Tenet plus Short Takes on Holidate, suggestions for TCM cable offerings, and other cinematic topics

Prepare to Expect the Unexpected

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.

 As I post this the election results for President and control of the U.S. Senate are still unresolved based on votes that continue to be counted.  I hope for victories for Joe Biden and a majority of Senate Democrats, but clarity on either of those situations might not be resolved for awhile based on recounts, legal challenges, etc.  For now, I’ll say I hope that if you made a decision to vote that you were able to do so, that your vote has been recorded, and you’re able to celebrate/tolerate whatever the final outcomes might be.  In the meantime, you might be interested in this exploration of “connections” (?) between winners of U.S. Presidential elections and Best Picture Oscar choices from 1928-2016 (although we’ll have to wait until next spring to learn Oscar champs for 2020 films).

              

                   Tenet (Christopher Nolan)   rated PG-13

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Last week I noted this current posting might be a little late if I got too occupied with prior/actual/aftermath activities regarding the long-awaited (dreaded?) November 3, 2020 Election Day events; accordingly, I intended to watch only 1 new movie for review this week.  I chose the innocuous rom-com Holidate so I wouldn’t have to devote too much energy to it (my wife, Nina, and I did watch The Shining [Stanley Kubrick, 1980] on Halloween night just for the sense of the day [still very creepy, even when you know what’s coming next, scarier than the original Stephen King book {1977} for me]), but early Saturday afternoon delivered a big surprise in an email from Cinemark Theaters about my local screening rooms open to the public again, so I finally had a chance to see Tenet, which I’d been hoping to do somehow for a couple of months … but was I willing to chance my 72-year-old, male, type A-blood body (all riskier conditions for the coronavirus than for others) in an indoor space with strangers?  However, because you need to buy tickets in advance I could easily see the auditorium was empty so Nina (with pre-existing-conditions of her own) and I quickly chose our seats, raced off to stunning downtown Hayward, CA, our first such venture since the end of last February (by the time the show started [after 20 minutes! of previews] 5 others did show up, but there was plenty of distancing so we just concentrated on the film, with no one close enough to be bothered by my little flashlight-pen, me not having to clean my glasses too often from the usual effects of facemask-breath [somehow they stayed unfogged after the first 10 min.; maybe my lungs were as intent on the complex events on-screen as was my brain so they went into an inversion of their own, expelling oxygen instead of carbon dioxide—a plot-point in Tenet—or maybe my body was just in state of suspended animation for this entire projection-duration]).  

 Anyway, Tenet, as I’ll detail below, turned out to be the most challenging Nolan film yet (at least for me), so I’ll do my best to give it the attention it deserves even though I’m barely in command of what I saw, can’t completely agree with what I understand to be the logic of the film, yet still found it to be extremely fascinating as events keep shifting between past and present, forcing a lot of attention to even begin to comprehend what’s going on.  As for Holidate (found on Netflix streaming), noted briefly in the Short Takes section, it’s a pleasant-enough-diversion about 2 young adults not looking for attachments who agree to be each others’ “+ 1” on a year’s worth of holidays, although you know the plot can’t stay that simple.  Also in that section I’ll offer suggestions for some choices on the Turner Classic Movies channel (but too much extra text for line-justified-layout like you see here [Related Links stuff at each posting’s end is similarly-ragged], at least to be done by this burned-out-BlogSpot-drone—oh, tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.

Here’s the trailer for Tenet:

                   (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate 

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

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $.  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid those 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: (I’ll be honest from the beginning here [often takes much longer than that]: I’ve seen this film, took notes on it and reviewed them, located a couple of explanatory videos about the complexities of the plot [cited below in this review-section], even watched an analysis of the science behind the plot [second item connected to this title in the Related Links section far below], all of which have still left  me unable to confidently summarize what goes on in Tenet, so read on as you will, see the film if you choose/are able to, then feel free to unload in the Comments section at the very end of this posting on what I’m missing with the confusions I note [assuming you make more sense of it than I did].  I enjoyed Tenet, but if I had to fully explain how one action follows [precedes?] another, I wouldn’t be very successful.)  Given that this plot has events constantly jumping from our present into the near past or vice versa (it’s clear in this storyline objects can be sent from the future into our present, but I’m not sure if people can go into the actual future—not the future of a past that’s actually just our present [I figured I might as well write about this complex film in a manner reflecting its comprehension-difficulty]), I’m not going to attempt to summarize where the action’s taking place scene-by-scene but instead will offer a quasi-chronological-exploration of the on-screen-happenings, although you’d have to watch Tenet (probably more than once) to actually get a sense of how all of this functions when seen in real-running-time (2½ hours, so be sure to visit the restroom before settling in—and consider going soon, as COVID-19 increases may require more shutdowns).

 So, sometime in the far-off-future of our planet, the remaining human race, burdened by the climate-change-crisis produced by human activity of our era, decides the only way to preserve themselves is to set up a massive-entropy-inversion which will flow backward in time, eliminating all life on Earth (how that’s going to preserve them if they don’t follow our existence isn’t clear to me [among much else about Tenet], unless they’ve got some sort of off-planet-dwelling-devices like those of the saved Earthlings in Interstellar [Nolan, 2014; review in our February 13, 2014 posting]—or even WALL-E [Andrew Stanton, 2008]).  To accomplish this a brilliant future scientist invents an Algorithm capable of such destruction, then regrets her invention so she somehow encodes it into a 9-part-device (about the size of a bazooka when assembled), then sends those pieces to be hidden in various locations around the world during our time in hopes her discovery would never be put to use.  However, others in the future are determined to activate it so they send a metal structure (the size of a small footlocker) containing gold bars, explanations of the Algorithm device to former Soviet city Stalsk-12, contaminated by nuclear accidents, now not found on any map but still inhabited by poor, desperate people, where it would be found by a destitute teenager, Andrei Sator.  With this wealth-foundation, he grows into a fierce Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) who’s now retrieved 8 pieces of the Algorithm device; once it’s complete he’s to bury it with a huge explosion so it will be safely hidden until the future folks recover it, use it to invert Earth’s entropy, destroying all that has existed.

 With those several understandings as useful (?) background (revealed piece-by-piece as the film progresses), the actual plot begins at a symphony concert in a Kyiv opera house where masked CIA operatives, including our protagonist (John David Washington), simply called the Protagonist in the credits, never referred to by name in the story (clever, Mr. Nolan), rush into the building after it’s been invaded by helmeted-masked-terrorists (agents of Sator, we later surmise) who’ve released a gas into the environment putting everyone to sleep in their quest for the missing Algorithm element, which actually is found during the melee by the Protagonist (from here on out, I’ll just call him John), but then he’s captured by a couple of the Russians who intend to kill him; instead he manages to swallow a cyanide pill preferring suicide to a painful death.  However, it turns out the capsule was really a sleeping pill, he’s still alive after having been extracted by the CIA secret team Tenet, which recruits him to save our species (why him is revealed at the very end) so he visits a scientist, Barbara (Clémence Poésy), who explains the time-inversion-situation to him (where objects, such as bullets at this point) can travel backward in time through entropy-inversion (where the eventual chaos of universal-dispersion as predicted by the Second Law of Thermodynamics [I think] is reversed so that time and motion travel backward for objects [and people] given this unique ability of movement).  Next stop for John is Mumbai, India where he and college Neil (Robert Pattinson) reverse-rappel up a building to confront Priya Singh (Dimple Kapadia) about where she got these “magic” bullets, so she directs them to Sator, a seemingly-unreachable embodiment of power; they plan to contact him through his estranged wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), an art appraiser who once unknowingly sold her husband a fake Goya drawing for millions, a situation he uses to control her through threatening to expose her mistake, ruining her career, also giving him the opportunity to keep her away from their little son, Max (Laurie Shepherd).  John’s plan is to use a jetliner to ram into the secure Freeport building at the Oslo, Norway airport where Sator keeps his priceless art to grab the “Goya,” freeing Kat from Sator’s domination, securing her as an ally in Tenet's larger needs.

