Three more nominees from 2015 - Joy, A War, Embrace of the Serpent

Has anyone seen my motivation? Not to see movies, I've seen plenty, but I have been having a tough time writing about them. I have spent the past week looking for pianos all over downtown Minneapolis and writing about that. You can check out how busy I have been here, on my newest blog: http://travelingfoolmn.blogspot.com/2016/06/mission-accomplished-rest-of-pianos.html. 
But, I have watched some movies from 2015 that were also nominated, so, finally a 'timely' entry.


6/18/16 Joy, nominated Best Actress, 2015

This was a weird movie for me. At first I wanted to see it, I love Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro, and I thought the story could be interesting. Then, as time wore on and my list of must-see movies got bigger and time got shorter, I lost the desire. I don't know how people who watch movies every day do this job, by the end of February, I was done. So, here we are, around four months after the Oscars and I finally watched Joy on a DVD rental form the library. I'm okay with spending a dollar to watch it in the comfort of my own home. If you don't know, Joy is based on the real life of Joy Mangano, a housewife turned inventor from New Jersey, and obviously Lawrence plays Joy. The invention that is focused on is the Miracle Mop and the fights that Joy had with suppliers, distributors, and her own family. I tried to care, and I did occasionally, especially when Joy had enough with her family or another person, it was very cathartic, but her family was unbelievably despicable that I was annoyed a lot of the time. It was definitely a strong performance by Lawrence, but not her best in my opinion, and it was definitely Cate Blanchett's year for her role in Carol. Robert DeNiro is Joy's father, Rudy, who is self-centered and hopelessly needy, so he marries his third wife, Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), who has money and she helps to fund Joy's venture, but not without strings. Bradley Cooper is in sales at QVC who helps Joy with selling the mop on television; it's not a particularly great role, but it reunites Cooper, DeNiro and Lawrence for at least the third, maybe the fourth time in a David O. Russell production. I don't think this is a must see movie unless you have it on a list.


6/24/16 A War, nominated Best Foreign Film, 2015

There were really good films in this category, and as I have mentioned in my previous posts, I would have been hard-pressed to make a decision. A War, the Danish entry for Best Foreign Film, shows us the war in Afghanistan from the perspective of Danish soldiers in the Helmand province, and also the impact on the company commander's family back in Denmark. In one way, you could have put American, British or Canadian soldiers in the film, but I think from an American perspective, it is good and important to show that there are other countries sending soldiers to these war zones and they also suffer from the same stresses and injuries. It also shows company commander Claus Pedersen's wife and three young children coping with his absence. There isn't a lot of melodrama or angst, just his wife, Maria, trying to get through each day with their middle son, Julius, showing the most outward signs of missing his father and resenting his absence. Things seem be going along 'normally' in Helmand until Pedersen's company is under fire and Pedersen makes a decision that might have saved his company, but has a deadly impact on some of the local residents. It's a situation that probably happens more than anyone would want to admit; it's like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea, and one can only hope for the best outcome. The movie was good and certainly topical, but after it was over, I felt a little let down. I was hoping for a little more drama and suspense, something was missing.

6/25/16 Embrace of the Serpent, nominated Best Foreign Film, 2015 

Colombia's Oscar entry, Embrace of the Serpent, is another film that I liked, but I didn't love. I found it difficult to really get involved and interested in the whole story. It follows Karamakate, a shaman who lives on his own in the Amazon, but two Westerners come upon his 'doorstep' and he sets off on adventures with them. The meetings take place in 1909 and 1940. Karamakate tries to defend the culture of his people who have been wiped out by colonizing forces in their quest for rubber and other botanical gifts of the Amazon. The two men he meets are on their own quests to learn more about the interior of the Amazonian jungle, including plant life, but also about the people who remain. The story presents the clash of cultures from a couple of different angles, and to me, in the current geopolitical climate, they are eye-opening reminders that different areas of the world have been colonized, settled, pillaged at the expense of the indigenous people and resources, and the colonizers stay to enforce their will and their religion. These people never asked to be colonized. Karamakate is bitter about the whites and their conquest of his land. Karamakate is used to connect the stories of the two white explorers, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes, who were real people. There are a lot of things that happen in the movie and if you are not familiar with some of the history of that area, you may not pick up on them or understand the relevance; I'm no expert, but thank goodness for that liberal arts education at a Jesuit college. This may or may not make it harder to get into the film. I think it's worth seeing because it takes most of us into unfamiliar territory, but I think it would have been difficult for it to win the Oscar given the other films.

