Week Ending 12/22/23
GWNYFCA Nominations today
I’ve spent the past two days making graphics and getting things ready for today’s GWNYFCA nomination announcement. Everything will start tweeting out around 10:00am EST like usual and then go live on the website. The change this year is that the winners will be announced in-person for the first time at the Dryden Theatre in Rochester on 1/6/24. Should be a cool change of pace.
The deadline for Top Tens at The Film Stage was extended until after Christmas, so I’m hoping to watch a couple more foreign films I’ve missed this weekend just in case they want to sneak in. I do need to also start (and finish) my Top Ten Movie Posters of 2023, though. So, I don’t know what I’ll be able to get done. The plan is at least two of these newly shortlisted Oscar picks: PERFECT DAYS, THE TASTE OF THINGS, THE PROMISED LAND, GODLAND, SOCIETY OF THE SNOW, and TOTEM.
And, speaking of that shortlist, what a travesty that KOKOMO CITY didn’t make the cut. I truly thought it was a guarantee. Thankfully, FOUR DAUGHTERS did make it. That’s my #1 doc of the year so far and it just hit VOD today, so now is your chance to watch it too.
What I Watched:
ALL OF US STRANGERS
(now in limited release)
If watching Andrew Haigh's ALL OF US STRANGERS isn't enough to leave you speechless, try reading the synopsis of the novel by Taichi Yamada that he adapted. My first reaction was to laugh because it's such a stark departure in tone and genre. But then I started to think about it more. I started to see the correlations between what the couple is doing to Yamada's protagonist and what they're doing to Haigh's counterpart. Both "take" something. The difference—beyond morphing the physical into the emotional—is that Haigh's are also giving something back.
Adam (Andrew Scott) needs it too. Not just because his screenwriter is mired in a bout of writer's block while dealing with the nuisances of living in an almost empty, brand new apartment complex in London. But because he's never been able to shake the loneliness that has consumed him since his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) died thirty years ago in a car crash. We can see the sadness in his eyes. And then there's the fear and embarrassment that replace it when Harry (Paul Mescal) knocks on his door. Adam knows isolation. He's comfortable with its pain. To dare to love and risk losing it again? There's nothing scarier.
These heavy emotions mix with nostalgia to put him on a train back to his childhood home. The point is to confront the memories. To reconcile who he was with who he is and find a pathway forward. What he discovers instead is an opportunity to drift backwards—to loosen his grip on closure by distracting himself from the resurfacing grief via an impossible fantasy that will only leave him hurting more. Because who should greet him at the door but his Mum and Dad, neither having aged a day since their fateful crash. They know they're dead and they know Adam is their son. They can't wait to find out about the man he's become.
The film hinges entirely on Scott's performance as a result. Not just with his parents and the potential that arrives from telling them everything he couldn't growing up (including that he's gay), but also with the blossoming romance opposite Harry. What begins with awkward shyness gradually opens with a newfound confidence and desire for exploration. It's as though Adam has shed decades of baggage from his shoulders through the regular visits he shares with his parents. There's increased clarity, excitement, and energy that he pours into his work and relationship. He's somehow become whole. But at what cost?
If this was Yamada's original, Adam would be paying with his soul. Haigh takes a different route. He, admittedly, moves more towards the metaphysical rather than the supernatural. Because the longer Adam stays with his parents, the harder it becomes to reclaim the life he has built. Their presence becomes a crutch now as much as their absence did then. It pushes him outside of his comfort zone in both good ways and bad since the closure he needs has less to do with having them around then it does with having the chance to willingly let them go. It's a devastating revelation made more so by three absolutely devastating performances from Scott, Bell, and Foy.
And just as he must accept the truth of what has happened to them, so too must he accept his own truth and the choices he's made. Between his parents and Harry, he's finally escaped a self-inflected exile of body and mind—an evolution that comes with its own fresh dangers. The hope then is that these experiences have better prepared him for new tragedies. That hindsight and recognition have allowed him to understand he doesn't have to feel guilty for surviving. Yes, it's sad. Yes, he's sorry he couldn't save them. But it doesn't mean he's not worthy of living just because they weren't given the chance.
