January 2020

2019 OSCAR NOMINATIONS

      I was amused by the consternation expressed by the Los Angeles Times and other mainstream media over the still-too-white Oscar nominations this year. After forcing the Academy to admit hundreds (thousands?) of new, somewhat inexperienced members to counter the overwhelming number of old white guys in the voting group, it turns out that once given the platform to have their opinion count, most of the new members actually voted for what they thought were the year’s best performances and films. Traitors!

      Didn’t they receive the memo explaining that the only reason they were given Academy membership so early in their careers (or some without any film career) was so they would magically diversify each category? Turns out, I guess, that there are plenty of old white guys who are pretty good actors and directors and even some old white women who deserved inclusion.

      In fact, this new voting group couldn’t even gather enough votes to nominate Eddie Murphy, who, to this old white guy, was more deserving than almost every best actor nominee. Diversity is difficult when giving out honors to an industry that isn’t very diverse.

    The biggest complaints of the chattering classes seem to center around Greta Gerwig failing to be nominated for her direction of “Little Women” and Jennifer Lopez for her scenery-chewing role in “Hustlers.” If you expanded each category to 10, neither are deserving, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue for most film writers who weigh in on the issue.

     But putting aside the lunacy that the Oscar nominations stir up yearly, here’s a few names that should have been called.

    Along with Murphy, who gives a funny, nuanced performance as 1970s B-movie entrepreneur Rudy Ray Moore in “Dolemite Is My Name,” Christian Bale as outspoken racecar driver Ken Miles in “Ford v Ferrari,” Adam Sandler as the profane, outrageous jeweler in “Uncut Gems” and Paul Walter Hauser as the title character in “Richard Jewell” would have been a better set of nominees in the best actor category. Even the Academy voters couldn’t overlook the year’s best performance by Joaquin Phoenix as “Joker.”

     In the best actress category, it’s a crime that the heartbreaking performance by Mary Kay Place in “Diane” was overlooked despite every critic in the country raving about this veteran actress portrayal of a small town widow. I also would have included the quirky Awkwafina from “The Farewell” and Charlize Theron’s performance as a presidential candidate in “Long Shot” rather than her rather stiff portrayal of Fox News broadcaster Megyn Kelly in “Bombshell.”

      It’s so rare these days that films offer juicy supporting roles that the Academy can’t help but vote in most of the year’s top performances. But I would have given a nod to Willem Dafoe’s performance in “The Lighthouse” and, among supporting actresses, Da’Vine Joy Randolph for her comic tour de force in “Dolemite Is My Name.”

      I’m still not sure why “Jojo Rabbit” scored a best picture nomination, especially over “Dolemite,” “Uncut Gems” and “The Farewell.” But considering recent years’ nominees, the fact that the Academy acknowledged the year’s three best films—“1917,” “Parasite” and “Joker”—is something of an astonishing accomplishment.

    Here’s my 2019 Top 10, maybe the best lineup of films the decade has produced. If I still need to remind, I don’t include foreign-language films in my Top 10. Otherwise “Parasite” would be at, or near, the top. (I’ll post my complete list of the year’s best in February.)

  1. 1917  (Sam Mendes)

  2. Joker (Todd Phillips)

  3. Ford v Ferrari  (James Mangold)

  4. Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)

  5. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

  6. Diane  (Kent Jones)

  7. The Farewell  (Lulu Wang)

  8. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

  9. Long Shot  (Jonathan Levine)

10. Uncut Gems  (Benny and Josh Safdie)

1917 (2019)

      As much as I love words and the truth that rises from dialogue between two characters, what makes great cinema are those impeccably constructed sequences in which the visuals express everything you need to know about the story.

      It isn’t long into “1917” before director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins provide that moment. Two young British soldiers, Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) are selected to deliver an urgent message to another battalion that is about to launch an attack on what they believe are retreating Germans.

       With a combination of urgency (Blake, whose brother is a member of the other battalion) and caution (Schofield, who sees the danger of crossing no-man’s land), the soldiers rush through the narrow pathway of the trenches, passing by dozens and dozens of soldiers; a tableau of the devastating effects of this brutal war. The pair seem to walk through miles of trench before they leave this sanctuary for the unprotected open battlefield of France.

       This introduction to their grueling journey not only draws the audience immediate back to an event over 100 years old, but it announces with bravado that you’re about to see something special.

       By shooting from behind, beside or in front of these two characters, and simulating one uncut two-hour tracking shot, the filmmakers create an extraordinary intimate, claustrophobic and intense war film.

