Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Aladdin [2019] and Short Takes on Booksmart

Repetitious Lives Seeking New Directions
               
Reviews by Ken Burke
                      
                         Aladdin [2019] (Guy Ritchie)   rated PG
                     
“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): Here’s another Disney live-action-remake of one of their previous animated features, this time also attempting to address criticism they faced from the 1992 original given its stereotypical slurs of Arabs, which may be somewhat successful this time as most of this huge cast is non-European, at least in heritage if not birth.  The story’s almost the same in plot details, though (except at the end, regarding who’s now in charge of Agrabah), so, just in case you’re not familiar with the earlier one I’ll only recount this version up to a certain point.  We begin in this fictional location somewhere in the Middle East (presumably on the seaside of the Arabian peninsula) many centuries ago as young-adult-street-thief Aladdin goes about his customary tactics (but willing to share some of his booty with a couple of kids even worse off) when he comes upon a young woman also willing to help some hungry urchins, only she’s caught by the merchant.  They make a dynamic escape through the marketplace, she claims to be Princess Jasmine’s handmaiden (although she’s Jasmine in disguise), he sneaks into the palace to see her but is captured by evil Royal Vizier Jafar, sent to retrieve a magic lamp from a mystical cave, yet Aladdin ends up with the lamp, releases a genie promising him 3 wishes, uses 1 to convert into wealthy Prince Ali seeking Jasmine in marriage.  From there, things go bad for awhile so I’ll just have to refer you to the spoiler-filled-comments below if you want to read more before seeing the easily-available, huge box-office success this movie’s already achieved.  If you're familiar with the earlier version you’ll recognize all the characters, most of the plot details, and the songs, with just 1 particular rousing addition in which Princess Jasmine attempts to declare her independence from the decision-making-men who surround her. So, read on if you wish or go see this new Aladdin first.

Here’s the trailer:  (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)⇒


If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this: 
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Based very closely on Disney’s 1992 old-school-animated-Aladdin (Ron Clements, John Musker), this remake uses live actors to tell a story set in roughly Medieval times of the fictional port kingdom of Agrabah on the massive Arabian peninsula,* ruled by the gentle-but-easily-persuaded Sultan (Navid Negahban), often put under hypnosis by his evil Grand Vizier, Jafar (Marwan Kenzari), who dreams of ruling this place himself—then make war on neighboring kingdomseven as his ambitions conflict with the Sultan’s daughter, Jasmine (Naomi Scott), who sees herself as the next monarch, despite tradition dictating a male as well as law requiring her to marry a prince.  Further, her father—disheartened by the death long ago of Jasmine’s mother—refuses to let his daughter leave their lavish palace while he brings in a parade of princes for her inspection, all of whom she dismisses due to disinterest in them plus little desire for marriage, preferring the company of her pet tiger.  However, she does disguise herself with simple clothes to wander into the city’s marketplace where we first see her stealing some bread for a couple of hungry kids (given her access to seemingly unlimited resources, it’s not clear why she doesn’t just encourage her father to feed the poor, but then this story would barely begin, let alone develop).  Just as she’s about to pay the price for this thievery (a quick implication is her hand will be chopped off, so not all of the concerns addressed in the So What? section just below are removed in this new version) she’s saved by the charming, energetic, well-known thief of the streets, Aladdin (Mena Massoud), who whisks her off on a merry chase (marvelous choreography through streets, stalls, rooftops, etc., surely computer-enhanced), until they end up in his secret lair (in a tower, with a nice view) where she pretends to be her own handmaiden, Dalia—whom we’ll meet later (played by Nasim Pedrad).  Aladdin’s charmed by her, but she has to hasten back to the palace to meet the latest prince, so Aladdin (along with his crafty monkey, Abu [a computer-concoction]) sneaks into the highly-guarded-compound, locates Jasmine (who continues her ruse of being Dalia at first, then reveals her true identity even as she knows romance with Aladdin is forbidden to her), but ultimately is captured by Jafar’s soldiers, taken out to the desert where Jafar promises him great wealth if he goes into the fabled Cave of Wonders to bring back a small lamp; however, he’s not to take any of the other great wealth of riches in this vast cave.  Aladdin does as told, but Abu grabs a huge ruby which sets the cave into collapse; Aladdin rushes to the entrance, gives the lamp to Jafar who kicks him back into the imploding cave (shades of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark [Steven Spielberg, 1981]), but Abu grabs the lamp as he and Aladdin tumble back into the deadly enclosure.

*Here’s a side-by-side-comparison of the 2 movies' trailers, using the audio from the current one.