 While in Freeport John and Neil discover a “Turnstile” (looks like a light-blocking revolving door sometimes used to safely enter/exit photo darkrooms) used for those inversions from past-to-present/present-to-past, with a couple of masked-men suddenly jumping out of it, attacking our guys with John having an especially-difficult-battle with his opponent, whom Neil allows to escape after unmasking the other man (more on that later)—oh, did I forget to mention those who are inverted need to wear an oxygen mask while in the past because in their reversed state they’d be mainly breathing in carbon dioxide (interesting point, but I don’t see it being used consistently as various characters take journeys into the past—hmm?).  Next, we’re in a sailboat off the Amalfi Coast, Italy where Kat introduces John to Sator (he still has the “Goya” after all); during a boat race Kat attempts to drown Sator but John rescues him, then offers to help him recover some Plutonium-241 (I’m sure in some alternative-universe this evolves into the events of Back to the Future [Robert Zemeckis, 1985]).  From here, the narrative really speeds along so I’ll have to get more concise, encouraging you (if you’re ready for extensive spoilers) to consult this video (15:05) and/or this one (14:37 [interrupted by ads at about 6:00, 10:50]) for more plot details, along with attempted explanations of what this story’s all about.  (The first one especially, though, comes at you about as fast as the film does, so it’s not too easy to follow; the other one notes the “grandfather paradox” which, to me, negates much of what happens in Tenet even as it’s used early on to explain why the past can’t be changed even if we do travel into it; there’s also a point made in the film about not coming in contact with your past/present self after using the Turnstile so as to not alter space-time continuity, but that’s also challenged in the flow of filmic events we find in Tenet so I’d like to have Nolan clarify all of this.)

 ⇒Essentially, what happens from this point to the end is John and Neil ambush a convoy to steal the “Plutonium,” which is actually the final piece of the Algorithm device John lost control of back in Kyiv, but then they’re involved in a high-speed chase with Sator and his thugs determined to get the device, even as Sator has Kat captive as a hostage in one of these fast-moving cars (some going backward); ultimately, John hides the device but is captured, Sator shoots Kat who’ll soon die as a Tenet team lead by Ives (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) rescues John as Sator uses another Turnstile to jump into the past.  Somehow (I’m not sure) they need to get Kat back to the time of the Oslo airport damage to heal her (in the process this John’s revealed as the inverted-opponent earlier-John fought before [his helmet never came off so only Neil knew the truth, which is why he let the mystery guy get away previously]) a task they accomplish, after which Neil reveals he’s a member of Tenet.  Apparently (I think) they all continue to invert into the past to a time when Kat and Sator were last happy, but present-Kat goes to the yacht with her husband (while past-Kat and the kid are ashore), knowing Sator’s dying of pancreatic cancer (from early-life-radiation-exposure) so he’s determined to kill himself which will somehow detonate the Algorithm device (rather than just burying it) because in his ego-driven-mind he’s determined everyone else should die if he must.  Kat’s supposed to keep him alive while John, Neil, and Ives get the Algorithm device and disassemble it to prevent its use.⇐

 ⇒As all of this comes to a climax, Kat shoots Sator anyway in anger while far away (in Stalsk-12, northern Siberia) 2 of our heroes are kept from the underground Algorithm device by a locked gate (why it didn’t detonate upon Sator’s death I don’t know) while a Russian thug on the other side shoots at John; suddenly what seems to be a dead body jumps up to take the bullet, saving John, then unlocks the gate before dying.  From above this cave Neil pulls John and Ives to safety before the bomb goes off, then they spilt the device back into its components, each of them taking 3 pieces.  Before John and Neil part ways, though, Neil reveals a lot: In the future we’ve never seen John’s the one who founds Tenet to which he recruited Neil years ago, and, while it’s not stated explicitly, we deduce Neil inverted himself from this departure moment back to the cave where he saved John before dying in his stead but also further clues, detailed in those videos above and in this timeline of Neil (9:16 [ad interruptions at about 4:00, 6:40]), we learn he’s actually Kat’s son, Maximilien, so everything we’ve seen of him must be inversion as his future adult self moves back in time to work with John before John knew of his existence.  (Now, meditate on all that for a while.)⇐ 