      While there were numerous times that I was distracted by the gimmick—I longed for an edit, a new angle, another perspective—it works, capturing the unrelenting danger, the casual chaos, the haunting silence of the battlefield.

     Mendes' career, which began at the top with his debut film, “American Beauty,” winning the 1999 Best Picture Oscar, hasn’t lived up to expectations. He’s made just seven films since then, highlighted by the last two Bond films, “Skyfall” (2011) and “Spectre” (2015). This war film, nominated for 10 Oscars and the odds-on favorite to win best picture, resurrects his position as a serious filmmaker going forward. Mendes, inspired by his grandfather’s stories about World War I, co-wrote the nominated screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

      While the film isn’t focused on performances, both Chapman (“Game of Thrones”) and Schofield (who played the eldest son in “Captain Fantastic”) are excellent as the leads in a film where the camera literally never leaves them. Showing up in nicely turned cameos as British commanders are Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch.

     But the picture’s real star is Deakins, a 15-time Oscar nominee, whose stunning camerawork has been crucial to such films as “Sid and Nancy,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Reader,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Sicario,” “Blade Runner 2030” for which he won his Oscar, and almost all of the Coen brothers’ films starting with “Barton Fink.”

I’d be shocked if he didn’t win another Oscar for the daring, transformative visuals he and his crew capture in “1917.” Rarely has a director of photography been so essential to the storytelling as he turns (along with the incredible work of the production designers) every moment of this very simple story into the sweeping world-changing reality of “The Great War.”

      I never thought of myself as especially drawn to war films, but recent ones have earned high spots on my Top 10 lists: last year the little-seen “A Private War” ranked No. 1 and the previous year “Darkest Hour” earned the No. 2 spot. Back in 2009, “The Hurt Locker” was my best film of the year, with “Inglourious Basterds” placing third. Let’s face it, there is no event more intensely dramatic, more cinematic, than war. When done well, war films tower above most stories, and “1917” is among the best.

 

LITTLE WOMEN (2019)

     My initial reaction to plans for another film version of Louisa May Alcott’s story of four young women growing up in Civil War America was…why? Three very fine versions of the 150-year-old novel can be easily seen in this age of streaming accessibility, and, going old-school, on inexpensive DVDs, by anyone wanting to revisit this timeless coming-of-age story.

     But I realize that, like the tales of Shakespeare, Dickens and Poe, new adaptions are necessary to attract a generation that has little interest in a film that’s even 20 years old.

This version also provides another high-profile role for Saoirse Ronan, who at 25, is emerging as the preeminent actress of her generation. Following exceptional portrayals of a 1950s immigrant in “Brooklyn,” a rebellious high school senior in “Lady Bird,” and the fiery royal in “Mary, Queen of Scots,” Ronan gives a spunky, heart-on-her-sleeve performance as Jo March, the archetype of all independent, pre-feminist women.

     She rises above the story that is all too familiar to most filmgoers with the sincerity and determination which has made Jo an essential character of American literature.

Also a standout is Florence Pugh (memorable in 2016’s haunting “Lady Macbeth”) as Amy, the ambitious sister whose benefactor Aunt March (Meryl Streep, convincing in an “old lady” role) takes her to Paris to study art and life. She offers very convincing alternative to Jo’s obstinate view of life. Both Ronan and Pugh earned Oscar nominations for the film.

     As for the rest of the cast, I was less impressed. Laura Dern as Marmee never really emerges from the characters saintliness, while sisters Meg (Emma Watson) and the fragile Beth (Eliza Scanlen) remain in the shadows of the subtle rivalry between Jo and Amy.

As Laurie, Timothée Chalamet, who was anointed a great actor after playing the gay teenager in “Call Me by Your Name,” never comes off as an adult or an equal to Jo or Amy. (Christian Bale’s Laurie, in the superior 1994 movie, puts Chalamet to shame.)

      Director Greta Gerwig, whose debut as a filmmaker was “Lady Bird,” does her best to convolute Alcott’s story by cutting back and forth between the time frame when the girls are teens and when they are adults, undercutting the performances. She seemed to be trying too hard to unnecessarily guide the viewers through the story’s deeper meaning.

     Overall, the new version doesn’t match the 1994 film (also directed by a woman, Gillian Armstrong, and starring Winona Ryder) or the Katherine Hepburn-Joan Bennett 1933 version, but is good enough for the next generation—who will never get around to reading the book—to appreciate the emotional richness of the 1869 story of the girls’ fraught journey into adulthood.

