News of the World (2/5 Stars)

 

News of the World was brought to us by writer/director Paul Greengrass. Greengrass is one of our better directors. He has made some excellent dramas like Bloody Sunday and Captain Phillips as well as the best installments of the Jason Bourne franchise. He has a knack for stripped down realism. Bloody Sunday is the story of a protest gone wrong in Northern Ireland. Captain Phillips, his first collaboration with Tom Hanks, recreated the hijacking of a container ship by Somali pirates off the horn of Africa. Dialogue in a Greengrass movie is utilitarian and his hand-held shooting style gives that documentary feeling of being there. More than anything, a Greengrass movie usually benefits the from the creator’s clear and distinct matter of the subject matter. News of the World would seem to be an exception to the above. This movie feels like an anachronistic jumble of modern sensibilities shoe-horned into the guise of a Western. The most obvious example is the casting of Tom Hanks who has never acted in a Western before and for what seems to be good reason. He looks and feels out of place and time. He doesn’t even try for an accent even though his character has lived all his life in Texas.

Tom Hanks plays “Captain Kidd”, a man who spends his time travelling from place to place in Texas reading big city newspapers. He is a travelling show, but with a bit more scholarly class. The movie takes place during Reconstruction after the Civil War. For some reason, there are federal union troops standing in the back fully armed. The people in the audience do not like the occupying troops or hearing any news about the federal government, which is weird because its not like the show is mandatory curriculum. They could just leave or not show up at all. And it is not like Captain Kidd must read that news. He is like a mother serving vegetables at dinner, but he’s not a mother and these people are not his kids, so…

Between one town and the next he comes across a hijacked wagon. The driver of the wagon, a black man, is hanging from a rope nearby. There is a paper on him that reads something like, “Not in Texas”. Captain Kidd finds nearby a traumatized white girl who speaks only Kiowa. For that reason, she can’t explain what happened to Captain Kidd. How convenient. I would give a shiny nickel to anyone who could explain to me what happened. Clearly some unknown white people lynched the unknown black guy, that much we know. But why did they do it? Did they dislike the fact that he was transporting a white girl? If so, why did they leave the white girl there? Did they perform the lynching just because he was black and on the road? Is the message supposed to be for other black people? But there are no other black people in this movie. And this is the middle of Texas in the 1870s. Why would he be here, and if he was here, why would he be by himself? Here’s the real stumper: What in the world is this black man doing with this particular white girl? We learn later in the film that she is a daughter of German settlers who had been massacred by the Kiowa Tribe. The tribe kidnapped her, adopted her, and taught her the language. She was with the tribe for years we learn. Okay, so what is with the black man? Did he rescue her a la John Wayne in The Searchers? That seems unlikely. Where was he taking her and for what purpose? Did Greengrass just want to show us a lynching regardless of whether it made any sense in the story? Questions, questions.

There are several scenes of unreality happening here and there. Not a single character is religious even though almost every character should be. There is the usual dearth of children even though back then they would have outnumbered adults (This is an anachronism found in almost all historical movies). Captain Kidd spares the rod to an absurd degree for a man in the 1870s. Then there is this one ridiculous scene. Captain Kidd and Joanna (the girl) are caught in a serious dust storm with no help of shelter, not even a tent. It is a situation that ought to be fatal given their circumstances. Instead, Joanna uses her magical Kiowa training and finds some magical Kiowa tribesman. They are just hanging out there in that dust storm. They give Joanna a horse, like one of their good ones, for free. Captain Kidd and Joanna ride that magic horse into town and survive. This isn’t supposed to be real, right? I mean this must be some kind of metaphor, right? Right?

The lack of judgment, nay the outright reverence, this movie has for this tribe is kind of crazy. I mean, they murdered the entire family of this girl. And Tom Hanks just stands there repeating in an impotent manner, “I know people are hurting.” I suppose it is hard being judgmental when the movie seems to take the modern view that the settling of the American West was a bad thing overall. This kind of viewpoint makes for a strange Western, made more so since there are no major Native American characters, and the supporting ones are magical creatures of the plains.

Okay, so we only have white people talking here. What are they saying? Captain Kidd says “I know people are hurting.” Okay, that’s unhelpful. The main bad guy is Mr. Farley. He is a western entrepreneur. His employees shoot buffalos and only take the hide. There are heaps of shorn carcasses laying around. A terrible environmentalist. He is also very ugly, which in a Hollywood movie is a dead giveaway to someone’s underlying decrepit moral character. Mr. Farley says the main problem is Indians, Mexicans, and Blacks. Really? He is out here in the Wild West (i.e. the middle of nowhere) and that is his problem?

