Media Captures - March 2022

It Was the Music – 11

I’ve never rated anything this high before, but, if you love music you’ll get the reference.  And make no mistake, this is no Mocumentary.  It’s as down home and real as it can get.  “It Was the Music” is a 10-part documentary series available on several streaming services.  It could basically have been called the “Joy of Music.”  It is being offered at a $10 surcharge for the whole series.  That’s the bargain of the century considering it’s less than what you’ll spend on a fast food meal these days,  This ain't fast food.

Alvy Singer said to Annie Hall, that you can divide life into two parts, the horrible and the miserable.  This movie goes the other way, essentially saying you can divide life into two parts – that which makes you happy, and everything else.  What makes you happy?  Is it time with the family, concerts, fishing, hunting, church, movies, art?” 

As this musical journey unfolds, one of them finally says it:  Those two hours on stage, trying to connect with an audience, is a happiness like no other.

This movie is mostly about two married performers who after 30 years, decide it is time to tour together, instead of with others.  Larry Campbell has been the lead guitarist for Bob Dylan, and played with many others, and Teresa Williams is a Tennessee singer trying to keep “Americana” alive.  They don’t care where they play.  If it’s a bar with 15 people or at Lincoln Center to thousands, they just adjust the size of the band a little and give it everything they’ve got.  The documentary film maker Mark Moskowtiz saw them by chance and was so blown away, he decided to feature them.  He wanders through their and their friend’s legacies with patience and reverence.  Some of their friends you will have heard of, some you will not have.  They’ve been doing it for the love of music for a long time. 

The film meanders through Larry and Teresa’s life, including barbeques, parties and arguments.  There are dead spots of commonality, but they are countered by brilliant musical tales.  What resonated the most with me was the love of albums.  Remember when you played an album til the point that you had scratched it, and then you knew where the scratches were?  That love of an album and its flow doesn’t exist today, and it’s just one of many, many points that are made over the course of this wonderful journey.

This is hypnotic, reverential, and a must-see for music lovers.

Belfast – 10

Kenneth Branagh tells the story of his growing up during the civil unrest in Belfast in the 1980’s and with the help of a compelling soundtrack featuring Van Morrison, crafts one of the great family drama stories in movie history.  It’s heart-warming to the core.

Jamie Dornan (surprise) is pa.  He’s had gambling issues, and back tax issues, but he loves his family and has to work away from Belfast to survive.  There are some violent Protestants who want to evict the Catholics from the neighborhood and he is resistant to that.  Guess there’s always someone to hate, and some reason to build a wall to keep them at bay.  Jude Hill is 11-year old Buddy and he roams the streets of Belfast on the brink of love or trouble most days.  Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench are the grandparents and both got Oscar nominations.  Their family unit is perfectly situated within their neighborhood unit, a great place to grow up, until unrest materializes.

The story telling is wonderful, but it is the performance of Caitriona Balfe as Ma who elevates this movie.  She dances through the highs and lows, the parties and the danger with a spirit we rarely see on screen, but often see in real life mothers.  She is wonderful and it’s the crime of the century that she won’t be picking up an Oscar, because she wasn’t even nominated.  I watched this movie for the first time for the story.  I will watch it again to just drink in her performance. 

 

Licorice Pizza – 8

Director Paul Thomas Anderson, 3 names needed, is an acquired taste that I’ve never quite acquired, although I consider “There Will Be Blood” a classic.  It’s funny because it goes on to a strange list for me.  It’s a movie that I totally loved and yet I never want to sit through it again.  That’s a very short list.

I admire Anderson’s unpredictability and visual style.  Sometimes I just don’t understand why he’s telling the story the way he is. 

In this movie, the story is about Gary, a young man in the San Fernando Valley around 1973 with an entrepreneurial bent even at 15.  First he’s a child actor, then sells waterbeds, then has a pinball parlor. 

All of these phases are captured perfectly and are sometimes hilarious.

He feels an attachment to a girl who is 25, or so she says.  Gary is played by Cooper Hoffman and Alana Kane is played by Alana Haim of the singing group Haim.  Haim starts the movie not resembling a movie star but finishes it as one.  The story wanders around San Francisco with some strange tangents.  I’m going to summarize my impression this way.  I loved the first half, but the second half seemed to drag.  While I would have edited it a lot differently, there’s no one going to take scissors to Paul’s movies, and I respect that.  It costs them a little here, but the movie is still worth seeing, especially if you experienced the 70’s.

Drive My Car - 9

This is a lock for best foreign film but I will confess it took me 3 nights to get through the three hours.  Yes, it's brilliant.  It's got a slow melancholy pace that slowly picks the plot apart.  Much time is spent in an old Saab.  I was thankful that it had ended, but fully realized that it could have gone on for another hour.

