Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: January 2020

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Top 10 Films of 2019, Citizen K, What Love Looks Like

Top 10 of 2019

Plus Meditations on Power and Love (seemingly incompatible)

Commentary and Reviews 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 agree with me or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) if they choose to disagree.

My approach will be a bit different this week, so I invite you to join me and my new

friends Sam and Evie from What Love Looks Like as we casually

wander through this posting. Do you bring a sandwich?

This week’s presentation will be a bit different than most from Two Guys in the Dark because I’ll begin with my long-delayed-choices for the Top 10 of 2019 followed by an obscure documentary available in very few theaters so far (soon coming to Amazon Prime) and an independent movie already showing on Amazon Prime (I get no kickbacks from Jeff Bezos, I swear, but he makes plenty off my wife's purchases), so I’ll also take a break from my usual What Happens, So What?, Bottom Line Final Comments review structure because it doesn’t work that well for docs anyway and the other review began as one for Short Takes but got a bit longer and I’m too tapped out from a 2-week-on-again/off-again-cold to redo it so onward we go, pinballing around, oh faithful readers.

Top 10 Films of 2019

You can scroll much farther down in this posting to the Related Links section if you like to see Metacritic’s collective critical consensus for 2019 releases along with specific individual lists, but now I’ve finally had a chance to see enough of the likely contenders for such honors (although not based on watching everything from 2019—especially Clemency [Chinonye Chukwu] nor Portrait of a Lady on Fire [Céline Sciamma] yet but soon I hope—as well as most contenders in the documentary and international areas) here are my choices, which have to begin with The Irishman because it’s 1 of only 14 films I’ve rated at 4½ or 5 stars of the 872 I’ve reviewed over the past 8 years of this blog:

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese; review in our November 21, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 96% positive reviews, Metacritic 94% average score])

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.)

2. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach; review in our December 11, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 95% positive reviews, Metacritic 93% average score])

3. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar; review in our October 23, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 97% positive reviews, Metacritic 87% average score])

4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino; review in our August 1, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 85% positive reviews, Metacritic 83% score])

5. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho; review in our October 31, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 99% positive reviews, Metacritic 96% average score])

6. 1917 (Sam Mendes; review in our January 22, 2020 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 89% positive reviews, Metacritic 78% average score])*

7. Joker (Todd Phillips; review in our October 9, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 69% positive reviews, Metacritic 59% average score])

8. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick; review in our January 9, 2020 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 81% positive reviews, Metacritic 78% score])

9. Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher; review in our June 6, 2019 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 89% positive reviews, Metacritic 69% average score])

10. Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Creton; review in our January 16, 2020 posting [Rotten Tomatoes 84% positive reviews, Metacritic 68% average score])

*A chief reason this stunning film ranks lower than it might on my list is my complaint (see the review) about how these seemingly-real-time-events (masterful editing to imply this chronological flow) which should have taken at least 6 hours to occur (given the distance the messengers had to travel on foot) all happen within the film’s 2-hr. running time, a major-conceptual-problem for me. However, my frequent correspondent, Richard Parker, notes Will's travel time could have been greatly reduced when he fell into the river, was carried along for quite some distance before he scrambled back on land, which might (?) give some clarity to this seeming-temporal-discrepancy, although Parker also notes the Allies had airplanes in the area so why wasn’t a pilot recruited to deliver this vital message in a fraction of the time it would take to carry on foot? Nevertheless, we both are impressed with this film overall. I had similar plot problems with Knives Out (Todd Haynes; see the review in our December 4, 2019 posting) although, in general, it's quite an enjoyable movie.

Other possibilities under consideration by me were (in probable order) The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles; review in our January 2, 2020 posting), The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot; review in our June 12, 2019 posting), Booksmart (Olivia Wilde; review in our May 29, 2019 posting), although from what I’ve read about it I do think Clemency would also have been a solid contender (hope to know more soon)—other options frequently mentioned by others I thought about included Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie; review in our January 2, 2020 posting), The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers; review in our November 6, 2019 posting), The Farewell (Lulu Wang; review in our August 8, 2019 posting), Little Women (Greta Gerwig; review in our January 2, 2020 posting), and JoJo Rabbit (Taika Waititi; review in our November 13, 2019 posting), but in my opinion none of them (despite many successful aspects within these films) were rarely truly on my mind as being among the very best of the year. When you compare my choices to the Films Mentioned on Most Critics' Top 10 Lists you’ll find a mere 5 overlaps (1-4, 9 on that tally), just as when you match my Top 10 to those chosen for Oscar's Best Picture competition you’ll see 6 from me of their 9 (much more on the Oscars in next week’s posting when I list all the nominations along with my predictions for winners, my preferences in most of the categories [didn’t see any of the competitors in a few of them], plus how I’d have rearranged the nominees in some categories, all in preparation for the awards ceremony on February 9, 2020). Before that, though, here are my thoughts on a couple of other options you might like which I find to be worthy of your attention, either to enhance your understanding of what’s the chief focus of the ongoing impeachment trial against President Donald Trump or to help take your mind off that hot political collision completely, at least for awhile.

Citizen K (Alex Gibney, 2019) Not Rated

An informative documentary about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once an oligarch of great influence in newly-capitalist-1990s-Russia then scorned by emerging dictator (my opinion) Vladimir Putin in the early 2000s leading to prison for 10 years, now murder charges forcing him into London exile (maybe not so safe for Russian dissidents either) where he continues to oppose Putin.