 Trapped, Aladdin makes a new friend for life by freeing a flying carpet caught under a rock, then accidently rubs the lamp, releasing the massive Genie (Will Smith)* who’ll grant him 3 wishes.  Aladdin channels the Genie’s power to get them all out of the cave, then applies his first true wish to become Prince Ali (of Ababwa, fictional even within this fictional story), becoming a viable suitor for Princess Jasmine, mesmerizing everyone (except Jasmine, who finds him excessive) with his massive entrance (short clip from 2019, entire scene from 1992), but “Ali” blows his initial meeting with the Sultan and his daughter by mistakenly saying his (new-found) wealth is intended to buy the marriage.  At a huge feast that night, Aladdin tries to make a better impression on Jasmine even as human-appearing-Genie finds mutual attraction with Dalia, culminating in a massive Bollywood-style-dance-number (there are a few of these here, reminiscent of the finale of Slumdog Millionaire [Danny Boyle, 2008]).  Jasmine’s still hesitant about Ali (especially when he can’t find his country on a map until Genie makes it appear), notes her irritation at palace-confinement, so Ali takes her for a romantic ride on his magic carpet (clips from “A Whole New World” side-by-side from both movies), lying that his Aladdin identity is just a means of getting to know her city unobserved as a prince.  ⇒Ultimately, Jafar intrudes again, captures Aladdin, pushes his bound captive out a high window into the sea below where Genie comes to his rescue but at the price of a second wish.  After Jafar later takes control of the lamp, he first makes himself Sultan, then the most powerful sorcerer in the world so when Aladdin appears to oppose him he banishes his adversary and Abu to a frozen place at “the ends of the Earth,” then causes the old Sultan to suffer until Jasmine’s forced to agree to marry Jafar to save her father from pain (previously, she’s declared her unwillingness to be commanded by men in a new song, "Speechless" [Naomi Smith recording it, intercut with movie clips], but this added 2019 assertive stance is undone, just as in the original movie, by the maniacal villain).  The carpet flies to the rescue of Aladdin and Abu, whisking them back to the palace to prevent the wedding culmination, including another huge chase scene; then Aladdin convinces Jafar to use his third wish to become the most powerful presence on Earth (so as not to be undone by the Genie at a later time), which he does, only to realize he’ll now be trapped in a lamp until released, which won’t be anytime soon as Genie hurls the new lamp into the closed-off-cave.  Aladdin uses his last wish to turn Genie into a human (getting us back to the opening scene where he’s married to Dalia, living on a small boat, telling this story to his 2 young kids), then the Sultan turns his throne over to Jasmine who changes the old law, allowing her to marry Aladdin.⇐ 

*Here’s the Genie’s "Friend Like Me" song, displaying his powers, from the 1992 movie (no clip available yet from 2019's version; actually, I had one comparing both but it's already been disabled).

So What? This version of Disney’s Aladdin is part of their ongoing program of remaking classic animated features into live-action-movies (or at least computer-generated-imagery which looks more realistic than the 2-D “golden oldies,” as will be the case with The Lion King [Jon Favreau, scheduled for release on July 19, 2019]), following the live-action-remake of Dumbo (Tim Burton; review in our April 4, 2019 posting) earlier this spring, so stay prepared for an ongoing-flow of these.  In this case, despite the substantial financial success of the 1992 animation (in truth, there’s still a lot of animation in the new Aladdin, it’s just done on computer [as was the case with the flying elephant in Dumbo] especially regarding Abu, Jasmine’s tiger, Ali’s triumphant march into Agrabah, the romantic magic carpet ride, etc.)—it took in $504 million worldwide—there were cultural concerns to address, including ongoing charges of offensive lyrics in the opening “Arabian Nights” song (modified for the 1993 video release) from “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face” to “Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense,” along with a new insertion of “chaotic” into the line “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” (fortunately, there was a response by Disney to the racist implications of those 1992 lyrics, even before concerns about anti-Muslim-attitudes in the U.S. since the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks (wrongfully conflating all Muslims with the actual killers in the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS), attitudes which led us to war in Iraq in the early 21st century, now becoming codified into immigration law under President Trump Agent Orange).  There were also 1992 complaints the animated Aladdin and Jasmine, despite their brown skin, looked like Europeans (supposedly, he was drawn to resemble Tom Cruise), so that legitimate situation was addressed by the casting of principal roles in this new version but still not to universal satisfaction (Massoud’s Egyptian-born, although Canadian-raised, while Scott’s British-born, with a mother of Ugandan-Indian descent, not Arabic as some have demanded for Jasmine)Massoud addresses such concerns in this New York Times interview; however, he also notes Aladdin in the original story was Chinese (!), while a Disney spokeswoman says fictional Agrabah’s located on the old Silk Road from China through India, the Middle East, Egypt into Europe, so Jasmine’s mother could easily have been from somewhere outside of Arabia, as contemporary purveyors of entertainment must stay aware (“woke”?) even when constructing stories of pure fantasy.  For that matter, the original Aladdin story’s not even in the centuries-in-development-anthology (containing tales from Arabia but also Greece, Persia, Turkey) now called One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (nor are the tales of Ali Baba or Sinbad) but was written in the early 18th century by Anṭūn Yūsuf Hannā Diyāb (of Aleppo, Syria), then added to Frenchman Antoine Galland’s 1710 edition of … Arabian Nights.  Still, I can appreciate how those of Arab descent (and associated non-Arab Muslims) get tired of offensive/demonizing stereotypes (especially given their immigration-based-rejection by Western countries today), hoping to find more positive representations in Western-produced-media.

