As of this date I have ceased posting on my blogs, Elliotsreading and Elliotswatching. Thank you to those who have followed these blogs.

 As of this date I have ceased posting on my blogs, Elliotsreading and Elliotswatching.

Thank you to those who have followed these blogs.

Spike Lee, Dardenne Bros.,Three Colors,:LeCarre, Savior Complex. Bpstpnm Marathon bomb, Lupin

 La Promesse (The Promise, 1996), the first major film from the Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Lucy), who  I think will, or at least should, someday win a Nobel Prize for Literature, is a gut wrenching, revealing, sorrowful brief story of an odious opportunist who rents at exorbitant rates to newly arrived immigrants in Belgium, drawing his teenage son, like it or not, into the family business. West , without a maudlin veneer, exactly what the migrants suffer and endure in their search for a better life; yet the film is dark, never mundane, and is cinema verite in its veins. The teenage boy, Jeremie Renier, is at the heart of the story, slowly drawn into sympathy with the migrants’ struggle, which brings him into direct conflict with his odious dad who exploits the immigrants while under the delusion that the’s doing them a favor. Many fantastic scenes (the fortune teller, forgone!) and great, understated writing throughout the drama - in short, one of the best break-out films of the 90s, to say the least. 

Krzyszlof Kieslowski’s Three Colours: White (1994) is the 2nd in his colors trilogy - don’t waste too much time trying to discern how the colors work other than as references to the French flag - it seems to me that there is not evident line connecting the colors to the films but one can feel free to theorize - sort of a love story, quite different from the first in the series - opens with the protagonist, Karol, facing a divorce hearing from his wife who claims that he couldn’t gratify in their sex life - ah, the French - and when the divorce goes through she sets fire to her beauty salon recognizing that the police would consider the arson to be Karol’s vengeance - so he goes underground and lives homeless in the Metro - where he meets a man who says he knows of a man who will pay a late sum for someone to kill him (It doesn’t take a genius to know he’s talking about himself) - complications ensue -with a lot of ambiguity at the end: happily ever after? or estranged? Very complex plot not worth dwelling over the probabilities, as there are none, but some really fine scenes notably smuggling Karol out of France - and a great performance by then rising superstar Julie Delpy. 

Another great film from the Dardenne Brothers, w/ an amazing lead performance in title role from Emilie Dequenne; Rosetta (1999 is innate teens, no evidence that she’s in school at all - she’s looking desperately for work - lives in a trailer park w/ her alcoholic mother - and is clearly responsible for every aspect of familial and social. Her mother’s a wreck and there are no apparent friends, neighbors, or family (w/exception of one hideous exploiter slash drinker). At outset we see Rosetta in a burst of fury about being let go from a hospital job - simply because she’s the only temp not in the union; then we follow her on a jagged course of frustration as she tries to get another job - but the world is cold and indifferent. In a heartbreaking sequence she gets take-in by a friendly young man who runs a waffle stand (this is a Belgian film) - it looks as if fortunes have turned, but didn’t take long for Rosetta to hav to fend off unwanted advances. This film is unusual if not unique for the Dardennes in that the focus is entirely on the sole protagonist and the film seems to be in constant flight as we follow Rosetta through her day(a) - it’s almost dizzying, long passages chasing her via hand-held camera (un-Steady Cam) - and as the film builds toward a dramatic conclusion Rosetta’s life seems to be at a low point, until a moment of stasis at the end and then an explosion into all black, meaning exactly what? It’s not clear on first viewing, nor is it meant to be - neither happy nor sad, but most of all like life. 

Spike Lee’s monumental film Do the Right Thing (1989) is a true masterpiece and feels as real and present among us as it seemed and felt 30 years ago - clearly a different era but nothing feels dated or passee - in fact, the opposite, as it was incredibly prescient about life in a black urban community and the contentious relationship with the all-white police force. Plus ca change, right? What makes this more than a screed and a lament is the wonderful balance among the characters, some played by well-known actors (eg Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis),some by newcomers (Rosie Perez), and also the amazingly versatile Lee himself. The film consists of a series of snapshots or sketches of one city block though you could say it’s about all in the culture of BedSty in the ‘80s in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave that puts everyone at odds and out of sorts: the “mayor”of Bed Sty self-proclaimed, a radio voice that provides some occasional observations, an pizza parlor as we used to call them run by an Italo-American family and the focus of much of the film, and old men sit around and reminisce and laugh and joke in some really funny sequences - it seems a peaceable kingdom at first but one that erupts into racial violence, and other layabouts. There’s lots of laugh-out-loud humor - tho it hardly ends on an amusing note - the neighborhood explodes, and everyone comes out a loser, though it’s also likely that life will move on, as Lee raises the question, without polemics, of whether a multi-racial community can survive in a racist environment. The theme song throughout (as well as a terrific score that draws on many musical vocabularies), Public Enemy’s Fight the Power (sung and danced to by Perez), a haunting phrase, or command, heard throughout but one that leads to a devastated neighborhood, to death and destruction, and brings up the question of: Fight the power with what? How? To what end? 

