Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (4/5 Stars)

Earlier this year I was going through the movies of Bong Joon Ho and watched “Snowpiercer” for the first time. It was a decent movie about the last living humans spending time on a high-speed train whose cars were divided by class. The poor cars were in the derelict overcrowded caboose and each subsequent car being nicer and more luxurious. The content of each car was a mystery before the main characters invaded them, so there was a pleasant anticipation every ten minutes in the movie. The second to last car was a electronic music rave party. Lots of music, lights, drugs, and grinding. I felt that was an odd choice for the highest strata of society. Then I saw “Eurovision Song Contest: The Son of Fire Saga”. Now I get it. This movie is the last car on the apocalypse train.

This is a Will Ferrell comedy, written by Will Ferrell and a recent collaborator Andrew Steele. Andrew Steele was the main writer for the very funny miniseries “The Spoils of Babylon” and the just funny “Spoils Before Dying”. This movie has a certain comedic professionalism to it. The story telling is very efficient. Within the first five minutes we know the lifelong goal of the protagonists Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir is to win the Eurovision song contest, that Lars Erickssong has a disapproving father and that Sigrit Ericksdottir is secretly in love with Lars but Lars doesn’t know it (and they might be half-siblings?).

These are all well-worn comedic premises but they still work not less because of general wit of the screenplay and the performances of Ferrell as Lars, Pierce Brosnan as his father, and Rachel McAdams as Sigrit. Besides everything about Eurovision is a ridiculous music video fantasy. The freshness of the subject matter enlivens the entire movie.

Not that Eurovision is a new thing. Apparently it has been going on since the end of the World War II. Its huge in Europe and no-one in America knows anything about it. That dichotomy, Will Ferrell, says is what drew him to the project. Eurovision is a contest in which European countries sponsor home-grown acts in a singing contest held in a giant stadium and shown to millions of people on TV. We are shown a clip of ABBA singing a song about Waterloo in the early 1970s.

Lars and Sigrit are from a small fishing village in Iceland. When Lars learns that he and Sigrit get into the semifinals for Iceland, Lars rings the emergency bell in the local church tower. This is against the law and Lars promptly gets arrested. But in the police station, Lars and Sigrit plead with the local cops to just “be cool” and the cops just let Lars go. At another point, after Lars and Sigrit have inexplicably gotten into the Eurovision contest, they take part in what is called a Song-A-Long in a gigantic mansion. Every participant has ridiculous over-the-top makeup, hair, and costuming and check all the boxes in terms of ethnic and sexual identity. These people don’t have a care in the world. This musical interlude is the last car on the Apocalypse train.

Eurovision was directed by David Dobkin, who has done some pretty bad work in comedies before (see the lost opportunity that was Wedding Crashers). He is probably better appreciated for his music videos. The material here is a much better fit for him than his other movies. The movie has music throughout and Dobkin knows how to shoot in stage choreography for film. In particular, the closest this movie has to an antagonist, the Russian Alexander Lemtov (played by Dan Stevens), has two kind of ridiculously number involving taming lions, lions represented by male dancers with chiseled abdominal.

I had a lot of fun watching this movie. I enjoyed all of the songs, even Ya Ya Ding Dong. This movie is like the opposite of all the concurrent crises we have in America. We could probably use something like Eurovision here. The closest thing I guess would be American Idol, but that is a celebration of individualism and Coca-Cola, when it isn’t explicitly an exercise in sadism, not something that would bring people together.

Irresitible (3/5 Stars)

At a small-town city council meeting in the tiny town of Deerlaken, Wisconsin, the Mayor and city counsel are voting to impose a voter identification law. In walks Jack Hastings, played by Chris Cooper, who objects to the I.D. law. He makes a reference to what appears to be a latino couple in the back of the room, references high-minded democratic ideals and some tenets of Christianity and leaves. This is all caught on camera and posted to YouTube.

The video is shown to a Democratic political advisor named Gary Zimmer, played by Steve Carell, who absolutely loves it. It is almost too good to be true. Here is a white middle-aged man, veteran, and farmer, from a swing-state no less, that is taking a pro-immigration stance using the symbolic authority (founding fathers and the bible) of Republicans. Gary carpetbags his way to Deerlaken with the intent to finance the candidacy of Jack Hastings for Mayor of Deerlaken on the Democratic ticket. He wants to make a big national deal about this tiny mayoral race in rural Wisconsin.