A director's wife dies suddenly right after he discovers she was having an affair.  He is overwhelmed with grief.  Two years later he travels to a theater to direct a Checkov play and casts his wife's ex-lover as the lead.  

He is forced to have a driver of his car by the management, and when she talks of her grief, they begin to dissect their lives.  I admit it.  It's damn good.

Black Crab - 7

This is one of those Netflix movies filmed in several different languages and dubbed in.  It makes for strange viewing for me.  The world is on the brink of ending and Noomi Rapace, who is Netflix's go to actress in these movies, must skate across the frozen archipelago with the thing that will save mankind, and we don't know what it is, other than it isn't love.  

So, they skate and they skate, and my legs got tired just watching it.  One of those end of the world movies that's not bad, not great.  

 

Oscar Forecast:

There are many problems with the Oscar broadcast:

• I have read numerous predictions.  There is little drama on who will win.  Very little suspense.
• They are moving some technical awards off-air to shorten the broadcast.  A more entertaining broadcast is what is needed.  With these awards there is a real possibility that Monday you will see an advertisement for “Dune, winner of 5 Academy Awards” and go “What?  When did that happen?”
• There is no box office.  Again.  I have shouted from the beach (we don’t have a mountaintop) about how wonderful CODA is, and it has amazing word of mouth.  And yet, it has been streamed less than a million times, and did no box office.  Yet it’s considered a hit.  Meanwhile fellow best picture nominee West Side Story is considered a monumental box office flop at $10 million, probably just over a million tickets sold.  Strange times for Hollywood to try to muster together a tribute to its work.

Here goes:

Best Picture
Will Win:  CODA
Should Win:  CODA, but don’t be surprised if Power of the Dog sneaks in after months and months as the favorite.  Power of the Dog waits until the last half hour to exert its brilliance, whereas I truly believe that CODA will be one of those beloved family movies like Sound of Music, with great staying power.  Think “Shawshank Redemption” which was a flop until it hit cable and achieved legendary status.  I’ve moved CODA on to my list of 250 favorite movies, which I’m sure is fascinating news.

Best Director:
Will Win:  Jane Campion
Should Win:  Jane Campion.  I expect it to be a coronation night for Jane, but it is a travesty that CODA’s director Sian Heder wasn’t nominated.

Best Actor:
Will and Should Win: Will Smith

Best Actress:
Will Win:  Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, although Penelope Cruz has late momentum.
Should Win:  Caitriona Balfe (oops, not even nominated) for Belfast
As much as I love Jessica, this just feels like a movie where the objective was not to entertain or tell the story, but to win her some awards, whereas Caitriona is the sparkplug of Belfast as the mother.  Can’t believe she’s been overlooked.

Best Supporting Actress:
Will and Should:  Ariana Debose, the lock of the night, although I’m a monster fan of Jesse Buckley, whose day will come.

Best Supporting Actor:
Will and Should :  Tony Kotsur, CODA
If there’s an upset here it will be Kodi Smith-McPhee, who turns the Power of the Dog into something special. 

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Will and should:  CODA

Best Original Screenplay:
Will Win:  Licorice Pizza
Should Win:  Belfast
I’m thinking I’m calling a race that’s too close to call.

Best Foreign Film:
Will and should:  Drive My Car, an even bigger lock than Debose.

Best Animated Feature:
Will Win:  Encanto
Should Win:  Flee
While Encanto is a Bruno juggernaut, and Disney would be mortified, Flee is unforgettable.

Best Documentary Feature:
Will Win:  Summer of Soul
Should Win:  Flee
See Above, and see Flee if you get a chance.

Best Original Song:
Will Win:  No Time to Die
Should Win:  We Don’t Talk about Bruno (not even nominated because you really can’t predict what will be a hit.)

Best Costume Design:
Will win:  Cruella
Should win:  West Side Story

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Will win:  The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Best Live Action Short
Will Win:  The Long Goodbye

Best Animated Short:
Will Win:  Robin Robin

Best Documentary Short
Will Win:  Audible

The following categories will all go to DUNE
Score - Hans Zimmer
Best Cinematography
Best Editing
Best Production Design
Best Sound
Best Visual Effects

Oops that’s six.  One will wash out, so I’ll stick with my prediction of 5, most of which will happen before the broadcast airs.  Let's see how that plays.

Should you choose to watch, enjoy.  If the producers don’t start the show with “Both Sides Now,” they are idiots.  A good drinking game will be to take a swig every time Ukraine or Zelensky are mentioned. 

