Frybread Face and Me plus Short Takes on a couple of other cinematic topics

We Are Family …. More or Less

Review 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) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

                           Frybread Face and Me (Billy Luther)

                                   Not Rated, TV-MA   83 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

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: Relative to the superhero movies so entrenched at domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters—such as the currently-underperforming The Marvels (Nia DaCosta), even though it’s made about $187.4 million globally in 2 weeks of release, but that’s not considered impactful for the MCU legacy it’s trying to maintain (if you really want to see Brie Larson in something that’s truly “super” turn to Apple TV+ streaming for Lessons in Chemistry where she’s a 1950s scientist reduced by the sexism of the times to hosting a local L.A. cooking show which she changes as she sees fit so that it becomes a big hit)—Frybread and Me has little action at all (save for a few interpersonal arguments), but makes a memorable impact with its quiet scenes of character development.  The “Me” in the title is Benny (Keir Tallman)—who at times narrates from his later adult perspective—an almost-teenage-Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo boy living with his parents in San Diego, CA in 1990, then disappointedly-surprised to find they’ve arranged for him to spend the summer not enjoying further focus on his favorite band, Fleetwood Mac, but instead living with his grandmother on her Navajo Nation sheep ranch in Arizona.  Apparently, they want his time in the near-wilderness to help “make a man” of him, due to some of his feminine-inclinations (which screenwriter-director Luther could certainly relate to in his chief character, with Luther identifying as gay as well as sharing the same Indigenous heritage as Benny).  Once on the Rez, Benny’s ready to go back home as soon as he can somehow hitch a ride to Winslow, AZ and raise $39 for a bus ride back to San Diego (neither option likely to happen).  A further complication is Grandma Lorraine (Sarah H. Natani) speaks only Navajo (which these folks call Diné, referring variously to the language, their culture, themselves) while Benny’s limited to English, so they both depend on a multi-lingual-relative, such as siblings Aunt Lucy (Kahara Hodges) or Uncle Marvin (Martin Sensmeier), in order for clumsy-communication.

 Benny’s summer looks like an endless drag as his only job seems to be repairing the fence around the sheep pen, then 2 events bring big changes: (1) His roughly-same-age-cousin, Dawn (Charley Hogan), is also dropped off there unceremoniously by her mother (Owee Rae)—the kid has the unfortunate nickname of Frybread Face, which she hates (implies round and greasy to her)—with a negative attitude toward Benny given his lack of immersion in his heritage and Navajo language, both of which she fully commands; (2) Uncle Marvin’s disastrous attempt at bull-riding at a local rodeo, leaving him in a wheelchair furthering his disinterest toward Benny, although Dawn begins to warm up to Benny when she learns his family has an annual pass to Sea World so he’s been able to see plenty of famous killer whale Shamu.  ⇒Aunt Sharon (Nasheen Sleuth) and Uncle Roger (Jeremiah Bitsui), show up, somehow Benny causes their baby’s first laugh so he’ll have to take part in a later ceremony about this, requiring him to cook (Dawn helps).  In the meantime, one day Aunt Lucy (a jewelry maker, ambitions of fame) helps Benny put on some make-up, then later he dances outdoors with Dawn, both of them wearing long skirts and kerchiefs, but there’s also tension between the cousins on a day when she tells him his parents are divorcing, he counters with her father’s in jail, but they reconcile by “borrowing” Marvin’s car to chase down a wayward sheep.  Later, Benny’s mother, Ann (Morningstar Angeline), retrieves him, but they have to return not too much later for a funeral when Marvin dies; as they leave, Benny calls out to Lorraine, says “Grandma” in Navajo.⇐