Jack Hastings, along with his daughter Diana Hastings, played by MacKenzie Davis, allow Gary to serve as campaign manager to the upcoming campaign. Deerlaken has major problems. Its economic base was centered on a military base that has since closed, throwing many local companies out of business. The population of Deerlaken has collapsed from 15,000 people to just 5,000. With problems like that, an astute observer may wonder why the locals would care about national immigration policy.

Gary Zimmer does not connect those dots. And he knows he does not have to meet his ultimate goal. With his connections, money, and election apparatus behind him, he knows that he can simply outspend the other side to victory. The mayoral race does not really matter to national politics, but because of the immigration issue, the location of Deerlaken, and the identity of Jack Hastings, it will make a great story for the national news cycle. A Democrat wins in this rural town with Democratic sound-bytes for the first time in fifty or so years. When the Republicans catch wind of what is happening, they send down Faith Brewster, played by Rose Byrne, to dramatically up the spending game. Gary loves this because it means even more time and money are going to be spent on this symbolic election. Even if Jack Hastings loses, the Democrats would still win because they would have been able to beat expectations.

This is Jon Stewarts’ second feature film as a writer/director following Rosewater. We all know him from his fifteen years at the The Daily Show, an excellent fake news broadcast on Comedy Central. There is a twist to the story which he springs in the final twenty minutes. I hesitate to discuss a twist, but I will because I believe if the movie had not concealed the twist, it might have made for a more effective and funnier movie.

As it is, the movie follows Gary Zimmer around as if he is the main character. But he is not the main character, and he makes a poor main character while the movie allows him to take on that role. The main character is Deerlaken and the people in it. The Youtube video was fabricated and the election is a scam. The people of Deerlaken, helped by an astute understanding of campaign finance laws, know that if their town’s local election can catch the attention of the national media, their local economy will be the recipients of a vast amount of unfiltered unaccountable cash. The town intends to use this sorely needed cash to rebuild the local infrastructure, stimulate the local economy, and do other things that actually matter (as opposed to a purely symbolic national immigration debate).

But you will not know this for the first 90 minutes of “Irresistible” and the marketing campaign for it has gone even further in pulling another bait-and-switch on the expectations of the audience. Jon Stewarts’ fan base is urban and liberal, which is why the marketing is presenting a political comedy between the idealistic democratic strategist Gary Zimmer and a nihilistic republican strategist named Faith Brewster, played by Rose Byrne. But Faith Brewster is not a main character of this story and the movie is not really about a tussle between Democrats and Republicans. Faith shows up, finds Gary’s scheming mostly boring, and does not pretend, like Gary, to patronize the locals. She is here to shower money on the local economy and remind the people that Gary doesn’t actually care about them. She doesn’t care about them either, but her straightforward unashamed manner is less annoying.

Jon Stewart does not actually have much to say about the Republican party here, which makes sense if his purpose is to enlighten and inform those in his audience, his audience being mainly urban and liberal. All his criticism focuses on Gary Zimmer, the out-of-touch liberal elitist, who likes to describe the rural white residents of Deerlaken, Wisconsin as small-minded to the intelligentsia at NYC dinner party fundraisers. It is the urban elitist who ultimately gets outmaneuvered by the small-minded rural folk. I admire Jon Stewart’s willingness to not preach to the choir. That man has got some big ol’ matza balls on him.

As a director, Jon Stewart is still a little happy-go-lucky with his camera. He has some distracting camera angles and shots here where a more straightforward and simple style would have been appropriate. He has an eye casting though. I always appreciate when Will Sasso, from MadTV way back when, shows up in any movie to play anybody. “Irresistible” is not all that funny in the first half. However, as things become clearer, it picks up more and more laughs as it gains speed through the midway point.