It all leads to a heartbreaking finale that's less a shock because you weren't expecting it than it is for knowing and dreading that it was always coming. Haigh beautifully handles the narrative progressions to ensure he doesn't have to jump through hoops distracting us from a truth hidden in plain sight. He knows how to use his script to prevent us from asking questions, but it never feels manipulative. We are simply too caught up in the endorphin release to consider what else is going on until Adam himself is ready. It doesn't make it any less crushing, but it does provide hope. Hope that Adam can embrace that which he had and not simply lament that which he's lost.
- 10/10
THE COLOR PURPLE
(opens December 25)
I really liked the final 25-30 minutes of the new cinematic musical iteration of THE COLOR PURPLE. I think it handles the themes of forgiveness and generational trauma much better than Steven Spielberg’s adaptation and drives home the emotional weight of what Celie’s happily-ever-after truly means in context with the horrors she endured the four decades prior.
The first-two hours, though? A freight train of a Cliff’s Notes cram session that seems to slap you in the face to look somewhere else whenever a dramatic moment implores you to take a pause. Marcus Gardley’s script simply doesn’t have time for introspection. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched the 1984 version the day before because having its pace and care in my memory made the speed at which this one travels untenable.
I wasn’t therefore surprised to read this isn’t actually a strict translation of the stage musical. So much so that it credits that Tony Award-winning production after Alice Walker’s original novel as another source of inspiration rather than a part of the screenplay itself. Removing thirteen songs and reworking the narrative will do that. I only wonder then how much better Marsha Norman’s Broadway book is and whether it gives the subject matter the room it needs to breathe.
Even so, Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks are great reprising their roles. The pacing might refuse to give them their moment to shine and emote before cutting to the next scene, but their impact is definitely felt nonetheless. Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins are really good too with Taraji P. Henson doing her best to elevate a crucial role that’s sadly been reduced to little more than “muse” and “ride out of Dodge.”
So, while director Blitz Bazawule gives the production a welcome kinetic style, it comes at the detriment of the whole. The finished result remains solid enough to be a worthwhile experience, but I’d probably spend the money to see a touring production of the original musical at my local theater before watching it again.
- 6/10
FERRARI
(opens December 25)
The movie FERRARI is a good metaphor for the vehicles Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) created. Beautiful. Sleek. Powerful. But, most importantly, a soulless machine. From the very start of Michael Mann's film, we learn that life is complex. That despite all our best efforts, ambitions, fears, and hopes, we are beholden to the world around us. All it takes is one unfortunate misstep to ruin everything and the only way to survive that existential crisis of mortality is to steel oneself from ever letting the emotional fallout of such inevitable tragedies change your course.
That seems to be the lesson in Troy Kennedy Martin's script (adapted from Brock Yates biography). Yes, men like Enzo can mourn their friends in private. In their minds. But to show weakness in public is a death sentence. So, they delude themselves into believing they have some grand purpose beyond simply enjoying life and loving their families. They talk about legacy and pride and how fear is a liability rather than a strength. Fear will get you killed, but hubris will make you a martyr. A hero.
And yet that lack of fear is what gets Enzo into so much trouble. He doesn't worry about hurting his wife and business partner Laura (Penélope Cruz is very good) when starting an affair with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley) during the war. His conscience didn't stop him. His humanity didn't make him question his actions. He deserved to be happy at the expense of those who loved him. He deserved to do whatever he wanted while making sure they couldn't. Their actions had to take his success into consideration and his didn't need to worry about their sorrow.
It's the same with his drivers. His employees. The press. Everyone is a pawn. Even his own bastard son who wants nothing more than to take his name for his Confirmation. How will that affect the Ferrari brand? How will it affect Laura's state of mind and thus the Ferrari brand? How will needing to think about it distract Enzo from the impending Mille Miglia race and thus the need to inject capital into the company and thus the Ferrari brand? That's what matters. That's what motivates his every move. Those brief moments of honesty and compassion tussling young Piero's (Giuseppe Festinese) hair? Exceptions proving the rule.
Does FERRARI use this truth that's baked into its very DNA to judge or comment on it, though? No. And that, to me, is a mistake. By not showing the actions of this callous, one-track-minded legend of racing, sports cars, and Italy itself with purpose, it condones them. It says men in his position are allowed to act that way because they employ thousands of people and thus carry the burden of forsaking their humanity to make money. Who thinks that's a worthwhile message for today's world? A man on the brink of bankruptcy leveraging those in his control to stay solvent by letting them die to achieve that goal?