The Western is a longstanding genre in American movies. It has produced many great movies and a vast trove of mediocre ones. The main problem in a Western is not racism, its lawlessness. When you think of racism in America, you think of slavery and segregation (or zoning?), both of which were enforced through a legal code. In the Wild West, there is no legal code. Whatever justice or injustice exists is meted out by individuals. (This by the way is the great storytelling strength of the Western. Because there is no society, the characters’ individual choices matter more than usual, which raises the dramatic stakes, makes good men better and bad men worse). Some of the best Westerns are those movies that are about the slow and painful transformation from the state of nature to civilized society, for example The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and the HBO series Deadwood.

Ever since the 1970s though, this theme has fallen into disfavor with a vast segment of the population. After all, to tell a story from the American West with the theme of a transition from a state of nature to a civilized society carries with it the implicit argument that civilized society did not exist in the American West before the Europeans showed up and imposed it. In response to this dig at Native Americans, there are many movies that portray Native Americans as some magical people imbued with all colors of the wind. To hear them say it, the Native Americans would have forever lived in peace and harmony had the white people not shown up. In Dances with Wolves, a disaffected veteran of the American Civil War seeks to live with the Indians to get away from the corruption and strife within American society. Actually, the Native Americans have wars too, but this white man does not see the shared humanity between races behind such negative outcomes. He witnesses a battle between Native American tribes and reflects that white people fight and kill over stupid things like religion and ideology while the Native Americans fight and kill over things that make sense like food and territory. Yeah, I don’t think a distinction between reasons for killing is persuasive. We are not so different. If Native Americans wore cowboy hats, some would be white and some would be black.

I say since the 1970s, but this kind of viewpoint of tribal peoples is much older. In fact, its French. It is the sort of thing that contrarian French aristocrats like Voltaire and Rousseau would throw around while lounging in salons. (The British were busy taking over the world). In Voltaire’s Candide, the main character travels to America and discovers a secret city named El Dorado, that lacks crime, is full of happy people, etc. Its superiority derives from the lack of modern influences. For example, diamonds line the streets because the inhabitants are uncorrupted by the modern economic forces that would make them valuable. (Wakanda from Black Panther is basically the same idea. It is ironic that the message of Black Panther is openness, given everything about Wakanda argues for the opposite. After all, if Wakanda, a morally superior and technologically advanced civilization, has a racial makeup that is 100% homogenous, wouldn’t that argue in favor of a closed society and a pure race. How exactly has the immigration policy of Wakanda changed since its king publicly lectured the world on the benefits of openness? I would love to see that debate on Wakanda CSPAN.) Rousseau was basically of the belief that men hit their peak of morality a thousand years before cities when everyone was a Noble Ape, a child of the forest. This point of view is not too different from Dances with Wolves.

The grass is always greener on the other side. It is hard to explain what ought to be obvious. That life is better for everybody now than it ever was for any single Native American back then. People live longer, they don’t starve to death, their children don’t die in droves in childbirth and disease, women aren't treated like chattel, there is far less violence in the world, we’re all much more educated and have much more free time. I could go on, how much time do you have? A good Western understands this. It does not ignore the trials and injustices of the past, but it understands that the story is one that starts at chaos and heads toward order, not the other way around. If it does not have this, and it isn’t explicitly in the French line of thinking, it is a search in the wilderness for meaning and purpose. It is Tom Hanks playing an ex-Confederate soldier without the characteristics of one, feeling vaguely guilty, but not being able to articulate why.

TENET (3/5 Stars)

 

Boy, do I miss movie theaters. If there ever was a type of movie that necessitated big screen viewing, it would be a Christopher Nolan movie (The Dark Knight, Inception, Dunkirk). He specializes in IMAX photography and elaborate action sequences. He has not made a small movie for over a decade, the last being The Prestige in 2006. When I set out to watch Tenet, an original spy thriller (as opposed to the 26^th installment of James Bond or the 8^th Mission Impossible which was itself a remake of a TV series), I tried to see it on the largest screen possible, a big TV at a friend’s house. Terrible choice. Phones rang, people talked throughout, a young child spent half the time screaming and running around. It was hard to concentrate. By the second half of the movie, I had no idea what was going on.

 

Recently, I tried to see it again, late at night and very few other people around. Unfortunately, I still cannot say I completely understand the movie. I guestimate I am about 2/3rds into understanding. It is complicated. The downside of originality of course is that you are showing something new.