Documentaries for your consideration: Grey Gardens and Virunga

6/17/16 Grey Gardens, 1975, National Film Registry, #53 BBC

Grey Gardens is a documentary by David and Albert Maysles released in 1975 and focuses on mother and daughter, both named Edith Beale (Big Edie and Little Edie respectively); Big Edie was a first cousin Jacqueline Kennedy. The Beales lived at the Grey Gardens estate in East Hampton, New York in conditions that most people would find inhabitable. It was those conditions that almost led to them being evicted and brought them to the attention of the Maysles brothers. We don't get too much of a background into the Beales, but we are dropped immediately into the daily lives of mother and daughter, their squabbles, reminiscences and personality quirks. Big Edie sits around, often times in what my mother would refer to as a 'shifts' or sometimes in a towel wrapped around her. She talks about her father and what life was like when she was growing up; she loves to sing and will break into song with very little provocation. Little Edie is in her late 50s when the movie is being filmed and there is something very un-selfconscious about her, and maybe just a little off, eccentric. She wears some outrageous and unique 'costumes' as she calls them. She often reflects on her missed opportunities, particularly in show business, and blames her mother for needing her to come back to Grey Gardens to take care of her. The filmmakers just let the Beales 'be' in their moments, with their animals, with each other, with the neighbor who comes for a visit. There are many moments where it's uncomfortable to watch, but you can't look away. A movie that focuses on family members of Jacqueline Kennedy may seem outdated in 2016, but at the time, Jackie Kennedy, now Onassis, was still very much in the public eye, it was only 12 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated,and people were interested in things Kennedy and Kennedy-related. In 2006, there was a musical was adapted from the documentary, and in 2009 HBO produced a television film starring Drew Barrymore as Little Edie and Jessica Lange as Big Edie. It was good, and I thought both actresses really captured the personalities, but I wouldn't watch that without watching the documentary, it gives you a more complete picture.


6/18/16 Virunga, nominated for Best Documentary, 2014 

Grey Gardens was a documentary that let the main characters just be themselves, there was no obvious agenda, political or otherwise; Virunga definitely has an agenda (and I do not mean that in a pejorative way) and that is to inform us of the perils faced by the mountain gorillas in Congo and Virunga National Park, as well as those faced by the gorillas' protectors, the rangers. In less than two hours, the filmmakers try to provide viewers with Congo's history, beginning with colonization in the 1800s to the painful road to independence and the civil wars up to the present day, as well as illustrate the importance of the gorillas and their protection in the vast national park, and UNESCO World Heritage Site, Virunga National Park. A couple of the rangers tell their stories, why it's important to protect the gorillas and why they risk their lives, over 120 rangers have been killed because of their job. At the time of the film, Congo is in turmoil with the army fighting various factions of rebels and an English company called Soco International that wants to do exploratory drilling for oil under Lake Edward which is part of the national park. This is supposed to be illegal by the laws of the country and the international community, but there is too much money at stake. This movie is heartwarming and heartbreaking as we watch Rodrigue work the gorillas that he calls his 'family'; he loves those animals and they seem to love him back, hugging him, climbing on him, looking to him for comfort when they are distressed. As we saw in Racing Extinction, conservation efforts can have economic payoffs for countries if they invest in ecotourism, and that's what many villages were doing until the rebels took over, and wanted to focus on oil. The scenery is beautiful and to borrow William Butler Yeats's quote, "It's a terrible beauty". The park has a volcano, mountains, open grasslands and an incredible diversity of wildlife that is trying to make a complete return. At the time of the movie, there were around 800 mountain gorillas left in the world. This movie made me angry, sad, but also uplifted because of the brave men and women (in this film, it is mostly men, except for Melanie Gouby, a French journalist) who fight for these animals, and sheer joy at the beauty that is in this world. Soco has supposedly said it would not look for oil, but I couldn't discern if, in fact, that was the case. There is still the risk of poachers. The movie was nominated for Best Documentary in 2014, but lost to Citizenfour and was competing with movies like Last Days in Vietnam, Finding Vivian Maier and The Salt of the Earth. They were all well done and had something important to say about different topics, and I liked them all, but Virunga and Last Days in Vietnam were my 'favorites', but Citizenfour definitely raised some frightening points about government monitoring in the U.S. So, clearly, I would be a terrible voter because I can't make up my mind. Do yourselves a favor and try and see as many as you can. Virunga has a Facebook page as well as a website with more information.

