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.
Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh) rated R
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): First, I’ll note that some of what appears this time is in response to items I noted in my previous posting (a review of Mank [David Fincher]), namely: (1) A link to the mention I made about Bob Dylan supposedly leaving music behind for his emerging CBD business which I couldn’t verify by finding it again last week but have now re-discovered this article supposedly from Rolling Stone, yet I haven’t been able to verify it yet either so believe what you will, inform me better if you can; (2) I also noted a recut (and renaming) of The Godfather Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) was soon to be released, so now I’ve seen it, offer a short review below; (3) what Mank is essentially based on is the 1971 essay, “Raising Kane,” by film critic Pauline Kael so I’ve also included some brief (don’t faint!) comments below on a documentary about her I wasn’t able to see last spring before my local theaters were shut down, yet because you’ll have to plow through so much text before you get to it I’ll go ahead and give you its Musical Metaphor, The Beatles’ "She Said She Said" (on their 1966 Revolver album), which I envision as a response by a filmmaker devastated by a Kael review because “even though you know what you know I know I’m ready to leave ‘Cause you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born” (given Kael’s unrelenting-reactions to films that didn’t resonate with her, even Stanley Kubrick might have sung this sad song).
As for new material, after some consideration (in retrospect, possibly wrongly directed) I’ll offer up a lead review of Let Them All Talk (with an additional subtitle, AKA: The Fall of 2019, I’ve never seen used anywhere; I’ll avoid it as well), in which noted-names of the silver (and TV) screen Steven Soderbergh, Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen team up for a story shot during an Atlantic crossing of the Queen Mary 2 with Streep as a famous author fighting more problems than we know about at first, Bergen still seething over how she was incorporated into a previous novel by Streep, Wiest trying to keep peace as trouble continues to brew (a character needing more backstory, admits she once had a threesome with one of their college profs and wife). I, surprisingly, was not as impressed by this movie as were many other critics (for example: Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt says it’s “a chance to spend two hours watching Streep & Co. make the most of Deborah Eisenberg’s deliciously salty script, [*] while Soderbergh – who also serves as cinematographer – shoots it all in ruthless, radiant light.”) Instead, I’ll borrow from my local guy, Randy Myers, who begins with “On paper it sounds like it might be flimsy and disposable” before he shifts into a highly supportive response (“The screenplay is a literary diamond”) while I’d stop at his opening but change it to “On screen it’s flimsy and disposable,” sourpuss that I am about a cinematic experience far removed from the realm of The Godfather. Additionally, in my Short Takes section where I address the latest from Mr. Coppola, the latest about Ms. Kael, 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, ye tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.
I’ll also note this cluster of comments is hitting the Internet just as I become 73 (appropriately, as I was born in these early-morning-hours), so with putting so much effort into this current venture when I should be taking a break I’m not sure if I’ll be doing the same thing next week (especially after struggling mightily with Blogspot tonight) as my posting schedule would take me into Christmas Eve, although with the high anticipation building for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe) as it become streamingly-available from Netflix on Friday, December 18, 2020, Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman (his final film) may make the decision for me; otherwise, I’ll see you again into early 2021.
*See So What? below to help determine if this “delicious” script should be attributed to Eisenberg.
