What do we got for entertainment...

AND WHAT DO WE HAVE FOR ENTERTAINMENT…

Cops kicking gypsies on the pavement

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Oh that they were only just kicking…

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And it ain’t just gypsies…

But we got movies 🙂

Here’s my thoughts on the nominees and select other films below.

Love to know what you think.  We are all friends here so I look forward to some spirited disagreement, and no holds barred when reacting to my thoughts – vitriol, venom, personal attacks, grossly inappropriate comments — are all welcome when responding to ME.  But if you are on this site, you are somehow linked to me and thus tenuously linked to any other person commenting… so when responding to posts not created by me, feel free to disagree, but do your best to do so in a respectful way — again this does not apply to my posts… disrespect away.

Oppenheimer

You down with OPP … YEAH YOU KNOW ME

What a great film. I’m too lazy to type out Oppenheimer, so I’ll be using OPP. Heck it even fits. Opp was very down with OPP.

Kicking off the year of the mashups — Oppenheimer. Part Hiroshima Mon Amour and a lot of Amadeus, it even has a little of that Orson Welles great — no NOT that one, that is way too easy — but Welles adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. OPP has the striking visuals and complex non-linearity of Hiroshima Mon Amour. It even has the infidelity and the looming presence of the bomb. These are all good things. In both films there is a tension between an intimate human story and the story of humanity and their tenuous status vis a vis the bomb — between the human and humanity. OPP has shots of water drops, waves, and the texture of painting among others… and expansive shots of the bomb. It visually illustrates how something that could eradicate humanity germinates from the study of the properties of atoms (some of the smallest of things) — and the film explores the small human moments that lead to the momentous/disastrous achievement that is the atomic bomb. We all know what is going to happen when he pushes that button (spoiler alert humanity survived – but the explosion apparently caught the attention of the aliens who landed at nearby area 51 -to check it out see the proof here) the tension is how the results play out with all of the characters, and we feel the tension more profoundly in part due to the style of the film — the tension built by the fragmented story telling and non-linearity enhance this moment. And this is why I was fine with the length of the film. The story is not just about the bomb. The story is about the battle to successfully make the bomb, and then his more quixotic battle for peace.

Along the way, he works with and battle’s Robert Downey Jr.’s Strauss. A straight edged, religious, conniving mediocrity who schemes to bring the hero down out of pure envy. Oh wait, I got that from the character description of F Murray Abraham’s Salieri in Amadeus. It’s both of them. And they both crush it. While the genius of Amudheimer/Oppedeus is instantly recognized for his brilliance while screwing away, the straight edged Strauss/Salieri plots.

From there, as HST said, when the going gets weird the weird turn pro. And things get weird. Regardless of your feelings on the bomb, the government mobilization and support for the program show the power of government to affect change. But the final hour of the film, maybe my favorite part, showcases the governments byzantine, capricious, and arbitrary bureaucracy. It feels like a reimagining of Welles – and while pikers have compared it to Kane with its transfsormational great man bathed in bravura aesethetic experience… I say, screw that… That final act felt like Welles’ adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. I could have watched that for hours more.

At the end, I kept thinking of Maxwell Smart’s old line if only he had used his genius for good instead of evil. OPP kind of does both. And sadly I also thought of Peter Medak’s swing satire, The Ruling Class. When Peter O’Toole goes crazy and thinks he is Jesus, he is pariah, but when he flips and suddenly thinks he is Jack the Ripper he becomes a pillar of society and the toast of the house of lords.

And this should have been the music for the closing credits.

No one is united
And all things are untied
Perhaps we’re boiling over inside
They’ve been telling lies
Who’s been telling lies?
There are no angels
There are devils in many ways
Take it like a man
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
You can’t take it back
Pull it out of the fire

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Holdovers

The Holdovers mashes up the Breakfast Club with Scarecrow or The Last Detail. In recreating the timeframe, Payne shoots the film to look like a 70’s film, including the old R rating title card and 70’s style credits. Hence, it bares a visual, not just narrative, resemblance to Scarecrow and The Last Detail (both 1973). Giamatti Randolph and the kid all do a very convincing job. Giamatti’s cranky old teacher feels like he was the uncle Giamatti never had in Sideways. The balance of sentimentality and comedy hits just the right note. Just as the film starts to feel too pat, it takes an unexpected direction. Without browbeating, it touches on a few of the issues impacting the times — the (Vietnam) war, race relations, an even more ingrained class structure; all while staying funny and engaging. Maybe you have to go back a few decades to find that balance.