The movie ends with a conversation with Trevor Potter, the lawyer brought on screen in many Daily Show and Colbert Report segments to talk about the ridiculous of campaign finance laws. Jon Stewart asks, could a town actually do this? Could they raise all this outside money, funnel it into Super Pacs, and then spend that money on local issues instead of advertising for an election? Yes, Trevor Potter, states. There are no rules for Super Pacs. You can raise any amount of money for them, ostensibly for the purpose of influencing an election, but spend that money however you want. Jon Stewart, wisely suggests, that more people should abuse the law and use the enormous amount of money circulating through our election ecosystem to actually help local communities. I feel like that idea may have had the comic potential of the accounting scheme in “The Producers”, which as you know, was laid out very clearly in that movie’s first scene. I wonder what this movie would have been like if Jon Stewart had led with his great idea.

You Should Have Left (2/5 Stars)

“You Should Have Left” is one of those ninety-minute movies that are about sixty minutes too long. Given the information that is conveyed on the screen, the movie could have efficiently structured as an episode of the Twilight Zone, which run about thirty minutes long. It stars Kevin Bacon as an ex-banker, Amanda Seyfried, his young wife and actress, and a daughter. I could not figure whether the daughter was Kevin Bacon’s child from a previous marriage, Amanda Seyfried’s daughter from a previous marriage, or their own child from the present marriage. It is very hard to tell, but it also does not matter.

In the first twenty minutes of the movie, the plot hints at a secret from Kevin Bacon’s past. I do not know why it hints at this secret, because the movie does not do anything else with its time except make lame off-plot attempts at humor. So, the audience kind of just waits around for the movie to come out and tell the secret for no reason. The movie could have started at the twenty-minute mark and no one would have been the wiser.

This is a haunted house horror movie. The family Bacon go on vacation at a mansion in the Welsh countryside. After a day, the house starts presenting weird omens and doing horrific things. However, how the house works is never explained. It just does what it wants when it wants to do it. The movie bordered on interesting for a moment when Kevin and his daughter measured a room in the house as twenty-five feet and then went outside the house and measured the same room as twenty feet. Why is there an extra five feet? The movie does not say. It is a magic house.

It is easy to be manipulated by a magic house because there are no rules. Any defeats or victories are completely arbitrary. Thus, Kevin Bacon never stands a chance and there is no suspense. Is it a metaphor? I think such an analysis would be giving this movie too much credit. Why should I put more thought into this than the creator?

The creator is Writer/Director David Koepp. Looking at this guy’s resume, I was kind of blown away. He has worked at a high profile in this industry for decades. Koepp is the screenwriter of Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, and War of the Worlds. He also wrote for and directed Kevin Bacon in “Stir of Echoes”, a much better psychological thriller. What he felt he needed to make this movie is anybody’s guess. It does explain how the movie got made in the first place. If any new movie director had pitched this to a producer, there would have been no way it would have been picked up. No one is asking for a horror movie that is solely concerned with the conscience of an aging white male ex-banker. No other character in this movie, the few characters that there are, is developed in any appreciable manner. I think they got that Welsh guy from the store to do the movie’s ending voiceover which helpfully explained the moral of the story in case you were an idiot and/or fallen asleep half way through.

Why is this movie $19.99 to rent? It is a new feature but it is not playing in a movie theater, which would, at the most, charge $17.50. Plenty of smaller movie theaters charge less. There is no theater to pay upkeep for and no theater employees to pay. Why is it more expensive than a movie theater ticket? The experience is less in many obvious ways. My TV screen is smaller, I have more distractions in the room, I don’t have the ability to purchase a wide range of concessions, drinks, and food as I do at Nitehawk, Alamo Drafthouse, or Syndicated. I feel like I got ripped off by this Bacon banker guy.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (3/5 Stars)

I had fun watching “Portrait of a Lady of Fire”. Perhaps that they may not have been the desired effect of Writer-Director Celine Sciamma and I do not mean to insinuate that the movie is so bad it is good. It is a good movie, well made, poetically composed, and filled with good performances. It just is too serious for a plot that has so little at stake and it moves so slowly and relies so heavily on looks and gazes e to move itself forward that the impatient among us are provoked to add their own comments to fill in the space. If you want to see this movie, you should not see it with me. I talked a lot during it.

The plot can be briefly summarized. A young woman, played by Noemie Merlant, is hired to paint the portrait of another young woman, Adele Haenel. They are both French and the entire movie takes place in a scenic isolated villa on the coast of France. There is lots of wind that blows through their hair, brunette for Noemie, blonde for Adele. Adele has endured a recent tragedy. She has a very French reaction. in full ennui she does nothing every day but walk through gorgeous cinematography looking striking and miserable.