So What? Last weekend was busy enough involving the annual Thanksgiving get-together with some of the in-laws (including a repeat screening of the hilarious Raising Arizona [Joel Coen, 1987] in my brother-in-law’s fabulous home-theater), along with paying attention to a couple of crucial local football (San Francisco 49ers 31-13 over the rival Seattle Seahawks) and basketball (Golden State Warriors 118-112 over the San Antonio Spurs) games, plus having little-to-no-interest in the latest big-ticket-releases in theaters (sorry, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes [Gary Ross; pulled in $29 million in its release with some CCAL support: Rotten Tomatoes 60% positive reviews, Metacritic 54% average score], I’ve been down this road enough already, and Napoleon [Ridley Scott], which I’ll probably see on streaming at some point given my overall respect for this director and his star [Joaquin Phoenix], but the reviews have been flat enough that I had no interest in joining a lot of others in a crowded auditorium [admittedly, Napoleon made $20.6 million in its debut, so I hope all those folks enjoyed it, especially with similar CCAL support: 60% RT positives, MC 64% average score, so again lukewarm responses overall at best]).  For awhile, though, I was seriously wondering what I might watch to share with you when Hannah Bae of the San Francisco Chronicle rescued me with a fine review of Frybread Face and Me, which sounded really interesting.

 After I watched it, I was glad to discover this so-far-under-the-radar-experience I could have missed it entirely, so I want to call it to your attention so you don’t miss the chance to see it either.  Nothing’s overly dramatic in plot situations; acting’s appropriate for a low-key-narrative, mostly about how these young cousins come to better understand/appreciate each other despite their differences; cinematography’s subtly-powerful in depicting what would likely be called barren landscapes (I’ve been through this territory before, always finding it to be beautiful in an unconventional manner, even just on this nondescript sheep ranch as opposed to the more-powerful landscape of the Shiprock/ Four Corners area made famous in 1930s-‘50s John Ford westerns; and the entire experience is marvelously humane as we get to slowly know more about these people and the timeless culture many of them try to maintain, learning along with Benny what the past has provided to meet the many future challenges.  If you’d like to know more about what some of the filmmakers think about their project here’s a short video (11:29) with commentary from Luther and some of his actors: Sensmeier, Hodges, Hogan.  What they say is insightful, just as it’s significant to see a story about Native Americans with Indigenous people cast in all the roles, just as Martin Scorsese used an abundance of Natives in his Killers of the Flower Moon (a review in our November 9, 2023 posting).

Bottom Line Final Comments: As usual, when Netflix is involved in film distribution of something they want you to be aware of (they may have contributed to production expenses as well, although there are at least a dozen other “In Association With” companies cited in the opening credits, a sure sign of how difficult it probably was to raise [what I assume to be] a limited budget for something that will likely have great resonance with interested audiences but won’t be noticed by the masses) they opened Frybread … in some limited theaters last weekend (apparently nowhere in my San Francisco area) likely to meet that criterion with certain awards societies (like the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Oscars), so I salute the CCAL as I join them to praise this small cinematic-gem, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 100% (admittedly, based on only 23 responses to date so that number may change in the future), although Metacritic's average score at 70% isn’t so enthusiastic (but based on a tiny cluster of 8 reviews, so it could change also), with hopes enough word of mouth might help build an appreciative audience.  Netflix doesn’t release box-office-numbers either, so I don’t know how Frybread …’s doing in the few places that it’s playing, although I do know it’s free to Netflix streaming subscribers—of course, if you’re not on Netflix you could consider paying $6.99 (with ads) or $15.49 (no ads) for a month to see Frybread Face and Me along with everything else in their warehouse that you’d have time to watch; that choice is yours, but I’d highly recommend doing whatever you need to in order to see/appreciate this heart-warming-film.

 With that supportive-praise in place all that’s left for me to offer is my standard end-of-review-Musical Metaphor-tactic of letting a song provide a last dose of commentary from an aural (rather than a purely verbal) perspective, so I’ll reach back several decades to War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” (on their 1975 album named for the song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH0Q da32IKM because even though Benny feels, at some point in this story with just about everyone but Aunt Lucy, “Sometimes, I don’t speak right / But yet, I know what I’m talking about / Why can’t we be friends?” ultimately he makes the best connections that he can with this small group of distant-living-relatives (with the probable exception of Uncle Marvin, to whom I'll give his own Metaphor [even though I’ve used it 6 times, but it just keeps finding relevance], The Eagles "Desperado" [1973 album named for the song] because when I hear “Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? / You’ve been ridin’ fences for so long now / Oh, you’re a hard one, but I know that you got your reasons / These things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow” I think of the gruff attitudes of Marvin with so little to show for his self-isolation).  It’s up to you, either be content listening to these tunes or go a step farther and seek out the marvelous little film that's inspired me to use them here.

            

SHORT TAKES

           

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

(1) IMDb staff picks for November 2023 (yes, I know November’s about finished, but, if you’re interested, most of this stuff will likely continue; I highly recommend the new season of Fargo on FX cable or Hulu streaming); (2) Napoleon is a big hit internationally (not so much domestically). 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  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 (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also 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 register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 48,541 (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):

Rustin plus Short Takes on The Stones & Brian Jones and another cinematic topic

A Couple of Almost-Forgotten Men 

(at least by some of us)

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) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

11/22/2023—Once again my trusty computer’s behaving erratically so if you don’t see any new postings from Two Guys in the Dark in the coming weeks please know we’ll be back as soon as the problems are resolved.  In the meantime, for those who will actually be able to celebrate a day of harmony this year, I wish you Happy Thanksgiving; for everyone else, I hope you soon find peace.

     Rustin (George C. Wolfe)   rated PG-13   108 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

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 know about Bayard Rustin or learn from various Internet biographies—a short one from the National Museum of African American History & Culture, a bit more detailed one from Stanford University’s The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, the most-extensive at this Wikipedia entry, you’d probably find it odd he’s considered a relative-unknown despite his long history of working for the betterment of Black people, but while being Black was enough of a social problem (not of his making) in his most-famous-period of the 1960s his situation was compounded by him not only being gay but also not closeted so he frequently avoided mass-media-limelights so as to not take attention away from important causes he was involved with.

 We get to see his leadership (with A. Philip Randolph [Glynn Turman] who had his own earned-respect from African-Americans for, among other accomplishments, leading President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 to ban discrimination in the defense industries during WW II, then President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Orders in 1948 promoting fair employment and anti-discrimination in federal government hiring as well as ending racial segregation in the armed services) in organizing the famous August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but Rustin’s other accomplishments were also noteworthy, winning him the Presidential Medal of Freedom (sadly, not until 2013, long after he died in 1987), so while I encourage you to see this docudrama, you should also read about him as his  achievements go well beyond that famous March (remembered for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream,” speech which led to misunderstandings King was the March organizer; he worked on it with Rustin and other Civil Rights leaders of the time, but as we observe in this film the hugely-complex-logistics of this monumental event largely became successful due to the tireless energy of Rustin [Colman Domingo]).  What we get here, though, smartly doesn’t try to pack in more of Rustin's life; rather, it focuses on a well-known-massive-demonstration of people demanding dignity and equality, a topic which—sadly—still is a currently-recognizable-need in a nation (and the larger world it’s part of) where injustice is far from being eliminated from the fabric of human interactions.  Even though this film takes us back 60 years, it manifests relevance for audiences who are old enough to at least know about the March (if not Rustin, yet) as well as those who are just now learning all about this crucial chapter in American history in a detailed encounter that probably exceeds anything they’ve experienced (or yawned through) with schoolroom lessons.

 While we see a little bit of angry Whites’ physical abuse of Rustin at times just because of his existence, we mostly meet him in 1960 when he’s asked to lead a large demonstration at the Democratic National Convention, a task he’s willing to undertake until rebuffed by House member Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (Jeffrey Wright) because the concept wasn’t vetted through him (leading to a distancing between Rustin and King [Ami Ameen] because the latter accepted Powell’s objections).  Most of the rest of this film focuses on the opposition Rustin faced when—working with Randolph—he was organizing Herculean-efforts to plan a successful result of the March (intended to last for 2 days, people spending the night in tents, protesters encircling the White House), with disagreements coming from NAACP leader Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock), concerned segregationists would attack the attendees, and Dr. Anna Hedgeman (CCH Pounder), angry that Black women were not intended to play a more prominent role among the speakers in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  (Rustin also faced verbal attacks from South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond who called him a “Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual,” releasing to the press his entire police record from 1953 Pasadena, CA when Rustin was convicted of “lewd conduct” with other males; there were also the implications during those years of a [nonexistent] sexual relationship between Rustin and King).

 The other focus of the film is on Rustin’s relationship in the early ‘60s with a White man, Tom (Gus Halper), who becomes hostile to Rustin’s increasing attention to (and affection with) Elias Taylor (Johnny Ramey), a married Black man whose wife, Claudia (Adrienne Warren), finally calls the affair to a halt when Elias inherits a family church ministry, ⇒leaving Rustin with the task of making the March work, especially when hundreds of thousands of people do show up (I guess Wolfe figures there’s enough footage available of what happened that famous day to not have to repeat much of it for the film, although we do get bits of Mahalia Jackson’s [Da’Vine Joy Randolph] singing and King’s speech [by which point he and Rustin had reconciled, with implications that Ruskin had earlier been instrumental in encouraging King to his advocacy of Mahatma Gandhi-inspired nonviolent protests]).  After the success of the March, Civil Rights leaders were asked to meet with President John F. Kennedy, but Rustin remained inconspicuous, helping to pick up trash after the crowd departed.⇐

So What? If you’re inclined to hesitate about spending your time with history lessons, I hope you’ll put that concern aside to let yourself learn from this film while enjoying its brisk pace and engaging acting, especially by Domingo who easily commands the screen in every scene he’s in (seems to be just about all of them as best I can recall).  Then, if you’d like to see a bit of the actual Rustin here's a short video (3:19) from an interview he did in 1979 about the successes and failures of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, which he says was mainly about the need for the right to vote, the right to use public accommodations, and the freedom to send children to the school of your choice but didn’t truly address the economic and social problems of Black citizens which were still being bitterly fought for years after the ‘60s.  While I can’t vouch for all of the presented historical-accuracies, with the understanding that despite whatever facts we have on file about all of the many Civil Rights leaders depicted here (even if briefly), film scripts need certain flashes of drama to keep the audience intrigued so if some of those more private conversations shown—especially between Rustin and Tom, Rustin and Elias—are fabrications (I’ve read both of these Rustin lovers are fictional creations, so whether they’re based on other actual Rustin paramours or just representative of the challenges a gay man, especially one with a public presence, faced during this era [as if it’s noticeably all that much better today]), what matters is how the difficulties of relationships such as these are honestly presented, giving further substance to the complex person Rustin must have been.  As I’ve said before, learn your history from authenticated sources such as the ones I cited at the top of this review’s previous section, but then get inspired by how that history must have felt when the people involved were experiencing it even if everything you see on screen wouldn’t provide you with the best results if you had to take a detailed test about Bayard Rustin’s life.

Bottom Line Final Comments: The CCAL’s response to what happens here in Rustin is a bit more inconsistent than mine because the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at a supportive 86% while the Metacritic average score reverses that number to a considerably lower 68%, so I hope you’ll listen more to me and the tomato-growers than the MC snobs, but that’s left to your discretion.  While Rustin was released to a limited number of theaters on November 3, 2023 (and still apparently remains in a few of them), I have no box-office information on it because the distributor, Netflix, usually doesn’t report such, so just know that Netflix streaming is your only sure bet to see this film, but even then you have to be a subscriber (if not, and you can tolerate ads, you can sign up for just one month for $6.99 [thereby allowing you to also peruse the rest of their large catalogue], or, if ads are intolerable to you, then you might consider $15.49 for that month’s experiment).  I’m not going to hesitate in encouraging you to make a decision to see Rustin both because it’s a consistently-well-made-cinematic-experience and, more importantly, because, if you’re like me, you should find out more about this great champion of minority rights.  While you’re mulling that over, take a listen to my usual-review-closure-tactic of a Musical Metaphor, in this case one of the great anthems of the Civil Rights era, Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come" (on his 1964 Ain’t That Good News album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it18WSFrwXI, a video where the song’s connected to footage of another substantial look at a prominent figure of the 1960s in Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992) with insightful lyrics such as “Then I go to my brother / And I say ‘Brother, help me please’ / But he winds up / Knockin’ me / Back down on my knees […] It’s been a long / A long time comin’ but I know / A change gon’ come/ Oh, yes it will.”  The full needed change still is in progress; we just all have to make the effort Bayard Rustin did to finally bring it to fruition.*

*In 2021 Rolling Stone named this song as #3 on their list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (you can go here to see how their opinions of the Top 10 in those 500 lists changed from 2004 to 2021).

            

SHORT TAKES

          

            The Stones & Brian Jones (Nick Broomfield)

                         Not Rated, 16+ for TV  93 min.

Here’s the trailer:

 (No Plot Spoilers here because it’s a documentary fully based in real events, although the specific content of the many interviews isn’t likely recorded anywhere else.)  If you didn’t encounter the Rolling Stones until after 1969 you may not even be aware of Brian Jones, although he’s the one who started pulling the group together in 1962 when he was just 19, first recruiting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, then filling it through a newspaper ad with bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts.  As we learn through archival footage and voice-over testimony from Brian along with many in Jones’ life (plus some more-lengthy contemporary interviews for this doc), Jones had a strong affinity for American blues music—he even took the band’s name from blues-master Muddy Waters’ "Rollin' Stone" (on his 1958 The Best of Muddy Waters album)—but was pushed out of his home at 17 due to his father desiring a more-settled-career for his son than as a popular musician (we get Dad Leslie Jones’ take on this also, after the fact).  For a few years in the early 1960s Jones moved in with families of a string of girlfriends (or just the women themselves), getting at least 5 pregnant before moving on, but we get very little about these children in this doc; instead, the focus here is on the rapid rise of the Stones as a blues-influenced-then-more-of-a-rocker-band with Jones providing a lot of instrumental versatility in their early albums but with little singing, no songwriting, so as the hits were coming from the Jagger-Richards collaborations conflicts arose between Mick and Brian as to who was truly in charge of the group (with the huge success of "Satisfaction" pushing Jones further away from his bandmates’ development), although Brian apparently still got along better with Keith.  

 Some of those women in his life provide insightful interviews on Brian’s interpersonal aspects—Valerie Corbett, Linda Lawrence, Anita Pallenberg, Dawn Malloy, and actress/model/singer Zouzou—while Wyman gives extensive commentary on Jones’ professional work, with his increasing incoherence, lack of contributions through alcohol and drug use finally leading to his expulsion from the band in 1969 (to be replaced by first Mick Taylor, then Ron Wood, although they’re not part of this narrative), then death by drowning in his own swimming pool (cause never officially determined as to accident, overdose, suicide [or even murder]).  While there’s nothing really surprising or revelatory about how Jones’ life is depicted, this film is useful—as is Rustin—in putting a spotlight on men quite influential in their time but, to some degree, are relatively unknown/forgotten to many now.

 If you’d like to see … Brian Jones it might still be in a few theaters (supposedly opened domestically for just one day on November 7, 2023, although I’ve found evidence of it continued to be listed, bringing in a mere $41.5 thousand gross) you’d be encouraged to do so by the CCAL with 90% RT positive reviews, a 75% MC average score, so turn to streaming where there's a $6.99 rental at Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, etc.  With such an aural focus here there’s lot to choose from for a Musical Metaphor, but I’ve decided to be a bit snide even speaking of the dead by using the Stones' “The Last Time” (on their 1966 compilation album Big Hits {Hide Tide and Green Grass), also on the U.S. version of 1965’s Out of Our Heads) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvIIM2AZg CA (from a [probable 1965] performance on CBS TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show) where (despite the original lyrics being about a romance on the rocks) Mick and Keith could be warning Brian (just as schoolmasters, parents, others had done earlier in his compacted-27 years) that “I told you once and I told you twice/ But you never listen to my advice / You don’t try very hard to please me / With what you know it should be easy / Well, this could be the last time,” which it was when he was no longer in the group he founded, then died less than a month later (even as his band continues to tour today).

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

An option for consideration: Lily Gladstone welcomes criticism of Killers of the Flower Moon.

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  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 (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also 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 register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

                

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

          

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 48,541 (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):

Short Takes on The Killer, A Haunting in Venice, along with various other cinematic topics

You Want Murders? I Can Get ‘Em

for You Wholesale!

         

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) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

 After nearly burning myself out (along with anyone who actually made the effort to read the review) with attending to Killers of the Flower Moon last week, I’m saving some energy this time with looking at 2 streamers (which have been in theaters) in a more abbreviated fashion, but if you want more on these plots just go to the movie’s titles on Wikipedia: The Killer and A Haunting in Venice.

               

SHORT TAKES

          

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.

            The Killer (David Fincher)   rated R   119 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 Given my previous appreciation for the works of Fincher—Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999), Zodiac (2007), The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Gone Girl (2013 [review in our October 9, 2014 posting]), Mank (2020 [review in our December 10, 2020 posting, both reviews at the 4-stars level]) among them—I was quite interested in seeing his latest, even though as a plot it’s just a string of murders, all tied to vengeance of some sort.  In this go-round, a highly-successful assassin (Michael Fassbender)—simply called The Killer in the credits—is on assignment in Paris with his target (Endre Hulles) due to soon check into a hotel across the street where out hitman will shoot him through a window with a high-powered rifle; in the boring days he has to wait for the guy to show up we get lots of voice-over-narration from Killer about how he stays focused just on the particulars of his jobs, with no sense of connection to any sort of ideology.  However, when time comes for the crucial shot, he somehow misses, killing instead his target’s female companion. 

 Our protagonist quickly divests himself of incriminating evidence, uses one of many fake I.D.s/credit cards to fly to his hidden home in the Dominican Republic, but when he arrives he finds Magdala (Sophie Charlotte), his lover, is hospitalized, attacked by 2 other killers seemingly in retribution for his failed Paris assignment.  He first gets some info on who his antagonists were from a cab driver, Leo (Gabriel Polanco)—then shot dead—goes to New Orleans to confront his handler, Hodges (Charles Parnell), a lawyer.  When our guy is done, both Hodges and his assistant, Dolores (Kerry O’Malley), are dead, but the names and addresses of the pair he seeks are now known.  The first one’s a powerful thug, The Brute (Sala Baker), in St. Petersburg, FL who puts up a hell of a battle before being defeated with his home burned down for good measure (at least the guard dog was spared).  Then comes The Expert (Tilda Swinton), an older woman in Beacon, NY (close to NYC) who’s dispatched after tense conversation in a restaurant where she’s sampling various whiskeys.  ⇒Next step up the ladder is Chicago to sneak in on wealthy Claybourne, The Client (Arliss Howard), who ordered the Paris hit, then hired the Dominican Republic brutals through Hodges, in response to the lawyer’s suggestion to tie up loose ends with The Killer.  He desperately pleads he didn’t know about the specifics of the Magdala hit, so he’s left alive with the warning to not interfere with Killer’s life again, after which he’s back in the D.R., lounging on the beach with well-recovered Magdala.⇐

 Despite all these deaths, violence is relatively subdued as most victims are simply shot dead, with the most agonizing scenes being Hodges tortured with a nail gun until he dies sooner than expected and the lengthy hand-to-hand-combat between Killer and Brute.  As I noted in the beginning of my retro-analysis of Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966 [review, September 14, 2023 posting]), as with Thomas the photographer (David Hemmings) in that 5-stars (in my arguable-opinion) classic, my film-loving-wife, Nina, wasn’t as interested in The Killer as she’d hoped to be due to lack of any character development, although in those long, opening VO shots prior to the attempted-Paris-hit Killer does say his disconnect from fellow humans makes his career much easier.  (Also, there’s the possibility I’m just a cold-hearted bastard [well, I was born from an unwed-mother, seriously] who relates well to these anti-social-characters [damn, maybe Donald Trump's my mystery-father {yuck!}, but he’s only a couple of years older than me, still I wouldn’t put it past him somehow …]; in a bit of defense of my positions, though, Nina now admits she’s reflected more on Blow-Up, admires the overall impact of how it’s presented, but she’s still not all that thrilled by The Killer [a reasonable-response, as I enjoyed its tension and pacing more than any true interest in The Killer himself, whose only purpose here is to justify his horrid anger, so, readers, you might be better off listening to Nina than me on this movie {overall good advice indeed, based on my 36 fantastic years with her}]).  

 So, take that as a warning: most of what we get here is the introduction of a new person soon to be dead (with a tiny bit of comic relief as Killer’s fake-identity-names come from TV characters—Sam Malone’s the only one I can recall right now).  The Killer opened for limited domestic (U.S.-Canada) release on October 27, 2023, but it’s almost gone from those venues (no reported box-office either except for a mere $362 thousand from a few international sites), so if you’re interested your best option is Netflix streaming if you’re a subscriber (or willing to invest for at least 1 month, with the lowest option being $6.99), which the CCAL generally encourages you to do with positive Rotten Tomatoes reviews at 86%, the Metacritic average score at 72%.  I’ll wrap up with my usual trope of a Musical Metaphor, The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm”—a debated-choice because I’ve already used it 6 times, but maybe I just see too many stories about killers—(on their 1971 album L.A. Woman) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G2-FPlvY58, a song containing the right attitude for this movie throughout, with some lyrics very appropriate: “If you give this man a ride / Sweet family will die / Killer on the road.”  Overall, a very disturbing song well-fit for a very disturbing movie.

          

                   A Haunting in Venice (Kenneth Branagh)

                                       rated PG-13   103 min.

Here’s the trailer:

 Once again director-actor Branagh turns to Agatha Christie for adaptation-inspiration—following his previous movies based upon her novels, Murder on the Orient Express (2017 [I didn't review it for some forgotten reason]), Death on the Nile (2022 [review in our April 7, 2022 posting])—this time turning to her Hallowe’en Party (1969) for a tale set in 1947 (not long before I was born; maybe my mystery father was part of this plot) about famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) who’s retired in Venice, Italy with ex-cop Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio) as his bodyguard.  His serenity’s interrupted by a visit from long-time-acquaintance/somewhat-friend, successful mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who wants his help in exposing Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) as a fake psychic (which Oliver hasn’t been able to do yet) by attending one of her séances late on Halloween night at the palazzo of noted opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) who wants to contact her young-adult-daughter, Alicia Drake (Rowan Robinson), who died a year ago, seemingly by suicide (or was she pushed?) from jumping off a high balcony into a canal, after being heartbroken when her fiancé, chef Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen), suddenly broke off the engagement.

 During the séance Poirot finds Nicolas Holland (Aki Khan), half-brother of Joyce’s assistant, Desdemona Holland (Emma Laird), hiding in a chimney, producing some of the supposed-strange-goings-on, but then Joyce brings in new strangeness by speaking in Alicia’s voice, saying she was murdered by someone in this room.  Poirot wants to question Joyce, but she rebuffs him, gets him to wear her robe and mask, but when he gets distracted by bobbing for apples he’s attacked from behind (by someone who mistakes him for Joyce), almost drowned; right after that, Joyce is found impaled on a statue in the courtyard.  Poirot is immediately on the case (somewhat aided by Ariadne), confronting the usual collection of suspects who include Maxime, Rowena’s housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), the Drake family doctor Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan)—who’d prefer to get romantic with Rowena—and, of course, the Holland siblings (about the only other character not seen as a potential murderer is the young, acerbic son of Dr. Ferrier, Leopold [Jude Hill]), but he’s spooky in his own way, claiming to be aware of the ghosts of children who supposedly haunt this domicile in revenge for their cruel deaths long ago.  Despite disbelief in the supernatural, Poirot has visions of Alicia, witnesses other seemingly-impossible-phenomena; however, he also deduces that Vitale and Ariadne are in cahoots, with her wanting to use Poirot’s inability of explaining the supernatural as the plot of her next book, even as another murder, of troubled-doctor Leslie, occurs.

 ⇒Ultimately, Poirot establishes Rowena is the murderer of this seemingly-haunted-night because back when she feared her daughter would marry Maxime she began to feed Alicia small amounts of a poisonous, hallucinogenic honey made from rhododendrons to weaken her, keep her at home (Poirot also tasted this honey, leading to his supposed-metaphysical-experiences); one night when Rowena was out, Olga accidently gave Alicia a fatal dose so Rowena pushed her corpse off of the balcony to start the suicide assumption.  Rowena was concerned Joyce and/or Leslie was aware of the truth so she killed them, but when confronted by Poirot on the roof she seems to be pulled off by Alicia’s ghost, then drowns.  Poirot also finds little Leopold was blackmailing Rowena, having figured out what happened to Alicia, then stuffing the cash in his mattress so Poirot encourages Olga and the kid to share their wealth with the Hollands so they can fulfill their dream of settling in the U.S.⇐ 

 A Haunting in Venice debuted in domestic theaters on September 15, 2023—made $42.4 million, $120.9 million worldwide—but it’s pretty much gone now so if you’re interested you’ll, of course, need to turn to streaming where you can see it for free if you’re a Hulu subscriber (or sign up for a free trial period), but if you want to pay for a subscription it costs $7.99 monthly if you can endure ads—I had 3 interruptions in roughly the first 40 min. when I watched, none after that—or $17.99 a month for no ads; I suppose if you’re really intrigued by this narrative you could consider the $19.99 purchase option on Apple TV+, Vudu, etc., although CCAL support most likely won’t encourage such as the RT positives are 75%, the MC average score is 63%.  It’s certainly entertaining, gives you enough complexity so the final reveal is probably a surprise, the acting’s solid throughout, and—if nothing else—the marvelous cinematography of Venice is easily worth that $7.99 (unless you can get the 1 month free trial).  Let’s close out with my Musical Metaphor, which, for some reason (somewhat like Poirot here) I can’t logically explain, I feel has to be Van Morrison’s “Days Like This” (1995 album named for the song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UUWkr4FUlo because on the positive side, after all the mysteries have been solved (or have they?) the surviving characters can feel: “When it’s not always raining […] When you don’t need to worry […] When you don’t get betrayed […] When you don’t need an answer [etc.] There’ll be days like this.”  Although, if Alicia had believed what “mama told me,” she’d had been shocked at what her days were actually going to be.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

(1) Some theatrical releases now available to stream; (2) SAG-AFTRA Board approves ending strike; (3) Warner Bros. rejects Coyote vs. Acme movie; (4) Ideas on how to fix Marvel's MCU.

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