Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: February 2021

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Nomadland plus Short Takes on I Care a Lot, suggestions for TCM cable offerings, and other cinematic topics

Women on the Move

(but in different directions, for different reasons)

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.

Nomadland (Chloé Zhao) rated R 108 min.

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): This week I’m pleased to bring you comments in my lead review about one of the absolute best cinematic accomplishments of 2020 (although just now getting into distribution because of the pandemic), Nomadland with Frances McDormand as a woman whose life is collapsing around her (husband died, job gone, whole town closed down) so she buys a van, hits the road around most of the country west of the Mississippi River taking various jobs as they become available, meeting other nomads along the way (most all of them in this film actual “road warriors,” not actors), refusing to take root even when opportunities are offered; it’s already won dozens of awards, is up for 4 more this coming weekend from the Golden Globes, will surely get Oscar nominations as well. You might be able to find it in a theater near you (if one’s open) or you can see it for a cheap monthly fee on Hulu streaming. In the Short Takes section I’ll review I Care a Lot (streams on Netflix) where Rosamund Pike’s earned a Screen Actors Guild Best Actress nomination for her role as a scheming elder-care-“advocate” who works with crony doctors and administrators to falsely put independent old folks into group homes where she can control their assets, sell off most everything for her own profit until she goes too far with Dianne Wiest and her mobster son, Peter Dinklage; this one’s a dark satire, but, depending on whether you or anyone you know’s ever been victimized by such scams, it may not come off as all that funny (well written and acted, though). 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, ye tedious software!) along with a standard dose of industry-related-trivialities.

Here’s the trailer for Nomadland:

(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: In 2011, Fern (Frances McDormand) loses her job at the US Gypsum plant in Empire, NV when it closes down, essentially closing the town as well. Before various other work she’d been at this plant for years, along with her husband who’s recently died, so with only about $500 a month to tap from Social Security she sells most everything she owns, buys a used van (very efficiently arranged so she can live in it), drives all around the West and Midwest for seasonal work, pees in fields, poops in a 5-gallon bucket, finds a job at an Amazon procurement center, finally takes the advice of coworker Linda (Linda May—the main subject of Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction-origin-book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century [2017], as most of the cast are actual nomads living the day-by-day life chronicled in the book, depicted in the film*) to escape the brutal winter snow Fern’s now dealing with by joining a gathering of nomads in Arizona organized by Bob Wells (also playing himself). Bob gives talks on various survival skills (including those poop buckets, clarifying what size you’re likely to need) which Fern soon learns how to put to use when she gets a flat, has to ask neighbor Swankie (another actuality) for a ride into town to buy a new tire, leading to a strong friendship as this other woman’s dying of cancer, gives Fern encouragement to live every day to the fullest—as best these fleeting conditions allow—rather than wasting away in meaningless surroundings. Later, Fern gets a job at an RV park where she meets David (David Strathairn, one of the few professional actors in Nomadland); he works at a nearby park, they become friends, but he needs emergency surgery after which they both take restaurant jobs in South Dakota until David’s somewhat-estranged-son finds him, invites him to come to coastal Central California for the birth of his grandchild. David encourages Fern to come too, although she declines.

Fern's next job’s harvesting beets, but when her van breaks down she can’t afford repairs so she forces herself to visit her sister, Dolly (Melissa Smith), to ask for a loan; despite some initial flak from brother-in-law George (Warren Keith)—countered by sisterly-support from Dolly—Fran gets an invitation there as well to stay for awhile but, seemingly unable to commit herself to a permanent location nor the constant companionship of others, she’s soon back on the road again, heading to where David’s now living with his son. ⇒At this stop she gets another offer to settle in, where she doesn’t have to fully commit to David, can stay in a small guesthouse in the back. Once again she declines, goes back to the Amazon job for awhile, then to the group site in Arizona where she finds Swankie has died; Fern and Bob share their stories of lost loved ones: her husband, his son who committed suicide. In the final scene Fran returns to the ghost town of Empire, gets rid of some stuff she had in a storage unit, visits her former home and factory, hits the road like she always does.⇐

*Here’s a video reaction (15:35) to the cinematic version of Nomadland by actual nomad Carolyn Higgins, who also has a background role in this near-documentary; overall, she likes what she sees.

So What? With a film I’m so impressed by, you’d think I’d have offered considerably more details in the previous plot-recap-segment, but there’s really not that much more to say about the events because (Beware! My academic-cinema-background’s about to emerge a bit.) this story, in classic film theory, is part of what's called the Realism tradition. (Linked to similar movements—also called Realism—in literature, painting, drama beginning in the 19^th century, where the focus is on character development and interactions rather than the standard Hollywood approach of plot-driven-stories known as Formalism due to their emphasis on the production values of meticulous sets, crafty lighting, and, especially, active editing to move the narrative along to answer the crucial question of “What happens?” rather than Realism’s usual concerns about “Who’s in this dramatic exploration? What do we want to know about them? Will we get a sense of closure to the plot [as we do in Formalism] or will we be left with an ambiguous ending upon final fade-out?” without us always learning all we’ve come to expect in the more-dominant-presence of Formalism movies as intention, outcomes are normally wrapped up prior to the closing credits, yet in Realism we may never know all we’d like to have clarified, leaving us to apply our own interpretations, just as the filmmaker intended—there’s also a tendency in Realism to use longer takes, a moving camera showing wider shots so we have to become more active observers of what’s going on all over the frame as details aren’t always so actively pointed out to us as in Formalism where we’re usually kept in clarity with the plot’s progression through cutting and closeups focusing on actions, reactions, crucial elements in what’s unfolding before us.*) However, while I’m embedding Nomadland into this summary of the very nature of cinema, don’t worry that will make this film remote, esoteric; it’s easy to follow and admire.

