Cherry plus Short Takes on Zack Snyder’s Justice League, suggestions for TCM cable offerings, and various other cinematic topics

Man of Steal, Man of Steel (and their associates)

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.

           

   Cherry (Joe & Anthony Russo)   rated R   141 min.

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Your filmic tastes (sounds like something that needs a dose of mouthwash) may be different from mine, but glancing over the latest crop of new releases (even slightly older ones from recent weeks) available for streaming (no theaters for me yet) just didn’t turn up much that looked all that interesting (although I did use the new version of Justice League [Zack Snyder {2017, 2021}] as distraction while stretching my legs for an hour + at a time on my mini-exercise-bike [just pedals, you sit on the couch], another reason why I didn’t take extended notes to pour into an extended review of it) so I fought off the horribly-negative-OCCU response to Cherry to see what’s there—largely because I'm impressed with Tom Holland, was curious to learn what becomes of this new collaboration between the latest Spider-Man and his previous-Avengers-directors—which I found to be much more successful than the bulk of the critical establishment did, so I encourage you to give it a try as well.  Based on a somewhat-autobiographical-novel by Nico Walker, we have the story of a guy who leaves college on a whim, joins an Army that sends him to hell in Iraq, comes back with severe PTSD, gets hooked on OxyContin then heroin to ease his pain, pulls his young wife into the drugs with him, then turns to robbing banks to fund their habits.  There’s nothing about this film that's very uplifting nor encouraging, yet it’s intriguing to watch, well acted by Holland and Ciara Bravo; so, check it out on Apple TV+ (cheap, even if you’re not a subscriber yet).  

 Following that, in the Short Takes section I veer from the post-Avengers-work of the Russo brothers to their companion/competition-superhero-realm, the DC Extended Universe where Zack Snyder offers on HBO Max his long-intended-version (this one not manipulated by Warner Bros. demands nor changed drastically for Joss Whedon's 2017 release) of Justice League where Superman (you must know by now he comes back from the dead in this story!), Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash battle Steppenwolf and his overlord, Darkseid, for control of our planet.  I imagine you’d have to already be enthralled with this sort of fantasy warfare to devote 4 hours of your life to it, but for me it matches the quality of Avengers: Endgame while giving you a much-more-manageable-cast-size to keep up with, much better backstory on the newly-introduced-warriors, an appropriately darker tone overall.  Also, 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.

Here’s the trailer for Cherry:

                   (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: While this story's based on the real-life-experiences of Nico Walker, even the well-praised book he wrote (same title, 2018) about his young-adult-activities (he was born in 1985) is somewhat fictionalized although the primary structure of these events seems to be true (the novel was written while he was in prison, 2012-2019).  In the film, we find the main character, Cherry (Tom Holland), is from a nondescript-milieu in Cleveland, OH, as he often narrates what’s happening with himself, starting with the story’s PROLOGUE (where he’s 23 in 2007), as he seems disconnected from life, confused, about to rob a bank, then proceeding through PARTS ONE-FIVE as he goes to college, falls quickly for a girl, Emily (Ciara Bravo)—from tiny Elba, NY—in his English class, starts an active sexual relationship with her (first dumping high-school-girlfriend Madison [Kelli Berlund], after visiting at her NJ college, being appalled by her attitudes), then is devastated when Emily decides to leave, transfer to another school in Montreal.  Heartbroken, Cherry enlists in the Army to train to be a medic, but before he ships out Emily changes her mind, wants to stay with him so they quickly marry before he’s off for Basic Training, a horrible-enough-experience under intentionally-dehumanizing, viciously-brutal drill sergeants there and later in the field, but the real horror awaits when he’s in Iraq, which he detests especially because his comrades seem to hate the people they’re supposedly there to liberate (his life lightened only by occasional phone calls home to Emily); worse, his friend, Jimenez (Jeff Wahlberg), dies in a cruel manner, as do so many in these situations.

 Back home in Ohio after his 3 years abroad and a Medal of Valor, Cherry’s in bad, often-violent/ hallucinatory shape with PTSD, gets an easy prescription for OxyContin (which he shares with Emily because she doesn’t know how else to deal with his unstable condition), then graduates (with her) to heroin.  As their desperation for drugs grows (and money becomes more scarce), they break into a safe owned by their dealer, called Pills and Coke (Jack Reynor), take the drugs there but later find out that stash belonged to a higher-up (so to speak), vicious Black (Daniel R. Hill), who’ll kill them all without getting proper restitution so Cherry robs a bank to pay off the debt.  Addiction continues, as do the bank robberies, then Emily overdoses, almost dies, goes into rehab.  When she’s out he wants her to go straight—and stay away from Cherry—but she’d rather be high with him so the robberies continue, now with Pills and Coke plus friend James Lightfoot (Forrest Goodluck) to help, allowing for bigger jobs.  ⇒At one point, though, Pills freaks out, runs away, so his “buddies” (afraid he’ll be caught, rat them out to the cops) find him, wounded, let him die, dump his body.  Pressured by Black for more cash, Cherry pulls one last job, tells the teller to activate her alarm, gives the money to Black, then waits outside the bank to be arrested.  EPILOGUE: In prison, Cherry cleans up, gets paroled after 14 years (mirroring how the film itself feels long, although this part’s brief), finds Emily waiting for him when he gets out.⇐  Here’s a warning for you, though: I route Apple TV+ through a Roku box into my LG TV, streaming fed by my AT&T modem; although I’ve used this method with several platforms encountering no trouble, during my viewing of Cherry the flow kept freezing momentarily (or longer), finally came to a complete halt, so I checked the modem which seemed to be fine (although it often disconnects about once a week—yeah, local-option-COMCAST may be back in action in my condo at some point) but, as usual, I unplugged briefly, let it reboot, then all was fine, so be aware of such a possible response if you’re using the same technology for Cherry.

So What? I started to begin this sentence with “I usually match up with at least one of the critics’ review sites (Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic) so I’m surprised when I’m way off from these cited others,” but first I took a quick tally of the 23 films I’ve explored so far in 2021 (not counting In the Land of Lost Angeles [posted on March 18, 2021; neither of those groups attended to it]), finding I matched at least 1 of them only on 9 occasions (I guess I’m also easier to please because my rating was higher than theirs on 9 of the remaining 14 unmatched; for the others I was the grouch), so, although I can’t claim any great sense of current unity with the CCAL after all, I still find myself surprised in the case of Cherry my mostly-positive 3½ stars is so drastically off from the OCCU: RT’s miserable 37% positive reviews, Metacritic’s surprisingly-higher-yet-still-dismissive 44% average score.  To get some insight into why so many are so negative about something I found to be quite engaging I read the responses of some critics I respect, even when we disagree.  What I found, for example, from Ty Burr of the Boston Globe is “ ‘Cherry’ is three movies in one, none of them fresh, all of them overlong. [… ¶] Yet what felt vivid and lived in Nico Walker’s critically acclaimed 2018 novel — in part because Walker genuinely lived it — feels studied and stentorian on film, with a central figure who never seems more than the sum of his dumb choices and worse luck. […] ‘Cherry’ is a two-and-a-half hour slog that confuses grinding our faces in misery with seriousness of purpose.”  In a similar vein, Stephanie Zacharek of TIME opines: “Cherry feels like a movie made by a teenager, a bright kid who doesn’t leave his room much but still has plenty of thoughts about, you know, experiences and stuff. None of this is to denigrate Walker’s real-life experience as an Iraq war veteran who returned from duty a broken person, turning to drugs to alleviate his pain, and then turning to robbery to pay for his drugs. (He wrote his novel while serving a prison sentence for those crimes, using part of the proceeds to repay the institutions he robbed.) But movies based on real life—or, in this case, a fictionalized version of real life—aren’t life itself. We still have to be able to get through them as viewers, or what good are they?”  I could steer you to others with like reactions, but I’m sure you've got the point by now.

 Still, there are some who do find value in Cherry, such as Peter Bradshaw of London’s The Guardian, who’s not highly-enthusiastic but still more accepting: “This is a vehement, heartfelt film that culminates in a colossally grandiose sequence with a full-scale overhead camera shot (the sort mocked in Team America: World Police) and Puccini blaring on the soundtrack. Holland certainly brings his A-game. […] Cherry is a fervent movie, corn-fed with drama and action, but maybe a little less than the sum of its parts.”  So, ultimately, I turn to my local critical guru, Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle (for 2 reasons: (1) Of the reviewers I read often enough to know [second-hand, of course] and usually find use of some sort in their remarks even if we’re far apart on a particular film, LaSalle’s evaluation was the most supportive of the ones I surveyed on Cherry, giving me reason to chance watching something so generally-reviled by so many others; (2) in recent reviews of mine I’ve often found notable bones to pick with some of his choices so it only seemed fair to give him credit when he’s helped me find something most others would simply dismiss) whose statements effectively find the best parts of this cinematic experience: “ ‘Cherry’ conveys the beauty and splendor of being a teenager, but it doesn’t make you want to be one. By the time he’s in the Army, looking at people who’ve been blown apart or burned to death, love and sex seem like a cruel joke — like an opiate that fooled him into thinking this was his life, when it was really something else. […] It’s held together by the smart writing, by the overarching tone of tragic absurdity, and by Holland, who hits every bump on Cherry’s way down. He goes from a thoughtful guy who can’t think his way out of a trap to a guy who can barely think at all. When we see Cherry deep into his addiction, he’s doing things that are utterly insane, and yet Holland makes you believe all of it. He also makes you believe that there’s a core decency to this guy that never goes away.”  Nice insights.

 I certainly agree about the praise from many for Holland, a guy I’ve found to be the right casting choice for everything I’ve seen him in (Captain America: Civil War [Russos, 2016; review in our May 13, 2016 posting], Spider-Man: Homecoming [John Watts, 2017; review in our July 13, 2017 posting], Avengers: Infinity War [Russos, 2018; review in our May 3, 2018 posting], Avengers: Endgame [Russos, 2019; review in our May 1, 2019  posting], Spider-Man: Far from Home [Watts, 2019; review in our July 11, 2019 posting], The Devil All the Time [Antonio Campos, 2020; review in our September 24, 2020 posting])—although that last one was also not a universal critical favorite (RT 65%, MC 54%); I quoted TIME’s Zacharek in negative mode again: “Watching it is like spending two hours and change on a hard church pew, with nothing to show but a few splinters,” so I doubt she'll be at a Tom Holland festival anything soon (maybe a Spider-Man marathon; numbers much better for those).  Still, for me, Holland’s quite powerful—and believable—as Cherry, successfully conveying those streams of hopeless emotions this character confronts, even at such a young age.

Bottom Line Final Comments: A consistent complaint that I've found about Cherry (No, Holland’s character’s never called that in the film, although he’s clearly identified as such in the credits and cast lists; it probably refers to the intended-derogatory use of that term—implying unspoiled-virgins, seemingly soft and naïve—by the drill sergeant to this guy’s group of recruits in Basic Training, a constant collage of intimidation designed to break down individuality in these men, push them into the automatic command of their “superior” non-coms/officers; I can see how such a negative term could be an allusion to this young man’s inability [however legitimate, given his circumstances especially after serving in a gruesome combat zone] to rise above the challenges he faces, taking the drastic step of enlisting just because his girlfriend’s seemingly off to Montreal [I once had a college roommate who was serious about signing up as well, for no better reason than Cherry’s, leaving me with more rent obligation than I could afford for the rest of that semester; while he was taking time to cool off, change his mind, I moved ahead with plans to get an even-cheaper single room for myself in the following semester], finding himself unable to fight off his PTSD with the use of drugs, having no other plan to support his habit than robbing banks, accepting Emily’s decision to avoid rehab so she can continue to get high with him—he’s constantly being faced with hard, often unavoidable decisions but can’t seem to find a way out of his dilemma until the near-end of this story.) is the film’s not as compelling as Walker’s novel.  That may well be the case (Shock! I haven’t read it!), but except in rare instances, in individual filmgoer’s interpretations, that’s usually the case due to how intimate, enthralling a well-written-book can be, allowing the reader to conjure up all sorts of inner-cognitive-visualizations as abstract words take on literary-life in context, often with hundreds more pages of text to work with than the standard 120-page-script (about 1 page per running-time-minute, including scene descriptions, dialogue delivery notations), but for those critics I’ve read, referencing Walker's novel, there’s a much higher sense of adaptation-betrayal than usual.

 Yet, this is one reason why I make little effort to read a book before it’s transformed to the screen so that I can fully appreciate whatever the film has to offer without insisting it somehow must meet my previous expectations from the published page;* this is my experience with the cinematic-Cherry which I find to work reasonably well on its own terms, with any tendency to say “No, this is absurd” modified both by knowing the essence of this presentation’s based on Walker’s life and allowing whatever literary-license he used to fictionalize aspects of his semi-autobiography to be his intended choices (then modified by screenwriters Angela Russo-Otstot, Jessica Goldberg [you can get an insight into their transformative-process by watching the interview—second item in Related Links for this film far, far below—with them, Holland, Bravo, and the Russo brothers]); I’ve come across no complaints from Walker about his vision being bastardized, so if he (along with interviewer Robert Downey Jr. in that below-cited-interview-link [to keep the Avengers connection further alive, I guess]) are happy with this adaptation, then who am I to denigrate a result I found extremely watchable just because others are so down on it (nor do I have any desire to do so anyway).  I encourage you to consider watching Cherry, even if you need to pay the small ($4.99) monthly fee to get access to Apple TV+.  If not, you can get a quick sense of the idea of what’s going on here in my wrap-it-up Musical Metaphor, “I Fought the Law” (written by Sonny Curtis of the post-Buddy Holly-Crickets, popularized by the Bobby Fuller Four 1965 single, on their 1966 album of the same name) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE2JMyBAe0: “I needed money ‘cause I had none […] I left my baby and I feel so sad I guess my race is run […] Robbin’ people with a six-gun I fought the law and the law won.”  Cherry does all of this, although it does take us just under 2½ hours to see him through his many situations whereas the song wraps it up in under 2½ minutes, so take your choice.

*I also don’t read many novels-turned-into-films after seeing the result on screen, although with The Shining I enjoyed Stanley Kubrick’s version (1980) even better than Stephen King’s novel (1977), as I find it more terrifying, more unsettling; in a related manner, the John Steinbeck book of The Grapes of Wrath (1939)—probably the best novel I’ve ever read, mixing grim reality with poetic vision—is superior to John Ford’s cinematic-adaptation (1940), simply because the Hays Code restrictions on Hollywood films of the time prevented the even-grittier-book-aspects from being shown, but I still see Ford’s version as a 5 stars-classic.  Accordingly, Steinbeck got a Pulitzer Prize for his novel (also helped considerably with his Nobel Prize [1962]) while Ford took the Best Director Oscar for his film.

          

(not exactly) SHORT TAKES (but getting closer to intentions) 

(no spoilers here, though)

                  

            Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Zack Snyder)

                                     rated R  242 min.

This recut of 2017’s Justice League (credited to Snyder but really reworked by Joss Whedon, brought in by the studio to revamp and finish it) adds 2 hours of footage, much more character development of the 6 superheroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, Flash) working as a newly-formed team against a powerful alien attempting to subjugate all life upon Earth.

Here’s the trailer:

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

 Back in 2017 Two Guys presented a review of the original version of Justice League (director credit to Snyder, but essentially helmed, altered considerably from his intentions by Joss Whedon, brought over by Warner Bros. studio execs from Disney's Marvel franchise [The Avengers {2012; review in our May 12, 2012 posting}, Avengers: Age of Ultron {2015; review in our May 7, 2015 posting}] after Snyder departed due to the suicide of his daughter, Autumn), a text which takes about as long to read as it does for you to watch Zack’s newly-released-revision of that earlier superhero-collective-adventure.  In a major departure from my earlier ramble, I’m going to offer only a brief (!!) account of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (a detailed account of its plot can be found at this site) because this one follows the basic outline of the original but is considerably darker in both tone and cinematography, allows extended backstory-development for (at that time) new characters Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Flash (Ezra Miller), who had previously only been briefly glimpsed in the movie preceding this one, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Snyder, 2016; review in our April 1, 2016 posting), and overall has generated much more supportive responses from critics (RT, 73% positive vs. 40% for the Whedon version; MC, though, remains hesitant with a 54% average score for the new one vs. 45% for the older one) and audiences, with fan demands for the Snyder … League to be released, prompting Warner Bros. to put up an additional $70 million for reshoots/post-production even though they’d already invested $300 million for the 2017 production budget; the original earned $658 million worldwide but needed about $750 million for break-even (marketing costs often at least double initial outlays) so it was considered a financial flop as well as a miserable miscue by a lot of reviewers and DC Comics fans (apparently WB insisted Whedon keep it to 2 hrs., lighten Synder’s approach, but only the studio execs became satisfied with those changes).

     (Here’s your Zoom meeting with the main cast of Zack Snyder’s Justice League)

 Now that Snyder’s been able to realize his intended vision (which is twice as long as Whedon’s cut, reformatted to the old 4x3-image-ratio of the pre-widescreen-era [he found he liked it when shooting some IMAX scenes for the original in that shape—necessary if you want to fully-fill those gigantic-but-squarish-screens], using little-to-none of Whedon’s reshot-footage, ending with optimism while implying much darker days ahead in planned sequels*) we have a much-more-complete/much-better-version of … Justice League, allowing me to move up from my original 3½ stars (few reviews I’m aware of were that satisfied in 2017, but I still found a lot to like in it, especially the functional use of a limited cast of superheroes as compared to how bloated the Avengers movies were already becoming before they really started packing in their vast array of characters) to a loftier 4 stars now.  

*Synder’s envisioned a complex 5-part DC cycle of these Justice League superheroes starting with the Superman-reboot, Man of Steel (2013; review in our June 19, 2013 posting), followed by … Dawn of Justice, then Justice League with 2 more installments where things would get even worse than what we’d seen so far until a hoped-for-salvation, with a bit of those dreaded aspects previewed in Bruce Wayne’s (Ben Affleck) prescient-nightmare just before the end of this … Justice League.  It’s an open question whether those sequels will ever be made, but if not—or, even if so, if you choose to encounter extensive spoilers—you can find a full description of them when you go here.

 I’m not going to enumerate all the additions/revisions in this new version but here's a site (20:31) that claims to address 135 of them (I didn’t count; help yourself [ads interrupt at about 5:00, 10:00, 15:00]), instead I’ll just say there’s a lot more meat in the story now, no need to get distracted about having to remove the mustache in post-production from the face of Henry Cavill (Superman—you already knew he came back from the dead, right?  If not, just look at the poster, damn it!  Ultimately, despite all of the other engaging storylines—especially Cyborg’s—the ultimate focus in this movie is on Superman’s miraculous resurrection, the needed extra element to defeat evil Steppenwolf [Ciarán Hinds], with his deadly-merge of the powerful Mother Boxes), and we get enough useful screen time with each of the superheroes, including the marvelous Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman (as well as brief appearances by the ultimate nemesis, Darkseid [Ray Porter], and a future Justice Leaguer, the Martian Manhunter [Harry Lennix]), to understand their motivations better, increase our hopes we’ll see more of each of them, at least in coming stand-alone-movies.  My choice for a Musical Metaphor comes (almost) directly from the song under the credits, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (originally on his 1984 Various Positions album), although they used the Allison Crowe version which is a bit too-funeral-dirgy for me, even though I know it’s intended to capture the mixture of sorrow and hope woven into this movie, so, instead, I’ll use this great k.d. lang version at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=YYiMJ2bC65A, sung at Cohen’s 2006 induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (he’s even said she’s the one who owns the song).  And, if you’ve only sung along with the frequent chorus all these years you might want to look over the lyrics (well, some of them anyway; Cohen had about 80, often inserted ones fans weren’t aware of yet in his concerts) to see how the uplifting “hallelujah”s are usually contrasted to much more somber allusions.  Snyder would like to eventually get an IMAX release of his cut, but for now it’s available only to HBO Max subscribers where you can watch it in time-chosen-segments, as I did over 3 days without losing any continuity.

               

Suggestions for TCM cablecasts

                 

(No, not from the new one [thank the cinema gods] but instead's from the 1962 clash of these titans.)

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 for U.S. Pacific zone so if you see something of interest please verify actual show time in your area for the day listed.  These recommendations are my particular favorites (no matter when they’re on, although some of those early-day-ones might need to be recorded, watched later), but there’s considerably more to pick from you might like even better; feel free to explore their entire schedule here. You can also click the down arrow at the right of each listing for additional, useful info.

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

Thursday March 25, 2021

1:00 PM Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) Oscar winner as Best Picture, Best Director (and 5 more) in this history-based-version of Brit T.E. Lawrence working with desert-dwelling Arabs against Ottoman Empire Turks in WW I, starring Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, many others; monumental visuals calling for a decent-size widescreen format to see it on (no cell phones!) as well as time to spare because it runs for about 3½ hours.

10:15 PM Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) Relatively tame compared to today’s brutal slashers, this foundational movie of the psychological horror subgenre was disturbing enough in its time; the story follows a woman (Janet Leigh) who steals money from her employer in Arizona, tries to hide out in a small, out-of-the-way motel in California with an odd proprietor (Anthony Perkins), then shocking surprises mount up (also stars Vera Miles, Martin Balsam, John Gavin). Famous for the shower scene but more controversial with the censors for showing a toilet flushing (just torn paper, though).

Sunday March 28, 2021 

11:00 AM Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Once a decade, Sight & Sound magazine polls film critics on All-Time #1; in 2012 Vertigo ended Citizen Kane’s (Orson Welles, 1941) 50-year run on top (Kane’s still #1 for me), certainly one of Hitchcock’s best, but a hard choice also. James Stewart’s an ex-cop with a fear of heights, shadowing—then romancing—a friend’s possibly-faithless wife (Kim Novak), who seemingly leaps to her death … or does she? Stewart’s character’s a real departure.

Tuesday March 30, 2021 

5:15 AM Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) Set in 1928 Kansas, this is the sad story of a teenager (Natalie Wood) who resists sex with her boyfriend (Warren Beatty) until marriage but in the meantime he has to deal with his scandalous sister (Barbara Loden), only for each of them to suffer various forms of anguish when the Depression hits, further increasing the ongoing drama (still plays as truly tragic, not corny, at least for me).  William Inge won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

3:00 PM Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) Great example of American film beyond the boundaries of the old Studio System with Depression Era-outlaws played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway (Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Michael J. Pollard also in the gang). Romanticized version of history as robbers are Robin Hood-antiheros in their day, represent anti-establishment values for ‘60s audiences; shocking bloody ending. Parsons won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar; the film also got another one for Best Cinematography. Excellent use of Flatt and Scruggs music.

Wednesday March 31, 2021  (The 2021 semi-remake of Godzilla vs. Kong [although the Toho Studios 1962 original differs considerably in content] debuts today in theaters and on HBO Max 

so, today, you might want to see the first-generation older movies that new one’s ultimately based 

on, via TCM, before indulging in the contemporary CGI-heavy extension of these earlier franchises (no more guys in monster-suits, damn!); other Godzilla and Kong sequels continue on TCM tonight, but if you need to see the 1933 King Kong sooner TCM also has it on Friday 3/26/2021 at 3:00 PM.)

5:00 PM Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (Ishiro Honda, 1956) This is the “Americanized” version with (poorly) dubbed English dialogue, the insertion of Raymond Burr as a reporter covering Godzilla‘s rampaging attack on Japan; the original 1954 Japanese version (minus Burr), Gojira, began what’s—presumably—the longest-running movie franchise in history even with the limitations of those early crude special effects and seeming-commentary about devastation from WW II U.S. atomic bombs.

6:30 PM King Kong (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, 1933) Original tale of a huge ape on a secluded island with natives and dinosaurs, taken away by an entrepreneurial filmmaker as an NYC stage attraction until all hell breaks loose.  Marvelous stop-motion-animation by Willis O’Brien of the island’s creatures (racist stereotypes of the natives, though), culminating with Kong’s capture of Fay Wray, carrying her with him to the top of the Empire State Building for the (sad) grand finale.

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: Extra items just for you: (1) Early predictions on Oscar winners (starts with Best Picture; scroll down in the link to see predictions on other categories); (2) Winner possibilities for Best Picture Oscar; (3) Streaming subscriptions pass $1 billion globally due to theater closures.  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:

             

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*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 Globes nominees and winners for films and TV from 2020-early 2021 along with the Oscar nominees for 2020-early 2021 films.

Here’s more information about Cherry:

https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/cherry/umc.cmc.40gvwq6hnbilmnxuutvmejx4r?ctx_brand=tvs.sbd.4000&itscg=MC_20000&itsct=atvp_brand_omd&mttn3pid=a_google_adwords&mttnagencyid=1625&mttncc=US&mttnsiteid=143238&mttnsubad=OUS2019895_1-506975196716-c&mttnsubkw=119860120936_kwd-1186641572294__&mttnsubplmnt= (enormously long URL for an official site!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTFxIWrIQso (14:26 interview by Robert Downey Jr. of directors Joe and Anthony Russo, actors Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo, and co-screenwriters 

Angela Russo-Otstot, Jessica Goldberg [adapted from the book by Nico Walker])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cherry_2021

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/cherry-2021

Here’s more information about Zack Snyder’s Justice League:

https://zacksnydersjusticeleague.dcuniverseinfinite.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AwS7D1qlSY (11:00 biggest differences between 

the Snyder cut and the earlier Whedon theatrical version; considerable Spoilers however!)

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

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/zack-snyders-justice-league 

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.

                

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Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 28,136 (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 Guys’ site):