Stowaway plus some suggestions for TCM cable offerings and a few other cinematic topics

 Lost in Space

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.

        Stowaway (Joe Penna)   rated TV-MA    116 min.

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): After spending a lot of time lately watching the Oscars telecast last Sunday, struggling with problems in my new home phone system, and being concerned about possible medical challenges for my almost-15-year-old-cat, I haven’t put much energy toward new cinematic options for review (still just streaming for me, even though some local theaters are open and I’m fully vaccinated; at 73—with new COVID-variants raising their ugly spikes, too damn many people still wandering around maskless in my area—I’m not ready yet for that long-awaited-commercial-movie-experience), so I’ve got only 1 (reasonably-effective) option to pass on to you, but first—in case you haven’t seen anything else about this yet—the reason why the Oscars gave the Best Picture award prior to Best Actress (winner Francis McDormand in Nomadland, for most a surprise) and Best Actor (an even bigger surprise of Anthony Hopkins in The Father)* was because the producers were expecting a dramatic finish with Chadwick Boseman getting a posthumous Best Actor Oscar (for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), only to be undercut by Hopkins’ win, further diminished by Sir Anthony not even being available via satellite for an acceptance speech so the show closed “Not with a bang but a whimper” (thank you, T.S. Eliot, from The Hollow Men [1925]).  Too bad for the legacy of Boseman (and the show’s tanked ratings overall), but, still, a worthy win for Hopkins, much as I’d have preferred for Chadwick to have finished out his distinguished career with an Oscar.

 With the above aspects in mind, I’m lacking energy to do all that much with Stowaway (no fault of the movie, because it's well worth your time to watch if you’re a Netflix streaming subscriber) except to summarize, recommend to you this near-future-story of a man who accidently ends up on a 2-year-voyage to Mars in a spaceship designed to provide oxygen for only 3 intended crew members, with the ship’s carbon dioxide filter damaged in the process leaving our extraterrestrial voyagers with a major problem because under these circumstances none will survive before reaching the already-established-base on the Red Planet.  What they do through various attempts to save themselves is the entire substance of this narrative, enhanced by the claustrophobic setting of the space vehicle where there’s little option for alone-time along with the constant interactions of the 4-person-cast (Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson) appropriately adding to the escalating-tension.  Also, in the Short Takes 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 my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.

*A bit more detailed commentary on the Oscar winners is in my now-amended-posting from April 22, 2021 along with notations of all those winners appended to the predictions (I even got to celebrate 14 of my 20 preferences [70%]—didn’t see enough in 3 of the categories to make such choices—although you could say that I got 14 of 19 preferences [74%] as 1 of mine wasn’t even nominated).

Here’s the trailer for Stowaway:

                   (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 some unspecified (but clearly intended to be in our relatively-near-future) time (far enough from now that Earthlings have traveled to Mars—with or without Elon Musk—and have established a scientific base there, seemingly run by the Hyperion Corp.) a 2-year-out-and-back-mission is the focus of our story as Commander Marina Barnett (Toni Collette), medical researcher Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick), and biologist David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim) blast off to our neighboring planet to further the research needed to see if humans can survive in those barren conditions.  All seems to go well on the launch of their booster rocket (although we see how uncomfortable this part of the trip is as they’re actively jostled around [David vomits] until they’ve left Earth’s atmosphere and gravity, achieving weightlessness) which then drops its blast-off-stages as the remaining capsule docks with the larger ship that will actually propel them on their journey, with the capsule ultimately tethered to the primary ship by extremely long metal poles so the 2 units can rotate, creating gravity within the main ship for the crew.  12 hours into the launch, though, Barnett notices some blood dripping from an overhead panel, opens it up to find Launch Support Engineer Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson) unconscious as falls to the floor, in the process damaging the CDRA device essential for filtering carbon dioxide from the air within the ship (apparently at some point when he was doing some final checks he slipped, suffered a concussion, was totally out until revived after getting medical attention from Zoe).  Michael’s immediately frantic to be on this lengthy voyage because he needs to be back home to take care of his sister (their father died when they were young, they’ve been supporting each other ever since), but that problem’s taken care of when Marina makes contact with Hyperion back on Earth, who agree to take care of the sister for Michael.

 That situation solved, the more immediate problem is the ship’s oxygen supply was barely intended to support 3 people, not 4, with the damaged CDRA unit needing to be supplemented by emergency lithium hydroxide canisters, but they’ve got only enough to clean the oxygen for 2 of this suddenly-endangered-group.  Michael agrees to help out with mission tasks as Barnett orders David to cultivate the algae he was scheduled to work with on Mars in order to generate more oxygen, but half of his colony dies quickly, leaving them with only enough to sustain 3 people.  At this point, Barnett and Kim come to the horrible decision of asking Michael to painlessly terminate himself with an injection from Zoe’s materials; he’s terrified to do it but agrees, yet Zoe’s furious they’d even consider such an action without trying to find some other solution, convinces Michael to wait (tells him a story of how she had a beach job years ago, tried to save a drunk guy from drowning [his friends were too out of it to help], lost him, regretting it ever since).  What they decide to attempt, then, is for Zoe and David to make the slow, arduous climb along the connectors to their original capsule to retrieve liquid oxygen, but after they’ve filled one tank a dangerously-radioactive-solar-storm’s headed their way so they come back to the main ship with only 1 tank instead of 2.  It gets worse: as they arrive “home” Zoe slips, drops the tank, watches it float away.  ⇒Zoe insists on going back, despite the storm, to get the other tank because the precious oxygen is slipping away out there—due to her and David quickly evacuating the module, no time to shut it down properly—which she does; as she delivers it safely this time, though, it’s clear she’ll choose to die of radiation-poisoning outside of the ship, leaving (presumably) a survival-likelihood for the others until they reach Mars.⇐

So What? Certainly there are several aspects of Stowaway you could find are done in the more extraordinary (as well as much more expensive) films within the serious aspects of the outer-space-oriented-Science-Fiction genre, such as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick [1968]) and Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón [2013])—or even The Martian (Ridley Scott [2015]) where the challenge isn’t to get to Mars with an extra crew member but to survive there by an astronaut accidently left behind by his departing mates, or for that matter a history-based-space-drama such as Apollo 13 (Ron Howard [1995]) where an onboard-crisis jeopardizes the return of American astronauts from a moon mission—but that’s not to denigrate what we get here in a much-more-limited-intensions-story (done on a considerably-more-limited-budget), more about how human beings seek solutions for impending disaster as part of this specific voyage rather than what they might encounter while trying to explore the possibility of actually relocating humans to Mars in an attempt to ultimately save our increasingly-fragile-planet as our various national leaders keep denying climate change in an attempt to preserve the disastrous fossil-fuel/agricultural industries that may ultimately leave us with a home variously decimated by draughts, floods, grossly-polluted air and water, species die-offs, all of which are already contributing to the demise of planet Earth.  This story’s more of a microcosm of those larger issues, focusing on the realities of immediate dangers challenging a specific (but intentionally representative) small group looking for functional solutions to impending disaster, finding ways to work together to achieve survival even if sacrifices are necessary to accomplish their desired results.

 However, while everything works well from a storytelling angle here—except its resemblance to other types of these narratives such as I’ve cited above, the familiarity we now have with them leading us to easily expect in this movie either some form of miraculous recovery or a situation where death can’t be avoided—there’s also the sociological aspect to consider given the horrible ongoing situation of the George Floyd-along-with-so-many-other-Blacks-needlessly-killed-by-White-authorities-cultural-climate we're now sadly-inhabiting because (as I purposely haven’t noted until now, although you could easily know from the trailer) Michael’s a Black man caught up in a situation he has no control over (having also unintentionally caused damage intensifying the already-fraught-situation) yet he’s being asked by 2 of the crew (1 White, 1 Asian-American) to terminate himself for the good of those intended to be on this mission while he’s an accidental stowaway.  The problem comes from why he’s there, not who he is, but given the horrible racial environment the U.S. presently faces (conclusive conviction of Floyd’s killer-policeman notwithstanding), this aspect of the movie may either be a troubling distraction for some viewers or an acknowledgement of racial inequality in our society for others.  Similarly, in risking herself on Michael’s behalf, will Zoe be seen (as intended, I’m sure) as a person trying to put herself out for the good of the group or will she be condemned as yet-another-“necessary”-White-savior (although it should be noted Michael’s injuries while he was unconscious during blastoff prevented him from making the climb to the capsule in the quest for more oxygen).  Hopefully, these potential aspects of the movie won’t be a disruptive factor in appreciating from what I think it’s trying to accomplish on a humanitarian level, but your comments on such matters are most welcome in the Comments box, way down there at the end of this posting.

Bottom Line Final Comments: In that this movie’s only on Netflix streaming I have no financial figures to offer for it, but I will note the CCAL’s generally supportive with Rotten Tomatoes critics offering 75% positive reviews while the ones at Metacritic are more of their usually-reserved-selves yielding only a 62% average score.  I found it to be worthwhile to watch overall (even as aspects of it reminded me a bit too much of other stories of a similar nature, yet it was interesting to see where the development would go here even as the chosen path became more obvious as the events moved toward their clear conclusion).  More than that (with my energy waning) I can’t really say at this point, so I’ll just wrap it all up with my usual closure-tactic of a Musical Metaphor toward what’s been previously explored; this time, though, I’ll really push the “metaphorical” aspect with what became a standard song for many country and folk singers in the mid-20^th century, “500 Miles Away from Home,” in this case by the song’s most successful singer, Bobby Bare (on his 1963 album named for the tune) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgnaavPxSmk because while this lament is about a guy fully on Earth longing to go home but facing great difficulties in doing so I think it could be extended to the characters in Stowaway as well, especially Michael but increasingly so Zoe and the others in lines like these: “Away from home, away from home Cold and tired and all alone […] If my luck had been just right I’d be with them all tonight But I’m still 500 miles away from home.”  A very plaintive song to go along with a plaintive movie, melancholy but intriguing, as I see it.

              

SHORT TAKES

            

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 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.

(TMC is still running most their selections in alphabetical order again this week.)

Thursday April 29, 2021 

11:15 PM 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957) Gripping 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 that becomes 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 Oscars as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay but won none. If you miss it today you’ll find it’s also being shown on Wednesday May 5, 2021 at 5:00 PM.

Friday April 30, 2021

5:15 AM 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) Sci-fi spectacular, on my All-Time Top 10 list, lots of mysterious, difficult interpretations back then (since clarified with a novel and sequel) about a powerful object enhancing human evolution, with astronauts to Jupiter aided/thwarted by super-computer HAL 9000 as the lone human fights for survival, encounters a transformation. “Star Gate” scene at the end visually-groundbreaking for its time, still impressive; Oscar for Best Special Visual Effects. Followed at 8:00 AM by the helpfully-explanatory sequel, 2010 (Peter Hyams, 1984).

10:00 AM Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960) A mid-20^th-century collaboration by Italian cinematic heavyweights, directed and co-written by De Sica, co-written by Cesare Zavatini—both of Italian Neorealism fame—produced by the prolific Carlo Ponti, starring international sensation Sophia Loren (and, for good measure, French New Wave stalwart Jean-Paul Belmondo) in a searing story focused on hardships of a mother and her young daughter in Italy during WW II. Loren won the Best Actress Oscar; she's the first person, male or female, to win an acting Oscar in a non-English-dialogue film.

9:30 PM Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Once a decade, Sight & Sound magazine polls film critics on All-Time #1; in 2012 Vertigo ended Citizen Kane’s (Orson Welles, 1941) 50-year run on top (Kane’s still #1 for me), certainly one of Hitchcock’s best, but a hard choice also. James Stewart’s an ex-cop with a fear of heights, shadowing—then romancing—a friend’s possibly-faithless wife (Kim Novak), who seemingly leaps to her death … or does she? Stewart’s character’s a real departure.

Saturday May 1, 2021 

5:00 PM The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) One of the best-known, most-beloved movie musicals of all-time, as Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) and her dog, Toto, are carried by a tornado from her Kansas farm into the land of Oz (cinematography changes from sepia to Technicolor) 

where she encounters the Munchkins, Glenda the Good Witch (Billie Burke), the Yellow Brick Road, Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), Tin Man (Jack Haley), and Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) on her journey to 

see the Wizard (Frank Morgan), avoid the attacks of the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton). Oscar for “Over the Rainbow” as Best Music, Original Song and an Academy Juvenile Award for Garland; it was also nominated for Best Picture, Art Direction, and Special Effects.

Sunday May 2, 2021

5:00 PM Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955) A typo at the TCM website (!) notes this film’s from 1958 but 1955 is correct. It begins Ray’s The Apu Trilogy (followed immediately by the 2 others, Aparajito [1956] at 7:15 PM, The World of Apu [1959] at 9:15 PM), considered among the world’s masterpieces, brought Western attention to Indian film, used tenets of Italian Neorealism in context of India as it follows the difficult life of a boy, Apu, into his young adult years as tragedies abound.

If you’d like your own PDF of the rating/summary of this week's review, 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 you might like: (1) Some explanations about oddities in this year's (2021) Oscar telecast; (2) Memories of an almost-forgotten American director, Peter Bogdanovich, in that I’ve recently re-watched (on Netflix discs) his great pair of The Last Picture Show (1971) and What’s Up, Doc? (1972); if you’d prefer access via streaming, the former’s on many platforms for $3.99 rental, the latter’s also available on many options from $1.99-$3.99 for rental.  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 Globes nominees and winners for films and TV from 2020-early 2021 

along with the Oscar nominees and winners for 2020-early 2021 films.

Here’s more information about Stowaway:

https://www.netflix.com/title/81321986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hic0mz3_U4c (14:21 comments by Scott Manley, the Science Consultant for this movie, trying to compromise realties with fictional intentions; filled with Spoilers!)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stowaway_2021

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

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 25,176 (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):

Academy Award Predictions and Winners for the 2020 Films plus Short Takes on Another Round, suggestions for TCM cable offerings, and other cinematic topics

 Comments (and a review) by Ken Burke

Opening Chatter: The 2021 Oscar awards (for films released in 2020-early 2021) will soon be announced—Sunday, April 25, 2021, ABC TV (and by other means, I’m sure, for Millennials/Gen Z’ers) at 5 PM Pacific zone—so it’s time for Two Guys in the Dark (well, just the one guy again—me, Ken Burke; Pat Craig’s still far enough in the dark that I can’t find him) to make some predictions, offer additional preferences in some cases.  You can find lots of speculations, including relatively-informed ones such as this cluster at Variety, but I think that while acknowledgements from various critics’ groups—including the Golden Globes—may help narrow the films those Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences voters pay the most attention to as they’ve weeded through the many options/nominees to consider, the most useful indicators of how the Oscar votes may tally likely come from the various guilds, with the ones I pay most attention to being the Producers Guild of America for their choice of Best Picture (the producers get that Oscar), along with the results for the easily-obvious-categories from the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, simply because there’s a lot of membership-overlap between these industry groups and Academy membership, with the understanding all Academy members (almost 10,000) can vote for the finalists in most of the categories so a Guild win doesn’t necessarily equate to an Oscar win (although they often do) but non-members of those various Guilds might be swayed by what their colleagues have chosen, all of which are known by now (results from the ones cited here will be woven into the comments about what I arbitrarily consider the 8 “major’ categories).  Also, in the Short Takes section (very far below) 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.

 With recognition of the above considerations, here are my predictions and preferences in all 23 of the competitive categories (I’ve seen none of the nominees in a few of them so I’m just making wild guesses in those areas)—with winners and other comments to be added to this posting soon after the ceremony.  Color-coding key: red = my prediction, green = my preference of the nominees, red + green = prediction and preference (gold + bold updated here next week = WINNER! [plus update comments on my prognostications]).  In deference to my waning sanity and a desire to not clutter up this posting more than necessary (what a change!), I’ll skip my usual identification of directors, year of release, and date of a Two Guys review after most of the titles listed below, but you can see our Summary of Reviews to get that info if you like (assuming we’ve posted a review for a specific title anytime after our launch in late 2011)—you’ll find the current nominees in many of the categories below, although not so much in Animated, Documentary, and International features (with a couple of screenings a week I don’t claim to see everything that’s released, even when available) or some of this year’s Shorts—however, please note you do have to scroll through the various star clusters (each one alphabetized) in the Summary to find what you’re looking for so it does take a little time.  (But the results will certainly be well worth it; where else would you be able to read such brilliance?)  

 One more thing, just for clarity: When the nominations are determined they come from the various branches within the Academy (actors, directors, screenwriters, various technical areas) except for Best Picture which everyone can nominate, with some determination as to how many finalists there’ll be up to a maximum of 10 for that top award, but when it’s time to vote in the actual categories everyone can weigh in on everything (except a few may still require verification of viewing) so actors are voting on sound, set designers are voting on actors, etc., allowing bandwagon effects to often sweep something along in a gush of general popularity (with the counter-possibility of some well-liked-entries getting a “compensation” award [sorry, sound mixers] in some technical category because it likely won’t succeed in what many [including me] consider the major arenas [although I seem to give more attention to scriptwriting than many others in determining what “major” means in this context]).  Further complication for Best Picture: voting's ranked, so it’s not just what finalist gets the most votes in a 1-round-tally but instead the 2^nd, 3^rd, etc. choices also are factored in possibly resulting in a win for something with more down-ballot-nods than #1 choices.  It's a crapshoot again!

4/26/2021—OK, the results are in (WINNER! notations below in gold), with my predictions correct for 16 of the 23 competitive categories (plus the annual Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Awards given this year to Tyler Perry and the employees of the Motion Picture and Television Fund [a site for financial assistance/medical treatment/retirement for people in those branches of show business]), a 70% result (a bit better than my usual in the 66% range), with my most glaring misses being for Best Actor (big surprise for a lot of us), Best Actress, Adapted Screenplay, and Film Editing.  However, I’m just barely behind Variety where they got 18 of 23 (78%)—right on 3 of the 4 categories I just noted, missing only Best Actor—and I topped Entertainment Weekly, where there’s confusion on what their predictions were because based on what they said in the print issue I received early last week they got 13 of 23 (56%) yet they changed 8 of those at their website (the link I’ve provided above) which lost them 3 choices but gained 5 more so by that tally they got 15 of 23 right (56%)—3 of their changes put them in line with me, so, to paraphrase Elvis Presley, “You're welcome very much!”  I'm certainly not disappointed with Frances McDormand’s Best Actress win (ties her at 3 with Meryl Streep, although Streep’s Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer was for Supporting Actress [she’s still the primary female but doesn’t have as much screen time as Best Actor Dustin Hoffman]) although I did barely prefer Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; as for Best Actor, ironically I preferred winner Anthony Hopkins (The Father) but hoped for now-deceased-Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey’s … both because he was great and he’ll never get another chance.  Overall, the unique presentational concept (mostly done in L.A.'s Union Station) worked well enough, especially giving recipients as much time as they wanted for acceptance speeches, but not having Best Picture last was quite odd.

Best Picture

The Father  (review posted on April 1, 2021; this post also has my Top 10 of 2020)

Judas and the Black Messiah (review posted on February 18, 2021)

Mank (review posted on December 10, 2020)

Minari (review posted on March 4, 2021)

Nomadland (review posted on February 25, 2021) WINNER!

Promising Young Woman (review posted on January 28, 2021)

Sound of Metal (review posted on March 18, 2021)

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (review posted on October 22, 2020)

 At various times each of these nominees has gotten some chatter about being the front runner for Best Picture, although Nomadland’s been considered in that position longer than the rest, with official recognition for its accomplishments by the Producers Guild.  The only other Hollywood Guild that sort of chooses a Best Picture is SAG with their Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture—they honored The Trial of the Chicago 7 this year—but this group didn’t even nominate Nomadland, reasonably so, though, because most of that cast were non-actors woven effectively into the flow of the film but unlikely to be seen as a true ensemble by thespian professionals.  Mank has the most noms—10—of any picture and its content about renowned Hollywood history (Herman J. Mankiewicz as the foundational author of Citizen Kane before Orson Welles took full command of it) will surely resonate with the voters, but don’t discount the relevance of our own troubling times in giving consideration to historical precedent in both Judas and the Black Messiah and … Chicago 7.  

 No matter which film takes the Academy's ultimate prize, though, this article notes we shouldn’t expect it to be part of a nightly-“sweep” as a few Best Pictures winners have been in the past.  As for my prediction, I think—as I have for a long time—Nomadland will triumph; yet, if you look into the links noted above for my 2020 Top 10 and/or the Two Guys Summary of Reviews you’ll find I gave my hardly-ever-5 stars to 3 films for 2020, so, discounting the recut-release of The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, I had to pick between Nomadland and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (very tough choice), but I did find the former to be more unusual, more daring (yet relevant) so I’ll give it the slight edge.  Had the nominations been up to me, though, I’d have dropped The Father, Minari, Sound of Metal (excellent as they are, all 4 stars from me) in favor of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Ma Rainey’s …, Never Rarely Sometimes Often, One Night in Miami, and Pieces of a Woman, but at least whatever does win scored high in my estimation (in the years I’ve opined on Best Picture since Feb. 2012 the Academy has agreed with my preference 2 of 8 times [my true preference not even among final nominees in a few cases], agreed on my predictions 4 times of 8).

Directing

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari

Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman

David Fincher, Mank

Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round 

Chloé Zhao, Nomadland WINNER!

 Who will be the winner in this next category seems to be so much easier to predict in that just about everyone is confident that Zhao is almost a shoo-in, especially after taking the DGA award, so you’ll get no argument from me; the big surprise here (to me at least) is Vinterberg being included, a rare situation of a director from a non-English-language-film on this short list (after having just seen his film, my further surprise is he was chosen by his Academy directors’ branch voters [not fully the same as the DGA but with a lot of overlapping membership, I’m sure]) over other possibilities, despite the worth of his film.  For me Chung, Fennell, and Vinterberg would be out, replaced by Charlie Kaufman, I’m Thinking of Ending Things; Regina King, One Night in Miami; Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Sorkin was a DGA nominee, not Vinterberg).  If Zhao wins she’ll be the second woman ever with this award (after Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker [2009]) and the first woman of color to take home the statuette.

Actor in a Leading Role

Riz Ahmed, 

Sound of Metal

Chadwick Boseman, 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 

Anthony Hopkins, 

The Father  WINNER!

Gary Oldman, Mank

Steven Yeun, Minari

 Here is where I face my most difficult choice in noting my preference because I really wanted that to be Boseman (which it was until very recently), but after I finally saw The Father I just couldn’t honestly pick anyone but Hopkins.  I’m sure he’s not getting much consideration, though, because there’s dual support for Boseman due to both the quality of his performance and the sad reality he’ll never get another chance in these competitions due to his most untimely death last year.  Hopkins also has the “disadvantage” of having won before (The Silence of the Lambs [1991]), as does Oldman (Darkest Hour [2017]), so the real (considerable) competition is from Ahmed, especially with his support from the deaf community for his deft portrayal of a drummer losing his hearing.  As for Yeun, I admire his contribution but would drop him in favor of Sacha Baron Cohen for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm because anyone who could do that much successful improv deserves award consideration, although he is getting notice for his more traditional abilities in the Supporting Actor category noted just below.

Actress in a Leading Role

Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Andra Day, 

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman

Francis McDormand, Nomadland  WINNER!

Carey Mulligan, 

Promising Young Woman                                                                               

 This is another situation where past success might come back to unfairly hinder repeat recognition, in that both Davis and McDormand, easily my 2 favorites of this group, have previous Oscar wins, Davis as Supporting Actress for Fences (2016 [another of my rare-5 stars-films; like Ma Rainey’s … it’s adapted from an August Wilson play]), McDormand twice as Best Actress headlining Fargo (1996) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), so even though I found Davis to be just a bit better than McDormand (admitting that a bombastic role is hard to ignore compared to a restrained one, unfair as that may be to the actors) they may both fall short given a lot of recent commotion about Mulligan; still Davis got SAG’s Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role so she may well win.  Hard as it would be to dismiss them, though, I’d drop Day and Kirby in favor of equally-astounding Rosamund Pike (I Care a Lot) and Zendaya (Malcolm & Marie).

Actor in a Supporting Role

Sacha Baron Cohen, The 

Trial of the Chicago 7 

Daniel Kaluuya, Judas 

and the Black Messiah 

WINNER!

Leslie Odom Jr., 

One Night in Miami

Paul Raci, Sound of Metal

Lakeith Stanfield, Judas 

and the Black Messiah

 For quite awhile recently we've heard the recurring speculation assuming Chadwick Boseman would get nominated for this category (in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods) as well as for Best Actor, but I’m glad he didn’t because his role (effective as it powerfully was) would be hard pressed to replace most of these finalists—except for Stanfield who never should have been here in the first place simply because he’s the lead actor in his film, impossible (to me; why not others?) to rationalize as a supporting role as his studio did in their nominations campaign; I’d easily have replaced him with Jared Lito (The Little Things), so that would still keep Boseman off my list (much as I’d like to see him get all the accolades he deserves for his fabulous, foreshortened career, just not in this category this year).  Raci’s gotten a lot of good press as a solid presence who’s been around for years but mostly in TV series so I don’t think he’ll give Kaluuya trouble in taking the honors here, especially with the latter getting this award from SAG.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Glenn Close, 

Hillbilly Elegy

Olivia Colman, 

The Father

Amanda Seyfried, Mank

Yuh-jung Youn, Minari 

WINNER!

 Here's yet another strong group of contenders any one of which could easily be justified as the winner from their own supporters' perspectives (even as I’d drop Colman and Seyfried in place of Jodie Foster [The Mauritanian] and—you may not believe this—Swankie, a real-life road warrior in Nomadland because she brought a singularly-memorable presence to that film, exactly what a supporting player is intended to do), although long-established-Korean-star Youn (just a few months older than me, born June 19, 1947) clearly has the momentum in her first American film, having won the SAG award (and many critics’ accolades) for this role, although each of the others has her spirited-advocates too, especially Close with 4 previous Oscar noms for Lead Actress, 4 more for Supporting, yet—sadly for her with such a great career—nary a victory, even as these voters may view her Hillbilly … role as unintentionally-farcical (I disagree; see my December 3, 2020 review).  However, as with my feelings about Sacha Baron Cohen at least being nominated for Best Actor, I can’t help but give my support here to Bakalova for her fearless improv in Borat … (2), especially with her crafty takedown of Rudy Giuliani.

Writing—Original Screenplay

Judas and the Black Messiah, Will Berson 

& Shaka King

Minari, Lee Isaac Chung

Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell 

WINNER!

Sound of Metal, Darius Marder & Abraham Marder

The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin

 This is the only category where I'm closely aligned with these Oscar voters in terms of whom they have chosen as nominees, because the only one I’d dump would be Minari in favor of Mank, not that it would likely make much difference because the momentum at this point is in favor of Promising Young Woman, helped further by its win in this category from the WGA; also, unless there’s a surprise in the Best Actress category I don’t see Promising … taking home gold in any other race so this might be where a majority of those generous-Academy Awards-deciders want to assure a win for a film with a lot of critical/industry love as well as shining another useful light on absurd, abusive male behavior, a protest increasingly-well-respected in our #MeToo era.  Still, there are other powerful contenders among these well-written-nominees so the winner could be a surprise.

Writing—Adapted Screenplay

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Swimer, Peter Baynham, Erica Rivinoja, Dan Mazer, Jena Friedman & Lee Kern

The Father, Christopher Hampton & Florian 

                                                                                                                       Zeller WINNER!

 Chloé Zhao, Nomadland      One Night in Miami, Kemp Powers      The White Tiger, Ramin Bahrani

  While I noted above a link about a warning not to get too hyped up over any possible major sweep by any of these nominees across the various categories, it’s also quite possible Nomadland might result in 3 major Zhao wins (maybe some technical honors also) although there’s the consideration of the WGA award for this category going to the group of writers for Borat …, which, ironically, I’d dump from entirely because I’m of the opinion much of what we heard as dialogue was improv from both the professional actors and, even more so, responses from unaware real people (including nervous Rudy Giuliani) so it’s hard for me to fully consider that as “scripted,” although if the WGA pros accept it, who am I to object?  Still, if it were up to me, Borat … and Nomadland (same rationale; a lot of what we hear here seems spontaneous, not scripted as I understand the concept, unless you consider a script to be a transcript of what’s eventually spoken on screen after final editing); instead, I’d bring in I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, from a 2016 novel by Iain Reid) and—my favorite—Ma Rainey’s … (Ruben Santiago-Hudson, from the 1984 August Wilson play), but if I must pick from these nominees my vote goes to One Night in Miami.  A final comment about this category is I never know if the original nominators in the Oscar scriptwriters' branch—let alone final Academy voters—are truly analyzing what went into transforming these original works into award-worthy-scripts or are they just voting for a successful script that happens to be adapted.  I’d love to find out the truth about that question, although I doubt many of those voters have any extensive awareness of the foundational works most of these scripts have originated from.

  As for the other categories presented below I’ll do what I can to pick preferences and predicted winners, but some of these competitions are generally a lot hazier for me because: (1) In some cases I haven’t seen all the nominees—International Feature Film is one of those where I sense Another Round (reviewed farther below) is the front-runner but I’ve not watched anything else in that group; (2) In other cases—any of the Documentaries (Features or Shorts)—I’ve seen nothing; (3) For some of the technical categories I may have a preference but I have no idea how these voters may lean, possibly influenced by other guilds I haven’t noted (although I will say the American Society of Cinematographers chose Mank for their award [you'll have to scroll down quite a bit to get to their Theatrical Release]), while The Trial of the Chicago 7 got awards from both the American Cinema Editors and the Motion Picture Sound Editors, although another group, the Cinema Audio Society, honored Sound of Metal for its aural achievement*) or just riding various bandwagons based on publicity campaigns, friends’ recommendations, desires to help out nominees unlikely to win in the more-celebrated-categories, or who knows what else.  Anyway, I’m now on the record with my preferences (where I can choose some) and 23 predictions (informed or totally speculative) for the upcoming 2021 Oscars (with my most-extensive analyses of contenders being last week's posting about the Animated and Live Action Shorts).  After the ceremony I’ll update this posting with the winners, plus some final comments; in the meantime, please enjoy the show.**

*For years I’ve wondered what the essential differences between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing are (see my 2020 Oscars preview for such comments right before those categories in that long contenders listings) so I’m glad to see the Academy has finally reduced that pair to just Best Sound.

**Oscar-trivia-buffs, I encourage visiting this site for an enormous dose of that sort of info, current through the 2020 awards, likely to be further updated once results for 2021 winners become public.

International Feature Film                 Documentary Feature

Another Round, Denmark  WINNER!                                      Collective     

Better Days, Hong Kong                         Crip Camp

Collective, Romania                 The Mole Agent    

The Man Who Sold His Skin, Tunisia         My Octopus Teacher  WINNER!

Quo Vadis, Aida?, Bosnia and Herzegovina         Time

Animated Feature Film         Animated Short Film

Onward                                 Burrow

Over the Moon                         Genius Loci

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Framageddon If Anything Happens I Love You WINNER!

Soul  WINNER!                                                                       Opera

Wolfwalkers                         Yes-People

Cinematography                 Film Editing

Judas and the Black Messiah                 The Father  

Mank  WINNER!                 Nomadland

News of the World                         Promising Young Woman

Nomadland                         Sound of Metal  WINNER!

The Trial of the Chicago 7                 The Trial of the Chicago 7

Visual Effects                  Production Design

Love and Monsters                         The Father

The Midnight Sky                         Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Mulan                         Mank  WINNER!

The One and Only Ivan                         News of the World

Tenet  WINNER!                 Tenet

Sound                          Music (Original Score)

Greyhound                         Da 5 Bloods

Mank                         Mank

News of the World                         Minari

Soul                                 News of the World

Sound of Metal  WINNER!                 Soul  WINNER!

Makeup and Hair Styling Costume Design

Emma                         Emma

Hillbilly Elegy                         Mank

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom  WINNER! Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom  WINNER!

Mank                         Mulan

Pinocchio                         Pinocchio

Live Action Short Film         Documentary Short Film

Feeling Through                         Colette  WINNER!

The Letter Room                         A Concerto Is a Conversation

The Present                         Do Not Split

Two Distant Strangers  WINNER!  Hunger Ward

White Eye                         A Love Song for Latasha

Music (Original Song)

“Fight for You,” Judas and the Black Messiah  WINNER!

“Hear My Voice,” The Trial of the Chicago 7

“Húsavík,” Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

“Io Si (Seen),” The Life Ahead

“Speak Now,” One Night in Miami

And now, back to our regular programming …

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

SHORT TAKES (a few spoilers appear here)

                     Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)

                                   rated 18+   117 min.

4 Danish schooteachers are becoming bored with their lives even as their students are uninvolved with their studies despite needing good scores on exams for college entrance, so the men try an experiment of daily drinking to increase their happiness and productivity which works just fine at first but has notably negative consequences as they begin further adding to those levels of consumption.

Here’s the trailer for Another Round:

                   (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.

 4 Danish public school teachers—Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), Peter (Lars Ranthe), Nikolaj (Magnus Millang)—are becoming increasingly disengaged from classroom leadership due to the almost-total-distraction of their students (more interested in a game of teams running around the lake, getting increasingly drunk on a case of beer than any aspect of their studies), yet Martin’s being pressured by the kids' parents to be more of an academic-inspiration as his students approach exams that will determine their college futures; things aren’t any better at home where his 2 boys barely acknowledge his existence while wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) pulls away as well, taking many night shifts to avoid him as she finds him to have become dull and uninteresting.  So, at a dinner one night these male friends—in the midst of several drinks apiece—begin considering a Norwegian philosopher’s premise that maintaining a blood alcohol content of 0.05 makes you happier, more creative, leading them to agree to drink clandestinely during the day at work, stopping at 8pm to wake up refreshed, ready for the day.  At first their experiment’s a success as they're less self-critical, more enthused in the classroom, bringing better responses from their students.  However, when—under their conviction they’re doing this as a scientific experiment—they up the daily dose to 0.10, followed by more overt drunkenness, trouble comes up at home for Martin and Nikolaj, Anika admitting to infidelity resulting in a separation, so 3 of the men call off their drinking, ⇒but Tommy continues, stumbles into work fully drunk, then sets off in his boat to die.⇐

 ⇒At the funeral Martin gets texts from Anika she’s willing to try again to save their marriage.  As the 3 friends gather for dinner they’re inspired by busloads of their celebrating students who’ve done well in their exams (one was even encouraged by Peter to drink a bit beforehand to loosen up his nerves, allow him to better concentrate), are now graduated, leading these teachers to join in the active festivities, Martin even showing off his long-secretive-dancing-skills.⇐  This film’s often described as a comedy-drama, but I fail to see much of that first descriptor as it’s a great, serious study of how alcohol in moderation can be a liberating factor from tension and disengagement (not that it should be a daily “nutrient” for high-school seniors) but can easily get out of hand, become ruinous in your life.  I haven’t seen the other International contenders for the Oscar, but this one’s gotten a lot of solid CCAL support (Rotten Tomatoes 92% positive reviews, Metacritic 80% average score)—along with Vinterberg’s Best Director Oscar nomination—is available for rental on several platforms (I used Amazon Prime, $4.99), and comes with my (obvious) Musical Metaphor, Willie Nelson’s “I Gotta Get Drunk” (on his 1970 Both Sides Now album), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3L3ZkTg2V8.

             

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 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.

(apparently TMC is running their selections in alphabetical order again this week)

Thursday April 22, 2021 

6:45 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).

Friday April 23, 2021

9:15 AM Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) One of the great masterpieces of world cinema, brought awareness of contemporary Japanese films to Western viewers; set in medieval times, it’s the story of testimony to a court told by a woodcutter and a priest to another man during a rainstorm about a bandit (captured), a wife (raped or willing?), her husband (now dead), with different versions of what happened, even from the dead man spoken through a medium. Before Oscars were given for Best International Film this gem won an Honorary Award for “most outstanding foreign language film.”

Sunday April 25, 2021 

3:00 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.

Monday April 26, 2021

5:00 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/“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-star.  For me, the best of the 4 versions, especially Garland’s rendition of “The Man Who Got Away” (Oscar-nominated, Garland too, along with 4 others). The non-musical version (Janet Gaynor, Frederic March) is on at 3:00 PM; the Barbra Streisand-Kris Kristofferson version (Frank R. Pierson, 1976) is on at 8:15PM.

Tuesday April 27, 2021

5:00 PM A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951) From Tennessee Williams’ equally-searing play (it’s more cruel, as Hays Code-dominated films had to conform to “decency” standards), this masterpiece of interpersonal-brutality stars Marlon Brando at maybe his best but acting Oscars went to Vivien Leigh (Actress), Karl Malden (Supporting Actor), Kim Hunter (Supporting Actress), plus one for B&W Art Direction and 7 other noms including Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay (Williams). “Stella!”—what more can I say?  Even with censorship, here's an all-time filmic triumph.

Wednesday April 28, 2021

10:15 PM The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) Best pairing of Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton outside of Citizen Kane (Reed’s film as one of my very few 5 stars-ratings, after seeing it again on re-release).  Cotton’s a pulp writer come to Vienna looking for old friend Harry Lime (Welles) but hears he’s dead from an auto accident; Cotton suspects otherwise, given Harry’s underworld activities.  

As fabulous as are all the other elements of this film (won an Oscar for B&W Cinematography, was nominated for Director, Film Editing) is Anton Karas’ great score, played memorably on the zither.

If you’d like your own PDF of the rating/summary 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: (1) Viola Davis says Black artists are the "leftovers" in Hollywood; (2) An opinion on the Top 35 Best Picture Oscar nominees from 2010-present (it would take me a long time to compile my own such list, but I already disagree with Amour [Michael Haneke, 2012; review in our January 24, 2013 posting—apologies for lousy layout back then] being down to #32); (3) Do we want movies to be entertainment or art? (former tends to dominate the box-office, latter tends to dominate the awards; I say they've always coexisted); (4) Spider-Man's coming to Disney.  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 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 Another Round:

http://www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/another-round/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5DDe7hFVcs (24:58 interview with director Thomas Vinterberg and actor Mads Mikkelsen, conducted by director Guillermo del Toro)

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

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/another-round

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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 25,176 (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):