Week Ending 11/17/23
FYC Season Begins
The Bills season ended just in time (I jest, maybe they’ll still run the table) for Netflix boxes to adorn my front porch and digital screeners to flood my inbox. I will say that it’s great to see how many studios have fully adopted the online method so I’m not cutting DVDs in half for hours come February. If only they’d be this forward-thinking during the year too. The number of critics still blocked from doing their jobs because of dwindling screenings, disabilities, and continuing COVID spikes is insane.
Not that anyone should be surprised when most studios use movie reviews as marketing and thus target influencers over critics these days to boost that early Rotten Tomatoes score for opening weekend anyway. Multiple embargoes for different outlets run rampant as publicists tell you screeners aren’t available despite someone already telling you they received one. A little honesty goes a long way.
But I digress. Many of the titles sent out this past week don’t have that issue since they’ve been out for months already anyway. It’s not about reviews anymore. It’s about eyeballs and votes. Because the more regional critics groups mention your film, the better chance Oscar voters will have the title on their minds when weeding through their own stack of screeners later on. That’s the game. It’s up to us to play it outside of their limiting and exploitative constraints.
FYI: Next week’s newsletter will be out on Wednesday rather than Friday due to Thanksgiving transforming the former into the latter as far as the industry is concerned.
What I Watched:
FALLEN LEAVES [Kuolleet lehdet]
(now in limited release; streaming on MUBI TBD)
Aki Kaurismäki has created the year’s driest romantic comedy with FALLEN LEAVES: a slow-building love affair between quiet Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and alcoholic Holappa (Jussi Vatanen). With an acerbic wit that has the slyest of grins coming across as belly laughs, their courtship starts with a silent stare across the room of a karaoke bar before escalating to coffee and a movie (Jim Jarmusch, no less) after a fateful re-run-into-moment just after she loses her job and just before he does too.
The script consists of constantly lobbed deadpan barbs either between Ansa and Holappa or each of them and their respective friends (Nuppu Koivu’s Liisa and Janne Hyytiäinen’s Huotari, respectively). You can’t help but laugh as their words quickly cut through the other’s good-natured insults—that very Finnish tone and humor a necessity considering how depressing the world in which they populate proves. Russia’s bombing of Ukraine is on the radio and jobs are few and far between with the bottle serving as solace.
Yet there remains an air of hope lingering throughout anyway. Hope that things might turn out okay despite the odds being stacked against them. Ansa has her tiny one-room apartment, often dark to save money on the electric bill. Holappa has his cigarettes and stubbornness to keep him warm once unemployment leaves him sleeping on park benches. But there’s still that possibility of love. Growth. Survival. It’s one step forward and two steps back, but they both always get back up.
The 81-minute runtime doesn’t leave much room for plot or mystery or anything besides Ansa and Holappa’s sweetly pointed detour through the other’s life. The film’s success therefore hinges on your ability to tune into its vibes since the tone does not change from start to finish. Whether the characters are lost and alone or cautiously found, their flirtatious ribbing never wavers. Nor does Kaurismäki’s desire to test their resolve with yet another tragedy. Thankfully, Pöysti and Vatanen’s pitch-black charm appears unbeatable.
- 8/10
MAY DECEMBER
(now in limited release; streaming via Netflix on 12/1)
The funniest part of Todd Haynes’ “black comedy” is a score that’s akin to someone slamming a gong whenever the film wants us to realize a character on-screen has had a revelation. Pair those overbearing musical cues with lurid melodrama and camp and I get why the “comedy” aspect is pointed at by many who watch, but it’s definitely not where my head went. They aren’t wrong. MAY DECEMBER just wasn’t quite for me because I wish Haynes went even further.
That’s okay, though, since its real success is the acting. I don’t just mean Julianne Moore as Gracie, Natalie Portman as Elizabeth, and Charles Melton stealing the show as Joe, but the performances of those characters too. Because we don’t truly see who they are even if the point is finding them (Elizabeth enters Gracie and Joe’s home to get a better feeling for who they are before starring in an indie film about their infamous romance). They’re all hiding to save face, exploit, and survive. They do it so well that they ultimately end up hiding from themselves.
How guarded must Gracie and Joe be? They cannot stop Elizabeth’s film (and it’s not like they lack experience dealing with tabloid fodder and sordid accounts cashing in on the fact she was thirty-six and married when commencing her affair with him at just thirteen), so they can only hope to steer perception. Add context. Kill with kindness. Even if Gracie loathes the scrutiny and Joe’s embarrassed by the moment (he is now only the same age she was when they got together and yet his youngest children are currently graduating high school).
How genuine is Elizabeth? She seems honest—a sponge seeking inspiration. As time passes, however, the veil drops. Her intentions with the “story” come out (less to set records straight and more to earn an Oscar regardless of any collateral damage that “story” has on the lives it’s based upon) and you begin to wonder if there are any lines she won’t cross to achieve her goals while also judging the woman she’s aping for crossing her own. That doesn’t mean you should compare their crimes. Only that neither Elizabeth nor Gracie is perfect.
And then there’s the real victims left to pick up the pieces of lives they didn’t ask to have. Joe’s three children. The children Gracie had with her first husband who now have children of their own the same age as the former (Elizabeth Yu’s Mary and Gabriel Chung’s Charlie). And what about Joe? He can say he’s in love (and he might be despite mounting frustrations leading to a pitch-perfect, exasperated f-bomb upon entering the house to hear Gracie’s sobs) and that he wanted all this, but he was still a child. Becoming a father doesn’t negate that. If anything, it only prolongs his inability to unpack what it truly means.