Sorry, but no. I felt nothing for him. Nothing for his company. And, by extension, nothing for the central race. The stakes are shifted off the racers. Off victory. Off everything but whether Ferrari will prove marketable enough to stay afloat. So, Gabriel Leone, Patrick Dempsey, and Jack O'Connell are mere afterthoughts. More pawns to a story that attempts to draw a through line between unavoidable tragedy and negligent tragedy as though someone like Enzo Ferrari could ever comprehend the depth of emotion found via the comparison beyond empty words.
Dino dies? Long live the new son. A racer dies? Resumés from replacements abound. Bystanders die simply wanting to admire Enzo's creations? How much money will it take to forgive, forget, and let him risk doing it again? The answer is zero. We love our entertainment and vicarious fantasies way too much to hold anyone in power accountable. We'd rather give them glacially paced Oscar-bait biopics that pretend cold callousness is a trait of greatness rather than evil.
- 5/10
GODZILLA MINUS ONE
(in theaters)
It’s more a movie with Godzilla than a Godzilla movie as the monster himself is an afterthought. Not because Japan has seen him before, but because the war has them feeling so defeated that their first reaction upon seeing him is “Here we go again.”
And that’s where GODZILLA MINUS ONE stands out. It’s not a unique movie and the pacing is very slow with little plot propulsion beyond “We need to stop Godzilla without anyone’s help because tensions remain high between the US and USSR, but thank goodness the handful of characters we introduced to you are just the right people to do so,” but the central nihilism is refreshing. Because it’s not about revenge. Or the bomb. Or outside interference at all. It’s about all the ways Japan let the Japanese down itself.
Government secrets. Sending men to die as kamikazes. Leaving the poor helpless. Takashi Yamazaki is pulling no punches where patriotism is concerned, shifting the focus from sacrificing yourself for country to sacrificing yourself for future generations who shouldn’t have to become cannon fodder like they did. I don’t necessarily think the human-interest stuff works perfectly—time passes so quickly that conflict overshadows emotion every single time—but it has for others.
As for the monster itself: this Godzilla is pretty cool with its charged-up heat ray. And it does look great for having a sub-15-million-dollar budget. But don’t tell me it looks like a 300-million-dollar budget because it certainly does not. This was shot very particularly to stretch that cash and often reminded me of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW aesthetically. The real lesson isn’t about making a little money look good, though. The lesson is that you don’t need a lot of money to be good.
- 7/10
THE IRON CLAW
(in theaters)
It’s just too much for a two-hour movie. Writer/director Sean Durkin had to literally erase one of the Von Erich brothers from history because adding another tragic demise (especially one so close to that of a different brother) would be too redundant to the pacing of the film. The dominoes fall so quickly that it’s also easy to forget these are grown men with wives and families and not just young boys going to war in the ring for Dad. Because giving any of them three-dimensions besides Kevin (Zac Efron) would add five more hours.
With all that being said, however, THE IRON CLAW proves about as effective as it could due to Durkin’s juggling act between history and narrative propulsion. The idea is to center Kevin (for obvious reasons). He’s the supposed heir to the “Iron Claw” throne built by his toxically domineering father Fritz (Holt McCallany) who’s the size of a house with an even bigger heart. As Doris’ (Maura Tierney) eldest surviving son, Kevin becomes a sort of secondary father figure to his brothers. The compassionate ear to oppose their father’s (doubling as employer) demands.
We understand this dynamic pretty early on thanks to youngest (because Chris is removed) brother Mike (Stanley Simons). He plays the guitar and skips workout sessions. He enjoys watching Kevin and David (Harris Dickinson) wrestle, but wants nothing to do with it himself—a fact his older brother sees and appreciates despite Dad’s refusal. But Kevin doesn’t really have a say. No one does besides Fritz and even he pretends he doesn’t if the words he should say don’t help reach his goal of NWA supremacy. Ask either parent to open their eyes and see what’s really happening and they shrug while saying, “You boys work it out yourselves.”
It’s a mantra Kevin takes to heart. One that forces him to feel guilt when bodies start falling. And it’s not because he finds love (Lily James’ Pam) to ground him (I mean, it is since the others don’t get their real-life relationships on-screen). It’s because he sees the truth while also embracing his role. So, when David replaces him at the top of the pecking order, Kevin gets mad at the situation rather than the man. When Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) does the same, rinse and repeat. Where those more polished public speakers crave the limelight, Kevin simply wants familial success. He feels responsible for it … as well as the defeats.