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American Fiction

American fiction masterfully mashes up Tootsie and Adaptation. I’ve gotten some pushback on the Tootsie element, but Jeffrey Wright plays a talented artist who can’t generate any interest in his work, so he creates a non-existent identity. Then he gets wrapped up in romance, and the lies around a false life spiral. It even has a touch of The Big Clock or its remake Against All Odds, where Wright sits on a panel considering an award for his own false identity. Tootsie has Bill Murray as a smaller but pivotal character in what may be one of his best roles and AF has Sterling K Brown come out of nowhere and crush it. Jeffrey Wright finds nuance on multiple fronts. Whether it is the emotional moments with family or the professional insanity, he finds another layer. And as someone who has been there, Leslie Uggams should have been nominated. This is perhaps a large chunk of the film that does not get as much ink. The family dramedy element is particularly poignant. It fires on all cylinders until the final few minutes. At that point it goes for an unconventional complex ending that feels more forced and facile than deep. This is where it leans heavy on Adaptation, but not successfully. But outside of that, fantastic.

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Rustin

Bayard Rustin was a fascinating figure. I’d heard the name but didn’t know exactly who he was when I went to work for the NYC Department of Ed. I was sent to discuss a position at Washington Irving and Bayard Rustin HS. Well, I knew who Irving was, and I heard the name Bayard Rustin and knew he was involved in Civil Rights, but I learned more then about Rustin, Dewitt Clinton, Phillip Randolph, and Kosciuszko working for the DOE. So, I was excited to see Rustin. And I found it a credible and interesting film. And there is no doubt in my mind that Colman Domingo earned an Oscar every bit as much as the other nominees. And I am a fan of films that don’t insist on running overwhelmingly long, but this is one case where I do wish the film had been longer. That Wolfe could have teased out a bit more of the tension in Rustin’s life. Back then particularly, when Rustin asked, ‘do you hate me because i’m gay or because i’m a socialist?’ the answer he got was ‘YES’. And just an fyi, guy fought to desegregate the US military, protect the rights of interred Americans of Japanese descent, got his ass kicked by Nashville police for pulling his own Rosa Parks, was a conscientious observer, massive union organizer etc. Those chain reactions that led Oppenheimer to his place in history got ample coverage in OPP, wish Rustin had got the same – his civil rights work is legion, but dude did so much else, even supporting Israel and advocating on behalf of Soviet jews. Later in life he waded deep into gay rights. But to make his story even more fascinating, he went kind of neo-con especially as an anti communist. I’ll sit in a theater all day to watch that film.

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Zone of Interest

ITS ABOUT TRUMPSTERS… Well, it is — but its also about me, and you, all of us. On some level well all do it. But the question is, should we and perhaps most practically, at what point do we acknowledge that doing it is just plain unacceptable. Rudy Hoss is in charge of making sure Auschwitz runs smoothly. He and his family live in the lush splendor of a garden home which shares a wall with the camp. The gardens flourish, the lawn lush and precise, the pool inviting; but the sounds from the camp haunt the film. We don’t see any of the horrors on the other side of the wall. Some have criticized the film for this, others consider it even more horrific as the sounds inspires images more authentic and terrifying in the viewers mind. I’m not sure. But its a choice and one that I found particularly effective. The sound functions for me as the return of the repressed. The more beautiful the gardens, the more frolicking bucolic merriment, the more haunting the sounds. While not subtle, its not overt. The film has gorgeous close ups of various flowers while later we see a forced laborer spreading ashes throughout the grounds. And if there was any doubt that perhaps the wife was not fully aware of what was happening, she shouts at a domestic servant (forced laborer), “I’ll have you turned to ash.” In the moment, it is simply a way for her to express her anger in manner consistent with he pitiless persona. But like the ash, and so many other small moments, it reinforces that they knew exactly what was happening on the other side of the wall. And while this film focuses on perhaps one of the most egregious examples of perpetrating a heinous evil while living a mindful life in sync with nature that takes time to smell the roses, it is happening all around us. Trump supporters can blithely ignore the insurrection, believing that even without democracy they will be able to live in their garden home. We regularly make choices that have serious repercussions. Few can live a perfect life and to put that expectation on oneself is probably unhealthy. But should we not also keep in mind the myth of the frog in a pot of water. The legend goes that one can slowly heat the water and the frog will acclimate until ultimately it gets boiled. At some point we must all draw a line and not drown out the sounds from the other side of the wall.