Errol Morris’s 90-minute interview with John le Carre (The Pigeon Tunnel, 2023, Apple TV) held my attention and interest and made me want to read more of JLC’s work - Ive read I think 3 of his spy novels and have never been hooked but maybe I was looking for something more nuanced and literary and his work seems to be at least i part about personality and betrayal - taken as a whole there might be more than I'd thought, not just an entertainment but a world view. Notably, friend AW found this film terrible because he’s read most of maybe all of JLC’s work and, ergo, found little new or revealing in this interview - true enough, EM hardly ever pushes back against his subject, just gives him a forum. So, in the end, it’s good film for novices but of ,such less interest to lifelong fans.f the author and the genre. 

TV

Jackie Jesko’s series Savior Complex (2023, Max), like most of the best crime series leaves viewers not with a case-solved but with some mysteries and ambiguities. Here doc focuses on a young (19 or 20) woman raised by devout, evangelical Xtians, home-schooled in rural Va., who gets a calling that she should go to Uganda to help the starving children - which, amazingly, and all credit other for this, she does so, opening a clinic of sorts that provided food to man - but as might be expected she gets somewhat carries away by her zealotry - actually believing she’s taking Rx orders from God! - so that she was, eventually , stopped in her tracks by accusations, which she doesn’t really deny, that she’s administered Rx and procedures within license and no medical training. In her care, a # of children have died - though it’s indisputable that the % saved and back to health was much greater. That said, the deaths have roused a group of activists, No White Saviors (weird that a white American is a leader of this group) bring a suit for damages that essentially shuts down the clinic. The woman, Renee Bach, is a mysterious, driven personality - as are most of those who oppose her and have revealed her unsound decisions. But so many she treated are so much better off. I guess the subtitle could be “no real answers.”

The documentary American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombinmg (2023, Netflix) really captures the terror, excitement, and tactical and technical (and some medical) that all in or near Boston felt at the time of the 2013 attack, the multi-agency effort to ID the killers, the frightening confrontation with the killers, all re-creating the sense it was like to live in or near the events - of done with fidelity to the rue events (much security footage used, only small moments re-enacted, for technical reasons), lots of interviews with victims and law-enforcement (maybe too much of this?), but overall a great job, especially viewed for those with a connection to the event (aside I through some running circles, and my family as a daughter was relatively near the bombsight). I wonder why it’s so under the radar - it’s difficult with a few clicks on major sources don’t reveal the name of the filmmakers, even!

Like the first two seasons, the third season of Lupin (Netflix, 2023), Season 3 is highly entertaining, highly challenging at time to follow or figure, and highly unlikely and improbable, but who cares? Though it stages as a crime series, it’s really a concept series, but the main character - Omar Sy as Assane Diop, the fictional hero based on the Arsene Lupin novels by Maurice Leblanc: He’s the man of a thousand disguises, and that’s at the heart of the comedy - he takes on daring robbery schemes that throw him into the public eye and make him a living folk hero and newspaper fodder - yet he’s able to get away with more and more audacious theft, never being recognized (and he’s not the type to blend into a crowd at about 6 foot 6? ) - only one guy, in the PD, recognizes that Arsene bases all of his theft and vanishments based on the Lupin crime novels - but no one will hear this guy out. The storyline can be challenging at times - leaping back and forth in time -  but it’s not a show to drag us along through a series of crimes and solutions, it’s pure entertainment. 

Films from Billy Wilder, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, The Dardenne Brothers, and K Korslowski, plus the series The Bear, and Wanted

 Elliot’s Watching September 2023

Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960, co-author I.A.L. Diamond) was a tremendous hit from the start and beyond with many adaptations over theist 80+ years - They say the public can’t be right all the time, but here’s the exception: The public is right some of the time. This film retains its tone and value throughout - basic plat nerdy guy (Jack Lemmon) who works in a giant faceless insurance office (think more Mr Hulot less Mad Men) where the top execs have imposed on him and have set up a scheme where they borrow the keys to his apartment to carry out the extramarital affairs with various women in and out of the company - a situation, repulsive enough in its time and today and least for the most part quashed. Lemmon, though, is such a doormat that he never sticks up for himself - until at last he falls for someone (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator in his office building - but she’s having it on w/ theCEO, Fred MacMurray). The casting is perfect, and Lemmon is fantastic the role, a likable doormat of a guy, a hilarious goofball and though we know obviously who’s gonna end up with the girl, who cares: the plot is clever and tight, the dialog wonderful, a laugh and a cry film for sure, lots of fun and not a bit aged. 

The French film Entre Nous (Between Us), 1963 (Diane Kurys, w/ Olivier Cohn and Alain le Henry) set near the end of WWII as a woman, Lena Isabelle Huppert, who marries a Frenchman to get sprung from a POW camp, and we follow this couple through a large segment of their tumultuous married life (film based on Kurds’s memories of her difficult family and her childhood, DK’s skills are not really in the narrative form, as the story line is difficult to follow at times, settings not clearly enough established, too many similarities among several characters’ appearances making the story even harder - yet there’s something here, as she conveys little-known communities of Jewish families (mostly?) in post-war Italy. She’s particularly good a creating and carrying through with bursts of outrage, jealousy, and destruction - who will ever forget the demolition of a dress shop? Worth watching, though not part of the New Wave - although some similarities to 400 Blows will strike viewers. 