So What? Back in early 2012 I went with Nina and our now-departed (sadly-missed) friend, Mario Cavallari, to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011; review in one of Two Guys earliest postings, January 6, 2011, where I marginally-linked it with Freud and Jung clashing in A Dangerous Method [David Cronenberg, 2011 {I was already making a case to be paid handsomely by the word even then, although the graphic layout of the posting leaves much to be desired; hopefully, you’d think it’s improved since then}]) at one of our favorite Landmark Theaters in Berkeley, CA although the sound quality wasn’t all that great so none of us (who’ve since gotten hearing aids to help overcome situations like that, even Mario before he died in 2016) really caught the dialogue all that well (as I noted in that long-ago-review, I saw it again a few days later at another theater where the sound was considerably better; thus, I was finally able to make better sense of the plot).  Yet, we all marveled at how well we enjoyed the film because even when we weren’t all that sure what was going on the acting, flow of the narrative, general sense of intrigue was so compelling we found ourselves in a positive state of mind about Tinker … while still wondering, “What in the hell was that all about?”  After our almost 8-month-hiatus from public movie-going to see Tenet, Nina immediately noted as the lights came up (by then we were the only ones who stayed for all of the extensive credits as this thing was shot all over the globe, used a wealth of special effects) that Tenet, for her (and me), is just like Tinker … in that we couldn’t begin to offer a coherent recap of the plot (some of that linked again to mix quality of the audio track which I’ve read some complaints about, especially when a few of the female actors were speaking, so those hearing aids acquired last summer would have truly been useful in their inaugural voyage to a moviehouse as intended except we don’t usually wear them when we’re also using glasses and antiviral-masks because it just gets too crowded on the backs on our ears with all 3 items piled up there, plus in a early trip with the acoustic-enhancers for grocery shopping when I took off my mask to drive home I ended up dropping an aid on my condo staircase, loosened when I removed the mask [thankfully retrieved later because replacing those things is damn expensive!]), but it was marvelous just to watch all of that activity swirl past on screen, as we vaguely followed a save-the-planet-quest through this chaos.

 As much as I’d like to say that after contemplation of what I’ve seen plus the various explanations from the videos cited in the previous section of this review (along with the useful plot summary in Wikipedia) I really “get” what Nolan’s accomplished in this most-complex, mind-boggling film, I can’t find that level of satisfaction because there are just too many seeming-contradictions in just the narrative-logic of the story itself, not to mention the failed-physics-arguments presented below in a video in the Related Links section.  But, so as not to ruin anything in my recitation of confusions I’ll enter spoiler-announcement-mode again before proceeding.  ⇒(1) Given the explanation early on in the film about the “grandfather paradox” which insists events must continue as they always have even if someone journeys into the past and tries to correct them, then how could some of what we see here even happen, especially present-Kat killing Sator when she obviously didn’t do that back when they were vacationing in Vietnam (not too long ago, though, given young Max was with past-Kat on that day and he hasn’t aged all that much since then). (2) In that same Vietnam redux scene it’s clear we’re seeing present-Sator so where’s past-Sator?  (We know that multiple versions of a character from different time frames can co-exist.)  For that matter, past-Kat sees present-Kat jumping off the boat (leading past-Kat to assume her husband’s having an affair, the beginning of their marriage deterioration) after the shooting so Sator should be dead, yet he goes on for the duration of this story’s chronology up until his final leap into the past. (3) The bomb-burial of the Algorithm device didn’t happen during whenever Kat and Sator were originally vacationing in Vietnam so how could it happen now? (4) I understood that these inversions of entropy into the past had to be accomplished by whirling around in a Turnstile, yet at the end Neil somehow manages to whisk himself into that cave with the Algorithm device to save John, so did he have one hidden over the hillside somewhere or did he have to travel some distance before he was able to locate a Turnstile? (5) When John first inverts into the past he finds in regard to his own forward motions all those around him (except anyone who came with him in a Turnstile) are moving backward relative to him (although his forward trajectory is actually moving him further into the past, even if it’s just for a few minutes) yet as I recall what I saw not everything in those past scenes continues to move backward the entire time John and others are there. (6) In that the Neil we see must be an inversion from the future after John recruited him into Tenet, why isn’t anything/anyone moving backward relative to him or why isn’t he moving backward relative to everything else whenever we see him?