There is a clear subtext in all the gazes between Noemie and Adele. The movie does not outright say it for the first hour of the movie, but they are totally lesbians. There is no one else in this villa but the maid, and every other scene is them looking at each other without talking. These types of pauses that generally lead to sex in most movies seem to happen every five or ten minutes or so. I incorrectly predicted that Noemie and Adele would start making out several times. I’m not going to spoil whether they ever do it…Not! They totally do!

There is a lot of painting in this movie and Celine Sciamma probably did a good job of portraying the process. I don’t know, I don’t know much about painting. However, I do know however when a woman is correctly framed and lit in cinematography. In this regard, Sciamma clearly knows what she is doing. It’s hot. I especially like the scene where the lady was on fire.

The Invisible Man (4/5 Stars)

The story behind the production of “The Invisible Man” reads like a cautionary tale for a terrible movie. “The Invisible Man” is one of several very old properties from Universal Studios that make up its monster movie franchises. (Others include “Frankenstein”, “Dracula”, and the “Wolfman”). When it appeared that franchises with endless chapters like Marvel, DC Comics, and Star Wars were the future of movie money, Universal was sad to contemplate that it did not have a ready franchise to pour all of its money into. All it had were theses monsters. So it attempted to create an interconnected “Dark Universe”. This led to the Tom Cruise led “The Mummy” flop, after which the “Dark Universe” appeared to be a dead idea. However, for shits and giggles, and because creative directors in movie studies are legendarily averse to new ideas, all the monster movies look like they will be rebooted anyway. “The Invisible Man” is one of those movies. A top-down directive is always a bad reason to make a movie.

The next bad idea for making a movie is to cash in on a political moment, in this case #MeToo. I’ve complained several times now about movies and scenes in movies that seem to exist solely to garner applause for being woke but have little to add to the cinematic experience. (“Game of Thrones”, “Captain Marvel” and my last movie review about “Wendy” come to mind). “The Invisible Man” fits squarely in the definition of a #MeToo movie. I bet the pitch for “The Invisible Man” probably went something like this:

Producer: We want to reboot “The Invisible Man”. The franchise made a lot of money in the past. There is a built-in audience and the horror movies are a safe genre to open in theaters.

Creative Director: I like it!

Producer: But it will be different. We’ll make it a #MeToo movie and market it as such. It’ll start Elizabeth Moss, an actress perpetually put upon by mean men in successful series like “Mad Men” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Creative Director: Green Light! Is there a script?

Producer: I’ll get the monkeys to start typing it right away!

Well, sometimes even the worst ideas can turn out all right. I am happy to report that “The Invisible Man” is a hell of a movie. It well-directed, brilliantly acted, and is scary. I never saw the original movie, but I did see Kevin Bacon’s “Hollow Man”. This movie is much better and scarier than “Hollow Man” and I expect better and scarier than the original movie franchise. Credit for this is heavily dependent on the #MeToo premise. Movies in the past about invisible men, at least “Hollow Man”, told the story from the man’s point of view and leaned on the voyeuristic pleasures of being invisible, for example, peeping at naked women. Here, the point of view of the movie switches to that  of a visible woman, Elizabeth Moss playing a recent escapee from an abusive relationship who then becomes suspicious that her controlling ex has turned himself invisible to better continue harassing her. The voyeurism is gone because the audience generally does not know whether it is happening in any given scene. What replaces it is a sense of uneasiness and then terror. The #MeToo premise, far from being its usual anachronistic annoyance, makes the story far more effective as a horror movie.

If this movie has a predecessor in old cinema, I don’t think it would be the original movies, but “Gaslight” from 1944 starring Ingrid Bergman. That movie’s impact wound up verbing the name of the movie in the English lexicon. To “gaslight” is to “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” Here, the the invisible man pulls the ultimate gaslight. (Double Feature, anyone?).