The terrific and unusual thee-part documentary on Max, Telemarketers (Adam Bhala Lough and Sam Lipman-Stern), is a great expose of the industry by two amateurs and former employees of one of the larger telemarketing firms. The two movie makers are completely clueless about how to shoot a documentary, how and whom to interview, how to unearth the truth if even inadvertently. It’s the kond of story that the NY Times and others should have broken but other than one valiant freelance the mainstream media failed on this test. So it’s up to these 2 almost comical guys and assorted helpers to go after these crooks with the inside knowledge, and what they uncover in astounding and explosive. Most of us recognize these telephone pitches are a scam and many give a few bucks any way, and that’s what the guys started out with: Ripping off people by calling the pretending to be a police officer raising$ for a\any you name it good cause. The marketers are no such thing of course - just a bunch of hard luck guys out on parole and going with the only employer who’d hire them. But the story gets bigger and more ominous as they realist that the police themselves are behind these scams and that the $ they collect goes right to the FOP rather than to charitable causes. The filmmakers try to get officials and lawmakers to pursue these criminals 0 but no such luck.Though they meet # of people who a free that it’s a criminal enterprise, they won’t goto the mat: The police are powerful, and popular. To go after them would lead to a lost campaign for re-election, or worse. 

Quick notes on 2 fine TV series, first The Bear (Christopher Storer, 2022) a behind-the-scene drama about the failure of a conventional beef-oriented restaurant in Chicago that goes under because of mismanagement by one of the co-owners; the youngest bro in the clan and his efforts to resurrect the restaurant as a super-high-end bistro molded on the great European restaurants where the lead, “Bear” (Jeremy Allen White), apprenticed. Numerous disasters mistakes, torments, breakdowns, fights, brushes with the law and the underworld keep this one going; strangely, there’s virtually no love interest, although sparks between Bear and a souchef could ignite in Season 2. 

Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn (2023) is an excellent 3-episode doc about the eponymous business leader, at one time leading 3 major cars in France and Japan, accused on pilfering funds from all of them and widely loathed by his layoffs and other cost-cutting to line the pockets of top management - the doc focuses on his daring escape from a prison in Japan, settling in Beirut, and ensuring that he life of comfort persists as others around him suffer. 

Werner Herzog’s terrific Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) tells of a band of Spanish soldiers and their accomplices (including several women) travel down a unnamed South American river in search of new territory for Spain - with the eponymous leader, played to the hilt by Klaus Kinski, suffer numerous calamities in this pointless, hopeless journey - including starvation, lack of salt in diet, uprisings, attacks from Indian tribes ashore using poisoned arrows, near drownings, damages to the fleet of handmade rafts, and more - who can forget the encounter with a cannibal tribe?- open the mission driven by greed and hubris that ends nowhere - based perhaps on manuscripts left behind by a priest traveling with the brigade - or more likely a feat of WH’s imagination -with some obvious themes of obsession, failure, and journeys to nowhere. 

Stanley Kubrick’s early film The Killing (1956, based on a novel by Lionel White) is about as noir as film can get (it’s in b/w of course) in which a loose alliance of thugs and thieves together come up with a plan to shoot to death a racing horse mid-race and to use the ensuing chaos and confusion as a time to clear out all of the day’s receipts for the featured are; the plan requires lots of split-second timing as well as some dumb luck (e.g., the driver talks his way into a parking lot that offers a clear view of the race track). The elaborate plot succeeds, until it doesn’t and everything unravels in the closing minutes - they gang has all the luck, at first, but luck turned. Fine performance from Sterling Hayden as the sorta-mastermind and some equally strong supporting roles, esp. the nerdy guy who runs the receipts room at the track and things this episode can buy the love of his abusive wife and prove his manhood. Fat chance. There’s blood on the tracks at the end, and it’s exciting to get there - no great social values of commentary but holds up well after 74 years - in fact, the quaint  settings from another era add to the noir atmosphere. 

The 2nd season of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, book by Jeff Pearlman) is just as good maybe better than the first season, built on the hateful rivalry between the newly risen Lakers and the long-tie leading bball ten, the Celtics, culminating in a brutal on the court fight involving rapid Celtic fans - but th heart of the story is still the enigmatic Kameer and the sensitive Magic - with a lot of focus on the evolving and revolving coaching system that the mercurial owner Dr Buss endures. Soem fine acting from A and B list stars  motably John C Riley, Jason Clarke, Jason Segel, Gaby Hoffmann, et al. Enjoy while you can, there will evidently be no season 3. 

Tori and Lokita (2022) is the latest from the great Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc), about whom I’v said in previous posts should be considered candidates for a Nobel in Literature - as if that could happen. This latest film (Criterion) is excellent and topical and almost too sad and dangerous to lake - it’s not a good time nor escapist by any means, but it’s one of the finest films of the decade: This one centers on the 2 title characters, living in Belgium after escape from the war among the Serb countries, both fluent in French, the older sister applying (unsuccessfully, after repeated attempts) for work papers - in part because of lack of documents and the dubious claim that she’s caring for her 10-year-old brother (they don’t believe they’re sibs, nor do we, ultimately). Keeping alive is a constant challenge that leads them into serious rx dealing on the streets of this unnamed Belgian-French industrial city - Dardenne territory - and eventually into prostitution and serious and dangerous captivity by a rx ring (L. more or less entombed in a cellar where she attends to the field of cultivated marijuana) - an exciting film along the way, will leave you gasping for breath, few films like this though there may be some hints and distant echoes, eg 400 Blows, and not for the faint but in important work.

