Oscar observations

Well, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won best Oscar pick last night and should I be surprised? Maybe, since many bets, including mine, were on Sam Mendes’s 1917 taking top award. This, after the film – which hardly anyone has seen (with 18 weeks since release its box office is $35 million domestically and ranks 14 compared to Bad Boys for Life at No. 2 and $165 mil. after just four weeks.) But there’s no question it was the critics’ darling. And the Academy so bestowed the award making history as the first foreign language (“International” as the name was changed this year) movie to take the top prize. My viewing of the film left me flat – very flat; seldom have I been so in variance with much critical opinion. And I think the Academy, after years of criticism for its picks being “so white” and not diverse enough, was trying to make up for it. No doubt it was time for an international film breakthrough but, uh, Parasite? (I guess they had no other choice.) Now, let’s see if regular people will go to watch this convoluted comedy-drama……Meanwhile, a brilliant actor can often be the flip side of a bizarre personality, as many of us have long suspected of Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix won best actor for his portrayal of the Joker (Todd Phillips). Remember Phoenix’s strange interview, among others, with David Letterman when there was lots of embarrassing dead air and he talked about his career diverging into “hip hop?” This time he warped on about sentient animals: “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal." Remember that, breakfast lovers everywhere!.....Renée Zellweger (above) gave the best acceptance speech, winning best actress for her performance in Judy (Rupert Goold). Poised, thoughtful, articulate, she not only gave heartfelt praise to a slew of production people but went out of her way to give a nod to ordinary Americans - not something Hollywood types tend to do – praising the military and first responders……Other than Parasite winning best picture, I agreed with pretty much all of the other awards and some were pretty predictable, like Laura Dern as best supporting actress in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari for best film editing, Jay Roach’s Bombshell for best makeup and hairstyling, 1917 for best visual effects, and Parasite for, well  best international feature…..If there was a Marxist-Leninist award it definitely should have gone to Julia Reichart, director of the winning documentary American Factory. Dredging up the hoary old communist slogan, Julia exclaimed: “Workers of the world, unite!” which is straight out of The Communist Manifesto! ….As for red carpet pre-show, lovers of fashion were probably vastly disappointed. Instead of watching the stars (okay, female stars) walk in in their glamorous gowns we got interview after interview with many (male) directors and the occasional spilt screen image of a fashionista.

Taylor Swift: the girl next door

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (Lana Wilson) opened last weekend on Netflix and I promptly caught it. I knew virtually nothing about Taylor Swift. It’s possible I might be able to recognize one of her songs if only through excessive radio play. My reason for watching the doc was because of Swift’s superstar persona. Who, after all, is this cultural icon? For one thing, I learned that Swift, the highest-earing female artist of the past decade with more than 50 million albums sold, comes from a Country and Western background, not Pop. For another, she’s exceedingly hardworking. For a third, her career comes before all else. For years, she seemed to never have a boyfriend and was offended when a TV interviewer, seeing her in a glam dress at an awards show, suggested she wouldn’t be going home alone. She now has a boyfriend but highly protects his identity; there’s a couple of shots in the film with his back to us. The doc follows Swift chronologically from a childhood virtuoso to teen and young adult phenom. Throughout, what we get is a view of someone who comes across as ordinary as you and me. The closest person in her life is her mother, Andrea. Despite her success Swift eschews the phoniness of stardom and tries at all costs not to be caught up in it. You can easily imagine her being your friend and all the showbiz surrounding her as abstract background noise. The last third of the film is about her political coming out. Largely stemming from a sexual assault against her by a disc jockey (she won a civil case), Swift rails against her adopted home state Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn, who voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which seeks to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. From there, Swift aligns herself with the LGBTQ community and against the Trump administration, despite concerns of alienating half her audience. Checking for accuracy I looked it up. Blackburn, a Republican, indeed never took issue with Swift on the vote. But the senator did strike a conciliatory tone, lauding Swift as an “exceptionally gifted” artist and backing her other well-publicized campaign to protect songwriters and musicians from censorship, copyright theft, and profiteering. Hmmm.