The mashup for this film hit me twice hard – one at the beginning of the film, the other at the end. So much of the film — what it chose to shoot, how it chose to shoot it felt like Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles so much so that I thought they could have called it Rudolph Hoss, 1Legionow Strasse, 666 Auschwitz. Near the end of the film there is a sequence that reminded me of the end of Taste of Cherry. While its not the same, it is a moment that breaks away from the narrative in an intense and incisive way, but again overt without being explicit.

And let me pat myself on the back for not bantering about the phrase ‘banality of evil’ to show that I too read an article about an article that quoted Hannah Arendt. Opps… Damn… So close… If I had just stopped typing.

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Fallen Leaves

Aki Kaurismäki makes great films. Similar to his brother from another mother, Jarmusch, his films mix a borderline Brechtian distancing with emotionally genuine stories of people just trying to find their way. If you buy in to what he’s throwing out (and not everyone can buy in), you are rewarded with a beautiful, funny, emotional film — an emotional film that is neither melodramatic nor cloying. There is a certain tendency in international film for an vocal subset of Americans in particular to gush over films that tend to be cloying and narratively unsophisticated, but they go crazy for them. Most recently there have been some Korean films that fit this bill — counterbalanced by truly great films like Parasite. Not Fallen Leaves. There is a quirky aesthetic that encourages a certain distancing, but characters (and the actors behind them) that create such an emotional authenticity that you can’t help to get sucked into their world. It has you laughing with their resigned frustration. To emphasize this tension between these poles, Kaurismäki uses radio broadcasts of the war in Ukraine as a background to a world that in many ways has no technology beyond the late 60’s. The tension between the massive global threat that is the war in Ukraine finds its way into scenes about two people awkwardly wrestling with very personal and ‘small’ predicaments. Like an old scratched LP skipping — stuck on a world that looks half a century old, the Ukraine war broadcasts bring us back to the present. Its an unsettling tension that makes the film that much more fantastic.

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Asteroid City

Wes Anderson films are Zen kaon for me. They use stilted dialog, precise, ornate, spectacular dioramas for sets and all of this artifice adds up to genuinely authentic moments that move me both aesthetically and emotionally. Half the time. And there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason. Films hailed by Andersonites leave me flat and films dismissed by same experts, I love. Go figure. I enjoyed French Dispatch, Grand Budapest, Isle of Dogs, and Rushmore. And now Asteroid City. This one has the narrative trick of Our Town or perhaps Gold Diggers/42nd Street et al. Here is a movie about let make a play. Well not quite. The serious earnestness of Bryan Cranston helps the documentary about a play and so on…. and part of the fun of this is how it seems to nail that late 50’s actors studio ethos in its making of section. And so we are thrust into the fictional world of Asteroid City. It feels like maybe there is a Brechtian inspired meditation on the nature of storytelling here, but it fuzzy and feels like it was not the main focus. But Cranston and the others have great fun with those outer shells of the story, capturing an earnest quasi-intellectual devotion to the art.

Through all this and the arrival of an alien, I still found myself emotionally invested in the characters and the actors (in the 50’s) playing the characters. So, WA stylized museum worthy dioramas and stew of characters who all have fits of monumental incisiveness locked me in the town with the rest of the cast and I dug it. So ya Noises Off meets 42nd Street reinforced with the Wes Anderson shmear.