Here’s the trailer:

You’re easily excused if you’ve never heard of Citizen K (a play on the title of Orson Welles’ famous [still my all-time #1 cinematic triumph] Citizen Kane [1941], but don’t confuse the 2 of them as the protagonist in this current documentary came to meaningful self-realizations and actions that the long-ago-fictional-lead in Welles’ story was never able to manage except in melancholy regrets, even as he died) because, despite being in release for 10 weeks it’s now only upped its presence last weekend from 1 to 7 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters (I was fortunate 1 of them was near me in Berkeley, CA or I’d still barely be aware of ...K), although once it finishes its theatrical run (sounds like that won’t be long as it’s taken in only about $55.7 thousand so far [$80.8 thousand worldwide], given such extremely-limited-availability) it’ll be streamable on Amazon Prime (who financed it) so you might want to seek it out—although the sooner the better in my opinion as it has useful relevance to the substance of the impeachment charges against Trump as far as how dangerous Russia’s become regarding international stability in recent years, especially in their ongoing threats/actions against Ukraine which gets to the heart of the concerns about the unnecessary withholding of Congressionally-authorized-U.S.-military-aid to our ally when there’s still warfare going on in the eastern part of that former-USSR-country. Even if the impeachment conflict’s over before … K’s up on Amazon Prime (as I know Senator Mitch McConnell’s attempting to push this trial to closure as fast as possible) I’d still recommend you give a look at Citizen K when you can if you need any further convincing about the dangers to Western democracy from Russian President Vladimir Putin, especially as he’s now in the process of changing his country’s Constitution (Trump wishes he could so easily change ours, I'm sure), therefore his rule will likely continue long after his mandated term of office ends in 2024 (just as he previously became Prime Minister for awhile, continued to pull the strings of government when he was lawfully required to step down from the Presidency for a few years back in 2008). What we get in this doc is essentially a fact-packed (yet reasonably-timed at 128 min.) history lesson (some in Russian, though; be prepared for subtitles) on what’s happened in Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, beginning with chaos occurring during the early attempts at democracy and capitalism after centuries of autocratic rule: first from the Czars, then the theoretical-ideals-turned-to-dictatorship after the 1917 Communist Revolution.

In the 1990s Russia was suffering from a combination of uncertain leadership (due to the hidden illness of charismatic President Boris Yeltsin—one scene shows how a room at his retreat was made to look like his Moscow office so TV footage could attempt to show him still firmly in control of his duties) and the fast (shady, at best) acquisition of power by 7 principal oligarchs (I don't know why 1 of them, Mikhail Fridman's, not in the above image), including our primary focus here, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (parents were engineers, yet he grew up relatively poor, admits in an early interview he’s greedy as opportunities open up for him), who bought up everything they could to give themselves ridiculously outsized control (51%) of the nation’s economy (“gangster capitalism”). Khodorkovsky first got rich by running a bank, then went astronomically beyond that getting into oil with his Yukos company, all of these powerbrokers backing Yletsin for a second term in 1996, the tradeoff being loaning him money, then allowed to buy state enterprises cheaply. As conditions in the country worsened (along with Yletsin’s health) the rising star of Putin (a ruthless former KGB foreign intelligence officer) came to full brilliance as Yletsin stepped down at the end of 1999, appointing Putin as his successor until such time as Vlad (the “impaler” of any of his enemies) took over officially through his own election (later footage notes how future re-elections of Putin continue as “political theater” with no sense any of his opponents [the few not jailed or otherwise forced out of the race] have any chance of usurping his virtually-absolute-reign), premised on the original oligarchs keeping their riches as long as they didn’t meddle in politics. That deal didn’t hold up, though, as Khodorkovsky and others with TV control began raising objections to Putin’s methods, resulting in these foundational-money-mongers either forced out of the country or jailed: 2003 Khodorkovsky’s arrested for bribery and tax evasion; 2005 found guilty, spends years in a bleak Siberian prison near the Chinese desert (original sentence extended when convicted of other charges in another absurd trial in which he just laughed at the prosecution). When Mikhail—and a few others—are freed in 2013 as a public-relations-gesture preceding the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics he’s now not nearly as wealthy as the estimated $16 billion he once had (although he did manage to stash about $500 million in foreign accounts so he’s still financially stable, able to fund his current anti-Putin campaigns), has little of his former power (the oligarchs’ TV stations were seized by the government, giving them ready-access to promotion of the newly-emerged-“party line”—yes, very similar to Fox News in the U.S.; find a theater where Bombshell’s [Jay Roach, 2019; review in our January 22, 2020 posting] still playing for more insights, along with all the sexual harassment [not sure of it’s part of the Russian playbook as well, but as easily as “enemies of the state” die in Russia and abroad I doubt there’s much need for any additional forms of intimidation]).

Eventually Khodorkovsky moves to London to avoid arrest for his supposed murder (or at least the hiring of a hit man for such) of a former mayor, Vladimir Petukhov, from where he continues to do what he can to support anti-Putin movements back home, hopeful but desperate as they may be in a country where protest movements and anti-government media are strictly controlled, keeping himself focused on the hope that “The darker the night, the brighter the stars.” Such is the essence of what goes on in the film, although you can read this article in The Nation for considerably more details on its contents, visit this Khodorkovsky website to learn about his activist involvements in the Open Russia Foundation, and/or explore biographical sites devoted to Khodorkovsky and Putin (extensively documented) for in-depth-info about these pivotal personages in this fast-moving, informative documentary (although it didn’t make the finalists for this year’s Oscar, so I’ll just have to hope the others that did—I’ve seen only American Factory [Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, 2019; review in our September 4, 2019 posting]—are of the high quality they’d need to be to top what we get in Citizen K). The CCAL’s been supportive of … K, with a cluster of 94% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (out of 47, so that’s low coverage for them, admittedly), a 77% average score at Metacritic, which is reasonably high for them although based on a mere 17 critics so both of these evaluation-accumulation-sites would be better defended in their scores with more evidence. (You know, like what should be presented at an impeachment hearings, especially when it’s attempted to be blocked by a President’s defense team; oh, you’ve heard about that, have you?) I knew almost nothing about Khodorkovsky going into this screening, had forgotten a good bit of what I knew from newscasts back in the 1990s-early 2000s about the difficulty of Russia’s transition out of Communism, the resulting-near-collapse of their economy (except for the riches of the oligarchs, their quasi-military protection teams, and variations of Russian Mafia), along with the early rise of Putin so this doc was extremely helpful in getting all that back in perspective again, providing a better framework for what I now understand all too well about Putin’s interference in as many Western societies as he and his hackers can pull off, getting us back to the political/military crisis in Ukraine last summer (but an ongoing international horror there since 2014) and our "stable genius"‘s involvement in it, getting worse to know about on a daily basis, depending on how much you believe John Bolton (I do, easily, even if I generally don’t care for the guy or his hawkish-stances, although I’m sure you’re clear on how I consistently feel about infamous “Agent Orange”).