Here’s the trailer for Let Them All Talk:
(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: Famed (Pulitzer Prize-winner)-but-somewhat-prickly New York-based-author Alice Hughes (Meryl Streep) is having a bit of a writer’s block about her next novel, also wants to go to England to accept the prestigious (fictitious) Footling Prize for fiction, highly valued because it’s chosen by other writers, yet she can’t fly there (we’ll find out why later) so her new agent, Karen (Gemma Chan)—the previous, long-term-woman retired (earning a catty comment for that decision from Alice)—who’s anxious to promote the publicity of the award as well as hopes to find out how the new book’s coming along as it’s behind schedule with content unknown (the agency hopes it might be a sequel to her acclaimed A Function of the Body) offers to send her via the Queen Mary 2 (although the ship’s personnel say “a crossing,” not a cruise), even bring along friends so she accepts. Quickly we meet 2 of her close-college-chums, whom Alice hasn’t seen too much of in the intervening 50 years, who accept her invitation, Susan (Dianne Wiest) from Seattle (whose son, Eddie [Christopher Fitzgerald], and wife have just moved in with her following an engineer stealing Eddie’s invention, but that story line doesn’t go any further except for showing Susan as an eagerly-empathetic-person although she’ll get her own plot device while on the ship), and Roberta (Candice Bergen) in Dallas, working in a high-end-clothing-store (think Neiman-Marcus, headquartered there) selling pricy underwear to picky customers (a job she hates along with distain for her likewise-unbeloved-boss), plus Alice’s nephew, Tyler (Lucas Hedges), from Cleveland who’s developed an attachment to Alice, while shunning the rest of his family (because Dad was jailed for blackmailing).
Unbeknownst to Alice, though, Karen also secretly comes along, strikes up a connection with Tyler as someone to spy on Alice about how the new book’s coming along as well as someone to dump her own troubles on as her fiancée recently broke off the engagement for no reason she can fathom (Tyler’s unattached as well, easily gets attracted to Karen, willingly goes along with her scheme regarding his aunt). Despite the opportunity for the 3 older women to strengthen their friendship it’s mostly Susan and Roberta together all day as Alice sets up a rigid schedule of work (in her 2-story stateroom), meals, and a daily swim where the same man’s also always in the pool room reading Homer’s classic, The Odyssey (Tyler also sees him leaving Alice’s room in the mornings, wonders if they’re having an affair). The final important character on this voyage is also an author—but of pop fiction (very successful, his books often lead to blockbuster movies)—Kelvin Krantz (Daniel Algrant), whose work is dismissed by Alice but appreciated by Roberta and Susan, the latter even striking up a conversation with him discussing aspects of poison, something he’s interested in for his next novel.
Through the course of a lot of quick, fragmented scenes we find Alice agreeing to give a lecture on literary inspiration (she has great respect for a [fictional, as best I can tell] 19th-century-English-author, Blodwyn Pugh, whose one success was Realm of the Owl, but even as she’s mostly forgotten now Alice still finds a creative connection with her) where Kelvin praises Alice’s story constructions, Roberta complaining to Susan how Alice used Roberta’s scandalous-private-life as material for an early novel, You Always, You Never (not directly citing her of course), with her marriage falling apart as a result, no replacement relationship ever evolving so her life’s been miserable, therefore she wants a confrontation with Alice followed by apology, although Susan didn’t see Roberta’s life in that novel, tries to encourage Roberta to be more understanding of their mutual friend (still, we begin to wonder how much friendship really exists here); Susan continues to dialogue with Kelvin about poisons, although it’s just a “professional” connection, nothing that would make Roberta jealous (she carries enough frustration that men her age only seem to want much younger women, thwarting her chances of finding a mate); Kelvin also meets Karen, advises her to not directly interact with Alice on this voyage, yet Karen continues to seek info from Tyler who’s clearly becoming infatuated with her. There are lots of other little interactions along the way (such as Karen accidently running into Alice, later they talk about their mutual concerns), but mostly this is a flow of dialogues among these characters which reaches a conclusion when the ship docks after several days at sea (despite encouragement from Alice to follow his heart, Tyler finally lets Karen drift away).
