Drive-Away Dolls plus Short Takes on various other cinematic topics of possible interest

SNAFU: A Normal Coen Brother’s Story

(SNAFU’s military shorthand for “Situation Normal All F****d-Up”; the next level after that

is FUBAR which means “F****d Up Beyond All Recognition.”)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

      Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen)  rated R  84 min.

Here’s the trailer:

       (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

       activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: This movie is set in 1999 Philadelphia just before the dawn of what many considered to be the new millennium in 2000 (precisionists insist it didn’t start until 2001 due to there being no year 0, just year 1, when this record-keeping began), with the first scenes of a distraught man, Santos (Pedro Pascal), in a bar clutching a metal briefcase.  He leaves but is followed by the bartender who catches him in an alley, kills him (we later find out he was decapitated).  In the parallel scenario of this narrative we’re introduced to Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) and Jamie (Margaret Qualley) who’ve just broken up due to Jamie’s frequent infidelity (apparently, she never lets an opportunity for another orgasm pass her by).  Jamie the extrovert then learns her close friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), the introvert, is headed to Tallahassee, FL to visit her aunt and go birdwatching.  Jamie insists on tagging along, so they rent a car from Curlie’s (Bill Camp) Drive-Away service where you can just travel one way, drop the car off at your destination, not bother returning it to Philly.  The only problem is that the car they take was intended for some thugs—Arliss (Joey Slotnick), Flint (C.J. Wilson), and Chief (Colman Domingo)—who do great bodily damage to Curlie (surprisingly, they don’t kill him) but still can’t find any avenue for learning what route these women will be taking to FL.

 Now, about that trip: Marian, of course, wants to go straight to Tallahassee, but Jamie keeps insisting they re-route to various famous lesbian bars along the way both for her own delight and in an attempt to get Marian laid (sadly for her, hasn’t happened for several years) to try to loosen her up somewhat, get her interested in doing something besides reading Henry James’ The Europeans (1878).  As they go about their diversions, in Marietta, GA they encounter a women’s soccer team (with all of them apparently lesbian) which leads to a hook-up for Jamie while Marion just grumbles off to the motel lobby to keep reading her book.  When our travelers finally get to FL, they’re stopped by a flat tire so they open the trunk to surprisingly find Santos’ briefcase along with his severed head in a bowl of dry ice or liquid nitrogen; when they open the briefcase they find it contains several dildos made from the casts of various men’s penises, so Jamie’s overjoyed.  Arliss and Flint have been clumsily-trying to track our protagonists, finally get a lead when they learn about the GA motel through Jamie’s use of her credit card.  Meanwhile, Jamie’s determined Marion needs to have sex so she initiates it, much to Marion’s delight (we also get a flashback of young Marion peeking through a hole in a fence at a woman in a bathing suit lounging by a pool); later, Jamie uses a dildo on herself.

 Just as she finishes, though, the 2 thugs burst into her hotel room having figured out where Jamie and Marion are staying, retrieve their missing items, abduct Jamie and Marion, take them (tied up) to the back room of a dog racing track where they’re joined by Chief who explains the dildos are from notable public men including Senator Gary Channel, who’s fearful of his reputation being ruined if anyone finds out about his penis-likeness (that’s the one Jamie used) so he’s willing to pay a ransom to keep it all quiet (hmm, sounds strangely similar to a criminal trial going on in NYC right now).  The usual lack of honor among thieves, however, leads to an argument where Flint shoots his colleagues dead, runs away, leaving the women to somehow untie themselves, then contact Sen. Channel for their own ransom demand (Jamie also had earlier phoned Sukie, a Philly cop, about what they’d discovered in their trunk, offering her a chance for great recognition in solving whatever’s been going on so she’s on her way to Tallahassee as well).  ⇒Jamie and Marion meet Channel (Matt Damon) at a lesbian bar, give him his dildo in exchange for $1 million, but as they leave the bar Sukie shows up, Channel tries to kill them all, is shot by Sukie.  He survives, but news of his sordid life hits the media so his reputation’s ruined just as he feared.  Jamie and Marion then meet with Marion’s aunt where they tell her they’re off to MA where same-sex marriage is legal, but as they drive away from their hotel a bellhop races out to try to catch them because Jamie left a bag that contains 2 plaster casts Jamie had made (by uncredited Miley Cyrus as Tiffany Plastercaster) of Channel’s desired-dildo.⇐