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Anatomy of A Fall

Below there will be an oblique spoiler alert. This has the classic pacing of a European film. A death and then a sort of who dunnit. It is done with elegance and panache — and certainly engrossing especially because and here is the spoiler it takes its entire conceit from an episode of Columbo that I fondly remember. It does all kinds of interesting things as it goes from beginning to end. I still feel conflicted. The mash up is in the name, Anatomy of a murder meets M (the crucial blind witness) but really it feels like a clever Euro watched an episode of Columbo (murder modus) and Knightrider (which also has the blind witness)

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Poor Things

Well it seems their was a film that cleverly critiqued the patriarchy…. but it was not Barbie. It was mostly Poor Things. There was a great comedian who found a new generation of fans on David Letterman named Brother Theodore who had a bit where he shared (as a man in his 70’s) that his ideal girlfriend was a rich widow, 13 years old with firm…. Well, take that routine and toss in a little Frankenstein and you got Poor Things. The film is visually stunning — not quite as fanciful as a Jeunet film like Delicatessen or City of Lost Children, but lush and fantastically inventive. And oh does it have performances. Emma Stone won me over. As Ralph Tabakin says about color TV in Diner, she was not for me. But she crushes this. Her physicality staggers. And then, my favorite part of the film, Mark Ruffalo channeling Peter Sellars as Clare Quilty in Lolita. This film at its heart is a mashup of Lolita and Frankenstein, and Ruffalo’s genius performance hammers (furiously jumps) that home. But it also feels like a film about the patriarchy in kind of an icky way. Bella is created by mad scientist DeFoe, who doesn’t furious jump her (her term for it) because he’s pregnant. But he does allow her to call him God. And maybe we have the secret for all these Red State douche bags that want to deny a woman reproductive choice. Spelled out, “If I can’t ‘furious jump’ them, then damn it, they must respect my position as their god.” So Bella, his creation, is a fully grown woman (Emma) with the mind of an infant. Here Stone’s performance shines. Her movements capture an adult moving like an infant. While dad’s assistant is groomed to marry her and help keep an eye on the experiment (her), she is spirited away by Ruffalo channeling Sellar’s Quilty. It’s great fun. And here if films had footnotes, there would be one to not just Lolita but also Terry Southern’s hilarious reworking of Candide, Candy. The film is a classic sixties romp with everyone from Brando to Walter Matthau. Candy err Bella drops Ruffalo’s wanna be Quilty and searches for enlightenment. she ends up in a brothel. In this brothel there is no non-consensual sexual violence and no venereal disease. Just a Camillie Paglia paradise of a woman owning her sexuality and changing for it. It’s fun, but icky. She makes her way back only to be captured by the man she was married to before she became a Frankenstien-ella. He is violent and possessive. And so she has run the gamut of men, and endured the different forms of power and abuse that give a well rounded reflection of the patriarchy. And yet having seen the world and read the great books, as a liberated powerful woman, she marries the creepy guy that proposed to her when she was an infant. Yuck. He’s played as a good guy, but there is something supremely creepy. At least Ruffalo’s character didn’t make any bones about it so to speak, he was all about the furious jumping (until he got all sentimental and possessive), but this guy is somehow the happy ending? A guy who proposed to an infant and then was willing to wait it out til HE deemed it proper to start jumping. And this was where the film tripped me up. On the one had, it is a thoughtful critique and great fun, and yet on the other it ends with a sort of wink and a nod that pedophilia is alright if you are gentlemanly about it. And there seems something oddly sanitized about life as a prostitute. It’s just well icky. But its also great fun, certainly a startling take on the journey of (self) enlightenment. But where does that trip end.

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Ferrari

Ferrari surprised me. Not really a car movie. Great movie about the complicated relationships that are forged for greatness. In this regard, Penelope Cruz got robbed for not even eliciting a nomination. The nuance and rage packaged together in her performance is stunning. And she plays a crucial enabler and counterbalance to the films most interesting aspect — how much would you lose, how many would you sacrifice for greatness. How do you compartmentalize the tragedy and sorrow, and what coping mechanisms do you create to try and keep that compartmentalization from blowing apart. This was where the film shined.