⇒Once in England, the group staying in swank lodgings preparing for the award ceremony, Roberta finally confronts Alice, admits a loss of material goods in her life as she feels it was ruined by Alice’s novel, Alice quickly agrees to give her a check (implying she incorporated Roberta’s circumstances for that earlier book after all); Alice seems to be adrift, though, having decided to destroy all of the pages of her new work, admits she’s harder on people she knows well expecting forgiveness from them, then she dies of blood clots whereupon we learn the man by the pool is Dr. Mitchell (John Douglas Thompson), who also accompanied Alice on this trip, giving her daily injections to aid her medical condition (he’s the one who told her not to fly). Roberta steals Alice’s notebook (later tries to sell it or even provide her own story as a non-fiction-sequel to Alice’s earlier success, but Karen declines; it ends up with Tyler who puts it back on one of his aunt’s many bookshelves in her large NY home); Tyler and his aunt's surviving friends visit Blodwyn Pugh’s grave as Alice wanted to do; Susan then becomes a collaborator with Kelvin on his upcoming-poisoning-based-mystery-book.⇐
So What? Given I had a few other interesting options to consider as my weekend-companion-viewing-choice to accompany Coppola’s recut of The Godfather Part III (reviewed farther below)—including Streep’s other current release, The Prom (Ryan Murphy), an upbeat musical based on a play (I may still get to it soon; we’ll see how that works out)—I decided to go with … Talk (an appropriate title given both Alice’s seemingly-unconcerned-distain for any negative reactions to her work [although such chatter bothers her privately] and the structure of this movie in which there’s limited action—except for the opening and closing scenes it all takes place on the ship—so lots of dialogue from all of these actors is the process by which this story unfolds) because of the dual encouragement of existing director/cast-accomplishments* and solid support from the CCAL (more on that in this review’s next section); however, I don’t find myself on the active bandwagon for this movie, which is a marvelous-cinematic-accomplishment in its production processes but just didn’t engage me much, even though I watched it twice (normally, I don’t do that with these streaming options, attempting to somewhat recreate the experience of seeing something in a theater, taking notes as best I can follow, then coming to closure based on decisions, assumptions, sometimes help from Wikipedia summaries) simply because after the first screening I couldn’t understand why I was so lackadaisical about what I’d just seen, so with 113 min. not being that much of an additional burden I dived in again only to find the pool just as shallow for my interests this second time around.
*Streep’s had 21 Oscar acting nominations (an ongoing record) leading to a Best Supporting Actress win for Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979), Best Actress wins for Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982) and The Iron Lady (Phyllida Lloyd, 2011; review in our February 5, 2012 posting); Wiest has 3 Oscar noms, 2 wins as Best Supporting Actress for Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen, 1994); Bergen’s had just 1 Oscar nom (also more about that in the next section) but 9 TV Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (winning for Murphy Brown in 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995); Soderbergh’s been nominated for Oscar’s Best Director trophy 3 times, won in 2000 for Traffic. Excellent resumés for all.
I have high respect for Soderbergh (who not only directed here but also served as cinematographer [under the name of Peter Andrews] and editor [as Mary Ann Bernard]), not only for taking on a true-auteur’s-share of the production process but also for being willing to shoot almost all of this movie during an 8-day-crossing of the Atlantic (NYC to England, August 2019, on the actual QM 2) using natural lighting and on-site-audio, with the additional audacious choice of giving his actors each day’s outline of events to be shot, then leaving it to them to improvise the dialogue (the story outline came from Deborah Eisenberg who also wrote a script but it wasn’t shared with the cast as best I understand). Working with this spontaneous material, Soderbergh apparently never called for a reshoot of a scene, just stitched together what he had that worked best after the fact. For meeting that challenge, I salute them, but, as for me, the end result’s not the Oscar-worthy-experience many critics claim it to be. At least Richard Brody of The New Yorker more or less sees things my way, even if he’s overall more enthusiastic: “[… it] offers enough surprises of tone, pleasures of mood, and piquantly composed images to carry the film through with a sort of visual music, compensating for the dramatic thinness without overcoming it. […] Soderbergh, who’s also obsessive about process and method, displays his fascination with the ship but, with his focus on the foregrounded story, doesn’t show the underlying action. With its absence, he has subtracted the personal element from his impersonal-personal artistry.” I suppose that mood music Brody notes never jelled with me.