Efron is very good in the role even if his character is caught in a cycle that demands he grieve, rage, and reset over and over again. If not for McCallany and Tierney’s dedication to blindly absolving themselves of their own complicity, the drama would become even more repetitive than it already does thanks to the truncated length in which it tries to give depth to such a sprawling series of unfortunate events sparked by drugs, ambition, and the warped desire to make Daddy proud. Because even though we feel each death through Kevin’s pain, we never get to truly sit with it before the next one falls.
So, think of this as a good distillation of a much larger tale. Durkin whets our appetite for the example of legacy’s insidious hold on a family’s pursuit of greatness at the cost of their happiness that exists if someone could do it justice in a miniseries that allows each brother his own episode to detail the specific ways in which the pressure became too much to bear. As it is now, THE IRON CLAW is an abridged depiction of a “curse” as self-fulfilling prophecy rather than a dissection of that curse’s origins. It’s enough to move audiences, showcase Efron, and ignite Google searches to discover the everything left out.
- 7/10
MEMORY
(in limited release)
Everyone tells Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) that what she remembers from her childhood never happened. Everyone tells Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) that what he’s forgotten did. She tries her best to stay locked in her apartment with teenage daughter Anna (Brooke Timber) so as to avoid the cruel world. He tries to escape his locked home with brother Isaac (Josh Charles) to experience it. So, of course they find themselves on a collision course in Michel Franco’s latest film MEMORY.
That they do so at a high school reunion is even more on-the-nose considering the whole evening is about nostalgia and remembrance. Like Sylvia’s sister Olivia (Merritt Wever), Saul attends to let those moments flood back while Sylvia does her best to remain unnoticed and thus not risk being triggered by faces that will surely take her back to one of the most harrowing periods of her life. So, when Saul sits down next to her without saying a word, she can’t help grabbing her coat to leave.
The film is structured in an interesting way that forces us to question that which we know about these two characters. We should believe that Saul did what Sylvia accuses him of doing regardless of whether he remembers it and yet the film quickly presents evidence to the contrary. It intrigues insofar as allowing this relationship to blossom where its romance is concerned, but problematic when you begin to ask yourself why Franco would sow that seed of doubt at all.
I found myself watching the rest with dread. To me, the only reason to write the script in this way is to eventually reveal that the evidence was wrong and what Sylvia first believed was true. Yet, that’s not what Franco does. Another shoe will inevitably drop courtesy of learning the facts behind why Sylvia is estranged from her mother (Jessica Harper’s Samantha), but it has nothing to do with Saul. The deflection allows the impact of that revelation to hit home, but it also muddies the narrative waters as far as what it is we’re watching.
The final result still captivates, though. Its value is less about plot than the characters and how their respective brokenness has positioned them to be exactly who the other needs to break free from the psychological and/or physical prisons in which they find themselves. As such, the real draw is performance. Both Chastain and Sarsgaard earn their emotional ache and our attention during happy, sad, and nightmarish times. They’re doing their best to survive the outside entities that attempt to control them, desperate to live in their truth regardless of the societal or familial consequences.
- 7/10
POOR THINGS
(in theaters)
I do love the comedy that comes from a literalist character caught within a world of emotionally insecure babies. That Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is quite literally a baby inside a grown woman’s body who becomes a literalist as a direct result of her curiosity makes it all the more entertaining a juxtaposition. Because she doesn’t deal in dualities. Or decorum. She’s a child with wants and needs and an utter lack of patience with which to wait for those things to be fulfilled. It’s why she’s able to evolve into a robotic genius of mankind’s practical potential while reducing everyone else to the insufficient creatures their unearned superiority cannot hide.
I also love many Yorgos Lanthimos films. DOGTOOTH. THE LOBSTER. THE FAVOURITE. Just superb. Unfortunately, sprinkled in with that trio are the equally wild swinging failures—at least to my mind, since many others love them too. POOR THINGS straddles the line separating those two halves a bit too closely for my liking, vacillating between insufferable and hilarious throughout its almost two-and-a-half-hour runtime. And it honestly comes down to a coin toss as to whether the next scene will be one or the other since the tone is exactingly consistent. I just think some locales and characters became too much of a bore.