Bottom Line Final Comments: No matter your thoughts on depictions of characters in either Disney Aladdin, and even though the critical establishment (or as I call them, the CCAL—Collective Critics At Large) is trending negative about this live-action-remake of a long-ago-animated-feature (the chief complaints focusing on there didn’t need to be this revisitation-project, just let the original exist either in our memories or through easy-access-Disney-resources) as Rotten Tomatoes offers only 57% positive reviews (one of the lowest results of anything both they and I explore in 2019 releases; only Dumbo lands lower—at 48% [Disney remakes seem unacceptable to those included in these tallies])—while those surveyed at Metacritic offer an almost-equivalent average score of 53% (again, almost the lowest of releases shared by them and me for 2019, except for poor old Dumbo at a measly 51%), audiences flocked to this reboot of Aladdin during its Memorial Day weekend debut, racking up a massive $116.8 million in gross receipts from domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters (worldwide $255.8 million)—making it already #7 for the entire year in the domestic market (although enormously behind domestic #1 Avengers: Endgame [Anthony and Joe Russo; review in our May 1, 2019 posting] at over $800 million and still counting).  Sure, you can fault Aladdin for being frivolous, for being a cynical attempt to pad the Disney coffers already enhanced with massive 1992 Aladdin income (plus, I’m sure, a substantial amount in DVD sales), for continuing to present a fantasy version of Arab culture in the Middle East (maybe for not trying harder to cast actors who even more clearly appear as citizens of that part of the world, if you want to push PC Correctness to extreme lengths),* but you could also just appreciate it for the whimsical approach, the lavish visuals, the toe-tapping-songs, the romantic triumph of the protagonists, the impressive-screen-presence of Will Smith (maybe not as compelling as the 1992 voice work of Robin Williams but still well-acted, amusing).  For that matter, you could just embrace the new Aladdin for how well my wrap-up Musical Metaphor captures the mutual-free-flowing-spirit with Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” (from their 1968 album The Second) at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=HPE9a_epmWw (a 1969 low-def psychedelic-video) that could be addressed to Jasmine or—metaphorically—to all of us: “Well, you don’t know what we can find Why don’t you come with me little girl On a magic carpet ride Well, you don’t know what we can see Why don’t you tell your dreams to me Fantasy will set you free […] Last night I held Aladdin’s lamp So I wished that I could stay Before the thing could answer me Well, someone came and took the lamp away I looked around, a lousy candle’s all I found.”  Still, this Aladdin’s far better than any variety of candle.

*You might also find fault—or delight—with aspects of the 1992 original (which might well blend into the content of the 2019 remake) you'd only notice as an adult, as quickly noted in this 4:54 video.
                  
SHORT TAKES (in theory, but certainly not in practice this time) 
(please note that spoilers also appear here)
              
Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)   rated R

Two high-school best friends who’ve toiled academically for years to earn entrance into their top colleges find on their last day of classes many of their seemingly lackluster friends have also gotten into great schools despite partying along the way so our girls pledge for major fun on their last night before graduation, even as they’re not sure how.

Here’s the trailer:


 However, this is a Red Band trailer, so there may be some language concerns when you watch it; 
if that's the case, here’s another one a bit more cleaned up in content for your viewing pleasure:


       Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

 For her directorial debut, actor Olivia Wilde enhances the canon of high-school’s-over/coming-of-age stories—including such classics as American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973), Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993), Superbad (Greg Mottola, 2007)by using teenage girls as her protagonists rather than finding them as secondary characters to the primary males of those other stories (putting Wilde in a distinctly-slim-catalogue of such narratives, with the only one jumping immediately to my mind being Lady Bird [Greta Gerwig, 2017; review in our November 23, 2017 posting])—see this interview with Wilde (8:51) for her thoughts on this situation, as well as her intention of encouraging female viewers of her work to do as she’s done: try something new, maybe frightening (especially if it’s something you’ve been longing to do for awhile, rather than allow yourself to get stuck in routine expectations).  In Booksmart the focus is on 2 BFFs, Molly (Beanie Feldstein [sister of Jonah Hill, co-star of Superbad])—class president and valedictorian of her L.A.-area high-school (even makes grammatical corrections on restroom graffiti)—and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), both smart, studious, rewarded for their intense academic work (Molly’s off to Yale [her ultimate ambition’s being the youngest Supreme Court Justice ever], Amy to Columbia [after she spends the summer in Botswana, helping locals make tampons because blood attracts lions]), only to learn some of their seemingly-slacker-classmates have also been accepted at Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Georgetown (even as one’s skipping college entirely to work at Google), so Molly and Amy realize on the morning of their last day of school they could have combined studying with fun rather than just being bookworms (Amy’s parents [Will Forte, Lisa Kudrow] obviously share the girls’ worldview, having prepared a large batch of fancy foods for them to feast on that night rather than having any sense these teens would join the rest of the senior class at various parties).  So, Molly (more assertive) insists they immerse themselves in fun, especially the huge party thrown by goofball Nick (Mason Gooding)—Molly’s secretly attracted to him—while his uncle’s out of town (not clear what control Nick’s parents might have over such bacchanalia, but parents—as is the case so often in these movies—have little presence or input to slow down the plot).  After some miscues getting to the wrong parties (rich Jared [Skyler Gisondo] on a luxury boat with only his drama-queen-friend, Gigi [Billie Lourd]; a murder-mystery-play put on by the drama students)—including an Lyft ride with their principal, Jordan Brown (Jason Sudeikis [Wilde’s fiancée]), as a night-time-driver—Gigi tells Molly and Amy she gave them some drug-coated-strawberries, leading to an hilarious fantasy scene where they think they’re little plastic dolls which Molly’s somewhat OK with, given her suddenly-thin-body with outsized breasts (although no genitals), but Amy's freaked.

 When Molly and Amy quickly (conveniently) recover from their hallucinations, they finally make it to Nick’s party where Molly begins connecting with the host while pushing lesbian Amy into finally making an attempt at her secret-attraction, lively Ryan (Victoria Ruesga).  All seems to be going well until Amy and Ryan jump into the pool; after swimming around a bit, Amy suddenly sees Ryan making out with Nick so she finds Molly, demanding they leave, but Molly resists, leading to an argument about Molly being the pushy-decision-maker vs. Amy as scared, never willing to take a drastic chance (nice structure here as the vocal bickering fades out, overtaken by music, all in one wide shot, allowing us to sense the scene without following specific accusations, even as many of their friends commit this verbal combat to phone-video-archives as all attention shifts to the fight).  Amy then goes upstairs to the bathroom, gets into a snit-exchange with caustic Hope (Diana Silvers), leading to an almost-sexual-encounter with her, until Amy ruins it by throwing up on now-disgusted-Hope; meanwhile, Molly’s having pleasant conversation with Jared (he's always admired her from a distance).  All the fun’s quickly put on hold, though, when cops show up, apparently alerted to the party’s obnoxious noise, so Amy toughens up, sacrifices herself to an arrest (not sure how she could have made all the commotion by herself, but the others escape as the police haul her off).  Next morning, Molly visits Amy in jail, gets her out by supplying info about a guy on a wanted poster (delivered pizzas to Nick’s party), they drive furiously to the graduation ceremony, Molly makes her speech about how wonderful they all are, then we’re back at Amy’s home where she’s packing for Africa; Hope shows up, they chat, Amy gets her number (Amy earlier admitted to Molly she’s going to stay in Botswana for a full year, not just the summer, thereby disrupting the lengthy-schedule of their future plans); despite some tension, Molly drives Amy to the airport where they part on last-minute-wacky-terms.⇐ Wilde’s been praised for offbeat-yet-true-female-heartfelt-connections she’s brought to this story (which you can get a fuller sense of here, the movie’s first 6 min. 26 sec., uncut [remember, though, it’s R-rated]), with a spectacular 97% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (ties for highest response to a 2019 release both they and I covered with Ash Is Purest White [Jia Zhang-Ke; review in our March 20, 2019 posting—I wasn’t as impressed, gave it only 3 stars]), an 84% average score at Metacritic (one of the very few 2019 releases I’ve shared with them to get this high a result as well)Booksmart’s absolutely a critical champ, as it should be.

 Unfortunately, high critical praise won’t always sell movie tickets, so even as Booksmart came in at #6 on the domestic tally over the full Memorial Day weekend, playing at 2,505 theaters, it made only $8.7 million in its holiday-debut, completely overwhelmed not only by Aladdin but also by John Wick: Chapter 3–Parabellum (Chad Stahelski), now up to $107.6 million domestically after 2 weeks; the ongoing presence of Avengers: Endgame, up to $803.4 million (worldwide $2.7 billion, a very strong #2 All-Time) after just 5 weeks; even Pokemon Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman) with $120 million after 3 weeks in release.  You can explore here some comments from Forbes as to the sad nature of those weak Booksmart grosses (so far, but with Rocketman [Dexter Fletcher] and other releases set for next weekend I don’t anticipate any great improvement) and here from Slate as to how it wasn’t promoted properly (a death-knell for any film).  However, given such wide coverage (won’t last too long, given the ongoing/emerging-competition), I actively encourage you to seek out Booksmart right away for its humor (not only the drug-induced-dolls-scene but also other inspired bits from various cast members as it all ambles along), accurate depiction of the lively sense of dismissal-turned-to-embrace among the fluctuating-psyches of high-schoolers (despite all the trauma Molly’d been through with various classmates the night before, they all embraced her valedictorian speech)—although I assume such in a generic manner, thinking things haven’t changed all that much except for surface alterations since I escaped my enjoyable-yet-confining-Ball High way back in 1966—focus on the female side of these relationship-equations within this ever-popular-story-concept (from a woman director, women scriptwriters, women producers), and depiction of the solid bond of friendship linking Molly and Amy, even when they’re not on the same wavelength, even when each one’s lifelong-friend suddenly seems like a stranger in a crisis moment.  I’ll also assume for most current high-school-grads the last night of their enforced-world is still the same opportunity for rebellion (non-violent, I hope), exultation, sheer joy at having conquered this phase of emerging-adulthood with some sort of celebration (better than your parents’ collection of creative-appetizers, I hope) they’ll remember fondly (I do, my first time of staying out well beyond dawn, no questions asked; my wife, Nina, had cops come to her big party, but she escaped over a fence), even if it’s not based on something as memorable as being arrested (we’ll just have to assume this possible blot on her solid record doesn’t follow Amy around forever).