Just a job to do - Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds

5/20/16 Pulp Fiction, Best Original Screenplay, 1994, #94 American Film Institute, National Film Registry, #28 BBC


6/10/16 Inglorious Basterds, Best Supporting Actor,  2009


I have been struggling with how to write these reviews, and I still am. Regarding Pulp Fiction which somehow is on so many Best of lists and is a 'must-see' film - why? Apparently it changed film making and storytelling. Um, okay. I saw this movie around twenty years ago, but didn't remember any of it, just that I didn't like it, so I wanted to try and watch it again to see if I had changed. Well, I do think I have changed, but my opinion of the movie has not. I didn't like it, and even worse, I just didn't care. It seemed so self-indulgent. As for Inglorious Basterds, I kind of liked it the first time I watched it; I thought it was an interesting story, and I enjoyed Melanie Laurent's performance as Shoshana/Emmanuelle, and there are several other actors in brief appearances who are worth watching (Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl among a few), and of course, Christoph Walz in his Oscar-winning role as Hans Landa, the sadistic SS Colonel. But, the second time around, I was disinterested. It was like the novelty of it had worn off, and to be honest (please don't shoot me), Walz's performance was good, but it seems that when a director needs a sadist/evil guy, they say "Is Christoph Walz available?" (see him in Big Eyes, and the new Tarzan movie). I'm sure he can do so much more. You have probably already seen both of these movies, possibly more than once, and maybe you even think they are fabulous. All I can think of is, two more off my list.

Speaking of the list, here are the numbers:
793 - number of movies to watch/blog that have won an Oscar
22 - the number of movies to watch/blog that are on the American Film Institute 100 best films
541 - number of movies to watch/blog on the National Film Registry (some of these films go back to the early 1900s so we'll see how that works)
46 - the number of movies to watch/blog on the BBC's list of best 100 American films

Thank goodness there is a lot of crossover, and if I work really hard, I can finish the AFI list this year. It's coming up on the 4 year anniversary of starting the blog. Some days it's easier than others, but it's still fun.

Two foreign film entries from 2015: Son of Saul, Mustang

5/15/16 Son of Saul, Best Foreign Film, 2016

Terezin, Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia)

I had the chance to see Son of Saul in the theaters but I wasn't ready; I have to be in the right frame of mind to watch or read anything on the Holocaust. Son of Saul tells its story from the vantage point of Saul, a member of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz (Sonderkommando were work units made up of prisoners who scrubbed the floors of the gas chambers, removed bodies, looked for jewelry or any gold on the bodies, etc.). When we first see Saul, he is a shell of a man, numb to the horrors that surround him, until a young boy is pulled from the shower and is still, somehow, breathing. The medical personnel is ordered to kill the boy and then perform an autopsy to see how he managed to survive. Saul sees the boy and recognizes him as his son, and even though he was unable to protect him while he was alive, he becomes fixated on finding a rabbi to perform a proper Jewish burial. There is a rabbi in Saul's group, but he wants to say kaddish later, but Saul is determined to this the right way, although he does not freely share the reason for his focus. Like all quests, he must accomplish other tasks along the way, including trying to get gun powder from the women's camp, helping to take secret pictures of life in the camp. Eventually Saul believes he has found a rabbi, but the man was an imposter. Saul takes the body of the boy to try and give him a burial, but time and other events conspire against him. The movie is filmed at a frenetic pace, there are no leisurely walks across the camp, everyone is scurrying about, everything is done in a hurry; the guards, Nazi and Kapos, yell, push and harass the prisoners, those who about to die and those who dare to live. There is a cacophony of languages: German, Polish, Hungarian, Russian and Yiddish, unlike other films, especially English language films, everyone does not necessarily understand everyone else, beatings occurred because the prisoners may not speak German. The viewpoint of the film struck me - we saw most of the film from Saul's perspective, as if the cameraman was right behind him. To me it made it very claustrophobic, few wide angle shots or shots that panned around, we saw it from Saul's perspective. It was a very intense film, and told the story of a group of men that is rarely shown and hard to watch. The director and writer cast no judgement on the Sonderkommandos or on Saul, either judging their daily tasks or that they do them; or judging Saul and his actions trying to do something for his son in death that he couldn't do in life. I am loathe to say I loved a film like this, because how do you really say you love a movie or book about the Holocaust? I have seen three of the foreign films so far, and I really don't know how I would have voted, because they have been very good. Son of Saul was very good and then some, and I think that Geza Rohrig should have been more widely considered for Best Actor for his performance. This is a movie you may not want to see, but you should see it.