UNCUT GEMS (2019)

   Following the chaotic life of a jewelry dealer and obsessive gambler Howard Ratner, this unrelenting picture feels likes we’re watching a perpetual double overtime. Like a robbery in progress, it careens from one dire moment to the next, all dealt with aplomb by the acerbic Howard, who is recklessly optimistic, convinced that he’ll survive to experience yet another day filled with volatile deals and serious threats to his life.

     Harnessing the unstoppable energy he usually wastes in brainless comedies, Adam Sandler turns this self-centered, conniving jerk into one of the year’s most interesting movie character. Juggling a wife and family, gambling debts he keeps ignoring, an obsession with gems he’s purchased from Ethiopia, a mistress kept in his downtown apartment and a strange bond with Boston Celtic basketball star Kevin Garnett (outstanding as a version of himself), Howard is one crisis away from a heart attack, financial disaster or worse.

     There is no mistaking this film for a generic Hollywood product: New York writer-directors Benny and Josh Safdie (“Good Time”), along with co-screenwriter Ronald Bronstein, have made a pointedly Jewish film, setting most of the action in the jewelry district of Manhattan and filling the script with racist and ethnic barbs of its hot-house atmosphere. This raw, street film, featuring an electronic score that jangled the nerves, reminded me of the 1980s-90s films of Abel Ferrara.

     The supporting cast gives the picture a reality-TV feel (if reality TV had any reality in it) with Broadway (and “Frozen”) singer Idina Menzel playing Howard’s perpetually angry wife, who forgives his many sins to maintain her lifestyle; NBA legend Garnett, at 6-11 a dominate presence; Lakeith Stanfield (who starred in the bizarre “Sorry to Bother You”) as a Garnett lackey; Judd Hirsch as the family’s elder who Howard takes advantage of; and, in a short club scene, The Weeknd.  

      The filmmakers exuberance for dramatics get the better of them in the final act as Howard goes beyond his usual arrogance and turns stupid, somehow believing that bad men will keep putting up with his crap. But maybe that was inevitable for a man who seems to thrive on making risky decisions. 

     I never imagined in 1000 years I’d ever write this, but Sandler, who had made more money doing bad movies that anyone alive, was robbed of an Oscar nomination.

   

THE TWO POPES (2019)

    I’m somewhat ambivalent about this mostly imagined series of discussions between Pope Benedict XVI and his successor Pope Francis just before Benedict’s 2013 abdication. But anyone who savors great acting will reveal in the work of Jonathan Pryce (as the current pontiff) and Anthony Hopkins as the retiring pope.

      My reservations about the film involve the mixing real and fictional events, as director Fernando Meirelles (“City of God,” “The Constant Gardener”) shifts from showing crowds in Vatican City awaiting the white smoke signal when the conservative German Joseph Ratzinger becomes the head of the Catholic Church to him summoning Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to Rome for a chat. Apparently, the days’ long discussions on the role of the church in modern society, the meaning of faith, and how the priesthood has affected their lives is pure conjecture on the part of screenwriter Anthony McCarten, who did similar work in “Darkest Hour.”

      You don’t have to care about religion or the Catholic Church (reeling at the time from the world-wide sexual abuse scandal) to enjoy the conversation between these two thoughtful, literate men as played by two veteran actors of the stage and screen. Yet the accumulate effect is to believe that the church is in the forefront of social progress and righting the wrongs of the past. “Two Popes” might as well be a production straight from the Vatican City PR office.

     For some reason, Meirelles felt it important to interrupt the mesmerizing conversation with a flashback to Cardinal Bergoglio’s early days as a San Miguel priest and his failure to act against the dictatorial Argentine government in the 1970s. In a bio of Pope Francis, these scenes would be essential, but here they just detract; this film isn’t about what these men were, but what they think at this crucial juncture as both men want the other to confer blessings on career-changing decisions.

    Pryce, excellent last year as the Nobel Prize winning writer facing up to lies in “The Wife,” has spent most of the last 20 years as a dignified supporting player in  

movies and TV, so it’s a bit of a surprise that he scored this plum role, especially playing a Latino. But he brings a very believable combination of humble outsider and determined agent of change to the character.

     Hopkins, as the forceful Vatican insider who originally sees Bergoglio as an intruder to the inner sanctum, delivers his usual brilliant performance. At 82, this lion in winter continues his magnificent acting career (on TV in “Westworld” and in a modern version of “King Lear”).

    It almost doesn’t matter who they are playing as these two fine actors debate and bond over the essential values of life, while sitting under a reproduction of Michelangelo’s masterpiece.  If only they represented an organization that accepted the values of the 21^st Century and took its social responsibilities seriously.