 Nolan’s never failed to amaze me with his challenging explorations of our expectations of how linear time along with motion are supposed to function; thus, from Memento (2000) to Inception (2010) to Interstellar (2014; review in our November 13, 2014 posting) I’ve watched, pondered, and generally understood where he’s going with his complex plots, fascinated with the grand imagination he’s produced (just as I was equally satisfied with his more-straightforward-Batman trilogy [2005, 2008, 2012], The Dark Knight [2008] being the best superhero movie I’ve ever witnessed).  In Tenet (a clever palindrome title reading the same forward or backward, referencing the plot’s entropy/time inversions), though, I’m either a bit too overwhelmed with what he’s trying to accomplish or maybe I'm being a bit too dense to fully follow his structure whereas others may be more accepting (even if not understanding plot nuances) or better-comprehending of it.  Still, if you simply accept this as an adventure quest where a challenged hero must accomplish seemingly-impossible tasks to preserve civilization (a theme easily taking us back to primitive through more-refined mythologies of ancient eons in human history), it’s a hell of an exciting ride which is well worth venturing out to the theaters for (depending on crowd size, your health, or other relevant factors) so do watch it if you can (maybe you can explain it better to me if you do) or keep it in mind when a DVD version becomes available.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Actually, that DVD delivery-date may not be too far off, possibly by Christmas 2020 according to this article (which also contains its own link to another attempt at explaining the film if you’d like to give it a try as well, knowing before you read the second one that spoilers abound, of course).  Unlike just about anything else I’ve reviewed over the many months since February 2020, Tenet actually has box-office-results (based on its widest release of 2,930 North American theaters; not clear how many it’s in now, although it was down to 1,801 for the weekend of October 23-25, 2020) I can report to you: after being in domestic (U.S.-Canada) markets for 9 weeks Tenet’s gross is about $53.8 million, then a global take of $347.1 million which would normally be a hefty studio (Warner Bros.) delight, but given the huge budget of this film ($205 million) and the extensive additional costs of marketing it may not even break even, certainly won’t triumph as the financial powerhouse it was projected to be prior to the pandemic (although Nolan disagrees).  It’s not exactly a runaway success with the CCAL critics either, as Rotten Tomatoes provides 71% positive reviews while Metacritic is surprisingly close (as they are with Holidate, noted below) with their 69% average score (more details in the Related Links section farther below).  While I’m familiar with hardly anyone in this RT cluster of 276 critics, of those few I know I can easily agree with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone who says “If anything can put movie junkies back in their multiplex seats — masked, of course, and safely distanced — this groundbreaker is the one to do it. […] the figures on this particular checkerboard may lack backstories and the luxury of full development. But their struggle to connect to their better angels remains urgently relatable. Set to the throb of a galvanizing score by Ludwig Göransson, Tenet sweeps you away on waves of pure, ravishing cinema.”  On the other hand, another writer I’ve long respected, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune represents the naysayers: “There are some beautiful backward sights to behold: exploded buildings magically reassembling, or bullets zwooping back, in reverse motion, into the weapons from whence they came. But the movie has a way of tripping over itself, whichever direction it’s going, when it’s time to talk turkey about World War III or the Tesseract-level-scary ‘algorithm’ everybody’s after. Some movies make it a tantalizing challenge to keep up. ‘Tenet’ makes it not much fun, and Nolan the producer would surely acknowledge Nolan the screenwriter made things extra-tough on Nolan, the director.”  I don’t fully accept such dissent, but it’s a decent critique.

