Friday, November 24, 2023

November 2023

 

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (2023)

      For most of our history, at least until the late 1960s and in many cases much longer, most of white America lived in blissful ignorance of the mistreatment and injustice faced daily by millions across the country. And even if they knew, they didn’t care—the inequities faced by African Americans, Latinos, Asians, anyone who dared to admit to being gay or lesbian, non-Christians and, first among those who needed to be pushed aside, Native Americans, weren’t worth worrying about.            

      In the last 30 years, journalism—through newspapers, magazines, books and television—along with the entertainment industry started taking notice of on-going and historic injustices, helping to shake more Americans out of their child-like blindness. Based on David Grann’s riveting chronicle of the inhuman treatment of the Osage Indians after oil production began on the Oklahoma tribe’s land in the early part of the century, Martin Scorsese’s epic movie, set in the 1920s, packs an emotional punch in every scene, every conversation, every closeup as very bad people assimilate into the community to enrich themselves.

      Capturing the world of the Osage and detailing how these events impacted individuals is Scorsese’s greatest accomplishment in this film. Much credit must be given to Jack Fisk, the veteran production designer (he’s just three years younger than the 81-year-old director) who has created a community that feels as authentic as the hard-edged dialogue by Eric Roth and Scorsese.

    As white men flood into the area to “find” their fortune, the town’s boss, William Hale (a commanding Robert De Niro) pushes the young men to woo the unmarried Native women. Once married, the women unexplainably take ill and die, leaving the riches in the hands of their white husbands. This happens over and over again, yet law enforcement, under Hale’s thumb, does nothing. (The Osage can’t even spend their own money without getting a white man’s approval.)

     At the center of the picture is Mollie (Lily Gladstone in a soft-spoken but startling powerful performance), one of the richest of the Osage who seems to have resisted the advances of white men until the inarticulate war veteran Ernest (a miscast Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives in town. He’s the nephew of Hale, but seems to be a sincere, if naïve (and way too old), suitor of Mollie.

     Later, the death of her sister spurs Mollie to seek an outside investigation, but Hale manages to hijack those efforts. Frustratingly, the Native people seem blind to the fact that the beloved Hale is working against them. Not until the FBI takes an interest (Jesse Plemons plays the lead investigator) does there seem to be much hope that justice will be served.

     At three and a half hours, the film is unavoidably episodic, and sometimes feels choppy and repetitive—the picture reminded me of Scorsese’s “Casino” and “The Irishman,” long, rather labyrinth chronicles that, despite numerous brilliant sequences, don’t always hold together as narratives. But it’s not just the length:  I’ve seen plenty of 90- minute films that felt much longer.

      While Gladstone and De Niro have clearly defined roles, and give performances worthy of Oscar nominations, DiCaprio seems a bit misguided in trying to capture the difficult character of Ernest. As he descends from a rather innocent pawn of his uncle and truly in love with Mollie to an active participant in the evil conspiracy against the Natives, he seems unchanged. Not to mention that it makes no sense that a 49-year-old actor is playing the role.

     He clenches his jaw too many times rather than provide some insight into what is going on inside his head. That’s probably a fault of the script and direction, but the result creates a crucial weakness at the center of the film.

     Gladstone, whose ethnic background is Blackfoot, is so good that she almost makes you forget the flaws of DiCaprio’s performance. Her previous best-known roles were in Kelly Reichardt films, “Certain Women” and “First Cow.” “Killers of the Flower Moon” should make her a star.

     With a director of Scorsese’s stature—certainly one of the 10 greatest in American film history—there is always the question of how a new film stacks up with his other works. Despite what many reviewers are proclaiming, this isn’t a great film (a great message, a great story, but not a great motion picture), not ranking with the director’s greatest works, which are among the best American films ever made. Pending a second viewing, I would place it among “The Departed,” “The Age of Innocence” and “The Irishman.”

  

THE HOLDOVERS (2023)

     Alexander Payne, who has directed some of the best films of the past 30 years, had me at the opening credits of his new film, recreating the look of a 1970s release, down to the style of the frame showing the picture’s rating.

      The 70s theme continues as director of photography Eigil Bryld (“In Bruges”) recreates the soft, low-lit cinematography of the era, appropriate for this story set in a New England boys’ prep school in the winter of 1970.