 However, maybe all you really want from such an occasion (or a movie celebrating those lingering-memory-lost-days) is just something you’ll barely be able to recall, so my appropriately-chosen-Musical Metaphor for Booksmart (even though both Molly and Amy apparently ended the night as virgins, even as Amy’s taking her masturbatory-aid-Teddy Bear with her to Africa, providing one last great laugh in this story) is Jimmy Buffet’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” (from his 1973 A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xoi7yX4wp M4 (the recorded version, although you might also like this live rendition from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival which gets more into the group-party-attitude from Booksmart) where more than one of our primary characters can honestly say: “I really do appreciate the fact you’re sittin’ here Your voice sounds so wonderful But your face don’t look too clear.”  Seems like the right “note” to end on for now, but we'd like to see you next time for more at Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark.
          
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Here’s more information about Aladdin [2019]:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIQJBn1OWLw (9:13 video on 10 notable differences between the new Aladdin movie and the 1992 animated feature)



Here’s more information about Booksmart:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDy3elVVRbw (38:15 interview with director Olivia Wilde, co-writer/producer Katie Silberman, producer Jessica Elbaum, and actors Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Diana Silvers, Molly Gordon, Noah Galvin, Austin Crute [begins with a trailer, a bit in the direction of the movie’s R-rated nature, so take note])



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By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S.  Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker.  But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"
—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.
           
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Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Trial by Fire

“Justice” Served, in Fast-Food Burger Fashion
             
Review by Ken Burke
               
                            Trial by Fire (Edward Zwick)   rated R
                      
“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): This film, based on David Grann’s 2009 New Yorker article of the same name, is a somewhat-fictionalized-but-largely-based-in-fact-story of a young man condemned to death in Texas despite proclaiming his innocence of deliberately setting his home on fire, killing his 3 very young daughters.  As the scenes depict (backed up by a good deal of evidence cited in the more-lengthy-commentary just below), poorly-educated Cameron Todd Willingham—with a sordid reputation for drinking, cheating on his wife as well as abusing her, being attracted to heavy-metal-music, not being very employable—barely got any justice at all in his trial where witnesses lied on the stand, his lawyer presented no arguments or cross-examinations in Todd’s defense, arson “evidence” was flimsy and biased by the local authorities, so his conviction and death sentence were foregone conclusions, landing him in a harsh-prison-population where his reputation as a “baby killer” would likely have resulted in inmate-on-inmate-death had he not been mostly isolated on “death row.”  A fellow convict steered him toward an appeal process, though, strongly supported a few years later by a Houston woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote to him, visited him in prison, researched his case to easily find numerous discrepancies as she worked to strengthen his appeal.  While you can quickly find the results of this situation with a simple Internet search, I’ll leave some details to the spoiler-filled-review below in case you want to see this film for yourself (assuming you can do so, as it’s currently playing in only 109 domestic [U.S.-Canada] theaters).  You’ll find critics’ responses to Trial by Fire (an insightful, appropriate title) to generally be negative, but I think it’s much better than how it’s often being characterized, would be glad to get some feedback—positive or negative—from anyone who might choose to watch it at some point.

Here’s the trailer:  (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)


If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this: 
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Corsicana, TX (although the film's shot in Georgia, with some mountains in the distance of the town not ringing true enough for this actual south-of-Dallas, flatlands location), December 1991.  We begin in a shocking manner as a ramshackle little house bursts into flames from the inside with frantic resident Cameron Todd (mostly goes by his middle name, as do I, a trait shared by others in my Texas family) Willingham (Jack O’Connell) running outside, trying to move his car back from the house, attempts to re-enter by breaking a window only to be pushed back by a wall of flame.  He shouts for neighbor Diane Barbee (seemingly renamed Margaret Hays here [assuming I got this right], played by Katie McClellan) to call 911; later, we learn his wife, Stacy Kuykendall (Emily Meade)—some accounts refer to her as Willingham—wasn’t home, having worked a night shift, stopped at the Salvation Army to buy Christmas presents for their girls, 2-year-old-Amber Louise Kuykendall and the 1-year-old-twins Karmon Diane Willingham, Kameron Marie Willingham (played respectively in flashback scenes by Elle Graham and the doubling of Scarlett Jordon).  Sadly, the girls are killed in the fire, followed up by inspections showing the back door was blocked by a refrigerator, while heavy-metal-music-posters in the parents’ bedroom and supposed pentagram-shaped-burn-marks lead the police to arrest Todd for arson and capital murder, as some sort of Satanist ritual to rid himself of the children, a charge he vehemently denies, despite how a guilty plea would give him a life sentence instead of a trial where he’d face execution.  Todd doesn’t have much going for him because he drinks too much, can’t hold a job, argues with/abuses/cheats on Stacy (she also cheats on him, flashes anger easily), but both of them profess ultimate love for their kids.  Todd’s 1992 trial’s treated like a confirmation of guilt given his retrograde-reputation, the less-than-substantial-forensics-“evidence,” lies about what happened that day from the neighbor woman and Todd’s cellmate, Johnny Webb (Blake Lewis), while prosecutor John Jackson (Jason Douglas) is relentless in his presentation (even quotes from the Bible to justify the death penalty) while defense attorney Peter Horton (Darren Pettie)—seems to be another name-change from the historical record of David Martin, as best I’ve understood this—offers no cross-examination or evidence on behalf of Todd, refuses to put him on the stand (we don’t even see his closing argument, whatever it might have been, although Todd offered the police his account of attempting to get into the girls’ room, only to be beaten back by the flames).  Stacy defends him in court, but her testimony’s considered suspect (?) because she admits to their troubled marriage as well as her mother being killed by her father; however, after the quick conviction and death sentence she never visits Todd in prison, doesn’t even answer his letters, now convinced of his guilt because of the trial.