Media Captures - February 2022

Free Guy – 8

A breezy video game of a movie.  But aren’t all Ryan Reynolds’ movies breezy?  He’s just has to do like Ringo says and act naturally.  His costar in this movie is Jodie Comer of Killing Eve fame.  Early press said she steals the movie from him, but as much as I like her, I can’t say I saw it that way.  Were I guiding her career, this is not what I’d be steering her into.  Would love to see her in a romantic comedy.  But, I digress.  In this overly long picture, Ryan slowly realizes he’s just a character in a video game, one that Jodie’s character designed and wants credit for.  A Fun movie that needed a little trimming.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye – 7

I want Jessica Chastain to win an Oscar in the worst way, but I’m not sure I want it this bad.  There are really only two types of roles.  You either impersonate a real person, or create a character from scratch.  This is a mostly magnificent impersonation of Tammy Faye Bakker, the at-the-time wife of Jim Bakker who used his religion and the PTL club as his personal bank account, then went to jail for it.  Tammy Faye seems to have come off unscathed.  She didn’t go to jail, and this movie is a very sympathetic rendering of her.  I have no idea how much is true.

Jessica takes it all and runs with it.  It seems to very much be the kind of starring vehicle designed to make an Oscar winner of the lead actress, much like the film “Judy” of a few years ago.  As much as I love Jessica – I think she is the Katherine Hepburn of our time - this movie just seems so gimmicky to me.  There are some great scenes, and there are some scenes where it seems like they were just hitting the highlights.  Mixed emotions are the order of the day.

Nightmare Alley – 8

Guillermo Del Toro’s latest directorial splash is with this Oscar nominated film that is a remake of an old film noir that I haven’t been able to watch yet.  Here’s what I know about this one.  It’s dark and brooding, it’s too long, and Bradley Cooper has got to be tired.  He’s in nearly every shot.  He starts as a down on his luck drifter who becomes a carny, then a con man.  He teams with Rooney Mara, then Cate Blanchett as he tries to take down a big score.  Pretty predictable, but a lot of style points. 

Georgetown - 7

Christoph Waltz makes his directorial debut in this “based on a true story” yarn.  And it’s quite a yarn.  He’s won a couple of Supporting Oscars, but it’s beginning to look like he can only sing one note.  He sings it here as the star as well as the boss.  The story is based on the real-life murder of socialite Viola Herms Draft, who was killed at the age of 91.  Really.  Who murders someone at that age?  Well it may have been her 49 year old husband, played by Waltz and the ultimate con man.  Fairly interesting at times, but it’s not gonna change your life. 

 
The Humans – 6

This is a film adaptation of a play.  It can’t be anything like the play, because the filmmakers chose to make the camera a character, telling you exactly which of the characters to watch.  The always excellent Richard Jenkins plays a father whose family has gathered for Thanksgiving in his daughter’s new residence – a bleak, noisy, largely unfurnished New York apartment.  The apartment is as much a character as the camera.  This baggage-laden family creaks and circles around the two stories of this apartment as if they are trying to get away from each other.  But that won’t work as they all have cliches to reveal. 

The basic purpose of this movie seems to be to make one appreciate one’s own life, and after watching this crew, I’m appreciative.  I said this last month, and I hate to repeat it, but not my cup of angst.

The Vault – 8

This Amazon production is about a deep ocean recovery of 3 valuable Spanish doubloons that are immediately seized by the Spanish Government without really knowing their value.  The salvagers decide they want to steal them back from the most secure location in the world, a vault in the Bank of Spain.  They recruit a recently graduated genius engineering student to ingeniously help them steal it back. 

There’s no new ground here, but I really liked the crew and the performances, particularly by Liam Cunningham as Walt, the crew leader.  Nothing great here, but if you like heist movies, this one is a steal.

The Marksman – 6

Liam being Liam. This time Liam Neeson is doing a version of Cry Macho, just a little younger than Clint.  If you liked the Taken trilogy, you'll probably like this, but let's hope there's no trilogy in store.

DOCUMENTARIES

Flee -10

You probably know by now I’m not much for animation.  It has to have quite the rep to draw me in, and this movie does.  It’s favored to win Best Documentary at the Oscars, and it’s easy to see why.  It’s the harrowing story, (and that in itself is a very inadequate description)  of what a took a man to emigrate out of Afghanistan.  It is animated for two reasons.  First, to still, after 20 years, protect his identity, and secondly, it would have been excruciating if done as a physical reenactment.  No Thank You.  That’s how bad it is. 