So What? Well, what do you expect from a Coen brother’s movie (Ethan’s first fictional-feature directorial effort [previously did Jerry Lee Louis: Trouble in Mind documentary in 2022] without brother Joel [who also had a solo direction, The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021; review in our January 20, 2022 posting])—screenplay by Ethan and his wife, Tricia Cooke—where you find a beheading, lesbian sex, and a bunch of dildos in a tale played as a comedy?  I assume you wouldn’t expect anything in the vein of a traditional romance like the famous Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970), although maybe the tag line for this current movie should be something like “Obvious opportunities mean you never have to say you’re horny.”  In typical Coen fashion we also get unexpected interludes at times of wavy psychedelic imagery that seems to have wandered into this pre-millennium era from 30 years earlier, along with odd acts such as Jamie spray-painting “Love is a sleigh ride to Hell” on the trunk of the rental car, knowing full well that would result in some sort of fine whenever they finally deliver the car to wherever badly-beaten Curlie might tell them to go next.

 For that matter, I understand how Curlie was confused when the women showed up at his establishment to pick up a car for Tallahassee after such a reservation had been made previously by the crooks (I guess Sen. Channel was from FL, would most likely agree to meet there, otherwise why were Chief and his goons going to Tallahassee?), but why did the crooks apparently go to Curlie’s place previously to put the briefcase in that specific trunk?  Along that line of inquiry, why was Santos’ head part of the deal?  I realize this is not the type of movie where you expect to get clarity on such questions, but generally speaking when Ethan works with his brother I don’t find myself making such fundamental inquires when the end credits roll.  Nevertheless, there are plenty of laughs in … Dolls (originally conceived as Drive-Away Dykes, but that seems to have produced marketing hesitations)—even if some are rather macabre—with the overall absurd situation obviously intended to be taken at face value just so one odd event could find a way to lead to the next.  I can see why there could be numerous reasons why various potential viewers could say quickly from the plot description that this is a movie to avoid (a good number of critics have made that decision already after having seen it), but overall I found it pleasantly quirky (and somewhat grotesque in that odd, familiar Coen manner) enough to recommend at least to consider watching it.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Some might say I painted myself into a corner by insisting I stop returning to 2023 releases in order to focus on 2024, if that means the best thing I could come up with is Drive-Away Dolls; this guy, Adam (6:05 video, Spoiler-free), certainly thinks so, calling it the “Worst Coen Movie Ever!” (with lots of comments agreeing with him), which I certainly don’t embrace, but I must admit there are plenty of reactions that have little support for Coen’s effort, with the CCAC heading toward OCCU territory as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are just 63% while the Metacritic average score is unsurprisingly-lower at 56%.  Absolutely, … Dolls isn’t in the realm of such previous Coen successes as Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen’s listed as director, but it’s known Ethan was the uncredited co-director [due to Directors Guild of America rules prohibiting co-directors until 2004] on all that I’m about to cite [except the last one where they’re both listed], just as Ethan says Cooke was his uncredited co-director [regarding Blood … though, Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Dramatic 1985 Sundance Film Festival, R.I.P. E. Emmet Walsh]), Raising Arizona (1987 [on Spike Lee's "Essential Films" list]), Barton Fink (1991 [Palme d’Or, Best Director, Best Actor—John Tuturro—at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival]), Fargo (1996 [Oscars for Best Original Screenplay—Coens—and Best Actress—Frances McDormand]), The Big Lebowski (1998 [2014 selection for the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress]), No Country for Old Men (2007 [Oscars for Best Picture, Best Directing and Best Adapted Screenplay for the Coens, Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem), and others, but I don’t find it nearly as useless as its harshest critics say it is, while again admitting the subject matter itself may be a turn-off for some audiences (excluding frequent lesbian sex, of course; not that there’s ever anything wrong with that).

 Drive-Away Dolls opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters February 23, 2024, grossing about $5 million since (global $6.8 million), but you likely won’t find it on the big screen anymore, so if you’re interested you can explore streaming where you’ll find it’s free on Peacock Premium or rental for $19.99 on Google Play, YouTube (you can also buy it for that price from AppleTV+, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, or Vudu [at least that's the info on JustWatch today when I'm posting, but it was a bit different yesterday, so make what you will of this evolving (I guess) website, where its cluster of data is now considerably enhanced]; of course, when I looked it up last weekend it was only for sale on 3 of those platforms, so I’m now a proud [?] owner of it for more future viewings [?]).

 However, even if you’re not inspired to watch … Dolls (with some marvelous scenery-chewing acting by Qualley, able accompaniment from Viswanathan and Feldstein, an enjoyable cameo from Damon) you might make-do with my usual review finale, the Musical Metaphor, which in this case will be Ben E. King’s version of “Stand By Me” (written by him, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller; a hit for King in 1961, on his 1962 album Don’t Play That Song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d Td2ylacYNU in honor of the growing relationship between Jamie and Marian as they come together (so to speak) during the course of the plot.  (This particular video was a promo for [what became the beloved film] Stand By Me [Rob Reiner, 1986]), about 4 pre-teen boys and the mysterious death of a friend, with 2 of the actors—River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton—also in the video [seemingly getting a little bromance going, which could also allude to a female version of such in … Dolls].)  Yet, this song’s been notably recorded by many others over the years, so in case you’d rather just listen to more versions of it rather than spend money on … Dolls I’ll give you a couple of them, first by John Lennon (on his 1975 Rock ‘n’ Roll album), then followed by Tracy Chapman (live 2015 performance on Late Show with David Letterman, included on her 2015 Greatest Hits album).  I see such lyrics as “If the sky that we look upon / Should tumble and fall / Or the mountains should crumble to the sea / I won’t cry, I won’t cry / No, I won’t shed a tear / Just as long as you stand, stand by me” as plausibly-reflecting (metaphorically, remember?) on what Jamie and Marion endured on their East Coast journey, with conclusions neither expected as these circumstances continued to intertwine their lives.

            

SHORT TAKES

             

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options for you: (1) Writers Guild of America award winners are finally announced (see our March 7, 2024 posting for comparison to the Oscar nominees and winners where you will find some differences); (2) Top 10 highest-grossing horror movies; (3) 10 old Disney movies that have aged poorly (at least in this person’s opinion of their contents—click on the screen image to play the short video [1:55]; I thank my friend Barry Caine for connecting me to these latter two links).

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

           

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 14,425 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Short Takes on Joan Baez I Am A Noise, Nobody Is Crazy, and some other cinematic topics

Moving Actively Through the Years

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song's name)

Similar to my situation regarding my previous posting (Freud's Last Session), once again I found myself last week with a good number of non-blog-activities so my comments here will be in Short Takes mode (but a with a couple of fine films), with no Spoiler alerts in the first review because it’s a documentary about a well-known subject; also, while I have a goal of focusing on 2024 releases that won’t happen this week either, but I intend to make that connection from here on out (maybe ...).

              

SHORT TAKES 

                             Joan Baez I Am A Noise

       (Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O’Boyle;

                            2023)   rated R   113 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 “Everyone has three lives: the public, the private, and the secret,” says the first graphic we see on screen.  When you watch a documentary about a person(s) you’d usually expect it to be like a biography where you’re given information on the subject, often with testimony from various others who knew/know about the film's focus.  In the case of … Noise it’s more like an autobiography (well, not fully; Baez isn’t the director here) as most of what we learn about her comes from contemporary interviews with this well-known singer/activist, born in 1941, now in her early 80s; passages from her diaries and audio tape cassette recordings over the years; old family photos and footage of her childhood with her parents, Albert Baez (died 2007) and Joan Chandos Bridge Baez (died 2013), sisters Pauline (born 1938, died 2016), Mimi (born 1945, died 2001—best known as the wife/musical partner of Richard Fariña) when they were Quakers as Joan faced discrimination/ isolation as a child due to her Mexican heritage from her father; concert footage and interviews from the early 1960s when she soon became known as the “Queen of Folk” (even made the cover of TIME magazine); footage of her singing with her early lover, Bob Dylan, then an interview with Dylan during his 1965 U.K. tour (captured in Don’t Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) where he dismisses her as not a girlfriend, breaking her heart (captured marvelously in her "Diamonds & Rust" hit song, on her 1975 album of the same name [essentially revived her career at the time], with the great closing line “I’ve already paid”); then ongoing footage of her life and career since then, including marriage (1968-’73) to anti-war activist David Harris, which failed with her difficulty to maintain a close relationship (panic attacks), then more recent concerts as she continued to champion many social causes, although she retired from touring performances in 2019 (there’s also some footage of Pauline, obviously shot before she died, so this production’s been in progress for quite some time).*

                   

*One aspect of her irregular off-and-on connections with Dylan which didn’t make it into this doc is her joining him on his Rolling Thunder Revue concerts, 1975-‘76, which I saw in January 1976 at the Houston Astrodome as a benefit for jailed boxer Rubin “Hurricane “Carter, found guilty of murder in 1967 until his conviction was finally overturned in 1985.  Also on that bill were sets by Isaac Hayes and Stevie Wonder, while the Revue included Dylan, Baez, and a large group of others including Carlos Santana, Stephen Stills, and Ringo Starr; that was my only time seeing Baez live in concert.

 However, in addition to all of this musical chronology (with the more-recent interviews interspersed with aspects of all that earlier material, so we’re constantly moving from present to past, then back again) there’s lots of current discussion about the decades she’s spent in therapy, not only examining that lingering trauma of isolation—along with competition with her sisters, especially Mimi—but also accusations of being molested as a child by her father (and others), although there are recordings of him where he flatly rejects it despite Joan’s counter-statements that it happened, he was in denial about it at best.  These private revelations add an extensive dimension to a person I’ve known about, listened to, respected for many years without knowing of the ongoing turmoil in her life, so I find these additional, honest inclusions to bring greater depth to what could have been merely a sincere celebration of a respected, famous career in the public eye.  (Similarly, I got a lot of useful background insight into another of my favorite singers in another documentary I saw last year, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind [Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, 2019; review in our May 24, 2023 posting].  You could make a nice double-feature for yourself of two 20^th-century musical icons by viewing this one and … Lightfoot …, with the latter streaming for free on Amazon Prime Video and other platforms or a $3.99 rental from Apple TV+, etc.)  Joan Baez … is available on streaming where you can see it for free on Hulu (preceded by a few ads, then a few more about 20 min. in; seemed like there would be other interruptions but those were somehow skipped over when I saw it) or pay $4.99 for a rental from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, etc. if you wish.

 As with the Lightfoot film, your best experience with … Noise is watching it rather than reading about it so I’ll just close with a strong recommendation that you do so—the CCAL joins me as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at a delightfully-strong 96%, with the usually-more-hesitant Metacritic average score at 75%—leaving you with my usual finale of a Musical Metaphor, this time Joan Baez singing the traditional spiritual “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=OWkceywm9Co from her performance at the famous 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, an audio-only version of her entire song, connected here with a shortened video version (2:25) of that performance, probably from the magnificent Woodstock documentary (Michael Wadleigh, 1970).  This song captures the underpinnings of her social-justice-oriented life, still speaks to her sense of time spent as best she could in hopes it has inspired others to do such good likewise.

             

               Nobody Is Crazy (Federico J. Arioni, 2019)

                                    rated TV-PG   105 min.

Here’s the trailer:

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 Normally, I wouldn’t review a film that’s been out for a few years (unless it was a re-release of something in my estimation of a 4½ or 5 stars-level classic), but Two Guys in the Dark is also a site where requests for reviews from independent filmmakers are taken seriously so when we have the time and space—and the film’s of the high quality that this one represents—we’re happy to accommodate these inquiries, as is the case with Nobody Is Crazy (a very clever title once you’ve got the full context of the film), so I thank director/screenwriter/actor (well-accomplished in all of these roles) Arioni for making me aware of his most-unique cinematic experience.  Set in Argentina (dialogue in Spanish, so, monolinguists, deal with the subtitles as it’s worth the effort), this story is about Rafael (Manuel Gutierrez)—often called Rafa—a 16-year-old with OCD who was orphaned, then adopted, but his new parents split up so he lives with his mother (Paula Arioni [sister of the director; further, Gutierrez is her son, several other relatives are also in minor roles, confirmed to me by Federico J., so this whole film is quite a family affair]) who’s tired of his inabilities to function in school so she’s ready to send him off to a military academy unless he can bring about some drastic changes (he’s already met with several psychologists but either tells them what they want to hear or ignores them completely), with a last attempt by joining a OCD self-help group.  After his initial session he meets Nobody (Arioni, the director)—Nadie in Spanish—who was supposed to be in the group that day but missed it, a young man in his early 20s who wears a mask and gloves, claims to be a time-traveler from the 1980s, says he’s been jumping around in various eras for the last 10 years through the magic of a guy called the Mute (Miguel Buteler), who appears without  prior notice.

