative structure and dramatic specificity are not, thus making it somewhat less emotionally coherent than it needed to be to be a completely successful cinematic endeavor.

Like most of Almodovar’s movies Pain and Glory is visually lush and vibrant, with a crisp cinematic style that is very appealing for its dynamic simplicity. Almodovar and his cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine, use a striking palette and color to great affect, most notably red and white. As always, Almodovar, a Spaniard, is able to convey love, be it familial or romantic, by using the all encompassing visual warmth of the Spanish sun. Almodovar sublimely paints the objects of his affection in his memories to great affect with that appealing solar warmth.

In terms of the acting, Antonio Banderas does solid work as Salvador. Like Almodovar, Banderas is on the downside of his career and life and he brings that reality to bear on the character. Banderas wears the weathering of Salvador’s existential strain on his formerly pristine face and it gives him a gravitas he has not always possessed. It is a compelling performance and Banderas imbues Salvador with a complexity and intentionality throughout the film that is the driving force of the narrative. Where Banderas stumbles just a bit is in embodying the physical suffering that is Salvador’s constant companion. Banderas is just a little too spry and fluid to be believable as someone suffering from the multitude of ailments of which we are told Salvador suffers.

Penelope Cruz, as she often does, embodies the Anima for Almodovar. Cruz portrays Salvador’s mother, Jacinta, and gives an earthy and grounded performance. Jacinta is the Mediterranean mama incarnate, a hard-working, no nonsense family leader whose calloused yet gentle hands scratch even as they soothe.

Asier Etxeandia and Leonardo Sbaraglia have pivotal roles as Salvador’s estranged artistic and romantic partners respectively. Both do terrific work, particularly Etxendia, who never falls into stereotype when portraying both an actor and a junkie.

In conclusion, Pain and Glory is a very Almodovar film, and if you love Almodovar you will love Pain and Glory. If you are indifferent to Almodovar, I think, like me, you’ll find the film interesting but somewhat lacking as it never quite completely captivates or has the courage of its cinematic convictions or artistic ambitions. My recommendation is to skip Pain and Glory in the theatres but definitely check it out when it hits Netflix or cable in the future. It is worth seeing, just not worth paying to see.

©2020