*As explained by Carolyn Higgins in that video link noted just above, these people don’t considered themselves homeless (although, for many of us, living full-time in some version of an RV might not seem all that far from being destitute), they just don’t want to maintain the constrained lives they feel are all that’s available to them in standard society—sort of like the 1960s (and onward to today) hippies who prefer to leave the rat race behind for communal alternatives, although the ideals of any of these unconventional lifestyles may not stabilize if an attempt at shared-togetherness deteriorates.

There’s also a 3^rd major movement in cinematic approaches, Modernism* (beginning in some mid-20^th century-films, emphasizing the nature of filmmaking/film-viewing itself, akin to “action paintings” of Jackson Pollock where there’s no subject matter, just the very medium of the art form, paint, splattered onto canvas so it’s the process being explored, not the depiction of anything); the results—like in other forms of modern arts—tend to be more abstract, at times difficult to decipher, with possibly the best example of challenges to our assumptions about filmic clarity/continuity being France’s Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961) where even the central characters don’t agree about what’s happening in the present, the past, or maybe even at all (unlike Formalism’s clarity, Realism’s character explorations, but intriguing nevertheless, a little touch of it in Nomadland).

Where Nomadland succeeds so well for me is in not explaining more about Fran (Dolly gives us a brief insight Fran was never well-connected to her family, but little other backstory’s revealed) so we’re never too sure if she just wants to live off the grid or if she’s haunted by something from her past (or possibly has some sort of mental difficulty) making it hard for her to connect with much of anyone else besides her late husband, nor does Zhao clarify constant plot continuity as Fran keeps popping up in various places without a lot of connective-scenes to help us know how she got there (like a mild version of jump-cutting where we’re actively thrown from one situation to another without bridging devices to immediately tell us when/where we are in the next location; more drastic forms of jump-cutting begin with cinematic-Modernism of the French New Wave in the early 1960s), yet, again, how easily we follow Fran isn’t nearly so important as the interactions she has in each place, the connections she makes vs. the ones she rejects as we try to discern more about who she is, why she is, what may ultimately become of her. McDormand (Best Actress Oscar winner for Fargo [Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996], Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri [Martin McDonagh, 2017; review in our December 7, 2017 posting], Best Actress nominee by the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild [SAG] for Nomadland) is a shoo-in for another Oscar nom this spring, where I’ll have to make my own difficult choice between her and Viola Davis for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe; review in our December 31, 2020 posting, another 5 stars-film for me) because both women are fantastic in their roles: Fran's more reserved, Ma's a force of nature, but, just for Nomadland, McDormand’s commanding presence still blends in organically-well with all those actual nomads.**

*An excellent, lengthy analysis of all this is found in David Bordwell’s On the History of Film Style, although he uses slightly different terms to designate these foundational approaches toward cinema.

**About the only negative perspective I’ve seen about Nomadland is explored in some detail in this article which argues that all this emphasis on Fran’s personality and self-determination misses a crucial focus on the mind-numbing, body-breaking fatigue of the nomads working these menial jobs.

The only other parting “So What?” thing I’ll say about Nomadland is it favorably reminds me of a monumental screen classic, The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford [1940; Oscars for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress Jane Darwell as Ma Joad, 5 other nominations including Best Picture]), a masterful example of cinematic Realism (cinematography by Gregg Toland, a key player in 1940s Hollywood excursions into this style working with directors who perfected it such as Ford, Orson Welles [although their work on Citizen Kane {1941} also incorporates such grand aspects of Formalism that I consider such conscious interweaving as the true forerunner of the later emergence of Modernism], and William Wyler [a great Realism example from him and Toland is The Best Years of Our Lives {1946}, winner of 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director]), even though the censorship restrictions of the Hays Code then prevent it from showing the grittier aspects of John Steinbeck’s original novel (1939) while the book’s marvelous structure of alternating chapters between narrative progression and semi-poetic-meditations on the grim reality of the Depression are only hinted at by a few quick shots. Nevertheless, on screen the emerging socialist-consciousness of Tom Joad (Henry Fonda)—not unlike Nomadland’s communal-drifters—the dogged-determination of the surviving Joad family to rise above adversity, the stark depiction of the cruel “Establishment” from bankers to orchard managers (in a era when the movie industry was under government pressure to provide upbeat, fanciful stories to counter the cruel realties of the 1930s) still allow The Grapes … to be a magnificent examination of the outcasts of our supposedly-grand-society (it was one of the first 25 inclusions [1989] in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry [as were Citizen Kane and The Best Years of Our Lives]). I’ll bet Nomadland ends up there someday as well.

Nomadland’s essentially different from The Grapes of Wrath as its wanderers are mostly members of a self-chosen “band of gypsies [who] go down the highway” (to steal a line from Willie Nelson’s "On the Road Again" [1980 Honeysuckle Rose soundtrack album]), getting by as migrant workers in order to escape restrictive social roles whereas the Joads, like the other Oakies thrown off their land during those cruel Dustbowl days, travel cross-country out of desperation, moving to whatever fruit-picking-jobs may or may not become available to them, so the “nomad” motivations are different in these 2 significant films but they both speak eloquently in debunking the myth of romantic-frontier-discovery so important to the ultimate continent-conquering of our country, even if the reality of such journeys isn’t nearly as desirable as was depicted in pulp fiction of the 1800s, much of the movies’ western genre until after WW II. Protagonists in both … Wrath and Nomadland respect themselves, but they don’t always earn much from those others not forced or chosen to be on the road with them.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Nomadland (shot in various plot locations, including South Dakota, Nebraska, California) is touching the hearts of film folks worldwide as it’s included in 2020’s Top 10 lists (although unreleased until last weekend, but there’s been a general consensus among critics/awards groups to “extend” anything intended for a 2020 debut, but held back due to the pandemic, into the first couple of months of 2021 as major awards-distributors start making their decisions; Golden Globes will be given next weekend—Feb. 28, 2021—Nomadland in contention for Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director, Best Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama [McDormand], Best Screenplay [Zhao—although she wasn’t also chosen by the Writers Guild of America]; SAG nominations are already in place [McDormand’s up for Best Actress]; Oscar noms will be announced on March 15, 2021) by many groups including the National Board of Review and the American Film institute (see this site for more details on 162 wins, 120 nominations so far—including top prizes at the Venice Film Festival [Golden Lion], Toronto International Film Festival [People’s Choice Award]). Difficult at this point to know what financial success to expect due to theaters still not being open in some major markets (except for drive-ins); it has landed in 1,175 venues but made only $503,000. For those like me who have no theatrical access yet the best availability is on Hulu streaming ($5.95 for a month, including anything else they have you might like). Obviously it’ll end up on my Top 10 for 2020 (after I see a few others not streaming just yet), but if you need even more encouragement please know the CCAL’s highly enthusiastic: those at Rotten Tomatoes giving out 95% positive reviews while those at Metacritic offer a phenomenally-high (for them) 94% average score (far and away their best numbers they’ve assigned for anything both they and I've reviewed during this year).

While you might be a bit saddened by Fran’s overall reluctance to accept the more-stabilizing-offers she encounters, you have to admire her insistence to pilot her life as she sees fit even if it’s not the kind of choice many of us would (be able) to make, so I’ll finally wrap up this long-winded-account of a most-magnificent-film with a couple of my standard Musical Metaphors to recognize the valued (even when difficult to encounter) Realism aspects of ambiguity in this film with one from Fran’s viewpoint, “Heard It in a Love Song” (by The Marshall Tucker Band on their 1977 Carolina Dreams album), at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HICPDZWnSeg (live, not sure when)—even though sung from a male point of view it speaks to Fran’s attitudes as well (“Always something greener on the other side of that hill I was born a wrangler and a rounder and I guess I always will”)—balanced against how those she leaves behind feel in “Desperado” (by the Eagles on their 1973 Desperado album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8quFtZrwFw (live from 1973): “[…] why don’t you come to your senses You’ve been out ridin’ fences for so long now Oh, you’re a hard one I know that you’ve got your reasons These things that are pleasin’ you Can hurt you somehow.” Will Fran ever “let somebody love [her] Before it’s too late”? Hard to know from what we’ve seen nor are we supposed to get closure because this road continues on its long, bumpy, unclear path 10 years now.

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

I Care a Lot (J. Blakeson) rated R 118 min.

Marla (Rosamund Pike) is a vicious hustler, using medical/legal duplicity to force old people into care facilities under her control so she can sell their property, pay herself a big profit; then Marla tries this with a woman (Dianne Weist) more complex than she seems whose gangster son (Peter Dinklage) is ready to retaliate. Netflix; Pike is a Golden Globe nominee (awards, Feb. 28, 2021) as Best Actress.

Here’s the trailer:

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

I Care … is the very definition of “black comedy,” satire meant to open our minds to something we should abhor but, because it's embraced/misunderstand by a large enough segment of society, perceptions need to be suddenly shaken loose, even when you have to wade through offensive material presented as comedy such in Mel Brooks' intentional-assaults in The Producers (1967)—Nazism—or Blazing Saddles (1974)—racism.* I Care ...'s focus is on Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), a self-admitted predator (constantly puffing on a vape pen, blowing smoke like a dragon) of elderly people she's put into assisted-living-facilities with help from corrupt doctor Karen Amos (Alicia Witt), “care” director Sam Rice (Damian Young), easy-to-manipulate Judge Lomax (Isiah Whitlock Jr.). Using terrible (but legal) procedures where the victim doesn’t even have to be in court, false medical testimony puts oldsters under Marla’s guardianship so, drugged, they lose all contact with the outside world while she and her associate/lover, Fran (Eiza González), sell off property and homes, making a fortune as they move on to their next mark, but this one’s Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), clandestine mother of Russian mobster Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage), who uses a lawyer, then goons to free Mom, to no avail, even as Marla finds diamonds in a safety deposit box.