 In finishing my comments on Tenet I’ll offer you my usual closure-device of a Musical Metaphor for the film; this time, though, I'm using one which doesn’t capture all of Tenet's nuances by any means but does get to the heart of what each of these main characters desires, a method to manipulate time to bring about more desired outcomes than what fate seems to have had in store for them, Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” (from his 1972 album You Don’t Mess Around with Jim) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=i6rLH-X5fR8 because I think the Protagonist, Neil, Kat, and Sator would all embrace the chance to rearrange time (they certainly have the technology to do so, feasible physics or not) as each of them attempts in their various situations, with some of those temporal manipulations more successful (and easier to comprehend) than others.  Some of their wishes would be about more-embraceable romantic or familial times (“The first thing that I’d like to do Is to save every day ‘Til eternity passes away Just to spend them with you”)—Kat and Andrei in their better years, Kat with her son when he’s finally fully hers, even the subtle sparks I sense between “John” and Kat (possibly the reason he’s so intent on saving her life)—others are just in response to how complex life can be even when you can revisit its outcomes (“But there never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do Once you find them”).  This song was sung by one of my close friends back in the mid-1970s at the wedding of 2 other close friends, a touching tribute for a couple still married; conversely, Croce died at age 30 in 1973 in a plane crash, never getting to fully enjoy the quiet family life shown in the official video for his song noted above (he wrote it after finding out his wife, Ingrid, was pregnant in 1970).  We dream of conquering time, finding ways to extend it when it seems too short or change its results as in Tenet, a wish usually fulfilled only in dreams as fate continues to have its way with us, no matter how we may yearn to revisit, retool our past actions.

                       

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

                  Holidate (John Whitesell)   rated TV-MA

An unattached woman and man (both satisfied with their singlehood-status) are tired of being hassled by family and friends to have dates for special occasions so they become “holidates,” uninvolved friends who claim to be in a relationship just for the sake of appearances; this is a pleasant-enough romantic comedy with some good moments but there's nothing special overall.

Here’s the trailer for Holidate:

        Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.

 Had Holidate been my lead review this week (actually, the only one I’d planned before Tenet suddenly appeared), I doubt I could have stretched my thoughts into a multi-paragraph-analysis.  It’s cute, predictable, has some decent laughs, is certainly relatable for anyone facing a holiday with no significant (or even mildly-connected) other to share it with but has to contend with constant input from family and/or friends about why he/she’s still facing times of celebration with no one to enhance the joy of the occasion.  But, once the concept’s in place the follow-through could easily be written by anyone watching it, so unless you just need a distraction during this antagonistic-political/dangerous-medical/increasingly-depressing-socioculturall season (the suggestion of one of my local critics as to why one might be interested in such light fare during these dark times—now literally-darker earlier with the removal of Daylight Saving Time as winter’s “rounding the curve,” laying in wait) you won’t find much here to remember except the leads are lovely to look at while the supporting actors are having a marvelous time with their limited options.  The conceptual-premise is 2 young adults—Sloane (Emma Roberts), who works from home (I’m not clear what she does), and Jackson (Luke Bracey), an Australian golf pro now living in the U.S.—are burned out on relationships given the failed ones they’ve both recently had, are tired of being nagged by relatives or friends about not having dates for such events as family Christmas dinner (where Sloan’s further put upon when brother York [Jake Manley] suddenly proposes to girlfriend Liz [Cynthy Wu]), so when Sloane and Jackson accidently meet up at a mall they make a pact to be each other’s “holidate”* (just friends, no sex) for everything from New Year’s Eve to next Christmas just to avoid the hassle of always having to justify their singlehood (especially with Sloane’s Mom, Elaine [Frances Fisher], pushing her to meet a family-friend, Dr. Faarooq [Manish Dayal]).  It starts out fine—except for the New Year’s Eve dance to “Time of My Life” where Sloane runs across the floor, leaps up to be held aloft by Jackson, until a “wardrobe malfunction” exposes a breast, leading him to drop both of them to the ground—but over time they squabble, despite their clearly-developing-mutual-attraction (no spoiler, too obvious).

*Apparently, this is a real thing, although it does involve lying to everyone about the “relationship” this convenient date provides and probably isn’t something a lot of people will need to use as an excuse anyway in these days of COVID-19 semi-isolation (if not actual lockdowns/quarantines as the deadly pandemic’s on the rise again worldwide).  Nevertheless, Sloane’s over-the-top-mentor in this activity is raunchy Aunt Susan (Kristin Chenoweth) whose holiday-dates aren’t secrets at all, just pickups from one event to the next with no assumption of anything beyond her immediate pleasures.