      Paul Giamatti plays the school’s disliked ancient history teacher who gets stuck babysitting a group of students who remain on campus over the Christmas holidays.

     After a few days with the rather cliché group of students, a creaky plot turn leaves just Mr. Hunham, the school kitchen manager Mary (a touching performance by Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and one of the smart-aleck high schoolers, Angus (Dominic Sessa), whose parents decided to vacation on their own.

      These three bring their personal quirks and tragedies to the table that eventually brings them together in the kind of unique family unit that was a product of the era’s crumbling traditional values.

      Payne, like many contemporary filmmakers, has made few films since his feature debut “Citizen Ruth” in 1996, directing only seven features over the next 25 years. (That may speak to the current state of film funding.) But those films have been impressive, including “Election” (1999), “About Schmidt” (2002), “Sideways” (2004), “The Descendants” (2011) and “Nebraska” (2013).

      Randolph, who deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance as an over-the-top nightclub performer in “Dolemite Is My Name” (2019), serves as the truth-teller of the group as she deals with the first holiday after the death of her son, who had been a student at the school before going to Vietnam.

     Giamatti gives his finest film performance, subtly unfolding what begins as a cliched pompous teacher, giving way to a man burdened with his insecurities and unhappy past. The role and the film serve as a reminder that the virtues of 1970s films, so rich in believable characters and with scripts anchored to lived lives, are just as relevant today.

  

NAPOLEON (2023)

      Director Ridley Scott has made a career recreating past and future worlds. From “Gladiator” and “The Kingdom of Heaven” to “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” the filmmaker shines in immersing the audience in the atmosphere of these unfamiliar environs.

     His new film, spanning the adult life of the legendary general, while in many ways playing out like a 1930s MGM spectacular, offers a series of immaculately designed set pieces—from the candle-lit intimacy of Josephine’s boudoir to spectacular reenactments of the dictator’s victories and final loss. Much credit must go to Scott’s regular collaborators, production designer Arthur Max and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski.

    Joaquin Phoenix plays Bonaparte not as the supremely confident, dignified “great man,” but instead as an impulsive, needy egotist whose military smarts and brazen ambition elevate him to the highest ranks. Who knows how true the portrayal is to the real man, but it humanizes him, while offering little to admire. Phoenix does an impressive balancing act and makes great use of that famous bicorne hat, worn sideways.

     Josephine, played with a very modern smirk by Vanessa Kirby, holds such a strong power over Napoleon—sexually and psychologically—that you could almost assume that their breakup contributed to Waterloo. Kirby, so memorable as Princess Margaret in “The Crown,” the mother in “Pieces of a Woman” and the White Widow in the recent “Mission: Impossible” films, again dominates every scene she’s in. Scott clearly wanted his Josephine to rule over Napoleon and he found the perfect actress.

      As far as the rest of the cast, they’ve been turned into the scenery—no one stands out.

     Like so many bio-pics and historical drama, the film, written by David Scarpa, too often feels like clips from a longer, more interesting picture. It’s only when Scott takes the film outside to the battle field that the story takes flight. Few combat scenes are equal to this film’s recreation of the Battle of Austerlitz, during which the French lured tens of thousands of Russian troops onto a field of ice. 

     While I hate to even mention the phrase “directors-cut” when writing of Scott (how many versions of “Blade Runner” did we endure?), apparently, he plans to release a four-hour version (the theatrical cut runs 2 hours and 38 minutes) in December on Apple TV+. I suspect the longer film may smooth out the flaws of this version; we shall see.

  

STOP MAKING SENSE (1984)

     It has become accepted judgment that this concert film of a Talking Heads’ performance at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater ranks as the greatest of the genre. Maybe if you are a huge Talking Heads fan it is, but for my taste, I’d lean toward “The Last Waltz” or “Concert for Bangladesh.”

     Not that director Jonathan Demme (“Silence of the Lambs” and numerous music videos and films) doesn’t do a superb job in capturing the energy and quirkiness of the post-punk, New Wave rock band and, most particularly, its off-center lead singer, David Byrne. They emerged as radio favorites in the late 70s and were done by the mid-80s.

    Most distinctively, Demme starts the show with a bare stage—Byrne comes out for a solo sound check—and then slowly fills the space with the instrument set-ups, all as the band bangs out its greatest hits. The film peaks with the incendiary social commentary song “Life During Wartime,” Byrne signature single.

     Re-released to theaters recently (though apparently with no additional footage), it holds up well 39 years later, though the songs, all compelling on their own, sound very similar when performed back-to-back-to-back. The band even turns Al Green’s R&B classic “Take Me to the River” into a Talking Heads song.

     Byrne, who dons his famous oversized suit for a couple of numbers near the end of the show, is more performance artist than rock singer—a combination of David Bowe, Elvis Costello and Laurie Anderson—backed by the funky bass line of Tina Weymouth.

     I enjoyed seeing and hearing the band rip through “Psycho Killer,” “Burning Down the House,” Once in a Lifetime” and its other hits on the big screen (I’d only seen it on VHS previously), but the “greatest”?

  

PRISCILLA (2023) and THE KILLER (2023)

       I can withstand bad acting, bad screenwriting, even incompetent directing, but not the most egregious cinematic sin: being boring. These two movies share nothing except that the characters in both seem to sleepwalk through the performances and the plots are equally dreary.

        Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” positions itself as a kind of rebuttal to Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” (2022), in which the wife of rock ‘n’ roll’s king spends most of the film in the background. The new movie, based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir, doesn’t shy away from the clearly inappropriate early relationship between the pair. When they meet, she’s a very-sheltered 9th grader from Texas whose father is stationed in Germany, at the same base where Elvis is doing his required military service (living in luxury few G.I. ever enjoyed).

      Once Presley returns to Memphis, Priscilla visits and, too soon, is living there, all approved by her parents. Yes, it’s 60 years ago, but, even then, this young teen living among the adults at Graceland was a bit strange. Though the film goes to great lengths to show Elvis refusing the girl’s overtures for sex, even as they share a bed, I didn’t believe it for a Memphis second. 

     While Elvis never stops telling her how much he loves her, the soft-spoken Priscilla barely casts a shadow on the Graceland walls, as Presley hangs out with his “Memphis mafia” buddies when not away from home shooting movies and having affairs with his co-stars. (At one point, newspaper stories report that he’s engaged to Ann-Margret.)        

      While every viewer knows from the first frame that this relationship is destined for disaster, I imagined that there must be something interesting about it to make it worthy of a two-hour film. I was wrong.

     Coppola has made a career directing films in which not very much goes on—it’s almost her signature. This one takes the cake: a good portion of the picture depicts Elvis and Priscilla engaging in childish games (remember, no sex) in their bed. It’s all embarrassingly dull.

      As Priscilla, Cailee Spaeny, in her first major role, doesn’t so much give a performance as model for the camera, looking like a lost deer. The script, by Coppola, gives her virtually no personality and nothing of interest to say.

       While I wasn’t impressed with Austin Butler’s Oscar-nominated turn in “Elvis,” at least he brought out Presley’s energy and ambition. Jacob Elordi, a tall, thin actor who bears no resemblance to the singer (distractingly, he’s 5 inches taller than the real Elvis) plays the role as if no one told him he was portraying a rather famous person. Previously, he was a star of the Netflix movie series, “The Kissing Booth.”

      For some reason, Colonel Parker isn’t in the film at all. Odd, considering that most accounts have him making every important decision in Presley’s life. He might have livened up this film (where is Sofia’s old friend Bill Murray?); someone needed to light a fire under this story.

     While I wasn’t surprised at the somnolent manner of Coppola’s picture, I never expected David Fincher to turn “The Killer,” a tale of a failed assassination attempt, into such a slog.

     Michael Fassbinder is the professional hitman who missed and then goes on a vengeance-fueled killing spree knowing that his mistake will likely cost him his life.

    The film seems to be influence by “Point Blank,” but never generates the intensity or outrage that Lee Marvin brought to the violent 1967 classic. It’s just one senseless killing after another, including innocents.

     Without giving away one of the few lighthearted quirks of this mostly repetitive script, the highlights of the film are the names the assassin uses when checking into hotels. Sadly, that minor note is the only memorable aspect of this strangely subdued picture.

        I would have preferred to see a film about the killer’s storage locker, where he keeps an astonishing collection of guns and accoutrements to hide his identity. I can’t imagine how long it took him to accumulate all of this. He even jokes about what the bidders on “Storage Wars” would make of his collection. 