 

Tenet involves objects with reversed entropy. They are inverted in time. Now, the way human’s experience entropy is the progression of time in the presence and always going forward. When an object is inverted, it appears to the human to be going backwards in time. A sort of helpful example is an inverted wall that holds many inverted bullets. A character known only as the Protagonist (“John David Washington”) aims a gun at the inverted wall and the inverted bullet is shot out of the walled and is caught by the gun in the Protagonist’s hand. That is as simple as the temporal acrobatics get. Other temporal acrobatics include: fistfights, car chases, a heist, a military operation known as a temporal pincer move. These are incredible sight, but underneath the surface there remains a nagging question: What on earth am I watching?

 

I think a large problem this movie has is not that it introduces this wacky idea about inverted entropy, it is that the rest of the story is highly obscure. For instance, we do not know the main character’s name or anything about him. We do no know who is sending these inverted objects back through time or why they are doing so. The movie globetrots around the planet from London, to India, to Monaco, to Russia. It is hard to get a solid footing at any one place. All the characters are new and they speak like spies, that is, in vaguely threatening tones. I like to think I am a perceptive viewer, and I take as evidence that my understanding of previous Christopher Nolan films with their myriad temporal and structural complexities. Figuring out the puzzle is something I usually enjoy. Tenet is just one level too much. There are times when I think about this movie, and I remember a scene that doesn’t quite make sense and I’m not sure if there is an explanation somewhere or is it just sloppy storytelling and there actually is no explanation, perhaps the opening scene which involved an inverted bullet. Am I too know where that inverted bullet comes from? How did it get there? Now, I have seen the movie twice, and I still am not certain of it. I think two viewings are enough to conclude a movie is indeed confusing and not merely complex.

 

A fun thing about Christopher Nolan movies is that they sometimes are windows into the toys of the very very rich. I recall seeing Inception and being impressed very expensive suits of everyone in the first class section of the international flight. Here, we are introduced to a “Freeport”, which is where rich people store paintings to avoid taxes. Robert Pattinson walks around it in a very expensive suit and looks more adult than I have ever seen him.

 

The bad guy leaves something to be desired. He is supposed to be a nefarious Russian oligarch but is played by Kenneth Branagh. Now, I know I’m supposed to be impressed by the reputation of Branagh, but I confess to not really liking him too much in anything besides Henry V, which was in the 1980s. His Shakespeare adaptations are poor and I refuse to see him embody Hercule Poirot. Here, he is kind just too soft and flabby to really have much of a nefarious screen presence. Of course, he is not helped by the confusing narrative. The Russian oligarch has a supermodel wife played by Elizabeth Dibecki. This woman is too tall. I’m not sure she is actually that tal. I think the movie may have added some inches. Either way, not my thing. As stated before, Robert Pattinson looks the part in this movie. John David Washington, as the protagonist, does a decent job. His character is a bit of a blank slate, so not much acting is required, but he does what is required in the action sequences, particularly the bit where he has a fist-fight with an inverted antagonist.

 

I can’t really recommend TENET other than to say, if you do see, try to see it in a theater. This is a movie that will be definitely worse seen at home.

 

Mank (4/5 Stars)

 

“Success has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan.”

A movie by nature is a collaborative art form. More than one Oscar winner has taken the stage and decried the act of giving out individual Oscars when an individual’s work in the context of a movie depends so much on so many other people doing their jobs correctly. I mean just look at the amount of people in the credits. People are people however and sometimes no matter how much praise can be heaped upon a movie, egos can be large enough where there is not enough to go around. Such apparently is the case with “Citizen Kane”, which is arguably the best movie ever made. It had two writers: Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles and neither would acknowledge the other’s contributions. The truth is that they were both instrumental. Herman Mankiewicz wrote the first draft of the movie. Orson Welles took the draft and seems to have not paid much attention to it if all you pay attention to is what dialogue from the first draft actually shows up in the movie. But a screenplay is more than just dialogue. One of several great innovative elements of “Citizen Kane” is its multilayered narrative structure, which employs flash-forwards and flash-backwards from several points of view in a manner that is somehow not confusing. This is what Mankiewicz brought to the party in the first draft and is no mean feat. Nevertheless, “Mank” throws another log on this ever-burning fire by arguing that the writing of Citizen Kane was complete as soon as Mankiewicz wrote the first draft.