The British series on Netflix Who Killed Jill Dando? is weird and scary and puzzling the extreme as it is on some level a police procedural on a murder case but what separates it from other cases is the fact that the victim was a prominent TV news presenter, as the Brits call it, who had done many TV specials and was by all accounts a delightful person whom nobody hated - though someone either hated her enough to shoot her in broad daylight on her front steps or else someone just took a random shot? Hard to say and hard to explain - some forays concerned her support for Slovaks in the Bosnia war  - but if that’s so the killers got little of northing by the shooting - if they did it for political retribution that never made the claims. All told a good three-parter but not a great one, as we come to no conclusion at the end - a man convicted of the murder, who looked like he could be the guy, d was freed on appeal. 

Three Colors: Blue (1993) is the first of a trilogy from the late Polish director Krzszlof Korslowski, starring now-famous Juliette Binoche, whose husband and young caught are killed in a car crash that JB survives, but not without months of depression and seemingly irrational behavior, e.g., destroying all the copies she cab find of her late husband’s compositions and performances. We learn that he had been unfaithful; same for JB - ah, the French! Movie largely known and appreciated for it’s beautiful music (by Zbigniew Preisner), for beautiful photography (S. Idziak); I’m not sure of the meaning of this film and will watch the other two “colors” fro get a better sense of the filmmaker’s intent and cross-cultural observations. 

Some classic films (Dog Day Afternoon, All About Eve, The Traveler), a short from Mike Leigh, and 2 good series: Break Point,Emergency NYC

 Elliot’s Watching

August 2023

Melvin Van Peebles’s strangely appealing The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967) is just as it says: A low-ranking soldier is entrusted by his Captain to take a 3-day pass (from barracks north of Paris, late 60s) - and the somewhat comical captain emphasizes that he trusts the soldier (Turner), a Black man and one of the very few in the outpost. It looks as if we’re being set up for a comedy - he’s sure to disappoint his superior officer, in particular damaging the car to which he’s been entrusted. and in fact it’s somewhat funny following Turner on his hapless visits to a few sights in Paris - but the comedy switches when Turner visits a nightclub and is rebuffed by several women he approaches - seems to be racial bias but not clear on this - and a 3rd woman he approaches joins him in a dance, which leads to a date for the next day - a car trip to Normandy,. As the relationship between Turner and the woman develops, Turner has more encounters with racism, one of which leads him to a bar fight (as it happens, his attack was unprovoked, he misunderstood the Spanish singer’s reference to him as a Black man - much of the film is about language difficulties and failures). Tension rises when some of the soldiers from his barracks spy on Turner and his newly beloved - and he wonders how this sighting will affect his return to the base- which we will see, along with more surprises and misunderstandings, right up to the ambiguous conclusion. Excellent musical soundtrack throughout thanks to the multitalented author/director/performer M Peebles, in early career. 

Brigid Delaney and Benjamin Law’s comedy series set mostly in Australia, Wellmania, follows Liv (Celeste Barber) over the course of a few weeks in her homeland trying to get a Green Card so that she can return to the US for the making of a TV series (pro chefs judge various cuisines) in which she will star. Her hyperkinetic entanglements - medical, sexual, familial, bureaucratic, narcotic - keep her and the series on the move; the story line isn’t quite believable, nor is it meant to be - it’s just a lot of fun to watch, esp Barber’s star turn, a rare case of a female lead who’s not especially attractive - but who is no doubt dramatic: some whom she encounters consider her the biggest pain and most neurotic presence, yet she gets from people what she needs - and the season brings us right to the brink of a new stage in her life, which is apparently (Season 2) already in the works at present. 

The Sidney Lumet (dir.), Al Pacino (super star), and Frank Pierson (writer), Dog Day Afternoon is more than a half-century old (1975) but doesn’t feel a minute away (though some of the surprise twists near the end seem quite familiar to us today but were unusual even shocking in ’75). The film, based on an actual bank robbery is something like an acted-out documentary - it feels real from the start, from the opening montage of  scenes of NYC mid-summer, not at all glamorous quite the opposite - definitely a film of the outer boroughs, a small Brooklyn bank held up by3 guys terribly nervous and terribly organized. What they saw as a quick hit and run turns into a citywide sensation (would be much more so using contemporary media communications), as the police, the FBI, and many others are drawn into the drama, with the bank employees, most of the female tellers, huddle in the bank as hostages - yet Pacino’s Sonny obviously hated and thought he could make a getaway with no fuss and nobody hurt - he’s torn from the start by his greed and his attentiveness to the hostages. What at first seems like a comedy a la the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, it becomes increasingly tense for viewers, by the end a real nail biter. How Pacino could range through the moods and anxiety of the film is almost beyond compression - it couldn’t be done any better. And Lumet deserves a lot of credit for excellent handling of complicated crowd movements, the collision of law enforcement and media (covered live by helicopter teams) = as a sweltering city wakes to this tense drama taking place all around them. 