So, with all that gritty stuff to consider, how about if I use my usual-review-concluding-Musical Metaphor for Citizen K to lighten up these proceedings a bit? What I have in mind is "Back in the U.S.S.R." (from the famous 1968 “White Album,” officially named The Beatles; this video with added visuals), an intended parody of that atrocious Commie state* when recorded (despite some right-wingers at the time not getting the joke, mistakenly thinking it was pro-Soviet), given further irony when Paul McCartney performed it in Moscow’s Red Square on May 24, 2003 (a time when there was a hopeful attitude of better relations between Russia and the West [I vacationed in St. Petersburg for a few days that summer, came back with a red T-shirt for “McLenin’s” hamburgers with a slogan on the back: “The Party’s Over”]). If lyrics like “the Ukraine girls really knock me out They leave the West behind [maybe Trump thought Hunter Biden wrote this song—2 years before he was born!] And Moscow girls make me sing and shout That Georgia’s always on my mi-mi-[…]-mind” don’t announce parody I don’t know what does (but apparently some GOP Senators don’t know what constitutes impeachment either). OK, if there’s little (if any) love in politics, maybe we can find some using dating apps, dogs, or sandwiches in an L.A. park. Wanna try? Read on, then.

*Further, this Beatles’ song’s also a parody of musical forerunner-hits "California Girls" by the Beach Boys (on their 1965 album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)), Chuck Berry’s "Back in the U.S.A." (a 1959 hit on his 1962 album More Chuck Berry; video from a 1959 TV broadcast), and the Beach Boys’ "Surfin' U.S.A." (on their 1963 album of that name) which takes its melody from Berry’s "Sweet Little Sixteen" (on his 1958 One Dozen Berrys album; video from 1958), led to various lawsuits/writer-attributions to “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” first to Brian Wilson, then Chuck Berry (Mike Love claims he should have credit too—that Transcendental Meditation sure has mellowed him out over the years, hasn’t it?), thus “… U.S.S.R” is so seeped in parody/irony it’s sometimes hard to just listen to its silly joy (especially when you realize Putin’s doing everything he can to restore some resemblance of those wretched Soviet years if not the full-blown Russian Empire of centuries past).

What Love Looks Like (Alex Magaña) Not Rated

A whimsical, independent feature set in L.A. where 5 couples (eventually, not immediately) deal with realities of present-day-love where age-old problems of fear, rejection, misunderstandings, logistical difficulties are sometimes enhanced with complications from cell phones and dating apps; cleverly cut together, situations easy to relate to, no matter what your age.

Here’s the trailer:

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’d like to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify such give-away sentences/sentence-clusters thusly:

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

A couple of years ago director/screenwriter Magaña contacted me with a request to review his movie, 29 to Life (2018), which I did, found it mostly a pleasure to watch (still available on Amazon Prime) although with some limitations (as can be expected with an independent, low-budget project), so I was pleasantly surprised recently to hear from him again with an offer to review his latest work (also found on Amazon Prime, but there's little other information available except at IMDb where there’s a full cast list and a link to a few reviews, mine now included, and the official Facebook site), which I accepted, am glad I did, overall enjoyed watching this new arrival from a growing talent (with one notable complaint, but even there I might be in the minority), and actively encourage your awareness of What Love Looks Like (assuming you have membership in Amazon Prime—doesn’t everyone?—or are willing to pay for a rental, considerably cheaper than a first-run movie ticket, with no intended conflicts of interest for me [despite supporting all efforts to keep actual movie theaters in business; in this case you can see it only in streaming anyway] along with no remuneration in any manner to Two Guys in the Dark, just a sincere encouragement you’d likely find … Love … to be enjoyable, especially when shared with a romantic partner of your own—or if you don’t currently have one, maybe there are some useful tips here on how to make a desired connection, although getting a cute dog as a furry-icebreaker [as well as providing guaranteed companionship anyway] might be safer in the long run than trusting your luck with a ridehailing-driver). The premise isn’t complicated but does require attention to keep up with the actively-intercut-presentation of 5 contained, unconnected stories because if you don’t get initial clarity on the characters who inhabit each realm of this L.A. location (where these various folks could have run into each other, given the common setting of a public park where a good bit of the activity takes place) you might well confuse motives, actions, intentions, which would be your fault, not the filmmaker’s, because when watched attentively it all easily makes sense despite the frequent shifts from one storyline to another. Essentially what we have here (after some quick opening vignettes on cuddly-love-situations) are narratives about how 5 romantic pairs come about (with a couple of lost participants along the way) so I’ll begin with a quick summary, in the order in which we meet everyone on screen, of what the situations are for all of them (without attempting to cite how these plotlines are constantly, actively edited together), then I’ll shift into beware-of-spoilers-mode to note how they all end up with my advice not to ruin what you don’t yet know about … Love … until you see it for yourself, which I don’t think nearly enough potential viewers have done yet based on the scarcity of reviews at IMDb or actual comments beyond promo materials at the Facebook page.