It is a strangely fitting way to tell this story. I mean when one takes a bird-eye view of Citizen Kane and considers its origins, production, and after affects, it is all one big axe-grinding affair. Two axe-grinders attempt to take down a great axe grinder and just when the history becomes the legend, they turn on themselves and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After all, to engage in an argument about the truth of the writing and production of “Citizen Kane” is to engage in an argument about the veracity of the movie’s story, which turns out, is also not true.

The axe-grinders are Mankiewicz and Orson Wells. With “Citizen Kane”, they took an axe to William Randolph Hearst, the greatest axe grinder of them all, a one-man media conglomerate who sensationalized the news and started at least one war. (For Mank it appears personal. Orson probably was too young and stupid to know any better). They are about to succeed when their movie is acclaimed as the best of all time. Watching it, and knowing that it is about Hearst, but not knowing much about Hearst, one may be led to believe that Hearts died isolated and unloved with a hollowness no amount of physical assets could fill. 

But, as any story about the making of Citizen Kane will reveal (and which "Mank" shows), Hearst did not die isolated and unloved. He regularly hosted elaborate dinner parties in his mansion wherein very interesting people would be invited and would attend. And he had a late love in life, Marion Davies (here played by Amanda Seyfried) that was not a no-talent shrew who despised him, but whom had true talent and held him in true affection. Actually, it was Orson Welles who would end up an obese, alcoholic recluse. Mankiewicz, already a fat alcoholic when he wrote Kane, would go on to do no further notable work before dying in 1953. If only Mankiewicz and Welles had not turned on each other, you would not know of all their future failings and how Hearst had enjoyed a better fate than either of them. This whole thing is like a couple of magicians revealing their secrets in order to garner credit for their originality. Its short-sighted, the only winner being the rich guy in his mansion with all his beautiful and successful friends. The best scene in Mank is when our hero confronts a Hollywood producer about a shady power move thing that the studio is involved in. The producer explains that he is not a particularly smart guy, he just gets up every morning, he goes to work, he doesn’t make snide sarcastic remarks, he doesn’t get drunk, and he just generally gives a shit. That is why, he explains to Mank, he will win this particular battle.

I’m not really saying much about the movie. It is professionally and competently made by the Director David Fincher from a screenplay written by Jack Fincher (father of David Fincher). Gary Oldman does a particularly good job of being a sarcastic, overweight, alcoholic writer. Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, I think it must be noted how exquisite she has been lit in the black and white cinematography. A guy shows up as Orson Welles that does not really look like him, but the voice is there.

But really, this movie is pretty dependent on you having already seen Citizen Kane and liked it enough to delve into the history of it. But also maybe you shouldn’t. Perhaps Citizen Kane is better appreciated by not having knowledge of the artistic sniping and the erroneous history involved in it? Perhaps it would be more enjoyable if you came to it like one would a piece of pure fiction, uninformed of all the backstage axe grinding? I think it might be. So, I suggest watching Citizen Kane, and if possible, doing so before you see Mank or read this review.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (4/5 Stars)

 

Writer/Director Armando Iannucci is one of my favorites. He is responsible for the early career of the British comedian Steve Coogan (David Partridge) and the best TV show about British politics (The Thick of It). Thereafter, he made a great movie that crossed over his British political show into American politics (In the Loop) and then seamlessly transferred his skills to one of the best shows about American politics (Veep). Since leaving Veep, he made a masterpiece, The Death of Stalin, which I called in my review a perfect marriage of artist and subject matter. His work, a worthy successor of Monty Python, is defined by that very British and very cruel sense of humor (a worthy American successor of Monty Python along the same lines is South Park). 

In the spirit of Monty Python then, And Now for Something Completely Different! For the first time in Iannucci’s career, he has expended money on set design and costumes. The Personal History of David Copperfield is a lark to look at it. It adapts the 19^th century Charles Dickens' novel with color and flair. The stolid realism of his political films is completely gone. Moreover, the movie's storyline zips and churns through scenery and characters in a frenetic and fantastic pace. It is a giant leap in style for Iannucci and he accomplishes it like a natural.

The screenplay which Iannucci co-wrote with longtime collaborator Simon Blackwell. I have not read this particular Dickens work novel, but having read other of his books, I expect the screenwriters put in excellent work, omitting much extraneous details were successfully edited out while successfully retaining the emotional core and finding room for plenty of jokes. This does not feel like the usual Dickens adaptation, which is all the better because I have never felt Dickens to be especially adaptable.