The object of the ultimate gaslight, slowly questioning her sanity and being terrified out of her mind is Cecilia Kass, played by Elizabeth Moss. Because there are no other actors in the room, Elizabeth Moss is effectively in a one-woman-show. It is the sort of performance that would garner an easy Oscar nomination if it weren’t in the horror genre. She is perfectly cast in this movie for the reasons outlined along with her preternatural ability to bring a character through the gamut of all the emotions in the right order. She is helped by a wise script that knows that a woman does not need to win every scene in order for the movie to be considered feminist. To understand why this character is interesting and Captain Marvel is not, is to understand what makes characters interesting in general, a standard which applies equally to both the sexes.

“The Invisible Man” was written and directed by Leigh Whannel, who was awful person that wrote the first three “Saw” movies and helped provoke a decade of disgusting torture porn. Only within the last six years, has the horror genre entered a mini renaissance of talented writers and directors like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, and Jennifer Kent whose movies are actually scary, not simply exercises in cruelty. “The Invisible Man” belongs in this mini-renaissance. It seems Leigh Whannel has learned something about making movies in the last few years. I suppose there is hope for every single last one of us.

Wendy (3/5 Stars)

I cannot say that I am all that familiar with the Peter Pan story. I have only seen untraditional versions of story, Spielberg’s “Hook”, the J.M. Barrie biopic “Finding Neverland, and now “Wendy”. From the first two I gleaned a few details I thought were: 1) Peter Pan is good; 2) Captain Hook is bad; and 3) Neverland is fun.

 “Wendy” the long-awaited second feature of Writer/Director Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) kind of turns the whole thing on its head. The inhabitants of Neverland reminded me of H.G. Wells’ Eloi and Morlocks which would make Peter, the instigator, a sort of nefarious Pied Piper luring innocent children to a dangerous place. I don’t think Zeitlen wanted the movie to feel this way, but it does for the most part, because the dark side to Neverland is much worse than the boring real world that Wendy and her brothers escape from. This movie has what Beasts of the Southern Wild had in terms of precocious child actors, untamed cinematography, and soaring music. Apparently, Zeitlin even shot the movie on an island with an active volcano. None of this makes up for the dramatic lack of fun. Neverland is never a place without crisis and anxiety. I don’t think children after watching this movie would ever want to go there.

Peter is played by a boy named Yashua Mack. He has dreadlocks, a cool red coat, and a great screen presence. However, it is the sort of screen presence that is more unsettling than exciting. He lures adventurous children, including Wendy (played by Devin France) and her two brothers, onto a train, throws them off a bridge into the ocean, and then paddles them in a canoe to an island with a large active volcano. The kids have fun playing in the jungle for a while. Then one of the brothers dies. The other brother, now bereft of his best friend, starts physically transforming into an old person. This we are told is a condition of the island. If you do not have a best friend, you rapidly age. It is then revealed that on the other side of the island, amidst a ramshackle of decrepit buildings, lives a large group of old sick people. These were kids that Peter brought to the island before exiling them after they experienced a tragedy (i.e. lost their best friend) and were cursed to grow old. The cursed kids can’t even go back home because they would be unrecognizable to their parents. I’m not even sure they know how to go back home. Peter does not seem to care about any of this. Like I said, this is not fun.

The movie gets interesting halfway through the second act when Captain Hook shows up. Before that it is mostly uncomfortable. Captain Hook has a plan to kidnap the children, deprive them of their essence, and use it to become young again. Who would you like to win this fight? Captain Hook who was betrayed and robbed of his youth by Peter, or Peter who is an asshole.

The revision of the basic story extends most importantly to Wendy. Zeitlin in interviews has stated that he had feminist inclinations, that he did not like how the girl in the original story always depended on Peter and did not hold sway over the events of the story. Here, Wendy has a more active role, making decisions, coming up with ideas, and trying to persuade people. That’s nice, but it doesn’t make sense in this children’s story. The character Wendy is a girl true, but she is also a stand-in for the audience. It doesn’t make sense for the audience character to be responsible for fixing everything. Doing that takes the experience of being taken on a ride to a new, strange, and wonderful place and replaces it with a bunch of work. Peter isn’t of any help because boys are stinky and of no hlep. So, Wendy, bound by a feminist viewpoint, for all intents and purposes is the only adult in this movie. She isn't allowed to be a child. If you can’t be a child in Neverland, well, what is the point?