Spike Lee’s film, his first, She’s Gotta Have It, was innovative for its time (1986) as one of the few general release all-Black productions; the film focuses on one young Black woman in Brooklyn who has multiple sexual encounters with several Black men (and one Black woman?), and in today’s world there’s a feeling of exploitation and male fantasy going on here, but in its time the film was recognized for its originality - mostly but not entirely in b/w, some big production #s, some comic scenes, a film influenced by the New Wave w/its breaking from conventional narrative structure into more of a fee-form environmental portrait - Brooklyn in the summer. Ultimately, though, the film seemed more and more at loose ends, though a promising career-starter for Lee, but we abandoned it about half-way through. One of the problems throughout was that the actors - with the exception of Lee himself who has a small role - seem stilted and stagey, as if they’re reading from a script; this will change as Lee’s work develops and and learns more about ow to get a naturalist performance from his team, how the actor can live w/in the character, as he career flourishes, e.g., Do the Right Thing et al. Also: high props for Bill Lee (Spike’s fa) for an excellent jazz score throughout. 

Susan Seidelman’s comic drama w/ the catchy title of Desperately Seeking Susan (written by Leora Barish) might as well have been called Desperately Seeking a Role of Madonna. Didn’t work out; but she did OK as a singer, dancer, songwriter, megastar. As to this film, it draws on a # of Hollywood tropes, most notably the characters who bangs his/her head and loses his/her memory or even his/her identity. It’s also the story of the bad girl who makes good (standing up for other women) and of the contemptuous, self-centered husband who obviously is part of a mismatch with his wife (Rosanne Arquettte) - who’s saved  by “the handsome stranger” and with whom she walks off; as the plot details, who can really make sense of them and who cares? Film best watched by Madonna-natics - although you’ll have to stick around for the closing credits other her at her best. 

The Apple-TV 10-part series Shrinking (2023), by Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel, and Brett Goldstein, which in alongside Segel brings some terrific performances from old and new - Jessica Williams seems as a sexually prolific therapist, Harrison Ford as the ailing patriarch of the team of therapists, Lucia Maxwell as then daughter, and Christa Miller as fast-talking neighbor. The content is that the team of 3 therapists have little control of their own lives - nothing so new or surprising there - and in fact there’s no possible way one can accept any of the characters as “realistic: - they all are mouthpieces for the biting humor of the screenwriter(s). Yet despite my failure to believe, I still found the joke, insults, tantrums, and other foibles and mischief to be really funny, and I ended up liking all of the characters, each with his/her own personal demons and failures. Season 1 ends with a clear pathway onto Season 2, so we’ll see more of these people and tie up more of the loose threads, presumably. 

A Running Jump (2012) is a short (32 min.) from the great British director Mike Leigh; though there’s not much deep social comedy or the complexity of relationships that we expect from ML, this short is funny and absurd, a portrait of a small family constantly squabbling and moving (and talking) at 78 rpm: the main characters are the grandfather, a tiresome cab driver who is constantly lamenting the passing of the good ole days of British “football” to the great amusement of some of his fare; the highlight of the film is the interaction between the adult son, who runs some kind of dubious auto dealership, and we see him take advantage of a polite young man succored into buying a car doomed to died within a few miles of traffic -it’s funny yet in a mean way, as we (or I anyway) expected the kid to get the last laugh; we may have laughed along the way but on reflection we see that our laughter was a debasement - we were adjuncts to cruelty. 

Simon Stone’s National Theatre update in contemporary setting (and revision) of Euripides’, Seneca’s, amdRacine’s Phaedra is striking mostly for it’s amazing stage setting, a revolving stage that transports us into a $ of varied interiors and exteriors seamlessly and for the incredibly complex script in which the dozen of so family members - an upper-crust, intellectual/artistic family of 2 adult and 1 teenage children all of whom speak over one another and constantly interrupt and break off the whole play into phases - it’s not that it’s so difficult to follow though it will require close attention nor that it’s a feat for the talented dozen of actors but troublingly there’s not much there there - and least half-way through, which is all we watched - in that you’re impressed by the work, at least I was, but in the end the main story line- 20-something Moroccan writer/journalist moves from home where he’s had an affair some years back with the considerably older matriarch and insulates himself into the life of her volatile family - toward what end we don’t really know nor do we really believe in the premise, either - but still worth watch for those who are curious about British theatre - how could they bring this off? - and who have the time and mental acuity to follow the thin story path. 

This Adi Barash & Ruthie Shatz doc Emergency NYC (2023), like their previous Lenox Hill, gives us an almost inconceivable access to watch the medical profession in action, particularly on the most delicate and skill-demanding procedures, such as brain surgery or surgery adjacent to the optic nerve. This season (2023) focuses on emergency care; most or maybe all of the cases we see involve high-speed rescue vehicles - ambulances tearing through the boroughs; and I think all involve skylift choppers bringing cases into NYC into Lenox Hill for life-or-death procedures. We get to know a # of employees at various levels as well as some heart- or gut-racing procedures, notably fa son kidney transplant, a brought back to life case, and one case that affects the medical team directly. I wouldn’t recommend bilging - rather, perhaps stretch out ver 8 days for full comprehension and impact. 

Abbas Klarostami’s film from Iran The Traveler (1969) recounts a few days in the life of a young boy living in a rough, impoverished city somewhere outside of Tehran; his father is a carpenter, mother runs the cramped and inhospitable apartment. The boy - Quassem - is a lackluster student, often in trouble and inattentive to his studies; his passion is soccer (aka football) and his mission is to get enough money to attend a big soccer game in Tehran; he and a friend raise money through various scams, notably stealing a camera from his father’s bedside and selling it on the street. Street life is harsh and dangerous, and they’s little solace anywhere. Trouble by his absence from school, his mother brings him in for a consult with the school director, a mean and sadistic man with no interest in his school. The teachers, too, seem bored and angry - it’s a terrible place to learn. Q eventually pulls together enough money to attend the big game, which involves sneaking out of the house as darkness falls and taking a night bus to Tehran, some hours away. Various other obstacles confront the boy as he tries to get tix, etc. In short, he’s lost and with nowhere to go. This film may remind some of the Coney Island film Little Fugitive or Truffaut’s 400 Blows - 2 other great films about lost boys resisting confinement, trouble at home, too many responsibilities, and indifferent at best schooling. 

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950), based on a story by the uncredited Mary Orr, was old-fashioned even in its day and today looks like a relic of a bygone time - but a valuable and significant relic: it’s the classic story of the ingenue (Anne Baxter as the eponymous Eve) who dreams of success on the stage and works her way into the entourage of a great but old-fashioned Bette Davis as star of stage Margo Channing, and as the film unfolds we watch the disintegration of Margo, in a desperate last gasp to retain her prominence but in a dying culture - the Broadway stage, with Hollywood the rising star knocking on the door - and we watch as Eve claws her way to the top leaving destruction in her wake, ending up en route to Hollywood but a personal ruin. Can’t help but think of Sunset Boulevard, which touches the same notes - but AAEve is more melodramatic and “stagey.” It’s moral if there is such a a thing  as morality in this culture: What comes around, goes around - nastiness, bitchiness as one critic called it - is the air they breathe. 

Martin Webb’s 10-episode, 2-part season 1, Break Point (2023), on Netflix, gives us great access to the the thoughts, tensions, eruptions, fears, and hopes as we watch, with great access to at least some of the personal and private lives, the process for a top-tier but not quite yet full-fledged stars at the Rafa/Serena/Djokavitch (sp?) level as they compete in the major tournaments with hopes of rising in ranking or at least knocking off a star-ranking player. The doc includes many terrific high-light reel points and player eruptions that, taken together, show the challenge (# of games/sets they have to win to rise to win a tournament) and the passion - eruptions of joy, of anger, of frustration, and of sorrow - really taking us into the heart of the sport in ways that most team sports and “unopposed” sports such as golf can never quite rise to. Webb et al. had unprecedented access and a lot of patience to put together this doc over the pan of nearly a year. More sports dox are on the way, as well as season 2 of BP, according the Netflix. 

Laura McGann’s The Deepest Breath (2023, Netflix) is a look at a small group of excellent swimmers who have created a sport in which the winner is the one who can, without oxygen, dive to the deepest depth and return to the surface. What’s especially scary is that you have to recognize and assess how long they can survive underwater during these dives - if you run out of oxygen to soon, you die (a team of aides follow the divers and help if needed. In my view it’s an idiotic sport that pushes participants beyond their capacity often with fatal results. To watch the sport is intensely dull - you don’t see a thing until the diver emerges, if he/she does; and then it’ as of you’re a voyeur, waiting so see a a struggle with death. This stupid and dangerous sport is hardly a crazy - there’s lots of talk about reaching one’s extremes etc., but the so-called deepest diver is one achieved or even sought after by a hell of a small group of athletes (and virtually no spectators) - so, guys, you’re great and brave athletes butter God’s sake find another sport!

July 23: 2 Japanese films; films by Spielberg, Scorcese, Arthur Penn; 2 strong docs; a great Magic show ; and a comedy from Down Under

 Ozu’s comedic The End of Summer (1961) and his final film, An Autumn Afternoon (1962), a heart-breaker about an elderly father who after much travail recognizes that it’s time for his ultra-obedient daughter to marry and move out of the household, leaving him lonely and isolated but recognizing the inevitability of the search for marriage, companionship, and maturity, that is, life goes on without you. 

The seemingly impossible magical tricks in Derek del Gaudio’s In and of Itself (2023, Hulu) and a completely perplexing documentary, Burden of Proof (2023) about a man’s 20-year search for an explanation about his younger sister who in her teen years simply vanished - with her parents as prime suspects in the mysterious show. 

Prime special Deadloch (2023) is truly one of the best crime comedies, pulling off the nearly impossible: A remote Tasmanian village tolerant home to legions of lesbians is struck by a series of ghastly murder/mutilations. So how can this be funny? The interplay between the two cops in the lead, most notably to Madeleine Sami’s lead-cop Eddie who keeps up a constant high-energy patter and quirky thoughts, observations, and behaviors - beware that you will need to use subtitles, as the dialog, in strong Tasmanian dialect, is rapid and unrelenting and when understood hilarious. 

Duel (1971) was Steven Spielberg’s early film is essentially a 90-minute picture about an ordinary, social awkward business guy with some vague marital issues who drives into the rural southern California desert for an important meeting with a client and gets waylaid in a road-rage incident with a truck bearing warning: Flammable Material. Out of such a thin premise - it’s based on a short story by Richard Matheson - it’s astonishing how much tension SS developed and maintained, how many obstacles the driver faces and endures, how the film felt so incredible, and all hats off also to the film editor (Frank Morris) who builds such a web, such a crisis, w/ little use of scenery and the limited score of roadway and 2 drivers. The film is tense from the start and increases in anxiety level right to the final shot - an accomplishment and sure sign of genius at work. 

The surprisingly saccharine, for Martin Scorsese anyway, with its catchy title, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), despite a fine acting turn by Ellen Burstyn in the lead and some really fine handheld footage of comic moments and outbursts in a roadside diner, is today quaint and out of date. The film was decades back scene as a feminist manifesto - get out of bad relationships and, despite numerous obstacles - live your life as you see fit. Who could disagree? But at the end we see a supposedly liberated Alice totally dependent on the men (3 of them) in her life, and even the apparently good and honest man, played by Kris Kstopherson, shows a truly brutal and even abusive side, hardly, to me, made good by his mea culpa. The choices Alice makes along the way seem highly selective and odd: taking off x-country with her 10-year-old son upon the death of her husband with no possessions but her car and with no prospects but her supposed talent for night-club singing. I mean, there have to be other, better options for her, some sort of support through her long-established friendships for example; if she truly has to work a menial job, as a waitress eventually, why an aimless journey to her supposed childhood home in Cal.? So the film feels dated, although admittedly w/ a few scenes that do make the grade and a heartfelt conclusion that will speak to some, maybe most, viewers. 

Arthur Penn’s non-who-dunnit Night Moves (1975, written by Alan Sharp) is one of those movies fun to watch even though the mystery itself gets tangled up and we hardly know or even care who’s guilty and why. Penn gets an excellence from Gene Hackman as a beleaguer private eye who is disgusted with his profession, his clients, and himself - his glory days with the Oakland Raiders behind him. He’s in the tradition of Sam Spade et al but far more physical, sexual, and troubled in an existential manner - hot, not cool. The highlight of the film may be some of the excellent photography - es an underwater sequence - and the well choreographed violence - it’s a movie about movie extras so even the least probable collisions are or seem “real” on the narrative level. A grand finale with a low-lying plane attacking a disabled boat echos Hitchcok - as does Penn altogether, in someways. Worth watching, though it’s hardly a deep probe into personality or profundity. 

The HBO/MAX documentary The Golden Boy, directed by Fernando Villena, tells the sad but all too familiar tale of a great athlete, Oscar De La Hoya, born into poverty the rough East LA and pushed by father in particular to be tough and learn to fight, yet unlike the thousands or millions who dream of athletic prowess but fall short, ODLH became a boxing champion who seemingly had it all: success in the ring, millions in fight fees, intelligence and poise, good looks, and so it goes, and he wasn’t even ripped off by his manager (cf Elvia) - but still let it all get away as success went to his head and his boxing skills eroded with age - not as pathetic as the late fights of Ali but bad enough. It’s amazing that he wa so cooperative in making this unflattering no-holds-baredfillm. unlike many other gem-polished or image-building projects - and all the more sad for what could have been a great second career in media, business, many other paths. Credit for his honesty and access. Have to ad as a final note the role of his first wife who grew up in this township seeming a million miles away from the life of her peers; also credits for vivid boxing footage which she as clearly as any I’ve seen the skill, the bravery, and the suffering that these fighters endure. 

Kon Ichikawa’s adaptation (1983) of the great Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s novel The Makioka Sisters, which I loved, is a solid, classy, visually beautiful two-hour film about the 4 eponymous sisters; of a once wealthy family whose patriarch ran a business making high-end kimonos - a dying industry in every sense (the film is set in the 1930s) - now holding on to their wealth and stature and fro their firm belief that the sisters much marry (the 2 elder are married already) their birth order - a problem in the daughter #3 is recalcitrant, and artistic type who makes a living or hopes to do so making ceremonial dolls. It’s hard to summarize the novel, in part because of its broad scope and abundance of characters - the 4 sisters, husbands to the  eldest, various suitors (and their families), + servants. In short the film for most Westerners esp those unfamiliar with the source novel will have trouble following all the nuances, subtleties, and sometimes obscure plot points. The film looks great, the sound track is lovely, the actors all are credible and vivid - but I would recommend reading the novel first or at the least checking in from time to time with a plot summary or cast list. Even better - I’d love to see a team tell this story for the age of streaming, as it would make a great drama of 10 - 12 chapters, something like Berlin Alexanderplatz for ex.- a perfect candidate for a contemporary remake. 

Anthony Corrona’s Last Call is an engaging, eloquent, and brave documentary (based on a book by Elon Green) about a shameful official neglect in efforts to ID, locate, and charge a man with murdering and mutilating a series of queer men in NYC; the cops at first were blasé but, to their credit, some NJ police stepped in - the remains of 2 of the victims were found in NJ - and the pace picked up. For much of the duration - the murders began ion 1992 - the official attitude seemed to be it’s best to ignore the case. But a # of police officers had the right attitude and really pursued the guy as incidents secured and at last some forensic evidence was discovered. This do is both a police procedural and a study of a culture despised by many and known to few - gay/queer/stransient NYers, many, including most of the victims, leading closeted lives - definitely worth watching for all of the above reasons - and with hope that any future case would not be allowed to simmer for decades and in hopes that those at the center of the maelstrom are today better understood, more welcomed, pre tolerated, more protected from police and official indifference as part of the vast urban tapestry.