In fact, I’m not sure I particularly like Dickens. I'm not sure I approve of the way he gave characters names that automatically signaled how you are supposed to feel about them, as if a book could be judged by its cover. Anyhow, if one were to adapt a Dickens book, what with all its contrivances, this would be the movie to show it is to be done. The unabashedly caricatures of personality are here. David Copperfield is as earnest as earnest comes. Mr. Murdstone is a mean monster. Uriah Heep is a total piece of shit. It is an unfair story told in an unrealistic abstract way as if to signal to the audience like a B movie would, hey this is not real life, have fun and enjoy yourself.

This brings me to the most noticeable part of the movie, what the movie has termed “color blind casting”. As you may suspect, this 19^th century British novel about British people ought to be entirely populated by British people. However, Iannucci has cast an Indian in the title role (Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame), and several black people, some other Indians, and a Chinese man (Benedict Wong) in several of the supporting roles. 

Does this work? I am reminded of one of the stupider conversations I ever had with someone, a former roommate that attended the same college as Lena Dunham. He believed that Leonardo DiCaprio’s role in The Revenant could have been played just as well as a black man. (This role is based on the real-life personage of a fur trapper in 1820s America in the Louisiana Territory). I thought that point of view was idiotic. The movie was attempting to be as realistic as possible. It went so far as to shoot only with natural light. An undisguised black man as the protagonist would have been absolutely weird. I still stand by this sentiment, but at the same time, as a resident of New York City, I have seen many productions of Shakespeare plays which rely on color-blind casting. And for Shakespeare plays, color-blind casting works very well. After all, Shakespeare never had production value so there is very little realism in his works. The merits of his plays rely almost exclusively on the poetry of his words and acting, which can be done by anyone who can master the correct accent and style of performance. The color blind casting here works in the same way. There are many different ethnicities represented by the actors, but every single one of them speaks their lines in perfect 19th century English accents. (Not coincidentally I suppose, but the actors, if not British, come from places that have ties to the British Empire, in particular India, Africa, and Hong Kong. There are no Latin or Arab cast members).

The way the movie is presented is itself more abstract then realistic. Within this environment it makes sense to simply find the best actors around. Dev Patel, who has a very Tom Hanksian earnest everyman quality to him, is well cast in the lead role of David Copperfield. And I always like seeing Benedict Wong in anything. It would have been awesome if that was Chloe Sevigny in blackface, but apparently there is a black woman who looks just like her with the name of Rosalind Eleazar. The rest of the cast that is white is a who’s who of interesting actors: Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, and Peter Capaldi amongst them. Then there is Ben Whishaw who plays Dickens’ classic creep Uriah Heep. He does a particularly good job at making one’s skin crawl as soon as he shows up on screen. I am reminded once more by how much Dickens hated lawyers.

The movie moves swiftly from interesting caricature to interesting caricature and through comedic interludes and dramatic pratfalls. It ends with a artistic cop-out that is becoming as cliched as a story ending in marriage or death. The main character aspires to be writer. He writes a book about the people within the story. This story is published and becomes wildly successful. And The End, Happily Ever After.

I have seen this sort of ending perhaps a dozen times. What does it mean? Does it not say that all the hardships we endure in our lives can be automatically validated if the general populace pays attention to it and bestow upon the writer fame and fortune? Is that true? If two people have an argument, and only one is famous, and as a result only one side of the argument is told, is there then only one side of the story, and the argument won. Perhaps I am being a little cynical. However, it has been postulated that David Copperfield is a veiled autobiography of Dickens. If it supposed to be at all objective, is it fair to give your step-father the surname of Murdstone or to name anyone you once knew Uriah Heep. Apart from that, I really did like this movie.

A Blog Update

 

This is the fifteenth year I have been writing this blog and I think it is fair to say that 2020 was the worst year for movies in my lifetime. It is entirely the fault of the pandemic.

 

The crisis has made a few things clear though: First, it has been proven to me that seeing a movie in a theater is preferable to seeing a movie at home. The obvious differences are the size of the screen and the presence of an audience. These things are important, sure, and the presence of an audience is particularly helpful when watching a comedy or horror movie, but what I have come to respect even more is the focus that a movie theater provides the viewer. When one is at home there are a multitude of potential distractions that take the viewer out of the experience. Even a small pause in action would prompt me to look at my phone when I otherwise would not in a theater. For blockbusters this would not be all that important. You are not going to miss much when you look away for a few seconds. The movie I just watched, “The Personal History of David Copperfield” is a smaller movie, but it moves fast and has a lot of detail. Distractions can ruin the experience of this type of movie. I had to pause the movie several times and rewind so that I would not miss anything. I really wish I had seen this movie in a theater.