Adrienne – 10

The most moving thing I saw this month was this HBO documentary.  It is the story of the life and death of Adrienne Shelly, who died suddenly under mysterious circumstances in 2006.  Her most famous accomplishment was the movie Waitress.  She wrote it, acted in it, and directed it.  After her untimely death, It was taken to Sundance and was a big hit It was later adapted as a musical on Broadway to great acclaim.  Creative people are just different, and this movie celebrates her life through various interviews, including those made with her before her death.  I won’t get into the details of everyone interviewed, but some of them are heartbreaking.  Don’t miss this.

I remember seeing Sara Bareilles in concert in Atlanta when she was writing the music for the Broadway play.  One of her songs, “She Used to Be Mine,” has become a standard showcase for female vocalists.  You can see many renditions on Youtube, but this one is my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c7NUyhNuEs

 

Icahn:  The Restless Billionaire – 9 (HBO)

Carl Icahn is a financier/corporate raider who has had a lot of impact on Wall Street as an activist investor.  This is one of those up close and personal portraits.  It's interesting, and much like Warren Buffet, Icahn is playing a different game from the rest of us.

The Worst Roomate Ever - Incomplete

This just came out on Netflix, and the final two episodes about a squatter named Jamison Bachman is a story I heard and read about a long time ago from my friend Bob Friedman, who makes an appearance in the documentary.  It’s the final 2 episodes, and it is truly horrifying what Bachman got away with.  As a documentary this piece suffers from what I would call over-stuffing.  The same pictures over and over with ominous music to convey something.  Anyway, he was a childhood friend of Bob’s and as detailed in this article, Bob probably got off lucky.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jamison-bachman-worst-roommate-ever.html

REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel – 10

I’m sure it helps when you have a month to put together some quality reports, but for my money this HBO series is not only the best documentary series on TV (take that 60 minutes) but it may be the best thing on TV.  Don’t believe me?  Check out the stories this month:

1. The head injuries suffered by Bobsledders
2. An incisive interview conducted by Gumbel himself of Brian Flores (and 2 attorneys) about his law suit against the NFL.
3. A Bitcoin craze initiated by Surfers in the very poor El Salvador
4. The heartbreaking story of Opioid addiction among high school athletes, including on struggling player they have been following for years.

 
CLASSICS/OLDIES

Boondock Saints - 7

This is the story of twin brothers who think they’ve been given permission by their priest to become vigilantes.  So that’s what they do.  They are pretty good at doing it, considering there’s no discernable training.  I’m told there’s a namesake bar in the French Quarter that just plays this movie over and over on their TV’s.  It ain’t worth all that.

The Ambassador – 4
King of Marvin Gardens – 6

Why in the world would I watch these two movies?  Simple.  They were holes in my Ellen Burstyn resume. 

The Ambassador is a 1984 film starring Robert Mitchum as a Middle East Ambassador, with Rock Hudson as his security guard, trying to broker peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis and it could take place today, because in 40 years, the quo is still status.  Ellen plays Micthum’s wife who is having an affair, and there are two shocking scenes in the movie, the first of which is a love scene in which Ellen appears topless.  I can’t remember her ever doing that.  The second shocking scene is a slaughter at the end of the movie that would never make it to the screen today.  So, I won’t call the movie forgettable, but it’s not very good.

The King of Marvin Gardens is a Jack Nicholson film that was directed by Bob Rafelson in the wake of their breakout success with “Five Easy Pieces” and they flopped on this one.  Ellen has the standout scene in this movie when she dispenses justice at the end.  Quirky scenes, not forgettable, but best forgotten.

I have been a huge fan of Burstyn’s since her Oscar-winning turn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.  She has two of my top ten female performances of all time, but you could google that subject, as I have, and she wouldn’t be listed in the top 100.  To appreciate her, you could watch her episode of Law and Order SUV that she won an Emmy for playing Elliott’s bipolar mother (Season 10 – Episode 3).  You could watch her incredible turn in Requiem for a Dream, but it may haunt your dreams.  If you could find it, (I can’t) you can find a 14 second appearance in an HBO Movie (Mrs. Harris) for which she got an Emmy Nomination.  That’s right.  14 seconds.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite Movie Female Performances of all Time, including what I think is the most underrated physical performance, Ellen as a healer in Resurrection.

Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line
Ellen Burstyn – Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Bette Davis – All About Eve
Liza Minelli - Cabaret
Judy Garland – The Wizard of Oz
Vivian Leigh – Gone With the Wind
Ingrid Bergman – CasaBlanca
Katherine Hepburn – Bringing Up Baby
Diane Keaton – Annie Hall
Ellen Burstyn – Resurrection