1917: riveting detail but lacks panoramic scope

Sam Mendes’s 1917 is in many ways a visual stunner and the acting is superb. But it unfortunately doesn’t measure up to one of the greatest war movies of all time. First, the visuals. There’s no question Mendes’s depiction of World War I’s trench warfare is extraordinarily realistic. One of the first opening shots follows the movie’s two principal characters, Lance Corporals William Schofield (George MacKay) and Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) as they walk through hundreds of feet of trench filled with countless soldiers in all manner of deportment, encased in the grime, sandbags and detritus only found in such a wartime cavity. The realism is so stark it almost looks like a painting. These scenes and another trench warfare shot near the movie’s end are perhaps the best features of this visual celluloid extravaganza. 1917’s five film crew members nominated for the Oscars’ Production Design and Visual Effects' categories surely deserve to win. Then there’s the acting. MacKay and Chapman are just amazing in their lack of self-consciousness as two low ranked infantrymen given an assignment to warn the leader of the “Second Devons”, another fighting unit, not to attack the supposed vulnerable German Front. Aerial reconnaissance has found the Germans had pulled back, but as a ploy to lure the British troops into a massacre where 1600 men would die. With phone wires cut, Blake and Schofield must traverse several miles through no man’s land and extended country to reach the battalion in peril. 1917’s accurate depiction of trench warfare is matched by the gruesome scenes of the corporals’ crossing of no man’s land and the further ruins in the French town of Écoust-Saint-Mein. Again, these scenes of destructive wasteland have an abject painting-like quality to them. In fact, with apologies to Mendes, they’re so real the term “battlefield porn” came to mind. 1917 also has something very similar to Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film, Dunkirk, with its kind of otherworldly beige or white background that stands in for sky. (I'm not sure this is a good thing.) But, for all of its genuinely good qualities, 1917 as a film still seems to lack the panorama of the very best war movies: of countless men in battle - and frequently; and with interwoven macro and micro narratives and themes.  That’s because it is, for all intents and purposes, a stage play. Eighty per cent of the movie follows only the two characters. With appropriate stage sets and pyrotechnics a similar gruesomeness may also have been affected. So, yes, for production and design, cinematography, even direction (there are no Oscar nominations for acting), 1917 deserves to win. But in terms of epic scope the movie comes up short.

Michael Apted’s 63 Up (last weekend at the Detroit Film Theatre) is the ninth edition of the famed British documentary that follows a group of Baby Boomers from their seventh birthday, every seven years, to check in on how their lives are going. Now 63, this group (there has been one death) are mostly retired or semi-retired. For those who have not seen earlier Up episodes there are flashbacks for each of the characters. Some of them may have become more successful professionally than others – a taxi driver versus a librarian versus an elite barrister. Success, however, is relative and others may have had more fulfilling lives. Perhaps most fascinating is Neil Hughes, a one time drifter and now local politician and part time church minister, who still seems lost and in emotional pain.  Yet overall what we see are entirely ordinary people opening up and because of that the doc is fascinating. My only peeve is when Apted brings up politics like Britain’s Brexit: all the characters seems against it. But how representative is that of the British population or are the characters just pulling punches? Moreover, Apted only asks political questions of the men.

Parasite - you've got to be kidding

It was a long flight, long enough to watch at least three films on the in-flight entertainment system. Herewith are reviews of these three movies, which helped pass the - interminable - time.

Parasite (Bong Hoon-ho, 2019) I’d been avoiding this film all fall, despite it’s incredible accolades. Unanimous vote for best picture at Cannes, 99 per cent approval on Rotten Tomatoes, numerous critics’ best film of the past year, and who knows how it will do at the upcoming Oscars? Why have I avoided? The main plot line of a poor family subverting a wealthy family is a well-trod tale of class conflict. The only difference is it’s a Korean Marxist-themed film. But, hey, I’m on an aircraft and Parasite was available free-of-charge so, hey, let’s see what all the fuss is about. As it turned out the movie was worse than I expected. Parasite is basically a stage play, a black farce that pits “Les Misérables” against the nouveau rich. Sure, there is some charm and ingenuity in the way the Kim family carries out their messy subversion. But there’s also some, uh, gruesomeness. But that’s basically all this film is - the downtrodden Kims infiltrating the Park family’s sleek opulent designer home though various forms of playful deception, with varying results. It left me looking at my watch and yawning. 