5/30/16 Mustang, nominated Best Foreign Film, 2016 

Mustang was a French-Turkish nominee, and is set in the countryside in Turkey in the current era, although as I watched it, I often felt like I was back in the 1800s. Mustang is the story of five sisters who have lived with their grandmother and uncle for around ten years since their parents died. Lale is the youngest and we see most of the story form her point of view. She is the most independent of the five. The girls are mischievous and fun-loving and don't like feeling fenced in by their conservative family, especially their uncle. The girls and their friends leave school for the summer and head to the beach where they play in the water and sit on the boys' shoulders. Unfortunately for them, a neighbor sees them, and thinking that they are behaving immorally, she reports them to their grandmother. The three oldest are beaten, and the restrictions on their freedom begins. The walls are built up, making it harder for the girls to leave undetected. Grandmother decides it is time to marry the girls off, and begins to arrange visits by prospective husbands. The eldest daughter, Sonay, defies her grandmother and tells her she will only marry the boy she loves; so the potential husband is deferred to Selma, the second oldest. To say this was not a love match would be insulting, but Selma doesn't fight the inevitability of the match. We get a glimpse of something untoward happening, but nothing is said, but it becomes evident that Grandmother may be in a hurry to marry off her granddaughters to protect them. Ece, the third daughter is next in line for marriage. She does not want the marriage and she does not want to be with her uncle any longer, but is not sure how to get out of it. She does find a way however. Throughout, the girls manage to escape their compound, but every time they do, their uncle puts more bars on the windows and doors. On one of her successful trips out, Lale asks Yasin, a friendly truck driver, to teach her how to drive. Lale and her sister, Nur, are the only ones left, and grandmother is not done with her matchmaking, telling Nur that she is next, and on the night of Nur's wedding, the girls turn things about, using the fact that the house is now a fortress to their advantage, keeping everyone else out, while they escape. They head to Istanbul where Lale's former teacher now lives. So far, none of the three foreign films nominated is a 'fun' movie, and I know people like to watch fun movies, but they are all very good, as I mentioned above. This was a very well done film, the five young women who played sisters really looked like sisters and acted liked sisters, they acted like girls from anywhere in the world. Sadly, the story of girls being treated as less than, and being restricted from having fun because it might be 'impure' are found in the news a lot these days. The movie is probably not as raw as it could have been, but it certainly conveys feelings and emotions of being held captive and being treated as chattel, but also a certain hopefulness and spirit in Lale, who is still young enough to believe that she can do anything. We see the Grandmother between a rock and hard place; a woman who loves granddaughters dearly, and perhaps has high hopes for them to have more freedom and education than she did growing up, but also knowing she is beholden to her son with whom they live. She wants to protect them, but is limited in her options. I thought this was a beautiful film, with a great score, in a beautiful country and a heartbreaking story.