*Full disclosure: After 4 years of watching the regular attacks on our Constitution, our government and financial institutions, or any sense of decency in human interactions by the Trump family and their minions such as Rudy Giuliani (at least Sasha Baron Cohen managed to retaliate on all of them somewhat in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm [2020; review in our October 29, 2020 posting]), I found it difficult to watch Marla’s heartless actions, ruining people’s lives for her own greedy pleasure without a hint of remorse (much like the Trumps), even though I realized what screenwriter-director Blakeson is after here; I could hardly bear the minutes ticking away as the film flowed on, Marla constantly overcoming any obstacle she faced. I’ve tried to be objective in my rating/review, but my personal disgust with Marla may have guided my reaction more than it should have (though she may seem merely an outrageous joke to those who can better distance themselves from her wicked depictions).

Upping his game, Roman kidnaps Marla to buy her off, has Fran beaten up and left to die from leaking gas in their home, then finds Marla wants way too much at $10 million so he sends her off to be doped, drowned “accidently” in a lake. ⇒However, she suddenly revives, escapes, rescues Fran, kidnaps Roman, drugs him, leaves him naked in the woods so he’s considered indigent, manipulated into Marla’s guardianship. He’s now willing to pay the $10 million but instead suggests they partner, go nationwide with her scam, which is hugely successful for awhile until a man we met at the beginning, whose mother had been put away by Marla, then died, confronts/shoots/kills her as she expires in Fran’s arms.⇐ There’s a lot to like here in terms of script, acting (Pike’s nominated as a Golden Globe Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Film [although laughs here are dubious]), active flow of story, surprise twists as Marla and Roman battle each other (the CCAL likes it: RT 82% positive, MC 66% average score—more details, as with anything I review, in Related Links farther below); it’s easy to find on Netflix streaming, but it may be hard to appreciate if you’ve ever been bilked by such scams or had a loved one get improper elder care. For a Musical Metaphor I’ll choose the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” (1966 Aftermath album) but in keeping with the female-"empowerment"-themes of this film (despicable as they may be in the character of Marla) I’ll use Tina Turner’s version at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQeYt_3oqHM, using lyrics of Marla speaking about Jennifer: “The way she talks when she’s spoken to Down to me, the change has come She’s under my thumb“ (but if you want Jagger and company, here’s a live performance in my old stomping grounds of spacious Zilker Park in Austin, TX in 2006, long after I’d moved away).

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 February 26, 2021

5:00 PM The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962) During the Korean War a U.S. Army platoon is captured by Soviet and Chinese forces, taken for a dose of brainwashing, then released with Sgt. Shaw (Laurence Harvey) lauded as a war hero, manipulated by his mother (Angela Lansbury) to assassinate a Presidential candidate so her husband can take the nomination, but Major Marco (Frank Sinatra) is determined to stop it. A disturbing legacy because it was released about a year before JFK murder. Oscar noms for Best Supporting Actress (Lansbury), Film Editing.

Saturday February 27, 2021

10:45 AM 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957) Jury deliberation drama where a young man (seemingly Hispanic) accused of killing his father seems a slam-dunk for guilty by this group of

White men until Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) wants to discuss it further, angering some of the others but

he insists on more dialogue. Based on a TV play, this is a single-set, real-time-flow story becoming increasingly claustrophobic. Marvelous acting by all actors as tensions mount, evidence is more tightly examined: Fonda, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, Robert Webber. Nominated for the Oscars as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay but won none.

12:30 PM A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) Also based on a play but ultimately the history of conflict between England’s King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) and his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), over More’s refusal to support Henry’s desire for an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, the situation becoming more difficult when Henry declares himself Head of the Church of England with More refusing to sign an oath of support (a very corpulent Orson Welles plays Cardinal Wolsey), morality vs. pragmatism. Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Scofield), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Costume Design (both latter awards for color films).

2:45 PM Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, 1981) Based on 2 British track stars in the 1924 Olympics, Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) a Christian running for the glory of God, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) a Jew running to challenge social prejudice. While there are lots of minor fictionalizations here the essential facts are accurate. The Vangelis-composed soundtrack (Oscar-winner) was ubiquitous in popular media of the time, also Oscars for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, and Costume Design.

5:00 PM Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990) This film doesn’t fully answer the quest for Native American stories on screen to be told by their own community (see Smoke Signals among a few others for that) but it helps compared to others in that the White protagonist (Costner) isn’t a savior of the Lakota Sioux people he comes to live with out on the post-Civil War prairie (and the Native roles are all played by indigenous actors such as Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant) when he comes to understand how they’ve been demonized. Nominated for 12 Oscars, won 7: Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, and Sound Mixing.

Sunday February 28, 2021

10:45 AM Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) Iconic James Dean role, a strong contender for best of his 3 powerful cinematic appearances (before his untimely death), as he plays a troubled teen whose independent streak just brings more difficulties from adults (including his parents) and a local gang, even as he tries to distance himself from his problems, escape from all of this hostility into a new life with his new friends (Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo), but further crises swirl around them.

Tuesday March 2, 2021

8:30 PM A Star Is Born (George Cukor, 1954) First musical version of this story (original drama in 1937, William A. Wellman); James Mason as movie star Norman Maine, Judy Garland as protégé Esther Blodgett (later Vicki Lester, later “Mrs. Norman Maine”), since retold twice as musicals with the basic plot of an up-and-comer taking the spotlight from an established-but-fading-performer.

For me, the best of these 4 versions, especially Garland’s rendition of “The Man Who Got Away.”

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

Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Extra items you might like: (1) Writers Guild of America 2021 nominations; (2) Only 3 actors have ever won an Oscar without being nominated by both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild; (3) NYC movie theaters to reopen but will anyone show up?. As usual for now 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 that you can 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.

AND … at least until the Oscars for 2020’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, April 25, 2021 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which 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 they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here as well as here due to many 2020 releases being tracked on the 2021 list, although the income situation for 2020’s skewed due to so many award-contenders getting limited or no theatrical releases)—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—damn it!—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 for films and TV from 2020-early 2021.

Here’s more information about Nomadland:

https://www.searchlightpictures.com/nomadland/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc8X-6HI9d4 (19:08 interview with director-screenwriter

Chloé and actor Frances McDormand)

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

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/nomadland?ref=hp

Here’s more information about I Care a Lot:

https://www.netflix.com/title/81350429

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybYb3wd3U1M (19:06 interview with director J. Blakeson

and actors Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinkage, Eiza González)

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

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/i-care-a-lot

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 6,896 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guy’s site):

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Judas and the Black Messiah plus Short Takes on Little Fish, suggestions for TCM cable offerings, along with some other cinematic topics

Bad Times: Past (Present) and Future

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King)

rated R 126 min.

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): First, my sympathies to all my friends freezing in these recent frigid days, some without power, in the freak winter storm that has recently impacted much of Texas; may you somehow soon find yourselves in warmth and comfort. OK, back to blog content: The potential-awards-contenders continue to trickle out in availability for me (along with a few others that just seem too interesting to wait any longer to watch) so my spotlight review this week is on Judas and the Black Messiah, based in real events about the late 1960s Illinois Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton and how the supposed-defenders of justice at the FBI recruited a local low-level criminal, Bill O’Neal, to infiltrate the group with the eventual goal of bringing down Hampton before he became a national revolutionary celebrity (available where theaters are open or on HBO Max streaming). Then, in the Short Takes section I’ll review Little Fish, set in the very near future where a deadly virus is destroying humanity, not in a COVID-19 manner but with rapid memory loss, leaving people not knowing each other nor how to function in skills they’ve known for years (found on several streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime, for a cheap rental). 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 tonight by this burned-out-BlogSpot-drone—oh, tedious software!) along with my usual standard dose of industry-related-trivia.

Here’s the trailer for Judas and the Black Messiah:

(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.)

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

What Happens: Based in history (although likely somewhat fictionalized, as most docudramas tend to be*), during those turbulent times in the late 1960s when there was a growing—furious at times—cultural divide between, mainly, the older generations (my parents included), The Establishment, who largely resisted sharing/changing their cultural power/perceptions which contributed so aggressively to the racist and sexist attitudes being challenged by younger generations (me included, but not with nearly the purpose/passion of the Black Panthers depicted in this film), with mostly White protesters speaking out/demonstrating against the Vietnam War (as shown in The Trail of the Chicago 7 [Aaron Sorkin, 2020; review in our October 22, 2020 posting]) and communities of color mostly taking action against the entrenched racism of the times, especially Black people resisting violence against their communities, especially by various law enforcement agencies supposedly set up to protect them; thus, we have the nationwide Black Panther Party (shown early on in some newsreel footage here), established in Oakland, CA (1966) with emphasis in this film on Illinois Chairman (also a national Deputy Chairman), Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), a charismatic man dubbed the “Black Messiah” by truly worried FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen), who seemed to believe Hampton’s leadership could bring enough others to join him so this country might actually experience a revolution; it was Hoover’s frantic goal (along with his clandestine [borderline-legal at best, mostly fanatical-obsessive] campaigns against other “subversives”) to find a means to bring down Hampton. J. Edgar finds his opportunity in 1968 when field agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) has pressure to put on teenage petty-crook Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) who’d been stealing cars using a fake FBI badge until he’s arrested, given the choice of 6½ years in jail or infiltrating the Chicago branch of the Panthers, getting close to Fred, feeding needed info to his FBI handlers (at both beginning and end of this film we get some footage of O’Neal talking about his time as an informant in the 1990 PBS documentary, Eyes on the Prize II).

Bill joins the Panthers, convinces Hampton he’s a loyal recruit, pushes Roy to get him a snazzy car in order to become Fred’s regular driver, ultimately rises to the post of Security Captain. In the process, though, O’Neal's impressed with Hampton’s sincere determination to use the Panthers’ militant presence as a social weapon in a troubled interracial city to bring improvement to Black neighborhoods by setting up programs for children’s free breakfasts, community medical clinics, and the formation of the Rainbow Coalition of the Panthers, the Black gang the Crowns, the Latino Young Lords, and (amazingly) the redneck Young Patriots to protest citywide discrimination, police brutality.

*Here’s a site with more information about several notable factual characters portrayed in this film.

Along the way, Fred falls in love with a poet-recruit to the Panthers, Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), with whom he eventually has a child. In the meantime, O’Neal encounters George Sams (Terayle Hill) from the New Haven, CT Panther chapter, secretly an FBI informant who allowed another Panther to be mistakenly killed as a snitch, giving Bill a huge worry he could suffer the same fate. Although Roy will never let Bill leave his mole position, O’Neal becomes even more worried after a vicious shoot-out at the Panthers headquarters with Chicago police, resulting in the cops bombing the building while Hampton’s in prison, seemingly for stealing $70 worth of ice cream. When Fred’s released he has a tremendous homecoming, shouting to his jubilant crowd “I am a revolutionary!” even as tensions grow in the group due to more individual shootouts with police resulting in the deaths of Panthers Jimmy Palmer (Ashton Sanders) and Jake Winters (Algee Smith). ⇒Hampton’s court appeal fails so he’d due to be sent back to prison, but Hoover thinks that will increase his popularity, wants him eliminated (Mitchell mirrors that paranoia, equating the Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan as equally dangerous to American ideals) so Bill’s pressured to draw a blueprint of Fred’s apartment (as well as slip him a sleeping pill) so a combined FBI/Chicago Police unit can attack in Dec. 1969, seemingly with no provocation, wounding Fred’s bodyguards and Deb, killing Fred (age 21). Later Roy rewards Bill with cash, the keys to a gas station O'Neal now owns, and full clearance of his previous crimes. Pre-final credits-graphics tell us Bill continued working with the FBI until the early 1970s; Deb had her baby soon after Fred died, continued with the Panthers until her chapter dissolved in 1978; survivors of the attack (where the intruders fired 99 shots, the Panthers none, yet these victims were charged with attempted murder) sued the FBI and finally got a $1.85 million settlement in 1982; Bill tried to defend his actions in his 1989 interview for Eyes … II but then committed suicide when the program aired on Martin Luther King Jr. day, Jan. 15, 1990.⇐

So What? Judas and the Black Messiah comes at an appropriate time for us as various factions of our society are addressing in their specific ways the whole resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement since summer of 2020 with component calls for racial justice in our society, reform of racist police departments, and conflicted arguments over the propriety of the many recent BLM demonstrations given that small factions of the protestors turned violent; in that sense this film likely speaks to people on all sides of these matters as some will continue to embrace the thinking of J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Mitchell that “our entire way of life is under distress” when groups like the Panthers decide it's time to arm themselves (pushing back against the hatred hurled at them by the hegemonic powers of society), while others (the vast majority, I hope) will/may get a renewed/better understanding of why the Black Panther Party presented itself as so publicly militant* (a move they deemed necessary to survival, given the consistent violence against their people) even as they did positive, neglected work in their communities. (Of course, those who denigrated the Panthers back in the 1960s-‘70s or who see them as anarchists today aren’t too likely to watch this film anyway, so how much it provides useful social insights beyond “preaching to the choir” remains to be seen—depending on how widely the film itself is seen [a little bit more on that in this review’s next section]).

*Full disclosure: In 1975 I was visiting in Berkeley, CA from my home base of Austin, TX, somehow delayed too long on my departure day heading to L.A. so as night approached the most convenient thing was to stop at a motel near the interstate in Oakland which I did but most reluctantly because I’d seen way-too-much-media-hype about the “dangerous” Black Panthers who, I assumed, would be all too eager to harass (or something worse) a young White guy “invading” their territory. It sounds absurdly naïve and uninformed now but speaks to how those you don’t know directly can be turned into “the other” if all you have go by are media products or biased news reports substantiating a fiction-often-becoming-fact when voting, budget appropriations, hardened attitudes are concerned. Now that I live out here near Oakland and have learned better what the Panthers were really up to most of the time (not withstanding periodic-extreme-actions by some of them) I feel better distant from my 1975 self (not that I thought returning to Texas offered a lot in the realm of racial tolerance).

As noted by director Shaka King, in an interview in the Related Links section far below, awards (even nominations—more on that right below as well) will help raise the public profile of his work hopefully bringing in additional viewership, encouraging Hollywood studios to finance further stories of this sort as part of our needed national dialogue on some form of healing of our intense social divisions, difficult as that may be to accomplish as some audiences will likely become uncomfortable watching a large roomful of angry Blacks shouting along with Fred Hampton: “I am a revolutionary!” I'll admit his calls for oppressed groups to arm themselves, along with the chant of “No more pigs in our community!” probably won’t help win over those already resisting the “coloring of America” (my phrase; not in the film) either, but if they can see past their fear of leftist revolutionaries (who scare me as well in their most-extreme-Antifa-modes because the violence those thugs bring, polluting legitimate anti-racism, anti-White privilege protests, is exactly the kind of activity that helps stir up right-wing, White-supremacist mobs like those who offered their own hatred and violence, storming the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6, 2021) maybe we can find some viewpoints to peacefully explore together.

Still, I would hope those not already aware of ongoing-overreach by our own government in stifling dissent (by any means necessary, it seems) from others who are legitimately fed up with dismissive treatment, unprovoked violence, denigration of their very existences would learn from this film how dangerous it can be when our own institutions of social structure, protection, “equality before the law” can become the institutions we might fear most when the people in power become determined to impose their own radical ideas of “justice,” which can lead to events such as the cold-blooded-assassination of Fred Hampton (drugged into deep sleep so he could offer no defense, just as the “law” agencies who killed him had no defense to justify their planned attack). You may not care for the content of this film, have no interest in seeing it, but I still encourage you to do so anyway because it contains carefully-constructed-representations of a crucial time in American history (one that resonates strongly with our own era) in the process of (hopefully) helping us better understand how one segment of society can respond actively to a charismatic leader (even one who calls himself a Marxist following the political philosophy of China’s Mao Zedong) while others revile such a powerful voice for change as they see their own stability under threat, just as this film also gives us a nuanced look at another man struggling for accomplishment where he has little hope of achieving the materialistic-American-dream (especially if pushed further into a hopeless hole by doing prison time [earned, of course, by his crimes]) unless he’s willing to sabotage others around him, betraying their trust, becoming an accomplice (sanctioned by his handlers) in illegal, unjustified homicide. Altogether, it’s one of the most powerful cinematic experiences from 2020, deserving of our attention.

Bottom Line Final Comments: The CCAC couldn’t be much more supportive of Judas …, as the Rotten Tomatoes critics deliver 96% positive responses, the normally-stingy-Metacritic folks come up with an 86% average score (highest of anything both they and I have reviewed this year) even as the film as a whole is on the 2020 Top 10 lists of the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review; further, Daniel Kaluuya’s among the Best Supporting Actor nominees for both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild (along with the film being nominated for Best Original Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America), so if nothing else you might want to see it to enjoy his dynamic performance. I’d also pick him as the outstanding one within an excellent overall cast, even though LaKeith Stanfield might be seen as the focus of the story given he’s there from beginning to end, provides an engaging presence on screen with his range of emotions from fear of jail time and true concern for his well-being if the Panthers discover his ruse, hunger for financial gain (which the actual guy was quite successful at during his time with the FBI), sincere inner-turmoil as he knows he has to keep up his façade even though he’s clearly becoming convinced of the community value of Hampton’s intentions; yet, Kaluuya’s so convincing in his never-wavering-focus on his goals (even continuing recruitment to his cause in prison), so impactful in his exhortations to the crowds he becomes the dominant presence in this story, even if considered as a supporting role.

I’ll admit I’d never heard of Hampton until he appeared as a minor character (played by Kelvin Harrison Jr.) in The Trial of the Chicago 7, leaning over the railing from the audience seats to advise defendant Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), so I’m glad to learn considerably more about him (not fictionalized too much based on what I’ve read recently), although my lack of such awareness is tempered by Stanfield admitting (in the interview in Related Links way down below) he’d never heard of O’Neal until he read the script, was initially disappointed at not being approached to play Hampton. You can access this film on HBO Max if you’re in a theater-desert (like me), but, if not, you might find it at 1 of the 1,888 domestic (U.S.-Canada) venues where it’s also playing (taking in $2.07 million on debut weekend), so embrace the big-screen-experience if you can. (One final enticement is this anatomy of a scene [2:30] by director King where Bill’s given his jail/infiltrator option.) So, enough from me except to finish this off with a Musical Metaphor, which I think for … Black Messiah should be Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (1984 Various Positions album) at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q (a live performance which may not contain verses you know because there are about 80 of them which he frequently interchanged) with its encouragement to celebrate all aspects of life, good or bad, which Hampton does, O’Neal’s still working on it as we watch his complex progression in (and as) Judas … . (A mesmerizing song, its meaning briefly addressed by Cohen [2:23], with a longer interpretation [5:40] for you to contemplate regarding how these lyrics resonate [if only in a metaphorical manner] with those events of … Black Messiah.)

(aspiring toward, not always achieving those) SHORT TAKES

(please note spoilers can also appear here)

Little Fish (Chad Hartigan) rated R 101 min.

In our not-too-distant-future a rampaging virus (not COVID-19) is sweeping the globe leading to sudden, at times deadly, memory loss; the focus is on a young married couple where the man’s clearly exhibiting signs of infection, giving his wife reason to worry, but then he’s accepted for a clinical trial that has hopes of remission if he’s willing to chance it, given some danger.

Here’s the trailer:

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

Little Fish (title refers to matching tattoos on our protagonists, even though they're a surprise to the husband) has clear connections to a couple of excellent predecessors in the realm of memory loss, Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000 [use of photos and tattoos as recollection aids]) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michael Gondry, 2004 [Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Charlie Kaufman]); however, in the former of these earlier films the loss and inability to make new memories results from a traumatic assault on an individual, in the latter it’s a chosen-neurological-procedure for anyone who buys it while in … Fish the evaporated memories—of both individuals and operational processes (a bus driver simply stops and walks away, an airline pilot crashes)—the loss occurs worldwide (in our near future) due to a viral pandemic, NIA, with no known cause nor confirmed cure. The focus is on Emma (Olivia Cooke), a veterinary assistant, and Jude (Jack O’Connell), a photographer, married earlier in 2021, him showing increasing signs of memory deterioration (not like what we know as dementia because it can come on quickly, increase in impact, nothing age-related about it), both of them terrified as they see the impact on their friend Ben (Raúl Castillo) as he forgets his wife/musician partner Samantha (Soko), thinks she’s a stranger, in his paranoia almost stabs her with a kitchen knife. Then an experimental cure emerges, leading to near-riots as crowds demand to be on the trail roster (sound familiar?), but because it involves a shot through the roof of the mouth into the brain Jude’s terrified even when he has an appointment. ⇒However, he decides to do it, then learns he’s disqualified because of cocaine in his system (although sober for 5 years, he took it with another musician friend, didn’t even remember) so he begs Emma to do it to him (I’m not clear what's in the syringe). Pushing through fear he takes the injection but it doesn’t work, even as she then forgets they agreed to go to the beach for a walk. While there they completely lose connection but seem interested in meeting afresh (like the couple in Eternal Sunshine … although we have no sense of what awaits any of them, but at least the … Spotless Mind pair live in a world without the physical dangers, unknown future of these … Fish worldwide-contaminated-societies).⇐

Technically, this film—which, ironically, was finished just before our current COVID-19 pandemic even began—clusters with apocalyptic/futuristic sci-fi stories, although we learn nothing about the outcome of our species due to this viral disaster (maybe just as well, given the context of it being released during our current virus situation with every sense of coronavirus-progress threatened by new strains of the killer), yet it’s also a touching story of individuals trying to retain whatever they can as their personal links begin slipping away even as the connective sense of what brought them together remains, faint as it may be. If the pandemic aspect’s not too disturbing, I recommend seeing this on Amazon Prime or other platforms (see JustWatch) for a $6.99-$7.99 rental; the CCAL's on my side too as RT offers 92% positive reviews, MC’s average score is 71% (a supportive-enough-number for them)—it’s also in 51 domestic theaters, but grossing about $36 thousand so far. Regarding Musical Metaphors, 2 songs from way back came to mind about romantic connections come/gone (no memory loss, just heartache in the latter) the first celebrating what’s worth recalling in “I Remember You” (written by Victor Schertzinger, Johnny Mercer, 1941), recorded by many with a very popular 1962 version by Frank Ifield (on his 1964 … Greatest Hits album)—“When my life is through And the angels ask me to recall The thrill of it all Then I will tell them I remember you”—along with the flip side, precious memories that “I Forgot What It Was Like” (written by Burt Bacharach, Hal David) to cherish when love disappears as sung in 1963 by Ray Peterson (on his massive 2006 compilation album, Tell Laura I Love Her)— “A broken heart, a broken lie, that’s all I have It’s over now and yet somehow, I’m still in love with you.” Put together, I think they address … Fish well in a less-devastating-manner than what our lovers endure on screen.

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.

Thursday February 18, 2021

7:00 PM Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952) Beloved-musical (a standard for achievement in its genre) starring Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Jean Hagen, and Cyd Charisse about Hollywood’s clumsy transition into sound movies, plus romance between a male star and a female newcomer with great potential; features the fabulous “Broadway Melody” sequence, one of the grandest of all MGM spectaculars, along with many songs from previous MGM musicals.

Friday February 19, 2021

6:45 PM Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991) A woman with a troubled past (Susan Sarandon) and her friend (Geena Davis) with a domineering husband take a weekend trip which goes wrong as an attempted rape leads to the man shot dead, other crimes accrue as they go on the run yet we still empathize with their crisis. Also stars Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, first big role for Brad Pitt. Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Callie Khouri), nominated for 5 more.

Monday February 22, 2021

5:30 AM My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) Exuberant musical, based on 1956 Lerner and Lowe stage hit (itself from George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion); sing-a-long songs as smug Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) transforms Cockney flower-seller Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) into the semblance of a royal. Winner of 8 Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Harrison), Art Direction-Color, Cinematography-Color, Costume Design-Color, Adapted Musical Score, Sound.

5:00 PM Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988) Hustler car-dealer Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), inherits a Buick from his Dad in Ohio, learns he has an older brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant; they drive to L.A. due to Raymond’s fear of flying, stopping in Las Vegas to make a fortune with Ray’s ability to count cards, as a bond grows between the brothers. Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Hoffman), Original Screenplay (Barry Morrow, Ronald Bass), noms for 4 others.

7:30 PM East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955) James Dean’s screen debut as Cal Trask, a WW I-era young man living near Monterey, CA trying to win the love of his stern father, Adam (Raymond Massey), who gives more support to other son, Aron (Richard Davalos), adapted from the stunning John Steinbeck novel (with its intended Biblical overtones). Even when Cal makes a fortune for Dad he’s rejected so he shames Aron by revealing Mom (Jo Van Fleet) isn’t dead after all but lives nearby, running a brothel. Won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (Van Fleet); Dean (already dead by the time of the awards) was nominated for Best Actor (as he was for his last, Giant [1956]).

Tuesday February 23, 2021

2:45 PM Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) Adapted from Thomas Mann’s noted novella; Austrian composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) goes to Venice for his health, becomes enamored with a Polish adolescent, Tadzio (Björn Andrésen), uses cosmetics to appear younger but never actually converses with the boy. Lots of tragedy here, including a cholera epidemic in the city, Aschenbach with a heart problem, but overall it’s just a quiet, sad meditation on longing and loss.

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 for you: (1) Details on the 2021 Oscar telecast; (2) IMDb TV and streaming guide; (3) Awards nominations and ceremonies leading up to Oscars on April 25, 2021. As usual for now 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!

To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the current Golden Globe nominees for films and TV from 2020-early 2021.

Here’s more information about Judas and the Black Messiah:

https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/judas-and-black-messiah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaha3PvWGMU (36:33 interview with director/co-screenwriter [with Will Berson] Shaka King [ads may interrupt at about 2:30, 5:45, 14:40, 21:30]) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VexZulR7HLQ (7:05 interview with actors Daniel Kaluga

and LaKeith Stanfield)

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

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/judas-and-the-black-messiah?ref=hp

Here’s more information about Little Fish:

https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/little-fish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYVHLjRJnLs (21:24 interview with director Chad Hartigan)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/little_fish_2021

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/little-fish-2021

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.)

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