 For the sake of anyone who wants to see this well-intended-silliness (on Netflix streaming; members only now they’ve dropped the 30-day-free-trial [while raising their prices; see Other Cinema-Related Stuff farther below]) I’ll shift into spoiler mode about how the plot proceeds to closure: ⇒Jackson gets a finger blown off at a 4^th of July party, has it reattached then gets stoned at the hospital with Sloane (Faarooq’s the doctor, ends up with Aunt Susan), by Christmas Sloane and Jackson split, reconnect.⇐  Again, it’s a pleasant enough romp with likeable-lead-characters—Sloane’s generous enough on that previously-noted-New Year’s Eve to switch dresses with a woman who’s mortified because she spilled red wine on her white gown when she’s sure she’s getting a marriage proposal so Sloane gives up her sleek black dress, boldly dances on in one that looks like she had a menstrual mishap; in a Valentine’s Day scene Sloane miserably runs into old flame Luc (Julien Marlon) with his new love Felicity (Nicola Peltz), situationally-saved by Jackson who suddenly shows up, acts the part of a real boyfriend—but overall little goes on here of much intrigue (at least for me); as an example, here’s an article about a “great” unscripted moment that made the final cut which is nothing more than Roberts tossing a piece of Valentine’s Day chocolate at Bracey who catches it in his mouth (!?), evidence of how innocuous this whole 103 min. project is (I didn’t even take note of this when I watched the movie), with a finish that echoes When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989), a masterpiece by comparison even though I still think that movie gets lauded more than it should given its clear sense of borrowing from even better sources such as Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977).  Still, my reservations aside, I found Holidate much more embraceable than the OCCU with the rare tally situation of almost-parallel-responses: 45% positive reviews at RT, a 44% average score at MC.

 As for a Musical Metaphor to wrap it up, I’m going with The Beatles’ “I’ll Follow the Sun” (found on their 1964 Beatles for Sale album in the U.K., 1964 Beatles ’65 album in the U.S.) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=28d_A_NuJ7A because it speaks to the sentiments of those who ultimately want no romantic commitments, just the easy pleasure of what’s available on a given day (“For tomorrow may rain so I’ll follow the sun […] And now the time has come And so, my love, I must go And though I lose a friend In the end you will know”) even though fate will take these particular “holidates” into a direction where ultimately rain may not matter (hope I didn’t spoil anything for you).

                

Suggestions for TCM cablecasts

               

At least until the pandemic subsides Two Guys also want to encourage you to consider movies you might be interested in that don’t require subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, similar Internet platforms (we may well be stuck inside for longer than those 30-day-free-initial-offers), or premium-tier-cable-TV-fees.  While there are a good number of video networks offering movies of various sorts (mostly broken up by commercials), one dependable source of fine cinematic programming is Turner Classic Movies (available in lots of basic-cable-packages) so I’ll be offering suggestions of possible choices for you running from Thursday afternoon of the current week (I usually get this blog posted by early Thursday mornings) on through Thursday morning of the following week.  All times are U.S. Pacific Daylight so if you see something of interest please verify actual show time in your area for the day listed.  These recommendations are my particular favorites (no matter when they’re on, although some of those early-day-ones might need to be recorded, watched later), but there’s considerably more to pick from you might like even better; feel free to explore their entire schedule here. You can also click the down arrow at the right of each listing for additional, useful info.

I’ll bet if you checked that entire schedule link just above you’d find other options of interest, but these are the only ones grabbing my attention at present.  Please dig in further for other possibilities.

Thursday November 5, 2020

7:00 PM Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Once a decade, Sight & Sound magazine polls film critics on All-Time #1; in 2012 Vertigo ended Citizen Kane’s (Orson Welles, 1941) 50-year run on top (Kane’s still #1 for me), certainly one of Hitchcock’s best, but a hard choice also. James Stewart’s 

an ex-cop with a fear of heights, shadowing—then romancing—a friend’s possibly-faithless wife (Kim Novak), who seemingly leaps to her death … or does she? Stewart’s character’s a real departure.