Alice and the Mayor (Alice et le Maire) (Nicolas Pariser, 2019) This is a much better film, for any number of reasons.  It stars Fabrice Lucini, one of France’s best and most popular actors, along with a younger Anaïs Demoustier, no slouch herself in terms of filmography. The setting is the City of Lyon, in particular city hall. Lucini plays Mayor Paul Theraneau, a dedicated but burned-out veteran politician whose ideals have given way to the routine of signing bylaws and posing for ribbon cuttings. Demoustier as Alice, a philosopher and yes, idealist, is hired to give “ideas” to the mayor on how his administration and hence, city, can be improved if not transformed. They form a quick bond and Theraneau eventually finds new inspiration. The film’s acting is startingly real; it’s very easy to imagine the real staff of a city hall interacting the way they do. Sure, the themes are leftist politics. But there is a seriousness, and depth, brought to issues, seldom seen in even more pointed political films, almost like reading a theoretical journal.

C'est ça l'amour (Real Love) (Claire Burger, 2018) This a sweet touching film and all because of the pain and angst that its protagonist, Mario Messina (Bouli Lanners), a mild-mannered civil servant and father of two teenage girls, is put through. After his wife Antonia (Antonia Buresi) walks out on the family, Mario is left utterly emotionally alone. For whatever reason he can’t cope as a single dad. His bratty daughters mock him and his lack of parental competency can’t counter their antagonism. Yet, we sympathize with him throughout. The only problem in that this drama is all of one note: the hits just keep coming against poor Mario. But, alas, there is redemption, of sorts, in the end.

NT Theatre hype, and I lost only $20

I’ve generally been well disposed towards the increasing number of National Theatre Live events screened by Cineplex, part of a strategy to get audiences to come to the theatre and counter an ever-growing number of home-streaming services. Yes, the price is a little extra - I paid $18.95 for the current production of Fleabag, the one-woman play by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. But, hey, it’s for a production from Britain’s premier theatre, and the price is much better than regular theatre tickets to see the production live. (Some of those tickets were inflated to as high as £600 (over $1000 CAD/$780 US)). My problem was the length of pre-screening time that was filled with National Theatre promotions. In fact I started to think of it as propaganda since it was advertising disguised by high-culture narratives. At first I thought, ‘Ok I don’t mind a little bit of info about NT productions’ but the hype kept going - for a full half hour! Here we think we’re getting so-called cultural entertainment and yet we're bombarded with what is essentially advertising, and for much longer than for the average “crass” Hollywood movie……As for Fleabag itself, this is the of-the-moment play in England which has captured (or enraptured) audiences on both sides of the Atlantic and spurred the hit TV series of the same name. I was a little skeptical about all the fuss but went to see it anyway. My dubiousness proved correct. In the play, Waller-Bridge comes on stage and sits on a stool and begins regaling her character’s life, that of a young single woman in contemporary London. She runs a failing café which has a live guinea pig (guinea pig?) and only one down-and-outer as a regular customer who orders tea. In other words, it’s despair city. Meanwhile she moans about her boyfriend and yes, does hilariously describes a pick-up on the London Tube. But there’s not much else that is funny in this portrayal (which Waller-Bridge also wrote) of a Millennial’s quotidian life. In fact, the latter half of the play borders on melancholy and almost evokes pity. Yet the live audience, many of whom probably paid highly inflated ticket prices, cheered upon the playwright-actor’s stage entrance and then hung on to her every word, trying to wring out any possible laughs. Thank goodness I only paid $20 for my ticket and not a hundred or much more to attend the live theatre performance.

Great acting amidst head-banging plot

I wanted to like Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story for a number of reasons. Baumbach is one of my favorite contemporary directors with on point works about modern mores in films like The Squid and the Whale (2005), Frances Ha (2013) and The Meyerowitz Stories (2017). If there is one director who captures the essence of the moods, interests and values of the contemporary American intellectual it’s Baumbach. And with one of today’s foremost actresses, Scarlett Johansson, as well as the seemingly everywhere Adam Driver the movie showcases some of today's very top talent.  Sprinkle in such perennial favorites as Julie Hagerty, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta and Wallace Shawn and this movie is so appetizing you can almost taste it. But after viewing its 136-minute length on the big screen (courtesy WIFF’s monthly series at the Capitol Theatre; the film is now on Netflix) I came away not filled with brilliant portraits of erudite characters’ contradictions and life’s cul-de-sac moments but of being beaten blow-by-blow by a very ugly divorce case. Having said that, there is a lot of greatness in this film. Without exception the acting is superlative. Johansson as Nicole Barber is amazing in portraying her mood swings – often contained in long shots – such as when describing her marriage in a first meeting to lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern). Dern as Fanshaw  herself gives a wholly brilliant performance as a take-no-prisoners counsel who also polemically targets the state of divorce procedures and power imbalance between men and women.   And there’s Adam Driver, “Mr.Nuance” with a thousand inner feelings that emerge in warmth, despair, anger and pain. In the plot, Driver as Charlier Barber, is a Brooklyn theatre director who’s ambitious and successful. But his wife Nicole Barber, a one time Hollywood screen actress, feels she’s playing second fiddle. She longs to move back to California. The marriage increasingly breaks down and before we know it both spouses are meeting lawyers and Driver in particular faces tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. Which raises some questions. How come we don’t see Nicole’s lawyer’s bills? In fact, the onus is all on Driver to prove he’s a reliable father to get custody and he has to rent an apartment in LA. So, despite Fanshaw’s treatise about gender discrimination, is the movie unwittingly portraying how men are in fact the ones discriminated against by the courts? Politics aside, the plot descends into somewhat predictable bitterness and outright anger, ironically for two people who still have positive feelings for one another.  All this, again, is fine acting. The problem is that, for the audience, it starts to  become head-pounding and probably quite uncomfortable for anyone who in fact has gone through a divorce.

The Irishman is all De Niro and Pacino

The best things about Martin Scorsese’s much anticipated The Irishman (now on Netflix) are Robert De Niro facial expressions and Al Pacino’s looks and demeanor. Or rather De Niro’s non-expressions. His character as Frank Sheeran, infamous one-time Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa’s (Pacino)’s bodyguard, is that of having a poker face par excellence. This display is hilarious and I felt like applauding De Niro’s effort, or lack thereof, or in fact his astounding effort to be effortless! As for Pacino’s Hoffa, well, he may not look exactly like the stout Hoffa of old but he certainly doesn’t look like Pacino and he assumes a character that might pass for the bombastic labor boss. In the annals of crime dramas and popular American lore, it probably was only a matter of time until someone got around to making a movie about Hoffa’s disappearance. And here we have it. Clocking in at almost 3 and a half hours, Scorsese, basing the movie on Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses – one of scores of books (and interpretations about the Hoffa case and speculation about how Hoffa died) – the movie is an otherwise biopic taking us from Sheeran’s early days as a hit man in the Philadelphia mob up to the Hoffa disappearance in the summer of 1975. And there are all the usual tropes along the way – clothes and cars and scenes of domestic life including families gathered around laminate kitchen tables - during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Women have beehive hair styles and men ugly polyester leisure suits. It’s all pretty proforma and mildly interesting. But De Niro and Pacino are the real show-stoppers here though Joe Pesci as mobster Russell Bufalino is also a bit of a hoot (just thinking of Pesci makes me smile). So, this is the “Corrupt Union” version of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. I’m not sure the movie warranted its length. I’m less and less a fan of biopics since I know the scenes are artificially created, and I’m picky enough to know that this movie, though largely centered around a Detroit incident, wasn’t filmed here. In fairness, most of the settings worked though a big miss was the location of the Machus Red Fox restaurant on Telegraph Rd; in the movie there are hills behind it! Another annoyance was Scorsese’s Doo-wop soundtrack. Scorsese has long been Doo-wop obsessed and the score seems out of place among the shirt and tie clean cut criminal crowd. Oh well, The Irishman moves along at a good enough clip and there are enough characters and well done small plots leading to the big one to satisfy most moviegoers. And I do like the story’s conclusion about how Hoffa’s body was disposed of, one I agree with having read about the case. And, no, it wasn’t under the Meadowlands’ stadium end zone.

Finally, after waiting all fall, Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story with Adam Driver and Scarlett
Johansson is hitting the big screen locally. The Windsor International Film Festival is the organization showing it, at three times this Thursday, downtown at the Capitol Theatre. Kudos to WIFF and its special association  with Netflix, which also allowed WIFF to host several screenings two weeks ago of The Irishman.