That too isn’t necessarily a symptom as much as a feature since they become bores to Bella herself. Tony McNamara’s adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel sends us on an adventure through her rapid education and thus provides us a front row seat to what pleasures, intrigues, and disgusts her along the way. Ever the optimist despite her discerning outlook, Bella ultimately stays with that which disgusts her a little too long. Sometimes it allows their inadequacy to shift from tedium to comedy, but other times it just reinforces how far past their purpose they’ve become.
Randomly going back to London to remind us that Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) and Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) must remain relevant for the future despite them being forgotten afterthoughts in the present doesn’t help matters. If anything, it frustrated me to no end because they were never truly interesting characters beyond their proximity to Bella in the first place. So, without her, they become distractions and, inevitably, postpone the payoff of her evolution as an independent, free-thinking woman at a time when men saw both as reason to murder since they saw women as little more than possessions.
It’s why Mark Ruffalo’s Duncan Wedderburn is fun as an instructor of carnality and funnier as a victim to his own tricks (albeit intentional tricks when he victimizes women and unintentional causality when Bella’s actions have him victimizing himself). Once he hits that point, however, it’s time to move on. Although the film seems to understand this by switching venues, it keeps him well past his prime. He’ll still rise to the occasion for a laugh here and there, but not enough to keep his presence warranted as other, more fascinating creatures arrive (Hanna Schygulla, Jerrod Carmichael, and the always brilliant Kathryn Hunter).
Between those moments that do work (including a welcome, full circle finale alongside Christopher Abbott), Stone’s transfixing performance of a human being maturing from toddler to Rhodes’ Scholar in a matter of months, and the absolutely gorgeous production design, though, any unavoidable fatigue I did feel was worth it. I don’t think the final result is as smart as it thinks it is or that what it’s saying is profound, let alone unique, but POOR THINGS is an entertaining ride that proves—like Bella vs. Felicity (Margaret Qualley)—how not all experiments work perfectly. But we shouldn’t discount the attempt in case the next one does.
- 6/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
No new additions to the collection this week, so here is Christine Ebersole from BLACK SHEEP. cinematicfbombs.com
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 12/22/23 -
ANYONE BUT YOU at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM at Dipson McKinley Mall, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
DUNKI at Regal Elmwood, Transit & Galleria
THE IRON CLAW at Dipson Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Thoughts are above.
MIGRATION at Dipson McKinley Mall, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
POOR THINGS at Dipson Amherst; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Thoughts are above.
SALAAR PART 1 - CEASEFIRE at AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit & Galleria
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 12/25/23 -
THE BOYS IN THE BOAT at Dipson McKinley Mall, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
THE COLOR PURPLE at Dipson Amherst, McKinley Mall, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Thoughts are above.
FERRARI at North Park Theatre; Dipson McKinley Mall, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Thoughts are above.
Streaming from 12/22/23 -
REBEL MOON – PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE – Netflix on 12/22
SALTBURN – Prime on 12/22
“[Keoghan] carries this diversionary tale of "eat the rich" politics right through a silly curtain lift that makes it seem Fennell thinks we're as vapidly dumb as the Cattons covering their eyes when THE RING is on TV.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
A VAMPIRE IN THE FAMILY – Netflix on 12/24
THANK YOU, I’M SORRY – Netflix on 12/26
HELL CAMP: TEEN NIGHTMARE – Netflix on 12/27
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
FOUR DAUGHTERS (12/19)
“Only with [this experience and] knowledge, as well as the tools to make it work for them, can women Eya and Tayssir's age attempt to finally break the cycle of exploitation and persecution into which they were born.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES (12/19)
SILENT NIGHT (12/19)
THANKSGIVING (12/19)
TROLLS BAND TOGETHER (12/19)
ANATOMY OF A FALL (12/22)
“The result is an impeccably crafted courtroom drama with some heavy moments meant to jumpstart our imagination.” Full thoughts at HHYS.
DREAM SCENARIO (12/22)
“I still had fun with the film; it just crashed into a brick wall right when it seemed like it was hitting its stride and preparing to deliver the punch-line.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
From the press kit archive:
Your review of "Ferrari," the film, the man and message is right on. Both my son (age 45) and I fell asleep for a time in the middle. Michael Mann and Driver just couldn't make us care.