Saturday November 7, 2020

5:00 PM A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964) Beatles’ big-screen-debut based loosely on their actual Beatlemania lives as world-sensation-rock-musicians now burst upon the scene. While a bit exaggerated in terms of what the Fab Four’s offstage lives were like, the performances accurately mirror the fan fanaticism of the time, while the overall movie incorporates some French New Wave-inspired looseness with visual approaches, meandering plot lines, taking it to a notably higher level.

Monday November 9, 2020:

1:00 PM The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) A great film noir classic, based on James M. Cain’s novel; this is another tension-filled story, about a wife (Lana Turner) working with 

a drifter (John Garfield) to kill her husband but things go awry ([great double feature with Double Indemnity!] was remade years later with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange [Bob Rafelson, 1981]).

5:00 PM Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962) Adapted from famous/infamous novel by Vladimir Nabokov this film walks a careful line for its still-buttoned-down-release-year concerning the sexual obsession of a middle-aged man (James Mason) for a teenager (Sue Lyon) to the point of marrying her mother (Shelly Winters) to be near the girl, while an even-more nefarious guy (Peter Sellers) lurks in the shadows, lusting as well. Sellers provides useful comic relief, helping Kubrick dodge censorship.

8:00 PM A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951) From Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy, a poor guy (Montgomery Clift) working for his uncle, secretly dating a co-worker (Shelly Winters) gets her pregnant, then falls in love with a socialite (Elizabeth Taylor); he needs to break off from Alice but she refuses so he contemplates killing her, making it look like an accident. Won Oscars for Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design (both for B&W films), Film Editing, Music Scoring (+ nominations for Best Picture, Actor [Clift], Actress [Winters]).

Tuesday November 10, 2020

12:45 PM Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) Do you really need my description to know what this one’s about? If so, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre are “looking at you, kid,” to watch it!   (A movie truly defining what I consider to be a 5 stars-“classic,” celebrated for decades as a story of hope, patriotism, and making the right decision when romance conflicts with greater needs in the early years of WW II.)

Wednesday November 11, 2020

2:00 PM The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946) ) Best Picture Oscar winner (along with a cluster of others including Best Director, Actor [Frederic March], Supporting Actor [Harold Russell], Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, plus an Honorary Oscar to Russell, an actual WW II vet amputee), focused on the difficulties of 3 returning WW II G.I.’s each with individual problems (a marvelous example of deep-focus-cinematography from Gregg Toland [Citizen Kane]; I once got a chance to talk directly to Wyler about his intentions with this visual style).

If you’d like your own PDF of ratings/summaries of this week's reviews, suggestions for TCM cablecasts, links to Two Guys info click this link to access then save, print, or whatever you need.

                     

Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Here are some extra items you might be interested in: (1) Small theaters on the verge of going out of business despite being able to open; (2) Netflix raises prices; (3) New Borat movie could be up for several Oscars; (4) A retrospective on recently-departed Sean Connery.   As usual I’ll close out this section with Joni Mitchell’s "Big Yellow Taxi" (from her 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)—because “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone”—and a reminder to search streaming/rental/purchase movie options at JustWatch.

              

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

           

We encourage you to visit the summary of Two Guys reviews for our past posts.*  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

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

Here’s more information about Tenet:

https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/tenet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LsoaeiyAoY (20:50 Tenet ‘s scientific concepts—entropy especially—explained by physicist Dylan J. Dance, although this gets to be as complicated as the videos cited far above attempting to explain the plot of the film, but the bottom line here is that the film got its essential physics wrong [interrupted by ad at about 1:40])

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

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

Here’s more information about Holidate:

https://www.netflix.com/title/81034553 (typical Netflix minimal-info-official-site)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcPEqwHbCz8 (actors Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey 

talk about this movie)

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

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

Please note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow connect 

with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.  (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-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 (quite an eternal while, in fact).  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 the total unique hits at this site were 2,829 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for all those unspecified “Others” also):