New Releases: The Nice Guys and X-Men: Apocalypse

5/22/16 The Nice Guys, not yet nominated

When I saw the trailers for The Nice Guys, I knew I wanted to see that movie. Of course, I was hoping that all the funny bits weren't in the previews. And they were not. Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) directed and co-wrote the screenplay starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. The film has a definite film noir feel to it, a bit of Sam Spade, but with a scoop of 1970s Los Angeles, complete with smog. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), an enforcer for hire, meets private eye, Holland March (Ryan Gosling) under less than ideal circumstances - Healy breaks March's arm, as they are both looking for a missing girl, Amelia Kutner (Margaret Qualley) who seems to have been involved in the pornography scene and the daughter of a high powered government official (Kim Basinger). March has a teenage daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), who is forced to occasionally take on the parental role when dad tips the bottle too much. I haven't seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in several years, but I remember really liking it because of the different twists and turns, a combination of mystery and humor and the way it all seemed to tie together in the end, and seeing The Nice Guys makes me want to see it again. The Nice Guys does so many things well: even though the story takes many twists and turns, it didn't get boring or too distracting or feel like it was dragging (one of my main complaints about other movies); Crowe and Gosling have great chemistry, Crowe is a great straight man and Gosling delivers some fabulous physical comedy as well as in delivering his lines; it's easy to add a child actor and let them be precocious and annoying (another pet peeve of mine), but Rice is so good, I really enjoyed her performance. There is a bad guy who lingers below the surface until halfway through the movie (or later), John Boy (Matt Bomer), and he's kind of like a James Bond villain. I thought that that was the weakest part to me, maybe I was missing something in the casting, but I didn't buy Matt Bomer as a cold blooded killer. I'm not sure if this will be up for any awards, but I'm hoping a writing award or something. I have hopes of more movies (I'd say a television series, but I think that would dilute the 'magic'), and if Gosling and Crowe can keep the energy going, I would watch them.

 

5/29/16 X-Men: Apocalypse, not yet nominated  

I posted a Facebook update and titled the movie "X-Men: Ponderous". I don't know about you, but when I watch super hero movies, I really want more action than talking and philosophizing. That's why I loved Captain America: Civil War so much, plenty of action mixed with a little bit of lofty dialogue. X-Men: Apocalypse had a lot more talking than action, and to me, it was really counting on you to remember what happened two years ago (or longer) in the previous X-Men movies; not that the other movies don't make the same request, but since we have shifted timelines a couple of times it can be a little confusing. There seemed to be a lot of emphasis on Magneto (Michael Fassbender), as much on him as on the character of Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac). I understand that the Marvel Universe is a rich and vast place, and that the world of X-Men is just as rich, and it's probably like going to an all you can eat buffet and feeling horrible if you don't get the crab legs, and the potatoes, and the three kinds of dessert, but then feeling a different kind of horrible because you did eat everything. The movie starts ten years after X-Men: Days of Future Past, 1985, and the tensions with mutants and humans have calmed down a bit. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) runs his school for gifted children, with help from Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult); Eric Lehnsherr (Fassbender) lives in Poland with his wife and young daughter, working in a steel factory and trying to live a normal life; Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) tries to rescue mutants, including Nightcrawler. Unfortunately, the new normal is about to be a distant memory as En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse is awakened from his three millennia sleep, and he's really pissed off. He looks for a foursome to be his four horsemen and finds a young Storm, Psylocke, Angel and Magneto. As Xavier and Raven try to reconnect with Magneto and help him with his grief and anger, Charles 'meets' Apocalypse telepathically and the war begins. Oh, add Major Stryker, the mutant hating military man, who comes to the school and takes away some of the mutants, including Raven. Eventually, the younger mutants team up to fight Apocalypse and the horsemen. Scott Summers/Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver and Jean Grey work with Beast and Mystique to defeat Apocalypse. The battle is really the best part and was super awesome, but you do have to sit through over an hour of other stuff. Let me get my issue with Quicksilver off of my chest. Quicksilver appears in The Avengers: Age of Ultron with his twin sister Wanda, and they are clearly European; Quicksilver in The X-Men appears by himself and is very clearly not European, he is also the comedic relief, which does not resemble the Quicksilver with whom I am familiar. It rubs me the wrong way; maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it would have been easy to have him be European since Raven is in Europe when she meets the Nightcrawler. I would guess that the two movie franchises needed to make the Quicksilvers different since the movies didn't crossover. I did like the character of Jean Grey, this showed the power she had in later X-Men movies, and the young actress who played her, Sophie Clarke, did a fabulous job with a tough role, since Jean's powers are mental, not physical, and Jean is trying to control powers she, nor Charles, fully understands. I didn't hate the movie, it's just the same problem with the last X-Men movie, too much stuff crammed into it, bogged down with too much talking that doesn't always move the story forward. I will keep watching the movies because the good parts are worth it. I will be re-watching all the other X-Men movies over the next year, and maybe that will help with the timelines and my problems with the story lines.

p.s. Rose Byrne is back as Moira MacTaggert, Xavier's love and CIA agent; I just wasn't sure how to squeeze that into my write up.

p.p.s I also wore a superhero themed shirt to the movie. I have 8 such items.