The result is a complex character study that demands we not lose sight of the layers involved. You don’t have to vilify or champion anyone to do so either. The circumstances call for it, but screenwriter Samy Burch (who shares story credit with Alex Mechanik) empathetically supplies them a humanity that asks us to stop short and consider where happiness meets contentment and acceptance meets defeat. Because while Georgie (a great Cory Michael Smith) has embraced the cartoonish chaos, Joe is still in suspended animation. He is waking up, though. And Melton’s growing desperation proves absolutely heart-breaking.
- 7/10
ROSE
(now in limited release; VOD/Digital HD on 12/26)
For writer/director Niels Arden Oplev, ROSE is very personal. Inspired by his own sisters—one of whom is an institutionalized schizophrenic and the other her primary caregiver—the film depicts a coach trip from Denmark to Paris wherein Ellen (Lene Maria Christensen) and new husband Vagn (Anders W. Berthelsen) hope to bring her sister Inger (Sofie Gråbøl) some happiness by returning to a place she adored before her diagnosis. Maybe remembering might heal her in some way. Getting away from Mum should at least remind her she isn’t a complete invalid.
The journey isn’t without clichés (Søren Malling’s Andreas plays antagonist as a temperamental old man, the likes of whom are thankfully no longer in the majority where treating mentally and physically disabled people is concerned, while his twelve-year-old son, Luca Reichardt Ben Coker’s Christian, becomes a fast friend and confidant), but the honesty in which they’re depicted alongside Ellen’s brave struggles and Inger’s intense confusion trumps any conveniences. This isn’t an easy story to tell without falling prey to the risk of going too far one way or another. Oplev must avoid reducing his troubled lead to either a “burden” or a “gift.”
Inger is simply Inger. And besides Andreas and Mum (Karen-Lise Mynster’s Gudrun), everyone allows her that dignity. Moments of lucidity, like when she translates a Parisian menu and orders the table wine, become about praise and thanks rather than emotion-fueled lessons to be learned. Oplev knows, having lived it, that people like Andreas and Gudrun can’t change. They can get surprised to the point of finally shutting up, but one crack in the façade of their impossible definition of “normalcy” will have them Chicken Little-ing just the same. This isn’t therefore about their fear. It’s about Inger’s humanity.
ROSE does a wonderful job ensuring that aspect stays in the spotlight whether through drama or comedy. Because, despite the pitfalls of the subject matter, this is a very funny movie. Gråbøl’s fantastic turn lets the inherent humor of Inger’s condition’s lack of filter and keen self-awareness shine. Christensen and Berthelsen are a huge part of this too: always caring, but never overbearing. A balance between safe and autonomous can be found without sacrificing the reality that closure and catharsis can still bring someone who feels as deeply as Inger just as much pain as relief.
This heartfelt tale empowers rather than demeans. It shows how the Ingers of the world are worthy of our time and empathy despite society’s attempts to pretend the opposite—especially in America. That’s why a dynamic like Andreas and Christian’s is relevant regardless of its familiarity. Just because the former is too old to grow doesn’t mean the son he’s trying to indoctrinate must follow suit. The next generation can be more sympathetic and compassionate. Not out of pity either. Christian’s friendship is born from genuine curiosity, fun, and even love. There may still be hope for the future after all.
- 7/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE (2001), MAX PAYNE (2008), MY MOM'S NEW BOYFRIEND (2008), WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS (2008), and YOU, ME & DUPREE (2006) added to the archive. I haven’t seen any of these movies, but they’re f-bombs are all pretty pointed as opposed to throw-ins. A second Martin Lawrences in just a few weeks too. Love that he goes all-in. cinematicfbombs.com
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 11/17/23 -
THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES at Dipson Amherst, McKinley, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
NEXT GOAL WINS at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
“It's not going to win any awards, but it should do very well at the box office. Because despite there being zero surprises as it fulfills its mass-marketed for-profit formula, NEXT GOAL WINS never talks down to us.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
THANKSGIVING at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
TIGER 3 at Regal Elmwood & Galleria
TROLLS BAND TOGETHER at Dipson McKinley, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Streaming from 11/17/23 -
ALL TIME HIGH – Netflix on 11/17
BELIEVER – Netflix on 11/17
DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW – Disney+ on 11/17
RUSTIN – Netflix on 11/17
“Rustin still has its Oscar-bait moments and doesn't necessarily take any big swings that might risk mainstream appeal, but it's a solid drama and above-average profile, nonetheless.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
PERIODICAL – Peacock on 11/19
AFIRE – Criterion Channel on 11/21
“AFIRE is beautifully orchestrated with so many glimpses of joy and laughter from afar as Leon angrily watches, too embarrassed to ask to join and too prideful to admit the errors of his way.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
LEO – Netflix on 11/21
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
BEFORE, NOW & THEN (11/14)
THE CREATOR (11/14)
ON FIRE (11/14)
ONYX THE FORTUITOUS AND THE TALISMAN OF SOULS (11/14)
PLAN C (11/14)
THE PUPPETMAN (11/14)
SATANIC HISPANICS (11/14)
MANODROME (11/17)
THE STONES & BRIAN JONES (11/17)
From the press kit archive:
