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). 

Films by Rohmcer, Bunuel, Bujalski, Malick, Leigh, and season-enders from Succession, Barry, and Mrs. Maisel - plus One in a Billion

 Elliot’s Watching - May 2023

Rohmer, Leigh, Bunuel, Malick, Bujalski, Mrs. Maisel, Succession, and Barry

The second work in Erich Rohmer’s late-life quartet, A Tale of Winter (1992)  is a sweet yet strange love story, centering on an appealing young woman, mother of a young daughter from an early relationship and now faced with choosing a life path w/ two suitors: Mr. Wrong (a beautician, as is she), a potential Mr. Right (a devout intellectual librarian), and Mr. Lost - the love of youth and father of daughter who through some cockamamie mishap involving lost addresses has slipped away from the woman’s life but for whom she still waits - hoping to find him, by chance, in all of Paris or beyond - he may be traveled to America, who knows? What gives this film a bit of a push, as hinted in the title, is the analogous Shakespeare play A Winter’s Tale, which involves the disappearance of a queen who was punished thoughtlessly by her husband. The film even includes the characters viewing the play: the woman (Felicie) and Mr. Potential, Felice in tears, as the king and queen reconcile, through some of S’s most ridiculous contrivances; the scenes as shown are among the worst and most pompous stagings of S. and would more likely bring forth hoots rather than tears but so be it. The film itself is pretty good in that we really get to care about and root for this obviously troubled and confused young woman. 

 A definite two-thumbs-up for Deborah Cahn’s Netflix political drama The Diplomat, with an excellent performance from Keri Russell as the newly appointed American Ambassador to St. James (i.e., the UK) just as a missile attack on a British navy ship kills 41 soldiers and draws in successively Iraq, Russian, and maybe more. Unlike so many shows of this ilk The Diplomat has the sense of accuracy and likely reality - the intrigues and egos and romances and alliances of British, American, Iranian et al agents and diplomats, all struggling to fulfill their divergent agendas - in particular Russell as a dynamic, tough, analytic, and in some odd ways obsessed with her appearance force of nature. Lots of surprises along the way, many moments of intrigue some of which might elude on first viewing, and t’son secret that a 2nd seasons has been green-lit, with makes the dramatic conclusion of season 1 a great stepping-off point. 

So….what’s there to say about Luis Bunuel’s The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955) except to say that Bunuel must have needed the money. The film has none or nearly none of the satiric and imaginative visuals and strange encounters that of any other Bunuel film I’m aware of - ranging from the slice scene in Andalusian Dog to the weird sexual predatory behavior in Tristana to the slings and arrows aimed in Discrete Charm and the list could go on; the list could go on. Criminal Life centers on a chid in a well-to-do Mexican family who watches as his governess is shot to death and he imagines that he is responsible for this shooting and the scene governs the rest of his life as, for unexplained reasons, he plans to kill a series of women: All of them do die, but not at his hand, and he’s puzzled and troubled that the police cannot arrest him for his though-crime. Maybe some potential here, but it’s acted out of conceived in such leaden and preposterous manner that the film is hard to watch and I would have dropped it at some point but for the very few flashes of Bunuelian insight: strange behavior with a lookalike mannequin, for ex. This is not the place to begin watching his movies, however. 

The 3rd in Eric Rohmer’s late-in-life quartet, A Summer’s Tale (1996), is the lightest and most true to life of the series thus far, a love story of sorts that centers on a young man -(Gaspard)  a grad student in mathematics - on summer vacation but quite shy and aimless. We feel sorry for him because of initial isolation and seeming loneliness or at least shyness (this film in the sense of a story of loneliness and wasted youth it brings to mind Rohmer’s Green Ray). A perfectly lovely young summer waitress (Margot) befriends him and is obviously interested in him, but he pushes her off: He has a girlfriend who will visit him later in the summer, and she as well is waiting for a boyfriend who someday will arrive. And this starts the pattern; over the course of the film Gaspard will begin dating 3 young women, but none of the relationships will quite work out; is he a cad or a predator or just morbidly shy and awkward? The film seems to be Rohmer’s look-back at wasted opportunities of youth, but without deep regret or sorrow; it’s a film in which all of the major characters are sweet and longing and trying to figure out their paths in life (Gaspard, played by Melvin Poupaud dreams of becoming a song writers/singer - and he’s pretty good but aimless, not driven it seems to a career in such a competitive field). We can easily imagine him years later reflecting on his youth and wondering at his missed opportunities and broken pathways. 