 Soon, Rafa and Nobody are spending a lot of time together, with the latter constantly passing on attitudinal-wisdom in an effort to get his new friend to focus on the present, overcome his obsessions/insecurities; then they’re joined by Daria (Lara Ammi Wheeler) who takes an immediate liking to Nobody (later he says they’ve been interacting through his various time travels).  Rafa isn’t convinced Nobody is who he says he is, does some Internet research to find this strange—but highly-optimistic—man may be Lisandro (Juan Barceló), a frequent escapee from a local mental hospital (yet that’s not true, as he later meets Lisandro, who ultimately gives Rafa his own mask).  Rafa thinks Nobody may be delusional, but this upbeat stranger says everyone is crazy; he also says that, despite scenarios like what we see in Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985), the past, present, and future are all set, can’t be altered so that even if you did change something via time-travel you’d just be carrying out what’s predetermined.  ⇒As the story progresses (it seems to me to be an intentionally-ambiguous-manner, leaving it up to us to reach our own conclusions), Nobody implies that he’s actually an older version of Rafa, then Rafa encounters the Mute (who does talk), appears to initiate Rafa’s own time-travel adventures as he wakes up wearing a mask.⇐

  This is a fascinating film: we’re never really sure what’s up with Nobody—or Rafa for that matter, as maybe everything we’re seeing is a fantasy projection of his own muddled-mind—which gets us back to the title.  Maybe Nobody is insane or, conversely, none of us are despite the craziness that so often surrounds us, making us feel like we must have taken leave of our senses (watched any TV news lately?).  Nobody …’s been seen/won at film festivals for the last few years, but now you can watch it for free on Tubi TV, although you do have to put up with ads (1-3 or 1-6) roughly every 15 min. for the first hour, then just once more after that, although it’s also available on YouTube (I used Tubi, don’t know if this other site has any ads) or you can rent it from Amazon Prime VIdeo for $2.99 where you’re guaranteed to be commercial-free.  What you won’t find are the standard review clusters with no listing at MC, only 1 at RT, but that one's positive (9 of 10).  However, if you go to IMDb you’ll find 12 reviews (plus mine), all of which are supportive, some completely so, a few with minor reservations (I found the ones by Reba Chaisson and Gabriella Foor to be the most useful).  In addition to highly recommending Nobody …, I’ll leave you with an (assumed) appropriate Musical Metaphor, Jimmy Buffet’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” (from his 1977 album of the same name) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7JpxavO9NE providing these words of wisdom: “Nothing remains quite the same / With all of my running and all of my cunning / If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane / If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane / If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane.”  I think Nobody would agree, if for no other reason than how Buffet’s energetic performance here implies a kind of high emotional release Rafa so desperately needs within his life.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Just one option for you: (1) Broadcast date and nominations deadline are set for 2025 Oscars.

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

            

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

           

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 14,425 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Short Takes on Freud’s Last Session and a few other cinematic topics of possible interest

“We’re all cowards before death.”

(a quote from the film under review this week)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

As noted in my last posting, my dance card's been rather filled over these previous days so this review will have to be more concise than usual (applause appreciated).  Also, I came across 1 last film from 2023 (probably, but no guarantees) I had wanted to see so my goal of shifting to only 2024 releases will have to wait another week (but I'll also include an even older one next time, by request).

               

SHORT TAKES

             

                   Freud's Last Session (Matt Brown, 2023)

                                      rated PG-13   108 min.