 Once incarcerated, Todd’s in a “death row” cell away from the general prison population because his “baby killer” reputation leads immediately to a fight with other convicts, further beating from the guards, especially Daniels (Chris Coy) who detests Todd until later softening his stance.  However, Todd’s “neighbor” in the next cell, Ponchai (McKinley Belcher III), offers advice on the appeals process so Todd does some legal research (improving his vocabulary and attitude in the process), gets a court-appointed-lawyer (he can’t afford anyone else, nor a private eye to gather any helpful info), but this guy’s burdened with other cases, hasn’t found much to benefit Todd, so as the years move on Todd watches others be dragged down the corridor to the death chamber, never knowing when his date will be assigned.  Then in 1999 we meet divorced Elizabeth Gilbert* (Laura Dern) from Houston (variously described in citations as schoolteacher, poet, playwright) who agrees to volunteer in a program of writing to prisoners, her "pen pal" by chance being Todd.  After some correspondence she meets with him (assuming, like everyone else, he’s guilty), finds sympathy for his situation as well as his consistent claims of innocence, starts doing her own research on the great discrepancies in his case (including testimony by psychiatrist James Grigson [Lindsay Aylffe], aka “Dr. Death,” based on frequent prosecution-backing-testimony at numerous trials; he’s later expelled by the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians for unethical conduct, including—as in Todd’s case—claiming a defendant would commit other crimes upon release without ever meeting the accused [she also talks with Todd’s trial lawyer who admits he considered his client guilty, made no effort to defend him; further, ex-cellmate-Webb apparently got reduced time in exchange for lying in court]).  However, Elizabeth’s friends, as well as her teenage kids Julie (Jade Pettyjohn) and Andrew (Noah Lomax), aren’t supportive of her interest in a guy everyone sees as a monster.  When Gilbert last visits Willingham in prison he admits he didn’t try to get to the girls’ bedroom because the fire was too intense, he was too scared, so in this sense he considers himself guilty (although that’s not a legal definition of any crime on his part). ⇒In the midst of all this, Todd gets his execution date (February 17, 2004), becomes withdrawn because he doesn’t want to be crushed by false hopes—which seems realistic because even when Elizabeth and the appeals lawyer get extensive analysis by fire-expert Gerald Hurst (Jeff Perry) the on-site-evidence from Todd's house was all bogus their appeal’s automatically denied, then when Webb hears Gilbert being interviewed on the radio about Willingham’s desperate situation he writes a letter of recantation but the Parole Board head just slips it into a drawer, unheeded (needless to say, the appeal to Gov. Rick Perry just days before the scheduled execution goes unanswered).⇐ 

*Not to be confused with the well-known Eat, Pray, Love (2006) author who shares the same name.

 As time ticks closer to the end for Todd, Elizabeth’s increasingly frantic to find some solution for his dilemma (which is what you’d expect this film to be about, his last-minute-rescue with life imitating countless stays of execution if not outright pardons in prison-themed-movies, if you—like me—are unaware of the actual outcome), so much so she’s distracted on her cell phone while driving, attempting to get some other strategy in place for Todd, when she’s broadsided by a truck, leaving her with a broken neck, no ability to walk, in badly-banged-up-recovery as Todd’s final day arrives, even though she promised she’d be there if execution became a reality.  One thing she did manage to achieve was finally convincing Stacy to visit her ex-husband, but she turns down his request for a letter supporting his final appeal, still convinced of his guilt.  No miracle rescue happens in this story; he’s simply strapped to a gurney, wheeled into the death chamber, makes a final statement of his innocence of either intent or act toward his daughters (there have also been some touching scenes of imagined visits by Amber to his cell prior to this conclusion) while also cursing Stacy for her lack of faith in him, then after the lethal injection his body convulses, dies.  In a final scene beginning with projection by Elizabeth, her kids (who’ve now come around to her belief in Todd) read his final letter to her as she sits in a wheelchair watching Todd joyfully reunited with his girls, followed by the actuality of Elizabeth in a cemetery with Julie and Andrew as they scatter Todd’s ashes over the graves of his daughters (in a 2010 New Yorker article Grann notes Gilbert’s now able to walk some, resulting from years of rehab).  In actual footage from the 2016 GOP Presidential debates side-by-side with the credits we see then-candidate Gov. Perry defending the frequent Texas executions, offering assurances anyone put to death in his state has been properly found to be responsible for the crime.⇐   Overall, this is no Dead Man Walking (Tim Robbins, 1995)—a haunting masterpiece—but Trial ... generates its own impact, well worth your time to seek it out.