Bottom Line Final Comments: As noted, I’m representing the OCCU regarding Let Them All Talk because my flimsy 3 stars (60% on a 5 stars-scale) are considerably lower than what you’d find at Rotten Tomatoes, sporting 90% positive reviews (based on a reasonable count of 84 responses), or Metacritic, a 73% average score (may not sound all that supportive but actually rather encouraging for these snobs—more details about these critics-accumulation-sites, as with anything I review at length, are in the Related Links section of this posting very far below); my notably-lower-response is a bit unusual for how I’ve normally coincided with these groups regarding 76 of the 2020 releases I and they have reviewed, because I’ve been right on track with at least 1 of them 39 times (11 where both were close enough to overlap for all of us, 11 when I was closest to the RT result, 17 times where I was closest to the MC score [not surprising because for those 37 times I didn’t match up with either of them it was usually a case of my being lower than RT—where seemingly all it takes is a hint of some support to put your review into the positive column—and higher than the restrained-results at MC]), but for me to be notably lower than both of these groups is unusual, especially when I see talk of there being Oscar-nomination-worthy-aspects of this movie when such decisions are made next spring* (so far it’s been all about the acting, but I wonder if the screenwriter-voters would be charmed enough by what they heard to nominate Deborah Eisenberg, even though from what I understand it’s unlikely that a word of her script was actually spoken in those daily-improv-sessions).
*Here’s an argument for Candice Bergen to get a Best Supporting Actress nod (with a claim she’s more impactful in her role than Streep or Weiss; I can buy that for the latter actor, but if Bergen deserves a nomination just because her character’s more aggressive, more emotional [you could also say “desperately needy”] than Streep, I’d say Alice’s more reserved, haughty manner is certainly equal in what she’s conveying, but honestly I don’t think either are likely to be in Oscar’s final 5 for their categories), which, if she did, would give Bergen the record for longest timespan for a woman between nominations, 41 years since her Supporting Actress-recognition for Starting Over (Alan J. Pakula, 1979)—would match Henry Fonda’s 41 Best Actor years between The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940) and On Golden Pond (Mark Rydell, 1981 [he won that one]); the current female record-holder is Helen Hayes at 39 years between her Best Actress nom for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (Edgar Selwyn, 1931), a Best Supporting Actress trophy for Airport (George Seaton, 1970).
However, no matter what I or anyone else may think of … Talk, it still deserves a wrap-up Musical Metaphor, which I choose to be Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” (from his 1980 album The River) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsADQpw-dD8 because when I hear “Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing I took a wrong turn and I just kept going […] Everybody’s got a hungry heart Lay down your money and you play your part […] Everybody needs a place to rest Everybody wants to have a home Don’t make no difference what nobody says Ain’t nobody likes to be alone” I have clear visions of Alice, Roberta, Karen for sure taking various “wrong turns” continuing to haunt them just as Tyler might think the same about not actively pursing Karen, with Susan the least troubled of all of them (although she has her own hints of sadness or embarrassment about some past actions). If you’d like to see how this all works out (including the appropriateness of my subtly-odd-Musical Metaphor) you won’t have to pay anything specific for the movie but you will have to be a subscriber of either HBO Max (where it’s streaming) or connect from an HBO channel of your TV cable provider.
(aspiring toward) SHORT TAKES (but not always successfully)
(Spoilers might normally appear here, but this week we’re working with a film from 1990 and a film critic who died in 2001 so such considerations don’t apply except in one instance where I’ll respect any desires to experience the end of … The Death of Michael Corleone yourself.)
Coppola’s re-edit of his 1990 end of the famous trilogy, The Godfather Part III, set in 1979 as Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is trying desperately to get his children a future free from his Mafia connections by acquiring a massive dose of legitimacy by working with the corrupt Vatican Bank to take over an international corporation; it features a different opening scene and conclusion, many minor tweaks.