 

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 This fictional story has a chain of adaptation, directly from a stage play of the same name by Mark St. German (2009) who had previously adapted it from Armand Nicholi’s book, The Question of God (2002).  On screen we begin in England on the eve of WW II (1939) as famed “Father of Psychoanalysis” Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) and his psychiatrist daughter, Anna (Liv Lisa Fries), have escaped from Vienna as Nazi Germany was taking over Austria (the Gestapo even detained Anna for awhile), settled in London, where Dr. Freud is stunned to learn Oxford Professor C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode) has renounced atheism, become a devout Christian, so Freud invites Lewis to London to debate with him on this choice, including their differences on the very existence of God.  Along the way of these conversations we see flashbacks of Lewis’ miserable existence as a soldier in WW I, Anna’s concern about how she’s become too dependent on her father—especially now that he’s ill with oral cancer, intends to commit suicide when the pain becomes too severe—even as it’s causing friction with her lesbian lover, Dorothy Burlingham (Jodie Balfour), a union which isn’t pleasing to Dad, and we even hear a bit about Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien.  As the story progresses, Freud and Lewis talk about the nature of longing, the problems each of them had with their fathers, but ultimately Freud is much more pessimistic than Lewis, proclaiming: “We are the pestilence […] we are the apocalypse,” even tells Lewis regarding his new devotion to religion, “Grow up!"  Lewis replies “Man’s suffering is the fault of man,” not the acts of an evil God, which seems to be behind Freud’s rejection of a God who would allow young, innocent people (including some known to Freud) to die needlessly.  ⇒Ultimately, Lewis returns to Oxford, some years later becomes famous with his Narnia books; Anna and Dorothy reconcile after some trauma, live together for decades, with Anna becoming known as the founder of child psychology; Sigmund commits suicide in 1939.  Graphics prior to the end credits note Freud did actually meet with an Oxford don (their title for a teacher) in his last days, although it’s not clear that person was Lewis.⇐

 For many viewers there may be enough pleasure just in seeing 2-time-Oscar-winner Hopkins (Best Actor inThe Silence of the Lambs [Jonathan Demme, 1991] and The Father [Florian Zeller, 2020; review in our April 1, 2021 posting]) and Goode (probably best known for his work in the TV series Downton Abbey and The Crown), although director/co-screenwriter (with St. Germain) Brown hopes we’ll find the deeper meaning in this narrative (quote from the press kit): “We live in a strange, surreal age that is ideologically polarized, with everyone stuck in their own tribes. There’s no respect for others’ points of view — and yet a real dialogue with others is exactly what people seem to be thirsting for. […] The beauty of the story is that while there are no answers, it’s only through conversation that personal growth becomes possible for each of them. I wanted to make a film that was emotional, thought-provoking, and creative, that asked big questions, and looked deeply at the heart of all human condition: Love, faith, and mortality. […] We are all lacking answers that we can only try to seek from within. In FREUD’S LAST SESSION, audiences experience their own cathartic journey faced with these same questions.“  It had a limited domestic (U.S.-Canada) release on December 22, 2023, made about $906 thousand at the box-office (no global distribution) and falls into the OCCU realm as Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are only 44% while the Metacritic average score is 49%, yet I find it to be a noteworthy film, considerably more fascinating than that.

 If you’re interested, consult streaming options where you can rent it from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, etc. in range of $5.99-$19.99.  For now, given I’m being unusually brief in my commentary (gratitude acknowledged) I’ll give you a double-dose of my wrap-up tactic of a Musical Metaphor beginning with a whimsical version of Lewis dismissing Freud’s psychoanalytical approach with Joni Mitchell’s “Twisted” (on her 1974 Court and Spark album [song written in 1952 by Annie Ross, set to a 1949 Wardell Gray tenor saxophone recording]) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0Us6PzRvOa8 where a patient has an alternate-reality scenario to elaborate for her therapist: “My analyst told me / That I was right out of my head / But I said ‘Dear Doctor / I think that it’s you instead […] ‘Cause instead of one head / I got two / And you know two heads are better than one.”  To counter, I’ll have Freud undercut Lewis with The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” (on their 1966 Pet Sounds album featuring Carl Wilson's angelic voice) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0lj3WX_5ps where instead of the singer hypothetically mourning the possible loss of his lover, we’ll replace her with God whose disappearance from Lewis’ certainty would leave him devastated in a manner that only such a Diety could comprehend: “If you should ever leave me / Well, life would still go on, believe me / The world could show nothing to me / So what good would living do me? / God only knows what I’d be without you.”  Maybe I’m being too metaphorical in both instances here, so if anyone has any better ideas please let me know.  Be back next week with more of my rambles.

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