So What? Well, once again there were many alternatives to my moviegoing-time last weekend (annual Oakland Greek Festival at Ascension Cathedral—Opa!!; Golden State Warriors Western Conference basketball finals [Oakland-based reigning champs have now swept the series, 4-0—on to the NBA Finals!]; Oakland Athletics baseballers running rampant while visiting the Detroit Tigers [won 3 games, the 4th postponed—A’s ahead 5-3—until Sept., due to rules preventing a game to be called due to rain unless the home team gets to bat in the bottom of an inning that began in a tie—the case here—so when this wraps up in Oakland 4 months from now Detroit will be the “home” team for 2½ innings, followed by a regular game plus fireworks—marathon for the fans; since then the A's have also completed a 3-game-sweep of the Cleveland Indians!]), leaving me time for only 1 screening.  Because of a solid disinterest in what ended up as the weekend's-top 10-grossers (see Box Office Mojo for details)—except for Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo; review in our May 1, 2019 posting), now at $2.6 billion worldwide, not far behind Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), globally-#1-all-time at near $2.8 billion—I took a chance on Trial by Fire, despite its poor reviews (more details in the next section below), possibly because its Texas content is something I can relate to, possibly because it goes along with another true-life-Texas-crime-story (although one presented in much-more-comic-fashion), The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (Michael Ritchie, 1993) I’d watched recently on Netflix disc.  What I found in Trial ... was mostly emotionally-gripping, successfully managing to elicit sympathy for the type of guy I’d normally try my best to avoid in a store or a bar or even just on the street because his obnoxious nature would easily be cause for some sort of altercation, just because he’d be too drunk or uncaring to simply move on without starting some sort of argument.  Yet, the inequities he faced in both his initial trial and his attempts at appeal are clearly enough to draw out anger at this absurd brand of “justice” (especially with that sanctimonious statement on the righteous nature of the legal process in Texas at the end) being dished out to a guy whom almost everyone just easily assumed was guilty, despite little substantial evidence to verify such a verdict (for those who do see this well-under-the-radar-film, maybe there’ll also be some collateral-realization/verification of how rushed-to-judgment our arrest/trial/conviction-system can be, especially if the accused are poor and/or people of color).  I’m certainly not saying everyone accused of a crime is truly innocent—even when a jury votes “guilty”—but I am saying this film provides good reason to keep questioning the value of the death penalty, both because of conviction-errors and its apparent lack of success in deterring those types of crimes such final punishment’s intended to curtail due to fear of retribution.

 I’m also not saying I’m a complete opponent of the death penalty myself, although the number of felons whose convictions have been overturned in recent years, either through witness recantations or exoneration through DNA evidence, gives me serious pause as to how equitable this ultimate punishment may be, just as I have to agree with my thoughtful wife, Nina, on whether a life in prison without parole might well be a more just punishment for a heinous crime than simply snuffing out someone’s life in angry retaliation for the suffering a person has caused (a particular consideration for me, on account of a family circumstance I won’t go into here but one that encourages me to flip the electric-chair-switch on a currently-incarcerated-relative of mine, despite claims of innocence)—to give this controversial question further argument, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chosen to suspend all executions while he’s in office, even though his moral stance butts up against a recent voter initiative preserving the death penalty in our state.  Certainly, any discussion of crime and punishment needs to take into account as much factual evidence as possible regarding who actually did what, a situation easily compounded by national or local law, often restricting decisions a jury can make.  (Again, I’m being specific: Years ago in Dallas I ended up on a murder-case-jury where a young man was charged with being part of a gang-type-killing of another young man, with a witness admitting he shoved a knife into the victim but testifying that the guy on trial also shared in the stabbing while the defendant admitted he was there that night but didn’t take part in the actual murder; however, according to Texas law [at least in the early 1980s, don’t know about today] simply being part of the circumstances of a felony renders you guilty even if you didn’t actually commit the specific crime, so we had no choice but to find the kid guilty, with our only decision being how many years he should spend in prison—a very difficult task, given it was just the word of one person against another as to whether this defendant actually did some brutal-butchery or not.)


 I realize all this personal connection on my part to death, accused crimes, jury decisions, and lingering-feelings afterward may easily have made me more inclined toward appreciating Zwick’s presentation of Willingham’s situation, but you can get a lot more detail if you wish (revealing, of course, the spoiler aspects of the film, so keep that in mind) if you consult this detailed account of the circumstances, trial, and aftermath of Todd’s case (some aspects may need more editing, but there’s also lots of documentation there, including charges—denied, of course—Gov. Perry changed 3 members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission in order to to bury their findings of doubt about arson) plus this (admittedly, pro-Willingham) site (may take awhile to download*), further enhanced by this extensive PBS Frontline interview with Gilbert (curiously, she’s not mentioned in that first link noted just above).  From all this, you can clearly see Zwick’s perspective.

*You may find a problem connecting with this informative site, so please keep trying.  I've found it slowly downloads from this link on Google Chrome and Firefox but doesn't connect on Safari (don't know about any other Web browsers).  If that doesn't work, those browsers also accept direct URL http://camerontoddwillingham.comslowlybut Safari doesn't link with that process either.