       Late in this slickly directed, but hollow film, the assassin encounters a very rich woman played by Tilda Swinton, which I suspect was the entire reason to make the film. It would have been a very fine 10-minute short.

  

NYAD (2023)

     In the 1970s, Diana Nyad emerged as one of the most famous female athletes after a string of long-distance swims that set records around the globe.

    After a career with ABC Sports (when it was a major player) and other outlets, Nyad decided, at age 64, to again attempt her dream swim: Cuba to Key West, about 100 miles infested with sharks and other dangerous sea critters.

    Annette Bening, looking much like the real Nyad, plays this self-centered, sharp-tongued woman as she trains and then swims the Caribbean Sea.

    Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster plays Bonnie, her coach and best friend—both are lesbians but not lovers—showing great patience with the demanding Nyad, who refuses to accept the general opinion that she’s too old to attempt this seemingly impossible feat.

     It’s a great story and these two fine actresses are convincing as they recreate this often-fraught relationship. What left me cold—the film is streaming on Netflix—was the mixing of video of the real Nyad with the performances by the actors. The film, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the husband-and-wife team who made the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” starts with five minutes worth of clips from Nyad’s early career (including an appearance on the “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”) which I could forgive if the filmmakers didn’t keep coming back to clips through the picture.

     They can’t seem to decide if they are making a feature or a documentary.

     The movie touches lightly on the inappropriate actions of Nyad’s youth swim coach but that’s not a major concern as the filmmakers clearly are looking to paint a story of heroism.

     For me, the unpleasant manner of Nyad, which Bening and screenwriter Julia Cox (working from Nyad’s memoir), don’t shy away from, made it hard to root for the woman. But Bening, as usual, is outstanding. She’s recently done well playing real people, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein in “The Report” and actress Gloria Grahame (with whom she bears a strong resemblance) in “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” and also delivered memorable work in “The Kids Are All Right” (2010) and “20th Century Women” (2016). Her post-50 career has defied Hollywood’s agism toward women.   

     Also giving a memorable performance is Rhys Ifans (“Notting Hill”), as a boat owner who becomes a crucial member of Team Nyad. The late-night phone conversation between him and Nyad is the film’s most touching moment.

  

APPOINTMENT WITH A SHADOW (1957)

      One of the most difficult roles to play convincingly is that of a drunk. There’s no right way as every alcoholic acts differently, yet rarely do actors manage to bring drunken authenticity to the screen, instead overacting as if they have seen “Arthur” too many times. Most famously, Ray Milland in “The Lost Weekend” (1945) and Jack Lemmon in “The Days of Wine and Roses” (1962) earned acclaim, if not total success, as heavy drinkers.

      That’s why I was impressed with little-know actor George Nader in this low-budget, 72-minute crime picture. Nader, who spent his entire career in Bs, was most famous for taking the sword to protect Rock Hudson; the magazine Confidential outed him and passed on exposing the bigger star.

     The film opens with Nader’s Paul Baxter passed out at O’Connell’s Bar, his favorite dive. We soon learn that he’s an unemployed reporter whose drinking cost him his job. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (Joanna Moore, who had a long career in serial TV) and her brother (Brian Keith), who is also a police detective, have cooked up a plan to get him back on his feet.


     The detective gives Baxter exclusive access to a police arrest of a notorious mobster. The reporter manages to stay sober and shows up at the scene, witnessing the police shooting a man as he leaves a restaurant. But he also spots the actual criminal watching the scene along with him.

    Of course, no one believes this unreliable drunkard’s story that the cops shot the wrong man, but he pursues the real guy while uncovering the plot that left an imposter dead.

    With a star in the role, this might have been a successful A picture; the script by Alec Coppel and Norman Jolley from a story by Hugh Pentecost (and directed by actor Richard Carlson) has some poignant soliloquies and sharp observations about human fragility.

     I found the film by chance on YouTube when I was searching for the highly regarded noir “Appointment with Danger” (it’s not available). Not sure how good the other “appointment” is, but Nader’s performance made this one memorable. 


PHOTOS:

Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in "Killers of the Flower Moon."  (Apple TV+)

Joaquin Phoenix as "Napoleon."  (Apple TV+)

Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi on the long-awaited wedding day in "Priscilla." (A24)

George Nader plays a drunk in "Appointment with a Shadow." (Universal Pictures)


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