 

The pandemic also revealed one great thing about movie theaters I had completely taken for granted. As someone who lives in New York, I had the benefit of living in a market where almost every movie worthy of being released in theaters was available at some theater in the city. In effect, I always had the opportunity to see a particular movie at the time of its release. Now all the theaters are closed indefinitely. Since then, the movies that would have been given a theater release are now hoarded by streaming platforms. These streaming platforms, may they rot, don’t even allow movie night. That is, they do not allow a consumer to buy a single ticket to a newly released movie. I must subscribe to AppleTV, or Disney+, or HBOMAX to see anything on the service. Imagine my surprise, when I couldn’t see the latest Tom Hanks’ movie “Greyhound” earlier this year. I would have paid $15 to see it in a theater. I would have paid $15 to see it at home. But AppleTV wanted me to subscribe to AppleTV and would not sell or rent the movie to me otherwise. I believe I am like most people when I swear I will not subscribe to ten different streaming services (At this moment I have Netflix and Ami has Amazon Prime and Hulu). I’m not subscribing to a streaming platform just to watch one movie. That is stupid.

 

Worse, this development comes at the end-times of the rental market. For the first fifteen years of this century, movie-lovers lived in a golden era when every movie and TV show that was released was also put on DVD for general consumption in the rental market. In fact, all the great old movies were put on DVD too. With a Netflix DVD subscription, one had access to the entire DVD universe, which seemed to be almost everything. This golden era has ended. It is starting to become common that movies are not getting a DVD release (Compact Disc slots themselves are being omitted from new electronic devices). This would not be such a problem if there existed a general rental market where individual titles could be downloaded. However, that does not appear to be happening. “Greyhound” will not come out on DVD and it won’t be available to rent from AppleTV or any other streaming platform in the near or far future. It appears that it is fated to forever be locked within AppleTV. There are two ways a movie becomes widely seen. It is either widely marketed and highly anticipated. Many people see it immediately upon its release in theaters. Or it gains popularity once a critical mass of people have seen it and recommend it to other people. "Greyhound" did not get a release in theaters. A required subscription to AppleTV should severely limit any possible spread via word-of-mouth. It is hard to imagine a different scenario in which the rollout of this movie would result in it being seen by less people. It is almost as if Apple has no experience whatsoever in the business of making and marketing movies.

There is this idea of a shared popular culture which comes from a time (50s to 70s) when there were only five television channels and movies were expensive to make. Everyone in the country seemed to be watching or at least aware of the same cultural happenings. The splintering of our shared culture has been occurring for awhile now (let’s put the start of it at basic cable). The closing of movie theaters and the obsolescence of DVD rentals will only exacerbate that trendline. Where we go from here I do not know, but I am noticing the change.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (3/5 Stars)

 

I saw “I’m Thinking About Ending Things”, the new movie written and directed by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche New York), without reading any reviews about it. Strange things occurred all over the place. Still I believe I grasped the basic concept of what was happening. My guess was that an old janitor at the local high school was reminiscing (and revising) a memory he had a long time ago when he brought a girl he liked back home to meet his parents for the first time. I was close. After I saw the movie I read an review/interview with Mr. Kaufman in which it was revealed that everything but the janitor going about his day at the school was entirely imagined. There was no memory the janitor was revisiting. The whole thing was a daydream.

 

Is that a spoiler? I’m not sure. A spoiler generally refers to revealing a detail of a plot too early. In this movie, the basic concept is never revealed. You can only guess at it. Furthermore, I’m not sure knowing what the concept is will change how you view the movie a second time. There is much in this movie that is just strange and is hardly justified by the movie’s concept. There is a dog that appears and disappears randomly, a mysterious basement that isn’t so mysterious, a dinner meal that is never eaten. In the third act, the movie delves into ballet and animation. Even now, when I know what was happening, I could not tell you why most of the strange choices were necessary. They appear to be arbitrary to me.

 

This is the sort of argument I would level against a David Lynch film, but I have also like some of what David Lynch has done (the Twin Peaks tv show in particular). And I liked the movie The Lighthouse last year, so strange happenings by themselves are not a complete turn off to me. However, there is a problem with static scenes that simply go on too long to be anything but boring after a while. There are two scenes that take place entirely in a car. Each must be at least fifteen minutes long and contain nothing but dialogue. Kaufman changes the camera angle a bunch of times, but that is not enough. After a while one cannot stave off the feeling that nothing has happened for an exceptionally long period of time.