Here’s the trailer for The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone:
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of what Paramount Studios insisted be called The Godfather Part III, director/co-screenwriter Coppola (with Mario Puzo, author of the original novel [1969] which inspired the first 2 segments [1972, 1974] of this famed-filmic-Mafia-trilogy, earning Puzo and Coppola Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplays for those 2 triumphs) has produced a re-edited, re-titled, close-to-how he and his late-collaborator originally wanted to call this follow-up to the critically-lauded, audience-embraced earlier explorations of the transition of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) from WW II military hero to ruthless head of a powerful crime syndicate. Coppola (who talks briefly here [1:44] about his intentions with this “redux” version of the 1990 film) and Puzo created what they considered to be closure about the family/Family of Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando) with a focus on Michael’s transformation from a young man who wanted nothing to do with his father’s business into a person so brutal as to order the death of his brother Fredo (John Cazale), then suffers in his elder years from all the violence he’s been associated with throughout his life, so he essentially “dies” in spirit from all of his regrets (“All my life I wanted out.”), seemingly reaping what he sows at the end of either … Part III or … Coda … when his daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) is killed in a failed assassination attempt on Michael. (Hey, don’t give me any grief for sprinkling spoilers throughout these comments; if you haven’t yet seen a film that’s been around since 1990 then I can’t help you too much here, but I will back off a little bit right now.) ⇒This time, we still see Michael as an old man in Sicily but he doesn’t keel over and die, he just puts on sunglasses in the midday heat, seemingly sadly contemplating his many sins (even though he’d earlier confessed them to Cardinal Lamberto [Raf Vallone]—later, briefly Pope John Paul I before falling victim to his own assassination—so even with divine absolution Michael still follows Lamberto‘s dictate “It’s right that you should suffer”) as we get a sense of the irony now haunting him from the traditional Italian toast that you should live a long life; he does, but only to continue his misery from earlier choices he made, no matter how necessarily-well-intentioned he might have originally considered them to be.⇐
Without delving into too much detail on this narrative beyond Michael’s failed attempt to go legit as he’s thwarted by the devious actions of Don Altobello (Eli Wallach), Don Lucchesi (Enzo Robutti), and cold-hearted-murderer-Mosca (Mario Donatone), paralleled by a similar failure to find some true means of reconnection with ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton) who’d likely never have any further contact with Michael after Mary’s death—although you can go here if you’d like such plot specifics (can’t say exactly what changes without a side-by-side-comparison) because the vast majority of each version remains, with minor cuts in various scenes but the new running time of about 158 min. is just 5 min. shy of the original cut—I will agree with many who’ve applauded the new opening scene where the deserted shots of the Nevada Corleone compound (evoking Fredo’s death) have been replaced with the negotiations between Michael (aided by new consiglieri B.J. Harrison [George Hamilton]—after a brief note of the death of Tom Hagen [Robert Duval—cut out of this story because Paramount wouldn’t pay his price]) and slimy Vatican Bank Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly) for Michael to give the Bank $600 million toward their massive debt in return for support in his taking over Europe's Internazionale Immobiliare gives a better sense of how Michael’s still using his leverage to achieve dubious ends, despite his protestations about “getting out” of his previous (murderous) life of crime.
What some would prefer in this recut is for Coppola to digitally replace his daughter as Mary with someone else (maybe a digitally-younger-version of now-way-too-old-for-the-role-Wynonna Ryder, who originally had the part before taking ill, replaced at the last minute by Sofia), given how reviled she’s been in this role (true, she’s much better as a director, although she did get the only 2 notable awards received by … Part III, the Golden Raspberry nods for Worst Supporting Actress, Worst New Star), but after watching how she fits into this new arrangement of story elements (as well as having “grown accustomed to her face” by watching … Part III annually for many years as a week off from doing this blog by cooking spaghetti, drinking chianti, watching the entire Godfather trilogy with my wife, Nina [who can never get enough of Brando, Pacino, De Niro—or even Andy Garcia for that matter]), I’ve come to be much more comfortable with Sofia as Mary, as she seems like she’s simply wandered over from a documentary about a real Mafia boss’s spoiled-but-naïve daughter, confused about Dad’s like, although that does give her some separation from the high-thespian-qualities of the other actors. Anyway, I'm just able to accept her performance now, no longer see it as a distraction.