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THE YEAR OF THE REMAKE REBOOT & SEQUEL

It seems like all the major films this year were sequels, remakes or reboots. Some of the films were overt about it, and others just went full sequel in spirit. If you dig deep enough, I’m sure you could find similarities for just about every film in something made previously, but these seemed particularly similar in important ways. That is not necessarily a bad thing, just a curious one. I can’t remember a year with such stark homages. Some of the films used the inspiration to create something new and exciting. Others not so much.

I want to be clear here, these are my reactions to the films. With the exception of Tar being doggie doo doo, I’m hoping others will share their reactions. Sometimes, it allows a thoughtful viewer to see something they didn’t the first go round, sometimes it allows said viewer to reevaluate the film, and others, it reaffirms their original reaction.

So click on a header and leave a comment (as a shortcut you can click on the comment number and it should take you straight to comment box)

KIMI

How did this get lost.  There is a clear inspiration from one of Coppola’s classic but forgotten films, The Conversation. I’m calling it the best reboot of the year.

Just an engaging and well crafted film.  I wish I could show the leaving the loft sequence to my friends to explain every time I didn’t make it where I should have been.

Too bad Harrison Ford was to busy making the cute sitcom, a cameo in the reboot would have been epic.

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE

Not sure how this got lost either.  Cronenberg basically remakes Dead Ringers but different.  Its strange, fascinating, and mind boggling — all within the confines of a well crafted story (something that seems in short supply these days).  And as with any Cronenberg film, its bizarrely cool to look at.

ARGENTINA 1985

Well a national reboot of Judgement at Nuremberg but also has a a feeling of Marshall.  For the young folks you could say it probably feels like a better version of the trail of the chicago seven.  doesn’t matter its a hollywood style filmmaking at its best, just happened to be made in Argentina.  it has that feeling of a great, important hollywood film in a good way – superb performances thoughtfully plotted, engaging… and given most Americans grasp of world history it even be a bit of a thriller for most Americans…

BARDO

Something about having a unique visual flair must inspire you to make a film about yourself — Fellini’s Otto e Mezzo, Tarkovsky’s Mirror.  It’s a fascinating film but always feels a bit icky in that there is an  inherent narcissism to the project that confronts you throughout.  But certainly an thoughtful and engrossing film.

RRR

Star Wars with the far away galaxy being India about 100 years ago?  Visually stunning and loads of well choreographed action, the film dispenses with nuance or credibility in favor of fun.  And it succeeds — tons of funs.  A spectacular (as in massive spectacle) and fun movie but doesn’t challenge you much.

While I have no doubt that most brits exploiting India committed every cold hearted atrocity conjured up for this script, just a touch of nuance might have benefited the film. After one particularly haughty British atrocity, I expected the English commander to pick up his hairless cat and wait for his mini me to join him. Which is fine. One of the great pleasures of watching this film is seeing most of the English as souless devils. And right on to RRR for rectifying over a hundred years of the opposite. I was recently trying to find a a short clip of Clint Eastwood saying “Make my day,” or “Feeling lucky, punk,” and the only clips I could find were of him saying that to a crazed black guy — in one case holding a white woman in a position to kill her (i already forgot if it was a gun or a knife he was wielding — does it matter?) Now I’m sure Eastwood says that to bad guys that are white too, they just don’t come up on the first twenty searches of youtube. So sure how about a little payback. And if there was a country that deserves it, I can think of no better than the most rapacious (same root as… ya know) colonialist power of all time. I mean say what you want about national socialism… they stuck to one continent.

Excellent fun and hands down (sorry Top Gun and Avatar) the most satisfying and entertaining popcorn seller of the year.

EO

A beautiful classic European style film. I’m not sure its for everyone, but if you appreciate a film that sets its own pace and style, you are in for a treat.

AMSTERDAM

The 21st century post modern Parallax View?  A little more love interests a bit more of a buddy picture, some absurd weirdness.  Its fun, its exciting, it even has a bit of a relationship with history.  The only issue is that it is so busy doing these other things, it doesn’t take its subject matter seriously.  It was having too much fun riffing off the Big Sleep et al to take it self seriously. Some historian down the road will say the real life incident this is based on and Eisenhower’s famous speech about the ‘Military Industrial Complex’, couldn’t people see it coming? But Russell decided to go camp. Good film but questionable choice.

EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE

I suppose every generation has their Walter Mitty, which is  a previous generation’s Connecticut Yankee…  It’s a super fun version of this movie, but felt not quite like a great film.  Walter Mitty meets Kentucky Fried Movie. It seems to satisfy the need for a certain generation to geek out and ‘fanboy’ on — which is great, but getting ‘nerdy’ devotion to a film seems to substitute too often for mining any thoughtful ideas.  Now somewhere in there, someone will disagree that this is not a well crafted Mitty remake, but  exploring the ‘multiverse.’  I am no expert, but I did receive a bachelors in physics and I call bullshit.  Fun film with great performances, a super fun movie but not a great film.

THE WOMAN KING

Well this film got overlooked. A generally engaging warrior film. Remake Wonder Woman without the comic book whizz bang and drop it into Africa. The performances are consistently top notch. I don’t want to put actors up head to head, but I would say Viola Davis’s performance was every bit as good Riseborough or de Armas’, and in service of a much better final product.

BENEDICTION

Almost turned this off after 15 minutes.  Tired pretentious shots of the horrors of WW1 with the real life protagonists poems read over them.  Not bad, but hard to find a foothold.  And then he objects to the war, the focus is on his life, and things get fascinating.  He doesn’t seem to write a poem thereafter — but who cares, he discovers his sexuality and he and his various lovers discover their inner Oscar Wilde. Good juicy fun with a story that explores the tribulations an occasional exaltations of being gay a century ago.  But since it is a biopic it returns to his life in his twilight years and you kind of wish it would have left you liking the character.  Flawed but fun.  The best of this film is the center which remakes La Cage Aux Folles.

CALL JANE

Felt a lot like A walk on the Moon in spirit and its flawed, but also powerful and engaging.  to the films credit they clearly cut it to try and make it a normal length film — which almost no one bothers to do these days.  This one could have been a bit longer perhaps to go a bit deeper, but what’s there is thoughtful and engaging.  Heartbreakingly funny at times the way it addresses the toxic side of mansplaning amongst many things.

THE QUIET GIRL

Some films just hit you in the right place. This one does it. The entire film appears to play out in a strong simmer. Very little explosive moments, but when the needle rises just a bit it means something. Just enough of a plot to engage us with its ensemble of interesting characters. It’s a gorgeous film, and to its credit (unlike say Living) it doesn’t spend too much of the film patting itself on the back for its gorgeousness. It’s a slow but engaging ramble through a slice of Ireland. If that appeals to you, then you will be all in. And unlike its hip slick and ultimately lame counterpart (Aftersun), it goes somewhere interesting.

TOP GUN

One of the explicit, easy reboots. No surprises here.  Not sure I get it.  It was a fun film, but seemed achingly predictable.  Jennifer Connolly was a nice addition.

LIVING

I’m again facing a film that is getting much of its kudos based on the lead performance (see To Leslie below). And who am I to say. Bill Nighy seems to give a credible performance. But is it a stretch to play a repressed Brit who withholds all emotion? I’m not so sure. His character seems to run the gamut of emotion from A to B. An old cultural critic complained that BB King just played one note and milked it for a career. Not sure I agree, but I thought of that quote while watching this film. This feels more like a lifetime achievement award.

Now as for the film. It’s a remake of a film called Ikiru — a great film. And it is certainly as faithful as a film can be when you move the film from Japan to England. But it missed something. The bar scene in Ikiru was wonderful, and the bar scene in Living seems flaccid and perfunctory. But that’s not the real remake here. Its a good thing Merchant Ivory can’t copyright their style or they could sue for royalties. Ishiguro has got history with them so I guess it is all in the family, but this seems to be some version of throwback Thursday for the over seventy film snob crowd.

The ingenue of the film was an interesting casting. She plays the exact same character she played in the rollicking good Brit series Sex Education. Basically her Sex Education character’s grand mother. She does a fine job in both, its not a criticism just an oddity. Made me wonder if I were more familiar with British TV if I could find all the other character actors playing the exact same role in something else.