MARRIAGE STORY (2019)

     With films like “The Squid and the Whale” and “Margot at the Wedding,” Noah Baumbach has been hinting at this movie for years. Clearly influenced by the intense, actor-centric films of Ingmar Bergman, the writer-director balances the immediacy and realism of the screen with the theatrical, talky drama of the stage to create one of the most thoughtful, unsentimental looks at the end of a marriage.

      Dominating the film is Scarlett Johansson, giving an emotionally complex, but restrained performance as Nicole, an actress who comes to the realization that both her career and personal needs have become secondary to her husband’s directing career. Adam Driver as Charlie isn’t a bad husband or father (they have a eight-year-old son) but he sees their life through the lens of his life. Like so many marriages, even in this so-called post-feminist era, a woman’s career, especially after childbirth, takes a backseat to her husband’s.

      If you don’t like talky films avoid “Marriage Story.” Like Bergman (and his American disciple Woody Allen), Baumbach uses directed-address monologues extensively—often the actor’s head fills the entire screen--as both the grievances and the positives about Nicole and Charlie’s partnership are aired. While in the past I have found too much of the writer’s scripts to be stilted and aggressively hip, as if he was merging Neil Simon and Judd Apatow, here he taps into the deep-seated psychology of love, marriage and individualism.

     Beyond the two fine lead performances, the film feature outstanding supporting work by the couples’ lawyers; Laura Dern as the take-no-prisoners L.A. divorce lawyer who represents Nicole and 83-year-old Alan Alda as the old-style attorney, with a more optimistic view of life, who represents Charlie.

       Some of the films best and most insightful scenes are those between the clients and their attorneys, in which the reality of modern marriage and divorce are dissected. (Baumbach divorced actress Jennifer Jason Leigh in 2013.) The long monologue by Johansson during her first session with Dern is the pinnacle of Johansson’s career, the kind of resounding truth-telling that rarely shows up in mainstream American films.

    In most years, this brilliant performance would be a shoo-in for the Oscar, but Renee Zellweger’s Judy Garland portrayal is hard to deny. Before Johansson became a Marvel regular and sci-fi star (“Lucy” and “Under the Skin”), she showed potential in such films as “Ghost World,” “Lost in Translation” and “Match Point.” Here’s hoping that this will inspire her to devote more time to dramatic roles as she enters her fourth decade of acting.

    Few films about marriage, including classic Hollywood pictures such as “The Philadelphia Story” (1940) and “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979) or more realistic portrayals, “Shoot the Moon” (1982) and “Husbands and Wives” (1992), have cut as deep into the costs of compromise and the impossibility of a completely equitable union.

     It gives me a sliver of hope that scripts like this can still get made; that the American cinema still has room for issues, realistic dialogue and raw emotions and there’s an audience for it.

THE DEAD DON’T DIE (2019)

    This comic homage to the godfather of zombie movies, George Romero, is everything the deadly serious “Walking Dead” isn’t. This off-handed lark by the master of irony, Jim Jarmusch, featuring another droll, sad-sack performance by Bill Murray, is the funniest film of 2019.

      Murray plays a small-town Western Pennsylvania (a tip of the hat to “Night of the Living Dead”) sheriff who is unflappable as he and his deputies (Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny) investigate what at first looks like wild animal attacks. But quickly it is suggested (and casually accepted) that this is the work of the undead.

    The film is filled with quirky supporting players, including punk rock legend Iggy Pop as a zombie (that alone makes the film worth seeing) and Tom Waits as a bushy bearded hermit who lives in the woods. Other Jarmusch favorites with bits are Eszter Balint, Steve Buscemi and Tilda Swinton (along with a grave marker reading “Samuel Fuller”).

     The highlight of the movie for me is when Murray’s Chief Robertson grows tired of hearing Driver lament: “This is definitely going to end badly.” Why do you keep saying that, Murray wants to know.

   “I’ve read the script.” Driver responds, nonchalantly.

   “Jim showed you the entire script!” Murray reacts, clearly pissed.

   The breaking of the third wall just tops off the satirical tone Jarmusch maintains even as the zombies munch on arms and legs.

     Sadly, most filmgoers no longer care about this pioneering indie director whose off-beat films since his breakthrough picture, “Stranger Than Paradise” (the masterpiece of indie filmmaking) are always oddly entertaining. He continues to offer a jaundiced view of the world that remains very anti-Hollywood. Jarmusch, with his wild gray hair and dark glasses, remains the ultimate hipster filmmaker, abiding behind the camera as if the cinema has never heard of “Star Wars” and Marvel.