 

The concept when finally understood (I recommend reading articles that explain this movie either before or after seeing it) is very sad. Apparently, this old janitor never got far in his love life because he was always so terrified at bringing a woman home to his depressing farm to meet his weird parents. Even his imaginary girlfriend (here played by Jessie Buckley, his imaginary self is played by Jesse Plemons) does not seem to like him. Even though she is a creation of his mind and implanted with various bits of culture he has picked up over the years (landscape painting, Pauline Kael movie reviews, his favorite poem), she can’t help want to end the relationship, thus the title. I can’t help but think of Fight Club, which was about a man who so loathed himself that his imaginary friend wanted and proceeded to beat the shit out of him.

 

I’m not about to tell Charlie Kaufman to stop being so depressing. (Surely solitary high school janitors deserve movie as much as anyone else.) However, it may be a good idea for him to stop directing his own screenplays. His best movies employed such inventive directors as Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). They brought a colorful energy to Kaufman’s writing that is sorely missing from the bland palette of Kaufman’s own directorial visions (Synecdoche New York and Anomalisa). Perhaps if Kaufman went back to only writing his movies, he could find more time to make more of them. I note that Kaufman has only made two movies in the past decade. That is not nearly enough with someone with so much raw talent.

Bill & Ted Face the Music (4/5 Stars)

 

More than most other film franchises, Bill & Ted seems to benefit consistently from low expectations and the suspension of disbelief. The premise of the original movie involved two teenage boys from San Dimas California that dream about being rock-stars, call each other dude, and implore the people they meet to “Be Excellent to Each Other.” They are met by Rufus, a time-traveler from the future, (played by George Carlin), who informs them that they have a glorious destiny to unite the world in song but first have to pass a high-school history presentation. To help them in this regard, he lets Bill & Ted use his time machine to round up historical figures to help them pass. The film somehow works. I think it is because, although Bill & Ted know nothing about history, the movie itself is surprisingly literate. Importantly, the movie is also not snobbish about its education. It perceives the historical figures not as lofty great men, but people, and finds fun in what these people would think of the 1980s. It works much like Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” would work like twenty years later. It is enthusiastic about the past but never uses that knowledge as a platform for superiority. It treats history in a most inclusive, accessible, and excellent way. A tip of the hat to the writers of all three movies, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. Also, San Dimas High School Football Rules!

Bill & Ted Face the Music keeps intact all of the elements of what made the first Bill & Ted movies work and does just enough to differentiate itself into a new movie. It is a more of a concluding chapter than a breaker of new territory however. There is time travel (like the first movie) and a trip to Hell (like the second movie), but no new surreal concept. What it concerns itself with is the tying up of loose ends. It was foretold in the first movie that Prescott and Logan would write and perform a song that would unite the world. In this movie, we see that destiny fulfilled.

The entanglements of time and heaven/hell travel are given the briefest of surface logic, which is fine for the movie’s purposes. Now middle-aged and so far unsuccessful in uniting the world in song, Bill & Ted are met by the daughter of Rufus (played by Kristen Schaal) who informs them that the world is going to end later that day unless the foretold song is played at a very specific time and place. How specific? Well the movie is about 95 minutes long and Kristen Schall says this at around the fifteen-minute mark, so like in 75 minutes. Classic Bill & Ted movie logic.

But Bill & Ted have not written the song yet. It has been twenty-five years they have been trying to do the same, so how could they do it now by the end of the movie. More Classic Bill & Ted movie logic coming up:

-        Wait, haven’t we been foretold to write this song. That must mean that we are going to do it. We have a time machine, why don’t we just go to the future when we have written the song and take it from ourselves.

-        Excellent idea.

-        Wait, except won’t that be stealing?

-        How is that stealing, when we’re stealing it from ourselves, dude?

But the thing is, it is stealing, and older versions of Bill & Ted don’t like what these younger versions are up to. They excoriate them for being selfish and cutting corners. These are the funniest scenes in the movie with double Alex Winters and Keanu Reeves light-heartedly arguing with each other about time travel ethics.

Meanwhile, Bill & Ted now have two daughters, Billie and Thea, who seem to be the very rare kind of teenagers who believe their parents are to be emulated and impersonated. They want to help and engage in their own most excellent adventure into the past to form a supergroup of all ages. Amongst the greats on their list: Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They have great taste in music. It is unfortunate though that the artists play their most well-known songs. For Armstrong (played by Jeremiah Craft) that is “When the Saints Go Marching In.” I can think of ten other pieces of music I would have rather heard him play. Still, it is fun to see Satchmo on the screen. Really, the only musician I did not recognize was the most recent, a rapper named Kid Cudi. I have becoming familiar with his oeuvre all morning. Thanks for the tip Bill & Ted.