We start with Nicole (Kate Durocher) and Owen (Josh Gilmer)—above—living together but hardly connected as he’s always face-buried into his phone, giving her constant frustration but reason to go have good times without him (all he cares about when she leaves is whether she’s left food for this lazy ingrate to consume), ultimately allowing her to meet ridehailing-driver Jace (Trevor Sean), whom she kisses at one point, then feels guilty about although Owen can’t stop engaging with his phone long enough to even warrant any dialogue about it. Next we find Summer (Jamie Sheinitz) and Calvin (Connor Wilkins) in bed after meeting on a dating app, but he’s leaving due to early work next morning which offends her, leaves him calling her a “psycho”; through encouragement by his buddy, Calvin uses another, more-anonymous, no-photo app leading to increasingly-connective-texts culminating in a planned lunch, but when Calvin peeks into the restaurant he sees his date is Summer so he leaves with no explanation. We may be a bit confused about Sam (Nathan Kohnen) at first because he seems to be with Willow (Gabriella Wisdom), then she’s gone, clarity restored when we learn they were married but she suddenly died; he eats his daily lunch at a nearby park where a connection around sandwiches and friendly chatter develops with Evie (Ashley Rose McKenna) until Sam backs off, unready for a new relationship but not explaining anything to Evie. That same park’s a crucial setting as well for Theodore (Jake Menzies) who desperately wants to meet Bailey (Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer), finally happens through their mutual dogs, leading him to contact her, go to dinner, where he’s so nervous he can barely eat. Finally, at that park again Finn (Kyle Meck) wanders away from a birthday party for his little sister, is smitten by seeing Penelope (Taylor Alexa Frank), a study-abroad-college-student from London scheduled to return home the next day. Once we’ve become incorporated into the lives of these mutually-exclusive-minigroups, much of how each story began continues similarly until their situations wrap up as follows. ⇒Nicole finally decides to move out leaving Owen surprised but still connected more to his phone than his feelings; by chance—and a lot of hustle on her part—Jace is back as her driver but obviously much more than that. Summer and Sam finally meet at night in that fateful park, lovingly resolve their differences. Willow somehow sends a written note to Sam, then appears again, encouraging him to move on which he does the next day with Evie, once again over sandwiches. In a very clever interlude, Theodore and Bailey simply have pizza at her place, watch Casablanca (but with young actors Kylee Wofford and Ian Nemser taking the place of Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in the airport farewell scene, apparently with rewritten dialogue as these Millennials would hear/interpret it—as best as Boomer me understands what’s going on here)—then fully connect. Finn sells everything he can, hops a plane to London, makes a connection as well with Penelope.⇐

Despite their similar long, brunette hair and denim jackets, don't confuse Penelope
(shown here kissing Finn) with Evie (back in that first photo at the top of this posting).

You get a sense right from the start this is all intended to be a light romantic comedy even if there are potentially serious aspects as well: Owen’s a 1-dimensional jerk, Willow’s death is a sad element, Summer and Calvin seem ill-matched at first. But none of this intentionally carries much trauma—nor is it supposed to—rather it’s all just a collection of observations on how difficult it can be to keep the heartfires burning when familiarity breeds indifference, get off on the right foot in a new relationship, get past shyness-driven-hesitation to better express yourself to someone you’d like to get closer to, overcome the pain of previous loss in order to try again with someone new, or make decisions you’d previously never consider when a rare opportunity presents itself.* Despite what I’m exploring in the footnote, below, though, I wasn’t as interested in the Finn-Penelope story as I was in the others; it seems a bit unnecessary in regard to what else could be developed in the other plotlines (although, overall most of them don’t have much depth so at least this gives us something further to be interested in) as well as a bit unlikely Finn could uproot himself so easily (but, at that age, people do make impulsive decisions—I, for example, began a short, failed first marriage at 23—so maybe I’m responding a bit too personally to this story element of … Love …).

*When I met my much-better-wife, Nina, almost 33 years ago our situations could have been similar to that of Finn and Penelope because she was seriously considering moving from Berkeley to London to start a new chapter in her life, a situation I’m not sure I’d have been able to respond to as decisively as Finn does because Nina had investigated job prospects there so she had a plan while if I’d been challenged with following her all the way across the Atlantic Ocean it would have been very difficult as I was 39 with no immediate skills to pursue in terms of employment in England (as best I knew) so I’m ever-grateful she chose to stay in the U.S. to see how things might develop between us (thankfully, she’s still here). Now, what Finn intended to do once he crossed “the pond” I’m not sure, but at a much younger age than I was in that circumstance maybe he would have had more possibilities (unless the almost-official-Brexit “divorce” from the European Union causes financial chaos, but that’s not among the topics What Love Looks Like wants to explore, now is it?).

Don't adjust your screen! This is the version of Casablanca used in What Love Looks Like,
not the original classic version starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.

I also couldn’t help thinking about another L.A.-based collection of characters, Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993), where 22 people from 3 foundational storylines do have considerable interactions (no primary park, though) starting with medfly spraying, ending with an earthquake, but that’s in a different universe from What Love Looks Like, using a famous director and a cast of well-known-stars, snagging some Golden Globe and Oscar noms (no wins though, being up against Schindler’s List [Steven Spielberg, 1993]), taking the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, but I’m sure Magaña wasn’t trying to emulate anything here, just entertain us with his own reflections on how charming, frustrating, challenging relationships can be, which he does a commendable job of, so I encourage you to seek it out for a worthy watch. I’ll finish this off with an obvious (to me) Musical Metaphor from The Beatles’ (yes, them again) soundtrack for their debut movie, A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964), songs released in the U.S. as a double-sided-single hit of "If I Fell," the question on the minds of the men in this movie, with "And I Love Her," showing their relieved-satisfaction when the relevant-women respond as they’d hoped. As with Bailey, who had to explain after the fact to tearful Theodore how when she suggested a “classic” romantic movie she really meant something from either the 1990s or early this century rather than (what I assume she felt) was more prehistoric in tone with (faux) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)—although she did seem charmed by his reaction to it—I doubt any of the connected characters in … Love … would find my Musical Metaphor to be how they’d describe their situations (some of them might not even know who The Beatles are, as I’ve seen surveys of my much-younger-countrypeople verifying that very phenomenon, so just dismiss me with “OK, Boomer”), but we all understand/interpret/rest secure in what best we know, what best matters to us, so I’ll keep my Fab Four tunes in place, happy they still mean something to me (and Nina) even as the situations in this movie don’t seem time-bound at all but recognizable across the full spectrum of generationally-separated-potential-viewers who might be able to agree that the frustrations, jitters, and triumphs so nicely-explored in What Love Looks Like have an ongoing, universal quality to them which hopefully could be appreciated by anyone of any age who enjoys the original Casablanca with its reminder to us all that “A kiss is still a kiss, A sigh is just a sigh, The fundamental things apply As time goes by." Today, and forever more.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

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*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

AND … at least until the Oscars for 2019’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, February 9, 2020 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which 2019 films have been nominated for and/or received various awards

and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike many of the awards voters who simply fill out ballots, sometimes for films they’ve never seen).