Bottom Line Final Comments: As noted above, I had good reason based on existing evaluations of Trial by Fire to avoid it, with a restrained 59% cluster of positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (one of their few such low numbers for anything both they and I have addressed from 2019—only What Men Want [Adam Shankman; review in our February 14, 2019 posting] and Dumbo [Tim Burton; review in our April 4, 2019 posting] coming in lower [46%, 48% respectively], although I'm more generous, awarding 3½ stars to all of them [but then, I'm more insightful than the average film critic, after all!]), an even-lower 51% average score at Metacriticmaking Trial … tied for second-lowest-scoring-2019-release mutually reviewed by them and me (What Men Want got 49%, Dumbo also at 51%).  Those pathetic results, plus this summation by the East Bay Express’s Kelly Vance (whom I normally trust), “Dern enthusiasts may find value, but there's an easier way to achieve the same effect: At 2:30 in the morning, pour yourself three fingers of whiskey and listen to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, paying close attention to each separate character. That way you'll get the point, and also miss Rick Perry's jerkwater rationale for the death penalty. Forget about Trial by Fire,” would normally be enough for me to just be lackadaisical last Saturday about getting out in our rare-May-rainfall to bother seeing anything (maybe I’d review my re-watching of the Marx Bros. in A Night at the Opera [Sam Wood, 1935] from Netflix earlier in the week just to have something for this Two Guys blog); yet, I was intrigued by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle (I usually trust him also, but we have had some notable differences of opinion) who said: “'Trial by Fire' is the rare case of a movie that’s actually better if you know how it ends. I watched it without knowing, and it made the experience worse. To believe you’re getting one movie when you’re getting another just sets up expectations that the film cannot match, simply because its intentions are in the complete opposite direction. […] So 'Trial by Fire' is the furthest thing from a human-interest story. Rather, it’s an impassioned polemic that arrives on screen at a charged political moment. It could have been made 10 years ago, except that its message could not possibly have had the same resonance: America isn’t working. And those systems put into place to avert disaster? Well, those are strained or failing.”  This time, Mick won me over for which I’m grateful; as for Kelly, who sees this film as “a routine hand-wringer about everyday American injustice,” we’ll just have to agree to disagree, although I’ll admit Trial … does come across as too melodramatic at times, especially in some prison visits by Elizabeth to Todd (dripping with unrequited romance, reminding me of similar-misplaced-affections between wrongly-convicted Chicano Henry Reyna [Daniel Valdez] and social justice-advocate Jew Alice Bloomfield [Tyne Daley] in Zoot Suit [Luis Valdez, 1981], but those misunderstandings were resolved in Zoot …’s plot, not left as unclarified intimations here in Trial …).

 As you might know by now (because, surely, you’re a regular reader of Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark), I like to close each session of written commentary with a dose of insight from another medium, using a Musical Metaphor to speak to what’s just been reviewed; in this case a very likely candidate for such a Metaphor is Bob Dylan’s “Percy’s Song” (recorded during the sessions for his 1963 The Times They Are A-Changin’ album but not included on it, finally released on his 1985 triple-album, Biograph) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njC-o7vD1E8 (seems to me to be the Biograph version, along with the lyrics in both English and Spanish if you’d like to hone your bilingualism) because it also deals with a man given a harsh sentence (“Joliet prison And ninety-nine years”) not in keeping with the actual circumstances of his event (deaths occurred but not by the conscious intent of the one arrested for a terrible crime—“he wouldn’t harm a life That belonged to someone else”), a legal system with little care for the convicted (“The judge spoke […] 'The witness who saw He left little doubt'”), an anguished friend who could do little but mourn the result (“I walked down the courthouse stairs And I did not understand”), as well as an impactful account of the situation, leaving this song's narrator (as with Elizabeth Gilbert) little solace except to acknowledge “Oh the Cruel Rain and the Wind” (there’s also a live performance version from Dylan’s 1963 Carnegie Hall concert where he acknowledged the tune was from Paul Clayton’s song “The Wind and the Rain,” although I don’t know if we ever learn who Percy was or what became of him).  Elizabeth Gilbert and others continue to fight for a posthumous reversal of Todd Willingham’s conviction just to set the record straight as they understand it, probably hoping this film might give more impetus for such a long-after-the-fact-correction, although from what I know of the criminal justice system in Texas I wouldn’t count on it (back in the 1960s when I lived there marijuana was classified as a narcotic so that possession could get you a life sentence, the main reason I never consumed any of the stuff in those days*; they’ve substantially lowered the penalties for pot there by now, although they execute far and away more felons than any other state, so proudly it seems).

*I still don’t, because as Hoyt Axton and David Jackson’s "No No Song" (Now, is this video a bit distorted or is what you're seeing the result of you just “tired of waking up on the floor”?) says, “No, thank you, please It only makes me sneeze And then it makes it hard to find the door.”  Whiskey, however, is a much different story, but Jack Daniel can tell it better than me, so take it away, Jack.

5/29/2019: I encourage you to scroll down to the Comments section at the very end of this posting to see a lot of counter-arguments recently submitted to me by Dudley Sharp against the film's position that Todd Willingham was innocent of the crimes for which he was executed.  I have no information beyond what's cited above to counter or debate his presentation as I'm no expert on this situation, so I encourage you to read it all, then decide for yourself what feels true to your mind.
                 
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Here’s more information about Trial by Fire:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9eJS_TTH6I (29:48 interview with director Edward Zwick, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, and actors Laura Dern, Jack O'Connell [begins with the same 
trailer just above])



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By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S.  Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker.  But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"
—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.
            
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