It took Benh Zeitlin an unconscionable eight years to make this movie. Beasts of the Southern Wild, an incredible feature debut, came out in 2012 and feels like ancient history. We have all become old waiting for Zeitlin’s next movie. Having seen “Wendy”, I’m not particularly looking forward to his next movie, which, given the man’s lack of productivity, may never happen. After Beasts of the Southern Wild, he was the new hot thing. Wendy will not make any headlines and Zeitlin may be forgotten by the time he makes another movie. 

OSCARS 2020

This year was notable in that I found several talented relatively new filmmakers that had been around for a few years whose movies I had not been aware. The main reason may be my general aversion to horror films, at least the kinds of horror films that I grew up with, which specialized in torture scenes. The horror movies that are coming out now, spearheaded by the very talented producers at A24, are very good movies that have more in common with the horror renaissance of the 1970s than the schlock of the 80s and the torture porn of the aughts. I saw my first Jennifer Kent movie last summer ("The Nightingale") which led me to see her brilliant first movie (2015's "The Badadook"). I saw my first Eggers Brothers movie last fall ("The Lighthouse") which let me to see their very good first movie (2015's "The Witch"). I just saw Ari Aster's extraordinary "Midsommar" and have put his first movie "Hereditary" on my list. Then outside of the horror genre, I saw the Safdie Brothers "Uncut Gems" leading me to put "Good Time" on my list, and I saw Keanu Reeves "John Wick 3: Parabellum" leading me to watch the first movie in the series. I already knew about Marielle Heller ("A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood") and Greta Gerwig ("Little Women"), so all in all I feel more caught up with new talent in movies than I have been in years.

Also, I feel like for the first time in forever, the races for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress were just as competitive as the races for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor. This probably reflects more and better roles for women.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kathy Bates – Bobi Jewell – Richard Jewell

Laura Dern - Nora Danshaw - Marriage Story

Nicole Kidman – Gretchen Carlson - Bombshell

Scarlett Johansson – Rosie – Jojo Rabbit

Yeo-jeong Jo – Yeon Kyo - Parasite

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Baykali Ganabarr – Billy – The Nightingale

Brad Pitt – Cliff Booth - Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood

Joe Pesci – Russell Bufalino – The Irishman

Kang-ho Song – Ki Take – Parasite

Wesley Snipes – D’Urville Martin – Dolemite is My Name

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

1917

Bombshell
Jojo Rabbit
Joker

BEST COSTUME DESIGN 

Joker

Jojo Rabbit

Little Women

Midsommar
One Upon a Time…in Hollywood

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Joker

Midsommar

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

Parasite

BEST USE OF A SONG IN A MOVIE

Old Man Piano Medley – Under the Silver Lake

I’m a Believer and Heroes (German Version) – Jojo Rabbit

In the Still of the Night – The Irishman

Being Alive – Marriage Story

Beethoven (Pathetique Sonata) – Little Women

BEST SOUND EDITING AND SOUND MIXING

Ford v. Ferrari

The Lighthouse

They Shall Not Grow Old

1917

Ad Astra

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1917

Avengers: Endgame

Captain Marvel

The Irishman

 Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker

BEST FILM EDITING

Honeyland

The Irishman

Knives Out

Parasite

Uncut Gems

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1917

Honeyland

The Lighthouse

Midsommar

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

BEST DOCUMENTARY

American Dharma

American Factory

Honeyland

One Child Nation

They Shall Not Grow Old

BEST ACTRESS

Aisling Franciosi – Clare – The Nightingale

Awkwafina – Billi – The Farewell

Charlize Theron – Megyn Kelly – Bombshell

Florence Pugh – Dani – Midsommar

Taraji P. Hensen – Ann Atwater – The Best of Enemies

BEST ACTOR
Adam Driver – Charlie – Marriage Story

Adam Sandler – Howard Ratner – Uncut Gems

Joaquin Phoenix – Arthur Fleck – Joker

Keanu Reeves – John Wick-  John Wick 3: Parabellum

Willem Dafoe – Thomas Wake – The Lighthouse

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Anthony McCarten - The Two Popes

Greta Gerwig – Little Women

Jojo Rabbit – Taika Waititi

Lulu Wang - The Farewell

Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Bong Joon Ho - Parasite

Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers - Spider-Man: Far From Home

David Robert Mitchell - Under the Silver Lake

Mike Leigh - Peterloo

Rian Johnson – Knives Out

BEST DIRECTOR

Ari Aster – Midsommar

Bong Joon Ho - Parasite

Safdie Brothers – Uncut Gems

Sam Mendes – 1917

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

BEST PICTURE:

This was the first year that a foreign language film won the Best Picture Oscar (Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite") and it will be the first year since I've started this blog (2005) where my pick for Best Picture was also the Academy's pick. So good job Academy.