But, the real concern for me is whether ... Coda ... actually deserves the 5 stars I would easily assign to The Godfather and The Godfather Part II if I were doing actual reviews of those masterpieces; well, for years I’ve said the entire trilogy ranks as my #1 choice on my All-Time Top 10 list of American films (even as there are a couple of U.S. films in my absolute Top 10 collection as well) so it’s difficult to deny … Coda … my top ranking, even if it (hard to separate from its original manifestation as … Part III, especially given I’ve seen that version so many times) may not seem to have the immediate impact of its 2 predecessors. I’m helped somewhat in my decision by the CCAL RT critics who’ve offered 90% positive reviews of … Coda … (yet they did the same for Let Them All Talk, so that may not be the most consistent argument I can make), although the MC bunch is mostly populated by those who don’t see what the big deal is about this recut-version as they could muster only an average score of 76% (as noted above, though, this is reasonably strong for them as I rarely find them at 80% or higher when comparing to my own reactions). So, call me crazy if you like for going so high on … Coda … (and/or so low on … Talk), but I must admit I find … Coda … not only very watchable but also very intriguing about how the angels and devils of our existence pull us in opposing directions, often to our detriment. I also like the continuity over the narratives (just like Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi [Richard Marquand, 1983] mirrors aspects of … Episode IV—A New Hope [George Lucas, 1977] regarding actions on Tatooine, the destruction of a Death Star, etc.) such as Michael pulling outcast Vincent (Andy Garcia) into a huge family photo just as he did with Kay in The Godfather or Vincent killing family nemesis Joey Zaza (Frank Mantegna) just as young Vito killed a neighborhood Black Hand enforcer, Don Fanucci (Gastone Moschin), in … Part II.
So, agree with me or not, if you care to take a look at … Coda …, you can see it on Vudu and other platforms (including Amazon Prime) for a $3.99 rental (or buy a DVD or maybe even see it in a few theaters, currently in 156 domestic [U.S.-Canada] venues pulling in a mere $88 thousand, plus another $71 thousand worldwide), but in the meantime here’s my usual Musical Metaphor for you to consider, Leonard Cohen’s “The Stranger Song” (from his 1967 Songs of Leonard Cohen album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLq7Aqd_H7g (a sublime live 1967 performance) where these lyrics, "You find he did not leave you very much not even laughter Like any dealer he was watching for the card That is so high and wild He’ll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger […] It’s you my love, you who are the stranger [...] When he talks like this you don’t know what he’s after […] ‘I told you when I came I was a stranger,’ " remind me of Michael’s tragic journey, first trying to protect his father from possibly-more-powerful-enemies, then sheltering his immediate family when his Mafia Family actions kept them on the edge of retribution, finally finding himself alienated from everyone he’d wanted to be close to (having to depend on the vicious attitudes of sister Connie [Talia Shire—Coppola’s sister so, see, not all of his relatives are questionable on screen] and eager-to-be-Family-boss Vincent for any sort of support), Michael remains a stranger to all those around him, trying to redeem himself but encountering too many factions who want to bend him to their needs, even after he turned over Family business to Vincent.
In last week's posting on Mank (David Fincher), a docudrama about Herman Mankiewicz, one of the Oscar-winning-screenwriters for Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941 [the other Oscar recipient]), I also suggested the TCM screening of this documentary about famous-film-critic-Kael (1919-2002, but focused on her years at The New Yorker [1968-1979], anthologies of those reviews [the most extensive one being For Keeps: Thirty Years at the Movies, 1994])—whose essay, “Raising Kane,” highlighted The Citizen Kane Book (1971) where she claimed Mank’s priority over Welles in regard to that screenplay—because I’d not seen What She Said … but had always greatly respected her writing (yet I’d come to find she’d gone off the deep end regarding … Kane, just as Mank selectively-supports her arguments). While this doc’s usually cited as from 2018 (shown in August then at the Telluride Festival) it didn’t go into release until late 2019 so when it was near me (February 2020) I put it off too long before the pandemic closed local theaters. With such good CCAL support, though—88% positive RT reviews, a reasonably positive 68% average MC score (just 16 reviews, though)—I wanted to see it, which TCM allowed me to do. Given how long it’s been around and how esoteric a lot of chatter about a film critic might be (unless you know her admirable work) I’m not giving much of a review, just a cluster of links if you’d like to know more about Ms. Kael and her impact on the field of film criticism (I’ll note in the future if it comes back around on TCM; in the meantime, consult JustWatch for those sites where you can stream/rent/buy it, all for cheap prices).
