Concerns About Legitimacy (and Ability ... and Sorrow)
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.
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
I know this blog's intended to focus on reviewing films, not to launch into political diatribes from my personal left-wing-perspectives (though I do sometimes), but this latest terrible shooting of innocent people (especially young children) in Uvalde, TX (one of several places where my father grew up, in the far west part of the state in the 1920s-‘30s), as at least 19 little kids and 2 adults were horribly slaughtered on May 24. 2022, I can’t help but share the angry frustration of Golden State (San Francisco, CA) Warriors NBA basketball coach Steve Kerr (whose father, a professor at the American University of Beirut, was gunned down by Islamic Jihad Organization terrorists in 1984), an ongoing-outspoken-critic of gun violence in the U.S. Then the Warriors went on to lose to the Dallas Mavericks that night 119-109 as the Western Conference Finals continue with the Warriors up 3-1 (with an almost-unheard-of-rain-delay as the Dallas arena roof leaked during a rainstorm). As much as I’m a loyal Warriors fan I’m sorta glad Dallas won that night because the decent people of Texas (of which there are many [some I’m proud to know personally] despite the awful decisions [in my opinion] made by their Legislature and Governor Greg Abbott in recent times) needed something positive on that grim night, even if it’s just in a relatively-meaningless-basketball-game-triumph. Why we can’t unite to reduce gun violence in this country I just don’t know, even as I hope with every tragedy such as this latest one something useful will ultimately be done to stem our ongoing tide of mass murder. OK, enough of my grandstanding; back to the ridiculously-innocent-worlds of movies.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): The latest version of COVID-19 is now making a huge impact in my San Francisco area so it’s with cautious trepidation my (older like me/medically-compromised) wife, Nina, and I will consider going inside to a large movie theater, not knowing what’s going on with our fellow patrons as mask mandates/social distancing are no longer the norms in our area despite this latest notable rise in infections. However, she’s a long-time Downton Abbey fan so with masks in place for the entire running time (Dr. Pepper/Mr. Pibb, I barely remember you) and sitting considerably away from fellow patrons at a suburban-Saturday-early-afternoon-matinee we ventured out to see the latest version of early 20th-century aristocratic and servant encounters (even as I still prefer the ultimate-classic-French-version of this sort of story, Rules of the Game [Jean Renoir, 1939]—#3 on my All-Time Best list—but she fell asleep when I tried to show it to her, yet so did my late/great-cinephile-friend, Dr. Mario Cavallari, so maybe that film’s more of a personal pleasure [although in the latest Sight & Sound poll, 2012—once-a-decade-update coming later in 2022—it ranked as #4 so I still choose to celebrate it]), Surprisingly enough, I think I may have enjoyed … A New Era a bit more than Nina did, but more about that in the So What? Section below.
If you’re not well-versed in all-things-Downton … you might have some trouble making sense of all the goings-on in this latest version of what’s driving a good number of the English upper-crust in 1928 (maybe 1929), but even without the necessary background knowledge of who all these people are, what their latest activities contribute to their previous encounters, I think the plot’s clear enough here to provide some worthwhile reactions to these upscale-activities. Following that review, leading off in the Short Takes section is commentary on Dual, an intriguing sci-fi-film about a young woman in our near-future with a terminal diagnosis so she chooses the option of cloning herself to carry on with her often-distant-lover and too-intrusive-to-be-helpful-mother, then gets a report of full remission leaving her no choice but a battle to the death with her clone to see which one gets to carry their identity forward. Also, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of interesting older films with no commercial interruptions plus the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you want to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office over last weekend, go here.
Here’s the trailer for Downton Abbey: A New Era:
(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 $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: (If you need more background on this long-running-narrative, please consult the references noted at the beginning of the next section of this review. For long-time-fans of this extended-story, I offer my apologies in advance for decisions more-important-to-some-of-you-than-me in shortchanging any “crucial” characters/events in this latest episode.) In 1928 (as I see it, 1 year after the events of the theatrical version of Downton Abbey [Michael Engler, 2019; review in our September 25, 2019 posting]) life goes on for the many aristocrats and servants of the extended Crawley family, many of whom live in the stupendous estate of Downton Abbey. We begin here with the former-family-chauffeur, Tom Branson (Allen Leech)—who married into the Crawley clan but then his wife, Sybil, died, leaving him with baby Sybbie—at his new wedding to Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), secret illegitimate daughter of Maud, Lady Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton), with Lucy eventually becoming the sole heir of the Bagshaw estate. During the post-wedding-celebrations, Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith), the Dowager Countess of Grantham (I wish you luck in keeping up with all of these titles), announces to a cluster of her family that she’s now the owner of a villa in the south of France, left to her by the recently-deceased Marquis de Montmirail whom she met briefly back in the early 1860s, leaving everyone to ponder why he’d bequeath such a gift to someone he barely knew for a week. (What I’m left to ponder about the supposed answer to that mystery will be noted farther down in these comments, but for now I’ll note I don’t get the reason “Granny” [who’s in declining health] further leaves this lush villa to little Sybbie, seemingly because her parents wouldn’t be able to give her the material comforts due to most other members of the family even though Tom and Lucy will seemingly have hefty allowances from the Crawley and Bagshaw holdings; still, I know about as much regarding such huge inheritances as I do about these characters, so please read on).
Nevertheless, many family members, led by Violet’s son, Robert Crowley (Hugh Bonneville), the 7th Earl of Grantham, and his wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), Countess of Grantham—along with time-honored-but-now-retired-butler-Mr. Charles Carson (Jim Carter) and a couple of other servants—are off to France to view the new property, meet the welcoming son (Jonathan Zaccaï) of the late Marquis, and try to settle grievances with the angry widow, Madame Montmirail (Nathalie Baye). While on this visit, Robert gets 2 shocks: the young Marquis notes Robert was born 9 months after Violet met his father (who later married Madame Montmirail) so the clear implication is that they’re half-brothers, seemingly the reason for bequeathing the villa to Violet (more from me on that in a bit), so Robert now feels estranged from his father and his lineage; then Cora confides in him she seems to be fatally-ill from cancer, so his life can’t get much worse. Meanwhile, back in England Robert’s daughter, Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), who’s taken command of Downton with her father’s blessing in his declining years, has agreed to allow the home to be used for shooting a silent movie set in 1875, The Gambler, because the old mansion needs repairs (especially the leaky roof, just like in present-day-Dallas) so the location-use-fee would help greatly as these aristocrats aren’t as wealthy as they might seem to be (despite most of them not having actual jobs while maintaining their huge properties/employing a host of servants), so producer-director Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy) and established stars Guy Dexter (Dominic West)—a handsome, affable chap—and Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock)—the embodiment of a celebrity-bitch—arrive with the several extras and the crew.
Robert, Mr. Carson, and Violet are opposed to this plebian-invasion (she says she’d “rather eat pebbles” than be involved with such), but the income proves useful so the process begins in earnest, with kitchen maid Daisy Parker (Sophie McShera) especially enamored by the famous actors, although Myrna imposes herself on everyone at every chance. During production, though, the studio calls it to a halt because silent movies have lost their appeal due to the success of The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927), the first feature with synchronized music and dialogue. Just as Barber’s about to pack up and leave, Lady Mary suggests he save the movie by dubbing in dialogue to the already-shot-scenes, record new lines in the new scenes, making it into a “talkie”; this works fine with Guy but Myrna’s streetwise-accent’s a flop until Barber decides to shoot a scene with Myrna lip-synching her lines on camera while Lady Mary speaks the dialogue into another, nearby microphone.
Mary’s voice is fine but Myrna can’t keep herself from also saying the words, gets frustrated, storms out, possibly leaving the whole project dead again. At this point, though, Daisy and Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt) confront Myrna, calling on her to share her connection with them to her humble roots, buck up and finish the movie which she successfully does, even as former-Downton-footman Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) writes new scenes, gets an offer from Barber to come to Hollywood, just as U.S.A.-native-Cora (moved to England) will soon aid Myrna in developing an American accent to prolong her career in the States. Along these lines, closeted (to most all of those at Downton) butler Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier) gets an offer from Guy to manage his Hollywood home (in more ways than one), while the Downton staff get to be in the film because the extras walked out in protest of the studio holding up their pay (not confident this movie will return its investment [we get a clear indication that it does]). ⇒To wrap things up, Mr. Molesley proposes to Miss Baxter (Raquel Cassidy), unaware a live microphone in the kitchen ceiling (?) broadcasts his offer (accepted) to the entire assembly; Mary fends off advances from Barber despite her marriage not being very satisfying due to a generally-absent-husband; Cora gets a diagnosis of pernicious anemia, quite treatable; Violet assures Robert nothing happened between her and the Marquis, even as he continued to pursue her through letters over the years (but if Robert was born 9 months later after the brief meeting in France Violet must have been already married to his father, making this situation more scandalous than the movie dwells on, at least as I understand it); head cook Beryl Patmore (Lesley Nicol) links up with Mr. Mason (Paul Copley); Mary asks Carson to return as butler while he trains footman Andy Parker (Michael Fox) for the job; Violet dies with many of her family in attendance; some months later Tom and Lucy come to visit with their new baby, a portrait of Violet on the wall.⇐
So What? For those considerably more familiar with this material than me, you’ll be happy to know screenwriter Julian Fellowes provided this script so he knows what/whom he’s dealing with, having created this ongoing-assault on ideas of middle-class-mediocrity as understood by these English “swells” since 2010. For me and others who can’t begin to know the backstories of this huge cast unless you’ve either been trying to keep up over the years or have a handy reference guide (in my case, devoted fan Nina Kindblad, my equally-devoted-wife of many decades [except when I've unintentionally pushed her too close to over-the-line with my craziness]) to put all of these people and their various endeavors into useful context. If you need help in making sense of this stuff, though, you might begin with this prior-series-recap (9:39) hosted by Phyllis Logan and Jim Carter (which might also lead you to this video [8:14] about previous characters missing in the trailer or who are actually not part of this latest movie), as well as my previously-noted-review of the previous-Downton Abbey-movie which gives the recent (1927) background on many of the people who’ll continue on into … A New Era, as well as giving further details on how they may have come to be in these movies which followed the beloved PBS series. For me, I must admit, though, I don’t care too much about what’s going on with most of these folks. (Although Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess Violet is always a pleasure to watch, just as is Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary Talbot as she takes proper command of her family’s finances while providing an essential contribution to the in-estate-filming of The Gambler movie. Hmm, I wonder if she’s any relation to Larry Talbot [Lon Chaney Jr.] who’ll become the Wolfman in a series of Universal Pictures horror films of the 1940s? So unlikely, but that could make for an interesting further development of a Downton Abbey story, would it not?)
For me, there are just too many people to keep up with here, although the entire presentation worked a bit better for my outsider-status than did the earlier movie, this one being a bit more self-contained in plot points so that it’s not really essential you know all that much about each of the characters in order to appreciate what you’re currently seeing on-screen. However, I’ll make 2 comments (in addition to my appreciation of the use of the Black & White photos inserted within the color-cinematography-action-shots during the opening scene of Tom and Lucy’s wedding) about what I saw here: (1) Most of the characters’ situations are clarified enough within the context of this movie’s plot that you can appreciate/enjoy without much distraction what’s going on even if you have no prior knowledge of what’s happened in previous Downton … episodes, (2) I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that the situation about The Gambler movie-within-a-movie is an homage to Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen; 1952) rather than a blatant rip-off of it, using the same situation of a vocally-talented-woman, Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds) in the ... Rain original, Lady Mary here, providing an on-screen-voice for a more-reprehensible-woman, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), in the original, Myrna Dalgleish here, with the famous female screen actor in both cases being incensed her voice is being replaced by that of (in her estimation) a mere commoner (despite Mary Talbot’s acquired-peerage, in true parallel to Myrna’s acquired-fame). At least in this version it all seems to work out better for the fading-silent-screen-star, whereas Lina would seem to be a quick-has-been in the industry’s sudden shift to “talking pictures,” replaced by Kathy. Overall, I found Downton Abbey: A New Era to be a pleasant-enough-diversion, but I’m sure those with much greater investment in these characters/their further developments to be qualitatively-more-enthralled with what they'll see.
(Although there’s some hesitancy in that assumption, as Nina wanted more storyline in the French half of the plot [I see her point, yet I understand the filmmakers’ needs to cram as much storyline as they can manage into a standard 2-hr.-format so some aspects will inevitably be slighted] ⇒as well as feeling Violet’s death scene was too abrupt, should progress more as she’s chatting with her relatives coherently one minute, then she’s gone the next [however, that’s what I think my mother told me about the death of my almost-100-year-old-grandmother in 1998, but who knows if my memory’s right, so I will defer to Nina again because this is a seemingly-unlikely-turn-of-events].)⇐
Bottom Line Final Comments: Some of the CCAL is in agreement with me on the value of Downton Abbey: A New Era in that the reviewers at Metacritic give it a 62% average score which is lower than the 70% my 3½ stars of 5 represents (although don't forget I rarely go over 4 stars), but both are considerably lower than the hefty 85% positive reviews from those at Rotten Tomatoes. To get a better sense of its success from those who admired it more than I did here are ABC’s Peter Travers: “What an irony that movie money is saving the old Abbey since Hollywood cash is keeping the TV series alive at the multiplex. ‘A New Era’ knows it’s old-hat and out of touch. But If you can shut out the real world in favor of a fantasy remembrance of things past, you’re in for a treat” and The New York Times’ Amy Nicholson: “Yet, Fellowes manages to navigate ‘Downton Abbey’ to charm both reactionaries and revolutionaries, finagling a sequence that allows the staff to usurp the formal dining room while the rich serve themselves at a buffet. The inversion gently rocks the boat, with no threat of tipping it over.” But, if you’re not really wowed by what’s going on here you might be more in agreement with the U.K.’s Evening Standard critic Charlotte O'Sullivan: “Actually, even if you’re up to speed with all the characters, you’ll struggle to see the logic in most of the toing and froing. […] But it’s still ludicrously sentimental and formulaic. When Fellowes slips in a reference to David Copperfield, it’s hard not to cringe. Dickens, Shakespeare, Wilde and Christie. Fellowes loves these writers, but – unlike them – his success doesn’t seem built to last.” Ooh, snide!
Audiences weren’t knocked out either over … A New Era as it took in only $17.7 million in domestic (U.S.-Canada) sales ($54.2 million globally) in its debut, despite being in 3,820 domestic theaters, a far cry from last weekend’s $32.3 million domestically (total $346.1 million, $807.8 worldwide) for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Sam Raimi; review in our May 12, 2022 posting), even though it’s now been out for 3 weeks, so it’s clear that at this point a soap-opera-type-story purported to largely appeal to older women isn’t drawing in a huge amount of intended-attendees (possibly legitimately-concerned about COVID transmissions) from that target audience (by comparison, the 2019 Downton Abbey took in $31 million domestically in its debut with $96.9 domestically in its run, $192.2 million globally, so we’ll see how the new one plays out over the coming weeks as the usual assault of summer blockbusters starts competing for whatever theater-dollars should be available).
While I had pleasure enough in seeing this (embraceable for some, forgettable for others) movie I did have quite a struggle in finding an appropriate Musical Metaphor (my usual review-wrap-up-tactic) to accompany it so I had to finally give up, face my self-imposed-posting-deadline, and go with an ironic twist on The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” (on their 1964 movie soundtrack album from A Hard Day’s Night [Richard Lester, 1964]) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZBp-XSR_ dc (essentially an early version of a music video, although colorized from the original movie) because even though the lyrics of this song seem to disparage material acquisitions (“Tell me that you want the kind of things / That money just can’t buy / I don’t care too much for money / Money can’t buy me love”) there's a fundamental-contradiction here as The Beatles’ career was driven by material success as their fans tried to show love by spending oodles of money on buying records, movie tickets, innumerable Beatles items. So was the Crowley-extended-family presented in these TV shows and movies as having values beyond materialism even though there were few of them outside of the servant class willing to actually work for the money as their aristocratic heritage kept propelling them to find “acceptable” means of keeping themselves in easy-comfort over the decades.
SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
Dual (Riley Stearns) rated R 95 min.
A futuristic-sci-fi-film about a young woman with a terminal diagnosis who chooses to have a clone made of herself for the benefit of her lover and her mother, although neither are much comfort for her; months later she’s suddenly in remission, wants to have the clone decommissioned, but it (she?) refuses, forcing them into a duel to the death to see who will survive.
Here’s the trailer:
Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.
In some future U.S.A. technology exists for terminally-ill-people to clone themselves to continue their presence in some manner for family and friends; however, should the person for any reason decide to have the duplicate deactivated, the clone, according to the Constitution’s 28th Amendment (sadly, not focused on abolishing the Electoral College), has the right to object, leading to a duel to the death a year later to determine which entity carries out that existence (we see such a result before bleachers of spectators in the opening scene where a clone of Robert Michaels [Theo James] triumphs over his original, thereby becoming the new Robert). The focus of this film is on Sarah (Karen Gillan), a young woman leading a depressing life where her boyfriend, Peter (Beulah Koale), is mostly a Zoom existence, not all that invested in Sarah’s needs, while her mother’s (Maija Paunio) a telephoning-pest also of little help to her miserable daughter (Sarah has a dream of lunching with Mom, then eating her childhood penny collection in frustration before vomiting it up). Just when she thinks things can’t get worse, Sarah awakens to a lot of blood in her bed (think the severed-horse-head-scene in The Godfather [Francis Ford Coppola, 1972]), leading to a medical diagnosis she’s a goner so she avails herself of a clone, whom she refers to as “Sarah Double” (also Gillan; to help tell them apart original Sarah usually has her hair pulled back, “SD” lets her long-red-locks hang down), spending time with this version of herself to pass on info about her life but with the intention of not informing Mom until after Sarah’s dead, supposedly allowing for an easier transition.
Miraculously, though, 10 months later Sarah gets a new diagnosis—completely in remission—so she visits her mother with the good news only to find SD’s there with Mom and Peter, has been in contact with them for some time (via Peter) to the point they prefer SD to the morbid-original (they also see Sarah as too controlling). Sarah requests decommissioning but SD rejects so they have the upcoming months to prepare for combat (a popular TV event) with Sarah getting intensive-training from Trent (Aaron Paul). One day, though, Sarah sees SD watching her through a window, chases the clone to a playground where they talk over their situation leading to SD taking Sarah to a support group for duel-survivors. Afterward, they agree to escape their assigned-fate by going into the woods, slipping over the border, starting a new life together. ⇒During that trek, however, SD kills Sarah, then goes through the process of claiming to be her, finally getting officially recognized as such, with aid from Peter and Mom (who know she’s the clone). Life’s not that great after all for SD, as she begins to take on depression, clearly doesn’t have all of Sarah’s life skills as shown at the end as she tries to drive, crashes quite a bit, ends up crying in her stalled-car as she’s gone the wrong way in a traffic circle with other drivers doing their best to avoid her.⇐ (You might want to watch this video [4:18, has spoilers of course] about the ending and other concerns with the film.)
While there are some satirical aspects in this film (a cloning ad calls it “a gift to your loved ones”; SD accidently has blue eyes so Sarah gets a 5% discount), mostly it’s soberly-serious with little emotion shown by any of the characters. This is a fascinating idea for a film yet quite depressing overall with (intentionally, I think, leaving interpretations up to us) little sense of the value of this cloning process for the deceased’s survivors nor ultimately for the clones who win their duels (I guess if you want more [in endlessly-graphic-terms] of what’s to be learned from such situations you can instead consult The Hunger Games series [Gary Ross, 2012; Francis Lawrence, 2013, 2014, 2015; reviews in our April 6, 2012, November 26, 2013, November 26, 2014, December 2, 2015 postings], although I do appreciate the homonym-play-on-words here with “dual” and “duel”). While I enjoyed the nature of this narrative enough to somewhat recommend it to you (despite its unresolved closure) I do find a similar story in Swan Song (Benjamin Cleary, 2021; review in our January 6, 2022 posting) to be much more effective in exploring this death-replaced-by-cloning-topic. While Dual had a theatrical release on April 15, 2022 I find little mention of it now, as it grossed only $185.2 thousand so if you’re interested you’ll need to stream it with rental prices from $3.99-$6.99 (see specifics on JustWatch).
For a Musical Metaphor, I’ll choose The Animals’ “It’s My Life” (1966 The Best of the Animals album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB3vRELO9So (a much-later-live-version, but with Eric Burdon as the only original member) because even though the song’s originally about a frustrated guy and his dreams of making a better future for himself and his lover I see it relating to both Sarah and SD because they live in “a hard world to get a break in / All the good things have been taken / [… but] It’s my life and I’ll do what I want / It’s my mind and I’ll think like I want / Show me I’m wrong, hurt me sometime / But someday I’ll treat you real fine.” That “someday” may be difficult for either Sarah or SD to achieve, though, in an environment where simply being a biological human isn’t enough to allow you to be favored over a manufactured version of yourself. So, if all of this is getting too morbid, how about another Metaphor of a more upbeat attitude? That could easily be “I’ve Gotta Be Me” (written by Walter Marks, part of the 1968 Broadway musical Golden Rainbow), a big hit from Sammy Davis Jr's 1968 album of that name: ”Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong / Whether I find a place in this world or never belong / I gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me / What else can I be but what I am.” Sarah and SD both had interpretations of what those words would mean for each of them—still inspirational for any of us today—so maybe some aspects of this song along with the best intentions (minus the misery) within Dual are what we need to take away from this strange story.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: (1) French support for Roman Polanski fades; (2) Due to controversies about Rust, unions and studios are at odds over firearm rule on movie sets.
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Here’s more information about Downton Abbey: A New Era:
https://www.universalpictures.co.uk/micro/downton-abbey-a-new-era
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9yA8Cc34LE (14:06 interview with a few members of the cast: Rob James-Collier, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Sophie McShera, Allen Leech, Hugh Dancy, Penelope Wilton, Dominic West, Kevin Doyle, Joanne Froggatt, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter and director Simon Curtis) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I38GoM-8iuQ (8:40, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Allen Leech discuss Maggie Smith’s most iconic moments)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/downton_abbey_a_new_era
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/downton-abbey-a-new-era
Here’s more information about Dual:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9005184/ and https://www.whattowatch.com/watching-guides/dual-release-date-cast-trailer-and-everything-we-know-about-the-karen-gillan-sci-fi-film (these 2 are the best I could do for an official website)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AqmzMdftgg (15:12 interview with director/screenwriter Riley Sterns and actors Aaron Paul, Karen Gillan, Beulah Koale)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dual_2022
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dual
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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews-academic-articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)
If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.
By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check-out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile (quite an eternal while, in fact, but maybe while there you’ll get a chance to meet Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, RIP). 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 (although, as you know, with bar songs there are plenty about people broken down by various tragic circumstances, with maybe the best of the bunch—calls itself “perfect”—being "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" written by Steve Goodman, sung by David Allen Coe). But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion/lover/
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/wanes over the months/years to come. But, just as we can raunchy at times (in private of course) Neil and his backing band, Promise of the Real, on that same night also did a lengthy, fantastic version of "Cowgirl in the Sand" (19:06) which I’d also like to commit to this blog’s always-ending-tunes; I never get tired of listening to it, then and now (one of my idle dreams is to play guitar even half this well). But, while I’m at it, I’ll also include another of my top favorites, from the night before at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song “just a shot away” in my memory (along with my memory of their great drummer, Charlie Watts, RIP). To finish this cluster of all-time-great-songs I’d like to have played at my wake (as far away from now as possible) here’s one Dylan didn’t play at Desert Trip but it’s great, much beloved by me and Nina: "Visions of Johanna."
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