1917
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The Farewell
Jojo Rabbit
Knives Out
Midsommar
Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood
Parasite
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Uncut Gems

1917 (4/5 Stars)

The technical achievements of 1917 alone are enough to warrant a viewing of this movie in a theater where one can experience in focus and isolation the high level of skill the creators exhibit. The Director of 1917 is Sam Mendes and the cinematographer is Roger Deakins. This is the fourth time they have worked collaborated. Notably, they previously worked together on James Bond’s Skyfall. What this movie attempts and largely achieves is one long broken shot, a technique first attempted by Alfred Hitchcock in the middling movie “Rope” and perfected by Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Innaritu in the more recent movies “Gravity” and “Birdman”. “1917” efforts fall somewhere in between.

The digital revolution in filmmaking has made long shots much easier to edit and cheaper to produce. Surely it still takes much skill in creating a movie that relies so much on logistics and choreography, but, at the end of the day, when everything in movies now seems possible and comes out every week, it is just as important to ask whether any story should be shot in one take. Let’s consider for a moment exemplary uses of the technique in “Gravity” and “Birdman”.

“Gravity” is a great example of the utility of long shots, especially in action sequences. Long takes build up the you-are-there suspense to a scene, a sort of kinetic energy if you will, that makes watching them especially exciting. When done well, the audience has a perfect sense of where everyone is and how fast everything is moving. Any danger presented is more immediate more serious because there is not present the safety of editing, which too often in lesser movies bends time and space to aid the protagonist. How many times have the main characters not gotten hit by that train which is barreling down on their stalled car. “Gravity” was set in space. Its subject does not particularly lend itself to a one-shot technique, but there is no reason why it wouldn’t be appropriate. As it is an action movie, it the one-shot technique greatly enhances the overall effect of the movie.

“Birdman” is not an action movie, so it is a particularly good example of using the one-shot technique as a way to develop an appropriate subject matter. That movie was centered around a Broadway play. Plays and movies are written differently due to differences in the immediacy of the audience and the fact that movies have editing. By taking out the editing, “Birdman” allowed a movie audience to experience “play writing” in a cinematic experience.

“1917” is a movie about World War I. There is plenty of action in any war and the long takes here make those sequences in this movie more exciting. The storyline is sparse and includes a journey of two British soldiers through enemy lines with the mission to call off an assault that will certainly be ambushed and end in slaughter. We follow two Lance Corporals, Black (played by Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (played by George MacKay) as they march through no-man’s land, tunnels, fields, a burned-out city, and forest, till they get to their mission’s endpoint. They have until the next morning to stop the assault, so a time limit is set and the journey happens pretty much in real time. George MacKay has a face that belongs in the 19^th century and does a good job inhabiting the old world. There are several more prominent stars in the cast that pop up now and again in what are essentially cameos. Colin Firth is a general. Andrew Scott is a lieutenant. Mark Strong is a captain. Benedict Cumberbatch is a colonel. Everyone does a fine job.

A journey story with a time limit is good for a one take technique. But (and I realize this may be a bit unfair) is a plot about a journey with a time limit appropriate for a World War I story? After all, World War I more than any war before or since was not about going places in a hurry. What generally defined that war was that nobody went anywhere and took an exceedingly long time not to do it. World War I was about hoping a bomb didn’t land on you while you waited in the mud.

Sam Mendes has made a very good movie and he dedicates it his grandfather, a World War I veteran. Do you think his grandfather would have recognized the subject matter of this movie? Is such a mission that we see here likely to have occurred in a World War I setting? Do you think the veteran would have laughed at the sheer distance the characters make within a day? At least the mission seems to be generally futile. That at least is in the spirit of World War I.