If you want to get a little bit more info on this doc you can go to the official site, this IMDb listing, the trailer, and/or this interview (15:15) with director Garver and film critics David Edelstein (New York), Stephanie Zacharek (TIME), Eric Kohn (Indie Wire). Then, if you’re starting to get into what Kael’s all about you might explore these excerpts from her New Yorker reviews (but you have to be a subscriber to the magazine) or this Rotten Tomatoes list of her writings they’ve used (some of which you can access directly, others require subscriptions) or just an extensive biography of her life, work, and accomplishments. This informative-doc’s creatively visualized with dozens of movie clips illustrating/alluding to what’s said by/about her as she often championed mainstream American movies as opposed to elitist European films (despite blockbusters like The Sound of Music [Robert Wise, 1965] she despised) often praised artists such as Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and aspects of the American New Wave, but dumped on David Lean and Stanley Kubrick as well as films like Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) or Shoah (Claude Lanamann, 1985), stood up for controversial ones such as Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci,1972); I base my rating primarily on those great, brief metaphorical-montages used to enhance what’s said (nice relief from standard use of talking heads), but otherwise it’s a fairly straightforward biography, likely best appreciated if you know her reviews.
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.
Friday December 18, 2020
1:45 PM The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946) A highly-deserving 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 G.I’s each with individual problems (a marvelous example of deep-focus-cinematography by Gregg Toland; I once got a chance to talk with Wyler about his intentions with this visual style).
6:45 PM The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) Romantic comedy & satire of corporate immorality as execs at a huge insurance company force a lower-echelon-guy, Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon), to use his place for affairs, including Personnel Director (Fred MacMurray) with Bud’s secret attraction (Shirley MacLaine), complications arise. Won 5 Oscars—Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond), Art Direction-Black & White, Film Editing—plus nominated for 5 more.
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: Extras of possible interest: (1) Judd Apatow criticizes WB-HBO Max decision for 2021; (2) Disney stock surges to all-time high based on content, streaming growth; (3) The Dark Knight, Shrek, Grease, The Blues Brothers, Lilies of the Field, The Hurt Locker, A Clockwork Orange, The Joy Luck Club, and The Man with the Golden Arm among the additions to the National Film Registry. I’ll close this section with Joni Mitchell’s "Big Yellow Taxi" (1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)—because “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone”—and a reminder that you can search streaming/rental/purchase movie options at JustWatch.
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Here’s more information about Let Them All Talk:
https://www.hbomax.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GX7_dBQJHuaipuAEAAAAE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CyEJ97_xls (8:50 interview with actor Meryl Streep which finally gets around to dealing with shooting a film on a cruise ship largely with improvised dialogue) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m4k80npP84 (5:13 interview with actors Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, Dianne Wiest)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/let_them_all_talk
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/let-them-all-talk
Here’s more information about The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone:
I can’t find an official site for either this recut version of the film nor even its original 1990 release as The Godfather Part III but there is lots of useful info at this IMDb site: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099674/reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfr0c0fnjX8 (3:23 interview with director Francis Ford Coppola and actors Al Pacino, Andy Garcia) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY9Mo2VFi6g (5:34 overview of the film)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_godfather_coda_the_death_of_michael_corleone
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-godfather-coda-the-death-of-michael-corleone
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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—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 20th 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.
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