To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the current Golden Globe nominees and winners for films and TV from 2019 along with the Oscar nominees for 2019 films.

Here’s more information about Citizen K:

https://www.citizenkfilm.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfvQ7kSaPE (30:54 interview with director Alex Gibney)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Citizen_K

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/citizen-k

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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews—if that even seems possible—academic articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20^th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.

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.

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 (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 26,855 (as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week:

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

1917 and Short Takes on Bombshell

Warfare: Battlefield and Corporate

Reviews by Ken Burke

1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019) rated R

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): Director Mendes calls on what he still vividly recalls of his grandfather’s stories about battlefield exploits in World War I back in 1917 to present an historically-inspired-yet-ultimately-fictional-tale of 2 brave British corporals in combat in France tasked with walking (telecommunication lines are down) for hours across hostile territory to deliver an urgent message to a group of Allied soldiers to stand down from their planned attack the next day because it’s actually a German trap that would result in horrific slaughter. The sense of being immersed into this dangerous action where you never know when or how your next challenge might emerge is captured in a uniquely-effective-manner by editing together a series of long camera takes into what appears to be a seamless, real-time maneuvering of these 2 men as they overcome constant obstacles not only to save an entire battalion but also to protect the brother of one of these urgent couriers. While this story’s not based directly on exploits of Mendes’ ancestor during the “Great War" (if you can call it that, with all the horrific bloodshed from modern weapons of machine guns, tanks, airplanes, etc.; likewise it wasn't "the War to End All Wars" as we've learned often since then), stories of that combat inspired what we see here on screen. This has already won major awards from the Golden Globes and the Producers Guild, nominated for several top Oscars also, so see it if you can but until then beware of the spoiler-marked-material in the review below.

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

What Happens: April 6, 1917—World War I rages on after years in northern France as British battle Germans when Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) is suddenly ordered to choose a companion (he takes Lance Cpl. Will Schofield [George MacKay]), then report to Gen. Erinmore (Colin Firth) who tells them the Devonshire Regiment’s Second Battalion planning to attack what they mistakenly think is a retreat by the enemy but it's actually a brutal trap to annihilate 1,600 men, including Tom’s brother, Lt. Joseph Blake (Richard Madden). Further complication, the Germans slashed all the telephone/telegraph lines between Tom and Will’s present location and their distant destination, so the only way to deliver this essential order to halt the British attack is for these 2 soldiers to walk through no-man’s-land, an ordeal of anywhere from 6 to 8 hours depending on what obstacles they may face along the way. Will wants to wait until darkness descends, providing whatever help lower visibility offers regarding German snipers or small clusters of the Kaiser’s forces still in the area, but Tom insists they leave immediately to give them every chance to save his brother before the beginning of the surprise slaughter set for tomorrow. Off they go, making their way through barbed wire, mud, dead bodies from both sides, occasional sniper fire, and a crisis in abandoned German trenches when a rat runs across a trip wire setting off an explosion which buries, temporarily blinds Will until Tom rescues him before the whole structure collapses. Then they face their most direct challenge when a couple of Allied airplanes shoot down a German plane, followed suddenly by the downed aircraft hitting the ground, on fire, racing right at our guys. They avoid the collision, pull the injured pilot out of the wreckage even though his legs are burning, Tom yelling at Will to get water from a nearby pump. (Dear readers, I hate to insert the spoiler alert just below, so early into this review, but a crucial event happens which would be unethical for me to reveal, given what you’d expect about how this plot might develop based on the trailer or other spoiler-free-reviews you might read; curse me if you wish if you’re going to wait until you see this unique cinematic experience for yourself, but you’re just going to have to wait until you’ve visited a local theater [easy to do as it’s playing in plenty of them] to know what comes next as this nerve-wracking-film works its way to the eventual climax. Otherwise, if you’re seen 1917 already or are willing to wallow in spoiler territory feel free to read on because I’ll have to be just as circumspect in the other sections of this review so you may not get a full-enough-sense of this powerful film from what I can say in spoiler-free-terms. So sorry; it’s just the nature of the situation.)

*Whether you’ve seen this film yet or not, here’s a short video orientation (10:04) to many aspects about or relating to it, including Mendes’ career, a bit of history on WW I, details on the experiences of Sam’s grandfather during the war including carrying his own crucial message across enemy lines.

⇒Before Will can complete his rescue task, the battlefield determination of some combatants emerges prioritizing obligation to national intentions before humanitarian attempts at bridging the chasm of hatred these military men are trained to internalize, so the pilot attacks Tom with a knife, severely injuring his abdomen. Will shoots the German, killing him, but has no hope of keeping Tom from bleeding to death, which he does in short order, first passing on a family photo before he dies. Will removes Tom‘s rings and dogtag, determined to finish the mission, obviously for the sake of saving hundreds of Allied lives but also to honor his dead comrade (despite their occasional squabbles through rugged terrain up to this point) by helping keep his brother safe, in a situation somewhat reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998), set in WW II with a squad of American soldiers trying to protect a family’s last surviving son before he also might be killed. Soon Will encounters an Allied convey, allowing him a brief ride in a troop truck (hampered at one point by getting stuck in the mud, with Will leading a determined effort to push it loose so he can continue on his journey), but as they come upon the ruins of Écoust-Saint-Mein with the needed bridge for the convey to continue now destroyed Will‘s once again on foot, trying to make his way through the fiery remnants of the town when he’s shot at by a German sniper in a building close by. Carefully making his way up the stairs, Will kills his wounded adversary but not before being hit himself, knocking him unconscious for an unspecified length of time, with only night as he awakens offering any clue as to how long he’s been out. As he continues to work his way through the rubble he comes upon a Frenchwoman and her baby; she speaks a little English so they rudimentarily communicate, her patching up his wounds, him handing over the canned rations he’d earlier taken from the abandoned German trenches along with milk in his canteen from a lone cow back at an abandoned farm. As he continues on he’s chased by other Germans, escapes by jumping into a river, finally manages to stumble onto the Second Battalion at dawn, can’t get through the crowded trenches to give his orders to the commanding officer so he has to run across the deadly battlefield (attack’s just been launched) to reach Col. Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch), who bitterly agrees to obey orders by stopping his troops’ advance. With that task accomplished, Will finally finds Joseph, gives him the sad news of Tom’s demise plus the mementos, staggers to rest against a tree after his intense ordeal taking photos from his pocket of his wife and daughters with the message on the reverse side of one: “Come back to us,” for a last wistful thought before the final fadeout.⇐

So What? Much has been written/explored about this film, mostly on these 2 topics: (1) How the events of 1917 don’t directly recount but instead are inspired by Albert Mendes’ stories from his participation in WW I, including delivering an important message through active-combat-conditions, and (2) the seeming presentation of this narrative in what appears (except for the solemn fade to black when Will’s hit by a bullet when he kills the German sniper) to be a single shot running the almost-2-hours of the film’s screen time. On the first point, director/co-screenwriter (with Krysty Wilson-Cairns) Sam Mendes is clear this film’s not directly based on his ancestor's wartime actions nor is Will supposed to represent Albert; rather, 1917’s a tribute to all the brave warriors of that so-called “War to End All Wars,” inspired by Granddad’s stories about experiences which stayed with his talented grandson (many successes, my favorites being American Beauty [1999]—won Best Director Oscar—Revolutionary Road [2008], and the previous 2 James Bond movies, Skyfall [2012], Spectre [2015]) for years until this story emerged. As for the 1-shot look of the film, there’s lots you can find about that so here's a couple of videos I’ll share on this process: this first one (15:02 [beware of an ad at about 6:00]) discusses how cuts are hidden in the editing process (I was aware of the probability a couple of times when a character walks into a dark chamber, allowing a quick-but-unseen-transition, but even with long takes attempting to reduce the total number of shots needed there were an enormous number of such matches coming off as generally-imperceptible except to those who know where they are), info on cinematographer Roger Deakins,* along with some general history on WW I including how the cryptic date of April 6, 1917 is when the U.S. entered the war, although no Americans are seen here; the second one (10:19 [an ad's at the end]) goes into more detail on how the single-shot-concept was created and executed, including brief notes on previous uses of this technique in Rope (Alfred Hitchcock,1948) and Birdman (Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu, 2014; review in our November 6, 2014 posting). Yet, despite all this ongoing praise for 1917 along with fascination about its overwhelming planning and execution, making it a solid contender for Oscar’s Best Picture, here’s an argument on why it doesn’t deserve that high award. But what if I took it one better, challenging the whole concept of this film? Please read on.

*He won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017; review in our October 12, 2017 posting), has been nominated 13 more times for that award over his extensive career, with some of my favorites being Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), A Beautiful Mind (2001), No Country for Old Men (2007), Skyfall, and Sicario (2015), along with his Oscar winner and 1917 (all but the first and third of my little group were Oscar nominees for Deakins, so here’s the whole list).

Bottom Line Final Comments: While my 2019 Top 10 list won’t be finalized until my next posting (probably next week, but life’s never predictable) as I do a final pondering of what I’ve seen, why something’s somehow better than something else within a cluster of subjective decisions, I’m quite sure 1917 will be on it, but, like with Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019; review in our October 31, 2019 posting)—another almost-sure-inclusion—and Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019; review in our December 4, 2019 posting), which won’t quite make my cut, I’ve got a script continuity problem with 1917 notable enough to knock it down a few notches in my estimation of what could have been. I have no problem with anything on any screen taking some liberties with physics, history, or likely human reactions, but I do insist on narratives being consistent within themselves (how else could I enjoy series such as those involving King Kong, James Bond, or Luke Skywalker?), thus I’ve got some logic-within-the-story-problems with the 2019 celebrants just noted (see my reviews for details on these earlier ones), yet 1917’s the worst of all (unless I’ve totally missed something; if so, take me to task in the Comments section at the very end of this posting): Gen. Erinmore tells our besieged-travelers their mission will take at least 6 hours, yet even as I saw this film unfold in seeming-real-time I was aware it’s listed to run only 2 hours so was I in for a considerably-longer-perch in my seat than planned for? Well, no, even discounting the period Will was unconscious (doesn’t factor into tallying travel time!) the events occur in just 2 hours so how’s the lengthy mission accomplished with that notable temporal discrepancy? My concern doesn’t negate the marvelous cinematic choreography (leaving me to consider Mendes richly-deserving the Directing Oscar, even though I’m inclined toward Scorsese for The Irishman [2019; review in our November 21, 2019 posting], so I’m still mulling that over), but I just can’t ignore what seems to me to be a substantial 1917 narrative goof, even though the viewing experience as a whole is so powerful as to demand a 4 stars rating from me. (However, I’ve got another concern: I’m willing to believe Deakins is a master cinematographer, probably an Oscar frontrunner in his own right, but as I sat through the enormous list of special-effects-artists for 1917 I had to wonder how much of what we see on screen is from the camera, how much is created in post-production as visual effects? In our cinematic-viewing-reality of the preponderance of computer-generated/enhanced-imagery, this should continue to be a worthy concern where celebrating true, pure cinematography's in question.)

You’ll find the CCAL doesn’t share my concerns much, with Rotten Tomatoes providing 87% positive reviews, Metacritic with a 79% average score while audiences have been quite supportive as well with an ever-expanding-reach of domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters from 11 to 3,612 over the last month bringing in a domestic total of $81.5 million (worldwide gross of $144.6 million) to complement the Golden Globes wins of Best Motion Picture-Drama plus Best Director and the Producers Guild award of Best Picture, along with Oscar noms in such top categories as Picture, Director, Original Script, and Cinematography (curiously enough, not Editing—also, Parasite took the Screen Actors Guild award award for Ensemble Cast [their version of Best Picture], so keep that in mind as we’ll see what happens at the Oscars in a couple of weeks). In the meantime, you can listen to my Musical Metaphor wrapping up my thoughts on this film, using a tune Mendes chose for when Will found the Second Battalion as the soldiers all sat quietly listening to a comrade sing the early-19^th-century-American folk song, “I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger” (done here by Johnny Cash at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlbZAP8ASQ [I don’t know what album his version’s on or when it was released]), as the lyrics of “I know dark clouds will gather ‘round me I know my way is hard and steep But beauteous fields arise before me Where God’s redeemed, their vigils keep” speak also of Will and Tom’s arduous journey, especially Tom’s travels of “I’m just going over home” (there are only a few ordinary photos of Cash accompanying the audio so you might want to scroll down below the video screen to the lyrics, then you can sing along). Even with my concerns about chronological-clarity in events on-screen, I’m still very taken by 1917, encourage you to see it (even if you don’t care for war stories as, oddly enough, there are few actual scenes of combat here) for both the human drama of this difficult journey (extreme as it may be with one terrible obstacle after another cropping up in a bit of an over-plotted-manner—but, then again, this is war, where the unexpected is part of a never-ending-regimen) and the magnificent choreography of actor/camera movement (camera constantly flowing around to either follow human movements or serve as their destination), a feat of planning reminding me of the grand flow of action when a central character interacts with a wealth of historical personages in real time (no editing at all) through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum in Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, 2002) for 90 continuous minutes (shot in high-def video). You can call any such visual experiment more trickery than substance, but any film that I’ve cited here using this ongoing/flowing-hidden-cuts-technique (except Russian Ark which truly never stops, finally achieved what it was after on the 4^th take—final option, given the logistics of commandeering the museum for the day) never loses sight of a compelling story along the way, certainly is the case with 1917 (despite my conceptual complaints).

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

Bombshell (Jay Roach, 2019) rated R

Based in the reality of firing Roger Ailes as CEO of Fox News in 2016 after a revolt by many women he’d sexually harassed over the years—especially Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman)—there’s little new to see here, except a key fictional character (Margo Robbie), but it’s all generally well conceived and presented.

Here’s the trailer:

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

I’m quite late in reviewing this hot-button-movie about the downfall of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) as head of Fox News in 2016, especially as it’s been out for 6 weeks, but other options kept jumping ahead with my vow to see it before the Oscar nominations came out so I could mull over my own sense of top contenders in the major awards categories before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made their decisions public. Given how long I took to get to Bombshell, I was lucky to find it at as it’s dropped from 1,721 domestic theaters down to a mere 410 last weekend so it was almost gone even in my San Francisco Bay area (I’m surprised it didn’t get bigger coverage after being out for 6 weeks, but at the end of 2019 it competed with a lot of others vying for entertainment dollars [it got a marginal amount: $29.4 million domestically, $31.9 million globally] and recognition from various awards groups, which has paid off in nominations: Golden Globes: Charlize Theron—Best Actress, Motion Picture Drama, Margot Robbie—Best Supporting Actress, Motion Picture; Screen Actors Guild: Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Theron—Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, Robbie and Nicole Kidman—Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role; Oscars: Robbie—Best Supporting Actress [also Best Makeup and Hairstyling], plus a lot of other noms/wins summarized here); however, depending on how the Oscars go none of these major considerations have resulted in a trophy yet, reflecting reality of strong competition in those acting categories as well as tepid audience response (by comparison, a far-less-significant-movie, Bad Boys for Life [Adil El Arbi, Bilail Fallah] took in about twice as much in its domestic-debut-weekend, $62.2 million [global $112 million] than Bombshell’s earned in its lengthy marketplace presence [of course, Bad Boys … also benefitted from opening at 3,775 venues; whether the dynamic of male stars—Will Smith, Martin Lawrence for Bad Boys ...—vs. female stars for Bombshell played into this difference would be a relevant topic for focus groups to argue over]). Another factor possibly constraining response to Bombshell is TV’s Showtime miniseries from summer 2019 on the same topic, The Loudest Voice, which recently won a Golden Globe Best Actor-Miniseries or Television Film award for Russell Crowe as Ailes, an even more chilling depiction than Lithgow’s bloated, creepy version in Bombshell (given Ailes’ support of the Presidencies of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and—especially—Donald Trump, there may also have been disinterest from loyal Fox News viewers who didn’t care to see their hero tarnished, even if there’s little you could say in his favor given his documented ruthlessness as a person and disgusting sexual policies toward his female employees [especially the most-attractive-ones, a point made clear in both tellings]). As for me, I enjoyed Bombshell for its intentions and acting (Theron and Robbie are in my top 5 of any female actor categories), but didn’t really find it making a dent in my 2019 Top 10 films (more on that topic soon).