Elliot's Watching - June 2023 - Unusual docudrama (Reality), Rohmer, Hanna Gadsby, and Cool Hand Luke

 Elliot's Watching - June 2023: Reality, Cool Hand Luke, Rohmer's Autumn Tale, Hannah Gadsby

Tina Satter’s film Reality (2023), originally a play, is a nearly unique film experience; it chronicles the arrest of the eponymous Reality (surname Winner - apparently this is not a fabrication) on charges of stealing secret documents (she had access at her workplace, where she was a translator for US intelligence) and leaking the info to a website (I think) that made the controversial contents public. The movie itself shows in specific detail the arrival at her house in Georgia, the search (backed by a warrant) of her house, and the long process of interrogating her and getting her to admit to her illegal actions (she was convicted and sentenced, though this is almost incidental in the film). What makes the film unique is that the search and interrogation of Winner was recorded and the entire film uses only dialog from this recording - so in effect out literally reacts the search and arrest and gives us unprecedented insight into the FBI arrest process - which is chilling in its docility. We see her odd defenses gradually crumble under the subtle and casual pressure from the feds - who, for example, make a big deal about ensuring that her dog and cat are comfortable and cared-for (and out of the way). Strong acting performance from Sydney Sweeney and tight direction from Satter keep us transfixed throughout: So this is what it would feel like to be squeezed by the FBI; the 2 agents in the lead look hardly the type we’d expect, which adds to their power. 

Eric Rohmer’s Autumn Tale (1998) concludes his moral-tale quartet, with each film, 2 years apart, is thematically based on one of the seasons. Though some of the segments rely perhaps too much on coincidence and happenstance, all are intelligent love stories, some a bit sad and troubled, one improbable but fun, and some - notably this finale - beautiful heartfelt. Autumn Tale is the most “mature” of the segments, centered on the strange courtship that ensues from the posting of a personal ad, which leads to a # of plot twists and speed-bumps - still and all it’s one of the few movies of its type to feature at the heart two mature and intelligent adults who go about their courtship in a thoughtful and credible manner, unlike so many other so-called romances. I don’t want to give any too many plot details but let’s just leave it at two mature and appealing though far from perfect adults meet for lunch as follow-up to a personal ad, but surprises from the meet-up ensue - and this main plot thread is also woven together with other strands, notably a widow’s prep for a large wedding celebration for her daughter - a plot element that I can from my minted experience attest is very much in the spirit and style of other French en pleine are wedding celebrations. All told, an enjoyable and credible film that perfectly meets its ambitions w/out any pretension or unlikely coincidence or detestable characters or preposterous behavior that mars too many would-be romance comedies. 

Hannah Gadsby’s 3rd Netflix one-hour (more or less), Something Special, just further establishes HG as among the best, funniest, and most unconventional of all working comedians, with her takes and themes and often quirky self-deprecatory remarks - many of which are spurned via her accommodations to autism and to her bisexuality - many of the themes of this latest special concern her recent marriage to a stage manager/producer in the entourage. It’s hard to encapsulate her comic style - it’s not based on Paulone-liners or conventional apercus - and much depends on her rapid-fire delivery and her many asides and tangents. To give a sense of her work, take for ex. her rant about telling a story or an anecdote - noting that her mother is great at so doing and he father (and her spouse) are terrible at same - their so-called stories are nothing more than a series of statement of fact. This seemingly innocuous observation leads to some hilarious non-story-telling - often quite revelatory about how she, HG (ditto her partner, Jano) see the world through the autism lens: For ex., they cannot understanding or “read” smiles, which just look to them like flashing of teeth. To the extent that this is a “disability,” Gadsby has without doubt turned her disability into an extraordinary ability to build laughter and good will, a real connection with her enthusiastic audience, live or online. 

Paul Newman’s iconic portrayal of the eponymous Cool Hand Luke (1966, Stuart Rosenberg, dir.) is the main reason to watch this film, which today looks somewhat dated. The plot, simple as it is, has Luck committing some petty vandalism (to parking meters), which sends him to an Alabama work prison, about as rough as things can get. There are some really fine scenes, including a poker game (wherefrom Luke gets his moniker), some brutal scenes of the prisoners doing roadwork, the near-to-death torture of Luke pushing him, the strongest of all, to the breaking point. These and some others are exciting and heart-stopping segments - but in the end, what’s the story here? We get no background explaining why Luke is so self-destructive,, no sense of his (or anyone else’s) back story, no truly emotional scene - not even a note of a love story - and not much delineation among the crew of prisoners who generally act boisterous and boyish. The book (by Donn Pearce) may offer more, or maybe less? But in the end Newsman’s portrayal - including his iconic line near the end - make it worth watching today even though it seems somewhat archaic. And btw I guess prisons in Alabama in the 60s were segregated, otherwise I can’t seem how a movie about a prison gang should be comprised of only what inmates (and staff).