Like a lot of movies nowadays that derive from source material largely populated by white men, the movie has taken steps to get more people involved, perhaps even with the intention of handing off future installments to the girls Billie and Thea.  A lot of time I find this sort of inclusivity annoying because it seems to reflect not so much a moral imperative as much as a corporate bid to cater to the lowest common denominator in order to increase market share (the real money is in the international box office after all). It is almost axiomatic that most great movies are not inclusive (at least in terms of casting) because they concern specific subject matter and are thus intended for a specific audience. This adherence to particularity is what differentiates those movies from run-of-the-mill films which are designed to eschew controversy/personality in an effort to placate everyone. The usual result is that they resemble something you’ve seen a hundred times before because, spoiler alert, you have.

Here, though I give the inclusivity a pass. Given the personalities of Bill & Ted and the overall tone of the trilogy, uniting the world in song actually does seem to be in line with how the characters would act and where the plot would end up without undue contrivance. It would then make story sense to get everyone involved. The song could have been better, but you know, it is hard to create a transcendent piece of music that involves every musical style in the whole world going backwards and forwards through time. As it is pointed out, the point is not that the song is the best song, but that everyone is playing it, which is a very Bill & Ted argument. They never have been particularly good musicians.

First Cow (4/5 Stars)

I enjoyed being excited about “First Cow” this year, the newest filmmaker from Kelly Reichardt. It is a story about the first cow in Oregon in the 1920s and a odd couple of men, a cook named Cookie, played by John Magaro, and a Chinaman named King-Lu, played by Orion Lee, who conspire to steal its milk and use to it to sell pastries. As there are no other cows, they will have the best tasting pastries in the territory. A boon!

What a dumb idea for a movie and I enjoyed telling people I was anticipating “First Cow” because the plot seemed so enjoyably stupid. But that was only half of it. I enjoyed getting excited by “First Cow” because Kelly Reichardt had directed it and written it with her long-time collaborator Jonathan Raymond. There previous collaborations include: “Old Joy”, “Wendy and Lucy”, “Meek’s Cutoff”, and “Night Moves”. So even though it looked and sounded stupid, I knew it was going to be good. And “First Cow” is very good. One of Reichardt’s best. And I would know because I have now seen every movie she has made, even her obscure student film “River of Grass.”

When I last wrote a review for a movie of hers “Night Moves” in June 2014, I spent half the time trying to explain why I to liked Reichardt’s style. I will add to that here by saying that she is from a very specific place that filmmakers usually do not make films about. The location is Oregon. In addition, she sometimes makes films that are period pieces. And where else can you see a movie that takes place in Oregon in the 1820s.

That is when “First Cow” takes place, mainly in a trading village comprised of Native Americans, English trappers, but also the travelling Russians and Chinese. The only real house around belongs to the richest man in town, played by Toby Jones. He also brought with him to the territory the title cow.

Cookie is an unappreciated cook by his rougher compatriots. He saves the life of King-Lu one day in the woods when he hides him from vengeful Russians. They strike a tender and gentle friendship that is really nice to witness. John Magaro’s performance is especially nice. When King-Lu first invites him into his shack and asks him to take it easy before dinner, Cookie’s first instinct is to start sweeping the floor. Then he goes outside and picks flowers for the table. (I think this movie would make a hilarious double feature with “The Revenant”. They exist in the same time period (1820s) and general location (American West) but could not be more different in content and tone.)

King-Lu is ambitious. His last scheme left him flat broke, but he has not given up. King-Lu is excited by the possibilities of being the first people in a new territory. “History isn’t here yet. It’s coming, but maybe this time, we can take it on our own terms.” But how to start? Perhaps a crime, surmises King-Lu anticipating Balzac’s famous saying.

The crime is to sneak into the field of the rich man and surreptitiously milk his cow. Through this little tale, Reichardt seems to make lots of statements about history, capitalism, opportunity, and class, but true to form, she does not come close to hitting you over the head with it. One can simply watch “First Cow” in a state of zen, letting the music gently wash over you, and taking comfort in calm acting and simple storytelling. In jazz, they say it is the notes you don’t play that make all the difference. The same can be said about a Reichardt film.