Here’s yet another “dramatization inspired by actual events” (of which there were plenty on-screen in 2019) with Robbie’s Kayla Pospisil (a “Millennial evangelical,” eager to be a Fox star—until she gets a taste of what that takes in Ailes’ office as she constantly has to hike up her already-short-dress to the point of seeing her underwear) as the most obvious “dramatization,” because she’s a composite character whereas Ailes, Megyn Kelly (Theron), Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), and many others in this story including Rupert Murdoch (Malcolm McDowell), Bill O’Reilly (Kevin Dorff), Rudy Giuliani (Richard Kind), Geraldo Rivera (Tony Plana) are all reality-based, with even some actual Fox News footage used to give more tangibility to depicted events about Ailes’ lecherous treatment of his female employees leading to Carlson publically accusing him of sexual harassment after being fired (notably just after she voiced support for restrictions on assault weapons), then leading to Kelly taking the same approach, shocked to find out in her initial meeting with lawyers she’s the 23^rd woman to testify as evidence was being gathered (Carlson made the most impact, though, because she spent a year secretly recording her private conversations with Ailes, which seemed to finally give his publically-supportive-wife, Beth [Connie Britton] reason to see the truth in what eventually became an avalanche of accusations). There’s little to hide as spoiler revelations because most of these events are already well-known (see this video [12:28] for the top 10 things Bombshell got right, at times using clips from Fox News to verify the arguments, along with the second item in the Related Links section of this posting where the real Megyn Kelly and others formerly from Fox discuss their reactions to Bombshell) even if some of it’s been fictionalized for dramatic purposes (but not Donald Trump’s attacks on Kelly after she co-moderated a 2016 GOP debate, put him on the spot for his crude remarks about women). ⇒However, Robbie’s character’s a fictional composite so I can go into spoiler alert mode about her because you won’t find anything in the historical accounts. In Kayla’s attempts to move up from the supportive-staff-pit she got assigned to Bill O’Reilly’s show but was fired on her first day (back to the pit), so she commiserates/gets drunk/sleeps with cubicle-mate Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon)—another fictional character I assume—waking up the next day to proclaim she’s not a lesbian; Carr is, though, as well as being a secret Hilary Clinton supporter, keeping all of her private info hidden because she desperately needs the job. At the end, when Ailes is fired, Kayla quits (Jess doesn’t, despite her agreement with the women who’ve come forward, because previous attempts at other network jobs weren’t successful). Kayla’s lost her eagerness to be part of what Fox News had previously meant to her but argues with Megyn that this more powerful woman (with a prime-time-anchor position) should have spoken up in defense of other women harassed by Ailes (actual Ms. Kelly speaks even-handily to the situation at the end of that second item for this movie in Related Links just below).⇐

Given my watching of The Loudest Voice (and memories of this crisis for Fox News, which I celebrated then but have sadly seen their prestige as cable-news-ratings-champ continue along with unwavering fawning over Trump), I didn’t learn much from this latest iteration of Ailes’ demise (fired in July 2016, denied in his request to Murdock for both to announce it publically, died in May 2017)—not a fault of the film, just a coincidence of near-overlapping-stories—but I was more impressed than some in the OCCU with RT offering 69% positive reviews (one of their “rotten”-deciders [83 of 264] is Leonard Maltin: “Bombshell resembles nothing so much as a TV movie with an inflated budget and an all-star ensemble. That’s hardly a recommendation to run out and see it in theaters”), MC at an almost-equal 64% average score (Stephanie Zacharek of Time is impressed with the concept but doesn’t see Kelly as so all-heroic: “as Megyn Kelly, [Theron’s] like a Hitchcock blonde with all the allure drained from her […] as she plays a woman who, in real life, argued that Santa and Jesus unequivocally had to be white […] Bombshell is a story of bravery. But just because a woman has made history doesn’t mean you have to like her”). Despite such rejections, I’m glad I saw Bombshell, applaud its filmmakers for bringing an aspect of rampant misogyny in the American workplace (and other societies, I’m sure) to bright light in an easily-accessible-form using famous actors to help lure audiences in with hopes such exposure of Ailes, O'Reilly, and their ilk will make some difference in how this intolerable behavior has often been ignored (how’s your sweat-factor, Harvey Weinstein?)—although any sense of justice at Fox News is weakened by how the many female victims got a total $50 million settlement ($20 mil of that to Carlson, not allowed to speak publically about it) while the 2 offenders got a severance total of $65 million ($40 mil to Ailes). Maybe I do see this well-intentioned, well-produced movie as akin to a big-budget HR required-harassment-awareness-video even if it’s a useful addition to needed public dialogues about movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp, but beyond the recognized-quality of the principal actors, it just doesn’t inspire me to the full 4 stars-rating I initially considered (possibly more direct address from Kelly throughout, as we got in the opening scenes, would have heightened its impact). The message is clear, though, leading me to a Musical Metaphor about Ailes and his sexist-power-monger-allies (including Trump by his own boastful-admission in the "Grab 'em" audio), “Piggies” (from the 1968 2-disc The Beatles [“the White Album”]) at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=t0nzZ8-kIf0, sometimes interpreted as an insult to cops (given the protest-era when it was written) but George Harrison notes it was inspired by George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm (with its pushy pigs), where the corrupt barnyard rulers epitomized “Everywhere there’s lots of piggies living piggy lives You can see them out for dinner with their piggy wives Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.” At least Ailes and others like him finally found out how it feels to be on the other end of such utensils when their fed-up-victims called them out about “crawling in the dirt.”

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the current Golden Globe nominees and winners for films and TV from 2019 along with the Oscar nominees for 2019 films.

Here’s more information about 1917:

https://www.1917.movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldOU2yCTbdE (24:52 discussion with director/co-screenwriter Sam Mendes, actors George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, co-screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and cinematographer Roger Deakins)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1917_2019

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/1917

Here’s more information about Bombshell:

https://bombshell.movie (a pedestrian official site at best)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmSz7HqkI9s (29:51 video of Megyn Kelly’s response to this movie, along with Juliet Huddy, Rudi Bakhtiar, Julie Zann, and Megyn’s husband, Doug Brunt—all

3 of Kelly’s female former Fox co-workers lost their jobs and haven’t worked in TV news since—

most of what they saw in the movie they liked, even had emotional reactions to [as well to their

own horrid experiences with Roger Ailes—and Fox News D.C. head Brian Wilson with Bakhtier],

but Kelly clarifies a few notable bits of fantasy worked into the script)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bombshell_2019

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/bombshell

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

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 29,450 (as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week: