At the London Film Festival: The Apprentice is Hollywood's October Surprise

The Apprentice is obviously Hollywood's October Surprise on the Donald Trump campaign. Coming just a few weeks before the Nov. 5 critical presidential vote it's designed to level a torpedo blow to Trump, someone whom liberal (Democrat) Hollywood loves to hate. An October Surprise, by definition, is an attempt to lob a major bomb (i.e., revelation of a scandal) against a US presidential candidate to cripple their ability to win an election. Though indeed a powerful film The Apprentice doesn't seem to succeed. For one thing, it has done pittance at the box office, garnering only $1.6 million from 1700 theatres in its first week. For a second, the people most likely to see it are those who already despise Trump and lap up more of its alleged revelations. It may convince a few independent voters (neither Trump or Harris) but how many of those will see it? However, as far as cinema goes, The Apprentice is a riveting film, a combination of fast-paced images, bombastic score, superb recasting of the 1980's and 90's, and amazingly true-to-life characters in personas of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). This is a filmmaker's tale of a young Donald Trump, starting out in the real estate business from his father Fred. It focuses on the relationship between Trump and the wickedly devious Roy Cohn, an aid to the notorious 1950's anti-Communist McCarthy Un-American Activities Ctte. According to the movie, Cohn took Trump under his wing, as the two fought city hall ordinances using dirty tricks to, among other things, blackmail politicians. The script was written by New York magazine journalist Gabriel Sherman, a well known anti-Trump rabble rouser. It was directed by Ali Abbasi and stars Stan, Strong and Maria Bakalova as Trump's first wife Ivana. None of these people were familiar to me. But Abbasi's direction is amazing and, whether you agree with its political view or not, the film is a tour de force. And Stan does bare an uncanny resemblance to Trump including in some of the facial expressions like Trump's oh-so-identifiable smirk. One comes away from the film thinking Trump will do anything corrupt to succeed including running for president. The Trump campaign has denoucced the movie in no uncertain terms. My question is: why are these movies always directed against Republicans? Where are the movies about the Kennedy brothers' corruptions and affairs, even allegations that John F. cheated in Chicago, courtesy infamous former Democrat iron-fisted Mayor Richard Daley, to initially win in 1960? Why nothing on Bill Clinton's myriad affairs? Why indeed nothing on Joe Biden's alleged profiting from son Hunter's business dealings? Well, as I started out saying, it's Democrat Hollywood.

Other movies I've seen at the London (UK) Film Festival this week:

Joy - a Brit dramatization of the homegrown team which performed the first IVF transplant, directed by Ben Taylor and starring Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton. The movie does well re-creating the period of the late 1960's and 70's and the social and political forces the medical team was up against - including being accused of being Frankensteins - though having a little too much scientific verbiage for the average mind, including alas mine, to always grasp.

When Fall is Coming - French director François Ozon's take on the decline that can come with age, with star Hélène Vincent, makes you at once sympathize with the story's characters while questioning how many tragedies can befall two close knit families within a short period of time.

Twiggy - a superb documentary by Sadie Frost, it depicts a multidimensional star, an icon of London's Swinging Sixties but unbeknownst to me, a star who kept performing as actor (Ken Russell's The Boy Friend, 1971) and singer, now 75 and continuing performing right up to the present day. Down to earth and always ready to take on artistic risks, Twiggy (Lesley Hornby) is hardly the plastic persona one might imagine.

Off to see some movies, old chap!

I’m headed to the London Film Festival - London, England, that is. I missed it last year when spending a couple of months in the British capital, unaware it was on at the same time and most of the screenings sold out. But something peculiar happened this year. The film festival emailed me and offered media credentials. I couldn’t believe it. How come? I did mention the fest in my blog last year so maybe the British Film Institute (BFI), which hosts it, scraped all – and I mean all – internet coverage and put me on their invite list. Even at that I didn’t necessarily expect to get accredited. But I applied - what the hell? - and within 48 hours got approved! Unlike other festivals where I’ve received credentials, I had to pay a little upfront - $166 Can. I guess this is to root out unserious applicants. This entitled me to a pass to all press screenings held mornings to mid-afternoons. It also allows me access to public screenings the rest of the day, but I must apply separately for each one, something I haven’t done yet as there is a calendar window so don’t know how easy it is. I can also pay for screenings like the rest of the public and get a discount with a special code. I purchased one ticket (just in case) to Manji, Japanese director Yasuzo Masumura’s “sexploitation classic of obsessive desire.” Other films I’m interested in seeing are We Live in Time, John Crowley’s romantic drama with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, Blitz, Steve McQueen’s take on British life during WW II starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Weller, and Conclave (Edward Berger) starring a staller cast of Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini (photo) - intrigue at the Vatican in the selection of a pope. Festival guests this year include Brit icon Mike Leigh, Canadian Denis Villeneuve and the aforementioned Steve McQueen.  Press screenings are at the Picturehouse Central, one block from Piccadilly Circus and immediately accessible when I arrive Tuesday morning on the Tube straight from Heathrow Airport on the – appropriately named - Piccadilly Line. Many are concentrated at the outstanding BFI Southbank complex and others scattered throughout central London. Cheerio, old chap – let’s go see some movies!

Megalopolis: what was Coppola thinking?

The overall conclusion from watching Francis Ford Coppola’s swan song Megalopolis is “what was he thinking?” Yes, we’ve all read that this $120 million (of his own money) flop on a grand scale is a mess of direction and plot, to say the least. But it’s more than that. The whole thing is ridiculous, way over the top. Obviously Coppola, who’d dreamt of this film for decades, wanted to make an epic film in the tradition of  Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916), Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) or Ben Hur (Billy Wyler, 1959). There is a stentorian narrator in the style of Citizen Kane and ridiculous carved tablets with supposed profound messages to punctuate various sections of the movie, like in ancient Rome. Of course, the movie is set in an updated Rome, New Rome, which is very obviously New York City. The protagonist Cesar (get it?) Catilina’s (Adam Driver) office is in the iconic art deco Chrysler Building, for Pete’s sake. And there are numerous visuals of what is assuredly Manhattan. But the atmosphere has a slightly otherworldly or time warped look, sort of what you see when watching a movie like Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019) and the soon to be released Joker: Folie à Deux by the same director. Partly it looks like the present, at other times the future and still at others the past, like it’s the 1950s, evidenced by men wearing fedoras and photographers with flash bulbs. But there’s no doubt this is a hedonistic “Roman” world as evidenced by the orgy-like parties and so many of the women dressed in togas. In fact, the film most made me think of a real classic, The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949). The themes are similar. Based on the Ayn Rand novel an architect with grand visions and uncompromised principles is stymied by the corrupt political class. I prefer that movie, starring Gary Cooper as Howard Roark. But the $120 million paid for something because the sets are lavish indeed. One critic called the movie a “beautiful mess.” But what’s the point? It’s an over-the-top affair that provokes guffaws when it’s so obviously meant to be taken seriously. The characters speak ridiculously, if even unintelligently, the plot is indeed all over the place, and there’s the on again, off again stentorian voice. 

Am I Racist? is a send up of the DEI industry

Matt Walsh’s Am I Racist? is a brilliant send up of the Diversity Equity and Inclusion movement and subverts one of the most powerful phenomena of our time, one that has infiltrated virtually every major corporation, non-profit and government sector. DEI, as it's known, takes what used to be known as equality - which everyone can agree to unless you’re a raving racist – to an uber or exaggerated level in the form of “equity” and in fact arguable creates divisions and racist attitudes all its own. Its chief exponents are authors like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi. DEI concludes that “white guilt” is something that never can be relinquished but whites can “work” to try to lessen it. That’s why Walsh, a conservative commentator , made the film. The mocumentary takes on a Barat (Sacha Baron Cohen, 2006) style format with Walsh posing as a true DEI exponent, complete with man bun (ha ha) and a wallet size card validating him as a DEI “expert,” and then subverting meetings or interviews with DEI adherents.  Walsh confronts by anonymously taking part in hugely expensive workshops and subtly questioning or indirectly mocking the meetings. In one case the jig us up and he’s expelled from a therapy session and the police called though he had hardly been threatening. In another – the film’s highlight – he makes a fool of Robin DiAngelo by having her donate $30 to his Black producer as a reparation for white guilt and Black slavery. Ultimately, the movie’s message is that DEI has escalated race to an issue that doesn’t exist in the average American’s mind, decades after official desegregation and equal rights laws. Even hard-core bikers – presumably the epitome of racists – talk of how they don’t judge people by their color. And average Black people talk of embracing everyone, whites included. So who are the real racists? The film’s final quote: “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’” (Thomas Sowell) underlines the film's theme.

This has been a great couple of weeks at the local Bijou aka cineplex. I haven’t seen this many good films listed in a long time if ever. Last week I caught Speak No Evil (James Walston) starring James McAvoy, a remake of the 2022 Danish film by Christian Tafdrup. Then there’s Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance with Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid, another psychological thriller about fame and which is headlining this year’s WIFF. Last week had The Critic starring veteran Brit actor Ian McKellen (photo) and directed by Anund Tucker set in the 1930s newspaper and theatre worlds with themes of gay discrimination and media corruption. It left before I could see it -darn! Dennis Quaid was also in the biopic Reagan (Sean McNamara) which also disappeared too soon. And continuing this week are more cinematically astute films like Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, James Baldoni’s It Ends with Us starring Blake Lively based on the wildly successful Colleen Hoover novel and Alien: Romulus (Fede Álvarez), the latest in the Alien franchise.

1966 film scene almost identical to Trump assassination attempt

Coincidences and coincidences. A couple of weeks ago I noted to myself the bizarre coincidences that can occur almost back-to-back. I killed a creepy crawly in my kitchen only to read later that day on social media how the scary critters can be beneficial. Then, on a Montreal Facebook group, I see a photo of the famed Montreal Outremont Theatre, while earlier that day I had thought of a mild negative encounter I at one time had there. And yesterday, one day after watching a movie with a similar theme, there was an assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump’s life. The coincidence? The alleged shooter's gun was exposed from foliage on the side of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course. This was almost the identical location of the shooter in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up (photo). In the film, a London fashion photographer played by David Hemmings happens upon a scene in a park where two people (one being a woman played by Vanessa Redgrave) are cavorting. The movie is part of The Criterion Channel’s current Photographer's Gaze series where photography plays a central role in a movie's plot. Hemmings’s character “Thomas” starts clicking away at the lovers unbeknownst to them. Later in his studio, he develops the negatives only to see something strange on one side of London’s Maryon Park (above). It’s someone pointing a gun out of the bushes, almost identically as the US Secret Service saw a gun pointing at Trump. “A Secret Service agent spotted the suspect as he stuck the barrel of his rifle through the fence on the outskirts of the golf course,” a press report said. This has now given me an excuse to write about Blow-Up, a great film which won Cannes’ Palme d’Or. There is much to like about this psychological drama and murder mystery: the role of the camera and voyeurism, shots of London during the height of its Swinging Sixties era, demure and understated Hayley Mills also at the peak of her career, a reminder of how beautiful Vanessa Redgrave was in her youth. And some minor delights. The score was by jazz great “Herbert” Hancock not “Herbie” (the same person). Cult actress Jane Birkin had a role as a wannabe model teen. Hemmings was no stranger to the era’s rock ’n roll world and was a musician himself.  One scene at London’s Ricky-Tick Club – which played host to many of the great British bands including the Rolling Stones, Who and Pink Floyd – has a mockup with The Yardbirds playing their signature “Stroll On.” Jeff Beck starts bashing his guitar into a malfunctioning amp, stomps on it and throws pieces of the guitar into a delirious crowd. All very fun. But what a premonition to what would take place the next day in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Best laid plans - times two - go awry

I regret to inform that I won’t be attending the Windsor International Film Festival’s edition after all. Well, the large majority of it anyhow. And in its celebratory 20^th year! And despite the fact I’d made it a point to attend the edition in full (usually I miss a few days due to other commitments). I had planned all this out carefully. I was first going to attend, as I usually do, Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinema in mid-October, arrive home and gestate a few days before buying my pass and joining the joyful line at the Capitol Theatre or surrounding venues for the remarkable “little festival that could” (one of the most successful smaller city festivals in the country) 10-day event Oct. 24 – Nov. 3. And then, hot on its heels, Windsor’s experimental film festival, Media City Nov. 7 – 11. But because of new and unavoidable travel plans I won’t be able to make any of those glittering days except for opening night. Which I haven’t attended (nor closing night) in the past. So at least we’ll get to see Canadian filmmaker Sophie Deraspe’s Shepherds. As per description: “Mathyas trades in his Montreal life as a young advertising executive to become a shepherd in the South of France. But the harsh realities of the pastoral world force him to question his romantic vision of the profession.” In 2019 WIFF nomonated Deraspe’s Antigone for its Canadian Film prize.

This seems to be an autumn for bad luck, film festival wise, and ironically enough. My partner and I were planning to attend the press conference last week for this fall’s London (UK) Film Festival at the beautiful and sprawling British Film Institute on the Thames’ South Bank, sandwiched between the stunning Royal Festival Hall and Britain’s National Theatre complex. The conference was supposed to start at 10 am. Our flight arrived at 6.30, so no problem, right? Wrong. Heathrow airport’s accessibility services were very slow in transferring one of us from the aircraft through security and to baggage claim. We’d ordered an airport taxi to pick us up at 7.45. (I was looking forward to seeing our names on a small placard held up by the driver!) But by the time we cleared the Arrivals gate it was 8.30. And those cabs don’t wait forever. So, $124.04 down the drain. And hiring a London Black Cab at the regular taxi rank, iconic as they are, cost an additional $206.17. But the worst was missing the press conference itself. The BFI, by the way, is the epitome of film venues, and has including several cinemas, a wonderful bar and restaurant, café, bookstore and Mediatheque room of pods where you can recline in comfort and call up hundreds of films and videos to watch at your pleasure.

Two little known actresses but with cult like status

Here are two virtually unheard-of actresses that have assumed almost cult status. One is Barbara Loden and her film Wanda (top photo). The second is Laurie Zimmer, best known for her role in John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). Loden directed the low budget Wanda in 1970. This is a classic film, a kind of American cinema verité or French New Wave, made for about $100,000 yet winning the best foreign film at the Venice International Film Festival. It’s stark, gritty, low key yet charged with underlying tension about a wayward and lost woman in the coal field towns of eastern Pennsylvania. While more than an irresponsible character your heart pours out for this woman who has no life and is human flotsam moving from town to town, man to man, and personal crisis to crisis. Loden, an accomplished Broadway actress - and one time wife of famed

director Elia Kazan - made few films. What she was aiming for in Wanda is stark reality with no artificial Hollywood effects including even a musical soundtrack. “The slicker the technique is the slicker the content becomes, until everything turns into Formica,” she once said. Some might call this film feminist because of the way the character is treated – and discarded – by men. But Loden rejected the claim, partly because the modern feminist movement was just getting underway by the time this film was made. “The picture was not about women's liberation,” she said. “It was really about the oppression of women, of people... Being a woman is unexplored territory, and we're pioneers of a sort, discovering what it means to be a woman.” I liken it to the film version of Sandy Posey’s song Born a Woman (1966), a feminist anthem if ever there was one yet without the feminist imprimatur. Loden not only directs but stars as the main character, an unassertive and uneducated working-class gal who is directionless and manipulated…..The second actress is Laurie Zimmer, a find for me in Carpenter’s Assault film. She plays Leigh, a tough civilian employee at an abandoned police station in LA. Unsmiling throughout you get the impression she’s no one’s fool and you wouldn’t want to mess with her. It’s not a particularly large role but her persona burns, making her indeed memorable. Zimmer had a very brief film career, all the more making her an icon. So cult like has she become that a film abut her was made, Charlotte Szlovak’s 2003 Do You Remember Laurie Zimmer? While Loden died untimely many years ago Zimmer is still alive and has worked at as a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Both these films are available on The Criterion Channel.)