Inevitably there will be spoilers in any report on Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess (2013) so read no further if you’re about to watch: What makes this film so astonishing is that it appears in all regards - the low-resolution camera work, the awkward cuts and pans, and of course the look of all the actors, most of them classic geek in style, big awkward eyeglasses, huge collars on dress shirts, cheap-looking rugby shirts, etc. - and of course the whole concept of man v machine, very1980, when the most advanced computers were big, heavy devices about the size of large TVs of the era, noisy clunky printouts of all info, and a game of chess took hours. The catch is that this is an entirely enacted and scripted film about an imagined competition some 30 years ago - and I am sure it will take any viewer, including this one, some time to recognize that this is a film set ca 1980 and not a more nearly contemporary film about an imagined competition some 30 years back. What gives it away? I guess the footage of one of the loners knocking doors and asking if he could sleep in their/her room - who’s going to allow this?, I thought, as it came clear that this is a sly comedy we’re watching and it’s a great sendup of the types of personality that would congregate at such a competition - in some ways not so distant from today and in other respects a whole generation or even 2 in the rear view. 

The plot of Terrence Malick’s second film, Days of Heaven (1978) is about as thin as it gets - migrant worker (Richard Gere) on the rails with girlfriend/wife (but posing as his sister) and young daughter derail at site of a vast wheat field run by a handsome and perhaps kindly wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard); as harvest progresses, farmer increasingly attracted to Gere’s partner, and she agrees to marry him, but as part of a robbery scam - which of course goes awry as she falls for her new husband and arouses Gere’s hostility, ending in a chase and shootout - and none of it particularly believable, motivated, or surprising - yet - it’s still a great film to watch, preferably not on a laptop, for the extraordinary photogram, landscape and otherwise, from the incomparable Haskell Wexler and Nestor Almendros - not just the obvious beautiful images on the Texas [supposedly, but film was shot in Alberta] plains or sunsets and so forth but even in the most ordinary settings his eye brings everything to life and continuously surprises - that said the film score is powerful as well from the great Ennio Morricone. So plot, character and credibility are not Mallick’s credentials - for just one example - why does the kid/narrator speak w/ an indelible NY accent? Makes no sense. Who cares?

Not sure what’s left to be said about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season 5, 2023), but a few notes here: After a tenuous start, which didn’t really pickup to the great Rachel Brosnahan (as the Eponymous Midge) in the first season until RB stepped into her role as a comic, upending her husband’s future and that of their marriage. But after the first season the series seemed to founder - an asinine visit to Paris, some overwritten passages such as the ferris wheel conversation, and we stopped watching, but, curious, we began 5, the final series, and were pleasantly surprised: Lots of cutting humor, Midge struggles to find her place as a writer for the top late-night show (compared w/ Jack Parr, for ex) - and building toward the inevitable conclusion as she gains her footing first as the “lady” writer for the show and, more important as a stand-up. There was a lot of pressure on the creative team, notably Amy Sherman-Palladino to come up with a killer final season, and she/they succeed where so many have failed: esp Midge’s surprise standup, which had to be hilarious or the show would’ve flopped and they came through perfectly. Overall in this series I found the segments focused on Midge’s parents, particularly her father, to be clumsy and absurd; the more the show was about Midge and her generation, the better. So it was far from a perfect series, though the end was perfect - and Brosnahan’s world is her oyster, so to speak - a great comedic actor who will probably want to stretch to avoid stereotyping. 

And praise for yet another great Mike Leigh TV drama now released as a feature (Criterion, thank you), Grown-Ups (1980), absit  young couple that move into “council” housing where they try to set up and settle in to their new space (and from her POV, the excellent Leslie Manville, star in many Leigh films, to prepare to have a baby and raise a family), but 2 obstacles impede their potential happiness: LM’s sister has become a real pain - she’s lonely and socially extremely awkward and bossy - and she spends way too much time in their marriage as her own life is so pallid (she still lives at home with Mom), and the adjacent apartment - not Council (ie not Welfare, as we might put it) owned by (their former) h.s. teacher; tensions build among all characters on all sides and all lets loose in an incredibly confrontation among all the characters in a powerful sequence that’s both terrifying and heart-breaking - a good film in the Leigh style of Chekhov of the British working class, that rises to the level of greatness in the brutal confrontation toward the end of the performance. 

Everyone in the world has already written about Succession Season 4 (the finale, 2023) so I might as well jump in w/ a few observations. For one thing, how could it be so much fun to watch the cavorting of a group of people whom we truly despise - selfish, privileged, right-wing, immoral, the list of adjectives could go on, but in the end, or perhaps I should say from the beginning, we lavished in watching their lives of extremity, sometimes with envy, let’s face it who wouldn’t want to travel by private jet?, and most of the time with repulsion. Yes they’re so witty and so credible, that’s what made it work. As to the final season, and there will be spoilers here, I wasn’t as keen on the last episode as most seem to have been - to me the extra 30 minutes was time wasted and too much, and the sharpness and precision of all of the preceding episodes is one factor in the success. Most of the commentary I read today puts it at face value that the show is now over, but I’m not so sure: Doncha think we need a few more episodes, watching Tom’s total failure as ceo and his constant humiliation by his new owner/boss = who will/should torment him about his attraction to Shiv? And Shiv - she cannot stay on as a corporate wife, no way. Shouldn’t we watch her devour Tom? I had said from the outset that the final victor would be the hapless Greg, and I still think that’s possible. And can we end w/ Kendall looking out from Brooklyn Heights? Surely he has a scheme in mind - perhaps relating to the still pending outcome of the presidential race - some Trumpian mischief, yes? That all said, it was a highly intelligent, well conceived, scripted, and performed - including, btw, terrific use of a musical score. Kudos creator Jesse Armstrong + Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, and others + bonus points to Nicholas Britell for the score. 

Another excellent and somewhat overshadowed bowed out this week as Bill Hader’s 4-season run of Barry came to a close. Part of the underachievement medal comes from the nature of this series - 30-minute episodes and billed as a comedy, where in fact it’s a fine, multifaceted drama series, with a lot of twists and turns and strong character development throughout. A one-sentence plot summary has it that Hader/Barry, suffering shell shock froths time in military service, takes on the job of an enforcer for mostly mob conglomerates; he disembarks on assigned to kill a member of an acting troupe, and in the process he steps into acting and finds himself leading a double-life, and many conflicts and dramatic scenes ensue - a sure-handed mixture of a doomed-love romantic drama, a send-up of Hollywood values and the pressures of writing and seeing through to the end of an original script, acting lessons, a murder involving active police officers, and disputes with various at-war drug gangs vying for c control of LA (led ultimately by Anthony Carrigan’s great portrayal of gay Chechen enforces NoHo Hand), a prison drama, and the list could go on - but the riches are plentiful and not the least of which was a wholly satisfying and credible final episode: s rarity. 

Zarna Garg’s hilarious one-hour comedy special. One in a Billion (Prime, 2023), establishes her as a best of all India-born female comics living and performing in the U.S. today - Ok, how many others are there? But that of course is part of her schtick: Women born in India are just not encouraged to enter the entertainment field, and that’s even more so for those who emigrated to the U.S. - and that’s part of her material: the parents who push their kids relentlessly toward success in a few fields, ie engineering, finance, technology. Which leads to a # of laugh lines, notably her take on her beautiful daughter at Stanford who’s taking required arts elective in pottery: $80,000 for this!! Who makes pottery? Old men in villages in India! Because the have to! And so it goes. The show builds as it moves along; her delivery, from a minuscule stage, is flawless, and the show is remarkably clean and good-spirited, with a delightful surprise at the end.