It’s a cliché to say, but sometimes clichés are clichés for a reason, but go back and watch the original. Its a gem. And I think even the academy must agree because it didn’t get sent up for anything else (well technically Ishiguro also got adapted screenplay but this REALLY feels like a lifetime achievement nod), as well it shouldn’t.

AVATAR

Again…another rehash… not much to say here.  The further adventures of the blue folk. Gage your reaction to the first film, and your expectations will undoubtedly be met.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Another ‘direct’ remake.  Glossy beautiful ‘war is bad’ shots of carnage and destruction. But less engaging and less visually stunning than 1917. Maybe the academy was responding to the fact that it was in a foreign language? I don’t get it.  It wasn’t even the best film based on WW1 this year, that would be Benediction.

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

 This is fun but seems like lowbrow humor for effete intellectuals.  God forbid the New Yorker crowd watch Dumb and Dumber or  Beavis and Butthead.  Give them gross out comedy in a pretentious package.  (See also the Menu — which suffers from a much less satisfying execution and hamfisted weak tea-ed parody)   Triangle is fun but it takes a long time to get to its remake of Lina Wertmuller’s Swept Away.  Cute moments and a fun movie but unsatisfying as a film.

GLASS ONION

Ugh. While Knives Out was clever and well plotted, this decided a few cheeky scenes could cover up the lack of attention to plotting and story. They don’t. It is the perfect warning for anyone who succeeds and believes everything they read about themselves and then does not feel the need to put in the effort. Major disappointment. All of the sly plotting of the first one was tortured or simplistic in this one. I guess there was never a Murder By Death sequel to crib from.

ELVIS

I feel like I have lost count of the Elvis biopics and I was hopeful.  Baz has a visual style that can make anything interesting.  Unfortunately, he choose not use his touch in the slightest.  Its as if Lubitsch decided to make a remake of an Andy Hardy or a Ma and Pa Kettle movie and left the original in tact.  No Lubitsch touch… No Baz touch.  So this film takes the prize for biggest disappointment.  The performances were spectacular — Elvis and Tom were well played, but this is hagiography not a bio pick.  Can we at least put a little responsibility on Elvis for his choices.  I have no doubt that Parker was an evil bastard that encouraged his drug abuse, but by the end, the only two people Elvis trusted were Tom Parker and Richard Nixon.  At some point you have to take responsibility for your choices.  Elvis pimping for Nixon broke my hear. But the lack of visual flair is what broke my heart even more.

BABYLON

  Well the first 20 minutes rock. Margot Robbie doing cocaine and having that timeless cocaine fueled conversation about “film.” It must have been had as many times — well as many times as cocaine was done at a Hollywood party.  And the party was a visual feast. But the first inkling that something might be amiss is the hatchet job it does on Fatty Arbuckle.  Quick tip. Stop watching here and you will think Babylon was a good ole romp.  But keep watching and you will wish you didn’t. Remake Singing in the Rain with the focus on the villain from the original as a charming self destructive but talented actress.  Delve into the insecurities of the Gene Kelly character and tell it all through the eyes of a character who seems alright but has a heart of stone.  He somehow finds a way to come the closest to a sympathetic character and yet treats people poorly throughout.  It is a rather sordid and pointless affair.

FABLEMANS

Truffaut started with his autobiography and Spielberg is ending with it.  But this really feels like a remake of Breaking Away.  Its what you would expect from Spielberg… a soundly made film that exposes the driving force behind his work… becoming a goy… with the exception of Judd Hirsch and Seth Rogen — no one in the film is Jewish… I’m not advocating that every actor has to be what they are… that is the point of acting… but it speaks to Spielberg’s obsession with being mainstream…. and its not new… A good chunk of the cast including the star of Munich weren’t Jews either…just a side note.  I feel like Sarah Silverman could have crushed the role as mom.  But one of the most telling scenes in the film comes with his high school filmic yearbook.  The anti semitic jock lectures him for making him look so perfect… and the young spielberg retorts I did it for you…. He has spent his career making nice films to please the goys… that scene nailed it!  It’s a film that moves you from moment to moment but its not a great film.  Breaking Away felt more authentic.

NOPE

Fun. JP got to venture into the alien invasion sub genre and do the American Attack the Block or an update of cowboys vs aliens? Regardless, like any really good genre film it leaves open ample opportunities to opine on many a hot cultural topic — celebrity, the toxic entertainment industry, history and the folks that got short shift in the retelling of it. It opens up all kinds of avenues — an alien that destroys you if you ‘look at it’ a lead character named OJ (and his relationship with a Bronco), marginalization of the minorities, and so on.

I couldn’t help think of this clip from Blazing Saddles. While Nope gives you much more to think about, over an entire film, it does explore that notion of ‘we were there, but not in the same way.’

While I liked the film, I didn’t love it. Enjoyed thinking about it more than I enjoyed watching it.

WOMEN TALKING

A unique take on The Women… There are some clever speeches and touching movements… but this isn’t a film… its a stage play. Each beat is simply a setup for a clever speech from another character. And it has the rhythms of play — a little back and forth sets up a speech – which leads to a new back and forth that leads to… wait for it… a speech and so on. This rhythm feels awkward and off putting in a movie theater. I’d go see the play in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t recommend the film.

THE WHALE

It was unsatisfying…. It certainly had its moments, but it chose to keep all of the tropes of a stage play — albeit in a more narratively engaging way in comparison to Women Talking. But it was a bit like eating a dominos pizza. You eat it all, it sort of tastes good at the time, but you don’t feel great afterwards. There are really good performances. The most fascinating character is Hong Chau. The way her character moves through the drama is quietly more revealing than the somewhat straightforward trajectory of Fraser’s character. Don’t get me wrong, he is great, but sometimes the poor animal wrangler’s story might be more interesting than the proverbial elephant in the room.

BANSHEES

I believe i have found the notes on the pitch.  Midnight Cowboy set in a small Irish village? No, ok Abbott and Costello where Costello develops a pathological hatred for Abbott.  OK here it is… the Odd Couple  Irish style.  You can’t fault the acting, but the story feels forced upon them so that the filmmaker can claim some award for dreadful originality.  The story that interested me was that of the sister, which remains unexplored.

TAR

 Fields wanted to show us he could be more pretentious than anyone and he succeeded.  And what does a pretentious filmmaker do? They make their own version of Citizen Kane.  Except he made it without the first third of the film which builds in the deeper understanding of the character.  You don’t like Kane by the end but you understand him… Fields remade the final 2/3’s of the film at double the length.  For you young people that find Kane ‘boring’ (oy) be prepared for a slog.  It is a very long film for admittedly a great final scene.   This could be re-edited to become the best short (15min) of 2023 hands down.  And K.B. performance is amazing — just for a pointless endeavor.

TO LESLIE

Who is anyone to say what comprises a great performance? I feel like it is rare to see a poor performance these days. And this film seems to have both an apparently good performance — it seemed pretty good to me, and a pretty poor one… Marc Maron is a funny guy and good podcaster, but he feels wooden here. So maybe she got the nomination because she looked so effective compared to her co-star? Maybe if some of the women in Woman King had done a worse job acting, Viola would have gotten the nod. With so many excellent performances, shouldn’t the quality of the film count for something. This is pretty straightforward for the ‘slow march to sobriety’ sub genre.

AFTERSUN

To say the least I did not get it. This definitely goes into the To Leslie bucket of films that didn’t really work with good performances. The guy is good, but the film does have one thing in common with Tar — its a dull and pointless exercise all for a great scene late in the film. It’s a great use of Bowie’s Under Pressure, but the rest of the film seems an uninteresting slog.

HUSTLE

Adam Sandler chooses to not be entirely cloying.  The film captures some of the pettiness of the front offices and ownerships pretty accurately.  Maybe underplays the exploitative racial animosity so many owners have for their players (starver, snyder, jones, sterling)  it gets a little feel goody at times but its engaging and has a ton of fun cameos.  It feels a lot like the million dollar arm or trouble with the curve set in hoops.